There was so much fucking zucchini. She didn’t even like zucchini–it was like a character actor, she thought, cast in whatever recipe only to prove a certain high-brow appreciation of the strange–but she had to admit there was something appealing about the vine’s voracious appetite, its casual entitlement to the nutrient-laced soil. Blossom-tipped tendrils sprawled across the plot. They wound their way toward the ropey, sweat-anointed forearms of 4pm Tuesday.
“Choke me like I’m a seedling carrot root,” she thought.
“Could you pass me that spade, please?” she said.
4pm Tuesday smiled and it was spring inside her, shoots and buds and blooms. He rose from his rapacious tangle of zucchini. He’d just plucked one from the patch, girthy and dappled with droplets of moisture. He held it like he owned it. “I’ve seen you here before, right?”
She’d seen him first. It had been through the wrought iron fence, from the sidewalk. The community garden was ostensibly for her–she bagged her dog’s shit and took out her recycling on time, how much more community could she be?–but the lush oasis a few doors down from her apartment felt like another planet. The community garden was for stay-at-home moms who sought fulfillment between pilates and interior decorating parties; for the sticky, privileged little hands of Montessouri school children; for finance guys honing their anger management skills. But then, one day, she bent to collect a steaming turd from the sidewalk, and there was 4pm Tuesday. He was handsome, yes, but it was something else that had stopped her: the magnetic tension between control and care. When he cupped a tomato in his palm to appraise its ripeness, he knew exactly how hard to squeeze it so that it resisted, but didn’t burst. She’d watched him through the gates, a metallic tang in her mouth–lust, as ancient as the creation of humankind. As ancient as dirt. Then she had walked home, masturbated furiously, and googled “easiest garden plants.”
She took the spade, letting her fingers linger on his. “Cleave my damp soil with your throbbing spade,” she thought. “Let the ground tremble with lust and part beneath your blade. Tunnel through me until you hit the root of all desire. Let's do that wheelbarrow pose I saw in Cosmo as a teen.”
“Thank you,” she said. And then, “Zucchini's pretty greedy, huh?”
“The trick is to work with the hunger." He took her free hand in his, and firmly but gently pushed her fingers into the soil. It was damp and warm from the sun. “Keep the soil moist. Find the right partner for the bed.” She photosynthesized under his gaze. She felt herbaceous.
“Don’t be afraid to give something what it wants,” he said. She didn't care if she overwatered her first crop of green garlic. It was going to be a great harvest.
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