It’sway too hot to walk the whole grounds. Well, way too hot for me. There are tons of families and groups out and about, picking peaches, visiting the animals and heading in and out of the cafe, and they are clearly planning to make a sticky, sweaty day of it. When Silas offers to spare me the heat and humidity as we drive around the grounds, I do notobject.
He points out the McInroy’s Mercantile and the cannery. We drive by the petting zoo and the barns, and then veer off on a small dirt road and drive by this large pond that is visible from the public area, but closed off to customers. Silas tells me it’s for aesthetics only. When I ask him if he’s ever gone swimming in the pond he just glances over at me before looking back at the road. His expression is blank. Still, doesn’t stop my brain from going right to the image of a naked Silas sprinting for the water’sedge.
Then we drive out to the peach orchard. We pull up to a white truck loaded down with trailers hitched to trailers, hitched to trailers, hauling dozens of large white crates each. Half are filled with hundreds of peaches. Each member of the crew has the blue cloth bucket things strapped to their chests and they are cruising pretty damn quick from tree to tree, filling eachbucket.
He tells me I have to give up the air conditioning for five minutes, so I get out and he introduces me to the small crew he has working on the peach harvest. I watch as an older Black woman, who Silas later introduces to me as Tina, walks over and bumps a pile of peaches into one of the half full crates. The picking crew is too hot and busy to say anything beyond hello, but the head of the crew, Reggie, does insist on catching up with me later. He looks Silas dead in the eye and tells him he has questions, before they both start laughing. Then Silas turns to me and takes myhand.
True to his word, Silas manages to keep the stick out of his ass while we drive around the property, but now that we are in earshot of his staff and friends again, he is laying it on pretty thick. I play along and smile up at him as he leans down and kisses the side of myforehead.
“You want to learn how to pick apeach?”
“Yeah. Showme.”
We walk a few yards ahead of the crew, toward one of the untouched trees. “Here.” I let Silas take my hand and guide it up to a large, bright orange peach bunched up with a twin on the thin branch. “You wanna make sure you’re getting enough of the stem, but not damaging the tree. We have certain areas reserved for U-pick, for that very reason. Fucking up the branch is nogood.”
“I always thought peach trees would be taller for some reason.” I’m eye level with a lot of thefruit.
“No. It works well though. You need a ladder for fruits like apples and oranges. You can pick these while standing. Now grab it here and give it a little twist,” he says like he isn’t guiding my fingers. It takes a little more pressure than I expected, but the peach pops off the branch and into my palm. Silas lets go and lets me hold the piece of fruit. I test its weight. It’s a big ass peach. I look up athim.
“Hmm,” I say, making a little sound to let him know I’mimpressed.
“Hmm,” hereplies.
“This is a very impressive piece of fruit. You’ve done well foryourself.”
“And you’ve picked your first peach. How does itfeel?”
“Good. Like I’ve really contributed. I’m sure Reggie would love to have me on hiscrew.”
“I would!” Reggie yells from a few trees down. “But only on the house. You’ll have to talk to your man aboutpay.”
“She’s on vacation, man. Don’t think she’ll want to be my girlfriend much longer if I put her towork.”
“You mean all I had to do to get out of work was date you?” one of the guysyells.
“You’re not my type, Brack!” Silas calls back, before he turns to me and holds out his hand. It takes me a second to realize he wants thepeach.
“Oh,here.”
“I’d let you taste this one, but it’s not fully ripe. Maya and Ginny have tons of fresh ones back at the cannery. You can try one when we get back.” I follow Silas back to the crates where he drops the peach into the pile. We say goodbye to Reggie and his crew and return to the sweet air conditioned relief of Silas’s truck. We drive back to the cannery and sure enough there is Honeycrisp running around under the shade of a tree with Hank. Silas parks and turns tome.
“So as you’ve seen, everyone else will be interested in your surface details, like the fact that you exist. Maya and Ginny will tell you they are my best friends, so they’ll havequestions.”
“They run the cannery?” He hasn’t told me what the cannery isyet.
“Yeah. Maya and Ginny make all of our jams and honeys and sauces. We sell them here at the store and online. They have a whole tasting bar inside. Don’tworry.”
“That’s the information I was looking for. So they’re nosey. Got it. I’ve heard that staying as close to the truth as possible is best. Less slip ups. Either of them versed in the law? Have any follow upquestions?”
“No. They are firmly farmfolk.”
“I’ll just tell them the truth and leave out bits like my real name and the name of my firm, but—shit.”
“What?”
“They are totally going to look meup.”
“What?”
