Startled for a moment, Cooper said, "Well, that's not what you'd expect from Toby."
31
The next day winds swept down from the northwest, and the temperature cooled dramatically. At ten-thirty in the morning, the mercury hung at forty-eight degrees.
Harry and BoomBoom walked through the little sunflower shoots, the grapevines tiny little dots showing—and the hay fields. Both women wore canvas Carhartt jackets.
BoomBoom turned her back to the wind. "May."
"At least we aren't in Utah. It's snowing there." Harry was glad she wore gloves.
Tucker tagged along, but the cats thought the toasty kitchen was the only place to be.
Gorgeous, immense cumulus clouds majestically rolled overhead. From white to cream to dove gray with slashes of slate, the cloud billowed.
"Feels like rain later." BoomBoom flipped up the collar on her jacket. "Well, you can't be bored living in central Virginia if you like observing the weather." She continued walking along the row of Italian sunflowers. "These little shoots can bear the chill. Sunflowers are tough."
"So are we." Harry smiled. "Sorry you missed Mim's party."
"Me, too. Alicia and I were in Richmond at a fund-raiser for the Virginia Horse Council." She pulled out her gloves now that the wind stiffened. "Fund-raising is the second-oldest profession."
"With none of the pleasure of the first." Harry gleefully kicked a little clod of earth.
"Do you think they like it, really?"
Harry shrugged. "It's a job. I suppose there are some pleasurable moments. I mean, people usually don't keep on doing something they hate."
"I don't know. I'm not sitting in judgment, mind you, but I don't know. There's probably a sense of power over men but disgust, too. Their need is so overwhelming; men are such fools about it."
"Yeah. But I think we need sex just as much, only we're taught to suppress it."
"Some women suppress it so much it vanishes." BoomBoom swished the air with her hand. "The older I get, Harry, the more I know about some things and the less I know about others. At least, I've learned not to make grand statements except when it comes to things like horses."
"I'm waiting."
"Whenever I doubt there's a God, I look at horses." BoomBoom gazed at the foals with their mothers.
Harry smiled broadly. "Don't forget corgis."
Both women laughed as they headed toward the barn, the limbs on the trees swaying, the birds sticking close to home.
"So you didn't hear what happened at the redbud party?" Harry enjoyed testing this out.
"No." BoomBoom stopped and looked right at Harry. "What did I miss?"
"Here's a blow-by-blow description." Harry laughed at her turn of phrase, then lunched in.
When Harry finished, BoomBoom, voice slightly raised, said, "You are so evil. Youcould have told me the minute I got out of the truck."
"More fun to wait. I knew no one had gotten to you or you would have said something."
"Do I have to beg to find out what the fight was about?"
"No. I had to wait until this morning. Fair doesn't get angry often, but when he does he takes a while to cool down. How they reached this point I don't know. All I know is Fair says that Arch told him he didn't deserve me. Fair agreed. Then Arch told him he'd cheat again, used the phrase we've all heard: 'the leopard doesn't change his spots.' Fair told him that would never happen. Arch said something worse. Don't know what, but Fair said, 'Go screw yourself, because you're not going to screw my wife.'"
BoomBoom, astonished, gasped, "Fair said that? That is so unlike him."
"Shocked me, too."
"I guess." BoomBoom drew out "guess."
"It's all pretty embarrassing. Fair left early yesterday morning to call on Big Mim. He also sent a large bouquet. He called me after he left. Mim was lovely about it, of course. Aunt Tally was still there. She didn't go home in that awful rainstorm. Well, she kissed Fair and told him she hadn't had that much fun in years and he was perfectly right to defend his wife's honor."
"What did Arch say?"
"Fair wouldn't tell me, but I called Aunt Tally on her cell this morning. She'd heard from Bo, who was standing by the coffee table when all this started, that Arch said," Harry paused, color rising to her cheeks, "I was the best in bed that he ever had. Fair didn't deserve me."
"He said that?" BoomBoom's eyebrows leapt upward.
Harry shrugged. "Guess so."
A long moment passed as they neared the barn. "Well, are you? The best in bed?"
"Boom, I don't know."
"The things I find out about you."
"And, of course, you're a saint."
"I didn't say that," the tall blonde responded.
Harry burst out laughing.
BoomBoom laughed, too. "You know, it's not sex with men that bores me. It's their anxiety about it. I find that exhausting and tedious."
"Yeah, but they can't always control the lever, you know. Stands up at the wrong time, sits down at the wrong time. Even if a man finally gets the girl of his dreams, his member isn't a hundred percent reliable."
"Big damned deal." BoomBoom evidenced no sympathy.
"Hey, imagine if your breasts stood up and flopped down sometimes at will, sometimes against your will."
BoomBoom stared down at her magnificent appendages. "Dear God, what an awful thought."
"Anxiety. I rest my case." Harry grinned triumphantly.
BoomBoom laughed. "Given all that's going on, I'm glad we can laugh." She breathed deeply. "Talk to Bill Moses any more about your sharpshooters?"
"I did. He said it's bizarre. They can't survive a Virginia winter. And, I quote, 'Should they infect your vines, the damage will be minimal because they'll be dead first frost.' I asked about the vascular damage—I hope I'm using the right word, but you know, the little plant veins that carry the nutrients around. Bill declared they can't do enough damage in the short summer they might live."
"I sure hope he's right. And he reminded me that not all sharpshooters are infected."
"We didn't see any today in your grapes."
"Wind blows everything away. I'm worried a little. And I'm worried about my Alverta peaches, too."
"Everyone else is focused on grapes," BoomBoom replied. "Hey, if I make the mistake of using the word oenology when I should say viticulture, the old hands lift an eyebrow."
Harry smiled weakly.
"Tell me. I should know, but I don't," BoomBoom asked.
"Viticulture is growing grapes. Oenology is making wine. Such a big damned deal." Harry threw up her hands.
"Intruder!"Tucker alerted.
The women reached the barn at the same time as Arch. He turned off the big Dodge diesel engine and climbed out.
"Harry, BoomBoom, hi." He stood with his feet apart, his old cowboy boots creased across the top. "Harry, I apologize. I apologized to Fair at work. I was completely out of line. I'm not making excuses but," he shook his head, a look of bewilderment on his face, "I thought I was over you, I guess. But when I saw you after four years, well, I guess I still have some big feelings, and I took them out on Fair. I'm really sorry."
"It can be difficult." Harry tacitly accepted his apology.
He breathed out of his nostrils. "I've got to get back. Rollie keeps me on a short chain." He smiled ruefully. "He's heard about the sharpshooter, so now we've inspected every leaf... which we should."
BoomBoom asked, "Do you think it can do a lot of damage here?"
"I don't know. I hope not. The last thing we want is trouble in the industry just when we're getting somewhere. What worries me is if it's mutated or is moving up because of warming trends." He stepped up into the high cab, shut the door, leaned out the window. "I'll make this up to you, Harry. Oh, you found the sharpshooters in your peaches, right?" She nodded "yes" and he asked, "They doing all right?"
"I think so."
"Good." He waved and drove off.
As he drove back down the drive, Harry watched the exhaust curl out of the tailpipe. "That took a bit of courage coming here."
BoomBoom sat down when they walked inside the tack room. "I thought Toby was cracking up. Now I wonder about Arch. Not that he shouldn't apologize."