“Enough,” Mr. Cecchino rumbled. “You’re going to be late to school. Everyone out. Help Nonna clear the table.”
Lena and Anton fell silent at their father’s command, but continued to glare at one another. Anton snatched his empty plate off the table and stalked across the room to deposit it in the sink.
Lena waited until the front door slammed shut behind her twin. “So will you give me a ride to the rally after school?” she asked Dal, no longer bothering to lower her voice.
Dal shot a quick look at Mr. Cecchino. Only when the older man nodded did he reply to Lena. “Sure. I’ll pick you up in front of the school at three.”
“Thanks, Dal.” Lena gave him a quick smile of thanks, ignoring the silent exchange that had taken place between him and her father.
Everyone bustled around the kitchen, helping Nonna clear the table. Mr. Cecchino pulled Dal aside after Lena and Leo headed out the front door.
“I heard the dance academy is holding auditions this week.” He pulled a newspaper clipping out of his pocket, unfolding it so Dal could read it.
Rossi Dance Academy
Auditions for Christmas Recital
New Dancers Welcome
“Do me a favor and mention it to Lena this afternoon?” Mr. Cecchino folded the clipping and passed it to Dal. “She won’t snap your head off for mentioning it.”
Dal took the clipping. “Sure thing, Mr. Cecchino.”
The older man smiled fondly at him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “You’re a good kid, Dallas. Mrs. Cecchino loved you like a son.”
He left Dal with these words, following his kids out the front door.
Dal stared after Mr. Cecchino, throat tight. He slid the dance clipping into his wallet, understanding just how much emotion rode on the two-by-three inch piece of newspaper.
Outside, Lena and Anton were already in Dal’s VW Beetle. It had taken Dal seven years of delivering newspapers—from sixth grade all the way to his senior year in high school—to save up enough money to buy the blue vehicle with peeling paint on the hood.
It was his most prized possession. It was a reminder that anything—even a twelve-year-old’s dream of owning his own car—could be accomplished with hard work.
One day, he’d have a brand new sports car. One day, he’d have his own morning deejay show. He just had to keep his head down and work his ass off.
Leo and Mr. Cecchino headed into the orchard while Dal slid into the front seat of the Beetle. It was his job to get Lena and Anton to school every day. He’d return to work in the orchard after dropping off the twins.
Lena was in the back seat, pointedly ignoring her brother. In her hands was a Walkman, her portable cassette player. The headphones clamped over her ears drowned out any snide remark that might come her way from Anton.
“She’s listening to those stupid Russian language tapes. Again.” Anton rolled his eyes, tugging at his letterman’s jacket. He said this like it was a surprise. Like Lena didn’t listen to her mother’s old Russian language tapes every day.
Dal ignored the comment and fired up the car. Depeche Mode blared out of the car’s speakers.
This was the real reason Dal loved his Beetle so much. It might not be much to look at, but the previous owner had put in a state-of-the-art sound system. Dal could lose himself in the music every time he drove.
“You ready for the game on Friday?” he asked Anton as he rolled down the driveway of the Cecchino farm.
“Of course.” Anton shifted his shoulders, causing the light to glint off the various sport pins that adorned his letterman’s jacket. “Me and my buddies are going to kick some ass.”
“Too bad your dad is going to have to miss the game.” Mr. Cecchino never missed a game if he could help it. But with the hunting party coming on Friday afternoon, he wouldn’t have a choice.
“There will be other games.” Anton shrugged. “It’s not like he hasn’t seen me play tons of times.”
But it was senior year. There were only a handful of games left, and it didn’t look like Anton was going to get a scholarship like Leo had. His football games were coming to an end, but Dal didn’t say this.
The Beetle rolled off the hard-packed dirt onto the blacktop of the main road. As he accelerated down the two-lane country road, he couldn’t help flicking a glance at the apple farm that bordered the Cecchino farm.
His eyes picked out the small country house with a sagging front porch. The window curtains were back-lit with soft yellow light, a sign that his parents were up. Dal hadn’t spoken to his mom and dad since freshman year of high school.
Even though they were technically neighbors and shared a fence line, they were separated by many acres of apples. That made it possible to co-exist without seeing them. It had almost been exactly a year since Dal had laid eyes on his father.
It had been at the local cider mill. He and Leo had each driven down a truckload of apples to the plant after a harvest. Mr. Granger sold apples to the same mill. He’d driven up while Dal and Leo had been unloading their apple bins.
Mr. Granger had looked at Dal only once. He’d been wearing his favorite black hat, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
Their eyes met over the bins of apples.
And that had been it. Mr. Granger looked away and drove on to unload his truck, never again turning in his son’s direction.
Dal supposed being ignored was better than having the shit kicked out of him. Even so, it still bothered him a year later. Dal could picture the moment perfectly: his dad’s scruffy face framed by the window of his sad brown truck with that damn cigarette.
“Fuck him,” Leo had said. “You don’t need him”
“Yeah, fuck him,” Dal had replied. “Fucking drunk asshole.”
And that had been that. The two boys never spoke of the moment, and Dal hadn’t seen his father since.
“Fuck those guys,” Anton said, echoing Leo’s words from a year ago. “You don’t owe them a thing.” He cranked up the volume on the radio. Depeche Mode transitioned into Level 42.
Dal responded by shifting his gaze from his parent’s farm back to the road.
Anton had answered the door the night Dal had been kicked out of his house. Two cracked ribs had made it impossible to crawl in through Leo’s window like he usually did. The bloody nose and black eye had been enough for Mrs. Cecchino to declare that Dal was moving in with them. He’d been with the Cecchinos ever since.
Dal would never say it, but he loved the fact that Mr. Cecchino never missed a football game if he could help it. He admired the way Mr. Cecchino took care of his family. He was everything Dal’s father wasn’t. He hoped that if he spent enough time studying Mr. Cecchino, he could be like him someday, and not like his father.
“See ya, bro.” Anton slugged him in the side of the arm as Dal pulled into the parking lot of Bastopol High. He jumped out of the car and beelined for a group of teenage boys in matching letterman jackets.
Lena took her time, meticulously rolling the wire around her headphones before tucking them and her Walkman into her backpack. Unlike her brother, Lena didn’t have a group of friends waiting for her. She spent too much time studying Russian on her breaks to have time for friends. It had been like that ever since her mom died.
“See you after school?” Lena waited for his nod of confirmation. “Cool, thanks. And thanks for not being a dick like my real brothers.”
She slid out of the Beetle, slinging her backpack over one shoulder.
Dal rolled out of the parking lot, heading back to the Cecchino farm. He watched Lena in his rear view mirror until she was out of sight.
Chapter 2
Apples
FUCKING UNGRATEFUL punk. Leo glared at the hump of Dal’s blue Beetle and its plume of dust. One of these days, Anton would get what was coming to him. After senior year he’d have to finally have to grow up. Like Leo had to grow up after their mom died.
He shouldered the canvas apple bag Nonna made for him. It resembled a
backpack, except it was worn with the opening in the front. It could hold up to fifty pounds of apples. The design made it easy for the Cecchino family to drop apples into it while standing on the ladder.
Mr. Cecchino hustled by him, a wooden ladder under one arm. He whistled as he went.
His good cheer soured Leo even further. His bad mood was compounded as he stared out at the long rows of apple trees. Two-hundred and ninety-six acres of apples, to be exact.
Leo stomped down to the far end of a row, rubber boots swishing in the wet grass. It was not even seven-thirty in the morning, yet already humid. It was going to be hot today.
West County, California, was known for the Gravenstein apple. Most of the Cecchino apples were sold to a local cider mill. The rest of them went to local markets and restaurants. Sometimes, if they had a heavy crop, Mr. Cecchino drove to San Francisco and sold apples out of the back of his truck to tourists.
Looking up at the branches laden with red-and-green speckled fruit, Leo had a feeling a San Francisco street corner was in his future.
He picked a tree at the very end of the row and settled his wooden ladder into place. Then he scaled to the top of the tree and began to pick.
Apple picking was a skill. For starters, you never picked just one apple at a time—at least, not if you actually wanted to finish before all the fruit rotted on the tree. You always picked two or three per hand.
Over the years, Leo had developed an adept eye for picking. He could survey a section of the tree and instinctively know the fastest way to remove all the apples. The trick was to lean against the ladder with the lower part of the body and leave the hands free. That made it possible to pick with both hands, instead of just one.
He’d nearly finished two trees when Dal returned from town. His best friend joined him at the far end of the orchard with a cheerful smile.
“The mustard still has a few weeks left,” Dal said, gesturing to the tall clusters of yellow flowers scattered around the edge of the orchard. “I’ll have to try and remember to pick some for Nonna later.” Nonna loved mustard flowers.
Leo was still in a dark mood. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?” Dal settled his ladder into place.
“Aren’t you sick of them?”
“Sick of what?” Dal’s rubber boots thudded against the ladder as he climbed to the top of the tree with his apple bag.
“Apples. Aren’t you sick of them? I mean, we’ve been doing this shit since we were kids.”
Dal plunged his arms into the top boughs of the tree. “I like being outside.”
What Leo really wanted was a good old-fashioned bitch fest. He should have known Dal wouldn’t take the bait. Dal wasn’t one for complaining. Not even when his old man beat the shit out of him.
Maybe that’s why he was perpetually pleasant. He didn’t live with his old man and his bat-shit crazy mom anymore. Compared to the hell Dal had grown up in, the apple orchard was fucking paradise.
Maybe that was Leo’s problem. His life had been too good. So good that the simple fate of an apple farmer felt like a curse.
He should be playing ball at UC Berkley. He should be partying at frat houses with Jennifer in his arms. Instead, she was off enjoying a perfect life at UC Riverside, while he was stuck on an apple farm.
Even knowing his so-called injury had been the best thing for the family did nothing to improve his mood. It was Anton’s fault. The little punk had no idea how good he had it.
“Careful, son.” Leo had been so engrossed in his own bad mood that he hadn’t heard his dad walking down the row. “You shouldn’t be lifting your bad arm over your head like that. Doctor Cain said there’s still a chance for it to heal if you don’t strain it.”
Even Dal paused at the comment. His head popped out of dark leaves of the tree.
“Sorry, Dad,” Leo muttered.
The proud smile on his dad’s face made him want to hit something. Why the hell his dad was proud of a son who did nothing but pick apples was beyond Leo.
“I’ll be one row over. Just leave the ones too hard for your arm to reach.”
“Okay, Dad.” Leo had no intention of leaving any apples on his trees, but it was better to play along and preserve the carefully constructed illusion.
Over the top of Mr. Cecchino’s wide straw hat, Leo’s eyes met Dal’s.
He knew the truth. Leo was pretty sure of it. Dal had never spoken of it, but his friend missed very little. And the way he looked at Leo at times like this made him think Dal had figured him out. Leo was grateful Dal never confronted him on it. Putting his decision into words made Leo want to break things.
Mr. Cecchino shouldered his ladder and disappeared through a gap in the trees.
“Where’s the hunting party from?” Dal changed the subject, resuming his work.
“San Francisco.”
Dal let out a whistle. “Nice. Your ads are paying off. Pretty soon, you’ll have groups up here every weekend. You’ll have to hire guys to pick apples for you.”
His words eased the tension that had plagued Leo since his eyes first opened this morning. Leo was sure that was calculated on Dal’s part. The hunting business was the only thing that kept Leo from totally losing his shit most days.
“You think so?” His hands darted in and out of the tree, snatching apples and depositing them into the pouch hanging from his shoulders.
“Hell, yeah, man. You’re going to have a booming business. I know it.”
“You should come up to the cabin this weekend. I’m sure there’s a pig up there with your name on it.”
“Nah.” Dal shook his head. “I’ll stay here with Nonna. I have to study. Besides, someone has to make sure Anton and Lena come out and pick their share of apples.” He flashed an easy grin at Leo through the trees.
Leo snorted. “Good luck with that. There’s no hope of Anton doing his fair share of anything until after he graduates.”
“Yeah. He might try to sneak away and go hunting with you if I don’t put a leash on him.”
Despite the animosity toward his little brother, Leo chuckled at the mental image of Dal putting a leash on him. It would serve the little shit right.
“Seriously, man,” Dal said. “Word is going to get around. I mean, San Francisco! No one has ever come that far to hunt here. They’ll spread the word. All the hunting circles in the South and East Bay will know about Nonna’s cooking and your tracking skills by the end of summer.”
Dal’s optimism lightened Leo’s load. He glided down the ladder with a full bag of apples, dumping the fruit into one of the big plastic bins his father had placed up and down the rows.
As he climbed back up into the tree for the next fifty pounds of apples, he
couldn’t help but feel optimistic about the upcoming hunt. Maybe Dal was right. Maybe word about his guided hunting trips would get around.
Maybe he had a real shot at saving the family from bankruptcy.
Chapter 3
Ex-Ballerina
DESPITE THE FACT THAT he always wore a broad-rimmed hat, the tip of Dal’s nose was sunburned by the time he finished working in the orchard. He’d filled ten bins of apples that day. Each bin held a thousand pounds, meaning he’d single-handedly picked ten thousand pounds of apples.
“It’s too hot,” Leo said to him as he slid the pallet jack beneath the last bin. “They’re ripening too fast.”
“I don’t have to work on Saturday,” Dal said. “I’ll pick with Anton and Lena while you guys are with the hunters. We’ll get all the apples in.”
The resentment that always rode Leo’s shoulders slackened. “Thanks, Dal.” He glanced at his watch. “You’d better go or you’ll be late to class. I’ll get the bins into the barn.”
“Thanks, man.”
Dal had just enough time to shower and shovel a few peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches into his mouth, courtesy of Nonna. Then he was back in his car and speeding to Bastopol High.
Lena stood on the curb, wait
ing for him. The headphones were on her ears, portable cassette player in hand with its Russian language tape.
“Hey.” She slid into the front seat. She gave him a smile, but didn’t take off her headphones.
“Hey.” Dal hustled out of the parking lot.
Minutes later, he was on the freeway, driving east toward Rossi. He poked Lena in the arm.
She glanced at him before sliding the headphones around her neck. “Yeah?”
“Your dad asked me to tell you something. Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
Dal braced himself for the unpleasant task at hand. He’d rather pick another bin of apples. “The dance studio is holding auditions for the Christmas recital.” He picked up the folded newspaper clipping from the dashboard and handed it to her.
Lena snorted. “The Soviets could attack anytime and all my dad cares about is a stupid dance recital.”
Dal said nothing. They both knew it was more than a stupid dance recital. Before her mom died, Lena had been one of the best ballerinas in the Rossi Dance Academy. She was more talented than girls who were two and three years older.
“Mom cared about all the crap happening in the world,” Lena said. “You know the Russians have almost forty thousand nukes? Forty thousand, Dal. Mom got it. She knew how precarious everything is. Dad doesn’t take the Soviet threat seriously. He never took mom seriously when she was alive, either.”
Lena knew full well her father had nearly been crushed under the pressure of running the farm and taking care of Mrs. Cecchino. Her illness and subsequent death had devastated everyone.
Dal chose his words carefully. One of the few things he’d learned from his biological father was that, once spoken, wrong words couldn’t be taken back.
“It’s because he loves your mom so much that he wants you to keep dancing.” That was the truth of it. Everyone knew nothing made Mrs. Cecchino’s eyes light up more than the sight of her daughter on center stage of a ballet recital. “It’s his way of honoring your mom.”
Zommunist Invasion | Book 1 | Red Virus Page 2