A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [59]
“If the locusts don’t come,” said Lindsay bleakly.
Bridget chuckled. “We do sound like farmers, tallying up what we’re going to be able to put by for the winter.”
Cici turned her wineglass around in her hand, and a strained look came over her face. She said, “Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you. Deke finished hooking up the septic system. We can have a real bath and flush the toilets as many times as we want.”
“Yay!” cried Bridget, and even Lindsay, lost in an antihistamine haze, perked up.
“A bath?” she said.
“Add baking soda to the water,” suggested Bridget. “It will help the bee stings.”
“I’m going to miss him,” Bridget added, and rocked back, thoughtfully sipping her wine. “I think I’ll make him a basket of muffins when the blueberries come in.”
“You might want to wait on that.” Cici’s tone was grim as she dug into her pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. “Here’s the bill.”
Bridget looked at her with a certain amount of trepidation, and then, hesitantly, took the paper and unfolded it. She gasped out loud.
“It’s fair,” Cici said quickly. “I checked around. It’s just . . . unexpected.”
Lindsay took the paper from Bridget, squinted at it, held it farther away, and then close. “Does that say—eleven thousand dollars?”
“And forty-seven cents,” Cici confirmed.
For a moment the three women just looked at each other, speechless. Then Bridget cleared her throat. “Um, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t have that much.”
“I don’t even have one third that much,” said Lindsay, still staring at the paper.
Cici got up and poured more wine from the bottle on the wicker table, topping off Bridget’s glass on her way back to her chair.
“We still have to get the hickory tree cut down,” Cici said. “You know, the one that caused the problem in the first place? Deke said his brother-in-law would do it for five hundred dollars. And if we go with Sam’s plan about building air shafts with exhaust fans from the cellar it will be about half the cost of installing air-conditioning, but still . . .” She drew a breath. “That’s going to be at least another three thousand dollars.”
Lindsay blew out a long, slow breath. “Wow.”
“I suppose I could get a credit card advance,” Bridget ventured.
Lindsay said, “I don’t think I have that much left on my credit cards.”
Cici shook her head adamantly. “At today’s rates? That would be crazy.”
Lindsay slanted a gaze to Bridget. “We could sell the sheep,” she suggested. Then at Bridget’s shocked look she added quickly, “Sorry, just kidding.”
“They wouldn’t bring enough to help anyway,” Cici assured her, and Bridget’s look darkened as she realized Cici had already researched the subject.
“Look,” Cici added quickly. “I feel like this is partly my fault. When I did the cost analysis on this place, I should have allowed for the unexpected.”
“Oh no, it’s not your fault,” Bridget said, although her tone was still distracted with worry. “How could you know?”
“We did allow for the unexpected,” Lindsay pointed out. “Just not enough.”
Cici nodded in sad agreement, then squared her shoulders. “Anyway, the point is, this is an investment. A business. We need to start treating it like one. We need to start thinking like men.”
Bridget looked confused, but Lindsay scowled. “I don’t like the way men think. Why do we have to think like men? They screw everything up.”
“Not everything,” objected Bridget.
“Name one thing.”
“Well . . . the Declaration of Independence.”
Lindsay sniffed her derision and took a gulp of sparkling water. “Oh yeah, like that was such a great idea. While those pompous white-wigged asses were up there making speeches and signing their names did they think about all the women and children who would be left homeless and impoverished during a war that would last, excuse me, seven years? Did they take a poll to see how many people were willing to put their homes on the line and have their families destroyed so that a handful of rich landowners could get out of keeping their agreements with a country that was treating