Thank you, as always, to Carol, Beth, and Kelly for all their help in making this read-able!
Also thanks to Sara (Lieta) for the providing the link on Kansas subsidies. And to James and Elizabeth for other facts about subsidies that are thrown about in this chapter. Anything that doesn't match with reality on this is all my naïveté.
Lastly, thanks to Carol for enduring dozens of questions on what name brands of food were available where she lived. I was trying to recreate a weird “moving long distance” thing I experienced when moving cross-country, but couldn't do it with real brands, so made some up. Still, I bugged Carol with lots of questions trying to find a real brand before I gave up and she was kind enough not to complain.
My apologies in advance as I'm not sure when I'll be on this week to respond to feedback. There's no reason I shouldn't be on tomorrow, but then that seems to be true almost every night and then things at work blow up. Not sure why that's been the case, but it has and so last week was supposed to be slower, and yet the only night I was on was Thursday (and I was too comatose to do anything as intelligent as reading or writing, so I just watched television). Hopefully at least this coming week, I'll have my Saturday free from work. Can't wait for this stupid “special” project I'm working on to be over. My new job doesn't seem that bad, it's just these special projects that leave me no team to breathe.
From Chapter 25“So,” I interrupted their small talk. I eyed the bag again and Clark smiled.
“Like you thought I forgot?” he asked me.
“Like you thought I didn't notice it?” I teased him back. “What is it?”
“You know what it is,” Chad smiled at me.
“What is it?” Lucy asked.
“Chocolate mousse,” Chad answered her. “Clark found a little bakery that makes what Lois declares is the best chocolate mousse ever.”
Clark pulled a container of the velvety concoction out of the bag. “But it's not just Lois' last night in Metropolis,” he smiled.
I laughed as Chad's eyes lit up. “Crème brulee?” he asked.
Clack took two small containers out of the bag. “I wasn't sure who would want what,” he said as he placed them between us.
Ethan immediately began reaching for the crème brulee and Lucy grabbed him before he crushed the sugary top.
Pulling more paper plates out of the bag, Clark handed us each one and a minute later, we were all on the way to sugar rushes.
Chapter 26
January 1995“Wow! This place looks…” Martha's voice trailed off as she tried to find a polite way to describe the mess that was the cottage.
“Crowded?” I supplied. “Over-furnished?”
She laughed. “Like perhaps you've outgrown it.”
I nodded. “I think so, too, but Chad thinks it will be easier for me to settle in here with you and Jonathan nearby and there's nothing in town available yet anyway, so…”
“Well, I'm sure you two will make do,” Martha smiled. “It's not like being too close is a problem, right?”
“Right now? Definitely not,” I agreed.
“Well, it looks like you've gotten everything in,” Jonathan said as he stepped inside.
“Crammed it in, is more like it,” I said.
Jonathan smiled. “Your words, not mine. So, when do you start work?”
“Next week,” I said. “We have a few days to adjust to the move first.”
“Well, I'm sure the Smallville Press won't be anywhere near as exciting as the Planet, but Rob is a fine man and I bet he'll be great to work with.”
“And he's already a little in awe of you,” Martha confided. “Ever since you met with him he's been asking everyone for ideas on what will make you happy at the Press after covering front page stories at the Planet.”
I smiled. It was nice that Rob wanted me to feel so much at home. A little weird, but nice. “That's nice of him,” I told the Kents.
“Oh, well, Rob grew up in town. He's a small town boy at heart. He'll want you to feel as at home here as possible.”
I smiled at them. Chad's romantic fantasies aside, it did seem to be true that hospitality was taken to a new level in Smallville. The Kents could just as well been talking about themselves as Rob.
************************
“You're here,” Rob smiled broadly when I entered the small office that housed the Smallville Press.
“Yup,” I smiled back. “Ready to meet everybody and get down to work.”
“Oh, uh…” Rob faltered for a minute. “You've already basically met everybody. It's really just me. Well, there are a few others, but you won't meet them until the end of the week. Chris Roberts is the printer and Bob Mann takes care of distribution. Chris comes by every Friday to pick up what we have and Bob stops by on Monday to collect his check.”
“Chris only comes by once a week?” I asked. How did the rest of the papers get printed?
“Um… Lois, this is the Smallville Press. There isn't a lot of news here. We only publish once a week. On Sundays,” Rob explained.
“Right,” I smiled. That made sense and was also a little embarrassing. I probably should have known that already, but I hadn't spent any real time researching my new job. “So, what are we working on this week?” I asked him.
“We have a few things. Crop forecast for one – I'm sure that seems like small potatoes to you, but for a farming community, this is what they look to see. It's a bit early in the season, but we start early. Probably the biggest thing, though, is looking into the subsidies from Washington. Helps the farmers plan.”
“Subsidies?” I asked.
“Yeah. The United States isn't really the agricultural country it used to be. It's expensive to be a farmer and the money isn't great. The people here in Smallville, like the Kents, they do it because they love it. But it's guess work.
“Think about it like a paper. We guess what people want to see in the news and our sales figures tell us if we're doing a good job. But for the farmers, they guess what people want at the beginning of the season and if they're wrong, there's no way for them to fix it. Makes for volatile finances.”
I smiled to show I understood. I had never really thought about that before, but I wondered how Martha and Jonathan did this. Was one of them independently wealthy so that they could make sure to survive a bad year?
“So, that's where Washington comes in. The government provides subsidies to farmers for certain crops. They do some predictions of their own for what's going to sell well and basically promise to give farmers some money to cover their losses if they're wrong. Helps the farmers stay in business in a bad year and helps the US by keeping our imports low.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “So, our job is to report what the subsidies will be? Does it change?”
“Well, there aren't huge shifts,” Rob explained. “The requirement is that two dozen products be subsidized, and corn and wheat are the almost always at the top of the list. But there are other products that get subsidized as well that affect the farmers of Smallville, like soybeans.”
“Soybeans?” I asked. “Like the stuff that makes tofu?” Was there some sort of vegetarian lobby?
“Yup, except that's not its primary use in the US. Most of it is used for oil production with the remaining bean sold to livestock farmers for feed. And lots of it is used for filler in other foods. Only a very small amount goes for the making of tofu.”
“I guess these subsidies are probably big news around here,” I said.
Rob smiled. “The biggest. We can write for weeks about them – what they are, what they mean for Smallville, and speculations on how that changes the output of farmers here.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, some farmers sort of cater to the subsidies. Others don't. For example, tomatoes are almost never subsidized, but we still grow them, right? How many farmers produce things for subsidies changes partly on what they are.”
“How much money the government is giving?” I asked.
“Well, that, but more what specifically is being subsidized. How much the government is giving is not that important to the farmers here as the money doesn't go to them directly. It's given to the Kansas Department of Agriculture to dole out.
“What is being subsidized is very important, though. Some of the farmers here, like Wayne Irig, always produce the same thing, regardless of what the subsidies are. Others like the Kents, rotate their crops, but also don't tend to follow the subsidies that much. It's farmers like that that sometimes benefit from subsidies and sometimes don't. So, we can make guesses as to how Smallville will fare partly by guessing what our farms will grow.”
“Okay,” I nodded although I was starting to feel sort of depressed. I wanted to do investigative reporting and it sounded like my new job was going to involve more crystal ball gazing. “So, what do I start with?”
“Well, the subsidies won't be announced for a few days yet, so for now the best thing might be to study the community so you can get a feel for how it will impact us when they are announced,” Rob told me.
“How do I do that? Is there some record of that?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” Rob said looking at me quizzically, “but I would have thought you'd prefer to talk to the farmers directly.”
“Oh,” I blushed. He was right. That was how I would normally have done it, but I felt off my game here.
************************
“So, why don't you just grow what's subsidized?” I asked Jonathan and Martha over coffee.
Jonathan sighed. “The subsidies are complicated and very political. There's lots of reasons we choose to ignore them. First off, I assume Rob told you that the federal government doesn't pay us, the money goes to the Kansas Department of Agriculture?”
I nodded.
“Well, we're sort of a small farm, so even though we grow corn, we often won't get much, if any, of the money from Kansas. So, the subsidies don't impact our profits as much as say the Wyeth farm. Can't remember the exact rank, but Scott's farm is among the top ten in the state, so he tends to get a fair amount from the subsidies,” Jonathan explained.
“Like Jonathan said,” Martha cut in, “there are also political issues we prefer not to get involved in.”
“Like what?” I asked. What was political about getting paid for doing their job?
“Not everyone agrees that there should be subsidies,” Jonathan explained. “There's lots of reasons – for example, there's a belief that the only reason corn is so big is because of the corn lobby, but it's not that healthy and we shouldn't be eating so much of it – either directly or indirectly since a lot of corn is fed to cattle and passed on to us in our beef.”
“The main reason we try not to get involved, though, is that some farmers have tried to game the system and that's caused a lot of ill will,” Martha said. At my quizzical look, she explained. “You can ask for the subsidies whenever and they give you the difference between the price they expected the crop to go for and what it's going for that day. So, in the past, some farmers will ask for the subsidy when prices are low, so they get a fair amount of money.”
“Isn't that the point of the subsidies, though?” I asked.
Jonathan nodded, “Yes, but then some of them hold on to the crop a little longer. Causes low supply and thus the price goes up and then they sell.”
“So they've gotten extra money,” I said, understanding.
Martha nodded. “Particularly around here, it's not that much of an issue, but given the low impact it has on us, it makes sense for us to skip the subsidy and then we can say that when we sell. A few buyers will buy from us as they know that and so it helps us develop a little bit of a niche.”
“I thought we were meeting at home,” Chad said as he opened the back door.
I looked up at the clock. “I'm sorry,” I told him. “I was interviewing the Kents and I lost track of time.”
Chad smiled. “Juicy story? Are you guys hiding a dead body in your yard or something?”
“Nah,” Jonathan smiled. “We thought the space ship was probably enough.”
“I'm learning about agricultural subsidies,” I smiled at Chad. I wanted him to see how happy I was. To be fair, I wasn't sure how interesting this would be for as long as it sounded like we'd be writing about it, but I didn't want Chad to feel guilty about my moving here. And for now, at least, it was sort of interesting.
************************
“Lois?” a voice called from across the aisle. I turned around, still holding the jar of pickles I was examining. Where was the Staggers? This looked similar, but it was called Mynback. Shopping shouldn't be this hard. I just wanted Staggers pickles – was that too much to ask? I sighed. Now that I thought about it, Staggers was a brand local to Metropolis, so it wasn't surprising they didn't have it here. That didn't improve my mood, though.
“Hi,” I said, trying to place the woman in front of me.
She smiled at me warmly. “It's Elysa Dayton, dear. We met the weekend of the Wind Festival.” I nodded. I remembered now. She was the one who said Clark was a good judge of character.
“Yes, sorry. I remember now.”
She laughed, “Well, I'm sure you met too many people that weekend to remember us all. I heard you've joined Chad in the Kent place. How are you settling in?”
“I'm doing okay,” I told her. “It's a little crowded. I'm not sure how Clark's grandparents ever lived there.”
Mrs. Dayton laughed. “Well, I think they spent most of their time at the farmhouse. Didn't keep too much in the cabin. I imagine it must be hard to make it your home. Are you planning to stay there?”
“Just until we can find some place in town,” I told her.
She nodded. “I'm sure it will be good to have a place of your own,” she smiled. “A place with extra room for some little ones perhaps?”
I didn't say anything for a moment. Did this woman – this virtual stranger - just ask me if my husband and I were planning on having kids? Who did that?
“Oh, I'm sorry,” she said, flushing hotly. “I didn't mean to pry.”
I nodded, not sure what to say. I felt a little badly that she was so embarrassed, but really, shouldn't she be?
“Well, really, it was lovely to see you, dear,” she mumbled before turning away.
“It was good to see you, too,” I called after her, trying to sound friendly. Maybe I could have responded a little better to her, but she just caught me so off guard.
************************
“And then she said "A place with extra room for some little ones perhaps?'” I recounted to Chad and Rachel that night. Rachel had stopped by the hospital to invite us over for dinner. It was my night to cook and I felt badly going over to the farmhouse again in an effort to get out of it, so this worked out quite well for me.
Rachel smiled. “Welcome to Smallville, Lois.”
“Do people really do that?” I asked her. “I mean, I don't even know her.”
Rachel nodded. “Doesn't matter. She isn't trying to be nosy, it's just… It's different here.”
“Do people do that to you?” I asked.
“Well, not quite. I used to get a lot of questions about when I was going to get my boyfriend to come back and settle down, though. I think kids weren't mentioned as they were afraid to sound like they were encouraging me to get pregnant before married,” she smiled.
“I guess that could be equally annoying,” I admitted.
“Oh, I don't know,” Rachel sighed. “It's better than the pitying looks I get now. I'm suddenly the resident Old Maid.”
I looked at her with wide eyes. “But you're only twenty six!”
She laughed. “Well, yes, but most people get married at eighteen or nineteen around here.”
“People get married before they go to college?” Chad asked.
Rachel shook her head. “I can count on one hand the number of people in this town who have gone to college. And given that three of them are in this room…”
“That's not really true, is it?” I asked, aghast.
“Not quite,” Rachel admitted. “Maybe before you two moved here, though. My dad did, as did the other doctors at the hospital, obviously. And Diana Starks did as well. I think that's it. So many people are farmers and there's no need to go to college for that.”
“Rob didn't go to college?” I asked. The farmers thing made sense, but Rob?
She shook her head. “He talked about it for a little while. I remember, I was a kid at the time and everyone in town was talking about Rob going off to college. It was sort of big deal since he was the only one in his class to be planning on it. But then his dad got sick and so he deferred enrollment and started working for the Press.
“His dad got better that year, but by that time, Rob had sort of revolutionized the Press and so he ended up just staying.”
“What was the paper like before he started?” Chad asked, and I was glad he was the one asking the question.
Rachel shrugged. “I only vaguely remember, but it didn't come out as often – maybe once a month or something and it wasn't regular. And it was just the editor on staff who wasn't as good as Rob, so the articles were often Associated Press things. People bought it as they wanted to support the Smallville economy, but joked that we'd be better off buying the Wichita paper for all the local news we got.”
“Guess I'm glad we moved here now then,” I smiled.
“Yeah, I don't think there would have been any hope of you being happy at the Press before Rob started,” Rachel smiled.
“So, have you talked to Clark?” Chad asked.
“Last night in fact,” she said, and she looked happy. “He said he won't be back for awhile now – something about being busy now that his partner deserted him,” she flashed a smile my way, “but he'll be coming back for the Wind Festival.”
“So, you guys have done it,” I said taking in her smiling face.
“What?” she asked.
“You're friends. You transitioned into friendship,” I pointed out.
For a moment Rachel looked startled, but then she smiled. “Yeah, I guess we did. I miss him still, but it's different now.”
“Even if you are an Old Maid,” Chad said, stifling a laugh at his own joke.
Rachel laughed as well, reaching over to swat at his arm. “Don't go saying that around the hospital. I don't need to hear it from anyone else.”
