But even that little breadth of time was enough to stack up the customers three deep. And some grouch with a handlebar mustache was barking at Lark, asking why he couldn’t buy the Cortlands his wife wanted.
“They’re not ripe yet,” she explained. Her voice was patient but her eyes were darting around the crowd. She looked nervous.
I ducked into the booth and stepped up beside her. “Next!” Then I gave her a little bump with my hip. “I have some bottles of water in the cooler. Can you grab ’em?”
She disappeared, and I dealt with the line. By the time she came back she looked calmer. “Thanks for the break,” she said, handing me a water bottle.
“Anytime.”
One o’clock arrived, and our bushels were mostly gone, and all the vendors around us were packing up their trucks. “Whew!” Lark said, pretending to sag against the table. “That was intense. But I think we did well.”
“Sure did. And the crowd didn’t bother you too much?”
Her eyes widened. “You noticed that about me, huh?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“It was mostly fine.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling of our little market tent. “I guess the daylight helps. And we’re on this side of the table, and they stay on their own side. I don’t know, honestly. Some days are just easier than others.”
“Well, good.” I hefted the heaviest crate onto my shoulder before she could grab it. “Can you hold on tight to that cash box? I’ll have us out of here in just a few minutes.”
She gave me a narrow look. “Zach, this doesn’t look like a crime-ridden neighborhood. We could lock the cash in the cab and I could help you pack up.”
I was so busted. “Okay, missy. That sounds like a plan.”
6
Lark
“I can’t believe you pulled that off,” I said a half-hour later, after Zach managed to parallel park Griffin’s truck in an inadequate space.
He cleared his throat. “Well, someone threatened to expire if she wasn’t fed lunch.”
I had. But when I’d made this dramatic statement I hadn’t known how hard it would be to find a parking spot for the truck on the narrow streets around Dartmouth College. Hanover was right across the river from Norwich, and I was starving.
Zach locked the truck, and we walked down Main Street, past little shops selling books and Dartmouth T-shirts. “We’ll be here again on Wednesday afternoon,” he offered. “The Hanover market is almost as big as Norwich.”
I looked around at all the college students passing us in their flip-flops, with their cups of coffee in hand. “I love college towns.”
“Yeah? What do you like to eat in them? Because two quarters bought us only forty minutes on the meter.”
“That’s a burrito joint.” I nudged his arm and pointed. “We could get take-out. How does that sound?”
“Perfect.”
The place was crowded and rather loud, which I did not appreciate. Whatever good vibes had allowed me to feel cheery during market hours were starting to wear thin.
But Zach stood right behind me in line, and I could sense him there, a big wall of calm at my back. The line inched forward, and my hunger outweighed my edginess.
Working the farmers’ market had actually been fun. Having a job to do had helped me focus. I’d told Zach that it was the table which kept me calm, but that wasn’t really true. It was him. He was always there at my elbow, always ready to pitch in, always watching.
I’d never thought of myself as the damsel-in-distress type. But apparently, getting kidnapped turns you into a needy little bitch. “What’s your order?” I asked, tipping my head back against Zach’s chest. “It’s my treat.”
He made a grumpy little noise. “I got it.”
I spun around and looked up into his blue-green eyes. “Zach, I want to treat. You bought donuts this morning. But more importantly—” I put a finger against his very hard chest. “—I’m not in this for the money. You’re saving up for your own farm or whatever, and I’m just May’s half-crazy friend who needed to get out of Boston. We’re going to be working together for three months. If I buy you an overpriced burrito every once in a while, it’s because I want to. And you’re just going to have to get over it.”
He looked down at me, his eyes softening. “I guess I can get the next one.”
“Thank you.” I turned back around to discover we were next in line. Zach probably thought I was a head case.
Then again, I was.
On the way home, as the Green Mountains rolled by out the driver’s side window, I broke down and asked him, “So what’s your story?”
He chuckled. “I told you already. Grew up with some crazy people. Got thrown out. Moved to Vermont. There isn’t more to tell.”
I fiddled with my playlist. I chose a Pearl Jam song and turned the volume down a bit. “So…” I pressed, because his answer hadn’t been very satisfying. “Did people get thrown out often? Was it hard to play by all their rules?”
He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer. “People get thrown out all the time. Polygamy creates all this stress on a community.”
“Because the numbers don’t work out?” I guessed. “There aren’t enough women to go around.”
“That’s right. And they can’t increase the number of women, so they have to pare down the number of men. But then there aren’t enough hands to do all the labor. So the first way they make it work is by age. Girls get married at seventeen, and men don’t get to marry until their late twenties. The compound receives the benefit of their labor for those years, while the bachelors hope they’ll be the next one who’s allowed to marry.”
“But not everyone gets a set of wives,” I guessed.
“Exactly. So they need to evict some guys, and people aren’t exactly volunteering. Except for Isaac and Leah. They ran away together when she was seventeen. They wanted to be together and they knew it wouldn’t be allowed.”
“Wow, seventeen? And now they’re married with a child.”
“And a farm,” Zach added.
“That’s a hell of a story.” And really romantic.
“They’re pretty great. They took me in when I got tossed out, no questions asked.”
“Ouch.” Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him to talk about it. “Are you ever sorry you left?”
“Never,” he said quickly. “Getting tossed wasn’t fun. Hitchhiking eastward took me more than two weeks. I hadn’t eaten for three days when I finally made it to Isaac and Leah. Even so, I wish I’d done it sooner.”
“How’d you find them?”
“Started hitchhiking east. I knew I needed to get to Vermont. I was only nine when they ran away together. But Isaac was always nice to me, and I missed him when he was gone. Then, when I was seventeen, he and Leah tried to phone home. They wanted their parents to know that they were safe and settled, you know? But nobody would take the call.”
“God, really?”
“Really. I’m sure their mothers would have liked to talk to them, but they were afraid to be punished.”
“But you talked to them?”
“Hell no. They’d never let me near a phone. But the same extension rings in the pastor’s office and in the garage. There’s only one phone line to the whole compound. The next day I snuck a look at the caller ID. I didn’t get the number, but I saw ‘Tuxbury, Vermont.’”
“Smart boy!”
He shrugged. “I knew I needed a backup plan. Half the young men get thrown out eventually. I never thought I’d be one of them. Or maybe I knew I would. I dunno.” He shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. These four years have been good to me. I wish they’d tossed me out sooner.”
“So…what happened? You got thrown out pretty young, right? You said they usually waited until they got some more years of your labor.”
He laughed. “You noticed that, huh? Yeah, I was a prodigy.”
“How do people get the boot?”
I asked.
“It can be for any reason. Some guys steal from the till or break a rule. And some get tossed on a trumped-up charge. It doesn’t even have to be rational. They just have to drum up a little rage, and make the offense justifiable. Otherwise the mothers of all these boys would stage an uprising. When my number came up, they threw me off a moving flatbed truck.”
“Jesus. They invented your crime and dumped you by the side of the road?”
He chuckled. “In my case, I made it easy for them. I committed the crime—or I tried to. Four hours later I was hitchhiking toward Reno with nothing but twenty dollars and the clothes on my back. I’d never seen a city. Didn’t know how to hitchhike. Didn’t know what a homeless shelter was. I learned a lot in a hurry.”
That’s when I stopped asking questions. I wasn’t the only one who’d come looking for salvation in Vermont.
* * *
When we made it back to the farm, the place was a madhouse. There were a dozen cars parked all along the road and families wandering around with half-bushel baskets. Audrey was selling apples, sweet cider and Griffin’s hard stuff in front of the cider house. The rest of the guys were picking and moving apples around and shooing people away from the varietals that weren’t ripe.
“What can I do?” I asked Zach after we offloaded the small amount of merchandise that hadn’t sold.
“Take a break,” he suggested. “I’m going to do the afternoon milking.”
I spotted May striding toward the farmhouse. “What can I do?” I asked her.
“Have a glass of iced tea with me,” she suggested. “I need a break.”
“That’s what Zach told me to do. But he’s still working.”
“That dude never sits down,” May said, opening the kitchen door. “Grab us each a cookie, will you?”
We settled onto the front porch and watched tourists struggle under the weight of the apples they’d picked. And every couple of minutes Dylan Shipley would swing into view at the wheel of a tractor that was hitched to a wagon. Tourists rode the wagon out to the early-bearing trees at the far end of the orchard.
“How’s the bunkhouse treating you?” May asked me suddenly. “If you’re not comfortable out there I really hope you’ll tell me.”
“The bunkhouse is awesome. I have my own room. What’s not to love?”
“The company, duh,” May said. “It’s a sausagefest out there. Kyle can be a smartass. Kieran is a little easier, though. And Zach won’t give you any trouble.”
“He’s a really interesting guy.”
“Zach? He grew up in a cult, basically. All the men had four or five wives. Everything I know about it I heard from Leah, because Zach never says a word about it. I mean—Griffin had it in his head that this place was in Texas, and for a year Zach didn’t even correct him. And when Griff asked why, he just said, ‘There’s no point in talking about that place, no matter what state it’s in.’”
“Yikes.”
“Griff says he has a lot of scarring on his backside, too. They whipped him.”
“Jesus.”
“I know. He’s a sweetie.”
“The sweetest,” I agreed.
“He catches hell sometimes from the other guys about his, er, inexperience. I’ve never seen him flirt with a woman.”
“Maybe he’s gay,” I suggested.
“The thought had occurred to me,” May said. “Growing up with a bunch of religious fanatics could do a number on you. Though I’ve never seen him flirt with anyone—man or woman.”
“Maybe he’s asexual.”
“Maybe. But Zach plays everything close to the vest. We’ll never know what’s in his head if he doesn’t want us to.”
“Hmm.” I wished I could be more like that myself, especially when it came to the screaming nightmares.
May drained her glass. “I’d better go see how Audrey is doing at the tasting counter. Save me a seat next to you at dinner?”
“Of course.” I took our glasses inside and offered my services to Ruth Shipley, who had already started preparing supper. She put me to work making a giant salad.
At five o’clock, the orchard closed for business, and everybody began making their way inside.
“Why don’t you arrange these on a board?” Ruth asked, handing me several wedges of cheese, a big bunch of grapes and two boxes of crackers. “We always have a short business meeting on Saturdays before dinner. And it’s more fun with snacks.”
“Good plan.” I removed the waxed paper from the cheese and cut a small bite for myself. “Holy God. What is this? It’s magnificent.”
“Isaac and Leah make it from our milk. They call this one Promised Land.”
I tasted another bite, just to analyze the flavors. “It’s nutty—like an aged gouda.”
Mrs. Shipley nodded, setting down a few apples for me to slice, too. “They would call it a raw-milk, salt-water-brined cheese aged to a firm texture.”
“I call it amazing.” And when I set the cheese board down on the table, all the guys lunged for it.
“Jesus.” I laughed. “Almost lost a hand there.”
May smacked one of her cousins on the hip. “Didn’t you ever hear the phrase, ladies first?”
“That’s only true in bed,” Kyle said, reaching for another cracker.
Griffin snorted. “At least you have manners somewhere.”
“Ew,” Daphne complained. “Don’t make me think about Kyle doing the nasty.”
“But thinking about it is all he gets,” Kieran teased.
Griffin clapped his hands. “We can talk about Kyle’s sexual failures later, folks. Let’s do our roundup so we can eat dinner. How’d we do today?”
May gave the totals for what the U-pick operation brought in, and Zach handed over the cash box with our final count.
Griffin opened it up and took out the bills I’d bundled together and the counting slip. “Damn. The bills are sorted and faced. I want all of you hooligans to see how Lark handles a cash box.”
“Kiss-ass,” Kieran hissed. I pretended to scratch my forehead with my middle finger, and he laughed.
“Looks like a good day to be a farmer,” Ruth said, sitting down beside her son and eyeing the counting slip.
“It was,” he agreed. “Today we’re harvesting apples and cash.”
“So…” His mother folded her hands. “The revenue side of our balance sheet had a good day today. Let’s spend a minute talking about the expenses. I got our mobile phone bill yesterday. This is the second month in a row when we overran our data plan.” She gave the side-eye to her youngest daughter.
“I can’t help it!” Daphne said. “All my friends communicate on social media. It’s only going to get worse next month when I’m away at the college.”
“No, it’s your Spotify habit,” Dylan said. “Find a wifi signal like the rest of us.”
“Just because you don’t have any friends…”
“Hey now!” Griff thundered, holding up a hand. “No need to make things personal. Maybe our family plan is too limited. Let’s just bump it up to the next level so we can finally stop having this discussion.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Daphne scoffed.
“All right,” Ruth said, making a note on her legal pad. “Fine.” She opened a folder, lifted out two pages and handed them to me. “Lark, honey—I need you to fill these out.”
They were forms I9 and W4. Employment forms. I handed them back to her. “I don’t want to get paid.”
Her eyes widened. “Of course you do, honey. Everyone who works here gets paid.”
“Not true!” Daphne chirped.
“You’re getting paid in college tuition,” Dylan growled. “Lots and lots of it.”
The twins stared daggers at each other, but neither Ruth nor Griff paid them any attention.
“You have to be paid, or our workers’ comp won’t cover you,” Griff pointed out. “We have Audrey on the payroll for this very reason.”
“Well…” I tried
to think. “Pay me minimum wage, and then deduct rent. Seriously—strip it down to nothing.”
“Everyone else gets—” Ruth began.
I shook my head. “I’m still getting paid a salary by my nonprofit, guys. The latest check just hit my bank account yesterday. I’m really not here for the money.” That’s when I shut up, because I didn’t want to talk about any of this. Forget my paycheck. I had a trust fund from my grandparents. Money wasn’t my problem. But I wasn’t about to tell them the truth. I came to Vermont to try to feel sane again.
Now there’s a conversation stopper.
“We’ll figure something out,” Griff said, closing the topic for now. “Just fill out the forms, Lark.”
“Last item,” Ruth said, reaching for a cracker. “We still have to decide whether we’re doing the Royalton market this year.”
Griffin tossed a grape into his mouth. “Five markets a week feels like too many. That’s a whole lot of cider production we could be doing instead. A bottle of Shipley’s Best pays us fifteen bucks.”
“We have Lark to help us,” Ruth pointed out, and I felt a stupid little rush of pleasure hearing it. Being helpful to my friends was a balm on my soul.
“True,” Griffin said, his big hands tenting together. “But it still may not make sense as an investment of our time.”
“Well…” I heard myself speak up. “We could put some numbers on the issue.” The work I’d done for the nonprofit in Guatemala often faced questions like this one—how to allocate scarce resources.
“Show me.” Griffin tossed me his legal pad and a pen.
I clicked the pen into action. “So, each fair is three hours, right? And how much driving time do I add on for South Royalton?”
“The drive is forty minutes,” Griffin said. “And loading the truck takes an hour—just to be conservative. Setup is a half-hour. And unloading is at least twenty minutes.”
“So…” I scribbled numbers on the pad. “Five and a half hours, with two people working? That’s eleven man hours. How much cider can you press in eleven man hours?” I looked up to find that everyone was staring at me with a peculiar intensity. “Oh, shit. Have I overstepped? I’m sorry.”