Digging In: A Novel(71)

“We believe you’re special,” Lukas said passionately. “No one else can touch your wisdom and wit. Your beauty and class—”

“Stop right there,” Petra said. “There’s a problem.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll fix it,” Lukas insisted.

Petra lit a new cigarette with the dying remains of another. “That’s the thing. It can’t be fixed.”

“Could you be a little more specific?” Byron asked, earning a withering side-eye from Lukas.

Petra gestured to her heavily creased, tomato-stained silk dress, her tattered stockings, and her horrific bedhead. “What you see here,” she began, her accent hitting us all like a sledgehammer, “is the real me, in fucking person. How the hell am I supposed to talk to people and get them to listen? Those pictures look nice, but if I’m taking this business to the next level, I need to be a fucking spokesperson. You get that? Me. A spokesperson.”

Lukas nodded like a bobblehead. “I understand what you’re saying.” He didn’t continue, which meant he couldn’t. He had no idea how to handle the situation. Wild-eyed, he said, “Could you give us a few minutes, Ms. Polly? There’s a lovely farmers’ market in the parking lot. Paige, would you mind taking our guest to get some fresh coffee? It’s on us, of course.”

“It sure as fuck better be,” Petra said, but she winked at him to lessen the harshness of her comment. “Get your ideas together. We’ll be back in the shake of a lamb’s tail.”



Mykia’s laugh could probably be heard on a distant planet.

“You’re Petra Polly? I thought you were supposed to be some uptight hipster bitch!”

Petra laughed. “I am a hipster bitch, bitch.” She leaped up on the back of Mykia’s truck and plopped herself down at the edge. “I’m not uptight, though. Not in the fucking least.”

“I thought we were curbing the f-bombs,” I pleaded. “At least try.”

Petra shrugged. “Okay. How about every time I curse, I give you a fiver. You’ll have enough money to repair your garden in no time.”

Mykia grew serious in a flash. “What is she talking about? What needs to be repaired?”

With a sigh, I pulled my phone from my purse. While Petra got ready, I’d documented the damage. I’d practically had to shove my phone in a bag of rice it was so soaked with my tears. “This happened sometime last night. I don’t know who did it.”

“That creepy neighbor,” Mykia said, incensed. “I will rip every tooth out of his skull.”

“She’s violent,” Petra said with more admiration than was proper. “I like her.”

“It’s not him.” I paused. “It isn’t Trey either.”

Mykia’s face softened. “Did you think it was him?”

“For a few seconds, yes.”

Mykia hugged me fiercely. “Oh, Paige. I don’t know what to say. You worked so hard.”

Maybe I’d become efficient at grieving, because while what Mykia was saying struck me as undeniably sad, it didn’t throw me over the edge. Caring for those tomatoes gave me great pleasure. Cultivating them sustained my soul over the summer, but when Bill Eckhardt and I managed to make such a delicious sauce with them, I felt like I’d honored their life cycle, as hippie earth mama as that sounds. They were ripped from the soil prematurely, but their life cycle was complete. Applying this to Jesse wasn’t beyond me. I’d mourn him every day until I drew my last breath, but I had to stop obsessing over the unfairness that he was taken and focus on the wonders he’d given us. He’d spent his life sustaining me, but now I had to let him rest.

“I’m okay,” I said into Mykia’s shoulder. “Really, I am.”

“I know,” she murmured back. “That fact was never in question.”



“Whatcha got for me?”

Petra and I rejoined the group after hanging out with Mykia for an hour. It was work to get Petra back inside, but once in the conference room, she took her place at the head of the table. By the way Lukas and the others were smiling, I knew they had something. Whether it was any good or not was yet to be seen.

Lukas stood.

And then he knelt. Right next to Petra, as if asking for her hand in marriage. By the horrified look on her face, I could tell that was exactly what she was thinking.

He placed his palm on her chair and curled his fingers over her armrest. Much too close for comfort.

Jackie and I both squirmed, trying to hold in our laughter. Glynnis’s eyes were close to popping out of her head. Byron’s mouth curled in disgust, and Rhiannon’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.

“Ms. Polly,” Lukas began. “Petra. Your words have meant more to me—to us—than I can ever successfully express. You’ve guided our organizational philosophy. You’ve offered us hope when it was in short supply. You’ve been my North Star, my guru, my teacher. You’ve helped me turn Guh into the powerhouse it is today—”

At this, Jackie coughed to mask her hysterics.

“We love you as you are,” Lukas continued. “And if we do, America will love you, too. Our ad campaigns will focus not only on what you can offer corporate America, but your sense of style, your infectious joie de vivre, your ability to relate to the everyman . . . or woman. We will turn what you see as a detriment into an asset. I promise you that.”