Page 93 of Touch the Sky

Chapter 20

Tess

“Your place is…a pumpkin patch?”

I twist in my seat to face Jacinthe when she cuts the engine of the truck. We’re in a roped-off field being used as a parking lot for a place labeledVerger Tremblayon the hand-painted sign out by the road.

Dusk is already setting in, painting the sky with streaks of purple. There are only a handful of other cars in the lot. We’re somewhere between La Cloche and Saint-Jovite, but I lost track of our location once we turned off the main highway.

“Ben ouais, it is,” Jacinthe says as she unclips her seatbelt. “It is also an apple farm, but it’s too late in the season for that.”

I try not to smile as I refrain from telling her the correct term is ‘apple orchard.’

“Are we…picking pumpkins?” I ask.

She shakes her head and looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Non. We are getting a drink.”

She hops out of the truck, and I follow after her, hoping this will all start making sense soon. We walk along a well-trodden path through the field and a thin line of trees before my curiosity is satisfied.

A scene straight out of a Hallmark movie is waiting for us. Strings of patio lights are stretched over a clearing with weathered old barrels and rustic stools set out as tables. There’s a log cabin with smoke curling out of the chimney and a sign that simply readsBARposted over one of the windows, where a plank of wood has been tacked onto the side of the house like a makeshift rail for ordering.

A huge antique tractor coated in flaking red paint is set up as an autumnal display, with big baskets of pink and orange mums resting on its hood, along with a slightly creepy scarecrow perched in the seat. A tinny-sounding French song is playing out of a speaker hooked under the edge of the cabin’s roof. There are only a couple occupied tables, where the patrons are drinking what look like pints of cider.

“What is this place?”

My voice is hushed, like the whole spectacle in front of me might flutter away on fairy wings if I talk too loud.

“It’s Le Verger Tremblay,” Jacinthe answers.

Despite trying to stay quiet, I still snort.

“I know that,” I tell her. “It was on the sign, but like,whatis it? A pumpkin patch and a bar?”

She nods. “Exactement. Now you’re getting it. The Tremblays run it every fall. Well, the West Tremblays. The East Tremblays don’t have anything to do with it anymore.”

I chuckle when she doesn’t get into any more detail than that. It’s a La Cloche-ism I’ve noticed more and more the longer I’ve been here: if you’re a resident, everyone in town assumes you already know everybody else’s business.

It’s been flattering, albeit extremely confusing, to realize I’m being taken into the small town fold like that.

“So why here?” I ask. “I mean, it’s lovely, don’t get me wrong, but we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere.”

She lifts a finger and winks at me.

That shouldn’t be enough to make my stomach do a back flip, but it does.

“Exactement,” she repeats. “I knew it would be empty this time of day, and besides, no one from La Cloche would be stupid enough to buy pumpkins this close to Halloween. Only the shitty small ones will be left.”

“Ah. So this is about secrecy.”

I sound offended, but really, my mind is just racing with the realization that this is exactly the path I’ve chosen to walk down: hiding in covert locations and looking over our shoulders while we try to avoid everyone we know.

I haven’t told a soul about what happened on Saturday. My mom could tell something was up during one of our regular chats last night, but I couldn’t even give her a parent-proof version of my predicament.

I can’t even call it a predicament. It’s just a reckless, chaotic, wildly naïve series of choices I keep making simply because my brain now turns into a scrambled, horny, and defenseless pile of mush whenever Jacinthe Gauthier-Laframboise looks my way.

“I did not mean to upset you,” Jacinthe says, her face turning stricken. “I just thought?—”