Chapter 20

When Sarah called on my cell phone, it was a Friday evening after 6PM and it was getting dark. “I’m in Sparta and I’m lost,” she said with a laugh.

“You might be the only person to ever get lost in Sparta. Are you near anything that I might recognize?” I asked.

“There is a farmer exchange building here,” she said.

“It’s too late to have dinner there, pull into their parking lot and I’ll be there soon.” I drove straight from the Peace Haven Apartments to the Farmers X store. It was about a two mile drive, so it took me five minutes tops.

“Well you did make it. Follow me to the Apartments. You can leave your car there it should be safe,” I said through the car window. She did as I said, then parked in front of the office. It was a dry night, so I put her bag in the rear of my pickup and drove to the shack. I transferred her bag into the shack before we went to dinner.

I drove back into town to find the only restaurant with any class in Sparta. By class I mean it had a table cloth, and a menu that differed from day to day. They did have wine on the menu. There were three choices red, white, or rose’ which covered my knowledge of wines as well as their selection. Sarah ordered a cold garden salad with chunks of fried chicken.

I hate ‘fru fru’ food, but it did look good. I had a sirloin strip, baked potato, with iced tea. Mine was good. The dinner conversation mostly dealt with her job, and my lack of one.

The apartments were full, and I was happy to see that of course. It had seniors from all over the three county area. There was enough income from the apartment, and the small amount of landscape work I did, to pay the bills and even put some away for a rainy day. Somehow that wasn’t enough,” I explained. “It was more about boredom was just around the corner.”

“So being out of the weed business doesn’t seem so fulfilling?” she asked.

There it is, I thought. The real reason she was in the small town of Sparta for the weekend. She was going to try to entice me back into the weed business. Just goes to show there is no such thing as living happily ever after in real life. There was always a bumble bee hiding among the roses. When I didn’t take the bait, I’m sure that it irritated her.

“That was a very nice dinner,” she suggested.

“Well it isn’t a restaurant with even one star, but it’s popular with the residence of Peace Haven,” I said.

“I thought there appeared to be an abnormal amount of seniors there,” she said. There are a couple of more nice places to eat in North Wilkesboro. Maybe next time you can come to me.”

“Who knows,” I replied.

After dinner we drove back to Harold’s Shack. “I have spent more to renovate the shack than Grandpa Harold paid for the whole farm. I am pretty sure that fair market value for the shack is way less than the renovations cost. It was an act of love, and I still am not finished,” I explained.

“So what’s next?” she asked.

“Once upon a time I needed to live in a shack, so we didn’t replace the exterior siding. Now that I’m respectable, I plan to have new siding put on the shack,” I explained. “In a few years the new siding will look like hell as well.”

“So is your plan is to put up boards and battens?” Sarah asked. “Don’t look so surprised. I watch a lot of home and garden TV shows,” she added.

“Yes, I considered 2x8’s with tiny spacers so I could chink them like a log cabin. I decided to go with vertical boards and battens instead. I would end with a shack looking structure, which would stay true to the place’s roots. It’s not going to be cheap, but I agree with Dolly Pardon. It costs a fortune to look this cheap.”

“I’m glad to see it. I thought you were all about making money,” she commented.

“Oh I am, I’m just not about making money to have it rot in some storage locker,” I said.

“Good,” she commented.

After a quick look around inside, Sarah looked out the side window. Is that a chicken house?” she asked.

“No it’s a barn disguised as a chicken house. I store my lawn equipment in there. I also have a guest house in there. Not that I’ve ever needed it,” I admitted. “l can’t offer you a drink, but I can offer you a hit on my medical weed pipe. I can also pull up an online movie, or TV show.”

“Let’s do that, I need to relax some,” Sarah said not looking at me. “So tell me, is anything in your life what it appears to be?”

She wanted to be romanced it seemed, but I was terrible at that. So I busied myself with the pipe and TV.

After an hour and a half with a pipe and a bad movie we were both ready for bed. Like I said before, the sex was fine, but only comfortable. It wasn’t filled with passion, it was just the release of pent up energy.

Saturday morning after a breakfast at the one local diner, I carried Sarah for a quick tour of the Peace Haven Apartments. I did that only because I needed to take a look at a leaky faucet in a ground floor apartment. I took care of the lightweight plumbing problem while Sarah visited with June.

“The decision to leave a complete set of tools in the store house out back, wasn’t such a stupid idea after all,” I said to the two of them as I entered the apartment behind the office.

“June has been telling me what a great boss you are,” Sarah said. “I was telling her what a great fuck you are.”

“That’s fair, if one of you is going to lie, you both should,” I said.

“Funny, that is exactly what your friend Sarah said,” June admitted. “Oh Tony said the conversion kit for the wood stove has arrived at the LP gas dealer. He suggested you get it before they sell out again.”

“If Sarah is willing, I’ll run by right now,” I said.