Page 7 of Butter You Up
“Sell them, I think? This is a farm stand, right? Or eat them?”
“Hm,” is all he says.
“And, uh, the job?”
“Yes.” Alex ducks down, shuffling under the counter, and pulls out some papers. “The job is managing this farm stand. You have to be good with customers, our point of sales system, and basic arithmetic.”
“Check, check, and check.” I grin at him.
“Do you have a resume?” he asks again.
This time, I pull it out of my backpack, and he reads it over before asking me a few very brief yes or no questions. Then he asks, “Have you ever worked on a farm before?”
“Not a real one.”
Alex stares at me for a moment. “What do you mean ‘a real one’?” His eyebrow moves a hair north, which I take as a sign that he’s intrigued.
“I play Stardew Valley. Have you heard of it?”
He blinks.
“It’s this retro computer game where you inherit a farm, grow crops, raise animals, and basically dominate the small town until you amass enormous wealth. You can raise cows, goats, sheep, and pigs, but you’ve got to feed, pet, and milk them every day.”
“You milk…digital cows?” The eyebrow has crept up farther, which fills me with a perverse sense of excitement.
“Yeah, I mean, just like real life, they have to be milked, or they get angry.”
“Angry,” he echoes. It doesn’t sound like a question.
“Yeah, they get these little angry clouds over their heads. So I could be a Stardew Valley farmer for real here, with the cows, I guess. You don’t have any sheep, goats, or pigs, do you? Oh wait, I’ve already met Baabara, so I’ve got the sheep covered.”
“We have goats,” he corrects me. “You realize you won’t actually be milking any cows, right?”
“Don’t take away my dreams,” I joke. I have never once dreamed about milking cows, vastly preferring to take care of virtual ones.
Alex’s eyebrow goes down. Ah, well.
He gives me a brief tutorial on the POS system, which isn’t one I’ve used before, but they all typically translate pretty well. I ring him up on a fake order and show off my chops by trying to upsell him butter and cheese.
“We don’t sell butter and cheese,” he grumbles.
Looking around, it’s pretty slim pickings. There’s milk—the bright colored labels differentiating between types like whole and skim—eggs, and some farm merch, like sweatshirts and T-shirts.
“Who are your customers?” I ask.
“We run a CSA program that covers the region from Poughkeepsie to Albany. We do some bulk orders for local restaurants and shops, and we have a few city folks who pass by on their drives upstate and stop in to buy local products. A bit of local traffic. Some homesteaders that haven’t made the jump to large animals yet. But most of our milk goes to a dairy cooperative.”
I hum, and Alex asks if I have any other questions.
No, no, I don’t. It’s not exactly the bustling gift shop, small bookstore, or artsy stationery store that I’ve worked for in the past—all of which were seasonal tourist-dependent jobs—but they need someone. I need a job, and Ethel seems pretty set on me working here.
“I’ll call you,” Alex says without a smile, offering me his hand for a shake. “Pleasure meeting you.”
I respond with my own niceties and turn to walk out. Just before I get out the door, I pause and glance back over my shoulder. Alex’s eyes quickly dart up from a part of my anatomy decidedly lower than my head, and I swear for a minute his cheeks pinken. I think he was just checking out my ass. I tamp down inappropriate belly flutters for my boss. “Can I say hi to your puppy?”
He looks at his dog. “Trixie, say hello.”
Trixie gets up off the floor, tail wagging the dog at fifty miles per hour, but she keeps a respectful distance and then sits. She offers a paw like a prim and proper lady, despite the floor behind her ass getting a good sweeping. “Hello, Trixie.” I say, shaking her hand and glancing back at Alex.
