job. So I'm back to work, tugging another weed out of the ground, when someone comes around the corner of the chicken coop. I look up, ready to call out a greeting. But the visitor is not, in fact, one of the Shipleys.
It's a black bear. A real one—a full-grown motherfucking bear, and it's holding a white bucket in its jaws.
And now I understand that expression frozen with fear. It takes me several long glugs of my heart to react, since I'm paralyzed with indecision. Should I stand up and run? Shout? Play dead? The beast is just a few paces away. I can see the whiskers on its snout.
It takes another step, and that’s what gets me moving. I stand up, but my shout gets caught in my throat. I grab the dandelion fork off the grass—it’s my only weapon. But when I take a step backward, I trip on the goddamn Garden Pad and go down on my ass.
The bear watches me scramble around on the ground like a wounded cockroach. I pop up again with a strangled sound. And I turn my body as far as I dare, trying to warn Daphne. “BEAR!” I yelp in a voice much too high for a grown man’s.
But it’s enough. Her head swings in this direction. The bear drops his bucket, and it lands with a loud smack. Even if he’s about to eat me for lunch, at least Daphne can get away. I see her running toward the tractor shed. At least one of us can flee to safety.
Clutching the garden tool, I take a slow step backward. “Fuck off, bear. Go on back to the Hundred Acre Wood or where-the-fuck-ever.”
He grabs the bucket’s handle in his mouth again and drags it a few feet away from me. And then I edge backward, wondering if it’s safe to make a run for it.
But then I hear a sound behind me. And I risk everything to take a look over my shoulder.
Daphne storms out of the tractor shed. And she’s carrying…is that a shotgun? Before I can blink, she lifts that gun and blasts a shot into the sky, handling the recoil like a champ.
My head whips around again as the bear drops the bucket with a loud thump and then trots his fat ass away from me. He keeps right on going, ambling across the meadow and finally disappearing into the tree line.
“Holy shit!” I shout, turning around to see Daphne, who’s watching him go. She’s holding the shotgun carefully but casually, muzzle pointed toward the ground, her posture a hundred percent badass in her tiny little shorts. “Did you see that? It was a motherfucking bear.” I’m still in shock.
She shrugs. Shrugs! “They like the sunflower seeds. Those assholes. I hope he didn’t break the bucket.” She passes me to pick up the bucket and give it a shake. The lid is still screwed onto it, and I can hear the sunflower seeds rattle inside.
Then she walks past me again, on her way to lock the gun away. I watch her long, tanned legs march past, and I’m both turned on and a little frightened of her.
I like my women feisty. This one particularly. And I’m starting to think that this summer could be a whole lot of fun.
Two
Daphne
Rickie tells the story of the bear to a rapt audience at the dinner table.
Buttering my corn bread as he weaves the tale, I roll my eyes. A bear on our property is not a big deal. It's just a Tuesday.
“And it’s a huge bear, so I'm basically watching my life flash before my eyes.” Rickie gestures wildly. The motion makes his designer T-shirt stretch tightly across the lean muscles of his chest. His tattoos peek through the V-neck.
I hate myself a little for always staring at those tattoos. Before Rickie showed up in my life, with his snarky attitude and those piercing gray eyes, I never found tats attractive.
He’s not even my type. That’s what I keep telling myself. But he’s always catching me staring. It’s so embarrassing. Today he almost caught me taking a photo of him. Thank God he didn’t figure out what I was doing with my phone.
In my defense, the photo wasn’t for me. It was for my friend, Violet Trevi. She keeps asking me questions about the mysterious Rickie—the guy who stood me up my freshman year. Violet had to listen to me rant about it back then too.