Tell Me About Orchard Hollow

by Lin Stepp

  It seemed like Elliott employed a new one every few months - always young and beautiful. Jenna even commented about it once.

  Elliott waved the matter aside. “It’s important for the company image that a front desk secretary be both competent and attractive, Jenna. Surely you can understand that.”

  A lump filled her throat. “Well, I certainly do now.”

  After indulging in another sweep of anguished tears, Jenna stormed through the house on a cleaning tear, just for something to do with her rage and frustration. But as the afternoon grew long and a longer evening loomed ahead, Jenna found herself heading across the hall to Sam’s apartment.

  She paused at the door, realizing how often she ran to Sam when she needed love and comfort. They had little in common. Sam Oliver wasn’t a native New Yorker like Jenna and he wasn’t anywhere near her own age. He was eighty-five and had been in a wheelchair for five years.

  Elliott said, “Why do you hang out with that old man all the time? He’s disabled and he’s from some Podunk town in the mountains of Tennessee. He still speaks like a hick and dresses like one, too. It embarrasses me when you run around with him.”

  Jenna winced. “Elliott, that isn’t fair. Sam is a well-respected author. He won the Boston Globe Award for the Overland Adventure books he writes, and he just spoke to a packed house at King’s College last month. Sam’s not a hick; he’s a very a smart man. Everyone loves his colorful tales about the mountains.”

  Elliott hadn’t understood and Jenna found it hard to explain the part that Sam played in her life. Not having a warm relationship with her parents, Jenna knew she substituted Sam as a loving father figure in her life. And Sam’s warm stories of his earlier life in the Tennessee hills fascinated Jenna – transporting her to a softer, gentler world she loved to hear about.

  Still, she hesitated at Sam’s door. She hated to burden him with her problems; he had enough of his own right now. The war he’d waged with cancer these last years had taken a toll on him. And he’d lost his old setter, Dan, recently – leaving another void in his life.

  She sighed. At least Sam wouldn’t have divided loyalties over her situation. There was no love lost between Sam and Elliott.

  Jenna rang the doorbell at last.

  “How’s my favorite girl?” Sam quipped as he opened the door. But after a look at Jenna’s face, he stopped the jokes.

  “Did Carla call you?” she asked, not wanting to explain unless she had to.

  “Yes,” Sam admitted honestly. “Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk.”

  “I just needed to get out of that apartment,” she said, pacing around the room restlessly. “Everything there makes me think of him.”

  “Let’s go in the kitchen.” Sam turned his wheelchair in that direction. “I’m heating up some lasagna that Mary made for me. You know, I’m blessed to have that woman for a housekeeper. She’s a fine cook. And I’m glad to have Henry Aiken coming in to help more now that my health is acting poorly again. He got his CNA last month, you know.”

  Jenna followed Sam into the kitchen, knowing he was making light conversation to keep her mind off her problems.

  “Have you eaten today since all this happened?” he asked.

  Jenna nodded no.

  “Good, then you can eat with me.” He continued. “Come help me dish things out to the table. Mary’s left some salad there, too.”

  Jenna automatically got out plates and silverware, poured iced tea, and started helping Sam put the food out.

  “I don’t think I can eat anything,” she said, fighting back tears.

  “Well, put some food on your plate, anyway, to be companionable with me.” He positioned his wheelchair closer to the table. “You know I hate to eat alone. Humor me.”

  She almost smiled.

  “This is an awful mess, Sam. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Jenna sat down and dropped her face in her hands, the tears trickling down her cheeks as she started to weep again.

  “The answers will come to you. With a little time.” Sam reached across the table to pat her hand. “It doesn’t all have to be resolved tonight, Jenna. Elliott doesn’t even know you saw him. So there won’t be a confrontation when he comes home unless you start one. You can just play along the same as always and give it a little time while you think things through.”

  “That’s true,” she said, breathing out a little. “He doesn’t know that I know. I don’t have to deal with any more tonight.” She paused, tears starting to well again. “I don’t think I could deal with any more right now, Sam. I really don’t.”

  “Well, then, that’s a fortunate thing,” he responded.

  She blew out a breath. “I feel like I’ve been living in some kind of bubble, in a life I thought was real but wasn’t.”

  “Betrayal is a hard thing to live through.” Sam handed her a napkin to mop the tears.

  “It might be worse than just betrayal. I think maybe Elliott never really loved me, Sam.” She flinched. “That I was just another of those things it was time for him to acquire. I’ve seen how charming he can be when he is trying to get something he wants. It’s how he is in business, too, with his clients. He can seem so sincere, and then I’ve heard him laugh later about how well he played those clients to get what he wanted. And they never knew. They thought his affection and interest were genuine.”

  Jenna sniffed and wiped away more tears. “I thought so, too, Sam.”

  “Talk to me about it, Jenna.” Sam laid a hand over hers. “It will do you good to look back and think it through.”

  “Do you think so?” She lifted her eyes to his.

  “I do.” He nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  Jenna stopped to sort through old memories. “I was only nineteen when Elliott and I first met at a spring debutante party Mother and Daddy insisted I go to. Elliott was fifteen years older than me and seemed so suave and polished. I remember he kissed my hand and told me I was beautiful. Beautiful and sweet. The next time I saw him, he said the same thing – that I was so beautiful and sweet he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He seemed so sincere.”

  “You are beautiful and sweet, Jenna. He didn’t lie about that.”

  She shook her head. “He courted me like a fairy tale princess all summer and into the fall after we became engaged. Elliott often came to the house and went places with Mother and Daddy and me. They both liked him and were thrilled when Elliott proposed. He came from a wealthy family, knew all the right people, and held a prestigious job.”

  Jenna began crying raggedly now. “We got married in December and I moved in with Elliott for our first Christmas together. His apartment sat right here on the Upper East Side where I’d always lived - not far from my parents or the college I attended. I was so happy at first. Or I thought I was happy. I continued going to Barnard from our apartment here, but things started to be different not long after we married.”

  She turned anguished eyes to Sam. “Elliott changed. He stopped being sweet. I kept looking for that man I fell in love with and I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t understand it. He found fault in me all the time. I tried so hard to please him but nothing seemed to work. The more I tried, the crosser he seemed to get. I didn’t know what to do, Sam. I’ve been unhappy for a long time. Maybe now I understand why. It was because Elliott really didn’t love me. I don’t think he ever did.”

  Jenna put her head into her hands and started to sob. She felt sick and ached all over from the tears and strain of the day.

  Sam reached across the table to hold her hand. “I’m so sorry, Jenna girl. Elliott was a great fool. And a stupid fool, too. Don’t you ever think differently. It is he that has the black heart and you the one of gold. I hate that he used and hurt you so.”

  He paused. “Elliott’s not good people, Jenna. You need to get away from him.”

  “Where would I go, Sam?” Jenna’s voice trembled. “I can’t go home. My Mother and Father think Elliott is wonderful. And Mother tells me stories
all the time of the affairs of her society friends. She thinks they are amusing. One of her friends divorced her rich husband recently over a string of adulteries, and Mother called her a fool. Even years ago when Aunt Lydia, her own sister, broke her engagement to a rich banker because he kept a mistress, mother was completely unsupportive. She broke ties with Lydia over it – but not with the banker or the banker’s family.”

  Jenna shook her head sadly. “That’s the way Mother is, Sam. Money and status have always meant more to her than anything else.”

  Sam scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, then, you could probably go to Aunt Lydia’s for a space, if you wish. I’d say she might understand, given that history.”

  He looked up with a sudden, bright smile. “Or you could go down to Orchard Hollow – to my cabin in the Smokies. You could go there to think and take a space for yourself before you decide what you want to do. It’s quiet and peaceful; it always helps straighten out my thoughts when I go down there.”

  Jenna smiled back at Sam, despite her sorrows. “It’s nice of you to offer that, Sam.” She knew he deeply cherished his place in the mountains. He’d spun her countless tales about his upbringing and life there before moving to New York.

  They finished their meal and talked some more. Jenna did eat a little, at last, and somehow comforted herself that she had only tonight and tomorrow to get through. Elliott left for Paris early on Sunday.

  She couldn’t face the idea of a scene with him with her emotions so shattered. Elliott would get angry, cut her with his words. He’d find a way to blame her - just like he always did when there were problems between them. She bit her lip anxiously. If she even tried to confront Elliott – or her parents – they would simply explain away all her concerns and make her feel foolish. They’d take over any decisions to be made. They always did. Her own opinion wouldn’t matter at all.

  Jenna clenched her hands just thinking about it. No. For now, she’d wait. And while Elliott was gone, she’d decide what she needed to do. By herself. She couldn’t let them take over her life again. Not this time.

  On Sam’s glass-enclosed porch after dinner, Jenna closed her eyes and leaned back on the glider with Sam’s cat Maizie curled up on her lap. The lights of the city and the shadows of the trees of Central Park spread out in a panorama before them.

  Sam’s comfortable voice broke the silence. “You know, when I look out over the trees of the park here, with the light just so, even on this cold March night, it makes me think of looking out over the mountains at Orchard Hollow.”

  “Tell me about Orchard Hollow again, Sam.” Jenna heaved a deep sigh. “I want to go somewhere else in my mind right now. Tell me some of your stories. I want to see the mountains and the creek behind your cabin, and I want to hear about the people and the places you’ve known there. Weave me a tale, Sam.”

  And so Sam spun his tales to help ease the hurt of his girl.

  “Well, there’s no place on earth like it.” He closed his eyes, settling into his memories. “Whenever I go back, a sense of home comes over me as soon as I start out the highway past Maryville and get my first glimpse of the Smoky Mountains in the distance. Even my dog Dan used to know when we’d get close to home; he’d jump up in the front seat and start barking. Maizie even quit her wailing in the cat carrier. They both seemed to know we were getting toward home. They could already sense the peace coming toward us.”

  Jenna began to relax as Sam talked, the tension starting to leave her muscles. Sam’s stories always comforted her.

  “The mountains never look the same in the Smokies.” Sam’s soothing voice continued. “There are all shades of blue and purple on the far horizon, and closer up is every shade of green imaginable in the spring time. There’s a sort of yellow green color at the first hint of spring that I don’t think I’ve ever seen captured by paint accurately. You’d appreciate that as an artist, Jenna.”

  “I’m not an artist, Sam,” Jenna interjected. “I just do some little greeting card pictures and write the verse. As Elliott says, it’s only a nice little hobby.”

  Sam scowled. “There are all kinds of art, Jenna. You might be surprised how some folks might view your talents.”

  Jenna shrugged.

  Picking up the threads of the Orchard Hollow story, she asked him, “What’s the name of that place where you round the corner as you’re coming toward Townsend?”

  “Kinzel Springs,” he answered.

  “That’s it.” Jenna smiled. “A little, white country church sits on the right. And after that a bend in the road winds around and down to follow along the Little River. That’s a sign you’re coming into Townsend.”

  “You know this story as well as I do now, Jenna,” Sam said, chuckling. “Maybe you should tell it to me.”

  “You know I like it better when you tell it to me, Sam.” She patted him fondly on the knee. “But knowing parts of it ahead of time makes it nicer to hear – like I’m going back to a familiar place.”

  “So tell me, Jenna, how do you get to Orchard Hollow after you pass Kinzel Springs Baptist Church?” Sam asked.

  “Well, you come on around that bend at Old Tuckaleechee Road, past the bridge over to River Road, and down into Townsend.” She stopped then and waited for him to carry the story on.

  “It’s not much of a town by the standards of places like New York,” Sam said. “Just a small rural community set at the base of one side of the Smoky Mountains. People call it the quiet side of the mountain because it hasn’t developed as much as some of the other areas around the Smokies. There are a few stores as you go in to Townsend, a post office, a bank, another church or two, some motels, and several restaurants – like The Back Porch Restaurant, Deadbeat Pete’s, and Miss Lily’s Café. Because it’s a tourist town, a rustic, log visitor center sits near the center of town with quaint arts and crafts shops scattered along - Mountain Sage, Nawger Knob, the dulcimer shop.”

  He settled back into his memories with pleasure. “After the Apple Barn on the left – you know the one my sister owns – and the Texaco station just after that, you watch for Chestnut Springs Road on the right. It’s a little paved two-lane road that rolls gently uphill by the old McNally Farm’s fence line.

  “After you turn right on Chestnut Springs Road, you start this gradual uphill ascent into the woods. Next, you angle off to the right onto Orchard Hollow Road, a little winding road that twists up into the mountains along Fall Branch Creek to come to a dead end loop.”

  “And there’s your place.” Jenna heaved a little sigh.

  Sam closed his eyes. “Yes, sir, there at the end of the loop on the right is my place, the cabin I helped to build for Frances and myself after my books started to sell.” He took a deep, satisfied breath. “Down behind the house is the creek and you can hear it gurgling and rushing over the rocks when you have the windows open. It’s a great sound like no other – the sound of a rushing mountain stream in the Smokies.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Jenna said, already calmed by the soothing tone of Sam’s words.

  Jenna sat up suddenly, leaning toward Sam, her eyes wide.

  “You know, Sam, if you really meant it, I think I will go down to Orchard Hollow. Elliott is leaving for Paris on Sunday for six weeks. I could go down to the mountains for a visit to think things through.”

  The idea excited her as she began to consider it. “It might be good for me to get away for a while. I could see all the places you’ve talked about.”

  Sam looked out over Central Park, watching the snow fall and thinking about her idea. “Actually, I believe it would be good for you to have a change of scene right now.”

  He gave her a considering look. “You know I’ve always wanted you to go down to my place, Jenna. I’m not well enough to go myself right now.”

  Jenna felt a wrench in her heart. He was taking chemo again with the return of his cancer.

  “You could check on things for me – see all my friends and family, call and tell me stor
ies.” He chuckled at his own thoughts, enjoying the idea of her going to Tennessee. “Yes, sir. I think it’s a fine idea for you to go down to Orchard Hollow.”

  Jenna knew it would be running away to leave right now – but the idea seemed too heavenly to argue with. She offered Sam a small smile and leaned back to close her eyes. She would do it. She’d go to the mountains, and somehow, while she was there, she would figure out what she needed to do about her life.

  Sam reached out a hand to pat Jenna’s arm. “You could stay in the upstairs bedroom at Orchard Hollow. You’d like that room, Jenna. There’s a little painting of Frances over the chest of drawers and a big painting of mountain flowers over the bed – both by the same artist. It’s Boyce Hart’s work, and it’s real good. Frances and I have known Boyce since he was a kid. Local boy that made good. You remember, I told you he rented my cabin a few years back while he had one built across the road from me? He watches after my old place now, and he’s a fine neighbor. You’ll like him, Jenna. I’m sorry you missed meeting him when he was up here last summer.”

  “Yes, I went down to Martha’s Vineyard with my parents then.”

  Sam often talked about Boyce Hart, but Jenna had never met him - or Sam’s sister Raynelle - or any of the other people from Orchard Hollow Sam talked about so much – except through Sam’s stories.

  He paused with another chuckle. “Did I ever tell you about the time I hiked up Chestnut Ridge behind the cabin and ran across that girl running naked in the woods?”

  She giggled. “No, Sam, tell me that one.”

  Sam’s comforting voice soon drifted over her again, helping to ease the hurt of the day.

  Chapter 2

  Boyce Hart rang up another small sale and dropped the matted art print and a box of note cards into a Hart Gallery gift bag. The bell jangled on the front door, letting in yet another stream of customers.

  He scowled. It just figured the gallery would be busier than usual the one day he worked the store by himself, Boyce thought. And dadgumit, it was only Wednesday and still a weekday. He thought it would be quiet today and that he might get a little painting done in the back room.