Chapter 2 #2
“Ah, no,” Catherine says, after a surprised beat.
“Actually—sorry to speak ill of your recently deceased father, but he was a real flake. He claimed he wanted to sell, and that was easy to believe, since he’d have been crazy not to.
” She gives Will a speaking look at this point, and then sighs heavily, as though she finds the whole thing rather tragic.
“But then he’d get partway through the process and stop answering calls, or claim he didn’t have any idea what we were talking about.
He ran the little scam a few different times before we realized he was messing with us; we stopped taking his calls, after that. ”
“Oh,” Will says, blinking. “That’s odd. Not how he used to be, or at least I don’t think so.
” But then again , he adds in the privacy of his own mind, I haven’t actually spoken to the man in over fifteen years.
Perhaps he found it within himself to change, at all, in any way!
Then, without meaning to, he finds himself thinking of his grandfather’s bitter final years, the way things had started slipping away from him slowly at first, and then faster and faster.
Discomfited, he mutters, “Been a while, anyway, so. Not like I’d know. ”
“Yeah, well, old folks,” Catherine says.
“They can surprise us.” At this point, the asphalt of the sprawling parking lot, built large to accommodate big events, gives way to grass; the ground is a little damp, likely from the recent rains that left the Glen River so high.
Will can feel the earth dip slightly beneath his boots, but somehow Catherine’s spike heels don’t seem to sink into the ground at all as she continues, “My own grandfather, you know, was famous up in Cleveland for his crusade against art programs in the local schools; he said it was a waste of public funds, ran for City Council on the platform several times, the whole thing. It wasn’t a popular stance, I can tell you that; people hated him.
” She laughs, as though she finds this quite amusing, before she adds, “But do you know, when he died, we went into his garage and found hundreds of little whittled sculptures? The old coot was an artist himself! It just goes to show you never really know anyone.”
I think it just goes to show your grandfather was a hypocritical old jerk , Will doesn’t say.
What would be the point? He also doesn’t see any reason to inform her that his own grandfather, Old Bill, had also been something of a whittler, to say nothing of being something of a jerk.
The old man hadn’t taught Will to whittle, of course—he hadn’t taught Will much of anything, except how to keep his footfalls soft and silent as he walked past the living room where Old Bill spent most of his time.
No, actually, that’s not fair; Will had also learned from him what channel The Price Is Right was on, and to never, ever turn it off.
Will had never found Old Bill’s lack of warmth particularly surprising, since the shriveled-up geezer had always made it quite clear that he found even Will’s father lacking, in terms of carrying the mantle of his handed-down name.
This meant that Will, to his grandfather, was not a person so much as a mystifying anomaly, if one who happened to be occupying the space where a person was meant to exist. He’d never been cruel to Will, exactly, he’d just been…
nothing. Vacant. Blank. The few times Will had heard Old Bill express an opinion of him, it was muttered to Bill under his breath, barely audible and clearly not positive.
Catherine draws to a stop, Will pausing next to her, as they reach the fence that encloses the primary apple orchard.
Technically—last time Will checked, anyway—Robertson Family Farms encompasses three apple orchards, two large planting fields, and the grazing pasture attached to the barnyard, as well some other land, not put to agricultural purpose.
The grove of trees they’re standing in front of is the first and biggest orchard, the one the very first Bill Robertson planted back in the 1920s, and the vast majority of its trees are a few years past their hundredth birthdays.
Barring the occasional stand that’s needed replacing due to rot, or beetles, or flood damage, this orchard is the same as it was during the Cold War, and the Watergate trials, and the full run of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
And yet…something’s not quite right. Something’s different.
It takes Will a moment to place it, and then he realizes: It’s the fence .
All his life, the fences that ran within Robertson Family Farms were the slapdash wooden ones you see all over Ohio, built either with two-by-fours purchased at the nearest big box hardware store or whatever actual logs were nearest to hand.
None of this wood was ever treated or painted, and so it all took on the unpleasant brown color of a soaked paper bag, looking a little bit wet even in the peak of an August drought.
Periodically, throughout Will’s childhood, he’d been woken at the crack of dawn on an otherwise unassuming morning and told it was Repair Day, and he and his father, or whichever unfortunate underling Bill had managed to stick with the job, would go around the property replacing pieces of the fenceline that had cracked or rotted out.
It was hard, unhappy, splintering work, but there was no getting out of it, not even for school—whenever Will tried that argument, Bill always pointed out that for what he’d be doing with his life, the farm was his school, and he’d better start getting his grades up.
These fences are…not like that. They are intentionally and professionally constructed, recently painted a fresh, crisp white, with a wide flat piece on top on which a person could lean, or set a drink.
Craning his neck, Will realizes that all the fences he can see from here are the same, crisp and white and slotted together like puzzle pieces.
Had Bill done that? Surely not; his hip was already giving him trouble when Will was a teenager, and anyway, he’d never cared about things like this.
Bill wouldn’t sink money into a proper fence that he could instead have spent on some get-rich-quick scheme that never panned out—it would have been too practical.
“Will,” Catherine Rose says, in a deep, heady voice, dragging Will away from his thoughts. “I want you to imagine with me. Can you do that?”
“Um,” Will says, not at all sure he can, “okay?”
“Picture this.” Catherine sounds, now, as though she is narrating a very bizarre commercial. “It’s time for the annual Glenriver Shiver, a festival haunted for years with stories of freak weather events and terrible cold! The festival with the most documented cases of hypothermia on record?—”
“Is that true?” Will says, surprised and interested. “Based on what dataset, do you know? I didn’t even know that was a metric anyone was tracking for music festivals?—”
“ But ,” Catherine continues, talking right over Will as though not having heard him at all, “instead of finding themselves in the middle of a terrible, unpleasant, regrettable festival experience, they find themselves instead at the new, improved Glenriver Shiver. A festival with amenities, you understand? People can come and pick apples during the day, with a professional photographer to make sure they catch the moment for their socials, or they can come for a soak in the state-of-the-art hot tub facilities Nimbletainment will be building, or catch some music without freezing at the festival’s brand-new, first-of-its-kind, temperature-controlled amphitheater.
Whatever your vibe, the Glenriver Shiver will be able to cater to it after these fantastic improvements! ”
“Sorry,” Will says, turning to stare at her.
She sounds so much like she’s regurgitating a weird commercial that he half expects her to rattle off a toll-free phone number to call, but instead she smiles toothily at him, leaning in ever so slightly too close.
Something about that smile seems to be draining Will’s life force; weakly, he continues, “I, um. Just. This seems like a lot to do for just…one festival?”
“ Great question, Will,” Catherine says, although Will did not, strictly speaking, ask one.
“But actually, the company has big plans for this town. Big plans. With the ability to expand the festival ground, add more stages, Nimbletainment could be bringing live music into town all year long. That’s tourist revenue for businesses; it’s guaranteed world-class entertainment for the locals right in their own backyards—it’s a no-brainer, really.
If your father hadn’t been so determined to get in the way, the town would’ve been reaping the benefits years ago. ”
Will scuffs his right boot against one of the pristine fenceposts, slopping mud up against the side, as he considers this. Certainly, the last part rings true—God knows Bill loved to cause a problem, be the holdup—but something about the rest doesn’t quite sit right.
Then again, he’s not sure he cares. What he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want to be here, in this town or on this property in particular.
He doesn’t want the trees hurt, or to screw up the local economy—his childhood memories of the place might not be the best, but he isn’t a total monster—but it doesn’t sound like he’s at any risk of doing that by selling.
If something feels a little weird, does that really have to matter?
After all, it might just be Catherine Rose, who is clearly fairly weird herself.
Seeming to sense his hesitation, she throws an arm around Will’s shoulders. “Walk with me, William.”