Bright Midnight

It doesn’t smell like the Anders I remember. That boy smelled like Davidoff Cool Water and cigarettes. This smells like someone new, like the quasi-stranger I want him to be. He smells like a man I want to get to know properly, and all over again.

“You okay back there?” he shouts into the cold wind as he drives the bike through an open gate and we’re bouncing, flying over the grass.

“Yeah!” I shout back. Even though the feelings that are bubbling up in me are both welcome and not. I try and shake it out of me, concentrate on the fact that we’re heading right for a herd of brown and white cows by a patch of budding aspens. I try to ignore how strangely right this feels, pressed up against this man, my arms around him and holding on tight.

As we get closer, the cows perk up. They obviously know the drill. Anders starts hooting at them and yelling in Norwegian, zipping the bike around them until they start moving toward the barn, the bells around their necks ringing, their udders swinging back and forth.

“So have you named them?” I ask loudly in his ear.

He grins. “Of course. That one with the brown face is Gertrude. The mostly white one is Maria…”

“Really?”

He sucks on his lower lip for a moment, eyes dancing.

“You’re full of shit, aren’t you,” I tell him.

We ride alongside the cows at a slower pace. He shrugs. “Well….” he tapers off then nods. “Yeah, I’m full of shit. But hey, you think we put lawnmowers on our roofs.”

“You don’t?”

He starts laughing. What an ass!

I pinch at his stomach, hard, and he yelps. “Hey! I’m driving.”

“I can’t believe I fell for that,” I mutter.

“Honestly, I can’t believe it either.”

Then we take off fast toward the barn, so I have no choice but to hold onto him again.

We get off the bike and I help him get the cows into the milking shed while he looks over each one, appraising them. His uncle, funny old man, is already inside, guiding the cows into the milking stations. It’s kind of amazing how each cow more or less knows where to go.

“Do you want to try milking one?” Anders asks, wagging his brows as he starts bringing suction cup things to a cow’s udder after cleaning it with newspapers soaked in iodine. The cow is chewing, doesn’t seem to notice at all.

“Maybe later,” I tell him, eyeing his uncle as he applies the newspapers to the other cows. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want a noob like me screwing up his entire operation.

I go and retrieve my mug of now cold coffee and watch the two of them work, trying to stay out of the way. It’s amazing how much work it is, even though they have maybe twenty cows, and I have no idea how his uncle handles it when Anders isn’t there.

“What can I do?” I ask Anders while the milk is being taken up the tubes to a vat of milk.

“Something I think you might enjoy,” he says.

He grabs my hand, briefly, just enough to lead me away from the milking parlor and into the rest of the barn. He disappears into the feed room and comes out with two giant bottles of milk that look like they’re meant for monster babies and jerks his head for me to follow him.

He opens the door to a stall and we step inside. There’s a baby cow, maybe the size of a great Dane, swishing his tail and looking at us with liquid brown eyes.

“Oh my god,” I exclaim quietly. “He’s so cute.”

“She,” Anders says, handing me a bottle. “Born only last week.”

“But she’s already so huge!”

“I know, and a handful.” He licks his lips and nods at the cow who is eyeing us both, wondering who she should go for. “Go on. Just stick out the bottle, she’ll take it.”

“Me?”

“I’ve got to feed the other calf we have at the moment,” he says, heading for the door. “You’ll do fine.”

“Anders!” I call after him fearfully, but he walks down the aisle to a stall further down.

Now the cow is really giving me the eye. It’s big enough to knock me to the ground.

And now she’s walking toward me.

I back up, my feet caught in the hay, trying to get out of the heifer’s way until I’m backed up against the wall.

This cow ain’t stopping.

I cry out and quickly thrust the bottle out in front of me in desperation.

The calf latches onto the nipple ravenously, it’s long tongue snaking over my hands as I try to keep hold of the bottle. I can’t help but giggle. It’s actually the cutest thing ever, the way it keeps sucking and gulping down the milk, those big brown eyes seeming fixed on mine. I’ve never been so close to a baby cow before, and this one is absolutely adorable.