Will can’t help but laugh; August, Meredith’s oldest brother, had been a terror for rules and restrictions, always insisting he was in charge in any situation. The thought of Meredith pulling rank on him in the family store is truly hysterical, and she tells Will several entertaining stories to that effect, then updates him on the various Gunderson siblings, all still alive and in various states of wellness and wealth. By the time she wraps this up, it’s lunchtime, and Will accepts when she invites him to join her, a recently returned Todd, and the rest of the kids for lunch. Sandy, her husband, stops in too; he’s a skinny, cheerful guy with shaggy light brown hair who gives off an outdoorsy energy Will can’t quite quantify. Still, he likes the man a lot, and Meredith’s kids are funny and interesting and a credit to her.
All in all, he doesn’t get around to asking about Casey until the very end of the visit, when Will looks down at his watch andrealizes, to his shock, that it’s nearly two in the afternoon. He apologizes for overstaying his welcome, though Mere waves this away as nonsense, and then, hesitantly, he says, “Listen, before I go—I’m, uh, dealing with the farm? My da—uh, my father left it to me? And, you know, I don’t think I want to…keep it, or…live here. There. No offense,” he adds, hastily, holding up his hands. “Glenriver’s great, just?—”
“No, I get it,” Meredith says, though her voice is sad. “For what it’s worth it’s—this town is a different place than it was then. We’ve all put a lot of work into it. And the farm has changed alot,in ways I think would honestly surprise you. But…I get it. If I were you, I don’t think I’d want to live here after all that, either.”
Will swallows, looks away. But his voice is calm when he says, “I assume you know about the Nimbletainment thing? With the Shiver?”
“Oh, yeah,” Meredith says, and Will notices her face go slightly guarded.Even her, he notes,and after all this talk. Why?“Probably nobody in town who doesn’t. You’re planning on selling, yeah? No shame in it—a lot of folks are, if it all goes through.”
“Are they?” Will says, slightly confused. But, not wanting to seem like he’s dodging her question, he adds, “And, I mean, yeah, I think so. It seems like the simplest solution for everyone, and it sounds like the town is behind it? But…I don’t know, something feels…well…off, I guess. And then when I went to the orchard, I met, uh… Do you know Casey Reeves?”
Meredith flushes slightly, though her tone is light enough when she says, “Ha. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in this town who doesn’t. You’d think he was some kind of movie star, the way people talk about him.” When Will, without entirely meaning to, raises a curious eyebrow at her, her flush deepens, and she says, “Idon’t know any of the gossip, obviously. Sandy and I don’t partake in that kind of thing; it’srude to say something behind someone’s back you wouldn’t say to their face. And, anyway, Casey…” She pauses, a moment of uncharacteristic hesitation playing around her mouth, before she says, “Casey’s—a friend. We haven’t seen him that much lately, but that’s not his fault. He’s our friend.” Her eyes softening slightly, she adds, “He’s done a lot of good for the farm, and for Glenriver. And your dad liked him a lot; you know he wasn’t exactly the softest touch.”
“Hmm,” Will says, trying not to sound bitter and, he suspects, failing. “Well, as far as I can telleveryonelikes Casey Reeves, so. I guess even Bill wasn’t immune to his charms.”Just me, he adds, in the privacy of own mind.One more way I don’t quite fit here.
“My man CASE,” Todd bellows, abruptly, from the next room. Proving Will’s point, he gets up off the couch and lopes over to them, grinning, and holds out his phone. “That dude’s the best. He runs these youth wilderness camps in the summer,sodope, it’s like kayaking and fishing and allsortsof stuff. Anyway, I toasted three phones on his watch and then he got me this sick cover. He said it’s the one people in themilitaryuse.”
“He said your phone needed military-grade protection to survive you,” Mere says, rolling her eyes and laughing on it a little.
But Will’s brow furrows as he looks at the case on Todd’s phone, which appears to be quite expensive. “What, he—bought that for you? Out of the goodness of his heart?” Seems a little at odds with the snarling man Will met yesterday.
“He said it was an act of mercy for my phone,” Todd says, grinning. “Casey’s cool, man. He gets it.” Then he lopes off again, out of the room and down the stairs, off to parts unknown.
“From the mouth of babes,” Mere says with a sigh. She gives Will a slightly awkward little shrug. “The truth is, Casey’sgreat, and I think he did a lot for your dad. But the whole thing with the festival—the rest of us know which way the wind is blowing, you know? One way or another, in a situation like this, the house always wins, so we might as well get our cut before it’s too late. But Casey… He’s not from around here. He wants everyone to band together and let idealism win the day and that’s not how it goes, you know?”
“I’m not sure I do,” Will admits, but before he can ask any more questions, Todd’s calling, “MA! The meat guy’s here! He’s got meat questions! I’m vegan suddenly!”
“You ate a roast beef sandwich an hour ago!” Mere calls down the stairs after him.
“Stop disrespecting my dietary choices,Mom,” Todd howls back, and things descend, from there, into mild chaos.
Will chooses this moment to make his escape, saying a quick goodbye to Meredith and cutting out the back, striding with purpose back up the hill to his rental car even as he tells himself he doesn’t know where he’s going. He keeps telling himself that as he pulls onto the road, and down the winding, residential streets, houses spaced far apart and decorated with various flags and hangings. Some of them, he’s noticed, are queer flags, and it warms his heart, even as he tells himself he’s not taking a familiar route at all.
It’s only when he pulls into the parking lot of the farm that Will lets himself admit that this is where he was headed the whole time.
FIVE
Will cuts the engine, grimacing when he hears it whine slightly as it settles down. He climbs out of the car and stretches, even though it hasn’t been more than a fifteen-minute drive. He pats his pockets, checking that he has his wallet, phone, and keys. He straightens his shirt.
He stares at the bright yellow door of the market, which yesterday had looked inviting and today reminds him that yellow is a color that often indicates poison in nature, for so long that he begins to feel a little awkward about it. Then he turns on his heel, and instead walks sharply towards the first apple orchard.
He’d barely gotten a chance to glance at it yesterday with Catherine; she’d walked so quickly in spite of those terrifyingly high spike heels. But the first orchard, so called because it was the one Original Bill had planted back in the early days of the farm, deserves more from Will than a passing glance. He’s missed many years of its life, but it was there for nearly the first twenty years of his, a large, familiar grove of old, silent friends.
When he gets to the gate, however, a dark-haired teenagerin a yellow T-shirt the same color as the market door is standing there. There’s a tree-shaped nametag affixed to the shirt, similar to Casey’s, but this one saysNoel, and then, in smaller but somehow more pointed handwriting,they/them. They smile both brightly and somewhat falsely at Will and say, “Hi there! Welcome to Robertson Family Farms. Are you here to pick your own apples? To get a bag you can visit the market, just back?—”
“No!” Will says sharply, and then, when the teenager’s customer service mask flickers in badly concealed alarm, wants to bite his own tongue off. He recognizes that expression from people dealing with his father; he’s not interested in carrying on that particular family legacy. More softly, he says, “Sorry, uh. I’m sorry. I’m not looking to pick the apples. I’m—” He pauses, considering his choice of words. Hecouldsay he’s the owner, of course. That’s…true. He knows, logically, that it’s true. It just doesn’tfeeltrue, and he doesn’t want to be a jerk about it, and, anyway, it’s not like it’s going to be true for long. In another day or two, he’s going to sign the paperwork and never set foot here again, exactly according to plan. No point putting on airs, or assuming his father’s stupid mantle, for what will amount to less than forty-eight hours.
His hesitation must come off wrong, however, because Noel abandons all traces of customer-service voice and settles into what must be their more natural disaffected teen personality. Crossing their arms over their chest, they demand: “Look, man, are you some kind of creep or something? Trying to pick up women? Because we’re not going to be having any of that at all, I’ll get Casey out here so fast?—”
“God,” Will says, a horrified laugh spilling out on the word, “no, no, nothing like that. I wouldn’t be picking up women, anyway, but I’m not—uh, I’m not here for that. I…grew up here? My dad just died? Bill?—”
“Oh my God you’reWill Robertson,” Noel gasps, putting ahand to their mouth. Then, dropping it abruptly, they say, “Oh myGod, does Casey know you’re here? Oh my God, he’s going toflip out, he’s?—”
“Whoaaa there,” Will says, holding up a hand. He tries, frantically, to think back to what motivates teenagers; all his brain offers up to him is “information” and “currency,” but hey, any port in a storm, right? Lowering his voice and pulling out his wallet, Will says, “Look, here’s the truth—Casey knows I’m here, in town, but I’d rather hedidn’tknow I was here right now. So I will give you…” Will riffles through his wallet, wincing. “…uh, well, twenty…six dollars, it looks like, if you’ll keep this between us. Okay?”
“Gee, thanks, mister!” Noel says, with an oddly wholesome enthusiasm, accepting the money. They let Will pass without another word, waving him off cheerfully as he goes.
Knowing from years of experience that the first several stands of apple trees will be packed with guests but the rest will go largely ignored, as visitors don’t typically want to walk that far, Will hurries along the heavily trafficked dirt paths until he’s bypassed the tourists, then starts cutting between rows and trees. He walks slowly and carefully between them, noticing each brush of a finely toothed leaf or ripe, swollen fruit, stepping easily away from lazy, sugar-drunk wasps. By this time of the year, the ground is littered with apples—there are signs now, Will notices, encouraging guests to toss any bruised or half-eaten apples to the ground, to help support the soil and ecosystem. They hadn’t needed those back in Will’s day; guests hadn’t needed to be told twice to chuck a moldy, mealy, or worm-filled apple.
