I start in seeing this woman around town towards the end of July. It wasn't like she was real pretty or anything but, wherever she was, I turned to look. She had this way about her, all open and smiling. Anyway, in this dinky town, I wind up seeing her just about everyplace. Hell, I even saw her over at the grain elevator but I don't know what she was doing there. I was getting chicken feed because it was on Bitty's list. Me and Bitty, seems like we've been together since kindergarten. Maybe we have been. I pretty much never stood a chance; that Bitty is the most bull-headed woman I ever met. I can see five year old Bitty making up her mind about me. All through school, Bitty and me were together almost by default. No one else ever looked in my direction and Bitty was always right there in the front of me. When we came to in some cheap motel room the morning after our senior prom, she propped herself up on one elbow and told me we may just as well get married. For the life of me, I couldn't come up with one single reason not to and no one was surprised when we came back from the county clerk's office the day after we graduated from Calvin Coolidge High with cans tied to the back of the Bonneville.

I'd lived in town all my life, but Bitty inherited her folks' little spread out on Route Ten. What do I know about farming? Doesn't matter. Bitty supervises, telling me what to do and how to do it. I like for people to see me as easy going but, truth is, I'm lazy and Bitty knows it. She's never cared that I've got no ambition or drive. All she cares is that I do as she tells me and all I care is that she asks me nice. On that basis, we've got on all right for some eight years. But then I start seeing this other woman and, man, she just looks like trouble. She stands out around here, looks like she might have some Indian in her with that heavy black hair and the nose and all. Most everyone around here looks like the Scandinavian settlers who bypassed all the arable land east of here and headed straight to what they knew: Rocky, mean ground that begrudges every harvest. So in the middle of all us raw-boned blondes with our red, resigned faces there's this Indian princess. And mine isn't the only head she's turning. Over at The Blue Plate, customers stop eating and watch when she walks by. She doesn't even have to come in the damn place and people react.

August is giving way to September and Bitty's satisfied with the soybeans this year. Bitty, now she's a real pretty woman but her way is to wear men's work clothes and never put any makeup on. Even though we haven't really talked about it much, it's looking like she doesn't want kids. There's Thurston, your standard border collie who'll herd your shoes if you let him and he is all Bitty's. We got the pick of Larsen's litter six years back, and that pup glommed right onto Bitty from the day we brought him home. I joke that it's just a good thing the dog tolerates me. I run the Arco station in town and I've been having a bitch of a time keeping a second shift guy. This latest one, Mike, is from over near Mendota. He's got a souped-up Camaro and a stud in the side of his nose, but it looks like he might work out okay. This is good news because it means I can have supper at home again. Bitty's a great cook and I hate to settle for carryout when I could be sitting down to one of her suppers but for not being able to find anyone who'll pump gas for eight bucks an hour. On a sepia afternoon Bitty comes out to the barn. I'm changing the oil in my Ford. She's got something on her mind. I can tell by the way she sits down on a bail of straw and fidgets a little. Bitty's like her Dad, acts as if words are money and the crops've failed again. She sits there for a minute but then changes her mind. I'm used to this Whatever it is, she'll get around to telling me in her own time. Mike, the new kid, gets in for his shift. I've just finished rotating the tires on Bud Sandover's Buick when the bell rings and I glance outside. It's the princess in a beat up Toyota. Mike lopes out to hold her door open, going all animated and eager when she tosses that hair and grins at him. I stay put even though I'm ready to head home. I don't know, but for some reason I don't want that grin pointed at me. So I watch. While Mike pumps her gas, she leans easily against the fender, acting as if Mike's the most interesting person she's run across all day. And that kid, he is eating it up. Who wouldn't? I go over to the sink in the back and begin washing up. I'm hungry.


"You seen this new woman around town?"

This from Bitty while we're puttering around the kitchen. It's a sunny Saturday morning, feels as if the bludgeoning of late summer might be over. Thurston's under the table and the back door's open with the first breeze we've felt in awhile ruffling the curtains. "What do you think?"

"She does stand out, doesn't she?" I'm going over the books, glad to have something to focus on.

"Marlene over at the grocery store tells me her name's Annette, that she came up from the city and bought Martin Fredrick's old place. The land and all." That surprises both of us.

"Funny, I didn't really see her as the type."

"Ya, I know, me neither." Bitty pauses with the cupboard door open. "But, it's hard to tell sometimes."

After all, no one expected her dad to leave this farm to her when he had four sons. But none of the boys wanted anything to do with a dinky three hundred acres that barely coughed up enough soybeans and feed corn to keep the place afloat. Now, Bitty'd never been one of those 4-H kids and she hadn't gone around wearing a blue FFA jacket, but the old man knew she was ready to do the work even if no one else saw it. And, really, he just wanted to make sure the big factory farms didn't swallow his piece of ground up while he was alive to see it.

"She's…….I keep wanting to smile back at her, but then I stop myself." Bitty sounds puzzled. It's ground I'm not interested in covering, thankful for the books spread out all over the kitchen table. "Know what I mean?"

"Huh?"

"Nothing. How's the new kid working out?"

"I'm not sure yet, but he may be ok. He was only late the once and he called, so we'll see."

"Did you remember those bags of fertilizer for the kitchen garden?"

Back to familiar turf, I relax and can admit that I forgot them again. Bitty pretends to be exasperated, I pretend to be contrite. Thurston thumps his tail and all's right in our small world.


"Hey, how's it going?"

Knowing it was coming didn't help. I stare for three beats. What is it about her, anyway?

"Uh, hiya."

"Must be hot in there." She's standing in the open doorway of the garage, peering in. I put down the wrench, grab a rag and wipe my hands off.

"It's not bad today. How you doing?" I have a small moment of pride in having put two fairly coherent sentences out there.

"Well, to be honest, it could be a whole lot better. My car barely started this morning and without that beater I am so screwed! I dunno, do I need to just leave it with you, wait for a phone call or something?" She stops suddenly. "I'm sorry! I'm Annette." And she holds out her hand. It's strong, but the skin is city soft and I watch myself so as not to grip too hard.

"I'm Dan. Let's take a look."

She falls into step beside me and I can smell something light and citrusy. Far away I hear her describing the grinding noise, how at first she thought it wasn't going to start and then her relief when it did, how she came straight to the station because she didn't want to be taking any chances. When she turns and puts her hand on my arm, I jump. Or do I? She doesn't seem to notice.

It's her eyes, I think, not her smile so much. It's what her eyes do when she smiles. No one's ever looked at me with that much interest. I go thick and stupid. It takes conscious effort to figure out how to open the hood on the Toyota. The next thing I know, I'm standing there, watching her walk off towards the bank. She turns and waves. Of course she does. I wave back, wondering what's hit me.



You don't have a running vehicle out here, you may as well not have feet on the end of your legs. So I make it my business to get people's cars fixed quick. That's why I'm still here and the only other station left just pumps gas and sells beer. But, even if I don't admit it, I know there's something more going on with having that Toyota up and ready by nightfall. Mike looks a little curious at first to see me staying late, but not for long. He knows who owns that rag. In a bit I look up and see Annette hanging out with him inside the station. Why is that irritating?

There. It wasn't any big deal, changed the starter and it's fine. I like the idea of going in there, playing the hero.

"Oh, hey! Mike's telling me all about my place. It's kinda weird to think of that chunk of ground having been owned by the same family for that long."

Aiming for the right stance, I lightly toss the keys over to her. She snatches them out of the air with a smile that goes right into me. Fuck.

"I got a good used starter over at Henry's so it'll be, oh I don't know, fifty."

I ignore Mike's smirk.

"Are you sure? That doesn't seem like enough, Dan." She's rummaging around in the beat up, leather courier bag that she carries instead of a purse, fishing out a checkbook and pen. Then she looks at me, questioning.

"Yea, are you kidding? I slapped that thing in in no time."

"I don't believe you so you're just gonna have to accept lunch on me tomorrow at The Blue Plate."

"No, no, that's cool. Really." The last thing I want, and the only thing I want, is to sit down and have her all to myself.

"It's either that or I double the check." And she gets this bad-girl thing going on here, letting her hair fall forward, dropping her chin and looking up at me.

"Ok, ok. You win."

"Good. I like winning." She hands me the check, shines another of those smiles at Mike and walks out, leaving the two of us standing there like mouth-breathing pinheads. As the Toyota pulls out, I take the check over to the register and see she's made it out for a hundred anyway. Fuck.

"Oh man, you so scored!" Mike's looking like he wants to high five and I'm ignoring him. It's just lunch, ferchrissakes.

"So, what was wrong with Annette's car?" Bitty and I are doing up the supper dishes, the TV's talking to itself in the living room and the back door's open letting in all that night noise. Amazing how loud night critters can get. "Starter. Got a used one over at Henry's and slapped it in." Here's my opening and I get my nerve up. "She wants to treat me to lunch tomorrow, thinks I didn't charge her enough." "You probably didn't. You never do." Here we go again. There's no rancor or accusation in her voice, this is well-covered ground. "Good for her, picking up on that. Usually they just bend you over and don't even bother with lube." "Bitty, you are twisted!" I throw the dishtowel at her and she grabs it, winds it up to snap it at my ass. The mouth on that woman. We finish up the kitchen, cut the lights off but for the fluorescent over the sink and go off to watch some television before bed. Snuggling on the couch, Bitty curls into the hollow of my arm. She really is a little thing, my Elizabeth Marie. I push my nose around in her wispy straw blonde hair and hand her the remote.


And there she is, waiting for me out on the porch when I get home the next day. I don't like how I'm feeling and hope it's not showing on my face. What's showing on hers? I can't tell. I pull in next to her 4 x 4, cut the engine and grab the day's paperwork, adjusting my expression, smoothing it.

But she just grins and goes on inside when I get to the steps. I'll never figure her out and should just quit trying. I follow her into the kitchen, dump my stuff on the table and make the appropriate noises in response to the aroma of roasted garlic chicken and fresh corn. She's getting dishes out of the cupboard, waiting for me, and I'm sorting through the day's receipts, waiting for her. This is just silly, so of course, we both start talking at the same time, stop, start again and then laugh.

"You first."

"No, you!"

"No, really, go ahead."

And then we just stand there, looking at each other. I look away first and wonder if the burn I feel all over my face and neck shows.

"Oh all right, then." She begins setting the table. "How. Was. Lunch?"

"Fine. Good."

"What's she like?"

"Friendly, nice." God, I feel like a such a jerk, but my mouth is stuck together. Please let that be enough, I plead silently, knowing full well it's not. Bitty turns to the silverware drawer, and grabs a handful of forks and knives. Here it comes.

"Yea, that's what I figured."

And that's it. I busy myself moving my pile of papers out of the way, relieved and just a little queasy.



An elephant moves into our house for the winter, plops his big, fat ass in the middle of the living room and we edge around it and pretend it's not there. Conversations become deliberately generic. Bitty hires the usual crew to help with the harvest and reports back with the numbers. She was right. It is a good year. We'll break even, maybe have enough to start in replacing some of that antique irrigation piping she's been nursing along with duct tape and threats. We sit up into the night, with the calculator and legal pads, working out what we'll need to borrow for next year, which fields she wants to leave fallow and which she'll plant with what. Old bones are gnawed over: she's still not sure about putting in winter wheat, I'm still suggesting a vacation. No meat on them anymore, we drop them back into the hole where we keep them between these sessions. The weather turns and the glory days of September trail off into a wet, miserable October. The old farts over at the The Blue Plate begin to opine on the upcoming winter. It's gonna be a bad one, you can tell by the coats on the ponies, the stripes on caterpillars, the moss on the trees. Whatever. I'm busy at the station. Not as busy as I will be, though. Most of the people in town wait til the last minute to winterize their vehicles. The farmers know better and are bringing their pickups and beaters in now. I'm not seeing a lot of Annette anymore and that suits me. In defiance of the elephant, I keep trying to cuddle Bitty, pulling her to me for kisses in the mud room or out on the porch. Her tolerance of this is how she acknowledges the elephant, but it's still just tolerance, not something she seeks out or willingly goes along with. Bitty's like a cat when it comes to affection; it's always better to wait and let her come to me. But I can't and I don't want to wonder why. After she shoves me away one night when I'm trying to get her panties off, I sulk and withdraw. Fine. That's how she wants to be. Then I get a call from Bud on a black night in November. He says he's at the station and no one's there. Bitty's in watching TV with Thurston curled up in my place on the couch. I tell her I got to go out to the station and she nods without looking up. Sure enough Mike's gone off, leaving all the lights on, probably thinking he could get back from wherever before anyone saw he was gone. I'm filling Bud's tank when Mike comes squealing back into the parking lot and, man, the look on his face. He doesn't even bother with some lame ass story, just says he's sorry and takes off. Hell, if he'd waited, given me a chance to yell and let off steam, I'd of kept him on. It's too damned hard to find someone to take the second shift, but he's gone and now I've got to cover the shift. Shit. Bitty's up at the crack of dawn every day, no matter what. Now that I'm going in later and staying to close the place at ten, I roll back over and sleep awhile. Artie's been running first shift since before I came on as manager, so he's cool. When I do get up, Bitty's out somewhere fixing something. By the time I get home, grumpy and tired, she's either sacked out on the couch or already in bed. One night I come in and find two glasses in the sink, the supper dishes dried and put away. Winter closes in. Stuff piles up indoors and out. Nothing gets asked, nothing is answered. I wait for her to tell me who was over that night and she never does, then I've waited too long and I can't just ask. We add that to the pile and mouth empty sentences at each other. You sleep ok? Think we'll get another foot? Where did you put the tire chains? Let Thurston in, will you?


"Hey, stranger than me. How've you been?"

I'm locking up for the night, worn out and heavy, and I jump at the voice behind me, dropping my keys.

"Here. Let me. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you!"

We bump heads, I get the keys and straighten up and there's Annette looking all apologetic and immediate.

"I guess it's too late to get a fillup, isn't it?"

I've never been much of a talker myself, although I can be a magpie compared to Bitty. Now I'm out of the habit of talking, so I just turn and open the place back up. She follows me in, shaking her coat and hair. Damn, the woman still smells like summer and something else, something familiar but I can't tell what. It takes real concentration just to suck air. Blindly ringing up the sale and shoving the bills into the drawer, I'm wracking my brain for something to say.

"How's things at your place? No one's been out there for the winter in years. You doing ok?"

"It's tougher than I expected. I thought I'd gotten a lot of the stuff taken care of in the nice weather, but now I'm seeing how much I didn't get done." She shrugs.

I feel myself leaning in towards her and right myself. Christ, I've got goosebumps all up and down my arms and across the back of my neck. I look away from her. I want to lift that heavy hair and let it pour through my hands like shimmery water. She's still talking.

"Basically I'm camping out in the kitchen and living room. I've got tarps and plastic sheeting covering the windows and doors and that wood stove sure does put out the heat even if it eats those wood pellets like candy."

"Better than the old kind that just burns wood. Those sonsabitches are really wasteful."

"Ya, that's what the fella at the hardware store told me when he sold it to me."

"I imagine construction's pretty much out of the question until spring."

"Yea, dammit. I didn't think it would take this long."

"It always takes longer and costs more than you think it's gonna."

With that lame ass observation on my part, we seem to have run out of things to say and I pull the nozzle out of the gas tank. As I set it back into its slot on the pump, I make the mistake of looking back at her. She's smiling at me as a sparse, dry snow sifts down and goes glittery under the lights, settling on her hair.

"Thanks so much, Danny." No one's ever called me Danny, not even in grade school.

"Oh. Oh, sure, no problem." Then I go mute again. Please don't let her touch me, don't let her go and fucken hug me. Can she hear me? Someone does. She turns and gets into the Toyota.



Winter does not play in this part of the world. I wonder how people survived it before furnaces and electricity. I wonder how much worse it's going to get. I wonder why the hell I'm suddenly seeing Annette everywhere I go again. Why didn't I think she was pretty? Now, when she walks into the five and dime, I feel her there and I can't not look. Dammit. And she is always smiling at me with that amazing, wide open face and those damned gorgeous eyes. I swear to Christ, she can turn the corner down at Elmwood and Main when I'm clear up at Northrup Street and I'll know it's her. Neither Bitty or I have much use for the holidays. She likes to put a tree up for the way it makes the house smell, but we don't hang much on it. No lights or shit like that. For Thanksgiving we'll drive on over to her folks and get the family stuff out of the way so that we aren't expected on Christmas. This year there's a real mother of a storm that hits two days before the 25th and we hunker down to wait it out. I generally like a good blizzard, although it always makes Bitty impatient and irritable. There's books I never get to read otherwise and we've always got plenty of wood and stuff to eat. But this year I'm pacing as much as she is and we keep running into each other, snapping and snarling, then circling back around the perimeter again. The elephant hasn't budged. Christmas is just the beginning and, in January, time stops. It's dark and miserable, I shiver at the station and the only time I get warm is when I'm home. Damn, I'm glad Bitty got the place insulated and replaced the old windows. Towards the end of February, everyone's getting worn down. I walk into the The Blue Plate to get something for supper and no one's talking much. The old farts were right about this one, it's probably about the worst I can remember in some ten years or so. Bitty places an emergency order for more wood and heating oil and any surplus from the harvest goes directly up the chimney. If you got nothing good to say, say nothing. Whole days go by without either of us saying a word. She's been like this before, hasn't she? Once I look up from the day's numbers and find her looking at me with an expression I can't remember ever seeing in her eyes before. I lift my eyebrows at her; what's wrong? I drop the ledger in surprise when she comes over and kisses the top of my head. She smells nice and I wonder if that's a new bath oil or something. I risk losing ground by asking and I'm just sick of being all alone. Early in March, Annette drives by the station and waves. I wave back and realize that my heart didn't do that stupid flip. Cool. Whatever it was, I'm real happy to think it's run its course. Artie scowls at me when I come in from the garage later, whistling, to take the shift. It could just be my imagination, but it feels like Bitty's not so far away anymore. She even smiles once in awhile, slaps my ass as she heads out to check fences with Thurston. I can't remember why I was so worried and those first, impossibly sweet days in April when the smell of the air has changed and the sun feels like the sun again fill me with joy. I start running the ad again to find someone to take the second shift and actually get a couple of interviews the first week. I'll tell Bitty when it looks like I've actually hired someone.

It's a night in early May when I can walk out with the hood of my parka down. Weird to remember that people can go outdoors without a coat, but this first tease is intoxicating. The breeze that lifts my hair isn't what you'd call balmy, but it's not something you'd attach a wind chill figure to either and that's good enough for me. I've just handed the keys over to the new kid and am looking forward to surprising Bitty. It's been a coon's age since we went on over to The Oaks for a fancy dinner out and I'm thinking tonight's the night for that kind of celebration. I made reservations right after interviewing the new hire. I climb into the Ford and rummage around under the seat for that Rolling Stones tape I like so much. God, I feel good tonight. Has it really been that long since I could relax? I back out onto the road, tap the horn at the kid who's grinning at me from the window of the station, and swing around to go home. I know Bitty'll argue about dinner out, she'll say we can't afford it, that it's too late, that she's not in the mood. But for once she'll be no match for me. I've slain dragons this winter. I've faced down my own worst self and I can hold my head up proudly. I love my wife and it's time to boot that fucking elephant out of the house. I don't need to go into details, hell, I don't even know any details. I wanted to fuck Annette, I wanted to roll over in the morning and have those warm, brown eyes light up for me. That didn't happen and it kind of doesn't matter that it was as much uncertainty and inertia that kept my honor as any conscious effort on my part. And now I don't even want to anymore. I crank up the Stones, crank down the window and warble along with "Honky Tonk Woman". The old Ford creaks and rocks over the ruts of our drive. Bitty's been going on about getting a load of fresh gravel for that and I decide that I'll just put it on the credit card. Why waste money on flowers or jewelry? I know what makes my wife happy. I roll through the aspens that crowd the end of the drive, clear them and brake. There's a car in my spot. It's Annette's Toyota. Then it registers that the only lights on in the house are upstairs. In our room. A curtain twitches aside and the hallway lights go on. Stupid with confusion, I sit there and watch other lights come on. It's sort of like that time when I was sitting in some driveway while a buddy went in to score a dime bag of pot and all of a sudden there was a gang of guys running past the car, breaking the door in. Like my brain was an old, rusty standard transmission, it took awhile before something clicked into place and I got it that these were cops and this was a bust. There is an almost audible click and I get it, get it with both barrels, get it tearing right into the middle of my guts like a terrier going after a rat. What my brain can't do, my body seems capable of handling. My hands put the Ford in reverse, execute a textbook three point turn. I can even sort of see the little dotted lines that point where I'm going in my headlights, but everything's kind of blurry. There are voices back there, but I keep my eyes on the driveway ahead and roll the window back up. I drive away without the faintest idea of where I'm going or what I'm going to do. I just drive.