Will did not like being laughed at, not by anybody. It was simply not something he was used to. Just another part of my new life, I suppose, he thought.
"I'm sorry," Chelsea said, trying to stifle her laughter. "It's just you want to work on my farm? Willingly? When you live in a nice place like this. Hell, if I could live in a yacht, I certainly wouldn't be on that farm!"
"But, Chelsea, look at all farmwork has done for you!" he said, motioning to her. "It's made you strong and self-sufficient. I want that! It's one of the reasons I left home in the first place."
She stopped laughing, narrowed her eyes and examined him closely. As she appraised him, he frowned.
"All right, William," she said. "You start tomorrow." As she turned to leave, she said, "And for the love of the Goddess, don't wear white. You'll only get it dirty."
He watched her go, relieved that she had agreed. There was no reason she should deny him, anyway. He knew she needed help on the farm.
Sometimes she would come to his yacht and just collapse in one of the chairs. At times like that he would wordlessly serve her tea, not saying anything about her exhaustion. She was proud and he knew she would never directly ask him for help. Instead he would make idle chatter and she would listen silently. She needed the rest.
The next day he strolled to Chelsea's farm wearing a clean t-shirt and jeans. As he passed, people stared curiously. It had been a long time since people had watched him like that. The last time was when he was new to the islands and people were off-put by his rich appearance that was unlike anything else on Sunshine Islands.
"What happened to your regular clothes?" Julia said, coming to walk beside him.
He smiled. "I simply decided it would be best if I wore my worst clothes today. I'm helping Chelsea on the farm, after all."
"Really?" Julia said. "Does she need help that badly? Why didn't she ask me?"
"No, no. I volunteered."
"Why?"
"Because I thought it would be a wonderful learning experience."
Mirabelle screamed Julia's name somewhere in the distance. She jumped, startled. "Well, good luck on that," she said doubtfully before trotting off.
Why does everyone doubt me? He thought. Everyone saw him as the rich boy with everything going for him. That was just the image he had tried to escape by coming here. He wanted to be more than just a rich boy. He wanted to work and put effort into things, rather than having everything handed to him on a silver platter.
But no matter what he did, he still couldn't escape how people saw him, whether it was his family back home or the islanders.
His parents sent him letters occasionally. His mother always begged him to return home.
"Aren't you cold, dearest?" She would write. "Please, come back home. We miss you!"
His father was colder. His letters expressed how he knew Will would fail eventually and come crawling back.
To Will, he felt as if everyone around him knew he would fail and he was uselessly fighting against it. He rolled up his sleeves. He wouldn't fail. He was more than just a pitiful little rich boy.
He found Chelsea out in front of her house, leaning against the wall, a basket held firmly in her hands. She looked even less kept than she usual. Her hair was pulled back into a bun under her bandana and her jeans had gaping holes, revealing her cut-up knees.
"What'd I say about white?" she said, pointing at his white shirt and moving off the wall with one clean motion.
"I'm not afraid of a little dirt," he said, with a smile. "Now, what do you need me to do, Miss Chelsea?"
She shoved the basket into his hands and motioned to the fields to the side of the house. "Have you ever planted before?"
"Flowers," he said.
She snorted. "Figures. Well, farmwork will be good for you. Besides, you look good in those clothes." She smiled mischievously.
He blinked and looked down. "Huh? These clothes? They're just something I threw on because I knew we were going to get dirty and—"
She was laughing even harder.
"What?" he said.
"Yeah, we're going to be getting really, really dirty," she said, grinning.
"You're suggesting something uncouth, aren't you?" he said. "Well, I assure you that my intentions towards you are nothing of the sort."
She waved him off. "Of course not. You've got that treasure hunter after you. Look, I totally understand. She's gorgeous."
"She is a very…nice girl," he said carefully. "But she keeps asking me for money, and while I certainly have plenty of it, I wish she were more interested in actually talking to me."
Chelsea shrugged. "Well, she's a treasure hunter. She's going to take riches where she can find them. Besides, lots of guys have their eyes on her. I think it's the slit in her dress."
He flushed. "It does make her legs very conspicuous."
"And, thus, the reason you keep giving her what she wants!" She giggled. "Now, time for work!"
Will followed her to the field. He looked mildly surprised when he saw how large it was. "Do you take care of this all by yourself?"
"Mostly. Mark helps sometimes, but I don't let him help me all the time."
"Why not?"
"I think he sort of likes me. I'd feel like I was taking advantage of him."
She began explaining to him what she wanted him to do. "Just get on your knees, dig a little hole and plop a seed in."
He did as he was told. After a while, his back and knees began to hurt him. He looked up to see what Chelsea was doing.
She slammed her axe against a log, her skin glistening with sweat. She casually set the axe aside, took off her bandana and wiped the sweat from her brow. Her clothes, dirty and tattered, were strangely…something. He couldn't put his finger on it. All he knew was he couldn't look away as she moved. Her shirt and jean, old as they were, seemed to fit her perfectly. Loose in all the right areas, tight in—
"What are you staring at?" she said.
"N-nothing," he said with a start. He quickly began to dig little holes in the ground again, doing anything but looking at her.
She looked around. "Is Lily behind me or something? Is that why you're staring?"
"I was…staring at you, actually." He stared at the ground.
"Oh?" she said, curiously. "Like what you see?"
"Just…you look very nice in those clothes."
She pulled at her shirt, disbelieving him. "What? Seriously. How? Back home you're probably used to supermodels slinking around in short little dresses. Can you seriously say I look nice compared to that?"
He looked up at her. She had a quality every supermodel on the planet lacked: she was down-to-earth, like a nature goddess or something. She didn't try to make herself pretty. She simply was what she was, without the silly excess he had grown so used to seeing in those women.
She was perfect.
But how could he begin to describe this to her?
"I think you do," he said.
She smiled and picked up her axe again. "You're really sweet, you know that? Not many boys…would say that about me." She grunted as the axe made contact with the log. She yanked it out with another grunt. "Everyone says they're so proud of me for what I do, but nobody wants to actually be with me. I guess my work's just too masculine for them or something." She bit her lip, her axe continuing to fall up and down steadily. He watched her, entranced.
"Hey," she said. "I know you're tired, but we have to finish all of this before the sun goes down. So work! I'll cook you something nice if you help me well enough. How about it?"
"It's not often I get a home-cooked meal," he said. "Not since I left my servants behind."
"It's settled then," she said. "You finish work here and I'll cook you dinner. Hell, I'll show you how to make dinner. No sense in you eating canned food all your life. At least, until we can get you married off." She laughed.
Later when she was done cutting wood she stood and watched him. When he made a mistake, she pushed him out the way and resumed his work for him.
"No," she said. "It's done like THIS! Not THAT!"
He truthfully did not see the difference between "this" or "that". He began to laugh.
She shot a glare at him. "What's so funny?"
"Excuse me. I really shouldn't laugh," he said. "It's just your so—so—"
"What?"
"Meticulous, you could say. I couldn't help but laughing. I apologize, really." Even as he said that, he still could barely stifle his laughter.
"Well, I'm serious about my work," she said, standing up and brushing herself off. "Look, just do the work I told you to. I promise to be less…whaddya say? Meticulous?"
The rest of the evening went well. She tried to let him work without criticizing him, but he could tell it was difficult for her. She hovered on the edges, uneasily watching him go about his business.
Finally, she wiped the sweat from her brow with her bandana and ushered for Will to come over. "Hey, we're done for the day," she said. "Come on. We'll have dinner as a reward!"
"But I'm absolutely filthy!" he said. "Look at me! I can't possibly have dinner with a lady looking like—"
She grabbed him by the arm. "I'm not a lady, Will."
"But you are," he said weakly as she dragged him off. "You're very much a lady."
Her response was a sharp laugh.
"Really, you are!" he continued. "Even if you can cut logs like nobody else and do all of this farmwork, you are still, at the end of the day, very much a woman…"
She smiled and stopped him in front of the door. "I certainly hope I'm not a man or something has gone horribly wrong!" She opened the door. "Now come on in."
He stood there, confused. "Shouldn't I be the one opening the door for—"
She dragged him through the doorway before he could even finish the sentence. She stood close to him, laughing. "What'd I tell you? I'm not a lady. I'm your friend. You don't need to bother with that sort of thing with me."
She showed him her sparse, little kitchen. He admired her home. It was clean, small and cozy. There was a purity to its simplicity. The elaborateness, the excess of his old home had seemed stifling to him. This place was a paradise compared to it.
With a smile, she showed him how to cook. He admitted to barely listening. He just liked the sound of her voice as she explained things.
Finally, they set the finished food on the table and sat down to eat.
"I totally know that you're macking on Lilly," she said, stabbing her food with her fork rudely.
He took a polite bite from his fork. "I'm not, er, macking on anybody," he said, flushing.
"That blush says otherwise. I know her, you know. I could hook you two up! Come on."
"I believe that's private!" he said, waving his arms in front of him.
"You like her," she said, pointing at him with her fork. "I know it. Your uncle knows it. Everybody knows it! You are perfect for each other. She likes money, you are money…" Her voice drifted off.
"Unfortunately, yes," he said, wiping his mouth on a napkin. "Money is the first thing she sees when looking at me. I don't like that, Chelsea. I want somebody who sees beyond that."
She shrugged. "If I were you I would just make the best of it. When you're insanely rich people are bound to try to exploit you. It's still better than never having much of anything to exploit in the first place. I make do with what I have." She sighed. "Let's be honest here. I'm no raving beauty. I'm lucky if I can get a guy to look twice."
"But I think you are…"
"Thanks, but you don't have to be nice to me like that. I know I don't have many options. I need to get married now or never. Taro's been bugging me about that day and night. 'When are you going to get married?' Like, it's horrible! But he's right. I need a husband before I get too old. I mean, we don't even have to love each other. I'm not some sappy romantic. A guy whose friendly and can do farmwork is enough for me."
He watched her. "You're setting your standards far too low. Love is a necessity, Chelsea! It is what marriage is all about."
"No, marriage is about comfort and security. Love can grow out of that…maybe." She stared at the table. "There's been talk that Mark's going to propose to me."
"And what are you going to say?" He said, his voice strained.
"Yes." She stood up, taking her plate off the table with a sigh. "He's a perfect farmer's husband, I guess. He's a great farmer." She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. She looked away, thoroughly unhappy.