The Music of Bees

by Eileen Garvin

  Earlier that day, after her talk with Doug Ransom, Alice had visited Victor Bello and Dennis Yasui, both of whom were on Doug’s list of allies. They listened to what she had to say about the lawsuit, asked some good questions, and signed the petition. She felt a rising sense of hope. Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to rally the south valley orchardists to this cause, she thought. Alice hadn’t planned to stop at Paris’s place. He wasn’t on Doug’s list, but his mailbox was right down the road from Victor’s. She hesitated and then swung in the gate.

  She parked behind Fred’s white Ford and walked to the back door. She could hear The Dr. Laura Show blaring out of the kitchen radio. Fred’s wife, Ellen, appeared, looking none too friendly, and pointed Alice toward the barn before letting the screen door bang shut. Fred came out of the barn wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Well, Alice Holtzman! Looky here. Haven’t seen you in ages.”

  Fred was about ten years older than Alice, and though he had grown up in the valley like she had, for some reason he affected a Southern accent. Fred always took great care in his appearance. His Wranglers were ironed with a crease, and his boots shone. He wore his ginger hair in a short buzz and favored ornate belt buckles. “The Bantam,” her mother had called him. “He’s a horse’s ass,” Al had said, but her father had also reminded her that she didn’t have to like everyone, just get along. Fred was a third-generation orchardist. He’d grown up farming with his grandparents. Surely, he’d at least listen.

  Alice mustered a smile. “It sure has, Fred. I don’t think I’ve seen you since Dad’s funeral.”

  He nodded and polished the toe of one shiny boot on the back of his jeans and folded the rag into a neat square. “Good man, your father. Don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

  “Thanks, Fred.”

  “Broke the mold.”

  Though her father hadn’t liked Fred, Fred had liked Al. There were loads of men like that, Alice noted, at the reception following the funeral. Half the county had shown up for Al at the Elks Club, it seemed. People circulated the room, taking her hand and offering their condolences. Some, like Fred, teared up as they told stories about Al. It was a testament to her father’s diplomacy, she supposed. She thought of that then as she decided what to say to Fred about SupraGro, hoping his respect for her father might ease the way.

  She pulled her clipboard out from under her arm. “Look, Fred, you know my folks sold their place before they died, so I don’t have the orchard anymore.”

  He nodded, folded the rag again, and tossed it on the hood of his truck.

  “Still, I care deeply about the industry and keeping these trees healthy.”

  She hated the way she sounded. Stilted, like she was reading an ad.

  “Sure, Alice. I know you do,” he said, cracking his knuckles.

  Encouraged, she went on.

  “It might sound sort of strange, but I’ve gotten into honeybee keeping in the past few years.”

  “Is that right?” Fred said, raising his eyebrows.

  Alice gave a self-conscious laugh. “It’s pretty fascinating, actually. But what’s really interesting are the connections between local honeybee populations and the health of the orchards. The USDA did a study on this that showed that orchards near healthy honeybee populations had a twenty-five percent increase in fruit production.”

  “You don’t say.”

  She nodded. “Yes, those numbers were from 2012. I have a copy of the study here if you want to take a look at it.”

  She struggled with the clipboard and pulled the flier loose. She held it out, and Fred glanced at it but didn’t take it.

  “That’s mighty interesting,” he drawled. “Funny, I was just reading a different study that said orchards increased their yield by fifty percent using commercial support. As a matter of fact, this study showed that over time, the yield can increase as much as sixty percent. That’s a lot of apples, Alice.”

  His smile became a sneer. She gripped the clipboard.

  “Fred, the researchers who did that study were paid by SupraGro. That’s not exactly what you’d call objective science, is it?”

  Fred pulled a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and picked his teeth. “Objective? I don’t know, Alice. I s’pose it depends on who you ask. Your tree-hugger friends at Watershed aren’t exactly known for their objectivity now, are they? Libel and defamation is what I heard.”

  She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “You ask your ol’ friend Stan. That lawsuit against the dams last year made a lot of nice folks mad. You people,” he scoffed. “‘Oh, the environment! The climate is changing!’”

  His voice rose to a falsetto, and he waved his hands in the air.

  “Just love drama, don’t you? I’m stickin’ with my friends on this. Chenowith asked me to be a local point person for the spring spray. I said yes, out of courtesy, of course. Friends stick together.”

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a catalog, which she recognized from the CP meeting. He tossed it onto Alice’s clipboard. “Have a look at that and let me know if you have any questions, Alice.”

  He walked away, leaving her standing in the dusty driveway.

  Her hands were shaking, and her face blazed. What would her father have said? For starters, Fred would never have spoken to her dad like that, or any other man, she thought. She dropped the SupraGro catalog on the driveway and left. She drove south toward Dan McCurdy’s farm, the next on Doug’s list, but pulled over and cut the engine and tried to slow her breathing. How could she even reason with someone like Fred Paris? The good old boys’ network would trust Bill Chenowith and believe the so-called science of the pesticide company. People thought Stan was a crazy hippy, even though he had a master’s in environmental science and a law degree. This town was so small-minded sometimes.

  No one was home at McCurdy’s. Discouraged, she headed back to the farm. Jake sat at the picnic table, peering at his laptop, and waved as she drove up.

  “Hey, kid,” she said, and sat down with a thump. “Where’s Thing 2?”

  Jake pointed to the barn. “He’s talking to his mom.”

  “Ah, good boy.”

  Jake looked closely at her. “How did it go? With Mr. Ransom, I mean.”

  Alice let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine! Things went fine with Doug. It’s these other idiots I have to convince!”

  She banged the map of the valley down on the table.

  “People here think global warming is a hoax made up by Portland yuppies who want to turn the interstate into a giant bike lane and dismantle capitalism in favor of socialist communes and replant all the wheat farms with marijuana.”

  Jake’s eyes widened.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the crazy one!”

  But she did feel crazy, or at least a little unhinged. Quitting her job had made her feel she’d been living wrong. Her life had been compressed during these last years. It wasn’t just about Bud either, balling up behind her grief. It was sitting in endless meetings and not speaking up about bad policy. Doing Bill’s job for him because it was easier than speaking up. Not telling her father how much she wanted the orchard. Alice had spent years trying not to upset other people. The elation of walking out of Rich Carlson’s office had been replaced by an urgency. She had to make up for lost time.

  “You also need to calm down, dear,” she heard her mother say in her head.

  She shook herself.

  “Sorry. Bad morning,” she said. “How about we tackle those splits on the other side of the yard?”

  Jake nodded and smiled, always eager to work. Things had gone fine until she dropped the frame and got him stung all over.

  Now Alice looked at his shaved head, lumpy from reactions to the stings, and his swollen face. She laughed.

  “Jesus, kid. Look at you! The neig
hbors are going to call social services!”

  He laughed, rubbed both hands over his scalp, and gingerly touched his puffy cheek.

  “This is the only one that really itches,” he said. “The other ones—I don’t know—it feels kind of good.”

  “All right, now. Don’t turn all New Agey on me and become one of those sting healers.”

  He held up his hand. “Scout’s honor, Alice,” he said. “Let’s go finish up.”

  When he convinced her he really was fine, they worked through the rest of the afternoon. Jake insisted on returning to the apiary without a hat or veil as usual. Harry came out of the barn and observed from afar before heading off to Ace Hardware. Alice and Jake moved six splits into new hives Harry had built. They matched Alice’s old Langstroth hives in style but had been made with great care, every corner a dovetail joint and sanded smooth.

  “Harry’s a real problem solver, isn’t he? Your workbench is pretty slick too.”

  Jake ran a hand over the platform. “He says he’s going to make me a better one,” he said. “It’s still a little awkward, but I can transfer frames and check them for brood and all. I still need someone else to pull the brood boxes down for me, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She heard a pitch of frustration in his voice, which was unusual. He’d been quieter today, even before the stinging episode, she noticed. She imagined he was still thinking about her news from the morning and the tenuousness of his own future.

  “You’ve got real talent, Jake. You should be proud of your work,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “Hey, I’m serious! All that business with the sound of the queen. And you are the only beekeeper I know who has worked bareheaded from day one.”

  Jake glanced at the apiary but didn’t meet her eye.

  She gestured around them. “Look at what we did today. Six new hives. I couldn’t have done that alone. You’ve been a huge help.”

  Jake shook his head and looked away. “A monkey could do it,” he said.

  Alice snorted. “A monkey, huh? Look, kid—I know you might think I’m always showering people with compliments, but I don’t offer refuge to rebellious teenagers every day. If you weren’t pulling your weight, you’d have been gone in a minute. I might seem like some kind of Mother Teresa, but—”

  Jake threw back his head and laughed. “Mother Teresa! That’s totally your new Twitter handle, Alice. MomT!”

  She laughed too, and her breath caught. She turned back to her tools, her vision blurring. She didn’t want Jake to leave. She had grown to care for this funny boy and the other one too—nervous Harry. Alice Holtzman didn’t like very many people. But she realized now that she loved them—these two slightly lost boys who had come to feel like stray nephews.

  She could see Jake pretend not to notice her emotion. He opened the smoker and looked at the bottom.

  “I know you don’t know what will happen with work and all. But thanks for letting me stay for now. I want to help with the lawsuit. I’m committed, Alice,” he said, looking up at her.

  She met his eyes and nodded. “Thanks, Jake.”

  She glanced at her watch. It was nearly five. Ron had answered her text, at least. “Twin Peaks, 5:30 p.m.,” he’d written, and nothing else. Her stomach flip-flopped. But she thought of Evangelina, which strengthened her resolve. Ron was not her enemy, she told herself, though she might be his.

  “I’ve got an appointment in town,” she told Jake.

  “Another orchardist?”

  She shook her head. “No—just some personal stuff. I’ll see you in an hour or two.”

  At Twin Peaks, Alice found a table in the shade and sat with an iced tea. The 1950s-era drive-in sat across the road from the county airport. A handful of small planes were tethered to the ground like a flock of restrained birds. One had its motor idling. The hatch was open, and the pilot stood on the wing. Alice remembered a summer evening years ago when Buddy’s friend Vince flew them into Portland for dinner. Buddy was going with or without her, he said. When she balked, he asked what she was afraid of.

  “Um, crashing? Dying? What do you think, you big oaf?”

  He laughed and reminded her that statistically speaking, she was more likely to die in an automobile accident than a plane crash. So she went. She remembered how beautiful that evening flight was. It was cloudy when they took off, the west wind clobbering the small plane as it strained upward. Once in the air, they flew smoothly. Alice looked out over the clouds to see the old volcanoes poking up above the white sea. They were lined up in the pink alpenglow—Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson to the south and Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Rainier to the north. She sat in the back seat of the small plane and looked at her husband’s profile. When Vince let him take the controls, Alice felt her worry leave her. She looked down at the river of clouds that snaked above the gorge in a mirror image of the river. She would follow Bud Ryan anywhere.

  A car door slammed, and she saw Ron walking toward her in his sheriff’s uniform. She stood as he approached. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either. She didn’t know what to do. Shake hands? Ron seemed as uncomfortable as she felt as they faced each other.

  “Hi, Alice,” he said.

  “Hello, Ron. Thanks for meeting me,” she said.

  There was an awkward pause. She gestured at his uniform.

  “You on duty?”

  He shook his head. “Just off. Didn’t have time to go home and change.”

  She nodded and looked at him more closely. Did he look nervous?

  “I’ll just go grab a—” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “You want anything?”

  She shook her head. Ron walked to the soda machine and returned with a Coke. He sat down across from her, rolling the sweating can between his hands.

  “Long time,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Yes, it has been,” she said. More than a year, she thought, though they both knew that.

  She looked into his face, so familiar to her. Ron was six years older than Alice, so he would be fifty that year. His blond hair was grayer now. The crow’s-feet had deepened around his eyes. But otherwise he was the same old Ron. There was a time when she had felt a brotherly love from this man. It didn’t matter if Ron still hated her and blamed her for Bud’s death. She just needed to deliver this message and they could go back to the silence of the past year. But for some reason she kept talking about other things.

  “I saw Ronnie,” she said. “I heard he joined the department.”

  “Yeah. Last fall,” Ron said, and gave a short laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “You know Ronnie. He’s still getting his feet under him.”

  Alice nodded. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “He’s a good boy.”

  Ron looked away toward the airport and then back to Alice.

  “He told me you have a couple of kids working for you,” Ron said.

  He raised his eyebrows, being diplomatic. Surely Ronnie had told him about Harry’s junky trailer up in BZ Corner and Jake’s wheelchair and kooky hair.

  “They’re pretty handy,” she said.

  Ron nodded. “It’s good you have some help around the place.”

  His voice was stilted.

  “You know you can always call us,” he said. He looked at her and glanced toward the airport again. “Me and my boys, I mean.”

  Alice didn’t know what to say to that.

  Ron cleared his throat and looked down at the table. The silence stretched interminably as Alice waited for Ron to speak. When he finally met her gaze, his face was tight with grief.

  “Look, Alice. I said some terrible things to you after—” He stopped and took a breath. “After Bud died. Probably unforgivable things. I was— It just hurt so much to lose him.”

  Ron stared down at his clench
ed hands, and she could see the tears gathering in his eyes. His words came out in a rush.

  “I think about him every day, and I think about those things I said to you. I’ve wanted to call you to tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t think you would ever speak to me again. I just— I’m so sorry. I should never—”

  His voice broke.

  Alice saw again how she had failed to appreciate Buddy’s family’s grief. Locked away in her own pain, she had not considered theirs. They had each other, after all, she’d thought, thinking that somehow made it easier for them. How could she have been so selfish? She reached out and touched his sleeve.

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Ron. Water under the bridge. Buddy would want us to be friends.”

  The big man looked up, nodding. He wiped his eyes. “He would, Alice. You’re right.”

  He tried to laugh. “You can’t blame me! You know the Ryan family motto: ‘Shoot first and ask questions later.’”

  Alice smiled.

  “Not Buddy, though,” Ron said. “He took after Grammy June. Always happy, that guy.”

  Alice nodded. She felt emotion rise in her. Her heart beat hard in her chest, and she let herself think of his face. Bud’s great teasing grin. Her eyes grew wet, but it was okay. She could hold her love and her grief in the same moment.

  Ron watched her, crossing and uncrossing his arms as she composed herself.

  “Your mom always said the Ryan mean streak skipped your generation,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  Ron laughed, but then his face grew serious. “So, what’s this thing about Evie?”

  Alice took a deep breath and told him, as concisely as she could, about the SupraGro contract with the county, Bill’s retirement, how Rich Carlson had threatened her, and how she’d quit.

  Ron’s face grew stormy. “Those two,” he spat. “No checks and balances in this town. Always double-dipping.”

  Alice nodded.