Poison Apples (25 page)

Emily would go after that word, that touch. Right now. Her mother wouldn’t know: It was dark—dark so early these autumn days. But Emily liked that. You could do things in the dark you couldn’t do in the light. She sighed, thinking of... things. Her mother was downstairs in the living room, working on farm accounts. She’d set up a table there, tired of doing it in the kitchen. That was convenient. If her mother said anything, Emily would say she’d gone out for a walk, she hadn’t wanted to disturb her mother.

It was a clear cold night, a half moon hanging like a yellowy globe in the sky. The Globe: That was the name of Shakespeare’s theater. His plays were full of love and lust—junior year, they’d read
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
she liked that. She liked the way the couples got all mixed up and then came back together in the end. She liked to think that was the way life worked: misunderstanding, and then finding out the truth, and coming together with a bang, a hug, a passionate caress. . ..

She got on her bicycle, bumped along Cow Hill Road, down Route 125, and onto Cider Mill Road to the Earthrowl orchard. The farmhouse was lit up; she saw Moira at her loom beside an uncurtained window, the cat curled up beside her. She heard the hum of harmonicas in the Jamaicans’ bunkhouse as she rode past—but the lights were out, it was past nine o’clock; they’d be in bed except for the musician—Derek, probably. She rode up to Adam’s bunkhouse; it was dark except for a single shimmering light that might have been a candle. Was he reading by candlelight? He’d ruin his eyes, that’s what her mother always told her. She smiled. Probably the Butterfields were asleep, that’s why the light was out. She wondered what it was Adam was reading. She grabbed up a handful of pebbles, tossed them at the window. Waited.

There was no response. She threw a second handful. She wanted to see Adam. Needed to. Had to! She’d come all this way. It was then she noticed the Butterfields’ car was gone, where it was usually parked behind the bunkhouse—recalled they’d talked about a new movie in town. Adam was alone, then. He’d fallen asleep, maybe over his book. She laughed out loud, pushed open the bunkhouse door, surprised: Someone had hung a single strand of white blinking lights over the door. The bed was empty! Had he gone to the movies with the twins? Maybe. Oh, he’d be tired tomorrow!

She sat down on his bed. It was made up neatly, the way she would have expected. Adam was neat in everything: his clothing, his hair—her mother might complain about the ponytail, but it was usually combed, clean, tied back in a ribbon. He looked like . . . Hamlet. She pulled back the spread: The pillow bore the indentation of his head. She put her face close to it, embraced it; then

pulled the cotton spread back over. The twins’ bunks didn’t have spreads, she noticed, only rough gray blankets; it was like Adam to have a bright blue coverlet. She pulled out the drawer in his bedside table—feeling a twinge of guilt, of course. Should she look inside? She was sure he wouldn’t mind! What did they have to hide from each other? Although there was so much still she didn’t know about him. She guessed you never really knew another person until you lived with him. And even then, her mother told her, you didn’t really know him.

But her mother was thinking of her father and his taking off with that woman. Her mother was prejudiced against men, Emily really thought so. That was why her mother had closed the door against her father’s coming back. Oh yes. She was sure things would have worked out if her mother had been more forgiving, more open-minded.

The drawer contained paper clips, tacks, tape, a pruning knife, several letters. Two were postmarked California, where his stepmother had moved after the divorce from his father. One of the letters was from the father. The name and address were on the envelope:
107 Park Drive, Waterbury, Connecticut.
The town sounded familiar. Adam lived in Massachusetts, he’d said. Well, she supposed the father had moved to Connecticut for business or something.

There was one letter that sparked her curiosity. It was on pink stationery. She pulled it carefully out of the envelope. She held it a moment, hardly breathing, then slowly unfolded it.

“Adam sweetie,” it read, “have you broken your writing hand? It’s been two weeks since your last letter. I’m still thinking of hitching up there to Vt but I can’t get off work. I mean, I need the money for my dowry. Ha ha. Just kidding. Why get married these days? Work is lousy, why did I drop out of college? You were the one persuaded me, the role model. Drop out and we’ll go round the world, you said. Well I’m waiting, baby. I’d go to the ends of the world with you. Sounds romantic, huh? But it’s true. . . . Remember that night...”

Emily didn’t want to know about that night. She stuffed the letter back in the drawer—it wrinkled in her nervous hand. She was flustered, she couldn’t think. She looked back at the envelope for the address.
Waterbury, CT,
it read. He would have lived there, then.

The blood was up in her head now, her eyes were stinging. She jumped up, left the bunkhouse. Where was Adam, anyway? Of course she should have known he had girlfriends. A good-looking guy like that? She’d blocked out those thoughts. You still write to Wilder, at college, don’t you, dummy? she reproached herself. Of course you do. Don’t get after him now, you’ll lose him. . .. Anyway, he hadn’t written very often to that girl. Because of one Emily Willmarth, that was why.

She felt better now. She wouldn’t say anything to Adam about that girl’s letter. She didn’t want him to know she’d been reading it! She really wasn’t that kind of person, the kind who read other people’s mail. Not usually. Hardly ever! She got back on her bicycle, started down the path toward the driveway. An ancient blue car was just turning in—it belonged to the twins, she recognized the sound of it; it needed a tune-up. “Hey,” she cried, waving her arms, “hey!”

The car stopped and Hally Butterfield leaned out the driver’s window. “Hi, sweet pie,” he said. Hally always kidded her about Adam, he knew she was sweet on him.

“Adam in there?” she said, peering in the back window. But Adam wasn’t there. Only Rolly, grinning beside his brother in the passenger seat.

“He was headed into the orchard when we left couple of hours ago,” Hally said. “I thought he was seeing you.”

“Ooh woo,” Rolly joined in.

She felt a small stab in her chest, but she smiled. “He likes to play his guitar. Down in the trees where he won’t bother anybody.”

He was down at the toolshed, then, that’s where he’d be. Playing his guitar. Two hours wasn’t such a long time when you were doing something you loved.

The Butterfields drove on into the parking area and she sped down the path that led to the hut: past the pond—and woke up the geese. The large male ran after her, flapping his wings and squawking; finally gave up and fluttered, sputtering, back to his mate. There was a faint light in the hut; it would be Adam’s flashlight perhaps, or a candle. Most of the songs he knew by heart. She heard a soft strumming, a high-pitched note. It was lovely, music in the night. She leaned her bicycle against a tree, listened a moment. Then knocked on the hut door. They hadn’t planned a rendezvous; she didn’t want to just walk in, although she knew he’d be glad to see her. He would, wouldn’t he?

The music stopped. There was a hushed silence. But he’d think it was Rufus, or Moira, wondering what he was doing in there when he should be in bed, getting rest before the morning picking. “Adam, it’s me, Emily,” she said; she pushed open the door.

And shut it again quickly.

A moment later Adam came out. “Emily, wait—it’s not what you think. Emily...”

But she was on her bike, speeding up the path. He was still calling to her. Then, more faintly, she heard Opal’s voice: “Oh, come on, Adam, come on back in.”

Chapter Fifty-two

Moira heard the whirring sound of a bicycle crunching up the driveway and peered out the window. It looked like a girl—Emily perhaps? A rendezvous with Adam Golding? Oh dear. And here she’d been weaving imagined scenarios with her own daughter into her loom. Nights were the worst, or the early morning hours: That’s when the past came flooding back, crowding her mind with possible replays of that last night. Carol had the flu, she never went to that dance at all. Or she went, but was feverish when the dance ended. “I have to go home, take me home,” she tells the boy, and the boy pleads, “Stay.” But Carol is firm, she’s sick, after all! And they go straight home. The beer, the wine, still uncapped in the car. And Carol, safe at home, in bed . ..

But Carol hadn’t come home, and the liquor was consumed, and at two-thirty in the morning they’d had the call, the police at the door. An accident. Carol dead—drowned ...

She must have made a noise because Stan said, “Moir? Moir, hel me outoo thi dam shair? Bringa goddam walker?”

She was glad, actually, for the interruption; she brought the walker, helped him up onto it, moved along with him, although he waved her away. He didn’t want help now—that terrible pride of his. Stan’s objective, as usual, was the liquor cabinet. He wasn’t supposed to mix alcohol with his medicine, but she couldn’t complain every minute. “I’ll mix it,” she said, “let me.”

He gave a sly smile. He knew she’d make it weak. “No way, jush geme a glash. Icesh.”

This time she mixed herself one, too. A nightcap. Then she’d go to bed, leave the door open for Opal, who’d taken to wandering the orchard at night—”to think,” she told Moira, to play her guitar far down back where she wouldn’t bother anyone. This was uncharacteristically thoughtful of the girl. Tonight, in fact, the girl had gone out in her nightgown, with only a thin sweater over it. Moira had insisted she put on a jacket, at least. The Jamaicans were all in bed, but there were others who might still be out at nine o’clock: the Butterfields, Adam Golding.

Well, she’d try to have a good night’s rest—if Stan didn’t need her in the night, that is. Get up at six with the Jamaicans. They cheered her up, those men. Nothing bad could happen while they were singing, shouting to each other in the trees. The weatherman called for mostly sun tomorrow. She lifted her chin, imagining it on her face.

And Stan called again for ice.

Chapter Fifty-three

When Emily came to pick the next afternoon after school, Moira Earthrowl stopped her. “I’ve a bag of apples for your mother,” she called from the porch. “I’ll leave them here. You be sure to take them to her. I’ve thrown in a couple of ripe pears, too. Did you know we have a pear tree behind the house?”

Emily knew, she’d noticed it. They were rosy ripe. In fact, she’d eaten one—and now her cheeks turned rosy, thinking of it. She tried to smile, but she was tired, she didn’t feel like chatting. She hadn’t slept well the night before; she’d tossed and turned all night, trying to make excuses for Adam, but finding few. She kept seeing Opal in her pink nightgown, squirming against Adam while he played. . . .

“Emily,” Ms. Earthrowl said, sounding shy, “I hope you can use that green dress. I mean, it’s all right to shorten it, anything you want to do with it to make it yours.”

“Oh. Oh yes, thank you. It was so ... so thoughtful of you. Thank you so much. And for letting me work here in the orchard.”

Suddenly the woman grabbed Emily, embraced her, then let her go. “Well,” she said, sounding like she was laughing and crying all at once, “you’d better get on with your picking. You’re saving money toward college, your mom says.”

“Yeah. That. And other things. You know.” She waved her arms. She felt dumb, awkward. “I’ll see you. I’ll take those apples to Mom.”

“They’re Yellow Transparent, good for pies,” Moira called after her.

But Emily’s mother didn’t have time these days for pies. She hadn’t baked a pie, in fact, since Emily was ten years old. Sometimes Emily wished she had a mother who stayed home and baked pies. Emily might even bake with her. Instead of cleaning out cow dung.

She ran down to the apple barn to fetch her picking gear. Mr. Yates was there, heaving drops into the cider press. She strapped on her bucket, checked the schedule for her picking area, and ran out. The locals were to pick in the far south orchard today, not far from the cemetery. The apples in this area were Gala apples. Though Emily didn’t feel very gala today. Millie Laframboise motioned her to an adjacent tree, indicated a crate she was to put the apples in. Opal was picking two trees away; she gave a sly glance at Emily, then smiled, slowly plucking off an apple. At the rate she was going, it would take her all day to pick the tree. Adam was in the tree beside her. When he saw Emily, he jumped down off the ladder. “We need to talk,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” she said. She ascended the ladder; she’d begin at the top of the twelve-foot tree. The trees were taller in this area, older. She was aware of Adam below her.

“I can explain,” he hissed up, and she saw Opal peer over at them. “Please, Emily, it’s important. Emily, answer me.”

“I’ll give you five minutes,” she said. “At quitting time. Down there by the .. . cemetery.” The toolshed, she decided, was out of bounds. She never wanted to see that shed again! “Five minutes, that’s all I’ll have time for.” She leaned into the picking, blotted Adam out of her mind—or tried to.

* * * *

He was waiting at the cemetery when she arrived. They’d driven the apple crates to the barn; she’d helped the men load them onto the truck that would take them to the Shoreham Co-op, where they’d be packed. Derek had kidded her: “Gotta boyfriend, hey, girl?”

“No, Derek,” she said. “No boyfriend. He’s a snake, that Adam. The snake in the grass!”

But Derek kept grinning. “Adam and Eve,” he said. “I learn all dat Methodis’ Sunny school. You eat de apple, hey? Bad ting happen.” He pretended to chew and then drop a crate. Then, seeing Rufus frown, he hefted it up into the truck, lightly, as though it were made of cardboard and not wood.

Adam was sitting on a flat headstone, gazing into the sky as though he wished he were up there and not down here, squatting on a dead person. She crossed her arms. He could have the first word.