Lily sighed and closed her eyes. Because it was Hanna, one of the few girls Lily had been too scared to approach back then, Lily was entertaining this conversation. Otherwise, she didn’t care about the silly festival. But it was Hanna, even after all these years. In high school, Lily would have given anything to have Hanna coming apart underneath her. Pulling down her long black hair from her signature ponytail so it fanned around her head as she threw it back. Her cool mask cracking to reveal a mess of pleasure. The image that flashed through her mind outweighed the need to be intentional about what she asked of her mother.
Diana Blake believed in Lilyfinding her own pathso she couldbesure about the family business,about following in the family footsteps. Therefore, she rarely intervened or acted on behalf of Lily. What was more likely was that Diana would tell Lily to go to the planning committee meeting herself. She could just hear her mother say, “You should come with me when I have to go review all our permits.” She shuddered. Getting things on the town bulletin board was one thing— people were often more okay with symbols representing something than they were with actually implementing it.
“Hanna, you do know I’m gay, right?” Lily said.
“Lily, plenty of lesbians are also TERFs.”
“One, fuck you, and fuck TERFs. Two, I likeallwomen. Three, I have been in the queer space longer than whatever fucking lecture you’ve had at Tufts.”
“Lily, look, I’m Asian, okay? We can be different and still have room to grow.”
Okay so fuck, she wasn’t wrong but holy shit, how did they get here? Lily closed her eyes again for a moment before they began parading around their experiences of oppression and lost the plot altogether. She opened her eyes and looked at Hanna, expecting to see a smug expression. Instead she found something else, something like pleading.
“Fine, I’ll talk to my mom,” Lily breathed.
“Something like, ‘Fall Royal Court’,” Hanna pushed further.
“Fine, yes, whatever.”
Hanna beamed at her, and Lily decided the conversation was worth earning that smile.
In high school they’d run in different circles, but since they were from the same town she’d seen Hanna on and off throughout the years from afar. A quick glimpse on a day the orchard was open to the public or at Hodge’s, the funky bookstore everyone loved to visit. So having Hanna here lecturing her now was a bit surreal—an unexpected addition to Lily’s fall break. They’d run into each other at the grocery store, and Hanna had offered to help out on the property for some extra cash, but Lily thought she’d sounded lonely. Lily got that, for more than one reason. After her dad had left, her mom buried herself in her work, expanding the business, planting new kinds of trees, and growing the staff. When she did have a little down time, she spent it in her office/studio on the phone with her sister, Lily’s Aunt Julia, or sketching. Sketching what, Lily didn’t know. At school, she thought she’d be able to find thatthingshe’d been missing at home, but aside from her good friend Eve who was always traveling anytime she could, no one really stuck around for more than a good time.
“Lily?” Hanna’s voice broke through her thoughts, and Lily realized Hanna must have been saying something.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said thank you—it, um, means a lot.” Hanna gave a small smile and her eyes grew warm.
God, Lily thought, she was beautiful. She wondered what it would take to keep Hanna’s heart-shaped lips smiling at her. Hanna was a few inches shorter than Lily’s 5’7, with a stocky build, soft in all the places Lily wanted to…
A knock on the door pulled Lily back from her thoughts. She had just enough time to realize she was staring at Hanna when another knock came, a bit more forceful than the first.
“Wha—” Lily started to say, but the creaky door opened. It was her mother.
Diana Blake smiled brightly and her navy blue eyes—just like Lily’s—seemed to glitter with excitement. Her blonde hair hung in loose waves, and she wore her signature t-shirt, jean shorts and tall Hunter boots caked with dried dirt. She was Lily’s height, but leaner and more petite. Following closely behind her was a tall woman Lily had never seen before. She had long, light brown hair and blue eyes, and was followed by a tall younger woman with tawny brown skin and curly black hair Lily suspected looked more brown in the sun. Something about her hair made Lily want to reach out and run her fingers through it, convinced it would be warm.
“Hey, Mrs.—I mean, hey Ms. Blake,” Hanna said from beside Lily.
“Hey Hanna, again, thank you so much for your help.” A look of warmth and genuine pleasure at Hanna’s presence danced across Diana’s face. She looked at Lily and Hanna on the work bench. “Aren’t you girls cozy here?”
Lily realized, to her horror, that she was leaning into Hanna’s space. She righted herself.
“Just taking a break before we get back to sorting apples,” Lily offered.
“Uh huh,” Diana said, holding Lily’s gaze for a moment before turning to the two newcomers. “This is Maggie McDonald and her daughter, Maya. You know, they’ll be staying with us for a while.” The memory of Diana telling her about the mother and daughter duo from Boston snapped into place and she immediately regretted not having thought to stalk Maya’s socials. Maybe then she would have been prepared for how much of a stunning babe she was. She had an assured grace about her; her perfect posture made her appear demure instead of uptight. She was in a t-shirt and shorts, the same as Lily and Hanna, but she somehow made the combo lookchic. She looked like a girl who laughed a great deal. Lily wasn’t sure how she could tell.
Diana continued, “Why don’t you show her around, maybe show her the treehouse? You could even camp out there like old times.” Lily inwardly laughed. Her mother couldn’t have known that she got up toa lotmore than camping with the girls who spent the night with her in the treehouse.Did Hanna know?Lily knew she had gained a sort of experiential reputation in high school—plenty of girls tried to explore their attraction to her in hushed and rushed interactions.
“Hey, nice to meet you both,” Maya said, and Lily nodded to mask the fact that she was continuing to take Maya in: shapely legs barely covered by a pair of denim shorts, topped off by a small pink T-shirt that did nothing to hide the swell of Maya’s breasts in a very, very thin bralette. Her lips were full and a warm pink brown, and Lily had to look away before she got caught up again like she had in Hanna. What was wrong with her? She definitely had an appreciation for the feminine form, but today it was like she had an overzealous cupid assigned to her.
Perhaps it was because ithadbeen a while since she’d hooked up with someone. The semester had just started, andLily had been busy trying to work out a schedule for her ceramic artwork. She decided to do a play on her two loves: women and apples, which brought up biblical vibes she wanted to explore. Not because she was religious, but because she was convinced Eve was the first woman to let a man take credit for her work. She would try to balance both depth and playfulness, as was her style. This was the one thing she asked of herself, since she loved her art process but didn’t take the final product too seriously. She knew that while it was all valid, she was still a rich kid who got to follow her passions because she had an orchard to inherit and run one day, so she let that show in the playful side of her work. This had been keeping her busy, as it would be her final series at school. But, she decided, when she got out of Maplewood and back to school, she was going to have to blow off some major steam.
“Hey, I’m Hanna.”
Hanna’s voice grounded Lily. She bit her lower lip to center herself before saying, “I’m Lily, Diana’s daughter.”
“Well,” Diana said, “Why don’t you show Maya around? It’s the best time of the year to be up here.” Diana gestured between herself and Maggie. “We moms will catch up at the house, and you girls can get to know each other. I know you’re all just here for the long weekend, but you never know when you’ll be back home around the same time. Feel free to help yourselves to cider, plain or hard.”
