Page 11 of Any Girl But You
I drag the large, heavy tote down from Truck Norris, and Morgan quickly grabs the handle on the opposite side. My pulse is tight in my neck—definitely more from nerves than carrying this tote that weighs four million pounds—and we silently cross the parking lot into the pavilion hosting the Christmas vendor event. Why didn’t I ask Morgan this morning if my outfit was okay? Does my outfit give off a hip-farmer vibe who’s ready to shake up the Christmas game in this town? Or does it give off the vibe that I have no idea what I’m doing, so I’m playing tree-farmer dress-up? Even though I hate asking for anything, including clothing advice, next time I’m doing it.
Morgan is, of course, dressed to perfection. Crisp, professional blue blouse, white capris, low heels. With her perfectly straight blonde hair and freshly ironed clothes, she perpetually looks sharp and clean. She’s the polar opposite of my butch sister with her jeans, T-shirt, and cropped hair. And also opposite of me, which I’ve lovingly coinedthe controlled chaos wardrobe. In an act of rejuvenation / rebellion / ridiculousness (because I burned a ton of money), before I moved back to Minnesota, I took all of my business suits to the donation center and spent an afternoon reinventing my wardrobe. From that dayforward, I declared I’d never adhere to some archaic dress code again. I’m a damn farmer! I can wear whatever I want, whenever I want. Which is why I’m in white denim short overalls and a sparkly red-and-green T-shirt and questioning every decision I’ve ever made.
The sun is bright, but the humidity broke, and a mineral-laced breeze flows from Lake Superior. I take a deep inhale and catch a whiff of the cookies seeping from the tote. The eight dozen, minus five cookies. Don’t judge. They’re delicious.
What isnotdelicious… How I acted towards Zoey. I still can’t shake our interaction. Last night, I thought about it so much that I cancelled my last-minute hookup in Duluth to wallow. It wasn’t like I had Zoey’s number and could apologize for being a total shit, and I didn’t want to call her business line and leave a voicemail. Even though the interaction was terrible, a huge part of me respects the hell out of the way Zoey stood up for her employee. When she defended Luna, I saw her shaky hands twist in her apron with red staining her cheeks, but she still did it. My former boss would have never stood up for me.
As we step onto the sidewalk, I glance at Morgan, who isn’t even breaking a sweat as she lugs this thing with me. She’s even in heels, for God’s sake. Why didn’t I listen to her when she suggested I pack items in several smaller totes, instead of two massive ones? Oh yeah, because I’m ridiculously stubborn. “You know how much I appreciate you being here?”
“You’ve only thanked me like twenty times,” she says with a smile. “A few more and you’ll fill a full advent calendar.”
Morgan must be tired from last night, and yet she’s perfectly peppy and coifed. I don’t know how she does it. Right now, Morgan’s smack-dab in the middle of her busy season—summer weddings. She didn’t get home last night until almost 1:00 a.m. from her clients’ wedding. Normally, I’d be fast asleep. But I was still tossing and turning over the Zoey fiasco, and heardMorgan kick off her heels at the door. And yet, this morning, she’s the one who grabbed us both coffee from Connie’s Coffee and started loading up items into the truck as I tore through the house looking for a missing shoe. Morgan is absolutely cool as a Christmas Holli-dazzle iced berry drink, but my insides are burning up. Today is such a big day, and I cannot screw this up.
“I will hate Frankie forever for not being here right now,” I say as the plastic tote clanks against my leg.
Morgan lifts a brow. “Be nice to your sister. She wanted to be here. You know her job…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Morgan is way more understanding than me. When Frankie got her dream job last year, Morgan was so supportive and loving, even knowing the amount of travel required for Frankie. Me, I just want my sister around me 24-7. Yes, I know I have co-dependency issues with her. But just because I recognize this, doesn’t mean that it magically dissipates. “I saw Frankie more when I was living in New York and she’d fly in for business than I do now.”
“She’s home almost seventy-five percent of the time,” Morgan says as she bumps her hip into the automatic door opener. “I think you’re the one who’s gone more than you think.”
I hate when she’s right. I hate when anyone besides me is right.
Inside the pavilion, I’m transported into a winter wonderland. Twinkling white lights hang from the ceilings, large sparkly snowflakes dangle from beams, vendors scurry around to set up long tables and displays of wreaths, ornaments, crafts, and hand-painted plates. Artificial Christmas trees—my competition but also necessary—lace the aisles, beaming with bright lights and bulb ornaments. It evensmellslike Christmas in here, a mixture of sweet pine, spicy cinnamon, and fresh baked goods. I suck in a full, deep, invigorating breath and savor the sensations.
Morgan tugs me over to a large poster taped on the wall. “Table 101 is yours. East corner, by the windows. It’s a good spot. You’ll get lots of traction.”
Have I mentioned how grateful I am that Morgan came with me today? Not only would heaving in this stuff solo be a major pain, but my nerves are eating my insides with all the people I need to charm. For years, Morgan’s done things like this—vendor events, networking, meeting with potential clients. Although I love tothinkof myself as the ultimate boss bitch, I’m not sure I am. Running someone else’s calendars and meetings is my sweet spot. But doing it for myself to build up my business? I don’t know.
Imposter syndrome runs rampant through my head. I have so many ideas of how I want to transform the farm into something special that brings back the Christmas spirit, but can I actually do it? What if people hate it, or don’t return the following year, and I’ve spent my life savings, the small inheritance my grandma gave me, and maxed out a business loan to create something that might not work?
“Right there.” Morgan lifts her chin to a long folding table nuzzled in between a homemade, soy-dipped Christmas candles display on the left and hand-painted ornaments on the right. Morgan and I move around each other, digging out items from the tote. We snap the white tablecloth in the air, smooth it against the table, then line the cloth with artificial, but realistic greenery, berries, and birch. In the middle, Morgan sets down a white birch stand, red candles, and a snowflake ornament, a centerpiece she made for a holiday party last year. I stuff business cards into display stands at both ends and lay out fliers announcing we will officially open for business the day after Thanksgiving, a few short months away from today.
A few short months. I swallow what feels like a prickly pinecone lodged in my throat. When I first stepped onto thetree farm property, I nearly fainted. It looked like a junkyard. Decades of broken-down equipment, machinery, hundreds of boxes of old Christmas decorations littered the property. I spent an entire month determining what I could salvage, what I needed to throw, and hired a crew to clean. I learned everything I could on irrigation, planting, creating healthy trees, business licenses, and taxes. The fire hose of information was endless, and I’m still learning every day.
Thankfully, by some Christmas miracle, the trees are healthy. But it’s all the other stuff that keeps me awake—like how to capture the joy-filled snowflake and hot chocolate magic for families where children will beg their parents for a second trip out to see Santa, and that families will chat about while opening presents.
We line up Christmas plates of cookies on each end of the table, behind the business cards, so people will have to reach over the cards to grab a cookie. That’s Morgan’s idea, and once again, she’s right. From the corner of my eye, I see Morgan eyeing the cookies. But unlike my sister, who would’ve dived in fist first without asking, Morgan’s waiting for an offer. I hold one out and take another for myself.
“So, Frankie said the meeting with Zoey didn’t go as great as we thought it would, huh?” Morgan asks, cracking a small piece off and popping it in her mouth. I don’t know where she gets her willpower. I’ll chomp on this thing like a sugar-starved toddler and reach for a second.
I pull out a folding chair from under the table and lower myself. My knuckles tighten. I crack them, then stretch out my fingers, trying to shake off the fact that I basically treated Zoey the same way my old boss would’ve treated me. I was so out of line, and for what? For something that’sblue? When did I become the type of raging asshole who yells at someone over acolor? The cookie I just scarfed down rumbles uncomfortably in my stomach, and I reach for my water.
“Yeah, I screwed that situation up sideways from here to Alaska.” I slump back in my chair. “I don’t know what is wrong with me. Like, she’s a freaking kitten, and I tore into her like she’s a pack leader.”
Morgan splits off another small piece of cookie and pops it into her mouth. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve gone through so much change this year and the PTSD from your last job…”
“PTSD?” I chuckle. I can’t tell if Morgan is joking or not, but she normally doesn’t say insensitive things. “That’s for soldiers or people who witness catastrophic events. Not someone who brought in six figures a year and only had to deal with a dickhead boss. I just need to get over it.”
A warm hand presses into my arm, and Morgan peers at me. She looks at me for so long without saying anything that the back of my neck starts to itch.
“There will always be people in the world who have it worse. Or better for that matter. Don’t discount what you went through. That’s not fair.” She drops her hand from my arm. “Frankie told me enough stories to make my head spin. Sure, you weren’t in combat or saw a grisly murder or something. But it doesn’t mean that all the time you spent with your former boss didn’t mess with you and rewire you a bit.”
My stomach is turning, but I take another bite of cookie, anyway. I don’t know…maybe reading a bit or journaling about my time there might help. All I know is, these last ten years, I’ve changed. The spunkiness, the hopefulness I felt as a child, even with our suboptimal parenting, shifted into massive bouts of irritability and anxiety when I started working in New York. It’s like the fire that once ran through me teeters between flickering out or inflaming, and neither one is good.
As much as I’d like to think I’m a special snowflake, I’m not. Isn’t this constant feeling—like you’ve stepped onto a lake you thought was frozen and feel it crack—just what happens when you become responsible for health insurance, rent, and contributing to a 401K? Sure, Frankie remained herself all these years, but Frankie lives out her dream of being a photographer every day. It’s not like my childhood dream was to be an executive assistant.
And yet, I feel it in the deepest part of myself, that I’m not the same person I once was. But…slowly, slivers of my old self push through the surface. After years of waking up in the middle of the night, terrified I forgot something, or that my legs wouldn’t run, or I was lost in a building, these last few months, I’ve gotten solid sleep. Might be the fresh air and physical labor, but it’s still sleep.
