Free Laugh by Mary Ann Rivers

on her, his breath against her neck, understood his desperate impulsiveness.
    She looked away, let the blush bleed through her face and neck and then fade in the wind.
    Careful.
Easier to remind herself looking at these fields, thinking of who counted on her fidelity to long seasons, longer years.
    “The summer, is what I mean,” she said this to the corn. “You want to be my farmhand, or what?”
    She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, feel his grin as it shone off him, next to her.
    “Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Absolutely.”
    He was smiling. Broad with plenty of crinkles, his hair so red and shining in the sun as it slanted low from behind them that it seemed magical. Phoenixlike.
    “You have to eat, though. It’s hard work, even for a weekend farmhand. Carbs and everything.”
    “You want me to eat your pie, Farmer Paz?”
    “I do. I’m serious. Pie and whatever else Rachel feeds you at the café.”
    He saluted. The wrong way, but it was so cute and boyish she didn’t care.
    “And I’m the boss. In fact, you should start calling me ‘Boss’ just so you remember.”
    “Got it, Boss.”
    “And no kissing, or leg fondling, or groping against chicken houses.”
    He narrowed his eyes at her, trying to see if she was serious, and she tried very hard to appear serious but was no doubt failing. Something about his eyes was completely unconvinced. “You know I have to respect that, just because you said it.”
    “That’s why I said it.”
    “Even though you keep looking me up and down like that when you say it.”
    “I’m not blind or without needs but I’m also smarter than you are.”
    “No doubt. And I won’t even pull your braids, I promise, but Boss?”
    “Yeah, Opie?”
    “And I won’t say this again, because it counts as harassment, but my brain’s gonna be fondling your legs basically twenty-four/seven all summer long.”
    “You know what?” She put her arm around his waist and tugged him close. Friendly.
    Friends.
    “What’s that?”
    “Every time you think about my legs, kissing me, touching me?”
    She felt him grin again. “Yeah?”
    “I want you to eat a piece of pie.”

Chapter Six
    Nina entered the last row into the spreadsheet template her accountant had shown her how to use this afternoon, and then went back and forth between the handwritten directions she left and the laptop to make the pivot table.
    She’d been restless as the weekday began—excited, terrified, confused.
    Sam.
    “Did I just hear you squeal?” Nina jumped at Tay’s voice behind her.
    “Yeah, look!” Nina pointed at the pivot table with its neat data summary.
    “Um. Wow. Look at the cool boxes and numbers, I can see why you squealed. Remind me not to show you my browser history.”
    “It
is
cool. This little box is going to save me all kinds of money when I make my seed order for next year.”
    Tay sat down across from her, filling the space with the smell of skin hot from the sun and the homemade peppermint soap she washed her pale, honey-colored dreads in. She was wearing a Paz Farms T-shirt and a skirt tie-dyed different shades of blue.
    “Your nose is burned.” Nina reached over and touched the hot stripe on the bridge of Tay’s nose. Tay’s skin was a mosaic of tan lines and tattoos, the skin on her face creased with laugh lines and painted over with sun freckles.
    She looked liked an earth mother, like she should be dancing naked at a festival, which she was, and did, now and again, but she was also the fiercest farm manager Nina had ever met, and she included her dad in that assessment.
    “It got hot in the Jeep so I zipped off the roof, checking on harvesters today, forgot to put on my hat.”
    “Get all the cukes in?”
    “Yeah, I think we did great for yield, even with that weird wireworm problem we had earlier. The sizes and uniformity are pretty good, I think Vadnais’ Pickles will be happy. I’m staggering their shipment and held back about ten percent of the yield for the farm