Page 47 of Teach Me How
Technology is a beautiful thing.
And thank God for it. I’m behind enough as it is. Harvest is go-time on the farm, but unfortunately, my company is in the middle of a budget crisis. Too bad no one’s invented cloning technology yet because there isn’t enough of me to go around.
I spot Bo’s black pickup bouncing across the end rows and glance at the clock. Noon, already.
Killing the engine, I climb down from the behemoth tractor. Dust kicks up around my boots as I pick my way across the shorn rows.
Bo leans across his truck console and pushes his passenger door open. “I made you lunch, sweetheart.”
I climb into his truck and study the quinoa salad he shoves into my lap. “Andymade lunch.”
Bo tips his head. “Potatoes, po-tah-toes.”
I leave the salad untouched on my lap. “What’s her angle?”
“A balanced diet with organic, ancient grains or whatever this shit is.”
“I’ve known Andy Reed since I was four and she always has an angle.”
Bo cracks open the seal on a bottle of kombucha and takes a swig, winces. “Tastes like vomit.”
“What’s she want?”
He puts the bottle in the cupholder and pokes at his salad. “She’s got this friend…”
“Pass.”
He frowns at me. “And she lives in Clark…”
“Hard pass.”
“You’re just going to be a lifelong bachelor, then?”
I chuckle. “Sounds fucking fantastic.”
He shrugs, unaffected. “Well, I can say I tried.”
We sit in easy silence for a while. Bo and I have known each other since the beginning of time. He’s not just my cousin, he’s more like a brother. I glance at him. “I saw Uncle Don the last time I was in Denver.”
“Dad mentioned that.”
I shake my head. “No such thing as secrets amongst family members.” I take a bite of Andy’s salad. It’s not half bad. “No secrets in our family. Except that whole disowning thing. Did you know about that?”
He nods, watching a semi-truck pull a full load of grain down the gravel road.
“You knew?” I can’t keep the accusation out of my voice. “How come we never talked about it?”
He shrugs, avoiding eye contact. This is an uncomfortable topic for more than one reason. We all know that his dad ended up with the lion’s share of the farm. We just choose to overlook it.
If we took no other lesson from that court battle, the Thomases are now painfully aware of what a property dispute can do to a family.
We could be bitter about it or we could ignore it.
We choose to live with the elephant in the room. Studying Bo, this guy that I shared my youth with, I’m really fucking glad our parents managed to hold on to at least this relationship.
“Dad said you seemed hung up on the homosexuality thing.”
“Homosexuality thing?” I repeat the phrase, frowning at him.