Standing in front of her cramped closet, contemplating her meager wardrobe, Meg wondered what she was supposed to wear to a press conference. Would there in fact be press there? That suggested something a cut above blue jeans. But why should she care? Christopher had invited her as a courtesy, and she was merely an interested observer. In the end she pulled out a pair of dark pants and a sweater—it was still cold, whatever the calendar said, and the IPM Department was not generous with heating their building. She threw a nightgown, toiletries, and some clothes for the next day into a bag, shrugged on a jacket, and went back downstairs to set out a full dish of food for Lolly.
She arrived at the university in time to find a parking space vacated by a departing day student, and made her way to the Life Sciences Building. A hastily scribbled sign tacked on the bulletin board near the entrance directed her to the largest lecture hall on the ground floor, where she found several camera crews already set up. Apparently DeBroCo Pharmaceuticals had a very effective public relations team to get the word out so quickly and to garner press attention. And maybe the abruptness of the event had forestalled the appearance of any GreenGrow protesters. At the moment the members of the press outnumbered spectators, but that wouldn’t show on camera. Meg found a seat a few rows from the front and settled in to watch the action.
At precisely four o’clock, Christopher, his face beaming, approached the podium and tapped the microphone. “Friends and colleagues, I am delighted to see you here on this auspicious occasion. I have the great pleasure of announcing a new collaborative venture for the university and this department . . .” His enthusiasm was evident, and Meg was happy for him. From her online snooping she recognized Anson Kurtz, vice president for public relations for DeBroCo, immaculate in his well-tailored gray suit, standing behind Christopher. After a few more remarks, Christopher turned the microphone over to Kurtz.
Meg’s mind wandered as Kurtz worked his way through the standard corporate boilerplate. Chemical giant, friend of the farmer. He certainly did not raise the specter of his products’ demonstrated toxicity and the resultant lawsuits, but why would he? This was a feel-good moment that would polish DeBroCo’s public image in exchange for a relatively small capital outlay. And that was how business was done. A year earlier Meg would have paid little attention, but now, with an orchard to run, it mattered to her. Was this an alliance with the devil?
When Christopher wrapped up the formal presentation and the news folk began packing up their equipment, she stood up and hesitated. Christopher noticed from where he stood, and nodded toward the side door. Meg guessed that he was directing her toward the reception, so she nodded in reply and made her way through the door and down the hall, following the sound of clinking glasses and the good smells emanating from a smaller lecture hall farther along the corridor.
She was happily surprised when she arrived at the room. DeBroCo had laid out a pretty penny for this spread. No shabby potluck, this. Why? Meg wondered idly as she filled a plate with smoked salmon and some tasty-looking puff-pastry hors d’oeuvres. Why would it be important to the company to woo the lowly assistant professors, lab techs, and graduate students? She wasn’t going to pass up the treats, but something about the whole package made her uncomfortable. It was all too slick, and too calculated.
As she juggled canapés and a glass of white wine, she considered what had been said—and not said. The company stood to gain a high-profile, respectable partner in the university and could point to its efforts to be a good friend to the farmers. There was nothing wrong with that as a corporate strategy—it happened all the time. DeBroCo recognized that it needed to repair its public image, so this was a reasonable expense. Did that mean the cooperative effort with the university was a bad idea? Not necessarily, and the company would make sure that it was successful—at least for a while.
Meg smiled at Christopher on the other side of the room. He raised a hand without interrupting a spirited conversation with his colleagues, so she headed for the door. As she passed through the long and now-quiet corridor, one small question nagged at her: had GreenGrow known about this project, and publicly opposed it? If they had, would their opposition have had any noticeable impact? She shook herself. Time to go to Rachel’s and have some cheerful conversation with a friendly human being—one with no hidden agendas.
24
Rachel’s Victorian home—and bed and breakfast—beckoned through the gathering dusk. Meg parked at the side of the house, pausing to admire its frilly gingerbread and warmly glowing windows, and went around to the kitchen door, which was unlocked. Rachel wouldn’t have heard anything as quiet as a knock, immersed as she was with marshaling her two children to clean up the kitchen table so that they could start their homework. She looked up when Meg walked in.
“Hi! That was fast.”
Meg dropped her overnight bag by the door. “The bigwigs were still busy patting each other on the back, and I’d tried all the hors d’oeuvres, so I figured it was time to leave.”
“You can tell me all about it as soon as I get these two sorted out. Chloe, please put that plate in the sink. Matthew, you get a sponge and wipe off the table. No, now! And say hello to Meg.”
“Hi, Meg,” the kids mumbled dutifully in unison.
“There’s a humongous casserole in the oven, and there’s bread and salad on the dining room table. You want something to drink? Wine?”
“Whatever you’re having is fine.”
While Rachel bustled around, putting some things away and removing other things from the refrigerator and cupboards, Meg studied the kitchen, wondering what elements she could use in her own. Not much, apparently—Rachel’s house boasted high ceilings and large windows, which left little room for cupboards. But the adjacent walk-in pantry more than compensated. Rachel’s floor was covered with a modern, neutrally patterned vinyl, designed to hide dirt. Meg thought briefly of her shining floor and felt absurdly pleased.
Rachel opened the oven door and pulled out the bubbling casserole, setting it on the stove top. “There. Let’s see, is that everything? Meg, can you grab the, uh, plates, napkins, and wine bottle? Then we can clear out and let these two get down to work. You hear me?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
Meg picked up the requested items and followed Rachel into the darker, quieter dining room. Rachel deposited the casserole dish on a trivet on the table and dropped into a chair with a sigh of relief. “There, done. Help yourself—we aren’t formal around here. And then you can tell me all about the big press conference.”
Meg took a plate and dished up casserole—a yummysmelling concoction involving chicken and mushrooms—added salad, and sat down gratefully.
Rachel leaned forward and filled her own plate. “So, give me all the dirt. Shiny new building on campus, big boost to the agricultural programs. What’s the real story?”
“Good PR, for a start. They had all the major local networks there. But I wouldn’t expect less from a big company like DeBroCo. You want what they said, or what they didn’t say?”
Rachel chewed vigorously. “The second, please. The rest I can read in the paper.”
Meg sipped her wine before answering. “I did a little Internet digging about them when I first heard about the deal. They’ve been getting a lot of flack about some of their products—inadequate labeling, cutting corners in the testing, maybe even concealing test results. Probably typical of the stuff that kind of company faces all the time, but DeBroCo’s gotten a lot of negative publicity. I think they see this as a good opportunity for them to mend some fences and to come out looking like the good guys.”
“Are you saying they aren’t?”
“Good guys? I don’t know. I don’t think they’re any worse than any big company in the business.”
“But?” Rachel stopped eating for a moment to look at Meg.
Meg shrugged, and picked up a forkful of salad. “There is no but, really. It just felt wrong, somehow—too calculating.”
“Well, tha
t’s why you left the big, bad business world, right? All those jerks in suits.”
“In part. But that doesn’t mean the company is rotten or the deal is bad. And I trust that Christopher and the university know what they’re doing. Certainly better than I do.”
“And Christopher gets to keep working with your orchard, and the university gets a nice gift, and all’s right with the world. Right?”
“I guess.” Meg hesitated for a moment before adding, “The police have decided that Jason was poisoned with a pesticide.”
Rachel sat back in her chair. “Damn! That’s too bad. Do they have any suspects?”
“Not that I know of, but it’s not like they would tell me anyway. I wondered if DeBroCo had tried to eliminate him, but that seems ridiculous.”
Rachel speared a few more pieces of chicken from the casserole. “I agree. Face it, Jason was small potatoes, strictly local. He was more bluster than bite, and most people around here knew it, including the members of the press. At worst he was an annoyance, but I can’t see a big company going to the trouble of taking him out. You think they would hire a hit man? Where are they based, New Jersey?”
Meg smiled in spite of herself. “Delaware. And that’s pretty much my conclusion—why would they bother? It’s just so frustrating that the police aren’t making any progress. Okay, Jason was irritating, but who wanted him dead? Do you know, so far I haven’t found anyone around here who even liked him, unless you count his would-be girlfriend, and from what other people have told me, he barely noticed her. Even Michael, who was his friend and partner, was getting tired of him. Sad commentary, isn’t it? To leave the world without anyone to mourn for you?”
“Let’s hope his parents loved him, at least. Meg, are you getting depressed sitting in that house of yours, or are you sniffing too much solvent from your floor finishing? Because you are sounding a little odd.”
“Gee, thanks. And, no, I read the instructions for the polyurethane very thoroughly and provided adequate ventilation. As for depressed—who has time? I have a cat, and now I have two goats to feed, thanks to your soft-hearted brother. And I can drive a tractor! There’s one achievement I never expected.”
“Okay, I’ll believe you, for now.”
“But Jason is still dead, and I just think that somebody should care. And I’d like to know who did it, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“Fair enough. I would, too, if I were in your shoes. But what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. The easiest thing to do would be to just stay out of it.” Meg stopped abruptly.
Rachel snorted with laughter. “Don’t be ridiculous. You found the body, in your own backyard, literally. Of course you want to know what happened. Just don’t drive yourself nuts, okay? Excuse me while I go check on the kids and make sure they’re getting something done.”
Rachel stood up and went through the swinging door to the kitchen, where Meg heard her barking orders to the kids. She could pick out the word “bath” and heated protests from Chloe and Matthew, and then she heard the thunder of reluctant young feet stomping up the back stairs. Meg stood up and drifted around the room, admiring the ornate Victorian sideboard filled with mismatched china and the opulent dark wallpaper with clusters of anonymous fruits. Everything was handsome and fit together well, but truthfully Meg preferred the cleaner, simpler lines of her own house. She wondered what she was going to do about buying furniture. The orphaned junk the tenants had left behind was not even worth considering, and she didn’t have much of her own to show for her years of apartment living. She was going to need something to sit on and something to put things in, but her budget was already strained and she still needed to buy new kitchen appliances. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Maybe she could start growing her own vegetables to save a little money? Surely there would’ve once been a vegetable plot somewhere near the house—she’d have to go looking for it. And she could can and pickle and . . . whatever it was people had done in the old days.
Rachel returned. “Well, they’re upstairs and they say they’re going to take their baths, but if I don’t hear running water soon, I’ll have to go prod them. Okay: more wine or ice cream now?”
Meg considered. The only journey she had before her at the moment was up the stairs. “One more glass?”
“Done.” Rachel tipped the wine bottle over Meg’s glass, then refilled her own. “Do you know, I can’t remember the last intelligent conversation I’ve had with a friend? I talk to the kids, I talk to Noah, sure. I talk to the guests, but they don’t stick around for dinner, and I don’t want to be pushy if they’re here on vacation. But because I do have guests often, it’s hard for me to join other organizations or just go out, beyond the essentials like PTA meetings. So this is a real treat for me, Meg.”
“Thank you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have a friend around here.”
Rachel waved an airy hand. “You’ll make friends. Just give it time. You’re still the new kid. So you want to discuss world peace, or which movie star is sleeping with someone else’s husband, or something closer to home?”
“Like where to get a deal on a new refrigerator?”
“Ask Seth. He’ll know.”
“He always does. He knows everybody. I can’t imagine being that connected anywhere.”
“Look, there’s a downside to living in one place all your life. Everybody knows your business, and your parents’ and your grandparents’. Sometimes you can get claustrophobic, if you know what I mean.”
“Maybe. But I lived in Boston for years and I didn’t even know the names of the other people in my apartment building. There were a lot of people around all the time, but it was easy to feel lonely. I suppose that was one reason why it was so easy to leave. So I’m still learning about how this place works.”
Rachel swirled her wine in her glass, watching the whirlpool. “Listen, Meg, about Seth . . .”
Meg tensed. “Uh-huh,” she said neutrally.
Rachel must have noticed her response, because she looked up and grinned at her. “No, it’s nothing bad. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, and I mean that in a good way. Sure, Seth’s Mr. Nice Guy, always helping everybody out. But he’s gone an extra mile for you. Look, it’s none of my business, but I know he likes you.”
Meg suddenly felt nervous. “Wait—before you go any further, Seth is a good friend and neighbor, and a business partner of sorts. But I’m not at a point where I can deal with anything more than that right now.”
Rachel was watching her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ll stop. And Seth didn’t ask me to play go-between. It’s just that I’m happy with my life, with my husband and kids, and I want to see other people happy, too, and I love Seth, and I’ve been worried for him ever since his divorce, and . . .”
“I get the picture, Rachel. But give me a little time, will you? I’ve been here, what, a few months? And in that time I’ve had an awful lot to deal with, not even including trying to learn how to run an orchard when I usually have trouble keeping an African violet alive, and working hard to keep my house from falling down around my ears. I guess what I’m saying is, I really don’t have the time or energy to even think about anything like a relationship at the moment. I can promise you that when I do, I’ll put Seth on my short list, okay?”
“Good enough. I’ll shut up. So, ready for ice cream now?”
Later, full of three flavors of ice cream and tucked into one of Rachel’s delightfully frilly guest rooms, Meg thought back on Rachel’s comments about Seth. Meg meant what she had said: after all of the recent upheavals in her life, she had no energy left to give to a relationship. No matter how nice it felt to have someone watching out for her, no matter how good it felt to have someone’s arms around her. No, Meg, stop right there. Right now she needed friends, and she needed to get her life together. She still didn’t know if she could manage to make a living from the orchard, and she
was painfully aware of how little she knew about agriculture in general. She was forced to rely on others, like Christopher and Bree, and hope they knew what they were doing. The whole situation was unsettling. She couldn’t deal with everything at once. So she just did what she could to keep moving forward.
Maybe having the house to work on was a good thing. There were specific, concrete tasks she could tackle, with real results. Like the kitchen floor. It had looked so good that afternoon, clean and fresh, gleaming with its first coat of finish. She couldn’t wait to see it when she was done, and then she would get to enjoy the results each and every day.
She fell asleep thinking of the kitchen floor.
25
When Meg woke up, the sun was shining, and all she really wanted to do was get back to the house and see how her kitchen floor looked in the morning light—and whether the finish was dry enough to sand. But she had a class to go to, so the floor would have to wait. Just as well—it hadn’t had a full twenty-four hours to dry yet. She checked her watch: six thirty. Early still, but she could hear sounds coming from the kitchen, including childish voices. What time did school start these days?
She showered, pulled on a clean shirt and jeans, and made her way downstairs. Rachel was coordinating a scene of controlled chaos. “Eat your oatmeal, Matthew. I’m not driving you to school just because you don’t like the stuff. It’s good for you. Chloe, please put on a sweater. I don’t care how trendy that top is—you’ve already got goose bumps and you haven’t even left the house. Hi, Meg—grab yourself a cup of coffee.”
Meg followed instructions and then stayed out of the way while Rachel orchestrated the children’s departure. When the door shut behind them, Rachel filled another mug for herself. “I can’t understand why we go through the same arguments each and every morning. And they aren’t even teenagers yet!” She dropped into a chair across from Meg. “You’re up early.”
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