A Second Bite at the Apple (14 page)

“Julie mentioned a partnership might be in the works,” I say, clicking the Pause button. “Any updates?”

Maggie shakes her head. “But I think the idea is to create a mini ‘farmers' market' within the store. It'd be a huge windfall for us. The former CEO made it so hard for us to get our foot in the door, but this new guy seems intent on doing away with a lot of the red tape.”

“Sounds like it would be great exposure.”

“It would.” She lets out a hardened laugh. “Hopefully the new guy won't let the skeptics muck it all up.”

I get a few more shots of the orchard, and then Drew and I hop into the truck with Maggie and head back to the storage facility, where I take a few more notes on the cold storage process and do a brief on-camera interview with Maggie. By the time I've finished, we've been at the orchard more than four hours.

Drew helps me load my belongings back into his Camry, and we wave to Maggie as we pull back onto the dirt road in front of her farm and head back to DC.

“That was awesome,” he says. “You're really good at interviewing people. You ask all the right questions.”

“Thanks.”

“Definitely send me the link once the story goes live. I'd love to see it.” He reaches into his sweatshirt pocket and pulls out his phone. “Oh, and while you were shooting, I downloaded an Elliott Smith album. I figured we could listen on the ride home.”

He taps on his phone with one hand as he steers with the other and rests the phone on the dashboard. The mellow harmonies of Elliott Smith's guitar hum through the speakers on his phone, and as we turn onto the highway back toward DC, I think this ride might not be nearly as bad as I'd imagined.

An hour and a half later, Drew pulls up in front of my house and turns on his warning flashers.

“Door-to-door service,” he says with a smile.

“Thanks so much for the ride. I'm sorry you had to take a day off for this.”

“Are you kidding? You made my day.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I don't know what I expected when we headed out there today, but seeing you in action . . . it was cool. Gave me a whole new perspective on Maggie's business.”

“Oh. Well . . . I'm glad.”

“We'll have to continue the conversation tomorrow night. Heidi said eight o'clock? At Estadio?”

“That sounds right.”

“Cool.” He clears his throat. “I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then.”

I smile and move to take off my seat belt, but before I do, he leans in and kisses me. His breath is warm, and he tastes of mint chewing gum, and his stubble tickles my chin, not enough to bother me but enough for me to notice. He kisses me softly as Elliott Smith's voice hums through his speakers, and as his lips press against mine, an uneasy feeling arises deep in my chest, a sensation I cannot place, something that prevents me from giving in fully to this moment. What am I afraid of? Why can't I just let go? What is
wrong
with me?

Drew rubs his thumb gently along my jawline, and then he pulls away and smiles and reaches across me to open my door. I undo my seat belt, grab my bag, and slip out of the car, but as I watch him drive away, the uneasy feeling in my chest hardens into a tight ball, and I finally place it. It isn't fear or anxiety or even insecurity.

It's guilt.

I shouldn't feel guilty for kissing Drew. But I do, and it's all Jeremy's fault.

No, I take that back. It isn't Jeremy's fault. It's Zach's.

What Zach and I had . . . it was special. We were best friends. We grew up together. I experienced so many of my firsts with him by my side: my first byline, my first Thai curry, my first time watching
The Godfather
and
Casablanca
. We lost our virginity to each other. When Libby got invited to parties by my cooler classmates, who were three years her senior and never invited me to anything, I didn't care because I had Zach. We had each other. For a long and crucial stretch of my young adult life, his existence and mine were inextricably linked, and I cannot reflect on my development into the person I am today without looking through the prism of our relationship.

Which is why his betrayal still stings after all these years. Looking back on it now, I should have seen it coming. Everyone told me high school relationships rarely survive four years of college. But I told myself Zach and I were different. We weren't a couple of horny teenagers who were obsessed with one another, two kids who thought we were the first people to discover sex. Our relationship was deeper than that. We talked about our hopes and fears and dreams. We cooked together and went on walks in the park together and read books together. We were soul mates. At least that's what I'd thought.

When freshman year of college went by without a hitch, I thought we had it all figured out. We'd agreed to see each other at least once a month, alternating visits at Northwestern and Princeton so that neither of us had to shoulder the cost of a plane ticket every time. There were, of course, the obvious comparisons between our colleges at every visit—The Keg versus The Street, the preppy allure of Princeton versus the artsy character of Evanston—but we both appreciated that each of our respective universities suited our personalities. We were happy to see each other finally fit in, after feeling like outsiders in high school.

The only thing that didn't sit right with me during freshman year was Zach's growing obsession with Ivy, Princeton's oldest and most selective eating club. He took me to a few parties there when I visited, leading me through the tall iron gates on Prospect Avenue into the three-story brick manse. We'd drink glasses of wine and scotch in the billiard room, surrounded by red leather club chairs and preppy, well-heeled members, the mahogany walls lined with oil paintings of thirties-era men playing lacrosse. I felt like I'd stepped into a Fitzgerald novel.

The Zach I knew had nothing in common with those people—he was a geek with a cowlick, who wore plaid shirts and corduroys and suede Wallabee shoes, who used to love watching
The Princess Bride
with me in his living room—and yet he made a point of getting to know all of the Ivy upperclassmen, those juniors and seniors who were already members and would decide whether Zach would ever become a member himself.

“You'd really want to become a member of a club that makes you go through ten rounds of interviews?” I asked during one of my visits.

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

“It just seems so . . . elitist.”

“You know I'm not like that.”

“Exactly my point.”

He sighed. “It'll be like an inside joke between you and me. I can send you pictures of all these guys in their tweed jackets and wingtip shoes, and we can laugh about it.”

I smiled weakly and let the subject drop, even though it didn't seem like a very funny joke to me.

Then, in the spring semester of sophomore year, Zach was selected by Ivy in the “bicker”—the club's process for choosing new members—and after his ten rounds of interviews eventually became a member. That was around the same time his visits to Northwestern became less frequent. Our monthly rendezvous became bimonthly at best and often trimonthly, as he stopped flying to Chicago and my funds for flights back east withered away. We still spoke on the phone nearly every day, and whenever we were home for holidays or summer break, we spent nearly every waking hour together, so I told myself we were still going strong.

But over the next two years, our ties began to fray. Instead of cooking together in his kitchen like we used to do, my visits to Princeton mostly involved us eating four-course meals at Ivy, served by a uniformed staff. The other Ivy members—many of whom were the offspring of Fortune 500 CEOs or world leaders—didn't seem like the butt of a joke between Zach and me. They seemed like Zach's friends. When I'd try to poke fun at them, I was the only one laughing.

“Check out that chick's diamond earrings,” I whispered in his ear one night. “It's a wonder her earlobes aren't on the floor.”

“Who, Georgina?” He waved me off. “Nah, she's cool.”

But she wasn't cool. She was tall and thin and gorgeous, with thick chestnut hair and deep-set brown eyes and an ass so tight you could bounce her diamond studs right off it. Her dad was some real estate mogul in New York who regularly rubbed elbows with Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump. She was everything I was not.

As months went by, Georgina appeared in more of Zach's stories: something funny she'd said while everyone was having dinner the previous week, a reference to a new wine she'd introduced the group to. Finally, when he'd mentioned her name in a phone conversation for what felt like the ten thousandth time, I'd had enough.

“Are you sleeping with Georgina?” I asked.

“What? Are you kidding? Of course I'm not sleeping with Georgina.”

“Then why do you mention her in every conversation we have?”

“Because we're friends.” He sighed. “Syd, you know me better than anyone. You can trust me.”

And I did. But as graduation neared, he became more and more distant. He had stopped visiting me entirely by senior year, and he called maybe once a week, always claiming he'd meant to call a bunch of times but had fallen asleep. Meanwhile, I was busy trying to land a job as a food writer or producer, without success, so I distracted myself from Zach's aloofness with job applications and resumes.

Then one night after graduation, we were cooking spaghetti carbonara in his mom's kitchen. He was heading to Columbia in the fall for law school, and I still didn't have a job, so we decided we'd make the most of our summer, cooking together like old times. Or at least that's what I'd decided. As I pulled together my ingredients, I couldn't remember whether my favorite carbonara recipe used three eggs or four, so I flipped open Zach's laptop, which was sitting on the kitchen table, while he stirred the fat cubes of bacon sizzling in his mom's frying pan. He glanced over his shoulder as the grease hissed and popped, and his eyes widened.

“Hey, wait a sec—don't—”

But it was too late. His e-mail account was open to an e-mail from Georgina, a topless photo of her staring back at me through the screen. When are you going to get your ass to NYC so you can fuck me?? the e-mail said in bold.

I slammed the laptop shut, ran to the bathroom, and threw up in the toilet, as the smell of frying bacon wafted beneath the door.

“Sydney, listen—I can explain.”

He told me it had all happened so fast, that they'd always had a connection, that eventually it became too much for them to ignore. I found out later they'd been sleeping together for nearly two years, but that night, it wouldn't have mattered if it had been two years or two weeks. He'd cheated on me, he'd lied to me, and, according to what he told me that night, he'd fallen out of love with me. After all of our years together, after all of the cooked meals and long walks and four-hour phone conversations, that was it. It was over.

That was the last time I saw Zach. He e-mailed and called a few times, but when I was too inconsolable to respond to his first few attempts, he gave up. He didn't try to win me back, and he didn't try to make it up to me. He didn't do anything. But what hurt most of all, what still stings to this day, is that he never said he was sorry. Not once. He explained and rationalized and apologized for the way I found out, but he never apologized for what he'd done. He never said, “I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry for breaking your heart.”

And so as much as I know my relationship with Jeremy is not analogous to my relationship with Zach, as much as I am aware that Jeremy and I don't even have a
relationship,
I can't help but feel guilty for kissing someone else while he is away—even if that person is generous and sweet and looks like an Abercrombie model.

Which, as far as I can tell, basically means I'm doomed.

 

Later that afternoon, I download the video from Broad Tree Orchards onto my laptop and begin cobbling together a piece for the
Chronicle'
s Web site. My floor vibrates from Simon's trance music below, my entire apartment quivering with a low-level buzz, which makes it difficult to focus on pretty much anything. After about an hour of deafening electronica, my phone rings—though, with Simon's music still raging, I only know this because I see Jeremy's name appear on my screen. Part of me wants to ignore his call (
Do I tell him about kissing Drew? Do I mention Drew's name at all?
), but to my surprise, a bigger part of me misses him and wants to hear about his trip. I'm also glad to have an activity that will distract me from my vibrating floor.

“Greetings from The Big Easy,” Jeremy says when I answer the phone.

Simon's music thumps in the background. “Greetings.”

“You throwing a party or something?”

“No. I wish. I'm working, believe it or not. The music you hear is from my downstairs neighbor, who has been blasting bizarre German trance music all night.”

“Okay, wow. I have so many questions about that comment. First of all, I thought your downstairs neighbor was ‘harmless'?”

“No, you were right. He's super weird.”

“Ah. So I was right about something.”

I hold back a smile. “Maybe.”

“And as for the music,” he says, “I'm curious as to how you know he's playing
German
trance. That's very specific and indicates a knowledge of trance music I can't help but question.”

“You're questioning my musical taste now?”

“I think I am.”

The music thumps on in the background. “I don't know for sure that it's German. But German, French, Swedish—whatever. The point is, it's annoying, and it's distracting me from getting any work done.”

“Which leads me to my next question: Why are you at home doing work on a Friday night?”

“Because I'm a loser?”

“Well, yeah. Obviously.”

“Hey!”

“You said it, not me.”

I close my laptop lid. “If you must know, I'm trying to edit some footage I shot earlier today.”

“Footage? Of what?”

I hold back for a moment, but decide there is no harm in telling him about my visit with Maggie. “Broad Tree Orchards' cold storage facility,” I say.

“Ah, very cool. Is that for the newsletter thing?”

“No, it's for the
Chronicle'
s new food blog.”

Jeremy hesitates. “Oh. You're working for the
Chronicle
now?”

“Just as a freelancer.” I bite the end of my pen. “I'm working for Stu Abbott.”

There is a break in the conversation, just long enough to be uncomfortable. “Stu's a good guy,” he finally says. “Doesn't think much of me, though.”

“No?”

“Let's just say we didn't part on the best terms.”

I wait for him to continue with an explanation, to say,
I didn't actually do anything wrong—the whole “cash for comment” thing was a big misunderstanding
. But he doesn't, and an uneasy silence hangs between us.

“Could we . . . talk about all of that?” I say. “What actually happened?”

He lets out a long sigh. “Yeah. We can talk about it. But not now. Not over the phone.”

“Okay. That's fair.” Because really, I'd rather talk about it in person, too.

“So tell me more about this shoot,” he says. “How'd you get out to rural Maryland?”

I clear my throat. “One of Maggie's helpers gave me a lift.”

“Oh, cool. That was nice of her.”

“Him.”

“Sorry? Maggie is a dude?”

“No—the person who gave me a lift. It was a guy.”

“Oh, okay, whatever,” he says, unfazed. “Anyway, what was it like?”

I move swiftly on from any mention of Drew and tell Jeremy all about the controlled-atmosphere storage rooms, the towering crates of crisp Goldrush apples, and the rich, earthy smell of the blossoming orchards.

“They're even planting more trees because they may start selling at Green Grocers,” I say. Then I stop myself. “I'm not sure I was supposed to tell you that.”

“Your secret's safe with me. My firm does Green Grocers' outside PR, so I know all about the pilot project. That's actually what I've been working on for the past three months.”

“Oh. Really? Is it a done deal?”

“Not yet. It will be soon, though. Assuming the new CEO doesn't derail the whole thing.”

“Why would he derail it?”

“He wouldn't intentionally. There's just some stuff in his past, and if it became public—” He cuts himself off. “Now I'm the one who's said too much.”

I sit forward, thinking back to my conversation with Stu Abbott about a bigger, meatier story. “What happened in his past?”