by Joan Kilby
“No coaxing necessary. Your mom is the best cook west of the Mississippi.”
Emma opened the passenger side door. At last she allowed herself to turn and take a last glance at Alex walking away through the trees. Will was right. She was in danger of making a fool of herself. Tomorrow when she started picking she would be friendly and polite but keep her distance. Sensible shoes knew better than to walk on the wild side.
*
A half hour later, Alex pulled into the motel parking lot just as the bulky fifty-something motel manager was daintily bustling along the path from her house to the office, hands sticking out at her side like a debutante. “Margery!”
Her gray curls jiggled to a halt. She tugged down her floral top over purple stretch pants. “Yes, Alex? Is everything all right in your cabin? Do you need anything?”
“Everything’s fine.” He shifted the hot pizza box to his other hand and wrapped his overheated hand around the cold six pack of the local craft beer he’d picked up in town. “What time is dawn? Do you know?”
“Dawn! Why it’s about five a.m. Did you want to go fishing after all?”
“No, I’m cherry picking at Jackson’s Orchards.”
“Ah.” Margery crossed the grass, cutting off the triangle between the path and the parking lot. “I heard Robert Jackson has gone to Billings for tests on his heart. My sister, Janice, works at the local clinic. She printed off his referral to a cardiologist.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he said blandly. “I’m just helping with the harvest.” If Emma couldn’t get any useful information out of him this gossiping old biddy didn’t have a hope in Hell.
“I wonder if they have any news yet,” Margery went on, oblivious. “Oh, well, I don’t suppose they would mention anything to a stranger. I must call Linda and ask if there’s anything I can do.”
“She seemed to have everything under control from what I could see,” Alex said, mildly annoyed for the Jackson’s sake. There was help, which was what Emma had offered, and then there was prying. “Excuse me, I’m going to eat while my dinner is hot.”
A few minutes later he sank into a rusty deck chair on his sagging veranda and stretched out his legs as the sun set over the lake. It wasn’t Puerto Vallarta but a cold beer, a slice of pizza and a wide open sky streaked with red and gold wasn’t a bad way to end the day. Out on the flat surface of the lake fisherman cast their lines. Farther north speed boats zipped in circles towing water skiers. To the south, kids were diving off the pier at the end of the park. He could hear their shrieks from here. Just offshore were a couple of small islands that looked uninhabited.
He wondered what Emma was doing right now. She was different from most of the women he knew in Seattle. Although she would have fit in back in Castlegar. There, most folk were plain living, practical and hard workers. His mother had been out of the box, a hippie rebelling against the strictly religious Doukhobor community she’d grown up in.
Emma seemed to be down-to-earth. She didn’t spend hours making up her face in the morning. Nor did she need to. Those clear green eyes weren’t red from staying up all hours drinking, and her skin was as smooth as a fresh peach. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind or flip his shit right back at him. He liked that. He got tired of the carefully considered utterances of the women he worked and socialized with, designed to flatter and manipulate.
Emma was simple, not simple-minded. He had to remember that and not underestimate her. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun with her. Oh, nothing serious, just a mild flirtation, a bit of good-natured teasing. How would she react if he tried to kiss her? Her full lips looked soft and inviting. And he still had no idea what lay under those coveralls. Maybe he would find out tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the next day. Suddenly his time here didn’t seem long enough.
Stretching his arms over his head, he yawned. The sun dipped below the watery horizon. Last night, and the long drive, was catching up with him. Gathering the empty box and two empty beer bottles, he went inside. If he was going to get up with the birds he would have to go to sleep with them, too.
The next morning he awoke before the alarm to the sound of chirping in the tree next to his cabin. He’d slept like the proverbial log and felt better than he had in weeks if not months. Leaning over, he pushed aside the curtain. From his bed he could see a faint blush of pink lighting the pearl gray sky and the lake, opalescent in its stillness.
He got dressed and washed up then drove into town to pick up coffee and donuts at the Cherry Pit. Remembering to turn up Mission Range Road he took a right on Ralston Road and found the back way in to the packing plant. He arrived as the sky was turning a brilliant pink. The parking lot was empty. The shed was locked up tight.
He smiled and shook his head. Emma had been bullshitting him about getting here at dawn and he’d been fool enough to fall for it. He grabbed a Long John from the sack and bit into it. It would be too bad for her if he ate all the donuts.
While he drank his coffee, he walked around, shivering a little to warm up. The sun hadn’t yet climbed over the mountains and the air was fresh. Over at the worker accommodation a bearded young man about twenty came out of a unit and stumbled over to the washrooms. A few minutes later, a woman and a little girl emerged from a different unit and headed in the same direction carrying towels.
A barking dog drew Alex’s attention to the big log house at the end of the rutted lane. His good mood palled. Was his father waking up in a hospital? Maybe he shouldn’t have cut Margery off so quickly. She might have been able to tell him something about his father. Or his grandfather, whom he’d never met but understood was called Nate Jackson. Did Nate still live in town? Should he make up an excuse to call on him? No, better to wait and see his father first. Then, if Robert agreed, he would visit.
He kicked at the soft dirt with the toe of his running shoe. What was he doing, thinking he had family here who would welcome him? The only connection was his father. Robert Jackson had turned his back on him and his mother years ago. But there were good reasons, genetic history for a start, that he should know something about the people he came from.
Will and his half-sisters were the children his father obviously preferred to him. Funny, Will didn’t look that much younger than him. Robert must not have wasted any time taking up with Linda once he’d left Alex’s mom. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth and he grabbed another donut to wash it away. So what? Alex didn’t plan on making friends with his half-sibs. He would only be here long enough to get a few answers from his father.
A movement caught the corner of his eye. The golden retriever bounding down the lane toward him. Emma, in a primrose yellow tank top and cut-off shorts followed, eating up the dirt road with an arm-swinging stride that set her red braids bouncing. Well, well, so this was what she’d hidden beneath those blue coveralls. Toned and tanned arms and legs, firm breasts, a narrow waist and gently flaring hips. The women he dated worked out in gyms for the kind of figure she got climbing trees and hunting down fruit flies.
“I didn’t think you’d make it.” Her voice rang out in the still morning air.
“Early bird gets the worm. We marketing guys know that even better than country folk.” Alex assumed a bored drawl to cover the fact that he felt slightly intimidated by the rural setting and work he knew nothing about. Why had he gotten himself into this? Some misguided, sentimental notion that he should help out his father. He should have just made a phone call from Cancun. “I brought you a coffee but it’s probably cold by now. You’ve taken so long. I may have eaten all the donuts, too.”
“I’ve already had breakfast but I never say no to dessert.” She plucked the coffee from the holder in the front of his car. “Ah, diner coffee, a treat.” She eyed his brand new shorts and designer cotton short-sleeved shirt. “Can’t wait to see you covered in cherry stains.”
“I thought I would be wearing coveralls.”
“You could but you’d be hot. No one wears coveralls to
pick.” She dug in the bag and found an apple fritter. “You saved me one.” Around a giant bite, she mumbled. “I accept your apology.”
“Sorry, did I miss something?” Distracted, he couldn’t take his eyes off her sugar-coated lips. Sweet.
“For tail-gaiting me yesterday.”
“Oh, that.” He grinned knowingly. “That was just foreplay.”
Her eyes widened and she stopped chewing as a bright flush spread across her cheeks. Had he embarrassed her? He was considering apologizing when she swallowed and took a sip of coffee. Just as nonchalant as could be, she said, “So that’s what passes for sex in the big city.”
He laughed out loud. “Touché.”
She wasn’t finished. “If a man’s car is a metaphor for his penis what does it mean that you drive a tiny sports car? Your Beemer could fit in the back of Will’s HiLux.”
“Okay, enough.” Still chuckling, he reached down to pat the retriever who was sniffing at his shoes. “Who is this, by the way?”
“Taffy. Original, I know.”
“She’s sweet.” He ruffled the dog’s ears. “You like me, don’t you, girl?” Then he straightened. “What should we be doing?”
“I’ve got a key to the shed.” Throwing back the last of her coffee, Emma licked the sugar off her fingers. “Will told me last night we’re going to start at this end of the orchard. He put a bin halfway down the first row. We can carry the ladders over and get started.”
Emma opened the shed. Alex picked up a stepladder under each arm. She pulled a pair of picking sacks from a box next to the coveralls. By the time they were walking out to the orchard through the dewy grass there was more movement over at the workers’ units. A group of pickers were standing around with hot drinks, yawning and stretching. They were mostly young men and women but also migrant workers and a couple with three young children.
“Do you want to wait for them?” Alex asked, hoping she’d say no and that he’d have her undivided attention a little longer.
“Will is going to be along shortly to organize them. I’ll show you how to pick before they get here so no one laughs at you.”
“You’re all heart.” The backpackers were likely novices too, which meant she was just giving him a hard time. “Do you use a ladder like a normal human being, or do you make like Spiderman and climb?”
She used a ladder as it turned out because it gave her greater reach. She showed him how to wear the soft-sided bag with the bottom that opened so the cherries could tumble gently into the bin when the flap was opened. Other pickers soon joined them and the sounds of different languages floated through the orchard—Spanish, some Scandinavian language and American English. They picked steadily for a couple of hours. Will arrived on the tractor towing the flatbed to bring new empty bins and take the full bin away.
Alex’s jokes dried up as the sun rose in the sky and he went up and down the ladder a couple of hundred times. His shoulders and legs began to ache and his fingers were soon stained reddish-purple from cherry juice. Enviously, he eyed the pickers wearing hats. Emma had produced a soft cap from her back pocket that shaded the top half of her face. Her jokes dried up, too, as her nimble fingers flew among the branches, plucking clusters of ripe red fruit.
Picking was serious work. He learned on one of Will’s trips that the cherries needed to be harvested at their peak to get the best price. The urgency was compounded by worries about the possibility of more rain. More than once he’d seen Will studying the clouds building on the horizon with an anxious frown.
At noon they broke for lunch, diving into the hampers and coolers full of food and drinks Linda had prepared and brought out to the orchard in her car. Alex sat on the grass and leaned against a tree trunk, consuming in quick succession three chicken sandwiches, two thick slices of chocolate brownie and about a gallon of iced tea. Only the thought of having to haul his full stomach up the ladder all afternoon made him stop there. A meal in the finest restaurant in Seattle had never tasted so good.
The afternoon was pretty much the same as the morning. Position a ladder against the tree, climb up, fill sack, climb down, empty sack, move ladder. Rinse and repeat. Sweat poured down Alex’s back and face. He added a handkerchief to the list of things he would bring tomorrow—hat, water bottle, sunscreen.
They’d finished five rows and had started on the sixth when at four p.m. Will called a halt. “Thanks, everyone. Great job. We start again tomorrow at the same time. Climb aboard the flatbed and I’ll take you back to the packing shed.”
Three full bins of cherries sat in a row down the center of the trailer. The pickers ranged themselves around the outside. Alex hoisted himself up on the wooden tray next to Emma with a groan for his sore thighs and shoulders. “This is so much fun. I don’t know why I’ve never done it before.”
Her cheek was smudged with bits of bark and she was picking twigs out of her braids. But her weary smile lit her eyes and made him forget his discomfort. “You did good. Keep that up and you might win Fastest Picker award at the cherry festival.”
“There’s an award for this?” He had to admit, his competitive instincts had come into play today. Whether it was winning a new marketing account or bringing in the most cherries, he liked to be on top.
“I thought that would pique your interest. Careful, though, you better pace yourself or you’ll burn out.” She stretched her legs out straight as they bumped slowly along the rutted lane. “Feel like a swim or are you too tired?”
“Diving into a cool lake sounds perfect right about now.” He gripped the edge of the flatbed and with every lurch his arm brushed hers. “Do you have a favorite spot? I noticed kids swimming from the pier in town last night.”
“I usually swim right off our beach, across the road from here. There’s an awesome rope swing tied to a big old maple.”
“I don’t think I’ve been on a rope swing since I was twelve years old.”
She turned to face him, and met his gaze head on, her eyes as green as the canopy of leaves overhead. “Then it’s time you revisited it.”
“Can’t wait.” Surprisingly, it was true.
They unloaded at the shed where the process workers were still packing cherries into boxes for shipping. The other pickers dispersed back to their quarters. Emma chatted to one of the stragglers, a woman with a girl of about eight. Alex moved slowly, already stiff from sitting on the ten minute ride from the orchard. A beer would go down nicely. He was making plans to pop back to the motel for the rest of his six pack when he noticed Will driving the fork lift over to the hopper with a full bin. The fork lift operator, and half the process workers had gone home, leaving only a few women sorting cherries on the conveyor belt.
“Let me give you a hand.” Alex moved into position next to the hopper.
He guided the plastic tub as Will tipped the forks and cherries tumbled into the stainless steel funnel. Will went back for the other two bins and they repeated the process. Then Alex helped Will put a load of empty bins back on the flatbed ready for the next day.
“Thanks, I appreciate the extra help.” Will clapped him on the shoulder. “Most guys just walk away as soon as the picking’s done.”
“No problem. I know what it’s like to be the one left holding the bag when chores need to be done.” Nevertheless, it felt good to be appreciated. Alex wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. “Well, see you tomorrow. Emma’s promised to take me swimming.”
“She’s coming up to the house tonight for dinner. Why don’t you come, too?”
“I don’t want to intrude.” Sit around the dinner table with his half-sibs and the woman who’d replaced his mom? No thanks.
“We often invite one or two of the pickers to eat with us,” Will said. “Mom always makes tons of food.”
“Never turn down an invitation to dinner at the Jacksons’,” Emma said, joining them. “Linda is the most amazing cook. You should come.”
“Let’s not push him,” Will said to Emma. “May
be he’s got friends in town he’d rather spend time with.”
“If he had friends in town he wouldn’t be picking cherries,” she pointed out and threw him a challenging glance. “Right, Alex?”
Trust her to be so logical.
“It’s completely up to you but the offer is there,” Will said.
He was bone-tired and sore and there would be another early start tomorrow. Part of him wanted nothing to do with his father’s other family. It would be like probing a sore tooth to sit around the dinner table with the people who had replaced him and his mom in his father’s affections. Another part of him, though, was curious. “If you’re sure it’s no trouble, I’d be happy to join you. Thanks.”
“Cool. See you both at six thirty.” Will turned and went back into the shed.
“Let’s go swimming,” Emma said. “We probably have a pair of men’s trunks at the house. My sister’s boyfriends are forever leaving them behind.”
“Your boyfriends don’t?” He could fish for information, too. If he was curious about the Jacksons, he was even more curious about Emma.
Her eyes were wide and innocent. “I live in Missoula, remember?”
“That’s no answer.” He opened the car door for her, planning to drive down because he didn’t think he could walk another step.
“It’s all the answer you’re going to get.” She glanced down at her clothes. “Not worried about cherry stains on your leather seats?”
Damn, he’d forgotten about that. Then he shrugged. “The seats are red. Stains won’t show up.” He hoped. Nothing was going to deter him from swimming with Miss Muffett.
Chapter Four
‡
Emma cursed Zoe under her breath as she struggled into her sister’s bikini. Of all days for Zoe to decide to borrow Emma’s one piece! They were the same size and often traded clothes. Emma didn’t normally mind because Zoe had good taste and could be counted on for pretty dresses. Although, whereas Emma favored a looser fit, Zoe preferred garments that clung. Emma checked herself out in the mirror over the dresser and groaned at the amount of bosom overflowing the red bikini cups. Alex would think she was trying to come on to him.