The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin (free ereaders txt) 📗

August harvest alone would be massive, and then she’d need help with tree planting in the fall. But she could afford to hire someone, especially with the anticipation of honey sales and maybe even raising queens. She paced the apiary to determine how many hives would fit, and her enthusiasm grew.

Back at the house, she pulled up the farmer’s market page on her computer and scanned the classified ads. People weren’t offering that much. Ten to fifteen dollars an hour or less for WWOOFers. Alice scoffed.

“You can keep your WWOOFers,” she said aloud.

Volunteers from Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. She saw them, youngsters from Australia lately, running the booths at the farmer’s market. Dirty hair and hippy clothes, like Joyful. They worked in exchange for room and board. No thank you, she thought. She didn’t want to be a tour guide, and she wasn’t keen on having someone live at her place. Alice liked being alone down here in the dell. The phrase “communal living” made her skin crawl. Ever since she was a little kid, she had enjoyed her solitude. Alice Island, her mother teased her. Alice All Alone. Her father understood. His parents had been solitary people too. It suited her just fine. Most days, anyway.

She opened the ad-posting form and typed: “Help Wanted: Part-time summer worker for bee farm. No experience necessary. Must be able to lift up to 100 pounds. Light construction skills a plus. $13–$15 per hour, negotiable. Call 541-555-2337 for info or email al.holtzman @gorge.net.”

She figured she’d get a high school kid for that much, and the bulk of the work would be completed by the time school rolled around.

That afternoon Alice ran errands—Ace Hardware for sandpaper and paintbrushes, and, as much as she dreaded it, the damn grocery store for something other than cereal. She dreaded going to Little Bit, and not just because of the panic attack. Hood River’s single grocery store was like the town square, and Alice hated small talk. Old people shopped in the mornings and young families in the afternoons. Both of those times she was liable to run into some friend of her mom’s or someone she knew from high school. She did her shopping at night and never on the weekends. Weeknights it was just young men and Latino families. They didn’t want to stop and chat either, at least not to her. But the fridge was empty, so she’d just have to cope.

Outside Ace, she jumped in the truck and slung the paper bag of supplies onto the floor. She tossed her windbreaker aside to make room. Then she saw the small backpack. Already knowing it must be Jake’s, she opened it and pulled out a wallet. There was the kid’s big grin and that crazy hair disappearing out of the top of the frame. Jacob Todd Stevenson, born February 2, 1996. Hazel eyes, black hair. Height: five feet ten; weight: 145 pounds. Sure, kid. Maybe if you were wearing a weight belt. Boys and women lied about their weight in opposite directions, apparently. I’ll have to drop it off, she thought, and for some reason her heart brightened.

Alice suffered through the grocery store, where she ran into Mary Condon. Mary had been close to Alice’s mom and told Alice about her recent hip surgery. Alice didn’t really mind listening. It was easier than talking to her own old friends, who would get that sad look on their faces and touch her arm.

“How are you doing, Alice?” they’d ask. What a question.

As she steered toward the cereal aisle, she saw the back of Debi Jeffreys, the office manager from the county planning department, her cart piled high and three little boys hanging off the sides yelling like pirates. Alice decided she didn’t need cereal after all and headed to the checkout line.

She drove down Twelfth Street and turned onto Greenwood Court. The yellow Ford Focus parked in front of number eleven had a bumper sticker that read: “God is my co-pilot.” Her pulse quickened as she thought of the scene there two nights before, and she took a deep breath. She turned off the engine and sat, letting the seconds tick by. This was small-town politeness—waiting in the driveway when one wasn’t expected. After a couple of minutes, the door opened and the kid’s mom came out, shading her eyes with her hand. She waved and walked down the steps toward Alice, smiling. Alice climbed out of the truck and held up the backpack like a flag of surrender.

“Hi!” she called. “Don’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to drop this off.”

Jake’s mother was still smiling. As she got close to Alice, she held out her hand.

“I’m Tansy. Tansy Stevenson,” she said. “It’s Alice, right?”

Alice nodded and smiled. Tansy grabbed her hand and shook it. She held on to it a second too long, which embarrassed Alice, it felt so intimate. She pulled away, but Tansy didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m so sorry for the other night. I felt terrible once Jacob explained what happened. Edward and I are so grateful that you brought him home safe. We thank the dear Lord that you were there to help him.”

Alice doubted that Tansy’s husband thanked the dear Lord for anything, but she could see tears welling up behind the woman’s pink-framed glasses under curled bangs and felt sorry for her. Tansy was younger than she was and dressed in an A-line polyester skirt and nylons with low heels. Alice was suddenly self-conscious of her dirty overalls and her sun hat jammed down over her hair.

“It was nothing,” Alice said. “It was the least I could do. I feel terrible about the whole thing. I just didn’t see him in the dark out there.”

Tansy sighed, put her fingers to her temples, and shook her head. “I tried to get him to promise me he wouldn’t go running around alone, but he’s stubborn.”

She tried to laugh, but Alice could see the tears still bright in her eyes.

“There are so