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

“Margarita Monday, Alice!” Nancy sang, and did a salsa step next to Alice’s desk, snapping her fingers.

She begged off, saying she had chores at home.

“Suit yourself, amiga,” Nancy said. “Guess it’s just you and me, Casey.”

Her laughter rang through the lobby as they left.

Alice knew she was stalling. She drove south toward her house and thought about picking up tacos at Nobi’s on the way home. She felt a flash of impatience. She was not cooking dinner for the kid again. She wanted to be irritated, she realized. She needed to justify sending him home. But she liked the kid, which was not insignificant. As a rule, Alice didn’t like most people she met. But there was something special about this boy. And she was the one who had invited him. What had that grand gesture been about, anyway? She argued with herself all the way home.

Alice descended the long curve of the driveway and saw a truck parked in front of her house. Her stomach dropped as she heard rising voices, then yelling. Another Stevenson family fight? Of course Ed Stevenson would come looking for his son. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Her heart raced. She dreaded confrontation, but she’d be damned if Ed Stevenson thought he could scream at anyone at her place. She rushed up the walkway and threw open the door, ready for a fight.

10 Hive Maintenance

Requisites of a complete hive . . .

1. A good hive should give the Apiarian such perfect control of all the combs, that they may easily be taken out without cutting them, or enraging the bees.

—L. L. LANGSTROTH

Jake didn’t have the words to explain what he felt when Alice handed him the frame from the beehive that first morning. He was simply overwhelmed by the beauty of it. The wooden rectangle hung heavy in his fingers as he drew it toward his face. He saw a tapestry of multicolored pollen, capped honey, and glistening nectar. He breathed in the sweet aroma of fresh beeswax and fermented honey and felt the thrum of a thousand tiny bodies vibrating in unison. It hit him in the heart like a drug. The reverberation ran through his hands and up into his arms. His chest ached, and he thought his heart might explode. It was a calming weight, an invisible touchstone, a “You Are Here” marker.

The pollen-dusted frame was covered with delicate white wax. Across this surface, fuzzy golden bees moved with purpose. They paid no attention to Jake. Some were busy packing away pollen; others wriggled deep into cells filled with honey. Bees were feeding larvae or carrying away the bodies of the dead. Forager bees, nurse bees, undertaker bees. Alice named them as Jake watched the living tapestry of gold, ochre, and scarlet. He breathed in the scent of it all, a fragrance sweeter than cotton candy, and felt the urge to press his face into it. But what he would remember most was that the buzzing mass seemed to inhabit his body. He could feel the resonance in his chest, like when he had played the trumpet. The feeling traveled from his solar plexus through his rib cage all the way into his beat-up, eighteen-year-old heart—a vibration of happiness and contentment. It made him want to sing. He didn’t say anything to Alice. He thought he would sound crazy. But the experience made him sure he wanted this job. He pored over Alice’s books late into the night, and the more he read, the more it felt like fate, like some sort of door opening.

After Alice left for work, Jake sat on the porch and felt the west wind blowing over the ridgeline as the morning heated up. He watched the wind move through the trees on the edge of the woods, heard a flicker call from deep within the forest. The chickens fussed, and a dog barked. By force of habit, he stuck his earbuds in and turned on his iPhone, but then shut it off. He listened again to the wind, the birds, the faint song of chorus frogs in the distance. It was its own kind of music, and he wanted to hear it.

He wheeled down the ramp to assess the limitations of the yard. Slowly, he moved along the perimeter to gauge where he couldn’t go with the chair. He was glad there was no one to watch him struggle across the uneven ground around the yard. He rolled past the apiary and moved toward the barn, maneuvering for the best line.

He recalled the recent events at his parents’ place. His kind mom, who worked at the church and helped people all day long, losing her shit on Alice. Tansy Stevenson was a sweet, God-fearing woman who believed in helping her neighbors and loving her enemies. She decorated the kitchen with ducks and geese dressed in bonnets, and she loved watching funny cat videos on the Internet. But if anything appeared to threaten her only son, well, it brought out the pit bull in her. It was a small pit bull, more like an angry Chihuahua, but formidable.

And that fucking story about Ed! Alice filled him in, briefly, in the truck. Jake had no trouble believing it, though it made him sick. Ed had used the belt on him when he was little. The whippings had stopped when a neighbor saw Ed smack Jake, then twelve, and threatened to report him. Ed never hit him again, but Jake knew he wanted to. No surprise Ed had been violent as a child.

An unexpected wave of sadness washed over Jake then. His dad hadn’t always been so mean. He recalled the feeling of his father’s large hand over his as he walked to the edge of the pool for his first swimming lesson. Only five, he was afraid