Page 6 of Apple of My Eye

A knot forms in my stomach at the idea of talking about it with him.

I should be over it by now, the fact that my brother will never return to our small town, the fact that he was destined for bigger things—a bigger city, an illustrious career, a yearning for arts and culture that Carnation just can’t fulfill.

And my parents wanted Linden to succeed so badly, to achieve his goals, to live his dream life, that it always felt like they never bothered to ask what mine was.

Because there was never a discussion, I assumed the responsibility of returning home to take care of the farm and my parents.

If I didn’t do it, who would? But now there might be no farm to take care of, and where does that leave me?

‘Lil, you know as well as I do that I’m not exactly in touch with Linden. And nothing is set in stone, they could still change their minds.’

‘Eloise! You said you would call him!’

‘You know better than to full-name me!’ I retort right back. Everyone I know calls me Lou. It’s been that way since I was little. ‘I saw a hot guy today.’ I change the subject before she can carry on getting angry with me. I don’t have the energy to discuss my failings as a little sister.

‘You what ?’ she squeals. ‘You haven’t met a hot guy in ages . Here I was starting to think your loins had dried up permanently.’

My momentary wave of guilt at getting her excited about a hallucination recedes immediately. ‘Technically, I saw the hot guy. In a hallucination. As a result of my heatstroke. And also, my loins ? Are you reading your regency romance novels again?’

‘You did not get a heatstroke,’ Lily chastises me, ‘it isn’t even that hot there. Summer’s, like, basically over. You’re definitely just stressed about your parents selling the farm. And yes. Not that you care, but the viscount has finally realized he’s in love with the neighboring duchess.’

‘I swear I did. I forgot to bring JJ his afternoon apple.’

‘Hmm,’ Lily muses, ‘so what did this hallucination look like exactly?’

‘Tanned. Muscular. Amazing hair. Like movie-star hair. John Stamos hair. And—’ I drop my voice to a whisper ‘—this is the weird part, but I think he saw me too.’

‘OK, so you saw a hot guy and he saw you back and is that what’s supposed to make this absolute dreamboat a hallucination?’

‘Well, he definitely wasn’t a farmer. He was way too put together for that.

And the Parkers only have daughters. So there’s no reason for someone like that to be there?

Plus, like I said before, I was really hot .

Also, he is like the carbon copy of the protagonist in the latest rom-com I’m reading.

So, it’s not a big leap that my mind would have made him up.

In the heatstroke I was clearly having.’

Lily cackles. ‘I can’t believe you have the balls to make fun of me for my regency novels while you’re binge-reading every rom-com under the sun.’

Our plates aren’t cleared from dinner when Mom brings the Parkers up. The pit of dread and guilt that’s been sitting in my stomach resurfaces with a vengeance. In the few days I’ve been home it’s only been absent when I’ve been with JJ.

‘I just don’t know what they’ll do.’ Mom sighs at her dinner plate.

Dad glances to his left, out the window towards their farmhouse, lights twinkling on the hill that overlooks our house.

‘They’ll figure it out. They always do.’ Dad pats his belly. ‘That was amazing, Haze.’

‘You don’t think they’ll sell? Aren’t they worse off than we are?’

Mom arches an eyebrow at me. ‘Let’s not dwell too much on other people’s misfortune,’ she says, her intonation reminding me of my late, very Catholic grandmother, and sounding just like the tone she used when I accidentally let a ‘Jesus Christ!’ slip around her.

‘Sorry,’ I grumble.

After dinner is cleaned up, we retire to the living room, Mom immediately settling into her favorite chair, a stained-glass Tiffany lamp glowing colorfully next to her.

‘That book club of hers has been reading a lot of “romance” lately,’ my dad whispers to me, air-quoting ‘romance’, as he deals out a hand of gin rummy.

‘Romance is really in the air today,’ I murmur.

‘What?’ Dad asks, peering over his hand of cards.

I glance at Mom, who’s so absorbed in her book she hasn’t heard him.

‘Is she reading like romance romance?’ I ask.

He raises his eyebrows in confirmation and nods.

‘EW, Dad!’

‘What?’ Mom asks, looking up from her book.

We both break out into laughter.

A knock on the front door startles all of us. Dad looks at Mom. ‘Are we expecting anyone?’

‘Hi!’ Betsy calls from down the hall. ‘I thought I saw Lou walking through the fields yesterday and we wanted to welcome her home.’

A confusing mix of affection and guilt coats my stomach as Mrs. Parker sweeps me into a tight hug. As usual, she smells like rosewater and jasmine.

‘Let me look at you,’ she says, grabbing my shoulders and stepping half a foot back. ‘Every year you get more beautiful. How is that possible?’ she asks, looking to my mom for her agreement.

She gives it in spades. ‘I know. I pinch myself every time I see her.’

I blush bright red.

‘Lay off, Betsy,’ Joe chides his wife affectionately. He steps around her to encircle me in a hug.

‘So tell us.’ Betsy makes herself comfortable without needing to be invited.

She sits down at our kitchen table and drums her fingers across the weathered oak.

Mom puts a kettle on for tea. ‘How was school?’ We chat until the conversation turns to our farm and the air in the room stills.

Usually this is a practiced topic, one we all resort to when we small talk, but considering I’ve hardly talked to my parents about them wanting to sell, I don’t have much to say.

‘It’s fine,’ Mom offers, her voice going up slightly.

Dad grunts from his chair. Joe does the same, both of them an echo of the other, hunched over the wood ever so slightly.

‘How are the girls?’ I ask Betsy, taking advantage of the silence as an opportunity to change the subject. She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘They’re good. Don’t see them much. Big city living and all.’

This , I think, is why I didn’t want to leave my parents.

It’s tangible, the feeling that Betsy is exuding, the acknowledgement that her kids aren’t trying nearly as hard as they could be to stay in touch.

I never want my parents to say about me, We never see her.

She’s in the city now. But look where that got me.

‘And the grandkids?’ I ask, surprised I have to prompt her, she usually takes any excuse she has to talk about them.

‘Good!’ Betsy glances at Joe again and he shakes his head ever so slightly.

Mom sighs. ‘Betsy, I’ve known you long enough to know when you want to tell me something. What is it?’

Betsy smiles, this time it transforms her whole face. She’s beaming. ‘Do you remember that program we applied for? The business school one?’

Mom nods.

‘I was waiting to tell you until I knew for sure, but we got it!’ She turns to me. ‘And then everything happened so fast. But it’s happened. He’s resting at the house now. You’ll have a friend this summer!’ She winks.

So he wasn’t a hallucination after all. ‘What program?’ I ask weakly.

But Mom is already asking Betsy logistical questions about arrivals and plans and grants. Their voices morph into a low buzz.

‘Are you okay?’ Dad asks me, meeting my eyes across the table. He looks tired again, the glint of excitement gone. I nod. ‘Just tired,’ I say. ‘First week back on the farm, you know how it is,’ I add, a little louder, for Betsy and Joe to hear.

‘We should go,’ Betsy adapts quickly, ever the perfect next-door neighbor. ‘Come over soon?’ she asks me earnestly, placing her hand on my forearm. ‘I can’t wait for you two to meet.’

‘I will,’ I croak out, trying to sound sincere but my voice dies on my tongue and instead, I sound like a prepubescent boy.

Mom fills me in after our heavy oak front door has closed behind Joe and Betsy and their footfalls have disappeared down the path that connects our houses.

Mom and Dad knew about the program Betsy was applying to.

Turns out, they had been the ones to find it.

There was an article about it in the paper, about a program to loan out graduate students in business to small, family-owned companies.

She told Betsy about it over coffee and she jumped at the idea.

She was ‘looking for a lifeline’, she confided in Mom, looking for anything that would save her favorite place in the world.

Dad reassures me before I head to bed that there’s no way a business student can turn around an apple farm on dead soil, but I toss and turn all night anyway.

I’m distracted enough from our harvest as it is, and now the Parkers have a ‘secret weapon’ to turn their business around, and their secret weapon is hotter than a firecracker in a hay bale?

It’s starting to seem like I should have accepted that research job after all . .?.