by Connor, Eden
“Your community service project relates to athletics?” The professor scowled. “And how does that tie into a career teaching mathematics?”
“People tell themselves they can’t do things. Like math. But when people see these guys going balls to the wall despite having no legs, it opens their eyes to the possibility they can do more, too.”
* * * *
He met Gene Rolley’s van at the stop sign on De Marco Farms Road. They followed him along the small track. Eric parked and grabbed his farm keys out of the glove compartment. He’d expected Tucker and Gene, but was pleased to see Kevin with the two men. “You’re gonna need to use your imagination,” he warned. Wind whipped through the evergreens. Ice and snow fell from the branches, striking the ground like glittering knives.
Gene was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Man, this place is beautiful.”
Eric found the key to the large peach packing shed. “Let’s start here. I’ve been thinking on this since Saturday. Everything hinges on whether or not you think we could make this building into a gymnasium.”
Tucker laughed. “Rumor has it, basketball was invented in a peach shed.”
He raised the rolling metal doors at either end. Dust motes swirled in the sunshine slanting through the cavernous building. The group wended their way around stacked crates once used to transport smaller crates of peaches in cargo trucks and railroad cars. Their feet left wet prints in the thick dust on the concrete floor.
“Is this the net Amy was talking about?” Tucker asked.
Heart in his throat, Eric nodded. “Think it’ll work? I know you usually use cotton and nylon nets, but this bird netting is plastic.”
“I don’t see why not. Where’d you get that frame?”
“I made it.” Tucker didn’t respond, but Eric thought he was impressed. He hoped. The thing didn’t look half-assed and homemade, did it?
Gene Rolley patted him on the back. “My pit crew job’s still open. I’ll give you double what I pay the guy I have now.”
Eric felt too nervous to banter. “I looked up that portable floor y’all mentioned the other day. The ones I saw online were made on a low joist system. The sections bolt together?”
Tucker nodded and Eric began to explain his idea. “We have enough of these old packing crates to recycle into the flooring joists. I was thinking maybe the basketball team could help tear them apart and build the flooring sections. We can set up an assembly line. With all that upper body strength, pulling and driving nails shouldn’t pose a problem.” He punched Kevin playfully on the shoulder. “But I have pneumatic nailers, if you wimp out.”
Kevin shot Eric a bird. Relaxing, Eric kept talking. “We have a sawmill. Peach isn’t as hard as maple, but it’s a hardwood. We have more than enough dead trees to make flooring for this building.”
Gene’s eyes went wide. He exchanged glances with Tucker, but neither but neither man responded.
“If you’re done here, we have to ride up the mountain to see the rest.”
When he slid out of his truck at the camp, Eric was relieved to see the mud wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Selling them on this was the second critical point in the plan.
Unlocking the bunkhouse, he looked at Kevin. “I’m glad you came. I need your chair for one minute. Please.”
Kevin gave Eric a hard look, but shifted onto one of the lower bunks. Eric grabbed the chair and dashed up the closest set of stairs. He blew out a relieved breath when he sat the chair down on the overhead walkway and saw there was still room to turn the chair in a circle. “I can cut out a section of this railing at each end, see? So we can lower it. I thought, if you’re building strength and skills, we can use chain or rope to make a pulley system. Let the player become the propulsion for a chairlift, but if you’d rather, we can use a small electric motor. Either way, rigging lifts so the upper bunks can be used isn’t a problem. Then, I can fabricate big hooks to go into the wall. After seeing how Kevin and his teammates flip those chairs around, didn’t seem like it’d be much of a problem for them to hang their chairs above the bed, so others can roll past.”
He seemed to age a year, waiting for someone to speak. Surely this wasn’t one of those things he could see, but couldn’t figure out how to make others see... the way he’d failed to convince Dan that going off the grid was worth putting time, money, and effort into building the wind turbines he’d devised.
“This is a bigger dream than I dared have,” Gene finally stated. Eric’s heart kicked his ribs. “I thought we’d have to let campers rent hotel rooms, but this....” The team manager shook his head. “Offering room and board is a way to make this thing generate the money to pay top-notch instructors. So, you’re offering to lease me this place, and help do the work to make it meet our needs? Donate some of the materials?” Gene asked when Eric came down the steps.
“Don’t mind helping reclaim some unused materials lying around, or chipping in on the work to get the place functional—after my day job, of course. Before y’all get too excited, I need to talk to my brothers,” Eric admitted, rolling the chair back to Kevin. “I didn’t see the point in doing that, unless you were interested. But yeah, I wanna see somebody put this place to use. You’d talk money with Dan, if he agrees. Water’s on a well system.” He laughed as the group stepped out of the frigid building. “Don’t even ask about cable.”
“We don’t need cable. Show me something to sign.” Gene’s smile was wide. “This place is perfect. I like your ideas, son. Sounds to me like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“I’ll talk to Dan and Colton right away,” Eric promised.
“Gene, no reason you couldn’t train for more than basketball. Hand cyclists would kill to train here. It’s perfect for cross-training,” Tucker said.
“Yeah, wish I could get all my guys a deal on some hand bikes,” Gene agreed. “Build up some upper body strength you can’t get lifting weights.”
Eric unlocked every building. The kitchen, the overseer’s cabins, the showers. Gene and Tucker were beaming like they were touring the Biltmore House. He dared to let himself believe he’d found a way make Amy see him as more than a grease monkey.
Gene extended a hand at the end of the tour. “You just let me know what your brothers think. If we need to convince ‘em, I’ll drive them to the mall exhibition myself. I’ve got some of the best teams in the state signed on to play.” He winked. “And you can bet your boots, we’re gonna take another shot at that team we had to forfeit to.”
Eric realized these men didn’t let any grass grow under their feet when they saw an opportunity. “I’d love to be the pit crew for that game,” Eric vowed.
The group divided. Gene and Tucker moved toward the van, still pointing and talking. Kevin lingered, looking at Eric through narrowed eyes. “You know, I was pissed off to see you with her at first, because I figured if you’d date Dani, you didn’t deserve Amy. But... you might be okay. Just so you know? If you drop the ball, I’ll be right there to catch it. See you around.” He spun his chair in the direction of Gene’s van.
Eric narrowed his eyes on the ball player’s retreating back. But she’s living with me, kid.
He let Gene pull out first, stopping to lock the gate before he jumped in the truck and started the downhill drive. At the fork leading to the greenhouse sat a Ford truck so old its paint was faded to the metal in places. Eric lowered the passenger window.
“Can I help you?” Who the hell is this?
The older truck’s window came down slowly, cranked by hand. An older man leaned out. “You Senor Dan’s brother?”
He nodded. “I’m Eric.”
“Jose Jiminz. Senorita Cynda isn’t at home, but you tell Senor Dan that his trees come through okay. Lost very few limbs, but they say it might snow again end of this week.” With a chuckle, the man added, “Cuanto mas frio el invierno, mas dulce es la fruta.”
The colder the winter, the sweeter the fruit.
The taste in
Eric’s mouth was sour.
Dan was going to turn him down. If he was growing peaches again, he’d need the camp and the packing shed.
* * * *
Amy parked behind the county administration building. She tripped and nearly tumbled down the stairs leading to the sheriff’s department. A young officer sat behind a high desk. “I need to talk to someone about the De Marco killing,” she panted.
He reached for the phone on his desk with an urgency she’d expect if she’d said she’d lost her damn cat. “Name?”
She waited for over an hour, with nothing to look at but a dusty trophy case. Who cared if their softball team won a trophy? She’d have felt better if they had trophies for Best Investigator or Best Forensics. The waiting room was dingy, and the space was small and narrow, making her feel claustrophobic. People came and went. A few waited with her. Her heart lurched every time the door beside the officer opened, but the name called was never hers. She tapped her toes. She shifted to one hip, then the other. These chairs were worse than those at the hair salon.
Finally, a door to her right opened and an officer stepped out. “Miss Sizemore?”
Amy jumped to her feet.
“You need to talk to this guy. He’s waiting for your call. We closed our investigation. Mark works for the solicitor’s office.” He extended a business card.
Amy felt like kicking the young cop in the nuts. “Seriously, it took an hour to send me somewhere else?” His expression reminded her of one of Dan’s dogs. The blind one.
Stomping up the stairs, she yanked her cell phone out of her pocket, jabbing the numbers she read off the card. No wonder it’d taken this crowd twenty-seven damn years to find Cammie De Marco’s bones.
* * * *
This secretive shit Dan was pulling had been on Eric’s mind all week. He fumed while he trailed the rusted truck down the mountain. The garage was profitable. The orchards had lost money for five consecutive years prior to closing them. The more he thought about the unilateral way Dan had decided something affecting them all, the madder he got.
He parked in the road in front of his brother’s house. Dan’s truck was in the drive. He stomped across the front yard. The front door rattled in its casement when he pounded.
“Tell Dan I’ll be in Dad’s office,” he snapped when Cynda opened the door. Feeling her eyes on his back, he strode through the parlor, careless of the rattling bric-a-brac. He plopped into the chair at his father’s desk. Just being in the room made his temper spike. Most of his time in this room had been spent waiting to get his ass beat. The desk had often held some school paper of his, marked with a failing grade, or report cards saying he needed to talk less and work more in class. And then there were the lovely trips his dad had made to the school, listening to Phil’s father talk down to them whenever Eric did something that got him sent to the office. Rafe was always pissed when that happened.
Dan entered the room, shirt off and brows raised. His brother’s eyes were cool when he noted Eric had usurped his seat. “What’s wrong?”
“Before you go reopening the orchards, I thought you’d like to talk that decision over with one of the people having a vested interest in them.”
* * * *
Amy glared at the clean-cut man she’d come to the courthouse to find.
“So, all you have are these two recordings and a photo of a woman whose name you don’t know?” The investigator pressed his fingertips together, but didn’t seem impressed.
“I have an address. I thought you guys wanted to lock John Carpenter up and throw away the key? Go talk to her.”
He shifted in his seat. “Miss Sizemore, let me tell you something about the Mexican community. They don’t trust us.”
The guy’s last name was Martinez and he looked Latino to Amy. “Why not?”
“It’s possible this woman, if she was in the migrant camps at such a young age, isn’t a legal resident.”
He got paid to make assumptions? Must be a hell of a job. “And if she’s a citizen?”
“When it comes to rape, the Latino community has a different outlook. She won’t be co-operative.”
“Then buy a damn shovel and start digging!” Amy didn’t mean to shout, but every way she’d turned this afternoon, she felt like she was moving through wet concrete.
“I’d need a warrant to do that. And there’s not enough here to get one.”
Her middle fingers were twitching. Be mature. Be mature. Amy jumped out of the chair, tired of being talked down to. “Your job is to find what you need to get the damn warrant. That man may be getting away with murder—again. You’re seriously gonna sit on your ass and make excuses?” She took a deep breath. “Do you want me to forward you a copy of these recordings or not?”
He didn’t seem affected by her outburst. “Yes.”
She’d always believed the things she learned in school, the things her mother told her to read in a book. Things like, cops are eager to help people. Laws are made for the good of everyone. None of that seemed to apply in the real world. She was damn tired of feeling like some naive kid.
* * * *
Dan closed the door, but he didn’t cross the room to sit on the couch. He stood beside the desk. Why did Eric feel as though his brother would’ve still towered over him even if he’d let Dan have Rafe’s chair? He was sick of feeling less than.
“Okay. I’m reopening Nance’s experimental orchards. The ones at the top of the mountain. Cynda’s worked all winter to get contracts with area restaurants to buy the fruit off the Dark Beauty trees. She’s working with a graphic designer on a website. I’m not reopening all of the orchards, just about twenty acres. We’ll see how that goes. Maybe next year we’ll talk about opening some of the lower orchards for pick-your-own.”
Why did Cynda get her project handed to her, while he’d been fighting Dan over a plan to use the migrant camp for years? “Uh huh. So this scheme, it’s like the jewelry you found and didn’t see fit to tell either me or C about?” Colton couldn’t know about the jewelry, because Lila would’ve mentioned it. Colton couldn’t keep a secret from his woman. If Lila knew about the jewelry, she’d be wearing some of it, because Lila loved old things. Ergo, C didn’t know.
Eric didn’t give a fuck about the jewelry. This happened a lot when he’d been in school. He’d be thinking about the lesson, but something else came out of his mouth when the teacher called on him. The two things seemed connected to him, but that weird circuitry had been what earned him the beatings from his father most of the time.
This wasn’t about peaches. It wasn’t about jewelry. It wasn’t even about money. It was about respect. Eric was tired of being treated like the family idiot. He had a plan, and men other than him had every confidence it would work. But he wasn’t telling Dan that. Just once in his goddamn life, Dan needed to accept that although Eric had made one horrible error in judgment, he could still be trusted.
Dan stalked to the gun safe that dominated one wall, his bare heels thumping on the polished wood floor, in spite of the thin rug. “Before you ask, any profits from those acres will go to Cynda. She’s done the work to develop recipes using the fruit, find buyers, and get the contracts.” Dan spun the dial on the front of the tall safe and slammed down the lever. Yanking the door open, he added, “I spent my own money to clean ‘em up. I’m paying the crew that’s looking after those trees and I’ll pay to pick ‘em come harvest time. So, no, we won’t be splittin’ any profits. Or any losses. But I’ll be glad to lease those twenty acres from you and Colton.
Bingo. Now who’s the idiot?
* * * *
Amy flopped onto the couch. The cabin seemed too quiet after her rant at the solicitor’s office. She tried watching television, but nothing held her attention. She thought about going to the hot pool, but the thought of being alone in the yard—naked—made her skin crawl, though she knew John Carpenter was in jail. She understood the look Eric wore so much better now.
Though it was barely past five
, she couldn’t see anything through the windows. These winter nights, when it got dark so early, were depressing. Eric said he’d be late. She thought about taking Jonah to a movie, but she didn’t have the gas or the ambition to go anywhere.
Movie. She eyed the pile of movie film on the kitchen table. On impulse, she called Lila. “What’s Jonah doing?” If Jonah was around, she wouldn’t be tempted to tell Eric what’d happened when he came home. She just didn’t see the point in raising his hopes, and watching them get dashed.
“Eating his way through the groceries I just bought.” Lila sighed. “What would you like him to do?”
“Send him down. I have something in mind he might enjoy.”
There was a smooth, white backsplash underneath the hanging cabinets in the kitchen, so she heaved the projector onto the bar. The ink on the boxes of film was almost illegible. What difference did it make? Any of them should show the De Marcos as kids.
She had no clue how to put the film on the projector, but used her laptop to find a YouTube video that showed how in simple steps. She also learned from her search that some Super 8 film had sound. Opening the cans on the kitchen table, she checked for a brown magnetic strip along the edge.
“Bingo.” Amy wiggled her hips in triumph when she finally found a reel with the strip for sound. It took several minutes and a few more reviews of the YouTube vid, but she got the film threaded.
Collapsing onto the couch, she dialed Lila again. “Where is he?”
“Oh, he’s doing his homework. He said he’d be done in about an hour.”
* * * *
Dan turned. Eric caught the small box he hurled across the room. Prying the lid open, he poked a finger through the pile of sparkling metal and stones that meant little to him, except that he’d loved his grandmother and she’d loved her jewelry. “I cannot believe you fucking forgot to mention you were doing something with the orchards. And it pisses me off that you also failed to mention your little windfall.” He picked a ring at random. He turned the bit of jewelry in his fingers, just to have something to do with his hand besides put it through Dan’s face.