Real Women Eat Beef

By Tracy McArdle

New and improved -- now with added goats!

Welcome to advertising executive Jill Campbell's life, version 2.0. Gone are the cheating ex-husband and the chaos of New York. Brand-new features include a prestigious job at a Boston ad agency, a stronger father-daughter relationship, and a gorgeous old farmhouse. It's bliss -- until a snazzy car account evaporates, leaving her branding...beef. Un-snazzy, un-sexy beef -- which she hasn't eaten in twenty years. Talk about false advertising. Owning a two-hundred-year-old house in a one-store hamlet is not the nirvana Jill imagined, even with the addition of a dog, two needy goats, and unexpected encounters with the town's most eligible -- and probably only -- bachelor.

Peace of mind sold separately.

Wondering how she sold herself on this new existence, Jill forms an unlikely bond with Sarah Watson, a feisty twelve-year-old with an aversion to training bras, makeup, and all the trappings that supposedly make sixth grade worthwhile. While Sarah teaches Jill the basics of home maintenance and animal husbandry, Jill helps Sarah deal with impending womanhood. And as men start to complicate matters, every idea Jill ever had about love and advertising gets turned on its head. Suddenly, her life looks nothing like the picture on the box, but it could turn out to be exactly what she didn't know she needed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Release date: Jan 9, 2007
• ISBN: 9781416531364

Tracy McArdle

Tracy McArdle works in marketing and is also the author of Confessions of a Nervous Shiksa, available from Downtown Press. She graduated from Fordham University and the Sorbonne in Paris, and spent twelve years working in the entertainment industry in New York and Los Angeles before moving home to New England in 2003. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe and Premiere magazine. She lives with her husband, two horses, a dog, and her cat, Little, in Carlisle, Massachusetts, the home of Fern's Country Store. For more about Tracy, check out www.tracymcardle.net.

Book preview

Chapter One

Circle Back

If happiness struck, suddenly and uninvited, would you recognize it? Would you scare it off with cynicism and denial, or let it tag along like an old friend, confident in its rightness? You’d be surprised how many people fuck it up. You can miss it just by hating traffic or obsessing over stupid people at work. Like an honest lover you’ve repeatedly failed, eventually it wanders off, seeking validation somewhere else.

Jill Campbell. As Jill scribbled her new, old name for the billionth time, sealing the last of her divorce vows, she wondered if she and Ben had ever been happy. She must have thought they were, at some point—on their wedding day, certainly, but that was so long ago and such a blur she couldn’t remember feeling anything except anxiety over how bad the DJ was when he slipped into Kool & the Gang’s Celebration. Finally they realized he had the wrong playlist, and Jill had laughed about it, eventually. They had laughed a lot in the beginning. So much had happened since then. New York social life. Jobs. Age had happened, had snuck up on them and planted differences between them, forcing their common paths to widen slowly apart like separating subway tracks. We are different people now, she thought, remembering how young they were, how free, how…self-absorbed. It was okay back then, to be self-absorbed. People expected it when you were twenty-something and ambitious, with a lot to prove.

They had grown apart. There was that, and there was the fact that Ben had successfully seduced a twenty-five-year-old account executive on the Best Deodorant account after a lovely afternoon of harmless canoeing. He was sorry, but now he suddenly wanted children. Maybe that’s what happens after you sleep with one, Jill thought bitterly.

Miz Campbell—er, Jillian? Ben’s attorney, a rigid, menopausal red-haired creature named Eleanor, had caught her drifting off. She had black eyes and a beak for a nose, although something about her was more reptilian than fowl.

It’s Jill, Jill insisted again, clearing her throat and pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a habit built by years of stress and fatigue and worrying about other women. Today she was changing everything—her marital status, city, job, and goddamn it, a name that never felt right. Jillian Campbell-Marks was now Jill Campbell again, at last. Lew Donaldson, Jill’s round, kind, and wrinkly lawyer, was gnawing the end of a plastic Paper Mate pen, willing her to complete the process without emotional complications. He’d taken too many divorces this far and then not reached the finish when the weepy wife wouldn’t go through with it. But Jill noticed it was Ben who was sniffling, not her. She smiled discreetly at Lew—this had been Hell Week for him—divorce papers, a new contract with a new agency and getting out of the old one, signed all in the same day—and she was grateful.

Sorry, just rereading, Jill lied to Eleanor, continuing to sign. Jill Campbell, Jill Campbell, Jill Campbell. Her name felt half-dressed without its old hyphenated-Marks at the end, but she liked writing it, like a teenage girl who practices writing her name coupled with the last name of the boy she has a crush on. And the more she wrote it the better she felt. He gets the apartment and the agency job and the fish; I get the cool new job and new life and my old city, she thought to herself, staring neutrally at her ex-husband, this mediocre slab of a man who had yanked the proverbial rug from under her comfortable, expensively pedicured feet. At least her own money had bought the pedicures. She shivered at the thought of a careerless woman suffering the humiliation of an affair and divorce. How hideous to endure the shame of being not only unwanted but also useless—nowhere to apply yourself every day but the yoga studio. Her career may not have taken the path she’d wanted, not exactly anyway, but it was a solid foundation of security upon which she could now rebuild her life.

Let him have the twenty-five-year-old canoe paddler. Named Kale, for God’s sake. I mean, honestly, who names their child after greens? Let Kale keep up with his moods, his primatelike body hair, his manic exercising, and his obsession with the Yankees’ shortstop and the latest consumer segments for upscale deodorant. Let them paddle off into the sunset of the Harlem River. Hell, Jill would buy them two oars for Christmas, from L.L. Bean, to show there were really no hard feelings. There were no feelings at all, in fact. She was just fine, thank you. There had been that one brief display of childish behavior when Jill took a cab to Hoboken at midnight and smeared Kale’s Honda, hood to trunk, with Best Solid Stick in Woodsy Pine scent. Jill still hadn’t admitted to anyone how shockingly fulfilling that had felt.

Ben shifted in the fat leather chair, clearly uncomfortable. He hadn’t shaved and looked as though he hadn’t slept. Jill noticed his familiar left eye tic—a clear sign he was stressed—and stared at his pink tie, the one they’d picked out together before the Best Deodrant pitch two years ago—was he wearing it on purpose? He was still handsome, thick brown hair, hazel eyes, sharp nose, solid rugby build, but clearly older. Six years, and Jill would probably never see him with his shirt off ever again. Maybe she would meet a man who wasn’t so hairy, she thought selfishly, and then Eleanor put a hand on Ben’s back protectively, as if sensing her shallow thoughts. Jill must have snorted mildly, for Eleanor suddenly made a big gesture of wiping off her jacket cuff and staring into Jill’s forehead. A communications major and creative advertising executive who’d spent the last ten years studying consumer psychographic profiles and sitting through hundreds of focus groups, Jill knew this meant Eleanor didn’t have the guts to look her in the eye. She quickly and silently hoped all childless women didn’t turn out like Eleanor. Then again, Eleanor was probably very rich. And it was likely the only underwear she ever had to pick up off the floor was her own.

No wedding finger on that claw, Jill noticed, staring at Eleanor’s fingers. How could women attorneys represent men in divorces? Jill wondered what percentage of divorces was the man’s fault. How many twenty-five-year-old account managers were there in those stats?

If Ben’s lawyer looked like an aging, irritable dragon, well, Lew looked like W. C. Fields as a fattened, friendly groundhog. Short, round, scrubby, and sincere. He was an old friend of Jill’s grandfather, and she knew anyone trying to take advantage of her in a negotiation didn’t stand a chance.

When do you leave? Ben suddenly asked in his honest, gentle voice. Damn him. He knew that voice disarmed her. Like the sound of soft gravel under slow tires. She was not going to weaken. She wanted this. It was a good thing. She didn’t need him. He was now part of her past, the fucking asshole. Onward.

Two-thirty shuttle, Jill answered neutrally, tucking a lock of caramel blond hair behind her ear, newly outfitted with diamond earrings that had been purchased with the haul from selling her wedding rings. The earrings were spectacular, Jill knew, imagining how they were catching the light in this glum office as she looked Ben directly in the eye. Oldest trick in the book, she thought, as he glanced quickly away, unprepared for the naked gesture.

She liked having an appointment or a plane to catch at two-thirty. It was the longest, most empty time of the day if you were suffering. Not morning, not evening, not even the promise of evening…the day’s ugly midsection, its midlife crisis, she’d always thought, and run from it. An existential promise of doom, daily, if you didn’t plan ahead. Meetings, manicures, conference calls, or matinees. You had to kill two-thirty every damn day, before it killed you.

Boston’s cold now, Ben tried, and Lew began busily packing up Jill’s papers. Eleanor mimed him, shuffling Ben’s folders and checking her watch. Dress warm…, Ben added awkwardly, studying the carpet.

Warmly, she corrected out of habit. He smiled. Duh, Jill said, ceding the moment, choosing to pity instead of need him. He sighed with relief and then gushed, Jills…When you feel ready, I, I’d like to…keep in touch. If it’s not—too weird. His eyes were gaping holes of confusion. Men always realize things late. As in months or years late. Time, Jill suddenly realized with a shrieking clarity, is different for them, like it is for animals. Still, it took courage to say that, she thought.

Jill wondered briefly if Ben had the happy drugs. Zoloft, Prozac, even Xanax…throughout the last six months her therapist had practically begged her to take them all, but she’d insisted on quitting her job, marriage, and city without the help of Big Pharma. The divorce papers and exit contracts had been initiated months ago and survived endless negotiations. The last few months in the Upper East Side studio had been strangely soothing; she’d busied herself with headhunter conference calls and the real estate section of the Boston Globe. Consulting for Shine had been a joke. She’d drafted a couple designs, written a few brand positioning briefs, and used the rest of the time to milk every contact she had (there were hundreds of them) for Boston agency leads. Today was D-day, signing every aspect of her life into the past in one afternoon.

Like skydiving, she thought, there was really no point in doing it halfway. Dr. Springer had been right—boy had it sucked. Especially at two-thirty. She couldn’t remember feeling so empty, hollow, or helpless since the death of her mother thirty years ago. She hated pretending to be in control, hated pretending to hate him when what she’d wanted all along was to be understood. Now so much had happened she almost didn’t care. Hate was big enough to keep the other emotions out of the way.

Almost. She’d been trying to see the glory in starting over. With a new beginning, perhaps she could become the person she’d always meant to be. She didn’t like considering the possibility that the person she’d become—coolly successful, guarded, lonely—was as good as she was ever going to get.

When you’re ready, Ben repeated, looking up. I mean it. I want you to be happy. This time he met Jill’s eyes, and she found it convenient to look deeply into her paperwork. You deserve to be happy…

Is that what you were thinking when you seduced my account manager, Ben? she finally snapped, slipping her tall but slender frame into her new cashmere coat, rising from the chair, and capping her new Cross Lady’s pen with feminine significance. Eleanor and Lew exchanged miserable glances, as if to say, Uh-oh, we were almost there, too. Jill capped her pen again for effect. Snip.

Friends? Really, Ben. Jill said this last part softly, for drama. Katharine Hepburn, her personal style heroine, could have pulled it off. But for the vulnerable, angry Jill Campbell the words hung there, embarrassed for everyone in the room. Lew harnessed the moment with customary grace. Jill, you don’t want to miss that shuttle, he chided like a parent, jostling the heavy chairs and squeezing through the opening between the door and massive mahogany table. The real estate broker’s picking you up at Logan. Lew took her arm, nearly cutting off her circulation with his protective grip. Unaccustomed to physical contact of any kind, much less a man’s tenderness, she nearly collapsed before reaching the door.

Good luck at Wiseman/Connor. And with the house, Ben called as Lew shuffled Jill out the door and toward her new life. She turned to look at her fresh ex-husband, determined to remember him—and the marriage—with this memory: standing with his ugly lawyer in this office of endings, and not a happy scene from six years of photos from a time when they were going to conquer the world together.

You know how to get a hold of me, Ben said, trying to smile, a wave of hope curling weakly over his handsome features, but Jill was halfway down the hall before the attempt reached the corners of his lying mouth.

Don’t forget to feed your fish, she called back, forcing a smile and ignoring the tears that were stinging her eyes like invisible jellyfish. The car was waiting. Must make that two-thirty shuttle.

Chapter Two

Adding Bells

and Whistles

You must be Jill! the heavily accented voice exploded, invading Jill’s personal space, and she waded through the waiting limo and shuttle drivers jockeying for position in baggage claim. That’s me, Jill called warmly, eager to make her first friend in her old home. You must be Carol, from Coldwell Banker…"

No bags? Carol chirped. Her expression was cheerful, Jill noticed. She was a small, delicately painted, late fifty-ish woman whose hands, Jill noticed, fluttered constantly, like a hummingbird. Her shoes were black patent leather boots with thick heels.

Never, said Jill, pointing to her shoulder bag. After I lost a vintage Gucci cocktail dress on the way to Singapore, I learned never to check.

Carol looked briefly confused. Oh. Well, that’s an expensive lesson! she concluded. You sure do travel light for someone who’s just relocated. There was an awkward moment, so Jill explained, Everything’s in storage, except for the few things I shipped to my father’s house in Cambridge.

That makes things easier I guess, Carol replied with the sharp twang of suburban Boston, dropping the r and shortening the vowels. She led the way with a busy stride toward the exit doors, a giant steel mouth that led to the frigid bowels of downtown Boston. Jill followed her like an eager puppy. So far so good. Job: gone. Husband: gone. New York City: gone. 3:46 P.M: the day, for the most part, endured. As her feet hit the pavement and her face collided with the windchill outside Logan, Jill breathed deeply, smelling water, traffic, and sharp, pungent cold. It was a sensation different from when you stepped outside JFK or La Guardia—there you smelled energy: capital, raw ambition, and the faint whiff of possibly missing something fabulous. Jill immediately sensed it was still slower here, still smaller, and she was glad. She hadn’t lived in New England since she was a teenager. God, it had been twenty years. The time had passed in one giant lifetime, or sometimes, it seemed, not at all. She was still the same Jill Campbell—especially now. She was Jill Campbell again. At least if she saw anyone from high school she’d probably be the thinner and more successful one. Years of professional office-politics climbing, Manhattan yoga, and no children had been kind to her figure. The occasional Botox indulgence and connections to the fashion industry (Saks Fifth Avenue had been a client, along with Ralph Lauren) hadn’t hurt either.

Carol led them to a Volvo station wagon in the parking garage, her heels smacking to a stop on the pavement. The car was coated with the grime of a Boston January—dirt, salt, frozen mud, a bit of frost. Your father owns that famous restaurant in Cambridge, right? she asked with a familiarity that felt slightly invasive.

Ellen’s, Jill confirmed, slipping into the leather seat and adjusting the seat belt. Another breath. It felt odd to be saying her mother’s name to a stranger. She hadn’t been home in so long. And it was weird, but she hadn’t really missed it until now. New York, she suddenly realized, had vacuumed up her twenties and half of her thirties, exhausting her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. Carol pulled onto the expressway and filled each silence with a burst of fresh New England real estate agent chatter. Holton is one of the oldest towns in Massachusetts, and this is a historical home—you’re going to love it!

Jill wondered how many times the nervous, birdlike woman had said these words. She’d done her homework and knew that the property had been on the market for nearly a year. She also knew her own eager anticipation was her worst enemy in any negotiation—and the adversary’s strongest weapon—so she tried to play it cool. She had no poker face, however; she never had. She couldn’t lie; she was simply incapable. That little trait had gotten her promoted, dumped, fired, or laid more than once in her life. She turned her blue-gray eyes away from Carol.

Certainly a change from the pace of Manhattan, but then, that’s why most people come to Holton in the first place, you know, Carol said, smiling knowingly.

Mmm, I bet, Jill agreed politely, willing herself to keep her cards close to her chest. She already knew she wanted the property, just from the online photos. It was a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse on five acres in a rural town twenty-five miles from the city. The commute would be hell, she knew, but the house had a southern exposure and a farmer’s porch. A giant oak and an old swing. Plenty of room for a garden and a big old barn that was just waiting to be filled up with—something. Maybe Jill would start collecting and refinishing antique furniture. Maybe she’d start canning her own vegetables, making jam, or building birdhouses. Maybe she’d rent the space to a neighbor and together they’d start their own flower business. Right. Do those things that women profiled in Oprah’s magazine or the Home pages of the Sunday Times do. Or maybe she’d just go up in the hayloft by herself on rainy days with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and think about ways to sell a hip Swedish convertible—her first account at Wiseman/Connor—to unsuspecting twenty-somethings with disposable income.

The two things she’d extracted from her old agency, before leaving in the disgraceful wake of her husband’s office bonking, were a phone call to the president of Wiseman/Connor, the second best agency in Boston, and her bonus. Both would come in handy for a return to New England and the purchase of an actual house.

And the schools, as you probably know, are top-notch! Rated number two in Massachusetts…, Carol said helpfully. There it was, like a stick in the eye on a pleasant walk in the woods, or an unexpected pothole in the middle of a Fifth Avenue sidewalk—and it had come even sooner than Jill had expected. Jill wasn’t interested in Holton for the schools. She was interested in it because it was as far away from Jillian Campbell-Marks as she was willing to get while still holding a job that could keep her comfortable in the manner to which she’d become accustomed. It was closer to Dad and Grandpa, to her best friend Candy and closer—more than geographically—to Jill Campbell, the person she left behind years ago.

The property represented the thing Jill knew she needed most right now—space. Space to think, to be still. Space to forget. Space to move—forward, hopefully. The minute she saw the website she’d thought of Grandpa’s farm in New Hampshire, where she spent every summer from age five to fifteen. For ten years she’d been the ultimate tomboy, resisting womanhood, while her father was content to focus on his restaurant and send his motherless child away each June. Grandpa had been fine then. No falling, forgetting, or fading. For years he was her closest friend every summer, and it seemed he would never grow old, or at least, old in the way really old people were—helpless. Then there’d been boarding school, boys, summer jobs at the restaurant, internships, college…and she’d never looked back. The visits home grew further apart as the marital years and the promotions went by. But she remembered distinctly the sense of serenity a piece of land could bring. She’d lain in the pastures on her grandfather’s farm, languished in the apple trees, cooled her young limbs in the brook, and come to understand there was something there that no downtown restaurant or urban boutique could ever match.

I, um, don’t have children, Jill said as politely as she could. She had to control her tone. She found most people bored her almost instantly; she had little patience for small talk, and this, combined with her deadly aim for the truth made her difficult. Especially with women who were supported by men and who assumed you wanted, more than anything, a horde of screaming, messy ingrates hanging on you and vacuuming up your hard-earned income for twenty years while you grew fat, exhausted, and uninteresting.

Oh, well, maybe someday then! Carol blushed, keeping cheerful, and Jill fought every urge to hiss Never. Instead she smiled empathetically and decided to let this Carol read what she wanted in her face. Jill had that smile down, the I-know-you-

pity-me-but-believe-it-or-not-I’m-quite-happy-the-

way-I-am smile.

As Carol sped down the Mass. Pike past malls, train stations, steak houses, and parking lots, Jill thought of her own childhood and the New Hampshire farm—its fences, its rich soil, and its enveloping warmth on summer afternoons, and she felt tired. She was tired from the cerebral cortex out, in a restless, needless way, from pointless love and a tense marriage, from the battle of its demise, from working so hard for so long, from the demands of New York and aging without the marriage and family that everyone else seemed to have. She was quietly aching to lose herself in a smaller town, in a smaller job, a smaller life. She was ready.

It seems a lot farther than it really is, especially with traffic, Carol apologized, scattering Jill’s thoughts. Jill wondered vaguely why there was already traffic at four in the afternoon. At Shine, people were just breaking for lunch, she thought. Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket and she glanced at the screen. CANDY.

Hi there…, she said, keeping the phone at a slight distance, knowing her rowdy friend would probably break her eardrum if she didn’t. Candy was alive in a way Jill hadn’t been for years.

"Are you hea-uh, Mizz Campbell? D’ya have cultcha shock yet? Didja buy a CAH?" Brash, beautiful, boisterous Candy, Jill’s best friend since age ten. The beloved news anchor at WBST-TV 12 in Boston, after years of toiling in the field covering hurricanes, Capitol Hill sessions, and the occasional lost dog, Candy was a rugged, take-no-prisoners Boston beauty who could sail, golf, shovel a driveway, or polish off a four-pound lobster better than most men, with her bare hands. A graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism (where she’d roomed with Jill while she pursued an MBA), Candy was professionally known as Candace Cooper, and only Jill was privy to a variety of shocking tidbits her adoring public would never guess about their favorite New England news gal. This always amused Jill, and she loved to tease Candy about outing her to her doting fans about a spring break escapade involving psychedelic mushrooms in Jamaica, or one of Candy’s summer indiscretions featuring her grandfather’s farmhands and a bottle of tequila, or Candy’s modest beginnings as a big-haired consumer advocate reporter in Spokane before climbing up the market list to Boston. Jill felt a certain sacred privilege with Candy, sometimes calling her after watching her 6 P.M. newscast when she was in town and asking for the real dirt on a story.

Candy would explode with reckless laughter. Who cares—I just want to go home and have sex in our new tub! Scott finally caved—we got the seven-foot one! Jill would laugh, imagining her confident, sometimes coarse friend writhing to her own rhythm with her perfect husband in their Belmont Tudor, their impossibly angelic pair of children sleeping down the hall. That was where they parted souls—Candy had two children and loved them, slaved for them, would die for them. Jill could grasp the concept about as well as living without shoes.

Earth to Campbell, are you getting the Beantown frequency?

Yes, I’m here, Can, said Jill, laughing, mouthing excuse me to Carol, who nodded forgivingly. I’m on my way to Holton to see the house…

Candy drew a breath. I’m not telling you what to do, BUT. You know what they say about buying the first house you see, she warned in her newscaster voice.

Is it the same thing they say about marrying the first guy who asks? Jill replied gamely as Carol focused on the road, pretending not to listen.

Look, just be careful, there’s no rush to buy, Candy continued. If things get weird at your dad’s you can stay with me and Scott. Jill heard the buzz of the newsroom in the background, clacking keyboards and tense music, the sound of multiple televisions.

Thanks, Jill breathed gratefully, but I don’t need to feel any more like a pathetic divorceé than I already do.

Candy snorted. Don’t be so Kate-Hepburn-snotty, Jills. Come on, you’re family. We have plenty of room, and I know how you are about Bridget… Jill stiffened at the sound of her father’s girlfriend’s name.

Well, how would you feel if your father was dating a part-time hand model who was your age?! Jill snipped defensively and Carol shot her a concerned look. I’m sorry, excuse me, she whispered, turning her face toward the car window.

I think you have to be a little more forgiving, Evil Step-daughter, Candy clucked. Doesn’t she manage one of your father’s restaurants?

"Hostess. She hostesses. Is that a verb? It’s what she does. Anyway I can’t talk now, Can. You guys are coming tonight, right?"

Candy exploded, nearly causing Jill to drop the phone. "Coming? I’m frigging cooking! You know it’s a very special occasion if your father’s letting me prepare food in his house. Plus, we got you a divorce present."

Great, Jill muttered, imagining a multicolored, rabbit-shaped sex toy or some equally offensive token of Candy and Scott’s affection. I’ll see you at seven. Love you.

Love you back. Hey, Jills— Candy added tentatively.

What?

Are you…okay? Candy’s voice was real, true, and it demanded honesty in return. It always had. Right now it weakened Jill’s grip on her feelings. Carol was slowing for an exit and Jill looked up to see a sign for HOLTON, RTE. 204. Sure, she told her friend. See you tonight.

Poor Carol was halfway through her tour when Jill couldn’t stand it any longer. She hated pretending, she hated faking it, she loathed the idea of wasting any more time doing the wrong thing or being in the wrong place than she already had in this life, and besides, she was a busy woman. She had always been superefficient—at work, in school, around the house for her father. She’d had to be woman and girl for the house, and the restaurant, for her father after her mother died. Idleness and indecision were habits Jillian Campbell-Marks was unfamiliar with. Carol was sweet, but Jill felt as though her own head might implode if Carol said another thing about the house, the town, the schools, the soccer fields, the local PTA, the Girl Scouts….

I’ll take it. Today if possible, for the price we discussed, Jill announced. She was leaning against a cobweb-filled stall in the barn. Carol had been apologizing for the tools and farm equipment someone had left behind. The barn was full of mysterious stuff—weird tools, an old wheelbarrow, pitchforks and shovels from the dark ages, a moldy leather outfit for some sort of animal, abandoned bicycle wheels, a rusty sprinkler, a seat from a tractor. Endless columns of stacked plastic buckets. It was life’s chaos, but someone else’s life, a different kind of life, and Jill wanted to inherit all of it and make sense of it. Sorting through someone else’s refuse was a project that would keep her busy—and hopefully bring her home at a decent hour—every night. And it beat the hell out of sorting through her own refuse. She couldn’t wait to wear her new diamond earrings while cleaning out her new barn. By herself.

But…you haven’t seen everything…, Carol protested, stunned still in her tracks.

Jill glanced upward into the hayloft, a dark, musty cave of possibility. It’s okay, she replied quietly but confidently. I’m sure about it. I’m not interested in negotiating, if you don’t mind, she added as politely as she could. How was her tone? She couldn’t tell, but she guessed that her idea of pleasant was probably the rudest tenor anyone had ever used with poor Carol. My offer is final and good for twenty-four hours. I hope you can work with that? Jill brushed a cobweb off her coat and smiled an advertising smile—shiny, insincere, wide but brief. Outside the sun was dipping into late afternoon and a chill was building.

Carol battled confusion and excitement, but finally managed to smile back. Well, that is unusual but…I think it’s reasonable. Jill stepped outside the barn and took in the view. Crusty snow coated most of the property, but she could see the gentle slope of the fenced paddock area, the angle of the winter sunlight through the oak’s scratchy limbs as it filtered its way onto the porch, which was badly in need of a paint job. The house was a huge old farmhouse, classic country yellow with green shutters. It had a variety of rambunctious add-ons that evolved into a typical New England L shape. A back porch, a mudroom, and a long shed connected the house to the barn.

Jill liked the driveway most of all. Straight and long, it eased you up onto the land, welcoming you quietly. As you crested over the hill the house and the barn came slowly into view. The barn peeked out from a clump of trees just behind the house and off to the right. You couldn’t see the extent of the house at first—from the front, it was a modest square shape. But it seemed to grow larger