Thirty-five
“I remember back when Stanley had dairy cows,” Holly said on the ride over to Stanley’s farm. “He always smelled like manure.”
“I like that smell,” I said.
“And school groups would go out there and take tours. I got lightheaded from the strong odor and had to wait in the bus, I still remember.”
“The days of local dairy farmers are almost gone,” I said. “Someday, nobody will recognize the fresh, clean perfume of cow poop.”
“The sooner, the better.”
We pulled up next to Stanley’s farmhouse. I turned off the truck.
“I forgot to tell you, Mom wants us to go over for dinner tonight,” Holly said.
“Your husband Max out of town?”
“Foolish question. Of course he is. Will you come?”
I’d been expecting an offer, since I hadn’t been over to Grams’s for a while. Well, not all the way inside, at least. I could check on my bees, too, make sure nothing menacing was bothering them.
“Who’s cooking?” I wanted to know.
“Mom. And we’ll have Grams’s AP.”
My mental text dictionary couldn’t keep up with her random abbreviations. “AP?” I asked.
“Apple pie. She said to come over at six o’clock and no later.”
“Can I drink heavily first?”
Stanley came out of his house before Holly could endorse my strategy. We got out of the truck and followed him to his chicken coop on the side of the barn. He recited enough material on raising chickens to fill an entire textbook, beginning, middle, and end, until I knew more about the birds than I’d ever wanted to know.
“Pick out a couple. Three or four, for starters,” he said, pointing to masses of hens pecking around inside a fenced area connected to the coop. “I’ll find something for you to carry them home in.” He wandered off in search of a way to transport them.
“They stink,” Holly said, wrinkling her nose. “Worse than cows. And now you’re stuck with chickens.”
I’d filled Holly in on the way over so she knew the real reason we were visiting Stanley. The chickens were simply a cover.
“I’ve been considering getting chickens anyway,” I said. “Now’s as good a time as any.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to put stinky chickens in your backyard.”
“I like that smell.”
“They all look alike.”
On that, at least, we agreed.
Stanley came back with a big cardboard box and chicken feed. He and Holly watched me run around until I managed to snag three plump hens, then Stanley helped me get them into the box. “Tie this around it nice and tight,” he said, handing me a ball of twine. “That’ll keep them from getting out.”
“Before we load them into the truck,” I said after securing the box, “we have to clear the air.”
Holly wrinkled her nose again and stifled a chuckle. The air, according to her silent smirk, needed big time clearing. “I feel dizzy,” she said. “I’ll wait in the truck.” From the fumes, she mouthed to me so Stanley couldn’t hear.
At times, it was hard to believe that Holly and I were from the same family; just like it was impossible to imagine Mom and Grams were related.
“What’s up?” Stanley asked me.
“You’ve been studying up on bees. You checked out a beekeeping book from the library. So you tell me what’s up?”
“Can’t a man read what he wants?”
“Sure he can. But he has some explaining to do if he’s reading on a subject and that same subject seems to have vanished from Manny’s beeyard right after he died. And especially since the town is upset about bees and certain residents don’t want us raising them and are willing to make trouble over it.”
“That’s just Lori. She’ll find something else to rail about eventually.”
“Please, I need to know. Are you getting ready to raise bees?”
“What ever gave you that idea?”
“The book, Stanley. The beekeeping book.”
“I was just reading.”
Stanley refused to explain further. I phrased and rephrased the same question different ways without any luck. With nothing more to discuss, Stanley helped load the hens, feed, and a bale of straw into the back of the truck. Holly and I headed out.
“That man is hiding something,” I said.
“No luck getting him to talk?”
“Nope.”
Ten minutes later Stanley drove out of his driveway. We blew out of our hiding place and gave chase.
“Stay back or he’s going to see you,” Holly called.
“He’s not going to check his rearview mirror for a tail,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Outside of the movies, what real person does that? When’s the last time you glanced back to see if a vehicle was following you, one you recognized?”
“He’s bound to notice eventually.”
“Besides, last time I stayed back, I lost him. I don’t want him getting away this time.”
We left Moraine, following the rustic road, which was becoming more familiar to me from all the time I was spending chasing Stanley around. He wasn’t in a hurry, going much slower than the speed limit. On the same stretch where I’d lost him before, he turned into one of the driveways I’d checked last time. Only last time I hadn’t noticed that the main driveway went one way and a smaller, gravel drive went another.
Stanley followed the gravel one.
“GFI!” Holly shouted, getting excited. (Go For It!) “Follow him in.”
Instead, I pulled over and parked. Hens squawked from the back of the truck. “Let’s wait a few minutes, see if he comes out.”
Fifteen minutes later, Stanley hadn’t reappeared.
“Let’s walk in,” I said.
“ITA (I Totally Agree),” she said. “That will be less obvious.”
The driveway was longer than we thought, ending at a small cottage tucked between a mature maple and an oak tree. A woman’s home, with lace curtains peaking out, fresh flowers on windowsills, and tended daylilies all along the front.
Stanley’s car wasn’t parked next to the cottage, so I assumed he’d pulled into a small garage close by. That explained why I hadn’t spotted his car the first time I chased and lost him on this same road. I remembered turning into this driveway then.
As we edged around the back I spotted beehives.
Not many. Five to be exact. Certainly not Manny’s bees, judging by the beehive construction. And while you can’t really tell one honeybee from another, completely different hives meant different honeybees than the ones I was searching for.
I moved closer to the back of the cottage, wondering who lived there. Holly stayed with me. Not a sound came from inside.
Holly tugged on the back of my top, gesturing with her head and her eyes. Time to go. Let’s get out of here. I shook my head back. Not yet. Three feet to one of the back corner windows. I had to look in. We’d come this far. Two feet. One. Crouching lower than the window, easing up. Eye level. Holly right beside me.
It was a good thing the window was closed when I backed up, tripped, clutched my sister for support, and took her down with me. Holly let out a muffled yelp. We untangled and crawled out of sight.
I’d discovered Stanley’s secret.
He had a girlfriend, one who was at the moment naked and entwined with Stanley on a bed right before our eyes.
And here I had been, peeking in at them like P. P. Patti without a telescope. If I found time, I’d be ashamed of myself later.
Holly and I darted back down the driveway a safe distance before speaking to each other.
“Did you see that?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Stanley has a girlfriend,” I said, which was pretty obvious to both of us.
“He doesn’t want anybody to know.”
“It’s our secret.”
“Right.”
“He’s learning about bees because of her.”
“Right.”
“Stanley isn’t Gerald Smith. He isn’t the phantom bee thief.”
“Right.”
At the bottom of the driveway, we meet my new chickens running toward us, free as birds. At least, I assumed they were mine, since they looked exactly like the ones I’d picked up.
“Grab them,” I said in a stage whisper, spreading my arms wide in hopes of driving them back toward the road.
Instead the hens banded together, dodged to my right as one unit, flapped their wings, and made it all the way to the cottage side of my blockade, still running on their scrawny chicken legs.
“Get them.” I was right behind two escapees but couldn’t help noticing that my sister wasn’t. “We have to stop these chickens or I’m going to have some explaining to do. What will I tell Stanley?”
“I don’t deal with live chickens,” Holly called from close to the road. “They probably have all kinds of diseases.”
The faster I ran, the faster the hens ran away from me. Within mere moments of giving chase, it was clear that I wasn’t going to catch them. I couldn’t do anything but give up and return to the truck.
My twine tying needed serious work. Somehow it had come loose and the chickens had worked themselves free.
Holly started laughing when I explained what had happened. “Once Stanley sees his chickens in his girlfriend’s yard, he’s going to know you were here spying on him.”
“So were you.”
“I’ll deny it.”
“Thanks a lot.” I looked up the drive, hoping to see the chickens running back down. No such luck. “Chickens aren’t wild animals,” I said. “They won’t last one night out in the open without shelter. A raccoon will finish them off. What should we do?”
Then I heard Stanley’s voice coming from the general direction of the cottage.
“What the hell! Why, these look like. . . . they are! How did my chickens get all the way over here?”
With that, we drove off faster than a flying chicken, effectively ending my short-lived career as a chicken farmer.