Patricia Forsythe - At Odds With The Midwife

He would finish this task, have the place cleaned and painted, then sell it and move on with his life.

* * *

“I DON’T KNOW why I let you talk me into this,” Gemma groused as Carly Joslin took another bump in the road at warp speed. Her truck was headed back to Reston and the organizational meeting for the reopening of the hospital.

“I’m wondering the same thing,” Lisa added, looking from one best friend to the other.

The three of them were crowded into the front seat of Carly’s truck, as they’d been so many times before.

“Oh, come on,” Carly answered, taking her eyes off the road to tilt her head and grin at Gemma, who was hanging on to the door handle for all she was worth. “It’s like old times—taking my dad’s truck, although now it’s my truck, driving to Toncaville for lunch—”

“Dragging you out of antique and junk shops,” Lisa broke in.

“Arriving back late, getting in trouble,” Gemma added.

“Only we won’t be getting in trouble this time. We’re no longer crazy teenage girls...”

“We’re crazy thirty-two-year-old women, and at least two of us should know better than to go anywhere with you on the day the county is doing brush and bulky-trash pickup,” Lisa said.

Gemma glanced over her shoulder at the “treasures” Carly had already collected along the highway and placed in the truck bed. Twice a year, May and November, the county sent big dump trucks around to collect yard clippings to be ground into mulch, and items too large to fit into trash bins. People put out a wide assortment of throwaway items, which Carly would gleefully collect and repurpose—or “upcycle,” as she called it. She hauled it all home, stored it in the barn and garage and worked her way through it until the next brush and bulky pickup. To her it was like getting two extra Christmases each year.

Lisa glanced back, too, and Carly met their skeptical looks with an unrepentant grin.

“What are you going to do with an old bicycle frame, minus tires and handlebars?” Lisa asked.

“Are you kidding? It’s beautiful. I’ll paint it—maybe fire-engine red—and spruce it up. Imagine how cute it’s going to look in someone’s front yard with live flowers in the basket...”

“Conveniently placed for the next brush and bulky pickup,” Gemma said drily.

“It’ll be a work of art.”

“Yes,” Gemma said with a sigh. “When you’re finished with it, it probably will be. But some of that other stuff...the washing machine, for example.”

“That wringer-type washing machine is in pretty good shape considering it probably saw its heyday when Herbert Hoover was president.”

“But what on earth are you going to do with it?”

Carly gave her a smug look. “Remove the rust, oil all the parts, polish it up. Believe it or not, there’s a whole society—mostly men—who collect washing machines. After I fix it up, I’ll sell it to one of them.”

Lisa stared at her. “Men who collect washing machines? Someday you’re going to be struck by lightning for the fibs you make up.”

“It’s true! They’ve got hundreds of members—all around the world.”

“That’s crazy,” Gemma said.

“Yup, but profitable, and besides, I’m a little crazy,” Carly answered. “I’m surprised you still let me take the lead on these things.”

“You’re the one with the truck,” Gemma reminded her sweetly. “And I needed a new lawn mower, which, now that I think of it, could have fit in the back of my Land Rover.”

“But we wouldn’t have been able to collect nearly as much useful stuff—”

“Good!” her friends said in unison.

“And I could have found you an old lawn mower, fixed it up and—”

“No.”

“Well, in any case, you don’t have to do your own mowing. You could hire someone to... What’s that?” Carly slammed on the brakes at the same time she whipped her head around so fast, Gemma could hear her neck crack.

“It’s nothing,” Lisa said. “We need to keep going. We’ll be late for the meeting.”

“That’s a chair.” Carly pulled over to the mound of discarded furniture someone had piled up at the end of the road that led into the Bordens’ place. “We’ve got plenty of time to get to the meeting. I don’t want to miss it since I hope to sell produce to the hospital kitchen.”

“The chair is broken.” Gemma knew it wouldn’t do any good, but she had to try. She exchanged an exasperated look with Lisa. “You don’t need a broken chair, Carly.”

But Carly had already turned on her hazard lights to alert approaching traffic, catapulted from the truck and freed the discarded piece of furniture from a tangle of wire and sheet metal, easy for her since she was tall. She was also strong from years of working outside. Her long black ponytail swung as she held up her find.

Gemma wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Carly’s dark brown eyes shining in triumph as she examined it. No archaeologist unearthing a history-changing artifact could be more excited than Carly was at this moment.

“It’s Duncan Phyfe style.” She turned it this way and that, checking it from all angles and testing the joints. “The arms are sturdy. I can make this into something useful.”

“Yes,” Gemma said, joining her. “Kindling wood.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Only the legs are broken. This would make an adorable swing to hang from a tree limb, or a porch beam.”

Gemma tilted her head back and looked at the clear blue sky. “Repurposing, thy name is Carly.”

Thrilled with her new treasure, Carly placed it in the pickup bed beside the box holding Gemma’s yet-to-be assembled lawn mower. “If I attach a seat belt, it would even be suitable for little kids.”

When she started to turn back to the junk pile to look for more gems, Lisa leapt from the truck. She and Gemma each grabbed an arm, marched their friend in a circle and then took her straight back to the driver’s side.

“Wait!” Carly protested, straining to look over her shoulder. “There might be something—”

“Yes,” Gemma answered. “Tetanus.”

“Snakes,” Lisa added. “Copperheads, cottonmouths, timber rattlers.” She pointed to the pools of water in the bar ditch beside the road, evidence of the recent rains. “Remember they like moist places.”

Carly grimaced. “Oh, yeah, right.” With a slight shudder, she climbed behind the wheel. Gemma and Lisa hurried around the front of the truck and climbed in. After they fastened their seat belts, they resumed their drive to Reston.

“You wait and see,” Carly said smugly. “I’ll make that chair into something adorable and useful.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Gemma answered. “But has it occurred to you that it might be a good idea to begin getting rid of some of the chairs you’ve refurbished over the years? You’ve got enough for a symphony orchestra.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Not by much,” Lisa added. “You’ve made each chair into a unique collector’s item. If you wanted to, you could open a shop in Reston or Toncaville, or somewhere else nearby.”

“But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be tied down. I wouldn’t be able to work on refinishing furniture at my own pace or go out looking for new pieces. Owning a shop means having to deal with the public. The way it is now, I advertise the items I’ve got for sale online and people come find me, or call me up and place an order over the phone. Besides, what about my farm? My organic produce won’t plant and harvest itself.”

Lisa threw her hands in the air. “But with a shop your sales would go through the roof. People like to come in and browse. I know you’re the ultimate do-it-yourselfer, but you could work on the farm in the mornings, then have a place in town with a back room. You could work on your projects, hire someone to work the front, arrange your merchandise. You’d be providing a job for someone. Maybe two people. A shop like that would be another way to attract tourists here. The kinds of projects you do? People from Dallas would eat that up with a spoon. They’d gladly drive up here to shop, enjoy the rustic experience, eat lunch, spend money.”