Darla, Darling, Dearest

Twin Crossings, Kansas was dying, Danny saw it every day in peoples eyes. After the 2011 tornado, the historic downtown, which had been attracting a thin stream of tourists every week nearly dried up completely. They had tried to rebuild, but the town just didn’t have enough money to hire the restoration specialists needed to authentically resurrect the downtown. It was embarrassing, given it was only four brick buildings and a wooden sidewalk. Instead, the restoration had been done by local volunteer handymen. Unfortunately, the result was a mishmash of modern storefront out of the box facades and salvaged old west brick architecture. It give the small town of 200 a distinct look that, was not historically accurate enough to get the hard core wild west heads that had once come through, or interesting enough to get the road based attraction toursits.

While the economy was failing the population was drying up too. Very rarely a person willing to drive the hour and a half round trip commute to get to Emporia or Topeka would move up here with their family to simulate the rural small town vibe, but those sorta kids never came back after college, and the population had been ever so slowly ticking down for the past 60 years.

When the farmers came in to his Pop’s general store to chat, there was still the strong community ties that bind all small towns together. However, most of the farmers were at least 50, with kids who showed no interest in maintaining the family business. The sadness of a way of life dying in front of them hid behind their friendly smiles. Still, he often felt like they deserved it, they were the ones who had bought out most of their neighbors to grow nothing but corn, soy, and cattle. It was just easier for the large land owners, and so went the diversity. It was Biblical almost, they were sowing the seeds of infertility into the soil, and reaping a sterile dying community. They were bastards, too set in their ways to ever course correct away from oblivion.

Danny knew he was being nihilistic about this whole thing, but it got old every day listening to farmers talk about tractor innovations and new GMOs as if that was all there was to agriculture. Stuck behind the register while his dad wasted away and his friends had left for college or the military, it was hard not to resent the whole world for conspiring to make his life hell.

Just as he was thinking about putting the old man out of his misery with a well placed pillow and moving to San Fran, Chicago, or even just Kansas City or Topeka the bell rang on the shitty new modern glass door that had been poorly inserted into the old red facade of Twin Crossings General. Danny looked up from the magazine he was attempting to read before his mind had wondered. He didn’t recognize the woman, which was a surprise, tourist season was over and it had been a bad harvest.

She was tall, must have been at least 6 foot and was wearing thick work boots that only added to her stature. Her black ponytail was coming out from a ball cap in a loose wavy mess. She wore a white sleeveless tee tucked into brown grass-stained carhearts, and her hat had ‘Triangle Ecovillage’ sharipied onto the front of it in a scratchy, but legible, hand. Danny’s eyes widened. Had he not been putting his life on hold to be his fathers caretaker he would have tried to work up the courage to ask for her number.

She strode forward towards the till. Putting her perfect tan and freckled arm on the counter in a friendly way, she leaned in towards Danny like they had known each other for years. As he leaned back on his stool to avoid her getting in his personal space, he got a better look at her. Her posture relayed a self assured confidence that he had only seen amongst the country affected rich folk who lived in McMansion compounds in the middle of nowhere.

“Hey!” she said in a warm but slightly husky voice with the strong twang of the southwest “Names Lavender.” She extended a hand out to Danny. Lavenders eyes were a dark mahogany, and her plain face was split by a ear to ear grin that made her radiate a handsome beauty. He took it while rocking forward on his stool, fighting not to trip over his bashful lust “Danny, what brings you ‘round these parts?” She smirked at him and tapped her cap, “Me and some friends bought out one of your neighbors! Gonna use his 1100 acres to build an Ecovillage. We figure since we're in the American Heartland close to two cities, Topeka and Emporia, this is an ideal location for buildin’ a better vision of rural life, you know?”

Danny Coughed awkwardly. He did not like the sound of this. Sure the large monoculture land owners were annoying, but that sounded suspiciously like a hippie commune, and that meant trouble. There had been a few in this area during the 60s-70s, but they had melted down spectacularly, especially with the pressure put on them by the farmer community. Even if these newcomers ended up stable there were still enough hatred amongst the big growers for anything left of Attila that a kum-bya would be greeted with a gun to the face.

“Anyway,” Lavender continued, giving Danny meaningful eye contact, as if to say ‘I saw you driftin’ off’ “I’m here to buy supplies for the project, we’re gonna be pouring pads tomorrow so I’m gonna need about 150 concrete bags, how many you got on hand?”

“Donno, maybe 100 60lbers? Thats a lot of concrete to mix yourself..”

“Sure but its the age old equation: what we lack in tech we make up in people power, saves on renting a mixer so more of our budget can go into pads”

“Sure… uh” He paused for a second contemplating how to ask the question. “...but how’d you get the project going so fast? Don’t you need permitting for stuff like that?”

“Fuck ‘em.” She smirked.

“I mean..” Danny stammered too panicked and aroused by how she radiated smug contempt for all authority, earthly or otherwise. Didn’t she care about nosy neighbors reporting things to the county?

“Listen.” Lavender leaned in even further over the counter to the point that if he shifted his weight back any further he would fall backwards over his chair. Their faces were close now, Danny had to fight not picture her kissing him full on the lips, and more. As it was he was already contorting weirdly to hide his Terrible Tell Tale Thomson. Why, oh, why did he have to be so grossly lustful! He could not understand how other men were so okay with practically going into heat every time they saw a woman they were attracted to!

She cut off his train of thought again “I appreciate you tryin’ to look out for me, I really do, but we can take care of ourselves. I’ll buy the concrete, you get good money, you stop worryin’ your self about some freaks living outside town, and we can all live in peace.”

“that’s the problem though! Its the farmers who’ll rat you out, not us!” he blurted in response.

“Y’think a couple stuffed shirts and wannabe cowboys scare me or my crew?” Her grin turned predatory. “We got a coupla local folks with us, we know what we’re signin’ up for.” She slipped her hand down the front of her shirt. Danny blushed. “Also..” She pulled a chrome 9mm revolver out from somewhere down her shirt. “We’re armed.”

Danny’s Eyes went wide. He thought for a second to try and enforce the “no firearms in the store” rule that was clearly posted on storefront window, but he knew deep in his heart that most of the Farmers in town were also concealed carrying, worried about a possible Antifa, MS13, and Islamic extremest team ups. Instead he asked the obvious question. “I thought you hippie types were anti-gun?”

As she struggled to re-holster her gun, she looked up at him and smirked again. “Turns out if you go far enough left you get your guns back.” He wasn’t sure if she looked bad ass or dorky, and that ambiguity made him fall for her more.

Danny kept his peace. He thought who was he to get between these weirdo leftists and their insane death wish. “Ok, whatever. It’ll be 639 dollars for our lot and when a new shipment comes next week you can pick up that last 50 for 319.50..”

Before he could finish she had dropped 10 hundred dollar notes on the table. Taking her arm off the counter she said “We’ll be by the loadin’ dock with our flatbed to pick it up later today. And of course when you get the others.” She winked at him while walking backwards toward the door “Keep the chan.. OH SHIT!”

She had walked straight back into a seed rack knocking it over. It spilled common garden seed packets all over the aisle and she was now rushing to put it back together. Danny was content to sit back and watch her reset the display as he slipped the notes into the bottom of the register. If his eyes wandered on to her butt a couple times who would know? He leaned back to enjoy the view, and paid for it dearly. His stool passed the tipping point and he fell backward on to the hardwood floor with a loud bang.

Lavender rushed over to the cash register again to offer him a hand up. Danny face was burning at this point. He wanted disappear rather then deal with a hot lady actually showing sympathy for his pathetic ass. Checking her out, rather then helping her, but the moment he fucked up she had rushed to his aid. As she awkwardly pulled him to his feet over the counter, he couldn’t help ogling her chest, making him feel extra pathetic. He knew it was bad to sexualize women without their consent, but her body was a blackhole and he hadn’t been laid since prom, disaster THAT was. He guessed he was doomed to be a creepy lecherous fool for his whole life.

After that it was just a matter of mutual apologies and rushed goodbyes. Once Lavender had left the store and it was quiet again, Danny finally had room in his brain to process things. He suddenly realized he never got a chance to ask who were the locals who had joined the project. He guessed it must be some of the College bound kids from high school who had gone to Emporia State, though why they wanted to come back here was a mystery to him. College was the ticket out of this hell. He envied them like the dead envy the living.

He stared blankly at his magazine for a few minutes, but he was in a weird mood before he had learned about triangle ecovillage, and now he couldn’t concentrate at all. He picked up the broom from behind the counter and began sweeping the shop to try and burn off his nervous energy. It was tick season after all, and having Lone-star ticks in the area meant that the aisles should be disturbed regularly or else a customer might get Lyme, or worse, Narragansett.

Sweeping definitely calmed Danny down a little. The smooth strokes as he moved the dust into piles on the warped hickory floor made him feel like maybe, just maybe, he had control over his environment. He inspected his piles for ticks and seeing none he began sweeping them up into the pan. He reveled in how much cleaner the shop looked after the dirt was picked up. He knew the next customer would ruin his work in a jiff, seeing as the store wasn’t closing for another 4 hours. Still he admired a clean orderly space, as he put the broom away and moved back to his stool. He hummed a bit. She had winked at him! Maybe she was into him too!

Probably not. With his luck, that look was platonic, and the Ecovillage was just going to make things much worse for the town. Looking back on this thought after the events that follow, he would mock himself for how quaint that prediction was.