Chapter One--"Anger Management" or "In Which Our Protagonist Is Introduced"
Monday, April 19:
The outhouse door banged shut behind Sam as he hurried to run his hands under the water spigot. The water was frigid to the touch, as was usual on early spring mornings, and that did nothing to improve his mood.
"First the Common House Move-In Committee reschedules its meeting--again--without much notice, and now this!" He had a habit of muttering to himself when feeling peevish, which everyone agreed was far preferable to the alternative of him muttering at them.
His list of grievances--to his mind, on this morning, after experiencing the last dregs of a country winter--was both lengthy and rational. The little inconveniences that might not bother him at other times--for example, using the squatters' side of the outhouse when he was an adamant sitter--seemed just shy of tragic. A few months of a steady beans-and-grains diet will do things to a person's temperament as well as co's* constitution. (But never mind that...he himself was, in fact, totally unaware of its influence. So we may as well pretend that we are too.)
"And now this!" he reiterated, after pausing to kick away a weathered chunk of cow femur that Vera, the beautiful but brainless Irish setter, had deposited on the path. "A no-show visitor decides to drop in three weeks late. With no notice," he added, his voice rising to an easily audible level.
Ruth, who was on her way to the Common House for morning meditation, put a quick hand out to touch his arm. "You okay, Sam?" She had a way of asking questions that made it seem like she cared about the answer, whether she really did or not.
"Fair to middlin'."
"Hmm. I somehow don't exactly believe you." She pushed back a few strands of fine hair, more pepper than salt, that the wind had loosed from her ponytail. "Nothing serious though, right?"
"Depends on what you'd call serious." He almost smiled at her only visible sign of impatience--one work-booted foot tapping the ground. It wasn't strictly "nice," but it was true that he enjoyed getting a rise out of her, simply because she appeared to have such calm control.
She crossed her arms and, for a second, didn't look much like someone who was engaging in frequent meditation. However, not a moment later, she managed to ask quite pleasantly, "Would you call it serious?"
"Probably not," he said, fighting the temptation to push her further. "Ruffled feathers, mostly."
"That's what I thought." And her smile was so wise and so tinged with superiority that he wished he had continued to frustrate her longer, especially when she turned back to inform him:
"You do know that you're up next on the humey** shift, don't you? There're no empty buckets at the trailer."
Then she added, as if it were an afterthought:
"The visitor--what's her name? Leslie--she's going to be helping you out."
(to be continued...)
*co: gender-neutral pronoun
**humey: dimunitive of humanure, often used somewhat affectionately
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