Page 13 of Apple of My Eye
‘And the grandkids?’ I ask, surprised I have to prompt her, she usually takes any excuse she has to talk about them.
‘Good!’ Betsy glances at Joe again and he shakes his head ever so slightly.
Mom sighs. ‘Betsy, I’ve known you long enough to know when you want to tell me something. What is it?’
Betsy smiles, this time it transforms her whole face. She’s beaming. ‘Do you remember that program we applied for? The business school one?’
Mom nods.
‘I was waiting to tell you until I knew for sure, but we got it!’ She turns to me. ‘And then everything happened so fast. But it’s happened. He’s resting at the house now. You’ll have a friend this summer!’ She winks.
So he wasn’t a hallucination after all.‘What program?’ I ask weakly.
But Mom is already asking Betsy logistical questions about arrivals and plans and grants. Their voices morph into a low buzz.
‘Are you okay?’ Dad asks me, meeting my eyes across the table. He looks tired again, the glint of excitement gone. I nod. ‘Just tired,’ I say. ‘First week back on the farm, you know how it is,’ I add, a little louder, for Betsy and Joe to hear.
‘We should go,’ Betsy adapts quickly, ever the perfect next-door neighbor. ‘Come over soon?’ she asks me earnestly, placing her hand on my forearm. ‘I can’t wait for you two to meet.’
‘I will,’ I croak out, trying to sound sincere but my voice dies on my tongue and instead, I sound like a prepubescent boy.
Mom fills me in after our heavy oak front door has closed behind Joe and Betsy and their footfalls have disappeared down the path that connects our houses. Mom and Dad knew about the program Betsy was applying to. Turns out, they had been the ones to find it. There was an article about it in the paper, about a program to loan out graduate students in business to small, family-owned companies. She told Betsy about it over coffee and she jumped at the idea. She was ‘looking for a lifeline’, she confided in Mom, looking for anything that would save her favorite place in the world.
Dad reassures me before I head to bed that there’s no way a business student can turn around an apple farm on dead soil, but I toss and turn all night anyway. I’m distracted enough from our harvest as it is, and now the Parkers have a ‘secret weapon’ to turn their business around,andtheir secret weapon is hotter than a firecracker in a hay bale? It’s starting to seem like I should have accepted that research job after all .?.?.
Chapter Six
Nick
It takes all of my willpower to not email Professor Adams immediately.
Mr. Parkerisa granola grandpa. He picks me up from the airport in a muddy blue pickup truck that looks like it’s older than I am, wearing faded Levis and a wrinkled navy T-shirt. George Strait is playing on the car speakers. He tips his hat at me as I swing myself into the car.
San Francisco doesn’t really have seasons. It’s pretty much eternally foggy, chilly at night, with some days warmer than others. Landing in Seattle was a breath of fresh air. Warmer than I’m used to without the ocean breeze, it felt like the apex of summer standing out in front of the airport. The air was dry and hot, the sidewalk congested with tourists.
Mr. Parker clearly wants none of it, he throws my suitcase in the truck faster than I can blink, surprisingly nimble for someone that looks like he’s reaching seventy.
‘Glad you made it, son. Mrs. Parker is mighty excited to meet you.’
‘Thank you .?.?. sir?’ I hastily tack on to the end of my sentence. Mr. Parker simply grunts and pulls away from the airport, so I take that as confirmation he likes to be addressed as ‘sir’.
‘Your flight was on time,’ he notes.
‘Yessir.’
‘You from California?’
‘Yessir,’ I say again. I feel like I’m falling into a rhythm with it. I never grew up calling anyone ‘sir’. No one I knew took themselves that seriously. It’s kind of fun, I think, sitting back in my seat.
‘You can call me Joe.’
Damnit.‘Yessi—I mean, OK, Joe. So .?.?.’So much for my politeness.I search for something to bring up—after all, we do have two hours to get through.
‘Let me tell you about the farm,’ he says, rescuing me from my thoughts. He proceeds to launch into the most detailed explanation of a business I’ve ever heard. Halfway through I almost pick up my phone to start taking notes but I second-guess it, worried he’ll think I’m texting. By the time we’re nearing Carnation I know the names and personality of every pig: Maisy (affectionate), Daisy (stubborn), Princess Peach (loud), and Buttercup (lazy). I know more about his daughters than I know about my cousins. There’s two of them, both living in Seattle, one married and the other recently divorced. He has two granddaughters and a grandson, and his grandson, Dev, just learned how to say grandpa. I can tell by the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he talks about her that his elder granddaughter is his favorite.
He tells me that Mrs. Parker does the crossword every morning and that she’s the better cook, although he can make a mean pot roast. He, in turn, manages the business. It takes him a long time, but eventually he works his way up to the financial troubles.
‘Boy, we are glad to see you,’ he says, his voice a little less gruff than it was an hour and a half ago. ‘We had a bad harvest last year that really set us back.’
