Page 7 of Apple of My Eye

Chapter Six

Nick

It takes all of my willpower to not email Professor Adams immediately.

Mr. Parker is a granola grandpa. He picks me up from the airport in a muddy blue pickup truck that looks like it’s older than I am, wearing faded Levis and a wrinkled navy T-shirt. George Strait is playing on the car speakers. He tips his hat at me as I swing myself into the car.

San Francisco doesn’t really have seasons.

It’s pretty much eternally foggy, chilly at night, with some days warmer than others.

Landing in Seattle was a breath of fresh air.

Warmer than I’m used to without the ocean breeze, it felt like the apex of summer standing out in front of the airport.

The air was dry and hot, the sidewalk congested with tourists.

Mr. Parker clearly wants none of it, he throws my suitcase in the truck faster than I can blink, surprisingly nimble for someone that looks like he’s reaching seventy.

‘Glad you made it, son. Mrs. Parker is mighty excited to meet you.’

‘Thank you .?.?. sir?’ I hastily tack on to the end of my sentence. Mr. Parker simply grunts and pulls away from the airport, so I take that as confirmation he likes to be addressed as ‘sir’.

‘Your flight was on time,’ he notes.

‘Yessir.’

‘You from California?’

‘Yessir,’ I say again. I feel like I’m falling into a rhythm with it. I never grew up calling anyone ‘sir’. No one I knew took themselves that seriously. It’s kind of fun, I think, sitting back in my seat.

‘You can call me Joe.’

Damnit. ‘Yessi—I mean, OK, Joe. So .?.?.’ So much for my politeness . I search for something to bring up—after all, we do have two hours to get through.

‘Let me tell you about the farm,’ he says, rescuing me from my thoughts.

He proceeds to launch into the most detailed explanation of a business I’ve ever heard.

Halfway through I almost pick up my phone to start taking notes but I second-guess it, worried he’ll think I’m texting.

By the time we’re nearing Carnation I know the names and personality of every pig: Maisy (affectionate), Daisy (stubborn), Princess Peach (loud), and Buttercup (lazy).

I know more about his daughters than I know about my cousins.

There’s two of them, both living in Seattle, one married and the other recently divorced.

He has two granddaughters and a grandson, and his grandson, Dev, just learned how to say grandpa.

I can tell by the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he talks about her that his elder granddaughter is his favorite.

He tells me that Mrs. Parker does the crossword every morning and that she’s the better cook, although he can make a mean pot roast. He, in turn, manages the business. It takes him a long time, but eventually he works his way up to the financial troubles.

‘Boy, we are glad to see you,’ he says, his voice a little less gruff than it was an hour and a half ago. ‘We had a bad harvest last year that really set us back.’

‘That’s what I’m here for.’ I shrug.

‘We’re hoping we can get through it. I don’t know what else we’ll do.’

I stare out the window trying to come up with a response. I hardly know this man at all and I already like him. I don’t want to see him fail.

Mr. Parker glances at me. ‘You ever worked on a farm before?’

‘Not exactly,’ I admit.

‘Hmmph.’

We don’t talk much after that.

I get a text from Anna wishing me luck, accompanied by a photo of her in a pristine white office, smiling coyly at the camera.

Even though she was cool after our date, sometimes I feel like she still wants to be something more, and that by continuing our friendship I’m leading her on.

I wonder if a clean break while I’m out here is exactly what I need.

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it’s a great idea.

In the least presumptuous way possible, I’ll just tell Anna that I don’t want to be giving her the wrong idea and that I won’t have my phone a lot this summer.

Hey , I begin, just wanted to say I think I’ll be off the grid for a bit.

Our friendship means a lot to me but I want to really focus on this capstone and to do that I need to unplug.

I’m staring at my phone, wondering if saying our friendship means a lot to me is too opaque.

Just as I’m deleting the text to rewrite it, about to add in I know we went on a date but I think we’re better off as friends , a text comes through from Isaac.

Sweet set up, Anna.

He attaches a picture to the message of himself in his own office.

But do you guys have an in-house barista?

Quick as a flash, there’s a photo of Anna with a cappuccino.

Duh.

My service must be crap for group messages to come in one by one, but my annoyance at my cell provider is outweighed by the relief thrumming through my body.

I’m such an idiot. Thank God I didn’t send Anna a dumb lets-be-friends message in response to her texting a bunch of her friends in a group chat.

Isaac would have never let me live it down.

I have no idea what I was thinking assuming Anna was still so hung up on me.

Mamma would slap me if she knew I had gotten such a big head.

She hates an ego. I snort out a laugh thinking about it.

‘What?’ Joe asks.

‘Oh.’ I grimace. The rumble of the old blue pickup is so loud that I forgot Joe was there. ‘Nothing. We almost there?’

‘We are here.’

We round a corner and Carnation comes into view.

WELCOME TO CARNATION , a sign on our right reads as we speed past it.

I feel like I’ve entered a Hidden Valley Ranch commercial.

Everything is green and soft. The truck starts to coast as we journey through undulating hills.

Mr. Parker rolls down the windows grunting and muttering that ‘The city air just gets worse and worse,’ and ‘Those hypocrites buy organic and live in a pollution factory.’

I take in a deep lungful and feel the fresh air hit me like pure oxygen.

It smells of hay and grass and faintly of manure.

It smells exactly as I imagined. I watch the bars of service on my cellphone slowly start to dwindle.

The Parkers must have Wi-FI .?.?. right?

Just as I’m about to ask, we coast to a stop next to a small mailbox and Mr. Parker hops out. ‘This’ll just be a minute,’ he drawls.

I hop out of the truck to take in the view as I wait for him to review his mail.

I hear the squawk of a nearby chicken and close my eyes, tilting back my head to feel the sun on my face.

When I blink my eyes back open, they snag on a woman walking atop a nearby hill.

She’s in jeans and a T-shirt, and even from where I’m standing, I can tell she’s beautiful.

Her hair is golden, lit up by the sun, and her cheeks are full.

She’s tan, strong, and she looks right at home as she picks her way through the field.

She looks up at me and when our gazes meet her steps falter.

She cocks her head, like my presence is confusing, and just as she moves to pull her sunglasses down from her face and get a closer look at me, Mr. Parker clears his throat, beckoning me back to the car.

The truck groans so loudly pulling us up the hill that I can’t get a word in to ask who she is.

Before I know it, we’ve arrived at the top.

We’ve made it home. I see dollar signs in every window as we approach.

This is even more picturesque than I thought.

It’s so marketable it’s almost comical—a wooden A-frame with a wraparound porch and rocking chairs moving gently in the wind.

There’s a polka-dotted umbrella stand on the porch and a welcome mat that reads, ‘Welcome to our home, humans live here with us,’ and has pictures of each one of the pigs underneath it—Maisy, Daisy, Princess Peach, and Buttercup.

I start laughing and Mr. Parker cracks a smile.

‘The girls got that for us last Christmas,’ he says.

People would pay anything for what this farm sells, I’m sure of it. The internet goes nuts for pigs. I just need to get Mr. and Mrs. Parker to see it.

Before I can open the front door, Mrs. Parker comes barreling out of the house. Her hair is graying and pulled back from her face. A thick apron is tied around her waist. She is literally holding a spoon in one hand and frantically waving hello with the other. She’s beaming.

This might not be so bad after all.