5
I spent Saturday evening in a literal and figurative sweat after Andrea left. I needed to unpack, but I had no food in the apartment beyond the random condiments I had brought in a cooler from Beacon Hill. Instead of heading right to a grocery store as I should have, I drove my Jeep through the crowds of people in Portsmouth, held my breath, and drove over the big green Piscataqua River Bridge into Kittery, Maine. My home state always made my heart jump around in my chest, and I was not totally sure why. My upbringing was weird, and I didn’t have warm feelings of home, but my father was kind despite his weaknesses. My mother was confusing, and she did not understand me. And growing up without money in a place like Kennebunkport was hard. I left there to go to college on a ton of financial aid and never went back in any sort of permanent way.
I drove twenty-five miles up to the Kennebunkport exit and looped around the Maine Turnpike service plaza parking lot. After such a physically and emotionally depleting day, I was starving. Was I really going to eat here? At Burger King? Or should I drive five more minutes to my parents’ little house just outside of Dock Square? It had been months.
I snapped out of it and got back on the highway, heading south this time. I was overtired, overheated, and not in the mood for the judgment of my recent career moves or for the God-awful food that would likely be served. My mother’s idea of a Saturday night dinner was a tough broiled pork chop, and whatever canned vegetable was on sale at Hannaford that week. I hadn’t learned my cooking skills—or much else—from her.
I went back to Kittery and grabbed a little outdoor bistro table at When Pigs Fly, a place I knew because of the delicious bread they sold in Boston-area markets. With my most recent paycheck from David Anders’ mother, I treated myself to a feast, with bread and breakfast to bring home with me.
The campus was abuzz with activity when I pulled back in after dinner, with friends shrieking at seeing each other after summers away and parents dropping their kids off after meals and shopping in the surrounding towns. My new home. There was so much to get used to. I dragged my weary body up the four flights of stairs, hoping this was going to get easier with time. When I brought my baked goods into the kitchen, I saw a yellow piece of lined paper taped to the outside of the window atop the fire escape. As I walked closer, I saw that it read “Hi” and had an arrow pointing down. I opened the window and saw that sitting at the top of the fire escape, in a plastic sand pail filled with almost melted ice, were two Coors Lights.
...
I did not sleep. I finally drank both of the Coors Lights at two in the morning, along with the pastries I had bought for breakfast. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Just knowing that Kyle was somewhere on the campus and had left me beer , the very beer we had drank together over fifteen years earlier , made me an absolute wreck. What was I doing at Rockwood? Why had I put myself in this position? What was I going to say when I actually saw him again? I finally opened my laptop and streamed It’s Complicated, one of my go-to movies for when everything went to shit. Somehow, seeing Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin fumble around through their messes made me feel a little better. It also made me crave chocolate croissants, but that was another problem that I didn’t have an easy solution for.
Even dressing myself and getting ready for apple picking was a monumental task. I ended up on a Pinterest board for apple-picking attire. Soon, I found myself down a rabbit hole of articles, websites, and advice columns about what to wear when one goes apple picking. Who the hell am I , I thought, scouring image after image of happy twenty-somethings in lush apple orchards enjoying their hayrides and taking bites out of shiny pieces of fruit? I had no idea if Kyle was even going to be on the excursion. Feeling ridiculous, I finally pieced together some jeans cutoffs, a white tank top, and a thin flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I flat ironed my hair, applied minimal makeup, and flossed my teeth twice. I hadn’t slept in a very long time and felt the weird sensation of exhaustion combined with jitters from the extra-large iced coffee with two shots of espresso that I bought from the student-run coffee shop that had mercifully opened next to my dorm that morning, just like Andrea had promised it would.
We were supposed to meet by the admin building at one in the afternoon to board the minibuses to take us to the orchard. I didn’t know if it would be better to be early or to show up a minute or two before one. I paced around the apartment, which I still hadn’t really unpacked or done much of anything with. I ate a piece of dry toast because I hadn’t bought butter or jam or any other real groceries. Finally, I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. An overtired woman in her mid-thirties stared back at me. Despite the bags under my bloodshot eyes, I looked okay. Kyle had walked away from me fifteen years earlier, and I deserved better than that. The beers were obviously some sort of nostalgic peace offering, and given that I would have to coexist with him in this new living arrangement, I would talk to him and hear what he had to say. But he still did what he did, and I didn’t need to pretend that never happened. I took a breath, dropped some Visine in my eyes, and walked out the door.
“Devon! Over here, Devon!” crowed Andrea from in front of two white minibuses with The Rockwood School emblazoned on the sides as I walked down the path. She hadn’t said that she was coming along, but I realized then that I should always assume that Andrea was everywhere. A small group of students gathered, along with a slightly pudgy man with brown curly hair and a full beard streaked with white, wearing glasses. No Kyle. Okay . “Devon, I’d like for you to meet one of the esteemed members of the English department, Ryland Dennis. Ryland, this is Devon Paige, our new Director of Dining.”
He shook my hand and said, “I think I speak on many people here’s behalf when I say I am so glad you are here. My favorite dessert is key lime pie.”
“Oh,” I said, taken aback. I hadn’t asked anyone what they liked to eat—I had only met Andrea so far, for God’s sake—and this felt so forward.
He must have noticed my discomfort and started to laugh. “I’m just joking with you. But I do enjoy key lime pie, I must say. Not sure I could pull it off in my apartment here. My kitchen isn’t anything at all like the top floor of Wentworth House.”
I didn’t know what to make of this guy at all. Was he jealous of my apartment? He seemed, well, odd. Andrea chuckled awkwardly at our interchange. “Don’t take Ryland seriously. He wouldn’t know what to do with that kitchen. He spends most evenings at the Library Bar in Portsmouth, isn’t that right?”
“Among other places,” he said with a smug smile.
“I’m here,” yelled a breathless Kyle Holling, running down the path. His sandy blond hair was a floppy mess, he hadn’t shaven, and his clothes looked like he had picked them off the floor. He was a far cry from the preppy, put-together, forward-thinking twenty-year-old I had known. If it wasn’t for his familiar voice and the fact that I knew he worked at Rockwood, I wouldn’t have put two and two together that it was him.
“Oh, good,” exclaimed Andrea. “You, Kyle, know Devon. Devon, Kyle. A bit of a college reunion this is, for you two!” Ryland looked puzzled, and I tried to stay even and calm.
“Good to see you, Kyle,” I said, nodding at him carefully and giving a tight, closed-lip smile. I tried not to think of things that had happened in our past, but it was hard not to. My memory flew backward to his hands, tracing my back, his lips on my neck, his voice in my ear. I attempted to clear my head by looking in the direction of a confused Ryland. Yep, nothing sexy at all there. He was my temporary antidote.
“Oh, yeah, hiya Devon,” Kyle replied, his eyes big as he looked over my face. He saw me looking over at Ryland, and he rolled his eyes. What is going on here?
“Okay, time to get on the road!” announced Andrea. “Kyle and Ryland shouldn’t ride together, so you each get in a bus. Devon, if you could pick a bus, that would be fantastic.” She walked over to the students and divided them into two groups. Not wanting to have to deal with this weird Ryland character, I didn’t have a choice. I followed Kyle into the bus. He was sitting in a front-row seat, and I sat in the opposite row across from him. Students started filing in and sat behind us.
“Why can’t you be on the same bus as him?” I whispered just loudly enough for him to hear me.
“Oh, that’s a story,” he said with a harsh laugh. “Not one I can repeat on this bus in this present company, but I’ll be sure to tell you later. Most of the kids know about it, but I’m really not supposed to say anything anymore,” he said, slumping back in his seat. I looked behind me, and students were staring back at me. A few started whispering to each other, using their hands to cover their mouths. “Did you get the delivery I left you on your fire escape?” he asked, perking up a bit.
“Yes, um, thank you. Kinda risky, leaving beer out in the open among teenagers, huh?”
“They were mostly with their parents and moving in, so I took the chance,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Figured it was a good welcome given our history,” he murmured, giving me a wink. I reddened instantly. This was the Kyle I knew. And I had to try not to react to him like that.
Browning Farm was in Lee, New Hampshire, so close to where Kyle and I had gone to college that I knew exactly where we were. “I think I picked apples here once,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot.
“Probably,” he said. “We go here every year around now, and usually, there’s a trip further into the fall for those later varieties.”
“Great,” I said, following him out of the bus. “I want to make some crostatas this week from these apples, and the ones later in the fall will be great for some other things I have in mind.”
Everyone was given baskets from the staff and led out to the orchard to start picking. I tried to keep my distance from Kyle, wanting to use this opportunity to talk to some of the students. I then realized that I wasn’t used to talking much to teenagers, and I didn’t quite know how to approach them. Then I thought of David Anders. He was in his early twenties, but he wasn’t exactly worldly, and maybe these students would be of similar maturity. It was worth a try.
“Hi,” I said to a small group, attempting to appear self-assured. “I’m Devon Paige, the new Director of Dining. I’m starting work tomorrow. I’ll organize some focus groups, but I want to get a sense of what kind of food you’d like to eat at Rockwood. Any ideas?” I plastered a smile on my face, sure that they could see right through me and would immediately label me as a fraud.
A girl in an off-the-shoulder crop top looked me over critically and gave a scowl in reply. “I’m on a raw food diet. Nothing cooked.” The other girls in her little group giggled.
I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. “Okay, so run me through your day. What’s for breakfast?”
She tossed her blonde waves over her shoulder. “A smoothie, of course. Or an acai bowl.”
She was full of shit. “Would those include yogurt?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied with a haughty laugh.
I gave her a big smile. “Yogurt is cooked, you know.”
The other girls nervously laughed, and the ringleader rolled her eyes at me. “Nice outfit,” she said, looking me over and then walking away, her followers scurrying after her.
“Good one,” said Kyle, coming up behind me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, and I tried not to let it get to me. It wasn’t easy.
“Who on earth was that? ”
“The meanest of the mean girls, the most obnoxious and entitled student at Rockwood. Ashlyn Lark.”
“Lark, Lark… Any relation to Andrea, or just a coincidence?”
“Her niece. Andrea has no control over her. Ashlyn does whatever she wants because she knows Andrea won’t do shit.”
“Sounds like a great person,” I said, shaking my head as I went back to picking apples.
“You just have to feed her,” he said, joining me but picking twice as quickly, not inspecting the apples like I was. “She’s such a pain in the ass in class—always thinks she’s right, clearly pawns off her work on others, you get the idea. Can’t wait to have her in my Political Science class this year.”
“You know that was my major,” I said.
“I do,” he said, picking another apple and placing it in my basket since his was already full. “And I majored in Econ and thought I was going to be some big corporate exec type. Now I teach your major, and you are a chef. Funny how life turns out.”
“ Was a chef. Not sure I call this that. This is likely to be more about keeping a ton of people reasonably happy or at least well-fed.”
“You didn’t cook when I knew you,” he said, taking a bite out of an apple. I was still filling my basket, examining each apple thoroughly before I twisted it off its branch.
“We knew each other for about twelve hours,” I said, realizing how that sounded. A lot had happened in those twelve hours.
“Still, it’s cool, you know,” he continued. “The food aspect of you.”
“That’s one way to phrase it,” I replied, trying hard not to smile. He was trying to engage, and part of me really wanted to. And part of me was still angry about him ghosting me, but I knew I couldn’t delve into that in the middle of the apple orchard with so many ears around.
“I’ve never eaten anything you’ve cooked,” he said. “Want to go get a doughnut?”
“Yes, but one second,” I insisted. I looked around and discovered we were alone in the orchard aisle. “You and I obviously need to talk about some things. I have no groceries. If you are willing to go buy some food, I’ll cook it. But this is just to talk, okay? I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
A big smile curved across his face, and in that moment, I saw twenty-year-old Kyle. “I’d love that. What should I buy? I don’t know where to begin.”
I shook my head. “I honestly don’t care. Think of something you really like, look up a recipe for it, and buy the ingredients. I worked in restaurants for years and then cooked for some of the most high-maintenance people you’ve ever met. I can figure out almost anything.” I picked one last apple. “Okay, let’s get that doughnut.”
We walked up the hill to where there was an open-air doughnut stand. The batter was being fried in hot oil for all to see, and Ashlyn Lark was standing nearby, munching on a fresh doughnut. “Raw food, huh?” I asked Kyle, and we both had a laugh.