Indigo Spring

Originally published in Cerasus Magazine, Issue 8.

Hope started the day puking up her breakfast sandwich on her way to work. Ever since she turned thirty, her hangovers had shifted from endearing to pathetic. She parked outside her office, gargled some mouthwash stashed in the glove compartment for this very occasion, and touched up her lipstick in the rearview mirror. The time on her phone read 8:56am.

Hope never clocked in early so she scrolled through Instagram for her remaining four minutes. A teacher from her old work was pregnant. Someone from college went to London for their thirtieth birthday. Hope had spent her’s eating Dreyer’s ice cream in front of the television, lying to her parents that she was going out with friends later.

8:58am.

Hope tied her braids on top of her head with a scrunchy. Her manager told her to get a weave — customers were more likely to buy from a salesperson who looked like them. No weave in the world would make Hope blend in with the people of Fisher, Idaho. They were all blonde, pale as milk and looked at Hope like they were peering through monocles when she passed them on the street.

…

“Hoorah hoorah!” Hope’s manager began that morning.

Hope and the other sales people had formed a circle in their dinky basement office. Their manager stood in the center like a coach before the big game. He had slicked back hair and wore a poorly tailored suit.

“Hoorah hoorah.” Everyone shouted back with varying levels of enthusiasm.

The only thing Indigo Cable & Internet’s door-to-door salespeople had in common was the invisible weight resting on their shoulders. It wasn’t too heavy to carry, but just enough to curve everyone’s shoulders forward, droop their chins down, concave their chests in. Aside from this, the people in the circle were all ages and colors — some lived with their mothers, others had multiple children, a few had popped enough Xanax to temporarily lift the weight from their shoulders and trick people into thinking this was their dream job.

“I’m ready are you ready?” Their manager paced around the circle. He bore the heaviest weight of them all.

“We’re ready, are you ready?”

“Get ready. Hoorah.”

“Hoorah.”

“I’m awesome.” He knocked his fist against his chest like he was asking to be invited inside.

“I’m awesome,” everyone called back.

“I’m strong.”

“I’m strong.”

“I will sell, sell, sell.”

“Sell, sell, sell.”

“And I can’t hear ‘no.’”

“Can’t hear ‘no.’”

“Say fuck you to ‘no thank you.’”

“Fuck you!”

…

The door-to-door salesmen that rang Hope’s doorbell when she was a child really did walk from door to door. She grew up in a pretty Philadelphia suburb where the houses were close together — trimmed yards, tulips in the window boxes, freshly painted doors, all in neat rows like slices of birthday cake. She used to bike down the middle of the street and sell lemonade on the corner. Now she drove around Idaho, wondering how to get that feeling of childish peace back; wondering how she got from lemonade stands to this.

Things were too spread out in Idaho to actually walk door to door. Their Indigo office was in Fisher, but the team covered a big portion of southeastern Idaho so Hope spent most of her days in the car; knocking on doors that would either never open or would open just long enough to slam in her face. On a good day she got twenty never open’s, ten slam’s, fifteen polite no’s and two yes’s. If any salesperson went a week without a sale they were automatically fired. If they made more than five in one day, they got an extra $100. Caveman incentives, Hope thought.

She’d been with Indigo for about eight months and in that time had seen nearly everything that could possibly go on inside someone’s house. She’d knocked in on couples fighting, couples fucking, babies crying, and once, an old man who’d passed away in his armchair a day earlier.

…

“Are there even black people in Idaho?” Her mother had asked Hope when she got the job.

“I’m sure there are.” Hope put her feet up on the window sill in the living room, the air conditioning unit cooling off her toes. It was August and her family’s pre-war house was too rickety to keep cold in when it was hot or heat in when it was cold.

“I just hate the idea of you driving all alone through bum fuck Idaho, knocking on people’s doors. It sounds dangerous.”

Hope agreed, but she wasn’t about to tell her mother that. However dangerous it was, staying with her parents any longer was more dangerous. Chestnut Hill Elementary in Philadelphia had laid Hope off in January and by April, she couldn’t pay rent. Hope had moved back in with her parents that summer, sleeping in her childhood bedroom they’d since converted into a home gym, and interviewing just about everywhere without any luck.

By the time she stooped to an interview with Indigo, it didn’t feel like stooping at all — $25 an hour, no benefits, and a per diem was still enough to get her out of her old bedroom where she had to step around an elliptical to get into her twin bed; out of Philadelphia; away from her mother’s lead-heavy gaze that silently wondered why Hope gave up teaching, why her fiancée left her, why she drank so much, all while asking her daughter if she needed anything from the store.

“Why Idaho?” Her mother asked. She sat on the couch, across from Hope, glass of ice water resting on her lap, their schnauzer licking her ankles from under the coffee table. The curtains were drawn to keep the heat out so a hazy grey light fell over her mother’s round face like it was dawn instead of late afternoon.

“Random. They have offices all over the country and they placed me there.”

“So you didn’t request it?”

“No, Ma, I didn’t request Idaho. I actually told them I didn’t have a preference.”

“Well that’s how you got Idaho. If you told them Phillie or something, maybe they would’ve taken that into account.”

Little did her mother know, Hope wanted out of Phillie, anywhere she had a prior association with. “I’m pretty sure I have a better chance staying alive in Idaho than knocking on random doors in Phillie.”

“Dad’s gonna teach you how to use his taser. You’re taking it with you.”

This seemed like a reasonable compromise.

…

Hope turned off the two lane highway and headed down a winding gravel road that led to a farm. The house sat towards the front of the property — two stories, white shingles, paned windows framed by blue shutters that shifted in the spring breeze like a child’s loose teeth. Hope parked in the gravel driveway behind a dirty pickup.

It smelled of hay and shit, something Hope had grown used to after stopping at so many farms like this one on her routes. A vegetable garden bloomed to the left of the house and beside that was a dark blue barn. Cattle, no larger than ants at this distance, grazed in the hills spanning behind the house. The landscape blushed with fresh growth this time of year — everything was rain-smacked and turning green, the sky open and clear.

Hope knocked on the front door. No answer. Normally she tried three times over the course of two minutes before giving up. She checked her phone in between knocks — Indigo gave their employees a discounted plan with unlimited data which was often needed in bum fuck Idaho. Hope opened Instagram out of muscle memory.

The first post she saw slapped her across the face. There he was. Her ex-fiancée. Standing at the top of a mountain with his new girlfriend under his arm, her left hand artfully placed against his chest. Based on the caption, and the blinding fucking diamond on said left hand, it looked like she was his new fiancée now.

“Hello.” A tinny voice pulled Hope out of whatever internal nervous breakdown she was having. She looked up from her phone to find a child standing in the now open doorway, her little hand still on the doorknob, her nervous, birdlike eyes looking up at Hope. She couldn’t have been older than five. Her black hair was tied back and she had thick, caterpillar eyebrows that Hope presumed she’d grow into. Behind her was a hallway leading through the house and what looked to be a living room off to the left.

Hope opened her mouth, but no words came out. He was fucking engaged. Again. It hadn’t even been two years. Not even two years since he sat her down in their perfect apartment in Phillie and told her he couldn’t marry her. Why? She’d asked, begged, demanded. He kept shrugging all guilty and bashful, saying how they never really clicked and it just didn’t feel right. Two months before the God damn wedding.

The moment Hope moved out, he started dating his friend from college, not even trying to hide that they’d been sleeping together the whole time. Hope’s only comfort was that they broke up a few months later. But she wondered if they’d start sleeping together again now that he was engaged to another unassuming woman.

“Hi there.” Hope rediscovered her voice and crouched down to ask the little girl if her parents were home, all the while wondering why her parents allowed her to open the door for strangers in the first place.

“Lady just gave birth,” was the girl’s response.

It seemed they were at odds — Hope wanted to talk about Indigo’s 5G internet (rather she had to; she wanted to stick her head in a bag and scream), and this girl wanted to talk about Lady giving birth. Hope used to teach fifth grade so she didn’t know how to interact with children under the age of ten. She asked to speak to a grown up again, but the child went on about Lady.

“Me and Mommy helped her and she was so quiet and her baby was all knobby and slimy. Daddy couldn’t help because he’s visiting Uncle Rob in Boise today. Lady is resting in the pasture now. Do you want to see?”

It became clear that Lady was not a person, but a farm animal.

“Sorry,” an adult’s voice came barreling down the hall. Hope watched an attractive woman with a dish towel in one hand approach the entryway. She had the same dark hair as the child and eyebrows that proved the little girl would grow into her own. “Lady is my daughter’s cow. She’s very excited.”

“Congratulations.” Hope didn’t know what else to say.

“How can I help you?” The woman tossed the dish towel over her shoulder, put one hand against the open door and the other on her hip. She ignored her daughter yanking at her belt loops with all the tact of a full-time parent.

Hope started her speech in a shaky voice, her entire body still numb from what she’d seen on Instagram. He didn’t even warn her — just posted for all the world to see. She learned about her ex-fiancée’s engagement at the same time as his work acquaintances and friends from high school he’d lost touch with. It didn’t seem right.

She was only ten seconds into her monologue — Indigo was ranked #3 in the Midwest for high speed internet and #2 for customer service — when the woman waved her hand to interrupt. A polite no it was then. The daughter tugged harder on her mother’s belt loop as Hope turned away.

“No, Mama, I want to show her Lady’s new baby.”

“No Olivia, let’s not bother this nice lady.”

“Please Mommy?”

Fucking Instagram. Every time Hope blinked, she saw that silly picture of him with his new fiancée. He must’ve proposed on a hike. How romantic. She looked perfect — athletic-wear showing off every curve, blonde hair tied up and proudly displaying her razor-sharp cheekbones. He didn’t post anything on Instagram when Hope had said yes. He had opinions about social media and privacy back then, which he’d clearly abandoned for the right person. A heat like asphalt in late summer expanded across Hope’s abdomen, her throat tightened like she was drowning and then she somewhat unwillingly started to cry at the front door of this stranger’s house.

She tried to rush back to her car, but the woman and her daughter stepped outside to make sure she was alright. The child, Olivia, patted Hope’s thigh and the woman put a hesitant hand on her shoulder, her thick eyebrows woven together in withdrawn concern. Before this job, had someone started crying on Hope’s doorstep, she probably would’ve closed the door in their face.

“Come see Lady’s baby,” Olivia kept saying. The mother asked if she could call anyone. Hope kept shaking her head, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Eyes closed, she saw that stupid picture again so she opted to keep them open, staring at her black sneakers.

“Well, come see Lady’s baby then. Olivia’s right,” the woman said after a little while. “Baby animals can calm anyone down.”

Hope’s Youtube search history of kittens and ducks becoming friends certainly supported the woman’s argument. Given the tears in Hope’s eyes were too thick to let her drive, she nodded and followed them down the front steps. They led her around the side of the house towards the pasture. For a brief moment, Hope wondered if they were going to murder her — never go inside a customer’s house was rule number three at Indigo — but she figured a woman and her five year old daughter would’ve been pretty unique serial killers.

They walked over the cattle grate and entered a field of green that reminded Hope it was spring. A few cows looked up from their grazing to watch their caretakers pass, but they remained relatively undisturbed. And there, resting at the base of an oak was Lady — Olivia pointed her out giddily.

“This is Lady and her new baby.” They paused a safe distance from the cow as the woman gestured towards the creatures. “Olivia hasn’t picked out a name for the baby yet.”

Lady was a light brown cow with black eyes and ears that flapped around to keep the bugs away. Beside Lady was a little calf, still wet from the ordeal, wobbling around its mother and smelling the grass.

“She’s so cute,” Olivia rambled, beaming at the calf like she’d birthed it herself.

Only once they approached did Hope notice the large puddle of viscous blood on the grass, like the goo her fifth graders used to make in art class.

“That’s the placenta,” the woman explained.

At that moment, Lady stooped down, put her muzzle in the placenta and slopped it up. It stretched gelatinously and from the way Lady gnawed, Hope could tell it was chewy.

“Is she,” Hope gagged, her voice still shaky as the tears continued, “eating it?”

“Yeah, they do that.”

Hope laughed. How did she get here? Not just selling cable in Idaho, but here, at a stranger’s farm watching a cow eat her placenta? Two years ago she was teaching fifth grade, living in a two-bedroom with her fiancée, using her left hand to point out what meats she wanted at the butcher to show off her engagement ring.

Lady gnawed away. Olivia watched lovingly like this wasn’t indisputably disgusting. The calf wandered toward the group; it was about hip-height and as knobby as Olivia had described. A slightly darker shade of brown than its mother, its coat glistening in the afternoon sun.

The calf walked up to Olivia — they were about the same height — and Olivia patted it on the head with surprising delicacy.

“Come say hi.” Olivia looked at Hope.

“Go on,” the woman smirked.

Hope stepped forward and crouched ever so slightly to approach the calf. Olivia guided Hope’s hand towards the creature until it rested between her ears. The calf was soft and warm.

How did she get here? Two years ago, Hope was teaching sex ed to a group of bratty ten-year-old’s who’s parents had more say in their curriculum than she did. She was getting up in the middle of the night to fart in the bathroom so her fiancée didn’t know she did that sort of thing and having weekly fights with her mother over the phone about flower arrangements and seating charts. How did she get there?

“Told you,” Olivia’s mother said.

Only then did Hope realize she’d finally stopped crying. Her chest was tired from all the gasping and her eyes had that satisfactory ache like they’d just finished a workout.

Hope touched the calf for only a moment before it wandered back to its mother, still chomping away at the placenta. Hope asked if the calf was a boy or girl.

“Girl,” the woman said, arms crossed, eyes scanning the pasture like it was all her’s. It was.

“We can name her Chocolate because she’s brown,” Olivia grinned at Hope. “Or what about Daisy? Or we could name her Ruby from my book.”

“It’s a fairy picture book,” the woman interjected, “it’s all we read in this house.”

“I think Ruby is a great name.” Hope stared at the calf. “She looks like a Ruby.”

…

Hope got back on the road by three. Olivia’s mother didn’t wind up getting Indigo, but Hope had never felt better about a no. Pretty soon, she was the only car on the two-lane highway, winding and endless like a ribbon. Fields stretched out on either side — the grass had shed the last of the snowmelt and was still a little yellow from the frigid winter. Everything was so flat that the horizon looked almost like an optical illusion.

Ever since she moved to Idaho, Hope had found the landscape harsh, stark, devoid of all the breath and body she’d grown up around. But now she found the flatness of her surroundings serene, like a calm, morning sea. The low fence on either side of the road — the only reminder that these fields would soon transform into abundant rows of corn and wheat — ticked by like the second hand of a clock. Hope rolled down the windows, smelled the manure, stuck her hand out the driver’s side, and welcomed the crisp slap of spring.