18. DIANE
CHAPTER 18
DIANE
Whenever I need to think, I climb a tree. This crabapple tree on Bedd Fellows Farm isn’t quite as inspiring as a Lady Apple or a Northern Spy, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Right now, I have a lot of thinking to do, mostly because I can’t say no to Ethel Bedd or her grandson. Or is it that I don’t want to say no to myself?
The point of creating my channel was to raise awareness around seed saving all over New York state. All over the country, eventually. But right now, Ethel’s got me focusing on one town. One hamlet.
Fork Lick has a surprisingly robust community doing a bang-up job fostering local varieties of plants. Every time I think I’ve exhausted video subject matter, Ethel’s got a new idea I can’t say no to. Like the video I shot this morning, which I should just give to Ethel to post. Her sheep may be an heirloom breed that provides incomparable wool, but she’s no seed.
I need to pack up and move on, but for the first time in my adult life, I want to put down roots. Like the tree I’m perche d in. Where I’m wasting time playing a game instead of planning my next move.
“Is this a new camera technique you’re practicing? Shooting between the leaves?”
Peering down through the branches, I find Sam grinning up at me. I’ve cataloged most of this man’s expressions over the past week, but that beacon of light and warmth is one I’ll never get tired of.
One I’ll miss when I’m gone.
His eyes scan the trunk and lower branches, and before I know it, he’s clambered up to perch on the branch below mine. “Either this tree shrunk or I’m a lot bigger than I was the last time I climbed it.”
“I’m guessing it’s the latter.”
He plucks a crab apple and sniffs it. “Have you tried one?”
I shake my head.
“Do you dare me?”
What I’d like to dare him to do could be chanted on a playground, but if we get going, we might fall out of the tree. Before I can answer, he takes a bite.
“Yikes! Crab apples are way more sour than I remember too.” He shudders, dropping what’s left of the fruit like a hot potato, then looks around. “So if not picking apples, what’re you doing up here?”
“You caught me with my latest obsession.”
“I thought I was your latest obsession.” His tone is teasing, but there’s more truth to his words than I’ll admit.
“Since I’ve conquered trivia in this town,” I say with an imperious sigh, “I’ve moved on to other subjects.”
He points a finger at me. “We’ll see about that. There’s always next Tuesday. ”
If I’m still here. Which I shouldn’t be. “I thought you were moving to your new place over the weekend.”
“I am. But it’s only up in Climax. I can still get to trivia.”
We haven’t talked about what the move will mean to our arrangement. But it’s a moot point anyway. As soon as I get my ass in gear and schedule a visit with the next person on my contact list, I’ll be gone. Unless I buy the orchard…
“So if not me, what is your new obsession?”
Dragging my thoughts away from the movie that’s been playing in my mind since last night of a bulldozer knocking over my beloved apple trees, I hold up my phone. “The World of Wings app. It’s a fun way to learn to identify bird species.”
After I show him how it works, he pulls up an app on his own phone. “Do you have Merlin? It’s run by the ornithological lab up at Cornell.”
As he scrolls through his life list, I blow out a whistle. “You’ve spotted all of these birds?”
“That’s the cool thing. Sometimes I can’t actually get close enough to see details, but I can record the call, and I identify it that way.”
I could sit up here with him until dark, but after a few minutes, he shifts uncomfortably. Peering down, he says, “I don’t know how much longer this branch will hold me.”
Before he can leave, I reach for his hand. “Sam?”
“Yeah?”
Instead of telling him that I’ll miss him when I’m gone, I say, “Can I ask a favor?”
“If you give me a kiss,” he says, leaning close.
As I ever so slowly move my lips toward his, I chant softly , “Sam and Diane, sitting in a tree…” until we’re K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
Later that afternoon, after a torrid makeout session in the crabapple tree, and after Sam helps out at Bedd Fellows Farm’s strawberry picking, we get to the favor: a soil and water evaluation of the Kaaterskill orchard. But as Sam turns into the drive, I can’t stop the gasp that escapes past my lips.
“What’s the matter?” he asks, slamming on the brakes.
Taking a shaky breath, I point at the real estate sign. “It’s already under contract. The realtor said I had another few days to make an offer, but I guess the sellers changed their minds.”
He just stares at me. “Were you actually planning to buy it?”
Swallowing past the emotion clogging my throat, I shrug. “It’s not exactly realistic, but I was thinking about it.”
“Do you still want me to do the tests?”
I’ve been chasing my tail over the idea of buying it for the past twenty-four hours, wondering if I can afford it, since I’ve sunk my entire trust fund into the nonprofit. Could the seed library purchase it? Or is that being too selfish? But maybe the orchard could serve as the center’s home base for education and experimentation.
But now, that all seems to be moot.
“We can still run the tests,” Sam says, breaking into my thoughts. “You never know what’ll happen. Maybe the buyer will back out. ”
Gomer’s whining to get out of the truck, so I nod. “A realtor showed me around earlier in the week,” I explain as Sam pulls equipment from the back. “She said it’d be fine if I stopped by to check out the orchard on my own.”
Half an hour later, Sam has what he needs, but we spend a bit more time wandering up and down the rows, munching on apples that I hope won’t go to waste because of the real estate deal. When we hear a raucous, nasal cry overhead, Sam pulls out his phone and identifies the bird.
“It’s a white-breasted nuthatch.” He reads from the app, as I peer through the branches trying to catch sight of it. “White belly, gray and black on the back. About the size of a sparrow. Good to have in orchards, apparently, because they’ll eat up pests for you.”
This reminds me of the bird feeders my grandmother kept outside her kitchen window, and without meaning to, I find myself telling him story after story of my summers here. Of making applesauce, climbing trees, learning to prune.
“I just loved being outside, getting dirty…” I pull an apple from the tree and sniff deeply. “Everything about this place.”
Sam sets a hand on the gnarled branch of a Braeburn tree. “It’s a beautiful orchard. Could probably use some upgrades, but the trees seem to be in great shape, especially considering how hot it was this summer. But I’ll run the tests and get you the results. You know, just in case.”
“Just in case,” I echo. And as we walk back to the truck hand in hand, dammit if I don’t have a vision of the two of us doing this thirty years from now.