Deliver Us from Evie (2 page)

Dad just wanted a part-time sales job to help us along. When Mom said she’d just as soon get a job, he asked her what she thought she already had—keeping our books, running our farm.

He wanted Evie to go to the university, too, when he could spare her. Ag school like Doug, so she’d be up on all the new techniques, like learning about the soybean plants they grew in China, ones that could take a good ground soaking better than ours … That was behind his job hunt, too—Evie’s education.

On the way home Mom suddenly noticed Evie had on a different sweatshirt. It was white with a gold seal that said
APPLEPERSON ACADEMY
.

“Where’s
your
shirt, Evie?”

“I got it wet. Patsy lent me this, and then we decided to trade shirts. This is her school shirt.”

“I thought she went to Appleman Academy.”

“She does. But the students call it Apple
person
Academy, for fun. You know, Mom, you’re supposed to say spokesperson for spokesman, and chairperson for chairman. You can’t be sexist.”

Dad chuckled and said, “Does that make us the Burrpeople?”

“I guess we
should
change our name,” Evie said. “Patsy said her little nieces and nephews can’t play cowboys and Indians, anymore, either. They have to play cowpeople and Native Americans.”

“She’s such a lovely girl,” said Mom. “I tried to get something going between you two tonight, but I couldn’t seem to do it, could I?”

Evie’s face got red. “Why would you try to do that?” she snapped, and she almost drove off the road. “What did you say to her?”

There was a pause before my mother said, “I didn’t mean between
you
and Patsy, Evie. I meant between Parr and Patsy.”

No one said anything for a while.

Then my dad said, “Parr’s got a case on Toni Atlee, anyway. He doesn’t want some girl goes miles away to boarding school.”

I said, “I wouldn’t mind, but I’d never get to first base with her kind.”

Evie didn’t say anything the rest of the way home.

A
T THANKSGIVING DOUG CAME
home from college for the weekend, bringing this sorority girl with him. She was a Tri Delt named Bella Hanna, and I doubt she’d ever been on a farm before.

I think everyone in our family except Doug was thinking the same thing: Don’t let her be the one.

She was this redheaded princess who didn’t offer to do anything to help Mom get the dinner on, and anytime Doug said he wanted to show her something out back, she’d say, “Do we have to?”

Mostly she sat in the living room reading magazines she’d brought with her: the thick kind filled with fashion ads and the sweet-smelling inserts Mom liked to tear out and put in her underwear drawer. When Evie told Bella Hanna Mom liked to use them for that, she just shrugged and said she never heard of someone doing that. She didn’t offer any of them to Mom.

Later I heard her ask Doug if Evie was “all right” and Doug said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, she seems a little odd, the way she dresses and stuff.”

“She’s a farmer!” Doug said, and he laughed and got red.

“If that’s what happens when you’re a farmer, spare me,” she said.

“Evie’s okay,” Doug said.

I could remember when Doug would punch out guys who made any cracks about Evie around him. Next to Dad, Doug was Evie’s main defender: She was his kid sister he didn’t take any lip about. But Bella Hanna was different. She had Doug wrapped around her little finger. He was actually worried about things like were we going to use linen napkins for dinner, and not paper ones. And who was Mom going to sit on the other side of Bella—not Cord Whittle, he hoped!

Mom said, “Cord’s not even invited. Evie doesn’t want him here.”

“Good!” Doug said, relieved.

“What have you got against Cord, Doug?”

“He’s a real hick, Mom! If Bella got stuck with that dropout, she’d think that’s what farmers are like.”

“He’s a good farmer, Doug!”

“Yeah, well Melvin’s got more sense!”

Melvin was our mule. Evie claimed Melvin was the type of animal who’d work patiently for ten years for the chance to kick you once hard.

I’d never seen my brother in the state he was in. It was as threatening to me as a dark funnel in a pink sky, because I was counting on Doug’s decision to farm. As good as Evie was, there was no way she could run our place all by herself … and our father was already nearing fifty. If Doug changed his mind—if someone like Bella Hanna changed it for him—there was going to be pressure on me.

We had a dozen relatives come for Thanksgiving dinner. I was appointed to say grace and I included a line about keeping our farm safe from harm, hoping it’d go from my lips to God’s ears, figuring God would know what I was really talking about.

Mom seated one of the little kids next to Bella Hanna and she blossomed, talking baby talk to him, cutting his meat for him, and announcing she wanted a big family. She said there were five in her family, and that she was from Vermont, and she’d come all the way to Missouri to study journalism.

“Oh, I wanted to be a newspaperwoman too,” said my mother.

“What happened?” Bella asked her.

“Mr. Burrman,” my mother answered.

“So you sold out for love,” said Bella.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, myself,” my mother said.

Bella Hanna said, “Women always used to give up their dreams for men. It’s time men gave up theirs for women.”

I could see Doug’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard, and he pushed a lock of blond hair out of his face.

“Besides,” Bella Hanna continued, “you can’t make any money farming anymore. That’s what I heard.”

Evie spoke up then, said, “You can still make a small fortune in farming. Trouble is you have to start with a large one.”

My father burst out laughing at that. Then everyone did.

After dinner we were all stuffed, and my father said we should walk out back and see the sky. It was filled with lakes of fire, and everybody was looking up and exclaiming. Pete and Gracie, our yellow Labs, were dancing off toward the fields that were lying fallow now.

Off in the distance a car was coming down our road, a fancy one: You could see the sinking sun making it glisten, and it had the roar of a good motor that ran better fast than slow.

We all began watching its approach … all but Evie.

Evie was like a horse that way. A horse never reacts to anything new coming. A cow will throw up its head and stare, and maybe moo and shuffle its feet, but all you see a horse do is prick its ears forward.

I wondered why Evie didn’t even look in the direction of the car. I’d never seen a car that color: black cherry it was—a sleek, sexy Porsche.

Mom said, “
Who
is this?”

The only strange cars that ever came our way belonged to Jehovah’s Witnesses, chimney sweeps, and land assessors.

When it got closer, I recognized the long blond hair.

She had on dark glasses, and she gave everyone a wave.

“Patsy Duff!” my mother said. “What’s she doing here?”

Then Evie turned around and said, “She’s here to interview me.”

“Who’s Patsy Duff?” Bella Hanna said, and you could see she was real impressed … with the car, and with the girl getting out of it.

Doug told Bella she was just a friend, as though Patsy Duff came over to our place any old time.

Mom looked at Evie and asked her, “What are you talking about?”

“I forgot to tell you. She called last night to see if she could interview me for her school paper. She wants to do an article about a farmwoman.”

“You mean a farm
person
,” my father said.

He was straightening his tie as Patsy slammed the car door and started toward us. She had that effect on you: She looked so good you started worrying about how
you
looked.

I wished I hadn’t been stubborn and refused to wear a tie, or my best jacket. I was in a seedy old brown suit because I hadn’t wanted to go out of my way for Doug’s Tri Delt.

Neither had Evie bothered to dress up. But her white shirt, open at the collar, was clean, and she had on a good belt with a big silver buckle. Jeans and the boots she called her shitkickers.

“Hi, everybody!” Patsy called out. She was wearing a leather skirt and a suede jacket, carrying a notebook, and grinning. “Ready, Evie?”

“Sure thing,” Evie called back.

B
Y DECEMBER WE STILL
didn’t know any details of Patsy Duff’s interview with Evie. She taped it in Evie’s room, and we didn’t even see Patsy leave because our relatives were still there, and so was Bella Hanna.

We heard the Porsche start up, heard two little honks of good-bye; then Evie took a flashlight out into the fields to bring in the hand-powered posthole digger she’d been using to fix a fence.

We were surprised when we read the interview in
The Appleman Arrow
, the school paper Patsy sent to Evie at the beginning of December.

My mother said to Evie, “How about letting your father and me in on your plans?”

“You’re in on them now,” said Evie.

“When are you making this big move, Evie?”

“I figure next fall. Dad and I’ve been talking about it.”

Mom sighed. “So that’s really why he had that interview with the Rayborn Company last month…. Well, if you do it, we’ll have to hire extra help.”

“
I
can do more than I’m doing now, too,” I said, figuring I’d do anything in the short run that’d keep me off the farm in the long run.

But we
would
need to hire help. That was the expensive part of Evie going to college, not college itself. The university didn’t cost Missouri residents that much, but Evie did the work of two men.

Then everything changed.

One night Will Atlee came over and told my father he wanted to talk. He said he thought my mother and Evie might like to hear what he had to say, too.

I took Toni Atlee for a sunset walk around our place.

I told her that she was probably the only one in the world who could maybe change my mind about farming.

“If I had someone like you, I could almost see doing it,” I lied. No way would I ever farm, not even for Toni.

She was this five-foot-three brunette with a body that ripped right through you, and a smart mouth. We were sitting in my father’s pickup by that time, the motor on for warmth, listening to KKRG, watching a ball of red sneak down through these wispy smoke-blue clouds. She had on something that smelled like lilies.

“What a lot of bull crap, Parr!” she said. “You’re no farmer! You just want my bod. And I don’t even like farming—don’t you know
anything
?”

“Me want your bod?
Me
? I’m trying to plan my future and you’re turning it into some kind of sexual fantasy!”

“That arm of yours is creeping around my neck, Parr. How does
that
figure in your future plans?”

My hand landed on her shoulder.

She pushed it away and sat forward. “What a great sunset, Parr!”

“What if I said I was going to study to be a lawyer, probably settle in Kansas City, probably make several hundred thou a year?”

“How about settling in Miami? I’m used to warm winters.”

We were laughing. I was reaching out to touch her and she was pushing my hand away.

“Okay, Miami,” I said.

She grabbed my hand and held it. “
We’re
not farmers, Parr. And anyway,
I’m
moving, Parr. That’s what Daddy’s inside talking about to your daddy.”

“You don’t mean you’re moving for good?”

She turned her head and looked at me. I loved her eyes, and her smile. “Would I do this if I wasn’t?” she said, and she leaned into me and kissed me.

She whispered, “I’d never do that if I was going to stay here in Duffton. It’d only start your motor going.”

“What do you think my motor’s doing now, standing still?”

“Turn it off,” she said. She straightened up and pulled down the door handle, and we were over before we even started.

Mr. Atlee had a deal with my father that made it seem like all our dreams were coming true.

We’d get a hundred of his acres for a song (the rest was going full price to the neighbor on his other side) if we’d run everything for him for five years on a fifty-fifty split of profits. There were all sorts of other conditions, things they’d work out with lawyers, but it was better than a good deal. Even I was excited.

So maybe new dreams cost old ones.

Atlee land in exchange for Atlee daughter.

Everyone in the house was celebrating. My father had opened a bottle of Seven Crowns they were pouring into Seven-Up. Even Evie was having a drink. Evie was giving up something for what we were getting. With the Atlee acres to work, there was no way she’d get to college that next fall.