Page 17 of Apple of My Eye

Chapter Thirteen

Eloise

What I Would Do if I Could Do Anything*

– Work in an agricultural research lab

– Hang out with Lily in New York City

– Backpack across Asia (Linden swears it changed his life)

– Run the Anderson Family Apple Farm Operation

– Open up my own regenerative farming consultancy

*Topic by Nick Russo

One of my teeth drops into my palm. It’s not bloody, instead it’s as white as snow, the roots perfectly molded, like it got plucked from a pair of dentures.

But despite its pretty appearance, it makes me panic.

I feel with my tongue for the hole in my mouth where it used to be, and in doing so I pop out another tooth.

I’m in my bedroom but it feels vaguely unfamiliar.

I realize why as I’m looking for the tooth that fell out of my mouth.

The rug I had all throughout middle school is on the floor.

It’s a purple shag rug and my tooth has been lost to its tentacle-like depths.

What am I going to do if I can’t find my tooth?

‘Lou!’ I hear someone say.

I open my mouth to ask them for help, but no sound comes out.

‘Lou!’ they say again.

I have the moment where I realize I’m dreaming, I can feel myself detaching from my childhood bedroom, and I run towards whatever edge of my brain is pulling away. I don’t want to be in this dream anymore. I want my teeth.

‘LOU!’ Mom yells louder. ‘Wake up! You have a visitor!’

Damnit.

I pull my hair into a messy bun and throw on a T-shirt and jeans as fast as I can, patting color into my cheeks as I brush my teeth. It’s 7.30 on a Sunday. Whoever is here, I’m going to kill them.

Weekends are an odd beast when you live on a farm.

There’s always more than enough work to go around, and the operating hours other businesses live by don’t apply.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s why farmers stay religious.

If they didn’t have a mandated day of rest, they would never take a break.

We stopped going to church when I was six because Linden lost control of his bladder and peed during the sermon and Mom never had enough courage to return.

Linden blames it on the Red Bull-chugging competition his friends made him do beforehand.

Story goes that every single one of those boys was hopping from one foot to the other for the entire sixty minutes.

Only after it was over did the other boys notice Linden had stopped hopping.

He still blushes when that story comes up.

I don’t remember it; I was too young. But I do remember that we used to get donuts after church as our treat for dressing up and sitting still.

There’s a bakery about twenty minutes away, a mom-and-pop shop that’s been open as long as my parents can remember.

They make the best apple fritters come apple season, and every other month of the year they sell out of their sticky cinnamon buns before noon.

I make a mental note to drive out there and pick up some goodies soon.

I always love seeing the baker, Mr. Bernard.

He tells a different joke every time I’m there and never fails to make me laugh.

But seeing as Sundays are the holy grail of rest, I have no idea who is here to wake me up before eight in the morning.

It could be Lily’s mom, she usually stops by when she knows I’m home (she has no social awareness, something Lily endlessly makes fun of her for), and we catch up and send a selfie to Lily.

I scamper down the stairs praying someone has made coffee. Sunlight streams into the windows. The kitchen smells faintly like pumpkin, and I wonder if Mom has started making muffins. My mouth waters. Reflexively, I poke my tongue around to make sure I have all my teeth.

‘He’s on the front porch,’ she says with a knowing smile, inclining her head to our wide front door.

‘He?’ I ask, as I turn and squint out the window.

Nick is sitting on the front step staring out onto the horizon, a to-go coffee cup at his side.

I turn back to Mom. ‘What is he doing here? Did you invite him?’ I expect to find her smirking, but she only shrugs.

‘Beats me.’

‘Morning,’ I say softly, as I ease myself out onto the front porch. I immediately wish I had a sweatshirt. There’s a bite of chill in the air signifying fall is only weeks away.

‘Morning.’ Nick smiles at me and hands me the coffee cup that was sitting next to him. He looks so at ease on my front porch that my breath catches in my chest.

‘Lavender latte,’ Nick tells me.

‘You remembered!’ I exclaim.

Nick laughs. ‘I don’t know whether to be insulted or pleased that you’re so happy I remember something you told me twelve hours ago.’

I roll my eyes at him and take a sip. Warmth blooms in my insides despite goosebumps freckling my arms. ‘Wow, that’s good. I had terrible dreams last night.’ I set the coffee down beside me. ‘I needed this.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Nick says, the touch of tenderness in his voice so earnest I feel my insides turn to goo. ‘What about?’

‘Nothing glamorous,’ I demur, not wanting to paint a picture of myself as toothless.

Not exactly the sexy vibe I’m going for.

Not that I’ve been able to make Nick see me as anything but a sweaty farmhand.

Plus, it’s definitely an anxiety dream, and one I’ll most likely have again as I wait for the verdict on the loan.

The way this summer plays out will determine my whole life.

And it’s becoming a bigger and bigger thing to keep from Nick as we spend more time together.

‘I usually don’t sleep well either,’ he confesses.

‘But?’

‘I’ve been sleeping better since I got out here. It’s the air, I think .?.?.’

‘Maybe it’s the hard work too,’ I suggest, knowing from experience how much better I sleep when I’m bone-tired after a day in the field than the days I’ve spent sitting behind a desk.

I excuse myself to grab a blanket, stealing one off the couch and wrapping it around my shoulders before coming back outside.

‘Much better,’ Nick says, registering my outfit addition with approval. ‘It’s cold out here in the mornings now.’

‘Now?’ I tease. ‘You’ve only been here, like, two weeks!’

‘Almost three,’ he reminds me.

I can’t believe Nick’s only been here three weeks.

His presence has started to feel so normal that I hardly register it anymore, the last thing I thought would happen after our disastrous first meeting.

At first I was so annoyed by him, didn’t understand how he had any right to be here.

But his curiosity, the way he works all day without asking for a break, how every morning he’s happy— its growing on me.

And he’s handsome. I was doomed from the start, a fact that definitely hasn’t escaped Mom, who thinks it’s hilarious that Mrs. Parker’s secret weapon is spending more time with me than he is doing anything useful.

She’s even started to make comments about how I must be sabotaging him somehow.

Every day Nick and I have done slow laps around the farm as we work.

While we navigate the dusty tracks of roads that are littered with potholes, Nick asks about everything that has to do with regenerative agriculture, he even tries to follow the really science-y stuff, but he asks about trivial stuff too, like how often I get stung by bees (roughly once a year) and what my favorite thing is to make with apples (pie).

He asks Mom about recipes for apple cider.

He asks Dad how often he needs to repair the tractors.

We pop our heads into Central and West Barns.

He usually leaves when I head in for lunch.

I’m not sure what he’s doing in the afternoon, working on his marketing plan, I guess.

I haven’t told him how crazy I think his TikTok idea is.

Social media won’t repair the Parkers’ soil, but at the end of the day, that’s what I want—the Parkers’ farm needs to fail.

But Nick seems so eager and earnest I can’t bear to tell him how much I think his plan sucks.

Plus, if I did that then he wouldn’t be sharing useful tidbits with me like how to use hashtags and what times to post. Instead, I talk him through what apple blossoms smell like and what it feels like when the bees arrive to pollenate the trees.

He clears his throat, bringing me back to the present moment—the two of us on the front porch, the swallows waking up the rolling hills with their cheerful songs.

‘Did I wake you?’ he asks, breaking the silence. ‘Everyone who lives here is up so early all the time. I feel like I’m always the last one awake.’

‘No.’ The lie rolls off my tongue. I register the new impulse—the need for me to protect Nick’s feelings—with mild surprise. ‘We’re always awake. We’re farmers.’ A bird chirps happily in the distance.

‘That’s what Betsy said!’ he exclaims happily. ‘Anyway, I was hoping we could talk about the start of the season again. I’m just trying to conceptualize the story from the beginning.’

‘Hmm,’ I say. I know I shouldn’t help him at all, especially when the last thing I want is for him to succeed.

But I can’t help myself when it comes to him.

I can see him grinning in my peripheral vision.

He has a great smile. At least that’s what Mom keeps saying.

I haven’t figured out if she keeps bringing him up to distract me from wanting to talk about the potential sale of the farm or what, but either way I replace every nice thing she says about him in my head with Nick is moving back to San Francisco or Nick is helping the PARKERS , just so I don’t lose my focus over something so fleeting.

I keep my gaze focused on the driveway, letting my eyes dance over the curve of the road. ‘March is when trees are planted.’

Nick starts to scribble in his notepad.

‘But technically we start prepping before March .?.?.’

Nick strikes through what he just wrote down.

‘Let’s call it November.’

‘November it is.’ Nick grins.