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

cable along the county easement and down the heart of the Columbia River Gorge to support the tech companies that were moving in. Better to call it what it was—a financial exchange, an arranged marriage, if you will. But nobody would do that.

Many of her colleagues had their laptops open. Rich was banging away, taking meticulous notes. Others, she could tell, were reading their email. Nancy was looking at pictures of her kids on Facebook. Her big silly grin gave her away. Alice’s mind wandered to the bees. She jotted down some notes in her notebook—building materials, paint for new hives. She would stop by the salvage lumberyard and see what she could find for hive stands. She thought about Jake again and his wild enthusiasm. He had followed her through full checks on three hives, asking questions and holding her tools as she worked her way down the row, which was helpful.

She felt a flash of anger at herself. What are you going to do? Have the kid follow you around and hold your tools?

“. . . Celebrating twenty years of interagency partnership!”

The CP rep was wrapping up, and everyone was clapping.

“And as part of our mission to diversify, we have become the regional distributor for SupraGro, which produces value-added products for the farming and ranching sector. We hope to be the bridge between SupraGro and local farms, ranches, and orchards. Here’s this year’s catalog, and my contact information is on the bottom. Please get in touch with any questions, and thanks again!”

The shiny catalogs were shuffled around the conference room table. Bill thanked the CP rep for the presentation. There was more clapping, and people started to leave. Alice pushed her chair back but found the one next to her still occupied by Stan Hinatsu, from the Hood River Watershed Alliance. Stan was about Alice’s age, Japanese-American, with salt-and-pepper hair. A nice-looking guy, she had always thought, but now, brandishing a handful of the colorful cardstock, he looked angry.

“SupraGro!” he sputtered. “Are they kidding? They destroyed the salmon watershed in the north Sierras. In Truckee. There was a huge lawsuit.”

Alice vaguely recognized the name of the little California town.

“They’re going to just slip this in like we won’t notice?” He stood and called down to the other end of the room. “Excuse me! Bill? Bill! Can we have a conversation about this last item?”

Bill was talking to the CP rep. He hitched up his khakis and threw an empty smile in Stan’s direction.

Stan gathered his things, muttering, “. . . Completely unacceptable. I can’t believe—”

He strode toward the door and called out, “Bill! I’m going to call you and set up a meeting!”

Bill smiled blandly and waved. Stan shouldered his way out of the room.

“What was that all about?”

Nancy stood next to Alice’s chair with a Styrofoam cup in her hand, shifting her pleasant bulk from side to side, her pink floral skirt swinging. “What’s ol’ Stan-o upset about now?”

Nancy had a new perm and was wearing earrings to match her purple-framed glasses. Like Alice, Nancy was a longtime county employee. They’d gone to high school together—Nancy graduating two years before Alice. Nancy laughed often and still carried herself with the same enthusiasm she had as a cheerleader at Hood River Valley High School. They were both Bill’s assistants by title but tacitly accepted that Alice really did most of the work. Bill came in late, left early, and couldn’t be bothered with paperwork, which was pretty much what the department was all about.

“Something about SupraGro and a California lawsuit,” Alice said.

“Drama queen,” Nancy said, rolling her eyes. “Always upset about something, those tree huggers.”

Alice felt defensive. She liked Stan. “I don’t know, Nancy. Remember when those Cascadia trains derailed in Mosier? Stan’s group was the one that made them clean it up.”

Nancy made a face and laughed. “Jeez! Don’t be so serious, Alice. It’s Monday morning. By the way, did you get in touch with the Heights folks last week? I was waiting for those housing numbers from you so I could create the forecast.”

They walked back to their office together.

Alice felt restless for the remainder of the day. At lunch she walked down to the river, past the kiteboard beach, and east toward the waterfront hotels, the museum, and the little marina, sheltered from the wind. Sailboats bobbed in the light breeze, their rigging clanging lightly. She saw Bill’s boat among them—the Kathy Sue, named for his wife of forty years. She looked up at the old brick buildings climbing the hillside above Oak Street. Hood River was still a nice little town. Everyone turned out for the Fourth of July parade and the high school homecoming game. People refrained from honking and braked for turkeys, which ranged through town in the fall.

Alice walked to the middle of the bridge and looked down at the river. Two fly-fishermen stood hip deep in the water, and the sunlight glinted off their lines as they swirled them back and forth in the air. Mount Hood rose up to the south, placid under spring snow.

She loved this place, but she had never expected to end up parked at the county planning department for her entire career. A life lived outside was a good life, her parents had always said. Her heart surged as she thought of her plan of growing the apiary and earning enough money to put in a little orchard at her place. She needed to hire someone to help get things going. That was even more reason she needed to send Jake home, Alice thought. The kid would understand. And if he didn’t, well, that wasn’t her problem. He had parents, didn’t he? He wasn’t her responsibility.

She spent the rest of the day immersed in the mammoth task of scheduling assessments for the town’s commercial buildings. One by one her colleagues left until it was just her, Nancy, and the red-haired college intern, Casey. Nancy had talked him into happy hour at the taqueria and tried to convince Alice to