Page 11 of Butter You Up
The family crowds in, Gran pouring tea for us, the twins—Colleen and Sam—talking to each other, Lia opening her laptop to crunch numbers.
Finally, she looks up, and my brother rushes to her side. A twitch of envy hits me, seeing how much he wants to be near her, how he hangs onto her every word and looks at her like she hung the moon.
My eyes shift to Molly and she’s staring right at me. I fix my face so I don’t look sappy by frowning.
“Today was incredible, Ethan. We made so much more revenue than we hoped.”
Ethan sags in relief, and the rest of us get closer, eager for details.
But Lia doesn’t look as happy as I would expect. “We always knew it wasn’t going to be enough, though. You’re still in a really precarious place.”
I frown. Of course, I didn’t think strawberries were gonna fix everything, but it’s an entire season of sales, and it should only improve as the different varieties fill in and word spreads about the farm. But I bite my tongue. Lia knows all this, and so does Ethan. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “Foreclosure, still?”
She shakes her head. “Not imminently, no. Today was a very, very good season opener. The grant money paired with the harvest revenue should more than cover your back payments and start to chip away at the interest a bit. But, you all knew the principle was extremely high…”
Ethan nods. “We knew. But I thought this would be enough going forward. The strawberries and having all the vendors here this spring…”
I can almost see my brother thinking, “What would Grandad do?” But then he seems to toss the thought away, focusing on Lia instead.
He pulls her close and presses his lips to her forehead. My brother relaxes against the love of his life.
Lia continues. “We need to regroup. Maybe restructure the business. There isn’t enough space here to do what we need.”
Ethan nods. Gran sighs. Samuel kicks a table. What would I do if I were in Ethan’s shoes? Well, that’s an exercise in futility, because I’m not in his shoes, nor will I ever be.
Grandad saw to that.
“Let’s all plan to meet again and discuss some options. We’ve got another week of peak strawberry madness, and then we can debrief.”
Gran and Colleen get to their feet, so I take my cue to go. But when I turn, I nearly knock into Molly.
“Hey.” She gives me a bright smile. “Since you’re here, wanna see Vaniel?”
“Vaniel?” Okay, I can guess who Vaniel is—who names their vehicle?—but I don’t want to seem too excited to see her van. That would be too weird, right?
“My van. Come on, I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER6
MOLLY
Alex hasto duck his head to get into my van, even with his boots off. Being made in miniature sure has its advantages—I’m certain Alex wouldn’t fit in my bed.
Not that I’m going to test that theory out, mind you.
I point behind him. “The front seats are storage areas when I’m parked. Then over here,” I continue, waving my arms, “is my kitchen-slash-bathroom-slash-pantry-slash-closet.” Alex does a full turn to face Vaniel’s back end. His eyes roam over everything: the white cabinets that I love, the gray subway tiles, the propane stove. That last one I’m really thankful for right now. If I’d gone electric, I wouldn’t be able to cook with my batteries on the decline. It is a pain to deal with propane, though. I have to ventilate it properly and the tank I store is really small, so I have to refill frequently.
Alex looks at me, one eyebrow raised. “Bathroom?”
I grin and grasp the handle of the deep bottom drawer on Vaniel’s right side. I pull it out and showcase the composting toilet with a wave of jazz hands.
“It’s clean, I promise. Ethel’s letting me use the bathroom in the pole barn.”
Alex crouches down. “How does this work?”
Huh. Most non-vanlifers I meet have zero interest in learning about my bathroom, if they’re not flat-out grossed out by it.
I lift the lid to show him how liquid and solid waste separates and then show him the clean bucket with the actuator, which turns the compost. I pull out my composting bags for the solid decomposed waste and explain that the liquid waste goes into a toilet at the next convenient location—or into the soil if I’m out in nature.
