Page 13 of Under Story

“I’ve never been to one before.”

“Not ever?”

Eli shook his head. “I grew up in a city. My parents aren’t very outdoorsy—professors. We get our apples at the grocery store.”

There was a ruefulness to his tone that Laurel hadn’t expected. She thought of the cat doors that Edner had cut into her family’s house, how they afforded a glance straight through a wall. And then she asked the question that set the rest of her life in motion.

“Do you want to see it?”

Eli smiled. His mouth was slightly open, as if he were surprised at her daring.

—

She drove in a state of exhilarated disbelief. I’m taking Eli to the orchard, she thought. It was preposterous. Maisie would scream. They had plans that night, as they did every Friday. First, they ate the fish fry at Dotty’s, feeling grown-up to be at a tavern alone; then they drove to Michael’s for frozen custard, slurped in the parking lot as moths fluttered by the streetlights. Finally they roamed the aisles at Blockbuster, scanning the new releases, leaving with boxes of candy—Raisinets and Runts for Laurel, Dots and Milk Duds for Maisie—along with the chosen video in its plastic case.

“Would you mind if we stop by my place?” Eli asked. “I should tell my parents they don’t have to pick me up at school.”

He directed her toward a field not far from the orchard, overrun by scrub and crowded saplings. Laurel had passed it dozens of times without stopping. Now she saw that a gravel road led to a beige house with a wraparound porch.

“I’ll only be a minute,” he said. “But you can come inside, if you want.”

She wanted to, of course. As they walked to the front door, prairie grass grazed her legs, and a thistle pecked one knee: it was clear the Rosens didn’t know what to do with the land, or perhaps they didn’t care. Affixed to the entrance was a Jewish mezuzah.

“Be right back,” he said.

Then he galloped up a staircase two steps at a time, his skateboard in one hand. Laurel waited in the living room. Inside were fascinating objects she had insufficient time to examine: a framed map, a mahogany desk with shining haunches, a two-headed brass lamp. A faded globe, like something that might have stood in an old schoolhouse, spun slowly in the draft from the door.

(“A friend,” came Eli’s voice, stubborn, from upstairs. “I’ll be home by dinner.” And the murmur of a deeper voice, indistinct but discontented.)

Laurel entered a narrow, darkened hallway. To her left was the kitchen; to her right was another door, cracked. She peered through. Posters for Nirvana and Alice in Chains were taped to the wall. Soundgarden’s Superunknown took pride of place above the bed, but the CD in his boombox was Under the Table and Dreaming, one of her favorites. The guitar Eli had played at the talent show leaned against a window. Beside it was a blown-up photograph: a few dozen kids in matching T-shirts, holding a banner that read Space Camp 1992.

When she heard Eli’s footsteps, Laurel rushed back to the living room. Elaborate Persian rugs, worn through in places, sat on top of other rugs—crowded bookshelves, falling dust—

“Ready,” Eli said.

—

She parked in the gravel lot next to the farm store, closed until September, and showed him Lower Orchard. The trees stood like teenage girls, proud and a little embarrassed by their fullness. Laurel told him their names: Blushing Golden, Opalescent, Fortune.

“But the best thing about apple trees,” she said, “the coolest thing, in my opinion”—as if he cared, because he seemed to, and this was so wonderful that she couldn’t stop herself—“is what happens at the roots. Some apple trees grow from their own roots, but they need more space, and they take longer to fruit. They’re majestic—whole, in a way. But most of our trees don’t grow from seeds. They’re grafted together from two parent trees, like babies.”

She knew she was babbling, but high school was over. In one month, they’d both leave for college, and she would never see him again.

“This Honeycrisp, for example. What you do is cut a bud, or a branch, from a Honeycrisp tree. Then you pair it with a rootstock.” She wore one of her father’s old flannels over her camisole and jean shorts: not the outfit she would have picked for Eli, but at least she’d done more than throw a sweatshirt over her pajamas. “The branch determines the fruit, and the rootstock—well, the rootstock is a tree in and of itself. It might be cold-hardy, or resistant to disease.”

Eli was looking closely. “And they fuse?”

Laurel nodded. “They fuse. They become one tree. But you can always tell which trees were grafted. See?”

She knelt next to a peachy Jonagold. The bottom two inches of trunk were scaly, but above that, it was smooth. At the join was a ridge, a ring. It would be too embarrassing, or too revealing, to tell Eli that she thought of it as a wedding ring—as if the tree were a couple, growing old together.

In Upper Orchard, Eli suggested a taste test. They collected Sops of Wine and Red Astrachans, Whitney Crabs and Lubsk Queens. The Pink Pearls were just maturing, so Laurel stood in a crook of branches to find the ripest specimens. She felt self-conscious at first, but soon her caution dropped like a leaf: she luxuriated in the sun on her knees, the strength in her calves, the electric sensation of Eli’s eyes on her. They took their bounty to the top of the hill, from which the entire farm could be seen, and sat down.

“Now you know everything about me,” Laurel said. “And I don’t know anything about you.”

“That’s not true.” Eli bit into a Red Astrachan. “You know where I live.”

“And I know you like the Spice Girls.”