Story a Day

She loved him more than anything. How could she not? With that unstudied, resplendent grin, that way of staring into the distance when he was consternated, those eyes, temples, earlobes, eyebrows, shoulders, tummy, hips. That laugh, those jokes, that way of listening, that way of nesting his thoughts when he talked, like a stucco of layered parentheses. Really, she thought, everyone who ever met him had to be in love with him. They probably were, too.

She was a yam farmer, and she loved yams, too. Loved their grainy sugary orangeness, their rumpled dirty skins, the hairs that stuck out of eyes. Yams brought her closer to friends, they let her express her love through cultivation, cooking, the offering of dishes. She loved to put yams in pies, cobblers, casseroles, salads, stuffings, soups, and fries. She snuck them into bread. She loved to get the dirt ready for them. She loved to water them and dig them up at harvest. They were her livelihood, her business, her love, and her self.

Once, during an argument, he called her “just a white trash yam farmer.” He said, “I hate yams. They’re squishy. They’re disgusting. They make me think less of you.”

So she threw him out. But it made her so sad that for the first time, she wasn’t hungry enough to eat any yams, not from the whole batch brought in that year. She barely ate a thing, and certainly not yams. But somehow, she channeled her sadness into the farming and cooking of yams. As she got thinner, her yam jam and yam souffle and yam cornbread, and all the other dishes she made with yams, became better than ever. She won awards. She sold her businesss. She wrote a book.

Months later, he came back. “I’m sorry, I was wrong,” he said. “Will you take me back?”

“I’m going to keep farming a lot of yams, darling,” she said.

“Yes! Of course! But could you also farm some plain brown potatoes, maybe, for me?”

And she was happy to do it. She started making a white version and an orange version of everything. White and orange mashed potatoes, next to each other in two ceramic bowls. A white salad and an orange one. And she was never happier.

image: digiyesica on flickr