Page 32 of Apple of My Eye

Chapter Twenty-Five

Eloise

My Go-To Karaoke Setlist

– ‘Sweet Caroline’

– ‘Dancing Queen’

– ‘Linger’

– ‘Redneck Woman’ (Lily is fantastic at this one)

– ‘Party in the USA’

– ‘.?.?. Baby One More Time’

‘I’ll be posting a new video every day while I’m here for the fall with a fun farm tidbit, so you all can learn more about farming.

Then, when the apples are ready to eat, I expect you to visit!

Stay tuned, Mrs. Parker will be sharing some of her classic family recipes.

’ The screen blurs and text appears on top of the video.

Every June, bees are hauled out to the orchards en masse to pollinate the trees. Multiple hives! The farmers say the beats of their wings sound like rolling thunder.

‘That was me! ’ I yell at the phone. ‘I said that!’

‘What was you, dear?’ Mom asks, spinning around from where she is sitting.

She’s leaning over her iPad, playing a card game on her phone at the kitchen island.

As soon as I showed her there was a gin rummy app, she’s been intent on practicing.

But she refuses to tell Dad. She’s too excited about the possibility of a surprise win.

‘Another one of Nick’s videos,’ I say with an exasperated sigh.

‘Gosh, that boy is busy. I feel like you’ve shown me a new video every day this week.

And you helped him with one?’ She lowers her reading glasses to the bottom of her nose.

‘Finally! I was wondering when the two of you would make up. Is that what you were doing with all those supplies you got delivered to the garage.’

‘I didn’t help him,’ I mutter, ‘he stole it. And I’m sorry I’m cluttering up the garage, it’ll be worth it.’

‘I know it will.’ She walks towards where I’m sitting on the couch and peers over my shoulder, reading the text. ‘That’s so pretty,’ she muses. ‘You could have been a poet.’

‘Thank you, but that is not the point.’ I glower. ‘He used it without telling me. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that.’

‘He did?’ Her eyebrows crease together.

‘I mean, he told me he was interviewing me for his work but .?.?. yeah, kind of .?.?.’

‘Hmm.’ She gets up and makes her way back to the stove. ‘Well, did he send it to you? Maybe that was his way of asking you.’

‘Mom,’ I say, ‘Lily sent it to me. If he was going to ask, he should have asked a million views ago.’

‘How is Lily?’ she asks, a smile brightening her face. ‘I miss that girl.’

‘She’s home this weekend,’ I say. ‘She wants to go to karaoke.’

‘At Tractor Tavern? How fun!’ She claps her hands.

‘I guess .?.?.’

‘You love karaoke.’

‘I know,’ I agree glumly. ‘I haven’t been feeling so much like myself lately,’ I admit, ‘so I don’t know if I’ll want to sing in front of a huge crowd.’

She crosses the room to squeeze my shoulder. ‘Maybe it’s just the thing you need then. Oh, Linden called,’ she says, returning to the island to continue playing her game. ‘He says hello. He asked how you were doing. Did you know, he finally got over his hatred for green peas?’ She beams.

My ribs will be sore tomorrow, but a hug from Lily is worth it. I give her strict instructions as soon as she stops squeezing the life out of me.

‘Barn first, remember?’ I say, reminding her of the deal we made when I picked her up from the airport. We both know I would have picked her up no matter what, but I figured I might as well call in a favor.

‘Right, right,’ she says, but she looks wistfully at my front door. I know she wants to say hello to Mom, but I also know Mom will talk her ear off and then she won’t be able to help me. I smuggle her across the yard and into the side door to the barn instead.

‘Lou!’ she squeals when she steps inside. ‘Cuh-ute!’

‘You think?’ I grin. ‘I was hoping you would like it.’ I twist my hair around my finger. Lily has long been my most fashionable friend, someone even Shari and Evan admit they can’t compete with. Living in New York City does that to a person. I trust her taste unequivocally.

‘Yes,’ she gushes. ‘You need to put this stool here—’ she picks up the antique wooden stool I found in the attic and sets it down ‘—and move this hay bale to the red backdrop.’ She hauls a large, shedding bay of hale to a different corner of the barn.

She wipes her hands off afterward, surveying the space.

‘This is perfect. In fact, can I use it?’ She sits down on the hay bale she just moved and props her chin into her hands.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but only if I get to use the photos.’

‘Fine,’ she laughs, while I take pictures of her. ‘Tit for tat!’

For the next twenty minutes we cover every photo backdrop I bought from eBay.

I found an old photography studio going out of business and snapped up their plain color sheets and their large softbox lights.

Lily is a natural in front of the camera, something I also associate with New York, and before I know it, I have a picture of her in front of all four of the backdrops.

I furnished each one with antique furniture languishing in the attic, and I do agree with Lily—they look pretty good.

‘People will love this,’ she says. ‘Everyone’s always looking for new content, and these are perfect and unique for influencers and for holiday-card photos. Especially when you combine it with the pictures they can take outside! I have to admit, Lou, this was a great idea for U-Pick.’

‘Thanks.’ I blush. I’m still riding the high of her approval when Lily goes inside to greet Mom, whose squeal of happiness sounds suspiciously like she just won another game on her phone.

The photo backdrops Lily liked were a ton of work.

I had to get everything delivered to the garage, which was the fastest place they could dump it without Nick potentially spotting it and wanting to copy my idea, then I had to move all the props to the barn under the cover of night.

It felt both silly and thrilling to keep everything so secretive.

But now that Lily’s seen it, I feel a seed of hope take root that U-Pick traffic this year could be higher than ever, that I could convince my parents not to walk away from the farm.

In a relentless continuation of our IOUs, I have to go to karaoke in exchange for Lily helping me.

She’s picked out her song, ‘Redneck Woman,’ which she sings every karaoke.

She’s also picked out my song, ‘Sweet Caroline,’ which, given my low mood, I will butcher with almost one hundred percent certainty.

We speed to Tractor Tavern, leaving later than we wanted to because Lily made me change into her clothes—mine looked ‘a little too comfortable,’ which is how I ended up in a sheer black top that exceptionally showcases the goosebumps dotting my arms in the September cold.

We arrive to a packed, dusty, converted barn that’s owned by Bennett, a kid we used to go to high school with.

He’s clearly still smitten with Lily. She can’t get two steps through the door without him coming up to say hello, gushing about how successful his business is.

I have to admit there’s more people here than I thought.

Maybe about sixty or so people, who look to be around my age, half of whom I recognize and the other half I’m scrutinizing, wondering where the heck they came from.

I haven’t gone out at home since before graduate school.

I’m usually exhausted every night. There’s also usually never new people here, one of the reasons there’s so much buzz about Nick (Mom’s reported he was the main topic at her book club again).

But maybe I’ve been away from home for too long because the crowd seems to have changed.

I heard buzz around town that more young people had started moving to the country after COVID, wanting some fresh air, but I didn’t know it was actually true.

Maybe there’s something to capitalize on here , I think, staring at the pulsing crowd.

Maybe some of these people would actually want to learn about the land they live on.

‘Want a beer?’ I ask Lily, who is flashing eyes at me as Bennett continues his third-degree.

‘Yes,’ she says, gripping my forearm and waving Bennett goodbye, cutting him off mid-sentence.

‘Be right back!’ she trills. We duck around the crowd pulsating in front of the makeshift karaoke stage, singing along to a man belting out ‘Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)’.

She gushes about the price of beer—‘so affordable!’—before launching into a litany of complaints for how she had to come home for her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday even though her younger sister, Maude, was allowed to stay in London.

‘New York is practically just as far!’ she whines. I open my mouth to remind her that it is not, in fact, just as far, but before I can her song starts playing.

‘Already!’ she whoops, pausing to give Bennett a wink. She chugs the remainder of her beer saying, ‘Damn, it feels good to be home,’ before sauntering up to the stage to hoots and hollers.

I start recording her, knowing the beginning of the song is her favorite.

Sure enough, she warms up the whole crowd to a scream before she belts the end of the first chorus and is answered with a deafening call and response.

Lily winks at me, launching into the next verse, and without thinking, I press post, adding her vocal talents to my Instagram story.

An hour later, we are sweaty and breathless when we collapse at a high-top table. I know by the look in Lily’s eyes that she’s seen someone attractive before she even opens her mouth.

‘Who’s with Amie?’ she asks, catching me off guard as I was preparing for something along the lines of ‘Who’s the hottie?’ Or, ‘Now that’s an ass I could grab.’

‘What?’ I turn, following her gaze. The grating sounds of a person belting a very off-key ‘Mr. Brightside’ fades away.

Realization dawns on Lily. ‘Ohmigosh, that’s—’

‘Nick,’ I finish for her. Anger rises in my chest.

‘Damn. Amie pulls.’