Page 12 of Apple of My Eye

Chapter Ten

Nick

Cal and Hazel are like younger versions of Joe and Betsy.

Instead of granola grandparents, they’re more like backwoods boomers .

.?. no, that’s not right. Maybe they’re more like barnyard boomers .

.?. but that doesn’t feel right either. I’m trying to stay focused on my task at hand, focused on mining anything I come across for socials, but the apple girl, who now I know is Eloise, is very distracting.

I squeeze through a narrow doorway, following her into the kitchen, and as the room opens up around me, I wonder if that’s something I can do a bit on—the ‘character’ of all the houses around here.

The doorways of their farmhouse are arched, the furniture is wooden and cozy, and there’s richly colored paintings dotting the walls.

I walk past a multicolored cow and a still life of apples.

We pop out of the hallway into a large living and dining room, and I’m instantly hit with a familiar smell. Mmmmm , I think. Betsy’s cooking is good, but it isn’t this good. Cal or Hazel, whoever cooked, is on my mother’s level.

I catch Eloise staring at me, one hand over her mouth, attempting to suppress a giggle that quickly explodes. She coughs to cover it, flushing red.

‘What?’ I whisper at her as Betsy clucks over the spread. There’s fresh bread broken in a basket and butter softening on the table, a heaping salad in the middle. Candles dot the table and there are checkered napkins on each plate.

‘Mmm,’ Eloise says, her tone lilting, a spark in her eye as she mimics me.

I roll my eyes. ‘I didn’t think I said that out loud,’ I whisper, ‘that was an internal thought thing.’

‘Is that something you do a lot? Voice your internal thoughts out loud?’

Her remark feels like a veiled reference to our grocery store run-in, which I don’t know how to process, so instead I throw caution to the wind and take out my phone to take a picture of the table.

If Eloise is already making fun of me, it’s not like I can make it worse.

Plus, I can definitely use this. I just might need to fib and say the butter is apple butter or something.

‘So nice to have you, Nick,’ Hazel says warmly.

‘It looks delicious, Mrs. Anderson.’

‘Oh, stop, this is nothing,’ she demurs. ‘I’m sure you had better food in San Francisco. Did Betsy tell you our son Linden lives there? Also, call me Hazel.’

‘She did. Is he coming home over the summer at all? I’d love to meet him.’ I swear I see Eloise’s eyes roll into the back of her head. She pulls out a chair and plunks herself down at the table.

‘I’m sure you’ve all put this together,’ Betsy says as she eases herself into her chair, ‘but Nick is our savior from Stanford and he’s going to turn the whole farm around.’

Eloise’s brows furrow. ‘How is he going to do that?’ she asks, pointedly looking at Betsy instead of me. Hazel’s head snaps towards Eloise.

I clear my throat. ‘I guess you’ll have to stick around and find out.’

Cal laughs, the first time I’ve heard him say or do anything since I walked through the door.

His smile transforms his whole face, and pretty soon the rest of the table is exchanging generous smiles.

When Cal laughs, he looks youthful—and just like Eloise.

They share the same light blue eyes, the same nose.

‘Well, we certainly plan to stick around, dear,’ says Betsy.

Eloise is the only one whose expression remains unchanged.