One Bad Apple (2 page)

Meg considered. The less-than-appealing odor of whatever was seeping out of her sink was beginning to filter through the house, even though she had shut the doors to the kitchen. Just like the front door, the kitchen doors of the two-hundred-year-old house didn’t fit very well. Moreover, she hadn’t been out of the house for—she stopped to count—three days, and some bracing fresh air wouldn’t hurt. She could watch for the plumber from outside. And she had to admit she was curious. It had never occurred to her to check out what lay on the far reaches of the property. Since she had arrived she had been focused on the house, and that was more than enough to keep her busy.

“Okay, I’m game.” Obviously the right answer, if Christopher’s delight was any indication. “Let me get my coat.” And gloves. And scarf. And hat. Taking a walk in western Massachusetts in winter involved a lot of preparation. She slipped her cell phone into her pocket along with her house keys, and returned to the waiting Christopher, who was bouncing like an eager spaniel. “Ready.”

Outside, Meg pulled her balky door shut and followed Christopher as he set off at a brisk pace, up the low rise toward what he had informed her was west. When he noticed her lagging behind, he slowed and waited for her to catch up. “Forgive me. I spend so much time outside like this, I forget that some people aren’t as accustomed as I. You’ve been here how long?”

“About three weeks. Since just after the New Year, when the lease on my apartment ran out.” Meg was happy to note that she wasn’t panting—much. Maybe vigorous home renovation was good exercise. “I figured I’d just camp out here and get to work. There’s plenty to be done.” More than she could have imagined.

Christopher continued to pepper her with questions, not even slightly out of breath. “So you’re telling me that you’ve never walked your property?” His tone implied that such an omission was inconceivable.

Meg smiled into her coat collar. “No. I’ve had plenty to work on inside. The house is in rather bad shape, but I was hoping to list it for sale before summer.”

“Then at the very least you’ll be here to witness full bloom— that’s the middle of May around here, weather permitting. It’s truly lovely, you know. Of course, I may be a bit biased, but I think an orchard in bloom is one of nature’s wonders, all the more precious because it’s so brief a phenomenon. Not that an orchard in fruit isn’t equally lovely in its own way.”

“Christopher, you’re not from around here, are you?”

“Ah, you’ve caught the accent. No, my dear—I was born in England, but I’ve been here for most of my life now. And yourself?”

“I grew up in New Jersey, but I’ve been living in Boston since college.” She paused to catch her breath. “What is it you’re doing to the trees? You’re not spraying them with anything nasty, are you?”

“Oh, no, no. In fact, we spray as little as possible, or preferably not at all, although I’m afraid some spraying is unavoidable in apple management. I’m in integrated pest management: working with nature and natural enemies, and spraying only when we have no alternative. You’re not familiar with the process?”

“No—I’m a city girl, through and through.”

“Ah, well, you can learn. Here we are!”

They had reached the crest of the rise, and the land sloped down before them. Meg could see sparse traffic moving along the highway maybe five hundred feet distant. Between where she stood and the highway, neatly spaced rows of trees spread out in a long, narrow strip parallel to the highway. The trees were uniform in height, although they varied from slender young trees to craggy gnarled ones whose age she could only guess at. She could see a few lingering, shriveled apples on nearby branches.

“So this is it?” she said.

“It is indeed. Isn’t she grand?” Christopher spoke with a paternal pride.

“Grand” would not have been Meg’s first choice of word. “I guess. Sorry, but it looks kind of dead.” Now that she was here, she realized she’d been driving right by it for weeks, and it had never even registered on her radar. An orchard.
Her
orchard. It had taken her a while to even get used to the idea of owning the barn behind the house (although from the way it was leaning, she wasn’t sure when it would stop being a barn and start being a pile of rubble). But an orchard was a living thing, with a past and a future. It needed care and attention, as Christopher seemed to be telling her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that meant—dealing with the house was more than enough for her at the moment. But still … her own apple orchard. It was an appealing idea.
Oops, Meg, bad pun.
She tuned back in to what Christopher was saying.

“Oh, not dead at all. Just dormant. Wait a month or two and you’ll see.”

“How much land does this take up?” she asked.

“As I said, about fifteen acres. It’s about a quarter mile to the next property there, to your north.”

Meg could feel Christopher’s eyes on her, anxious. It was obvious that he really did care about this field of scraggly trees. “Well, then, tell me about it. What am I looking at? What’s so special about this orchard?” Meg asked, her breath forming clouds in front of her face.

“Ah, my dear, where to begin?” Christopher all but rubbed his hands in glee. “This orchard has been here nearly as long as the house. No, the individual trees aren’t two hundred years old, but some of the species have been planted and replanted over time. You’ve got some real treasures here. Tell me, what do you see?”

Meg, bewildered, turned to survey the trees before her. “They’re, uh, trees.”

“Yes, but look closely. You see that one there?” He pointed, and Meg followed his finger obediently. “Stayman Winesap— see the thick trunk, the slightly purplish cast to the bark? And over there, Rome Beauty—you can tell by those drooping limbs. What do you know about apples?”

“Only what I see in the supermarket—Delicious, McIntosh. Aren’t there some new ones with funny names? Mutsu, or something like that?”

Christopher snorted. “Dreck. Commercial pap. Bred for their ability to withstand shipping across country, only to sit in warehouses for months on end. By the time they reach a store, they all taste like packing peanuts. You, my dear, are in for a treat come harvest time. There’s such an array of flavors—subtle but delightful.I envy you the experience of encountering these for the first time. Ah, hold on!” He swung a small pack from his shoulder and rummaged through the contents. He emerged with an apple about the size of a baseball and shaded from red to a speckled yellow. Christopher polished it on his pant leg and offered it to her with a flourish. “Try this.”

Meg took it from him. “Do I eat it?”

“Of course you do.”

“What is it?” Meg thought it was a good idea not to eat things she couldn’t identify, especially when they had been given to her by someone she’d met only an hour earlier.

“Baldwin. Originated not far from here, in Massachusetts, in the eighteenth century. Very popular in the early twentieth century, until it got squeezed out by the McIntosh. Harvested that one myself, right here, in early November—it’s a keeper. Try it.”

Holding the apple in her gloved hand, Meg took a bite. The skin was thick and resistant at first, but the flesh inside was coarse and juicy, with a spicy tang. It bore no resemblance to any apple she had ever bought in a supermarket. “Wow. It’s good.”

“Of course it is. It hasn’t spent six months in a shipping container or a warehouse.”

“I have these in the orchard here?”

“These and many other varieties. As part of my job, I seek out and preserve old varieties that are in danger of disappearing forever. There are still many old stocks, lurking around the country-side here. Now that technology is improving, we need these forgotten varieties for genetic crossbreeding, to try and put the flavor back into this country’s apples. And I fear it is nearly too late. I’ve seen far too many trees or even whole orchards fall before the bulldozers of progress. But there is much we can learn from the old orchards, and it’s a shame to lose them. Why, you even have a quince, over there toward the road.”

A quince? Meg wouldn’t know one if it bit her, or if she bit it. Her fingers were getting numb. “I’m sorry, but I really should go back and wait for the plumber. Is there something you want me to do?”

“I’m hoping you’ll allow me and my staff to maintain our study program here. We won’t be in your way.”

“Sure. Of course. Do I need to give you official permission or something?” It wouldn’t bother her if there were people wandering through her apple trees—she couldn’t even see them from the house. And she needed some time to think about whether having an orchard on the property was good or bad, in terms of selling the house. And how she felt about it.

“That’s grand! We did negotiate a formal agreement, oh, years ago, when we first started using this orchard. I believe it was the Warren sisters who agreed to it? It might be wise to draft a new one for you to sign, if you don’t mind.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Meg couldn’t bring herself to worry about giving away rights she hadn’t known she had.

Christopher beamed happily. “Wonderful! I’ll let our department chair know, and we’ll set the wheels in motion. Thank you so much! I’ve been a bit concerned because we need to start pruning soon. I’ll send you some reading material so you can familiarize yourself with what you have. Ah, I can tell you’re chilled. Let me walk you back to the house.”

As they made the easier downhill trip, Meg asked, “What about the apples? What happens to them when they’re harvested?”

“The Tuckers sold them to a local cooperative.”

Meg laughed. “Funny—they never mentioned
that
to my mother. And she thought she was doing them a favor, keeping the rent low.” They reached her front door. “I’m glad you stopped by, Christopher. I’ll look forward to seeing what happens in the spring.”

“It’s been my pleasure, dear lady. And you’re in for a treat!”

Meg hoped that the next knock on the door would produce the plumber, but when she opened it she found a middle-aged woman with fashionably styled blonde hair, wearing a smartly cut wool jacket and tailored pants, and clutching a clipboard. “Meg Corey?”

Shoot. The Realtor she had called—before her plumbing had gone funny on her. She had forgotten that they had scheduled a walk-through today. “Yes, that’s me. And you’re Frances?” Meg drew a blank on the last name.

“I am. Frances Clark, Valley Realty, biggest firm in the Pioneer Valley. You going to let me in?”

“Oh, sorry, of course.” She stepped back to let Frances in, then went through her wrestling routine with the door.

She turned to find Frances’s petite nose wrinkled, and sighed. “Sorry. The plumbing’s acting up. I called a plumber, but he isn’t here yet.”

“Who’d you get?” Frances asked.

“Chapin Brothers.”

Frances nodded. “They’re good—at least, Seth is. Can’t say as much for his brother Stephen. Stephen’s heart’s not really in plumbing, if you get my drift.”

Meg tried to imagine the intersection of hearts and pipes and gave up. “Well, someone should be here soon. You want to go ahead with the walk-through now, or come back some other time?”

Frances checked her watch. “I’m already here, so why don’t we just get it over with? This is only preliminary anyway.” She scanned the room with a professional eye. “So, what’ve we got here—looks like your basic colonial, four up, four down. Bathrooms?”

“Um, yes? One and a half.”

“Come on, show me.” Frances led the way to the hall and then up the central stairs, Meg trailing helplessly behind. Frances continued to fire questions, and Meg answered as well as she could. Which wasn’t very well, since she didn’t really know the house, and certainly not its history, old or recent. She followed Frances the real estate agent, feeling more and more depressed. The woman had arrived armed with not only her clipboard but also a screwdriver, and she alternated between jotting an alarming number of notes and using the screwdriver to poke at things—plaster, woodwork, bricks. If she kept it up much longer, Meg was going to have to take the screwdriver and poke
her
with it.

After a very long hour, they arrived back where they had started. “What do you think?” she finally asked Frances.

“Meg—I can call you Meg, right?—Meg, you’ve got a real gem here. Authentic colonial, probably 1760s, nice piece of land—I checked the tax records. All good. But there are a few teeny, weeny problems that you should take care of before you even think about putting this place on the market.”

Meg sighed. Even her unskilled eye could pick out problems, and she shuddered to think what she hadn’t yet discovered. “Tell me.”

“Maybe we should sit down—this could take a little time.”

“All right.” Meg led the way to the dining room, which looked deceptively sunny and cheerful. “Hit me with it, Frances.”

Frances consulted her notes, flipping through the pages. “Let’s start with the structural stuff. From the top”—Frances giggled at her own joke—“your roof is shot—has to be at least fifty years old. Replace it. Your windows are single pane, no storms—big heating bills. The exterior needs to be scraped and painted, especially the trim. Your foundation seriously needs repointing. Haven’t you noticed a bit of a breeze in the basement?”