The Cherry Harvest (23 page)

EVERY YEAR THE CHERRY FESTIVAL
started in southern Door and moved north with the ripening fruit, week by week, orchard by orchard, up the peninsula. Locals celebrated. Tourists came from as far away as Chicago.

It was a carnival atmosphere. Parents hoisted children up ladders to fill buckets and baskets. Teenage girls and boys flirted from branch to branch. The butcher brought bratwurst to cook on a wide grill. Kate sold lemonade, cherries, and pies.

But not this year. The butcher had died, men were at war, and the locals and tourists alike were afraid of the prisoners. No one would come.

In the eerie gray predawn light, Charlotte watched the PWs load three-legged ladders and black buckets onto the flatbed behind the tractor. The men wore rope belts with hooks for buckets. Each would work a tree alone until it was stripped of ripe fruit, then go to the next open tree down the line. They'd empty their loads into lugs that held eight to ten buckets of fruit.

Wearing his broad straw hat, Thomas rode the tractor up and
down the rows, stopping to pick up filled lugs and set empty ones on the ground.

Kate was out there in shorts and a sleeveless blouse, working a tree. When Charlotte finished the breakfast dishes, she changed into summer work slacks and a blouse, put on a straw hat, and went out to join the others. She took her place in the tree next to Kate's. “What a beautiful day!” she said.

Kate didn't respond.

There was nothing Charlotte could do about Kate's attitude. Things would change after the harvest. But now, right now, the rising sun was spreading golden light out across the orchard. Charlotte breathed in the fresh morning air.

Soon Karl came down the row seeking the next open tree. “Hallo, Kate,” he called as he approached.

“Hi.” Kate's voice was flat, sullen. Her attitude toward Karl had changed since his return.

She blames him too, Charlotte thought.

“Hello, Karl,” Charlotte said brightly, for Kate's sake as much as for Karl's.

Karl planted his three-legged ladder near where Charlotte was working. The wooden rungs squeaked as he climbed to the top.

Charlotte tried to focus on her work. Cherry juice ran down her arms, itching, attracting bugs. When she raised an arm to shoo away a swarm of gnats, she knocked her hat from her head.

Karl grabbed for it, and his ladder wobbled sideways.

“Karl!” Charlotte reached out, as if she could stop his fall, and nearly fell herself.

He jumped from the unsteady ladder, laughing. He picked the hat off the ground, climbed back up, and handed it to her. “
Hier ist es!
”

She held it to her chest, her heart beating fast. “I was so frightened!” She touched his hand. “I thought you might . . .”

“Don't worry.” A tender look.

When she turned back to her work, she met Kate's eyes.

“I was just worried that . . .” Charlotte murmured.

Kate stared at her, unblinking.

Charlotte's cheeks burned. When she was done with her tree, she climbed down the ladder and went to the barn. Thomas helped her load the pickup for the trip to town. He would send the bulk of the cherries to the cannery, but they got a higher return from the retailers, and it was Charlotte's job to sell as much as she could to local markets.

After Charlotte washed up and changed into a dress, she drove down Orchard Lane and stopped the truck at the end of the row where Kate was picking. She gave a toot on the horn.

From the time she could walk, Kate had enjoyed helping Charlotte with the deliveries. The merchants delighted in seeing the curious little girl. Charlotte made a special day of it, including lunch at the Dew Drop Inn. An annual ritual. The café had closed, but they could get a burger at the soda fountain.

When Kate didn't respond, Charlotte got out of the truck and walked along the row and stood under the tree Kate was working. “About ready to go?” she called up.

“I'm not going.” Kate didn't look down.

Charlotte felt the chill. She stood a moment in the shade, then returned to the truck. No, she wouldn't try to coax her daughter. Kate had obviously made up her mind.

ALL THROUGH THE WINTER
, the wooden fruit stand at the end of Orchard Lane waited patiently for the cherries to ripen. A simple clapboard shack with a tin roof, it proudly displayed a weathered red-and-green sign: C
HRISTIANSEN
O
RCHARD
—B
LUE
R
IBBON
C
HERRIES &
P
IES
. But everyone called it the cherry shack.

Long ago someone had painted the outside of the place green, and then a few years back, when Kate found a bucket of paint the color of the barn, she added clusters of red cherries.

Approaching it now, Kate recalled the old days when she and Ben used it as a playhouse, trading acorns and pinecones for mud pies. She parked her bicycle in the gravel lot and opened the door to let out the musty air. Swatting away cobwebs, she hooked up the heavy awning that projected out over the wooden counter, protecting displayed produce from the weather, and unlatched shutters on either side of the place, letting in air and sunlight. After all these years, it still felt like playing house. She hummed as she dusted and swept and wiped the counter and washed out the big icebox that held metal racks for Mother's pies.

Kate had grown up helping Mother sell cherries and pies, and now it was her job, her favorite job, to sit out here on her own, greeting people and reading or writing or just daydreaming during quiet spells.

Out in the leafy maple grove, Kate wiped down the picnic tables and benches. This was where customers would normally sit. But not this year. With the war, and the prisoners in the orchard, she didn't expect anyone to linger.

Soon Father arrived on the tractor with a lug of cherries. Once he'd left, Kate filled pint-sized straw baskets and set them on the counter. She took a quick trip to the woods and picked a handful of yellow lady slippers to embellish the display, then put out the sign:
OPEN
.

She'd washed the sticky cherry juice from her arms and changed into a baby-blue summer dress, and now, as she walked to a picnic table, she relished the light summer breeze that floated through her hair and lifted the hem of her skirt.

Miss Fleming had sent a new book,
Pale Horse, Pale Rider
by Katherine Anne Porter. Kate loved immersing herself in a new story, another life. She sat at the table and began reading about Miranda. In the midst of the 1918 influenza pandemic, Miranda, a newspaper reporter, has a vivid nightmare. She sees herself on horseback desperately racing from Death, the pale rider, who has already taken her grandfather, an aunt, a cousin, her “decrepit hound, and silver kitten,” and when Death reaches her—

A car horn tooted. The red convertible! Kate dropped the book and jumped up from the bench. Her heart leapt forward. “Clay!”

He emerged from the automobile, neat and trim in a sharp white uniform, and grabbed Kate up and swung her around. And when he put her down, his mouth was on hers. Her insides rushed toward that kiss, her hands on his neck, fingers pushing up through his hair.

“Your hair!” She grabbed his Navy cap. His thick dark curls were gone. His head was a bristle.

“It'll grow back,” he reassured her with a grin.

She returned the cap to his head and stood back, admiring him. “You look so official.”

“Wait till I get my pilot's wings.” He flew a hand up into the air and down and caught her around the waist. “One day, you and me, Kate, we'll go flying together.”

Flying!
“Promise?”

“Promise.” He kissed her lips. “Wherever you want to go.”

“Everywhere!”
I want to go everywhere with you!
“But why didn't you tell me you were coming?”

“I found out only yesterday. My dad pulled some strings and got me an emergency furlough for a few days. My mom's having a fortieth birthday bash, up at the beach house.”

“Only a few days?”

“Yes, but I have all the time in the world for you right now.”

“Well, then.” Kate put her arm in his and led him to a picnic table. “You must try our blue ribbon cherries.” She went to the stand and chose a basket. “I picked some of these myself.”

Clay put one into his mouth and sighed with pleasure. “Mmm. Yes. I can taste your touch on this one . . . and this one.”

She couldn't stop smiling, even when he kissed her. “Let's play the spitting game,” she said.

“The what?”

Kate blanched, realizing her mistake. Spitting wasn't something polite people did. “Never mind. I was just—”

“Tell me.”

She took a big breath. “All right. Well . . .” She hesitated. “It's about who can spit a cherry pit the farthest. Stand up.” She picked up a small tree branch and laid it on the ground. “Toes at the line.”

“Yes, ma'am!” Clay stood and popped a cherry into his mouth and spit a pit into the field nearly a yard.

Relieved at his willingness to play, Kate marched to where the pit
had landed and planted a stick. “Good start.” She returned to Clay's side and spit a pit just beyond his.

He mussed her hair. “I forgot what a competitive little minx you are.” He plopped a cherry into his mouth and leaned his head back and let go. The pit went inches farther than Kate's.

Next, Kate stood and curled her tongue and threw her head with her special trick and sent her pit at least a foot beyond his.

“What was that thing you did?”

“I'll never tell.”

He put an arm around her waist. “Come to dinner with me tonight.”

Oh, to be with Clay alone for the evening! How wonderful, how simply wonderful!

“There's a little roadhouse out by Kangaroo Lake,” he said. “Do you know the place?”

It was rare that Kate ate at a restaurant. “I've ridden by, but I've never eaten there.”

“I'll pick you up at seven?” His eyes smiled.

“Not at the house. Not yet.” Kate would need to make a plan. She'd have to enlist Josie's help, set everything up ahead of time. “Tomorrow. We'll go tomorrow . . .”

A car pulled onto the gravel lot and a couple got out and approached the stand. Kate excused herself to attend to the customers. When she returned and sat next to Clay on the picnic bench, he asked her what she'd been doing since he'd last seen her.

In her excitement over Clay's arrival, Kate had nearly forgotten about the ugly secret. But now dark thoughts returned. She looked away. She had longed for this moment, to tell someone, tell Clay, and now here he was. She wanted to trust him . . . wanted his advice . . . but what would he think of her?

“Kate?” He sat forward. “What is it?”

“It's all twisted and . . . my mother . . .” Kate turned away and started crying.

“Is she ill?”

“No . . . no.” Kate shook her head. “It's . . . my mother and Karl . . . he's a PW . . . they killed one of the Nazis and—”

“They what!” His eyes filled with alarm. “Killed! Why? How?”

“He attacked her—”

“Oh no! Was she hurt?”

“Yes, but . . .” Kate wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “They stopped him before . . .”

Clay offered her a freshly pressed handkerchief. She blew her nose.

“You can tell me.”

And she did. She told him about Father releasing Vehlmer, about the attack in the barn, about seeing Karl dumping the body. “Mother told me to lie to the sheriff. I lied to my father!” Tears came.

He squeezed her shoulders.

“There's more.” She paused. Could she trust him? “I think they're . . . What if there's something going on between them . . . Mother and Karl?” Kate stood and walked away and back and finally sat across the table from Clay.

“The way they look at each other,” she whispered.
The way Mother reached for him on the ladder. The way their eyes lingered, their touch when he handed her the hat, the way she held it to her. They had a secret. The murder, yes, but something more, something intimate
.

“Why was he with her in the barn?” Kate put the handkerchief to her face and cried.

Clay moved to her side of the table. “C'mere.” He softly enfolded her in his embrace. “My darling girl. Holding this in, all by yourself.”

“You must think we're some sort of —”

“I think you're strong and smart and sensitive.”

She pulled back and looked into his face. “I should tell Father. I'm sure he suspects . . . suspects something.”

“What would you tell him? About the attack on your mother, the killing? Or about your suspicion that Karl and your mother are—”

Kate put her hands to her ears. “I don't want to hear it.”

Clay was silent for a moment, then said, “Killing the rapist, that's done and over, so what would you gain, what would your father gain, in knowing about that?”

“I worry that Father would suffer for what happened because he let Vehlmer go, but . . . don't you believe people should tell the truth?”

“Well, then, let's consider what you know for sure. Your father has his harvest. And the PWs will be leaving, right?”

“Yes.”

“And then it will be over. All of this will be over.”

“But—”

“Kate.” Clay put a hand under her chin and held her face toward his. “Your mother may have done something that disturbs you, but this man, Karl, will soon be gone. End of story.”

“Father may never know—” Kate blurted.

“And maybe that would be best.”

Kate stared at him.

“It's not up to you to work this out. Think what it would do to your family. As long as you and your mother put it behind you, it doesn't exist.”

Like a story. Just change the ending
.

Clay touched her hand. “You said you think your father suspects something?”

Kate nodded.

“If he wants to know the truth, don't you think he'd ask your mother?”