The Excellent Lombards(49)

My new acquaintance began to explain the Sykes Orchard spray program, the Integrated Pest Management, a system designed to keep chemical applications to a minimum, the farmer spraying in relation to the pests’ life cycles. We used IPM, too, and like Tommy were in close contact with the university entomologists, running trials for research, trying to wean ourselves away from pesticides where possible. I had been at market before when those mothers assaulted us. The Crones Against Cluster Cancers. That’s what William called them. They were women who never wanted to know the hard science of your practice. They weren’t interested in parts per billion or the rate of breakdown or the lab results of residue, statistics that, if they’d just listen, would lower their blood pressure and maybe make them reasonable. Those mothers only wished us to know that we were the individuals poisoning their children and Gaia.

I said two things in front of Gideon just then. I said to the lady, “Do you like biting into a worm when you eat an apple?”

“I beg your pardon,” she said to me.

To the pork and beef guy right next door I asked, “How do your animals fare after their surgeries?” Really, that’s the kind of inane question those women were likely to ask.

Gideon stopped talking. His pale eyes seemed to spin. He said to the mother, “You should check out the Lombard Orchard. I think you’ll like their program and their apples better.”

The woman walked away. Gideon burst out laughing. He said, “When you’re older do you think you might consider marrying me?” He laughed again. “You are hysterical.”

His question made me run as fast as I possibly could back to our own stand. I got in the van that was parked by our stall and locked the doors. My first proposal of marriage, my very first proposal—Gideon, I thought, had maybe, in a certain way, meant it. Which made me feel dizzy and warm and pleased and distressed all at once—that freckle on his lip, for one thing.

What did it take to fall in love? That was a ridiculous question to have to ask when I’d seen Gloria topple over and when I myself had been in love with Mrs. Kraselnik. That is to say, you didn’t ask for it, you didn’t plan, but the spell was cast upon you anyway. Abracadabra: swoon.

Or maybe Gideon Hup and Mary Frances Lombard would have an arranged marriage, our union on the order of the House of Hanover and the Stewarts commingling. My father thought very highly of Gideon. And if William was too dreamy to farm, if he was going to be a Posse player for the rest of his life, then I’d have to make do with Gideon. We at the Lombard Orchard would steal Tommy Sykes’s manager, Tommy’s hope, steal him away in a blaze of duty to our enterprise, Gideon and me, with our expertise and enthusiasm impressing Sherwood and even May Hill. William would realize too late that what he’d wanted after all wasn’t for the having.

And anyway if you were Gideon, would you rather have a perfected operation to rule, one that you would never own? Or would you rather, by marriage, possess the property, a place that, yes, was a little bit of a catastrophe, but a place that was crying out for your organizational skills and your brawn, a place where the institutional knowledge meant the apples were truly delicious? Of course he would choose the Lombard Orchard, saying I do to Mary Frances and her entire family.

So in that period I supposed, one way or another, that my future was fairly secure. I always avoided Gideon at the market but I considered him slantwise; in the abstract and from a distance he was my betrothed. In my own room at night all alone I’d think haughtily to William, Gideon and I will do thus and such, outlining all the orchard improvements we would make. I did that even though in my mind Gideon was like an Amish doll with no face. Still, I was the only middle schooler that I knew of who had a firm proposal of marriage, no small accomplishment.





Late





17.


In Which We Play Euchre




Many events, some that were logical, and some that were not, took place in the next few years. In my school career I was in several plays and was for a time in love with Mr. Dronzek, the lord of drama who taught at both the middle and high schools. Mrs. Kraselnik remained the best teacher I was sure I’d ever have but she was not long for our particular world. She and the doctor got divorced when I was in seventh grade and they both moved away from the dream house. Brianna probably was responsible for all their unhappiness, but as with so many things, that was my secret. My father continued serving on the commission to study farmland preservation. Sherwood built an apple sorter that for the most part worked, a machine that incorporated Adam’s and Amanda’s baby blankets as cushioning for the fruit. At the library Nellie Lombard as always coerced young people to read quality literature and charmed babies to a stupor with lap-sit story time. We outgrew Cart Drill and without us it fizzled. Once William got to high school he scored many awards, including a cash prize for his robot up in Madison. No one told him he shouldn’t win.

It was after the four–five split that Amanda and I had stopped spending so much time together, depending on each other only when no one else was available. After the Geography Bee I had briefly assumed that our association was over but when she lost at the county level we were equal in our way again. There was no feud that divided us, no concrete before and after. It was funnily enough geography that changed our habits. Once I was in sixth grade we were in different buildings, the universe of the middle school a block away from the elementary school. Also, she had become interested in chess and Russia, her goal to be a diplomat and grandmaster stationed in Moscow. Whereas Coral and I, and our friend Jay, were busy writing plays together and learning lines for Mr. Dronzek’s productions, and going to vintage clothing shops in the city with Mrs. LeClaire, Coral’s mother. Because Coral had a tremendous singing voice and often spoke in a British accent, because of her general theatricality, my father referred to her as Sarah Bernhardt. To her face he’d say “How are you, Say-rah?” and “Have a good show, Say-rah,” which she pretended to be outraged by, calling my father Slim. “’Ey, Slim,” she’d say in her Cockney accent. It was extremely hard to stomach, their cornball. My mother sometimes called him Slim, too, which also was not terribly funny.