The farmhouse, part 3
"The second time Sam appeared in her Cyte feed, Kendra would recall, with a stab of guilt, that she really had meant to tell her about the cameras."
Read part 1 and part 2 of The farmhouse. My ghost (?) story continues as Kendra starts getting to know her strange new roommate.
As simple as Kendra’s life was at the farmhouse, there was something indulgent about it, too. The meager meals, cheap liquor, and AI-scripted sitcoms would have been impossible at her old apartment. Caroline would never have allowed such wallowing.
Not that Kendra had much time for TV with second-year exams little more than a semester away. But now that her life had been stripped down to its most basic components, committing herself to school was almost easy. Without Caroline and the queers that came with her—three or four lesbian-spectrum homosexuals with complicated haircuts who had always been a little cold to Kendra, or so she imagined—there was almost nothing else to think about.
Mom called twice a week, always with news to share about her job and Dad’s job and what Tim, who was underemployed and living in a duplex six blocks away from their childhood home, was up to. When the calls ran long, as they usually did, Kendra put her phone on speaker so she could look at Cyte as she listened, a habit Caroline used to tease her about. If one of them was out of town, she would sometimes text Kendra, should I call so you can look at cyte?
and? It was a brisk spring day the first time Kendra felt the joke’s hard edge.
jesus, texted Caroline. relax.
After that, Caroline had stopped joking about Cyte, though Kendra was using the app more frequently, even when they were together. When she ran out of new content, she trawled her Explore tab, organized by the videos’ locations, subjects, and incidental sponcon (Subway billboards in the background, Hershey’s wrappers in the wastebasket) in search of flattering memories of herself and attractive strangers all over the world. In the weeks preceding their breakup, these videos replaced Caroline’s face as the last thing Kendra saw before she fell asleep. When her feed showed her a video with Caroline in it, Kendra found herself swiping past almost immediately, rather than lingering as she once had. Caroline didn’t like Cyte anyway.
“Doesn’t it bother you that nothing is private anymore?” said Caroline. “They can see everything we’re up to.” The way she said they made the entity seem much grander, and far more interested in what Kendra was doing, than the NSA, or whoever, could possibly be.
“They’re already watching,” reasoned Kendra. “I might as well, too.”
Caroline scoffed and went back to her book.
In hindsight, Kendra couldn’t believe that she’d gotten this far into her program with a partner holding her back. Romantic relationships weren’t just intimacy and companionship, sex and squabbling. They were a drain, a net loss, because of all the ways that caring for someone else required time, energy, and a sense of obligation. The three main ingredients of work, in other words, and Kendra had enough of that on her plate. If she went for her PhD, she’d only have more of that to worry about.
Because even when she and Caroline were happy—and there had been good times, Kendra had to admit—their problems never seemed to resolve. Like the paintings. Or how Caroline thought Kendra spent too much money on brand-name groceries, but refused to allow Kendra to just pay more than her share. Or how Caroline insisted on driving to the next town over every other weekend to visit her mom at her grim little apartment, where the piebald carpet smelled like gasoline. Caroline’s mom spent the majority of her waking hours in her La-Z-Boy drinking boxed wine, which her daughter would inevitably mention in the fight that concluded each visit. For Kendra, watching her girlfriend bicker about her mom’s unpaid bills or diabetes medication was like watching her push a mop in a pair of muddy shoes. She and Caroline always had an argument of their own after they left, sometimes while they were still in the car.
Being alone, Kendra now realized, was just easier. Not that she was lonely out here in the boonies. She met up with Noah in town once or twice a week, and she saw her professors and other students when she was on campus. And when she was at the farmhouse, which was most of the time, Sam was usually around.
I wish you hadn’t moved, texted Noah.
omg im literally 25 mins away
don’t you get bored? it’s just you and Mr. Girlfriend out there. This was Noah’s nickname for Sam.
lol at least i have a Mr. in my life
rude. Noah’s reply was closely tailed by a snap of his manicured middle finger.
The second time Sam appeared in her Cyte feed, Kendra would recall, with a stab of guilt, that she really had meant to tell her about the cameras. From her bed, she watched her roommate read on the front porch, the smoke from her cigarette conjoining with her breath in the same sparkling cloud, Misty’s tail occasionally fringing the lower edge of the screen. When was this one from? Last night? Last week? Cyte videos weren’t always timestamped.
But by then Sam was already at work, and since she didn’t have a phone, Kendra couldn’t forward her a link. She forgot about the cameras until the next video of Sam arrived: wearing only sweatpants, her roommate walking into the kitchen and staring out the black window, as if there was something in the orchard waiting to be seen. And again: Sam sitting on the couch in the living room, using a Leatherman to peel a honeycrisp before eating it in small, precise bites. Misty got the core.
Then there was the video that confirmed there was a camera in Kendra’s own bedroom: her ankles grimly jerking under the comforter as she masturbated. She found it above the door frame. Unlike the other cameras, it was almost impossible to see if you didn’t know it was there.
Kendra could have removed it, or covered it, or even broken it, but she didn’t. Every time a new farmhouse video came through her Cyte feed, it was either too early in the morning or too late in the evening, her bed too toasty, her head too fragile, to get up and give Sam the news.
After a week or two, Kendra felt she had missed her chance to say anything about the cameras. And anyway, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It wasn’t like she was spying. And she was the only person out here—other than Noah, when he occasionally visited—who might see them.
From now on, she promised herself, she wouldn’t look at any new videos with Sam in them if they appeared in her feed. After that, she felt a lot better about the whole thing.
On a Saturday evening a few weeks after she moved in, Kendra went to the kitchen to make some of the skinny tea she stole from Noah. Sam was reading at the dining table, a glass of whiskey by her wrist. They struck up a conversation about her book, a true crime tome called Devil in a Red Dress.
An hour later, they were still talking. When Kendra finished her first glass of whiskey, Sam topped it off. When the bottle was empty, Sam went to the cabinet above the fridge, just a few inches away from the camera, for another.
Kendra liked drinking. She liked hangovers, which made it easier to not eat in the morning. And she liked talking to Sam because she didn’t gossip, which meant that they couldn’t discuss the other queers in town. Rubbing the back of her sunbaked neck, Sam held her own on a wide variety of subjects, informed by voracious reading from sections of the local used bookstore more or less foreign to Kendra: sci-fi, American history, self-help.
“Did you get your masters here?” Kendra asked.
Sam grinned. “I’d have to go to college first.”
“Oh,” said Kendra. She looked down into her glass, the twin of Sam’s. Almost everyone she knew had a degree, or was in the process of earning one. To conceal her embarrassment, she adopted a teasing tone. “Well, why don’t you?”
Sam laughed and changed the subject, which Kendra was learning was typical of her. Though their nightcaps became regular events as the weather got colder, their conversations ranging far and wide, Sam avoided talking about herself. No matter how subtle Kendra’s questions, any attempt to learn more was delicately circumvented by the introduction of Bleeding Kansas, or the Sultanate of Women, or the Copenhagen interpretation, and Kendra would follow along with a reluctance that was soon forgotten.
“You’re pretty private, aren’t you?” Kendra said. It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving. After dinner, she had changed out of her habitual sweatpants into a clean pair of tight jeans. Draining her glass, she crossed her legs under the table. Maybe she’d have Noah braid her hair the next time he came over.
“I’m an open book,” said Sam. “Just not a very interesting one.” She got to her feet and picked her coat up off the back of her chair. “Gonna smoke.”
Later, as Kendra was scrolling Cyte in bed, a new video appeared: Sam smoking on the front porch, her book on her lap, her eyes on the trees. Kendra watched for a few seconds before she remembered. With a reluctant flick of her finger, she sent the video away. When the next one began—it was Noah scrutinizing his hairline in the CVS self-checkout, a bottle of Gatorade Zero in his hand—she watched it three times in a row without seeing a thing.
That Wednesday night, the bar & grill was empty except for Kendra and Noah. They chatted with the bartender, a middle-aged man who topped them off for free and let them choose the music he played over the speakers. When Noah began interrogating him about his rising sign, Kendra decided it was time to go.
Noah smoked a joint in the passenger seat, the moon leering over his shoulder. Kendra, who had long believed that a couple of drinks actually made her a better driver, inched into the clearing like a teenager sneaking in after curfew. The windows were lit, but the green truck wasn’t under the carport. “I wonder where Sam is,” she said, yanking the parking brake.
Noah rubbed his eyes. “Mr. Girlfriend didn’t leave town for Thanksgiving?”
“No,” said Kendra. “She never goes anywhere.”
“So what does she do all day?”
“I mean, she goes to work, but that’s it. Otherwise she hangs out around here. Or out in the orchard.”
Noah laughed. “What’s she do out there?”
“I don’t know,” said Kendra. She didn’t know why she’d never asked.
In the kitchen, she sat down at the dining table and opened Cyte.
“Did I tell you I deleted mine?” asked Noah. He was rifling through the pantry. “No more apps that make me feel bad about myself. I’m doing this negativity fast.”
“Check the the freezer,” said Kendra.
The frozen French bread pizza could be ready in twenty-four minutes. “How does Sam eat this stuff?” Noah said, examining the label.
“We’ll be doing her a favor.”
“And we’ll walk it off while it bakes,” said Noah. He set a timer on his phone.
Kendra sighed, but she followed him back to the living room. “Wish I’d gone home,” she said, putting on her coat again.
“Girl, you’d be walking there, too.”
In fact, Mom and Dad and Tim were probably already asleep. They had to be up early for the Turkey Trot. “I can’t believe you stayed, either,” she groused.
“Don’t rub it in.” Noah’s mom and sisters were in Maui as usual, getting tan and downing chichis crowned with pineapple, but this year his dad was joining them. In light of this unprecedented move, Noah, like Kendra, had pretended to have too much grading to leave town.
It was just above freezing outside. They walked quickly over the gravel, but slowed when they reached the field, where it grew more difficult to navigate as they got further from the light. When Kendra tripped over a stump, Noah clotheslined her like a soccer mom at an unexpected stop sign—he had surprisingly good reflexes for a pothead. She only just caught her balance in time. Giggling, they continued on.
But at the edge of the orchard, Kendra slowed to a stop. “Sam said not to go in there,” she said. The trees looked twice as tall as they did from the farmhouse. The branches clawed for each other, though she could barely hear the wind that was moving them.
“We won’t go far,” said Noah. He tugged his beanie down over his forehead. “Do you think it’ll snow this year?”
“I think those days are over,” Kendra said, which made her feel like Dad. For some reason, she thought of Sam as an old woman, still alone here at the farmhouse. White-haired and frail, her big, firm arms gone slack.
“Just a little further,” said Noah. Using his flashlight app to guide him, he went on ahead. Kendra followed, attempting to place her feet exactly where his had been.
Moving slowly, they passed the first line of trees, then the second, then the third. Every few steps, Noah’s flashlight revealed a new row of trees, each echoing the one before and behind it. Holding his phone in front of him like a compass, he veered north, or what Kendra thought was north. Instead of of veering with him, she kept going straight, treading lightly so he wouldn’t hear her split off. She wanted to see how far she could get before she looked behind her. Lot’s wife. Oedipus. Kendra.
As Noah’s footsteps faded away to her left, the wind rose to replace them. Kendra passed one row of trees, then another, then another. She looked for the moon, but could only see gnarled branches and glistening shadows. Not too far away, she reminded herself, the highway led back to town, where there were people and houses and electric lights. Swinging her arms and puffing out her chest, she summoned her courage with big, purposeful steps—it was an almond orchard, not Hansel and Gretel’s haunted forest. As if overtaken by a burst of carefree energy, she jumped for a branch as she passed beneath it, but landed wrong, twisting her ankle. When she knelt to feel it, she heard something behind her move.
Kendra stood very slowly and turned very quickly, but all she could see were trees and the farmhouse, which was farther away than she thought it would be. The few visible windows were small and yellow, like kernels of corn. On this side of their light, the pale tree trunks were black. She got the feeling that, if she reached out to touch one, her hand would keep going forever, her body following it into the darkness. She was very cold. Where was Noah?
Another sound—this one low but powerful—broke the silence. Kendra couldn’t place it until it came again, then again. She had never heard Misty bark before, she realized. It was strange that a girl dog could sound so unfemale. She was getting closer, from which direction Kendra wasn’t sure. She spun around again to find herself lost inside a bright white light.
“Easy!” said Sam, and the dimmed enough for Kendra to see Misty at her feet. The dog lunged, her collar cutting into Sam’s fingers, but her barks faded into one long, ragged growl.
“Fuck,” whispered Kendra. The dog steamed in the cold, straining against Sam’s grip.
“You scared us,” said Sam. “Couldn’t tell it was you at first.”
“Hey!” Noah was almost running toward them through the trees, his phone bright in his hand. “What are you doing out here?”
Sam palmed the heavy part of the flashlight like a cop, its beam bouncing up and down the length of Noah’s body, as if she didn’t recognize him, either. She tilted her head at the farmhouse. “Something was burning.” Now she released Misty’s collar. Her eyes glowed, but the dog seemed to have relaxed. Her tongue hung from her jaws like a slice of meat.
Blowing into their palms, Kendra and Noah obediently followed Sam back home. Misty kept pace with them until an owl’s screech—the first birdsong Kendra could remember hearing that night—drew her back into the trees.
Noah shoved his hands in his pockets and skipped ahead. “I’m fucking freezing!” he said over his shoulder. “And starving! Do you think we can get delivery out here?”
Sam trotted after him, her keyring singing on her hip. Kendra was the last to cross over from the orchard to the field. Alone again, she was thinking, when she felt Misty’s breath warm the sliver of skin above her right sock.
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