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Seven
Archer
The tractor Delaney put me in was an old red-and-white monster that required me to wear headphones while I was in the cab to protect my hearing. It looked rough on the outside, but unlike the tractors I drove growing up, it ran well. The perks of having a dad who was a mechanic.
Bumping through the ditches my wife had outlined as Diamond UU, I spent the morning cutting hay. Currently, I was hoping the tractor had a low center of balance as I mowed at an angle between the road and the lowest point in the ditch, the most thrilling thing I’d done in a while.
The financial podcast I was listening to paused as my phone rang. I tapped an earbud and hollered without looking to see who it was, “Yeah?”
“Lord, Archer.” Wilson’s alarmed voice flooded my ears. “What is that racket?”
I brought the tractor to a stop and let it idle. The noise of the engine didn’t decrease by a lot, but it evened out. “I’m haying.”
A beat of silence passed between us before he said, “You’re what?”
“Cuttin’ hay. Resurrectin’ those skills you recruited me for.” I’d been the country boy who could pass as sophisticated. Mr. Truitt and his son had connections, ambition, and more money than I did, but I had real working knowledge that had slowly morphed from personal experience to spreadsheets and reports. Our clients sensed I possessed more than book knowledge, and it had increased their trust in me.
“How did you end up utilizing those skills?” His curiosity was touched with a small amount of disdain. Wilson’s people skills were stronger than his arrogance, but I knew him well enough.
“Listen, I was going to call you. Is your dad around too?”
“He’s with a client. Something wrong?”
“I need to be gone longer than I thought.”
“Seriously? You’ve been gone for almost a week.”
“I know. I’d like to use some more of that vacation time I have stored up.”
A subtle point, but one I needed to make. I hadn’t taken sick days, much less vacation days. Wilson would call in after a long night out with friends, but I’d always been one of the first in the office. My wedding and this past week were the longest I’d been gone since I’d started working with them after college.
“Yeah,” Wilson said in the tone I recognized as fake nonchalance. His way to play off being cool when he wasn’t cool. “But I gotta tell you, my plate’s pretty full with the Neuman subdivision and assembling a parcel for Kramer Energy’s proposed carbon recapturing plant.”
Wilson liked to drop facts. All he had to tell me was that he was busy, but he liked to point out the important people he worked with. The farms and ranches I brokered weren’t small game for the company, but sometimes he and Mr. Truitt acted like it. Usually, I let it roll off me like water over duck feathers. Today, it stuck in my craw just a little longer than normal. “I have my laptop; I can still do some work here.”
“You won’t be here for the meetings.”
“I can video in.”
Wilson blew out a sigh. “How long are you planning to be gone?”
“Another few weeks.”
“That’ll be a month total, Archer.” His tone was flat, as if I hadn’t done the math.
“It’s my marriage, Wilson.”
“Y’all working it out or what?”
Since he sounded like my answer might make a difference in how he told his father, I answered, “It’s more complicated than I thought. She has family here. If we work things out, I have to convince her to move back with me. It’s going to take time.”
“She left you.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him why, but it wasn’t his business. “Just trust me. She had a good reason.”
He grunted as if he doubted any reason could be good enough. “You’re going to owe me for telling Bri. She’s not going to like this. She really talked you up to Phoebe.”
Briony wasn’t in charge of my personal life, and it wasn’t like I’d hid being married when she said whatever she said to her friend Phoebe. She hadn’t asked me beforehand, or I would’ve told her I didn’t want to be set up. “I appreciate it.”
