The Bucolic Plague

  But maybe there was good reason for the negativity. This was, essentially, a work party. Members of Martha’s board of directors were here, along with editors, stylists, writers, and photographers. It wasn’t very much different than a company-wide meeting. And, if the financial media could be believed, things could be much better company-wide. Brent had come home lately complaining about budget cutbacks and restructuring. Other than a brief revitalization immediately after Martha’s release from prison three years ago, the company had been stuck in a seemingly irreversible slump. And if work was a drag for these people, then it stood to reason that a work party would be a drag. And not in the good drag way.

  While Brent was talking to a clump of other disaffected MSLO employees, I took the chance to explore a little. The early summer evening was too beautiful to stand around discussing stock prices and ad revenues. Martha’s farm, which she had named Katonah after the town’s Native American name, was once nothing more than a run-of-the-mill rural homestead that had the good fortune to be located within commuter distance to New York City. As the years went by, Katonah, eventually to be known as Bedford, became home to some of the richest businessmen in the world. And now it was home to one of the richest businesswomen in the world. The old family farms were torn down and replaced with bankers’ mansions, and the fields plowed under for more formal gardens and swimming pools.

  I gave Martha a great deal of credit for trying to return her multimillion-dollar grounds, surrounded by mansions and formal estates, to its farming roots. Of course she was taking it to an extreme that no aspiring farmer could ever replicate, including ourselves. But hopefully she was teaching her wealthy neighbors as much about the value of simple fresh chicken eggs and hand-dug potatoes as she was teaching her television audience about the value of white truffles and clementine aspic.

  I walked down one of the long pasture walkways lined by a hundred-year-old white spruce rail fence that Martha had imported, length by length, from Ontario, Canada. I knew this detail because it was explained in the tasteful two-color letterpress brochure and map of the farm that was handed out to each partygoer.

  On one side of the path was a pasture with two miniature donkeys. They stood lazily about, wholly unimpressed by the high-powered guests in their summer finery trying to lure them over to be petted. The pasture on the other side of the path had several miniature cows of a rare heritage breed, according to the map.

  Like the peony beds, every inch of the pathways, pastures, and patios were manicured to perfection. It was styled as if a photo shoot might take place at any second—right down to the galvanized tin bucket filled with carrots hanging from the antique fenceposts, waiting for guests to offer them to the donkeys. The carrots were perfectly straight and washed, of course.

  As I reached the end of the path, I checked my map and realized that I was right next door to Martha’s vegetable garden. I scanned around me, looking for a few tomato cages or cucumber trellises, but saw nothing but a cold frame greenhouse, another outbuilding, and a sturdily fenced-in area that I assumed must enclose electrical switchers or other industrial equipment.

  “Hi, there!”

  I turned around and saw a cheerful apple-cheeked woman whose sturdy size and composure instantly marked her as a midwesterner like myself. In the New York environs, any similar woman of her slightly overweight stature carries themselves quietly around, slouching a bit as if to avoid attention. But anywhere between New York and L.A. this woman would be considered an attractive, stylish MILF. And a happy one to boot, which made her stand out even more at this soiree. She was accompanied by a man in a touch-too-tight suit, who’d already loosened his tie and unbuttoned his top shirt button.

  “I saw you earlier with Dr. Brent,” the woman said excitedly.

  “Yes, he’s my partner,” I answered.

  “You must be Josh!” she practically squealed. “Dr. Brent is so adorable. I have every episode he’s on saved on my TiVo.”

  “She does,” confirmed her husband. “There’s hardly any room for my shows.”

  “And I’ve tried your soap!” she added. “And I love your Web site! The farm is just so perfect! I tried your spring pea risotto recipe—I even used the pods, like you said.” She lightly punched her husband in his bicep. “Jim ate it too, but he’s kinda picky.”

  “I’m more of a hamburger kind of guy.”

  “I like a good hamburger too, Jim,” I said. He looked a little uncomfortable in his summer soiree outfit. I had a feeling Jim didn’t know a soiree from a sauvignon.

  “You guys are so lucky,” the woman said. “Oh, I’m Kerri, and this is my husband, Jim.”

  “Nice to meet you guys.”

  Lucky. I wasn’t sure what to think about that. Fortunate, yes. Hardworking, sure. Lucky? Okay, maybe a little.

  Kerri breathlessly launched into an explanation of how she found herself at Martha’s party. She’d been selected as a sweepstakes winner through Martha’s Web site, the prize being a trip and invitation to Martha’s summer party. Jim, while obviously out of his comfort zone, seemed thrilled simply because his wife was thrilled. They were an endearing couple, and I envied them their easy excitement. In a way, they represented the midwestern part of me that I was pretty sure had been crushed under twelve years of day-to-day New York City living. I was happy to have stumbled upon them after playing the role of dutifully cynical work spouse.

  “Are you guys having a good time?” I asked.

  “Fantastic!” Kerri said. Her eyes sparkled in the setting sun.

  “Have you had a chance to speak with Martha yet?”

  “No, not yet,” Kerri said. “We’ve mostly just been wandering around.”

  Knowing how cliquish the party was, I realized that they probably hadn’t been included in many conversations. I think back to how badly I’d wanted to be invited to the birthday parties of my rich classmates who were lucky enough to live on the lake in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Would I have entered a raffle to do so? Probably. Would I have had a good time while I was there? Probably not. It was yet another reason to admire Kerri and Jim. To them a party was a party, and beautiful things were beautiful things. And they were thrilled to be a part of it all regardless of how well they did, or didn’t, belong. As much as I didn’t belong here either, I thought that perhaps if I stuck with them their enthusiasm would rub off on me.

  “Have you seen the vegetable garden?” I asked Kerri, looking down at my map.

  “I think this is it,” Kerri said, pointing up to the tall fenced-in area on a slight rise.

  “Really?” I said. “Why the Fort Knox treatment?”

  “Probably deer trouble,” Jim answered. “I just string up some clumps of dog hair and Irish Spring soap to keep ’em away.”

  “Let’s go look,” I said. I half expected giant floodlights to flare on us as we approached the wire fence. It must’ve been twelve feet tall. It almost looked like…dare I say it…

  “I wonder if Martha comes out here when she gets homesick for the hoosegow,” Kerri whispered, giggling.

  At that moment I decided that I loved Kerri. Jim and I circled the tennis court–size garden, looking for a gate. I found it first.

  “Should we go in?” I asked, suddenly worried if it was alarmed as well as fenced.

  “Why not?” Jim said. “It’s a garden, and this is a garden party, right?”

  Even Kerri seemed a little hesitant, but Jim opened the gate and ushered us in.

  “Oh! Look at this!” Kerri said, waving me over. “Here are some little tiny cucumbers. Already! In June! Can you believe it?” She picked one off the vine and offered it to me. No alarms. Good. I couldn’t believe I was paranoid about eating Martha’s cucumber—exactly how I felt cutting the celery at her house three Fourth of Julys ago.

  This was a vegetable garden. True, it was better protected than most methadone clinics, but still, it was a vegetable garden. Just like ours at the Beekman. And just like the one I spent hours toiling in during my youth
in Wisconsin. And a garden is for sampling. Anyone should be able to walk into any vegetable garden in the world and take a bite of whatever’s ripening on the vine. People who grow vegetables know this. It’s part of an unwritten universal code.

  I realized that my fear of disrupting Martha’s world vision with a bite from a cucumber was what differentiated her and me. I didn’t know if Martha would truly mind if we nibbled on the cucumber from her picture-perfect garden. But whether she did or not, it still felt like stealing.

  I took a bite of the cucumber. It was good. Cucumber-y. Not great, but it wasn’t fully ripe yet. The garden didn’t wither before my eyes as a result either.

  “Worthless without salt,” Kerri remarked, taking a bite of her own tiny cuke.

  “Don’t go criticizing,” I said, “or you’ll sound like everybody else here.”

  Kerri laughed. The problem with perfection, I realized, is that it leaves others with nothing to do but search for flaws. In the Beekman garden, which had been sorely neglected lately, guests can wander and admire the plants and occasionally pull a weed or two. It made them feel useful, helpful, a part of a bigger picture. If the portrait was already completely painted, then there would be nothing left to do other than pick it apart. Just as most of the other guests at Martha’s party were doing.

  After a half hour or so of wandering around with Kerri and Jim, I realized that I should really return to Brent. But first, the basil-infused gin and tonics I’d been sipping—responsibly—had found their way to my bladder.

  “Have you guys seen any signs for the bathroom?” I whispered to Kerri, checking my map for a restroom symbol.

  “No! Isn’t it funny?”

  “Funny or eerie?” I answered. “Maybe superrich people have bladder removal surgery.”

  “I think it’s the regularly scheduled high colonics,” Kerri said, giggling.

  The thought of peeing in Martha’s woods was terrifying to me, but it seemed like my only option. I imagined that there must be security cameras everywhere. Or roving border guards. I might get hauled away, fly unzipped, in front of the richest people in America, shouting in my defense that “Gin goes right through me!” Brent would get fired. Page Six would have a field day. “Martha Peeved by Peony Party Pisser.”

  “I’ll stand guard for you,” Kerri said. “Now go on, pee.”

  I made my way behind the gated garden and a few feet into the brush. Although in the past I have found more than one drunken occasion to flash my genitals at large audiences, I’d never felt more naked than standing with my fly unzipped on the edge of Martha’s woods.

  It took a moment, but finally it came—a steady stream released into the underbrush. If I felt like eating a cucumber was defacing Martha’s perfect Peony Party, then surely peeing in the woods was an act of nuclear annihilation. But if I killed a few weeds and scrub seedlings, then at least at some future party, someone would have a true imperfection to bitch about. Really, I was doing Martha a favor.

  When I finished, Kerri was waiting for me with her back turned, keeping watch for approaching guests.

  “I should head back to the party,” I said.

  “Who said you ever left?” Kerri said, smiling, toasting me with her now-watery basil-infused gin and tonic.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Brent and I began arguing about every little aspect of the farm, our jobs, and the new business. With everything we were trying to accomplish, we spent whatever little free time we had pointing out what the other one hadn’t accomplished yet.

  On the way home from the farm the previous Sunday, we’d gotten into an argument about painting the house. We were able to get two sides done last year, but this year, with real estate booming, we couldn’t find anyone to finish the job. It was only half perfect, which isn’t perfect at all.

  It was quickly growing impossible to keep up with the ever-lengthening list of chores. Each day we had dozens and dozens of soap orders flooding into our e-mail in-box—far more than Deb and ninety-year-old Rose could keep up with. Consequently we’d begun fielding nearly as many complaints about late orders as actual new orders.

  The first flush of excitement as our business took off had been replaced by a constant terror of keeping up—and keeping up appearances. The now thousands of daily visitors to our Web site didn’t want to hear about our house painting arguments. They came to read our stories and picture essays about bucolic farm life. They came for the step-by-step recipes of every meal that we made at the farm. They came for the weekly harvest updates. They came for the pastoral videos of the Beekman flower garden.

  In our quest to create the perfect country place, we’d succeeded—if only fictionally.

  We’d mutually decided to spend that late June weekend steering clear of each other since we seemed incapable of interacting without devolving into a nagging match. I resigned myself to the stony silence, with Brent trying to salvage our mishandled mail orders and me desperately trying to maintain and harvest a 7,500-square-foot vegetable garden.

  Even John was in a bad mood. While we were selling as much soap as we could make, it still didn’t make use of all the milk he was producing. Each day he was throwing away gallon after gallon of perfectly good milk. Because our farm hadn’t yet gone through the byzantine legal process of certification as a grade-A dairy, we couldn’t use our milk for anything other than soap or animal food. And the soap wasn’t enough. John wasn’t making the income he needed in order to keep all of his goats fed. And the chronic arthritis in his hip had been getting worse. Like most self-employed Americans, he had no health insurance.

  Which was why we weren’t surprised when he knocked on the kitchen door on Sunday evening to inform us that he’d taken a job in Schenectady…a full hour’s drive away.

  “Really? Doing what?” I asked.

  “Data entry at an insurance company.”

  The thought of it pained me. I couldn’t help but think that Brent and I had let John down. When he put that letter in our mailbox a year ago, he’d had such grand dreams of starting his life over—finally hoping to fulfill his dream of tending to a growing herd of beloved goats full time. Beyond providing his house, utilities, and a small stipend, we still couldn’t afford to offer him the money he needed to survive as a full-time farmer with health insurance. Whatever money the soap was bringing in was being reinvested into the next, bigger batch.

  Now all three of us were forced to work two jobs for the same relentless and demanding boss—the Beekman.

  The three of us sat in the kitchen for another hour trying to figure out how to divvy up the chores John would now have to forgo for his new job. Who will mow the massive lawn? Hay the fields? Weed and water the garden?

  “Fuck!” I said, suddenly standing up from the table.

  “What’s wrong?” John asked.

  I raced over to the oven. I’d spent hours that afternoon photo-documenting the process of making a perfect lattice crust sour cherry pie for a blog entry. And now I’d left it in the oven a full half hour longer than it should have been. I pulled out the darkened brown mess. The juices had boiled over and burned onto the side of the pan and on the bottom of the oven.

  “It doesn’t look that bad,” John said. “It’ll still taste fine.”

  “I know. But I need to get a good picture of it for the blog.”

  “When my mother burns something, she always just dusts the top of it with powdered sugar,” John offered, which sounded like the perfect sort of Martha Stewart tip, if only Martha Stewart ever burned anything.

  While John and Brent continued to discuss the new chore arrangements, I cut a slice of pie from the least-burned side and tried to artfully arrange it on a plate. I only needed one halfway decent photo for the Web site. And we needed to leave for the train back to the city in fifteen minutes.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Brent said, looking over at what I was doing.

  “I know. It’s not perfect. It’s not going to be perfect. I’m just trying to get
this done so we don’t miss the train.”

  “I’d thought I smelled something burning,” Brent added.

  I’d reached my breaking point. I’d spent all afternoon making this pie for the blog—a pie that we wouldn’t even be able to eat since we were leaving for the city—and he didn’t say anything when he smelled it burning?

  “Then why didn’t you say something!?”

  “Because we’re not supposed to be talking to each other!”

  “Then why don’t you shut the fuck up!!!”

  John swallowed the last swig of his beer and excused himself into the warm summer night. He had to start his new job in the morning. Now he, like us, had yet another life to juggle. I wanted to warn him about what he was in for. But what were his options?

  What were our options?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The following weekend:

  DIVIDE AND PLANT FIVE HUNDRED IRIS BULBS.

  WRITE BLOG ABOUT IRIS BULBS.

  SWEEP UP FLIES.

  WEED GARDEN.

  WRITE BLOG ABOUT DIFFERENT TYPES OF WEEDS.

  PICK, SHELL, BLANCH, FREEZE TWENTY-FOUR QUARTS OF PEAS.

  WRITE BLOG ABOUT “WHY WE BLANCH.”

  PULL GLOPPY ALGAE FROM POND.

  DECIDE THAT PHOTO-DOCUMENTING ALGAE WOULD TURN OFF READERS.

  TIE UP HALF OF THE SOUR CHERRY TREE, WHICH HAD FALLEN OVER DURING A SUMMER STORM.

  WRITE BLOG ODE TO CHERRY TREE.

  TRIM MOCK ORANGE HEDGEROW.

  STAKE TOMATOES.

  REPAIR STONE WALL OUTSIDE CRYPT.

  FIX GARDEN SPRINKLERS.

  MOW LAWN.

  ARGUE WITH BRENT.

  ARGUE WITH BRENT.

  ARGUE WITH BRENT.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Hi!”

  “Nice to meet you!”

  “So glad you could come.”