Frieda: So Colleen got it in her head that only if she threatened to cut Francis in half, Francis’s true owner would reveal himself. She was quite dramatic.
Cooper: No surprise there.
Frieda: Colleen lifted the knife above her head… (feigns lifting knife)… and slowly brought it down, down, down, toward poor Francis the goat, and no one said a word!
Sammie: What?
Cooper: Wait, it gets better.
Frieda: So neither Geoffrey Lind nor Patrick McCoy was the true owner of Francis. For all they knew, Francis could have just wandered down the mountain from someone else. Or most likely they had just forgotten.
Sammie: But did Francis die?
Frieda: Yes, he did.
Sammie: Aw! How?
Cooper: They had a goat roast, because all the town was there anyway!
Sammie: They made Francis into a roast???
Frieda: Yes, and legend has it he was delicious.
KIDS WILL BE KIDS (THAT WAS A GOAT PUN)
Frieda told Coop and me the “Francis the goat” story two more times, and four or five times, she told a story about how her husband took her out in his car for their first date.
The stories changed each time she told them—not the details, just which details she decided to include. In one version of Francis the goat, it was revealed that they tied a little blue ribbon around his neck. In the other, she told us that after the town ate Francis, Patrick McCoy said no, really, Francis was his goat, and the argument started all over again.
Coop’s grandma has dyed brown hair and this soft baby-powder skin and lots of veins you can see, like a map of rivers and tributaries. She and Coop have the same navy blue, dish-plate eyes, though hers are a little cloudier.
“Jerry, I don’t mean to fuss, but I recommend you get a haircut,” she kept telling Coop, and it was funny to see Coop’s cheeks turn pink about his hair, because of the way he’s always running his hands through it around girls. I guess his grandma was the only girl who didn’t like it.
“I’m not Jerry, I’m Cooper,” Coop kept saying. “And this is Sammie.”
“Hello,” I would say, for the seventh time.
“Is she your girlfriend?” she would ask, smiling at me.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” I kept saying. “I’m just his friend.”
Every time we’d say it, Coop would mouth sorry, but by the fifth time, he was hiding a smile.
When Coop dropped me off, I thanked him for letting me meet her. “Was it good?” he asked, turning toward me in the driver’s seat.
“Yes,” I said, getting out. “She’s a wonderful lady.”
Coop looked out over the yard. “She really is. And think of how good she is at telling that story! It’s because she tells it over and over. That’s not so bad, right?”
As Coop spoke, I noticed for the first time that he had dressed up. He had his now sun-tinted hair pulled back, and he was wearing a polo shirt with a belt and jeans, and he was wearing loafers. I decided not to tease him for dressing up for his grandma. I lingered at the door of the Blazer, resting my elbows on the front seat.
“No, I guess not,” I said. I thought about when Coop had seen me forget where I was, or the other day, when I had forgotten the chickens. “But how does she stay so sweet, you know? When I… have an episode… all I can do is panic.”
Coop pushed a strand back that had fallen out behind his ear. “You were nice whenever I reminded you who I was,” he said, and looked at me, his brow furrowed.
“Good,” I said.
“Maybe it’s that your brain relaxes when it’s someone familiar.”
“I can be mean, though, too,” I said, picking at the threads in the seat. “I was kind of a brat to my family.”
“Sometimes Grandma can be kind of a brat, too,” he responded. “If she’s tired, or if she isn’t comfortable.”
I laughed a little. “I should start wearing a caftan, to guarantee maximum comfort at all times.”
Coop nodded in fake seriousness. “It’d be a good look for you.”
We were quiet for a bit. “The rain stopped,” I noticed.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, glancing up through the windshield.
“Do you have to go home now?” I asked.
Coop shrugged, glancing at me, then at the clock on his dash. “Nope.”
I looked back at the house. Mom and Dad would be home soon, with all the kids. But I didn’t really want him to go, for some reason. I suppose for the same reason I was glad to see him on the roof on the Fourth of July. “Want to stay for dinner?”
Coop unbuckled his seat belt immediately. “Will there be hot dogs?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
We shut our doors and Coop came around the Blazer.
“I wonder what stories I’ll tell over and over,” I said.
“Who knows,” Coop said, and grinned as we walked toward the house. “But, more importantly, I think we should get a goat.”
Me: How’d the meetings go?
Stuart: good
Stuart: how’s life back there?
Me: strange and good
Stuart: strange and good?
Me: I’ll explain when you get home.