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Shane is having a bad night.
Rather, Shane is having the kind of night he always has.
His head is pounding, a dull ache that’s lingered behind his eyes all day. Stocking shelves for eight soul-sucking hours under buzzing fluorescent lights is always shitty (he’s mulled over many choicer ways to describe his job over the years, but no stronger expletives really capture the overwhelming mundaneness of his torment), but doing it hungover makes it hellish.
Each morning, when he finds himself making the awful, queasy trudge from Marnie’s ranch at the edge of the forest, through town, to the oppressive slab of a building where he wastes away his life, he swears to never get hammered on a work night again.
And each evening, as he treks back through town toward his dark, empty bedroom with another long, empty evening stretching out before him, it takes just a glimpse of the saloon’s welcoming façade to tempt him into having a cold one – just one, for real this time – to take the edge off.
Today it was even less of a choice than usual: it’s his day off, but Morris called him in to handle some kind of special shipment. He spent the day being rushed and micromanaged, feeling seconds away from an outburst that would definitely get him fired, and by the time 5 o’clock finally rolled around he was desperate for a drink.
The headache has only just started to fade as he finishes his latest beer. He can feel the beginnings of a buzz, but he’s a long way from being as drunk as he wants to be. Even so, the ale has softened the edges of everything and faded the grating confusion of voices, music, scraping chairs and clinking glasses into a soothing hum.
Lately it’s been warm enough to verge on stuffy inside the saloon, especially in Shane’s designated cranny between the bar and the fireplace. Tonight, though, the windows are all open wide, and someone, probably Emily, has propped open the front door. The fresh evening air flows through the place like the outdoors is breezing in to chat, caressing his face like cool hands. The air smells vaguely of newly blooming flowers, and even he has to admit it’s a beautiful night. He dimly remembers the weather being nice during his walk to and from the store, too, and he almost regrets spending the entire day inside.
Despite the nice weather, the saloon seems more crowded than usual. He searches his hazy thoughts for a few slow seconds before fishing up the awareness that it’s Saturday night, a perfectly respectable day and time for the town’s many non-degenerate citizens to drop by.
As usual, he keeps his gaze trained on either the floor or the foam dissipating at the bottom of his beer mug, but he can see bodies moving in his periphery, endless groups of people winding around each other, in tune with each other. To his right, Emily is chatting to someone from behind the bar, sounding even more chipper than usual. To his left, several people are cheering and whooping over their game of pool. Their laughter twists something painful and hot in his gut, and he downs the dregs of his beer to quash the feeling.
The next breeze carries a whiff of something delicious, and his stomach growls. Skipping dinner is his tried and true strategy for getting trashed on a budget. He usually eats much later than this, if at all, but he’s suddenly ravenous. He can’t recall whether he ate dinner yesterday.
Another gust of wind and the smell is suddenly much stronger. He blinks, lowers his beer. The empty patch of floor he’s been staring at isn’t empty anymore. His eyes focus slowly on the pair of leather boots that have appeared there, caked in grass and mud, before snapping up to the source of the amazing smell – a plate of sizzling pepper poppers.
His eyes snap up again and he’s looking at a stranger. A woman. She’s holding a fresh, hot plate of his favourite food. Where did she get that? It couldn’t have been from the saloon, because Gus doesn’t make it, which he knows because he’s checked.
She’s around his age – no, younger by a handful of years, and, he’s just noticed, has been talking to him for the last several seconds.
“– hope they taste okay! Emily mentioned you like them,” she’s saying. It occurs to him that he likes her voice. It’s soft but clear and sweet, like a bell chiming, and somehow he doesn’t have to strain to hear her over the crowd.
She’s wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, even though it’s nighttime and they’re indoors. She’s shorter than him by about a head, so her face is tilted up toward him. Despite the hat, a spray of freckles dusts her nose and cheeks, imbuing her skin with flecks of warmth. Sun-kissed , he thinks, feeling stupid.
While his brain sticks inexplicably on the word “kissed,” something flat and smooth touches his empty hand. His fingers close reflexively, and when he looks down he’s holding the plate of peppers.
“Here you go,” she’s saying, and when he looks back up she’s smiling at him, the expression accentuating the heart shape of her face. Her eyes crinkle and her teeth flash white against her rosy mouth – is she wearing lipstick? No, she’s just flushing with happiness, her whole face glowing, her joy beaming at him out of the dim surroundings. He feels like he’s missing something, struggling to keep up.
She looks down at his other hand, hanging at his side holding the empty mug. “Oh, let me grab that – easier to hold it with two hands,” she says, and gently takes it. Her fingers brush his, and her skin is soft and cool. His now-empty hand floats up to support the plate. He realizes very belatedly that she’s giving the peppers to him. Their rich, spicy smell fills his nose.
She turns away, and his stomach sinks for some reason, but before he has time to process this she’s turning back again (she was only setting the empty mug on the bar).
“I’m sorry it’s so late in the day,” she says, and now he’s trying to puzzle out why she’s apologizing for giving him his favourite food, new mysteries piling up far too quickly for his booze-addled brain to unravel them. An unruly lock of brown hair has escaped from one of her long double braids, curling across her cheek. She tucks it behind her ear and his train of thought derails again. “Things have been crazy at the farm with summer coming up and I only just got away.”
The word “farm” finally jogs his memory. This isn’t a stranger, but the town’s newest resident, the one who’s restoring her grandfather’s property north of the ranch. He tries to remember how long she’s been here. Maybe a few months by now, but he's not sure. His schedule never takes him to that part of the valley, and he’s far from tapped in to the comings and goings of the community.
He recalls, vaguely, that she’s spoken to him before. Or, tried to. Maybe at the Egg Festival. Should he know her name? He casts about for it with growing panic, but comes up short.
She’s stopped talking, and he realizes it’s his turn to say something.
“These are my favourite,” he blurts, gesturing with the plate of peppers, and cringes internally. Tell her something she doesn’t know, jackass.
She laughs like he’s said something charming, and it’s warm and sweet and vibrant.
“I hope they’re how you like them,” she says, still smiling. It makes him want to smile too. “I actually don’t know how to make them, but Gus said he could if I sourced the peppers.” Her eyes light up. They’re big and round – brown, he thinks, though it’s hard to tell in the moody lighting – and expressive, so it’s impossible to miss her excitement. “Obviously it’s too early in the year to grow them here,” she continues, “but fresh is best, so I got in touch with an old friend of my grandpa’s who has a farm out in Calico Desert, and they sent me a few bushels. Extra spicy, they say!” She gestures while she talks, and his eyes are drawn to the fluid movements of her small hands. “And fun fact, their peppers originally came from seeds my grandpa sent them decades and decades back, isn’t that cool? They’re like long-lost relatives to the ones he used to grow here in the valley. I’m really excited to plant both in a few weeks and see how differently they’ve evolved over – oh,” she cuts herself off with a sheepish laugh. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear me geek out about pepper cultivars.”
It might be the alcohol talking, but he thinks maybe he does.
“Anyway, I’m trying to teach myself to cook while I’m living out here on my own, so next year hopefully I can make them for you myself.” She picks up something from the floor – a tin watering can that’s bigger than her torso; he’s not sure how he missed that earlier – and takes a step toward the door.
Her words finally catch up to him. Next year? He’s proud of the mental hoops his poor, sluggish brain has jumped through to keep up with this interaction, but he still doesn’t understand the trajectory conversation, if it can be called that. Whatever it is, it seems to be ending, so he’s running out of time to figure it out.
“I wish I could stay a bit longer, but I’ve got to run back to the farm and shower before I drive away all of Gus and Emily’s business.” She wrinkles her nose and gestures down at herself. Shane looks down too, taking in her denim overalls smeared with dust, dirt and grass stains, loose at the waist but clinging to her hips and thighs. Her baggy pant legs are stuffed haphazardly into the tops of her tall, muddy boots. The bib of her overalls is crooked: the straps are sliding off her shoulders, loosened after a long day of working under the spring sunshine. Her pine green shirt is form-fitting, with sleeves down to her wrists to protect from the sun, and the hem is riding up. Her torso is angled slightly away now, toward the door, and through the open sides of the overalls he can see a few inches of bare flesh around her middle, the smooth plane of her stomach bracketed by the swell of her breasts and soft dip of her waist. Sweat shines on her collarbone, and there’s a leaf stuck in her braid. She has a smudge of dirt along the line of her jaw.
He swallows hard and meets her eyes again. Uncharacteristically, he decides not to question a good thing.
“Thank you,” he finally manages, and his voice doesn’t break, and he thinks it probably doesn’t sound shaky to anyone but him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had these. I’m really going to enjoy them.” He means it.
She flashes him that sunbeam smile again and reaches toward him – the barest brush of her palm on his elbow – and says, “I hope you enjoy the rest of your night, too. Happy birthday, Shane.”
She turns and is gone, and it finally clicks. A day he usually tries to forget, a day everyone else certainly forgets. He managed to actually forget it this year, but she remembered, this woman whose existence he’s only just registered, and she sourced in-season peppers, a special heritage variety from the desert, and convinced Gus to fry them up fresh, and she hand-delivered them to him even though she worked all day, and –
He takes a bite out of one, and it’s the best damn thing he’s tasted all year. He finishes it and goes for a second. The complex heat of the peppers melds perfectly with the richness of multiple kinds of cheese, the gooey centre balanced by the crisp, deep-fried exterior, which is salty and well-spiced. His eyes prickle, and he tells himself it’s the capsaicin.
“I almost forgot!”
His eyes pop open – he doesn’t know when he shut them – and she’s standing in front of him again holding a parcel.
“The item you requested on Pierre’s bulletin board.” He’s still holding the plate, so she places the parcel on the bar next to him and turns to leave again. “Naturally I’m not accepting payment, since it’s your birthday.” She gives him one last smile over her shoulder and traipses into the night.
He looks between the plate in his hand and the parcel on the bar – an embarrassment of riches. For him. On his birthday.
A strong, alien emotion is welling up in him, warring with the numbing effects of the beer. Overwhelmed, he sets the plate down and reaches for the parcel. It’s wrapped neatly in butcher paper, tied around the middle with twine. It almost feels like a bouquet in his hands.
He can’t even remember what he requested, but he’s fairly certain he posted it while drunk last night. He peels back the crinkly brown paper, revealing velvety, dimpled green leaves, and it comes back to him – kale.
There’s a piece of paper tucked under the twine, a scrap of an old purchase order. A note. He unfolds it.
Her handwriting is flowing and wild, a mess of exaggerated loops and flourishes. The short note is crammed with parentheticals, like she was too excited to decide what to write first.
My educated farmer’s guess is that this is for your chickens. Not because I think you don’t seem like a kale person (although I don’t think anyone is a kale person), but because I’ve heard your chickens are “the happiest this side of the Gem Sea” (that’s an exact quote!).
I’m doing a lot of research right now because I want to get my own coop soon (fingers crossed sometime this fall), and I read an article about feeding chickens nutritious garden scraps (like kale!) right before I saw your request this morning. I thought maybe you read the same article (or maybe it was fate).
So, was I right? If yes, I’d love to know what you thought about the rest of the article. If not, I hope you find this funny, at least, and know that I’m not judging your choice of salad greens too much. :)
Anyway, I hope your chickens (or you!) enjoy the kale – I just harvested it this morning.
She’s signed her name with a little heart.
P.S., the note continues, Could I trouble you to give me a few pointers if you have some free time? I want to make sure I’m doing right by my future chickens, and you seem like the right guy to ask.
Shane leans against the bar, clutching the kale. He did read that article. He is giving the kale to his chickens: his poor attempt at an apology for spending more time at the saloon lately than at the ranch.
His eyes run over her signature, spilling languidly across the paper with its frivolous loops and curls, tracing the lines of her name again and again. The little heart. The request in the postscript.
He tucks the note into his breast pocket.
He finishes the entire plate of peppers and manages not to get too emotional about it. He has a few more drinks’ worth of cash in his wallet, but instead of ordering another round he settles up, leaves Emily and Gus each a generous tip, and steps out into the cool spring air.
The journey back to the ranch feels like less of a trudge than usual – he has hens to pamper and a magazine clipping recipe for pepper poppers to mail to a certain farmer.