“I don’t anticipate that I would have a lot of competition for this place,” Greyson said. “So you probably wouldn’t be in a hurry for me to get back to you on whether I’m taking it or not.”
Mr. Fransbergen’s iron-grey eyebrows furrowed and a look of perplexed surprise came over his weathered face. “I thought you were taking it.”
“No, I only said I was looking at it,” Greyson replied. “Even if it is the only option I have.”
Nodding, Mr. Fransbergen’s prevailingly suspicious look returned to his features.
Greyson reached into his pocket and fetched out his cell phone. “Do you mind if I take down your number to let you know my final decision?”
“There’s no need,” Mr. Fransbergen replied. “If you’re taking the place, you’ll come back, if not, I don’t care to hear from you.”
“Oh,” Greyson said, pressing the button to shut off his phone’s screen and returning it to his pocket. “Well, then I guess I’ll be going.”
Mr. Fransbergen nodded, turning toward the trees and heading for the house without any farewell, not that Greyson really cared. He followed Mr. Fransbergen only to get to his vehicle, into which he climbed, sighing once he was in place.
Even though his coworkers had told him that Mr. Fransbergen was a shifty character and that his place was kind of messy and unkempt, Greyson hadn’t expected things to be this bad, or unsettling. Mr. Fransbergen hadn’t even officially disclosed his name to Greyson, who was functioning on presumption that his name was, in fact, Mr. Fransbergen.
Furthermore, he didn’t like that Mr. Fransbergen didn’t really want a written agreement, and he suspected that Mr. Fransbergen also didn’t want Greyson to have his phone number, thus why he’d said what he’d said. He wasn’t opposed to Greyson seeing something of him and his property, but he evidently wasn’t interested in being friendly, even if he hadn’t quite greeted Greyson with a shotgun in hand — although there had been a measure of jocularity to that comment when it’d been made.
Reaching up, Greyson grabbed the buckle of his seatbelt and drew it across himself, locking it into the receptacle by his hip before inserting the key into the ignition and turning it to start the engine, as he doubted Mr. Fransbergen would appreciate his lingering, nor could he say he really wanted to linger around this place.
If only one of the actual rental properties in the area were available. Unfortunately, every one Greyson had heard about was occupied with a renter who wasn’t likely to leave all that soon, and even the ones that might weren’t going to be leaving by the time harvest started, and that was when he wanted to be into a place closer to Joe’s farm.
The fact that he couldn’t remember portions of his drive home from Joe’s during the seeding season — which wasn’t quite so hard-pushing a season as harvest — was unsettling enough, he didn’t want to wake up in a hospital with the last thing he remembered being driving home from a long day of harvesting.
Pronunciation:
Fransbergen: frahnzbehrgehn
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