Page 119 of Clara Knows Best

He leaned his pitchfork against the wall. “Talked to Memo Del Amo yesterday.”

She was momentarily thrown by the sudden subject change, and put her hands on her hips. “Okay.”

“He’s hurting for cash. Was really hoping your doctor friend was going to buy that cabin.”

She winced. “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

“He wanted to know what changed Jesse’s mind.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That he should talk to you.”

He pushed the wheelbarrow of manure outside.

Clara followed slowly. Her dad was not the kind of person to blurt out a non sequitur. It fell to her to divine the deeper meaning to his words.

“You know, sometimes I wish you were a little chattier,” she remarked, as she stood watching him dump the manure on the pile. “You can be a real enigma. Do you want me to go talk to Memo? I don’t know anything that will help him. Should I apologize? Should I pay for the two nights we spent there?”

He didn’t answer, but she didn’t expect him to.

She followed him back into the barn. “Okay, I’ll go talk to Memo. But I don’t know what I’ll say.”

He forked some clean straw into the stall and began to spread it around.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll try to give him a check, not that he’ll take it. And I’ll take him some Modelo.”

Still he said nothing, and Clara began to feel irked. What more could she do? Call her brother the real estate guru and beg for his help? “Are you seriously suggesting that I should try to help him find a buyer? You’re crazy.” And she stomped out.

Clara climbed out of her old Mercedes and waved at the man in the porch rocker.

“Miss Clara Wilder,” he greeted her, rising. “What brings you out this way?”

She reached into her car and lifted out the picnic basket. “Brought you something.”

“Me? Or Claudia?” he asked suspiciously, coming down the steps.

“Well, that depends,” she said mysteriously. “Are you going to pick the left side of the picnic basket, or the right side?”

He looked down at the basket, which did indeed have two flaps.

“I have to pick?” he asked, intrigued.

“Yep.”

Memo made a great show of rubbing his chin and then bent down to try to see or smell a clue through the wicker.

Clara laughed. “You’re overthinking it.”

“It’s nothing dangerous, is it?”

“No! Here, this is for you.”

He glanced at the envelope but didn’t take it. “What’s that?”

“I looked up comps. Rental cabins. I want to pay you for the nights we stayed there.”

“No,” he said flatly.

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