Page 42 of The Fall Classic

During the lull, she climbs aboard the truck, her heels clacking on the metal stairs.

“Your numbers were up this past week,” she says, glancing around. I keep the truck clean and the operation as streamlined as possible, but all I can wonder is what did I miss?

“Yes,” I say, keeping my voice as light as I can. “I’ve gotten the rhythm of the factory down. I—the VP I’m working with suggested we set up another truck over at Sugar Maple Farms for the workers. He’s offering to pay a flat fee to make it a perk for their seasonal workers.” Marlowe’s eyes widen, almost like she’s impressed, so I keep going. “And we talked about maybe parking a truck there on the weekends for the farm store and for Food Truck Fridays. He thinks it would drive a lot of business.”

Attributing it all to Rusty makes it more likely Marlowe will be impressed.

“What wonderful ideas,” she says, making my stomach flip. But she isn’t done. “If we had two trucks. But you have weekends off.”

It feels like a judgment, not the statement of fact it is.

And it’s the idea that she’s disappointed in me that has me opening my mouth, unable to stop.

“I could start my mornings earlier at the farm to cover the workers and then come back to the factory for the shift-change timing. And then on weekends, I could go over to the farm store after the rush here, too.”

“Early mornings and weekends?” She squints at me, assessing, but not critical, for once. “Do you really think you could do that?”

“Yes!” I blurt. “For now, at least,” I add, a tiny concession to my physical and mental health. “But we’d move through a lot more customers if we had more help on the truck. Eventually, I mean! Some of the trucks at Sugar Maple Farms on weekends have four or five people in the back.”

“Five?” She laughs. “We’re not made of money. We’re still paying off the loans, remember? From your mom,” she says, “but also from you, Georgiana.”

She’s smiling, as if remembering the ER visit, X-rays, antibiotics, and everything that followed is a good memory.

Which it kind of is.

“I’ll make it work,” I say brightly.

“Well, look whose work ethic is catching up to her dreaming,” Marlowe says. She gets a text and looks down at her phone. “Things look good here, Georgiana. I’m surprised.” Her eyes flit up, but she’s already turning to leave. “Be sure to thank Rusty for me. We couldn’t have set this up without him.”

And then her heels are clicking back down the metal stairs, and she’s gone, and I’m watching the space where she was.

She came all the way to Sugar Maple on a Sunday morning and she looked at everything I’ve built here … and she was surprised. She attributed it all to a VP she spoke to on the phone once, but she didn’t have a single bad thing to say.

She didn’t dislike anything she saw. She didn’t have anything to criticize.

I’m fully aware that waking so early and working straight through the week every week will wear me out completely, but Marlowe was borderline impressed.

Gratitude, excitement, and relief all swirl in me. It’s salt water to a woman dying of thirst—toxic, but I’m thirsty enough that I drain every last ounce.

It’s okay, though. Once she sees how well I manage the farm, she’ll be fully, thoroughly impressed, right? And maybe she’ll finally agree to hire more help! Or let me start making decisions for the company that should theoretically one day be mine!

Or maybe she’ll simply give me a hug and tell me she’s proud of me.

If I could choose anything, that’s the one I’d pick.

***

On my first day working at the farm store in Sugar Maple Farms, my sweet old friends, the Chicks, find me before they drive to Mullet Ridge for the baseball game. They’re all wearing Mudflaps caps, which is plain adorable.

Chick Parkinson wants his usual. Chick Allen wants his usual. Chick Hanks wants to know if I’ve been “watching our boys.”

“I caught Thursday’s game,” I say, sliding Chick Parkinson his Americano.

“Six innings,” Chick Hanks says with a nod. “Two hits. No runs.”

“Great, wasn’t it?” I ask. “I was there.”

All three of them look at me, and I try not to blush. I shouldn’t have said anything.