Page 2 of Apple of My Eye
‘And to think, besides my parents you’re the only reason I really wanted to come home,’ I scold him, clipping him into a lead and letting him out of his stall. I walk him outside to the pen behind the barn, monitoring his steps as we go. ‘You look good,’ I encourage him, feeling overwhelming gratitude for Dad, who’s been tending to JJ ever since he injured his hoof two years ago while he was riding with one of the kids in town. He was lonely while I was in college so when I left for graduate school, I arranged for some neighborhood kids to ride him while I was away. It was great for everybody—I didn’t have to let JJ go and he was able to get some exercise. That is, until he got injured.
‘Now we just gotta get someone riding you again,’ I say aloud, ‘someone a little smaller than me.’
JJ neighs, like he can understand me, and he also agrees he is only big enough to be ridden by an adolescent and begins to prance around the paddock. His chestnut mane catches the last dregs of sunlight. I snap a picture of him and send it to Lily.
Views are better in the city I’m sureI text, referencing our constant sarcasm, thinly veiled attempts to get the other one to move. There is a zero percent chance views in New York City rival a sunset in the farmlands of Washington. The last text she sent me was a picture of pizza, a giant New York slice, grease pooling in the little pepperonis:
UGH I miss Carnation pizza, this is nothing compared to the local Domino’s :/
Catch up soon?I tack onto my message.
Being home usually makes me miss Lily, but I feel her absence even more acutely today. Last time she was home we did exactly what I’m doing now, watched JJ stretch his legs as we drank a beer and the sun sank behind the hills, gossiping about people we went to high school with, dreaming about our futures, Lily getting promoted at the fashion magazine she works for in New York and me as a farmer in Carnation, something Lily claimed she didn’t understand. ‘It’s just soearly,’ she told me. ‘Don’t you want to do a little more exploring before you tie yourself down?’
I didn’t know if this was just another attempt to get me to move or if she was tapping into something I had been worried about—was I ready to settle into such a small town, such a demanding job,forever?
‘I did the lists,’ I confessed.
Lily levelled me with a serious gaze. ‘And your pro/con list told you to move home?’
I shrugged. Technically it wasn’t a pro/con list, but I didn’t need to bore her with semantics. I make lists for everything, so making a ‘What Do I Do After College’ list was par for the course. There is nothing better than pulling thoughts from my head and rearranging them into order. Once I see them on a page, I can stop holding onto them. I canfeelthe space it leaves behind in my brain for other things. I have lists on my phone for everything under the sun. Reasons I hate biking, recipes I want to learn from my mom, gas stations between the farm and school that don’t stock expired potato chips.
‘But how will you meet a man?’ Lily whined. ‘The only ones left in Carnation are like .?.?. Josh and Burt. Ew, what if you end up with Burt.’
I laughed out loud. ‘Lily, I am not going to end up with Burt. Also, you’re one to talk—you haven’t met a man and you live in the busiest city in the world. I am not wasting my time on that right now. I’m in save-my-family-farm mode, remember?’
Lily rolled her eyes, grumbling that I was being a hermit, and changed tack. ‘But there’s so much out in the world you haven’t done.’
‘You’re acting like I don’t live within driving distance of an airport.’
‘But you can’t explore in Carnation!’
‘Oh right, because you moved to New York suddenly you’re the explorer expert?’
‘Just call me Dora,’ she deadpanned.
I wish she was here to celebrate with me now that I’ve finally done it—I’ve committed to saving my family farm. Now everything just needs to go according to plan.
Chapter Two
Nick
I shake my head at my computer screen in disbelief.
‘This can’t be happening,’ I mutter under my breath.
I’m not quiet enough, because Isaac perks up from his seat across from me. ‘What is it?’ he asks, making no effort to hide his excitement.
Isaac is one of my closest friends, and apart from Julian the only reason I’ve survived business school, but for as long as I’ve known him, he’s had an uncanny ability to be able to tell when I’m not getting my way. It makes him shamelessly gleeful.
‘You get your way a lot,’ he likes to point out, whenever I comment on this unbecoming trait of his. I defend myself, explaining that I work for my ‘luck’, that I don’t accept no for an answer, that out of the three of us I try the hardest, but my rebuttals always go in one ear and out the other. ‘So, it’s only fair that I get to relish in the very few instances where you do not,’ he always says.
Today is no exception.
‘Did the capstones come in?’ Isaac asks, leaning forward excitedly, running a hand through his mop of curly black hair. ‘That’s it, isn’t it. You have to go to the farm!’ He bursts out laughing before I even have the chance to respond, reading my expression accurately as the confirmation it is.
‘Congratulations!’ the email reads. ‘Your application to the Parker Family Farm Capstone Project has been accepted.’
‘Julian!’ Isaac manages to call out in between wheezes of laughter. ‘Nick actually got it.’ He hits the table with his palm, sending shockwaves through our coffees.
