This is going to be a tactical strike, I tell myself as I stomp on the gas of my rental car. It took me three hours—three hours—to drive here from the regional airport. And that was after two connecting flights, because somehow, this Podunk town doesn’t even have a single direct flight to any major NYC hub. I thought that was impossible in this day and age.
Guess you learn something new every day.
I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and double-check my makeup quickly. Eyeliner and mascara in place, full red lipstick applied, foundation set to battle mode. I’m ready for whatever my hometown has to throw at me. I don’t care what the locals here think—my boring, unimaginative, small-minded peers who never bothered to dream past the borders of this town, never imagined any kind of career outside of the same old farming paths their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents trudged down.
They can insult me all they like—same way they did almost two years ago when I came here, straight to the hospital, to hold Mama’s hand. They can whisper and elbow each other and smirk behind open palms when I walk past. I don’t give a shit because I’m here and then I’m out again.
All I need to do is meet the property assessment manager, find out how much this farm is worth, take a few photos and get it up on a real estate page, then sell it to the first bidder. I don’t need the money—I don’t care how low the first bid comes in. I’ll sell this place for a penny if I need to. I just want to get it off my hands.
My conscience tickles the back of my skull as I think about it.
Okay, fine, maybe I’ll do some basic background checking. Make sure that whoever wants to buy it will run it the way it’s always been run—as a small, family-run farm, a local business. Not one of these huge Monsanto Corp plots of land my mother was always complaining about. I don’t want someone to completely bulldoze the place.
I just want them to take it off my hands and into their own, preferably more capable, hands.
Shouldn’t take long. One week, tops. I called into my firm and told them to put my freelance projects on hold for a week. By then I’ll be back in my cozy apartment on the Upper East Side, buried in my work once more, happily forgetting that this place ever existed.
You can survive one week, I promise myself. That’s nothing.
But as I peel into town in the Porsche I rented for this haul (I’m a corporate member, I get free upgrades, so sue me for enjoying the luxury) and immediately draw at least two dozen narrow-eyed stares from the corner café as I whip past toward the narrow road out of town up toward Mama’s place, I’m starting to think even a week might be pushing it.
I’m stronger than I think, I remind myself. I survived eighteen years here, after all. Birth all the way up through high school graduation. The girl that grinned through all the insults, glared right back through all the teasing and hair-pulling and muttered comments, fake rumors, bullshit accusations—she’s still inside me. Hell, she’s the tough-ass bitch who made me successful in NYC.
All I need to do is conjure her up again to survive the next seven days.
I stomp the gas pedal as I leave the town center behind, picking up speed on the bumpy road. I miss this feeling, I have to admit. I don’t own a car in the city—that would be stupid, nobody owns a car there. Who would need one?
But there’s something liberating about stomping on the gas pedal with no one watching. Flying past the pavement onto the crunching gravel of Mama’s longer-than-it-ought-to-be driveway, and not having to take any other cars into consideration.
By the time I reach the house, I’m doing far past any logical speed limit, my heart racing and a huge, stupid grin plastered on my face. Never mind that this car wasn’t built for off-roading. Never mind that Mama didn’t re-pack the dirt road that makes up the last half-mile or so to the farmstead. It’s a rental, I have insurance, I don’t care if the undercarriage smacks a few times as I fly over uneven hillocks, then slam on the brakes, nearly skidding right past the driveway into the grass beyond.
I screech to a halt in a billowing cloud of dust, ten feet away from the four-bedroom, single-story wooden farm that I called home for the first eighteen years of my life.
It takes until the dust clears and my adrenaline levels return to normal for me to notice the other occupant of the driveway. The beat-up blue pick-up truck parked on the far side of the house, back to the porch like it’s awaiting a delivery of lumber or something practical.
Probably one of the county assessment guys, come to survey the property and figure out how much it’s worth. Crap. I didn’t expect them to beat me here.
It doesn’t matter, I remind myself as I put the car in park and grab my Hermès purse—a purse that earns me a million compliments a day back in NYC, but which feels somehow out of place here, too much. I ignore the instincts tickling at the back of my mind. That’s just my country self talking. The girl I used to be before I escaped this hellhole.
I face the pickup again and throw my door open. Who cares what these surveyors think? And me dusting the place a few times isn’t going to make them assess the property value any higher. They’ll pay me what they want to pay me for it, no matter what.
I can find a nice charity to donate it to. Something Mama would’ve loved. I think about those sad-eyed dog commercials on TV, the way she used to tear up every time the music started playing. I’ll look into donating to the ASPCA for her. That would make a nice memorial.
I’m still thinking about sad puppies when I take my first step out of the car… and promptly shriek, toppling forward, barely catching myself on the car door before I face-plant in the mud.
Mud.
Because of course, it rained here last night. And we don’t have a cement driveway. Not even a proper gravel one. “I don’t see the sense in splurging on something like that when our trucks can handle this road just fine,” Mama always said. When I pointed out that sometimes visitors’ cars might not be able to navigate the dirt road, she just grinned. “Exactly. The road weeds ‘em out for me.”
Mama was never big on strangers visiting. Hell, even when friends popped by to visit, she always needed alone time to recharge after they left. The ultimate introvert.
I pull my high heels out of the mud with a horrible sucking sound and teeter on them while I slam the door closed. Dammit. A perfectly good pair of Luis Vuittons caked in country muck. At least I was smart enough not to wear the suede boots I almost put on this morning, dressing for my flight at the crack of dawn. These are leather—I have hope the mud will wash off.
I shoulder my purse once more, square my shoulders, and face the short walk to the porch.
Shit.
Now that I’m looking at the house head-on, it looks a lot more run-down than I remember. I didn’t stop by last time I was here—I just went straight to Mama’s hospital bed, and stayed in the hotel next door the whole visit. It’s been fifteen years since I last stood in this driveway. Since I hopped into my crappy pickup truck, just barely holding itself together long enough for one last road trip. Since I filled the truck bed with my every worldly possession, kissed Mama goodbye and drove three days straight to NYC. Since I stomped on that gas pedal and never looked back.
I take a halting step toward the house, my mind more full of images of the way it used to look than the dilapidated structure before my eyes. I spot the tire swing out front, the one Mama had our neighbor Beck hang for me. Shockingly, it's still there, the worn rope he used to hang it apparently a hell of a lot thicker and sturdier than it looked.
Past the tire swing, a few of the apple trees out front have sickened and died. They're still upright, hanging on just barely. I’ll need to cut those down, I know, before a storm passes through and sends them crashing down on their own, wreaking more havoc. At least I can chop up the wood, fill the wood shed out back and have more than enough to spare for winter, when the wood-burning stove in the kitchen eats pine by the belly-full.
Then I stop and shake myself. What am I talking about? I’m going to be back home by winter. Safe and snug in my apartment, rent paid, utilities included, any breaks or wear and tear the landlord’s problem, not mine.
I push open the rickety front gate, which shrieks on rusty metal hinges, and then shriek myself as I promptly fall in an ankle-deep hole. Luckily I catch myself on the gate before I hit the ground, but it's enough to make me grit my teeth in frustration, reach down and, despite the early fall chill in the dirt, yank off my heels, one after the other.
That's quite enough of that.
Heels in hand, I stretch my ankle — feels fine, thank goodness — and step around the gate, eyes now warily fixed on the ground. There are holes everywhere — something burrowing has taken up residence in what used to be our front walk.
Something like guilt tugs at me. I probably shouldn't have left this place so long untended. I should have come down to take care of selling it off the moment Mama passed away, instead of letting it sit around waiting for me.
Regardless of the guilt, though, what rises faster and starker in my mind is revulsion. I hate it here. Always have, always will. Everything from that ugly tire swing to the stupid gate to the sagging porch out front and the weather-worn paint on the windows in a color that used to be cheery but is now just another depressing reminder of how dead this farm is.