Page 105 of The Last Second Chance
“I don’t really know,” Joey said in exasperation. “Something small and easy to take care of. Something that we can rip out if we don’t like how it grows.”
“Like radishes?” Franklin offered.
“Sure,” Joey shrugged. “Radishes. If I don’t like how they look or if they try to take over everything, I can just rip ‘em out.”
Phoebe and Jax were frowning now. Franklin cleared his throat.
“Gardening, on whatever scale, seems to agree with you both,” he commented. “And you work well together.”
“Working well together and enjoying gardening doesn’t necessarily make a good…harvest,” Joey said, biting into a breadstick.
“There aren’t any guarantees,” Franklin agreed.
“A garden is just like anything else,” Jax said. “You get what you put into it. So if you half-ass your gardening efforts and don’t weed and don’t use the right fertilizer, you’re guaranteeing yourself a crappy crop.”
“Well, maybe I’m not looking for a whole harvest. Maybe I just want some damn cherry tomatoes.”
“You can grow cherry tomatoes in a pot on your deck. Just go out and pick one up and bring it home with you.”
“If you’re insinuating that I am not picky about the produce that comes home with me, then you are dead wrong!” Joey said, tossing her breadstick on her plate. “I’ve been poisoned before by produce that I thought was good for me. You can’t expect me to just commit to a garden when I’ve had food poisoning.”
Jax crumpled his napkin and threw it down on the table. He looked like he wanted to yell for a second before the urge dissipated. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re right to be cautious about what produce you allow in your garden. Maybe by the end of the growing season, you’ll be willing to trust that this produce is good for you.”
Joey wasn’t about to agree to that one. It would be cruel to give hope where she wasn’t sure there was any.
“I uh…Franklin?” Phoebe cleared her throat and looked at Franklin for help.
“I think what Phoebe means is we didn’t mean to pry into your gardening habits. We only wanted you both to know that we think it’s great that you’re gardening together at whatever scale you’re comfortable. Whether you’re potting plants or growing an acre of potatoes, you both seem happy.”
Joey stared at her plate and felt guilty. Things weren’t as settled as she hoped they were.
“So you guys are dating, huh?” Evan said, reaching for another helping.
“You got all that from gardening?” Joey asked.
“Girls make everything so much more difficult than they need to be,” Evan sighed.
“Amen to that brother,” Jax mumbled.
“It sounds like you have experience in matters of the heart,” Franklin prompted his grandson.
Evan shrugged. “Girls are okay. But some of them just drive you nuts. Take Oceana for example.”
Joey smirked into her water glass. Oceana was in Evan’s grade at school. The girl had an IQ bigger than most forty-year-olds and the face of a future heartbreaker. She lived on a sheep farm on the other side of town and her hobbies included meditation and the manufacturing of soy candles.
“What about Oceana?” Jax, the proud uncle, was all ears.
“Well, we’re kind of seeing each other and I noticed she’d moved some things into my locker, which was fine with me. But when I said that she could move all her stuff into my locker she got all weird and moved all her stuff out.”
“Maybe she needed space and she wants you to leave her alone,” Joey suggested a little more defensively than she meant to.
“Maybe she just thinks she needs space and what she really needs is a good push in the right direction,” Jax suggested stubbornly.
“Maybe Evan has a better solution,” Phoebe suggested.
Evan shrugged. “I did what any normal human being would do. I laid out all the benefits to sharing a locker like we would be able to see each other more between classes and I explained to her that that’s the direction I’d like to see us move in and if she’s not ready for such a commitment I’d understand and we could still be friends. She’s not the only Oceana in the sea and if we weren’t meant to be, we weren’t meant to be.”
“So what did she do?” Jax asked with rapt attention.
