Phileas

Some people think that living on a farm is pure paradise.

The sexy farmer works in bright daylight. His muscles shine from sweat. He lifts heavy stuff looking like a god and smiles at the pretty country girls with their majestic horses. Or something like that.

Well. It’s not. Not always.

My family’s farm was an old one. My mother’s ancestors bought it in the 1920^th after a murder was committed here and people started to think, the place was haunted. Some told others about seeing the ghost of the victim on the grounds. We have many spooky stories to tell. Stories that were told again and again, until now. I never saw any ghosts.

It’s said that all described the ghost the same. I pretty man dressed as a woman. Some of these stories are even well-known in town. In summer breaks, we sometimes have ghost tourists here. Some tried to break into the old apartment at midnight to find signs of it being haunted. After Noelle told me about seeing a ghost-like figure, I kept an eye out for naughty teenagers. But nothing happened. He thought I was trying to scare him. Why would I do that?

The only person I ever scared on purpose was Lali. My cousin. But never with something bad, like playing ghost in the middle of the night. And she tried to play tricks on me all the time. I woke up once with my hair colored pink with chalk. My bed was a mess.

But I wouldn’t scare a guest.

It was a big surprise, when my aunt told us, that we would have one, and that this guest would live in that old apartment. The one, my uncle planned to get rid of, to get rid of to build a holiday home that he could rent out. My dad wanted to renovate it instead. And he didn’t want the farm to be open to tourists. He insisted, that the ghost would curse us if we stole his home and invite guests to his house. The property belonged to my mom and my aunt. While my aunt wanted farm tourists here too, my mom dreamed about her own shop inside the little apartment.

But there was another reason, why my father wanted to get rid of the so-told haunted house. The ghost tourists weren’t just annoying, no, sometimes they broke stuff or scared our animals. My uncle wanted nice tourists here. People, that hoped to find some quiet on a lovely farm.

Well… We lacked the money to do both. And no bank was on our side.

This is why mom freaked out when she heard that our guest would live her for free. For some months, probably. Especially, when she found out who our guest was. A rich boy. An influencer and model. Son of one of the richest families in the world. Not the richest family, but well… They had money. Enough to buy our farm and make an expensive hotel out of it without looking at the money, or feed the next generations of my family without themselves lacking anything. They kind of could do and buy what they wanted.

I knew Queen Lafayette already. I had an account on twinklegram. Not a business one, but a private account. To stay in contact with some of my old school friends, that mostly used twinklegram to post pictures and send messages. I found Queen Lafayette’s profile by accident, but the pictures caught my interest. I thought this self-proclaimed Queen was a girl. A beautiful slim girl. Until my aunt told us about our guest and his artistic name.

That was quite the revelation. Yes, I did watch the short videos that the beautiful queen posted too. But Noelle’s voice was quite high-pitched for a man’s voice. Not girly, but it was easy to mistake it for a woman’s voice. And he never added his gender or his pronouns to his profile. But mostly, I looked at the pictures of this beautiful creature. Maybe that’s why I never noticed my mistake.

And the worst part? I had a little crush on that pretty girl, that wasn’t a girl at all. Ouch. I never thought that I would meet her one day. Noelle Lafayette was a beautiful trap. When he arrived here, I couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty he was.

And the next thing I found out was, that Noelle Lafayette Panter was a truly spoiled rich brat. A spoiled rich brat that could live with us for free. For free! He was rude and spoiled. I didn’t like him. But my aunt asked me, to take some care of him. Since I was just five years older than him. And yes, I tried. For my aunt, not for him. The trap. The beautiful creature. We didn’t get along that well. But I tried my best to be nice.

He disliked our farm. I saw his posts on twinklegram. He didn’t say anything mean, but he wasn’t exactly nice either.  Unless it was about Lali’s bird and her photographic talent. Yes, she knew how to take pictures. She wasn’t a genius photography talent, but her pictures were always nice to look at. Unlike mine. If I tried to take a picture of anything, it ended up blurry or lacking. I was a farmer. I didn’t need to know how to take good pictures!

I arrived at the small village, where I was driving to. It was an hour away from the lake. I parked my car in front of a small shop, that sold jars and stuff like that. Roadly’s Goodies. The shop belonged to the family of my ex-best friend. He ended our friendship when I spent a night with his little sister. She was sixteen, I was nineteen. Well… It happened.

“Phil? Was brings you here?” Uldis Roadly looked at me when I entered the store. He cleaned a shelf of dust. My former best friend didn’t change at all. He still looked like the mischievous boy he was in high school.

“Oh. Are you working here now?”, I asked surprised. The last time I heard of him, he was working in Europe.

“Yes. I own this shop now. My mom was forced to retire early. I had to come back home to help her. How can I help you?” He sounded bored.

“She retired? But… Isn’t she still quite young? Too young to retire?”, I asked confused. “Like… fourty-six? Forty-nine? Or something like that?”

“Dementia.” Uldis sight. “We sought she would be too young for that. We were wrong. It’s not that bad yet, though. Dad takes care of her, I take care of the shop.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Dementia. That was tough.

“How can I help you?”, Uldis repeated.

“Oh! I need new honey jars!” I went to one of the shelves, where the jars were usually kept. I only saw mugs.

“How many do you need?” Uldis joined me at the shelf. “I don’t have them in the store anymore. Barely anyone buys them. I changed our range. But I can order some for you. Just tell me what you need. The jars should be here in two to three days.”

“Oh. That’s too bad! I really need them, but, yes. I would love to order some.” I told him what I needed, and he ordered them for me. It was a bit inconvenient, that I didn’t get any now, but that was okay. “How is your sister? Anita?”

“Married. She awaits her first child. A boy”, Uldis grunted. “That’s why I had to come back. She left town.”

“Oh. Congratulations to her.”

Uldis snorted. “She never got over you, do you know that? You ruined her life! Her marriage is unhappy. They are only still together for the soon-to-be arriving baby. Because of you!”

“Eh…” I blinked. “We were teenagers, Uldis. Drunk teenagers. If her marriage is unhappy, it isn’t my fault.” This was part of the reason, why our friendship ended. Anita had a crush on me ever since she was eleven. I didn’t know that when we ended up in my car together. We were at a party. Uldis brought Anita along. He was so happy when he got invited too. Someone spiked the fruit bowl. We didn’t know and drank it like it was simple juice. Things happened. Anita thought, we would be a couple after it happened, while I could barely remember having sex with her. I drank too much fruit-bowl. And I wasn’t interested in her. She didn’t take my No well. Anita cried at home for weeks. And Uldis started to believe that I ruined his sister’s life.

“Your jars will be here in three days!” Uldis pointed to the door. “Thanks for choosing Roadly’s Goodies.”

“Thank you.” Sighing, I left the shop. At least he ordered the honey jars for me. But maybe I should find another shop? Ulids couldn’t forgive me. That was his problem, not mine. But meeting him felt more than uncomfortable.

We went to the same schools and always were in the same classes after I had to repeat the second grade. For the second time. Dyslexia. It was discovered quite late. Uldis and I stuck together until I entered a border school for my high school years. Until then, he was my only friend. We were both not exactly popular in school. For me, that changed, when I entered the boarding school. I think he was jealous. Our friendship ended during the holidays before our last school year. One of my new friends lived close enough to visit one of his parties when his parents weren’t at home.

Sighing over my memories I went to a small café. I ordered the sweetest coffee-stuff possible and found a nice seat at one of the high windows. Waiting for Noelle to call me. Hopefully, he would be in a better mood then. I didn’t need anymore rich and grumpy teenage drama.

Was I this horrible with nineteen? I don’t think so.

I never was rich. I never got spoiled. I wasn’t fed from a golden spoon.

But why was he so pretty?

Why did he have to be so lovely, when he played with Lali?