Linzy went home Sunday night, and we talked on the phone until she started to fall asleep around 3:30 Monday morning. I felt the need to apologize for what happened at the tattoo parlor, But Linzy explained to me that she understood that I was attracted to other women and didn't consider our relationship monogamous. In other words, she wanted to fuck other people, and so did I. Which was a good thing considering what I did the next day at work.
I used to work in the greenhouse section of a hardware store, you might of heard of it, it's called Lowe's. I didn't actually work for them, but for a company they pay to take care of their garden centers because they were too stupid to just train their own employees and pay them less. One of the best parts of the job is I only saw my boss about twice a week for less than three hours at a time. As you can imagine, most of the customers in a place like that are middle-aged men doing landscaping work, old people trying to garden, and soccer moms killing time until their brats got outta school. With summer in full effect, most of the soccer moms had to stay at home with their offspring, and many old people tried to stay out of the heat; so I was stuck talking to guys who started mowing lawns in junior high and just never stopped while I watered plants. Then Shard finally showed up.
Shard, or Sunshard Isenhart as her parents named her, was the new-age hippie daughter of a pair of old-age hippies that never stopped doing drugs and wound up with a child younger than her own niece. Her skin was sun-bronzed, and her hazelnut hair was sun-bleached; about shoulder-high to me and nicely muscled from never having things like TV and Nintendo and being forced to play outside growing up. She always wore a light sun dress, dark sunglasses and a straw hat, even in winter, even in the rain, the only thing that ever changed was a jacket when it got too cold. Shard came in two or three times a week, to see what new plants were in, and buy organic fertilizer (manure). We chatted about gardening the first few times I saw her, the weather and whatever movies were out after a month or two, and finally broke down and started flirting with each other sometime before Christmas. We kept our distance though, because until recently we were both in seriously committed relationships.
"Hey sweety!" she called to me from two tables away and as she waved at me I smiled at how even though she grew into a beautiful woman, her voice got caught somewhere in the 4th grade. I broke concentration on the hairy guy in front of me describing his problem with moles at his latest job and waved back and tipped my hat to her.
When Mr. Fuzzy finally finished, I told him where the mole traps, poison, coyote urine, and sonic stakes where located and quickly left to go find Sunshard. I found her trying to decide between a pair of leather gloves and rubber-coated cotton ones. "Hello there, Sunny." I chirped.
She laughed and slapped me with the rubber-gloves. "You know I hate it when people call me that." She reminded me, then when back to inspecting the gloves. "I can't decide, one pair is made from materials not naturally found in nature, but the other, a cow had to die for." she explained with a child's voice.
I mocked intense thought. "Well, you're allergic to latex, so the rubber gloves might be a bad idea." I told her, clearly showing I knew too much about her not to care about her. "And besides, that cow probably died for the double bacon cheeseburger I had for lunch, not those gloves." I joked.
She gaped at me and slapped me with both gloves playfully. "God, Jerm, just because I don't eat meat doesn't mean you have to rub my nose in the fact that you do." Yeah she was a vegetarian, she didn't shave either, her legs, pits, anything.
I laughed and took the rubber gloves from her and hung them back up. "I'm kidding, I had a salad for lunch. " Yeah, with bacon and fried chicken all over it, " Besides, they don't kill cows just to make garden gloves, that's a fortunate side-product of food."
She smiled. "Thanks." she said and pushed her buggy towards me. "By the way, I threw my back out the other day trying to build a well-cover, could you help me load my manure into my car?"
"Shit to the shitbox, got it." I joked and took the buggy from her. While we stood in line, she learned about Dixie leaving, and I learned she was moving to Florida in a week to study to be a botanist. "There ya go." I said after tossing the two 50lbs bags of cow-shit into her 88 Civic's hatchback. "I hope you have a safe trip to Miami, and good luck in college."
