15. Mike
MIKE
M y long day starts early and doesn’t stop.
Jerry calls me at four in the morning and sounds like hell.
He’s been up all night and apparently didn’t evade that viral bug.
I agree to pick up the three workers who have spent the weekend at Pat’s with their wives.
I’m there at five and they’re all waiting for me.
I ask Pat for a bouquet while I’m there, which gives her plenty to speculate about.
The one she gives me is huge and bright, exactly what I would have picked for Sylvia.
In the meantime, the guys have piled into the truck and it’s a bit of a crush, but we don’t have far to go. They’re heading into the greenhouses by five-thirty and, after leaving the flowers in water in the office, so am I.
It’s good to walk the entirety of the complex, at least once a week.
It gives me an overview of what’s working well and what’s not.
By this point in the season, I can see at a glance which crews have found their rhythm with the pruning.
There are always some remedial lessons along the way.
I usually love this day, concentrating on the plants and doing what I know best.
Today, though, I’m thinking about Sylvia.
I’m remembering that kiss.
You .
In number eight, things are behind since Jerry is foreman there. Neil, the other foreman in that house, looks like junk so I send him home. I give direction there for a while, getting everyone doing what they need to do while I hope we don’t have another outbreak.
In number seven, I check out the first fruit of the new hybrid that Elke recommended.
The cherry tomatoes are almost perfectly uniform with this variety, a dozen on a stem.
The colour is remarkable: burgundy at the top of the stem, they shade to golden yellow at its tip.
They look like jewels and are as sweet as can be.
I’ll take a carton to Merrie and maybe change her mind about Cavendish tomatoes.
We should have a couple of flats of ripe fruit tomorrow to take up to the sales team.
In number six, our most reliable cluster tomato is bearing above and beyond expectations.
We have a small moth infestation in number five, but everyone knows the routine to solve that. Action is already being taken when I learn of it.
And on it goes throughout the day. There are workers picking fruit in every greenhouse, containers loaded with ripe produce heading off to be packed, the heat of the sun, the smell of the plants and occasional joke in Spanish.
By mid-morning, it’s hot, hotter than Hades, and I’m not the only one with a soaked T-shirt.
One thing I admire about my teams is that the heat never slows them down.
In every greenhouse, flat after flat of carefully picked and stacked tomatoes is heading out.
It’s after six when I finish my big tour and since I was out of the office all day, there’s a queue of emails waiting on me as well as a pile of phone messages.
Dierdre in the office has a stack of paperwork and mail to review with me, and even though I skim through it, it’s seven thirty before I call it a day.
I head home for a shower and change, then take Pat’s glorious bouquet and drive to Una’s.
The Subaru is there. Una is sitting on her fenced-in porch and she waves a greeting to me. “She’s still at that studio,” she calls. “With all those supplies you bought, she might never leave.”
“Do you need anything?”
“There’s so much food in this house that I’ll never eat it all. I had a bowl of the most delicious soup tonight.”
I wish her a good evening before starting the truck again.
When I get downtown, Merrie is just heading into the front door of the café. I park behind her Jeep, then offer the flat of freshly picked tomatoes.
She grins. “For me?”
“Who else?”
She stops closer, looking at the fruit. “Is this bribery?”
“It’s the first harvest of a new cultivar for us. Naturally, I thought of you.”
“Tomatoes for me, but flowers for someone else,” she notes, eyes twinkling. “It sounds to me like your instincts are right on the money.”
“I hope so.”
She leads me into the darkened café, putting down her bag on the counter. I lock the door behind us as she opens the seal on the package and sniffs. “Smells like sunshine.”
“Go figure.”
She snorts then heads to the sink, washing an entire cluster.
They stay on the stem, which is good. When they fall off easily, the package doesn’t look as appealing by the time it reaches its destination.
Merrie plucks one from the stem and pops it into her mouth.
I’m braced for criticism, maybe just on principle, but her eyes widen as she chews.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, staring down at the package in awe. “These are amazing.”
“I thought so.”
She eats two more in rapid succession. “I’m going to need more.”
“You’re going to need a commercial account with Cavendish Enterprises.”
Merrie laughs, leaning against the counter as she eats tomatoes. “You win,” she says. “I do.” We smile at each other for a moment in the darkened bistro, then she nods at the flowers. “You’d better deliver them before they wilt. Up the stairs, the studio is in the storeroom that faces out back.”
I thank her and head for the stairs, shrouded by shadows.
“You should have brought me more,” she calls after me.
“You’re not open for two more days.”
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Tomorrow, I want eight of these.”
“They’re just starting to ripen.”
“You really brought me the first ones?”
“Uh huh.”
“You’ve overwhelmed my objections, Mike Cavendish, you fiend,” she says dramatically. “Obliterated them, even. I’m going to end up eating all of these for dinner,” she mutters and tosses another one into her mouth. “More, more, more!” she calls.
“Done,” I say, glad to have her on my side.
I take the stairs three at a time, then my steps slow when I see that the door is open to Sylvia’s new studio.
There are lamps on inside and the light is rosy.
It’s cool up here and otherwise dark. I can’t hear anything except Merrie banging around downstairs in the kitchen, and I wonder if Sylvia’s fallen asleep.
No. She’s at the easel, drawing .
I stop in the doorway. I always liked to watch her work, though she prefers to be unobserved.
I can only admire how intently she concentrates, how she seems oblivious to everything except her art.
She has a still life composition on a table in front of her and is reproducing it in pencil.
There are no shadows or shading: it’s a line drawing but as accurate as a photograph.
The arrangement of items is both predictable and not. This is also Sylvia’s sorcery: she tells a story with a collection of items. This fascinates me.
At first glance, the composition looks like the remnants of a solitary meal with items from the bistro: a saltshaker on its side, a spill of salt on the dark wood table, a small peppermill.
There’s a plate with a crust of bread, and a knife with butter smeared on it, angled on the plate.
There’s a bit of Merrie’s paté on the plate, too, with half of a green apple, a piece of hard cheese with a bite missing.
The rind from the rest of the apple is neatly left on the plate, too.
There’s a small dish of mixed olives, oil on the lip of the dish, maybe with one or two missing.
The small wine bottle is empty, while the wine glass has the barest bit of purple in the bottom and a lip print on the rim.
There’s a folded newspaper to one side, something circled in what might be a page of advertisements.
One napkin cast aside. A second plate and place setting, the napkin still folded, the clean wine glass upside down.
It’s not just dishes, but a story. I wonder what background she’ll add to it, because that will tell more.
Right now, I’m amazed that pencil lines could convey so much texture and such a strong feeling.
Sylvia’s drawing looks more lonely than the items do themselves and I can’t figure out how she’s done it.
There’s a yearning in her work that I want to understand.
There’s also Sylvia herself to watch. She’s wearing a pair of faded jeans that cling in all the right places and a cotton T-shirt that clings to her curves. She’s wearing those flip flops again, her tanned feet almost bare, her soles sticking slightly to the sandals as she moves.
Because she moves, all the time, as if she’s dancing with the easel.
The pencil stays on the paper, moving steadily toward its goal, but she takes a little step one way or the other, shifting her weight and altering her view of the subject.
Her hair is pulled up in a sloppy ponytail, loose tendrils on the back of her neck, and I want to strip her out of those jeans and make love to her until she moans aloud.
Until she’s wrapped around me, whispering my name.
Until I feel her clench around me, all sweet softness and heat, and know that I’m exactly where I belong.
But I don’t want to interrupt her.
So, I stand there with that bouquet of flowers and watch her pencil move across the page, simmering quietly as she finishes the outline of the dish of olives.
It looks as though she started in the center, maybe with the plate, and moved outward.
I wonder how much more she’ll add, but suddenly she lifts her pencil away and turns.
Sylvia must not have heard me because she looks startled for a moment. Then she smiles. “How long have you been there?”
“Not long. I didn’t want to disturb you.” Belatedly I remember my gift. “These are for you.”
Her eyes light as she moves to take them from me, her gaze roving over the flowers. “Oh, they’re beautiful. Zinnias!”
“Are they? I just asked Pat for a bouquet.”
“And dahlias,” she says fingering the petals of a red flower. “It’s too early for these to bloom.”