The Music of Bees

by Eileen Garvin

  And just as he’d taught Amri. More cautious than he, she wore a full bee suit the first three or four times and just sat and watched him work. Remembering Harry’s introduction to the bees, Jake didn’t pressure her. She asked him questions while he examined the frames and documented the development of each new hive. She hadn’t fallen in love with them immediately like Jake had, which was like her. Amri felt things deeply, but it took her a while to show her feelings.

  In that way she was different from her parents. Like Ken, his wife, Olivia, was a social justice lawyer, but she had been a yoga teacher when she was pregnant with Amrita, whose name meant “nectar” in Sanskrit. The younger children had more earthly names—River, Sage, and Tierra—but Amri’s parents were still big on communication and sharing their feelings. The first time they invited Jake over, Olivia had called ahead to tell him the house had a ramp and would be navigable in his chair. Even though Amri had already told him, he thought it was really nice of her. As they sat around the table, they took turns saying what they were grateful for before they ate. Amri rolled her eyes. The younger kids had an easier time with it. Ice cream, tricycles, and unicorn underwear topped the list for Tierra, who had recently been potty-trained and was in love with her little-girl undies. For Jake, whose family had stopped eating dinner together when he was twelve and who didn’t have siblings, it was cool. He said he was grateful for honeybees, good friends, and his dog, not necessarily in that order. Still, he understood that Amri seemed reserved on the outside while she felt things intensely. And once he got that about her, he could easily read her affection for him. She loved him, he knew. The thought still made him dizzy.

  Last night at the farm she said she wanted to ditch class and come with him that morning, but Jake wouldn’t let her.

  “Don’t be a fool! Stay in school!” he said in his best imitation of Mr. T. “You can come help me after.”

  She shrugged and leaned down to kiss him before climbing into her car.

  “See you, handsome,” she said, her green eyes bright under her dark hair.

  There goes my girlfriend, he thought. It had been almost a year, but the words still made his heart pound. They weren’t rushing anything, but he could tell Dr. Gunheim at his next checkup that everything seemed to be working.

  After Amri left, Jake rolled out to the yard to watch the sunset. He pulled out his trumpet. The weight of the polished brass felt familiar and comforting in his hands. He ran through his scales for a while, which always aroused the suspicion of Red Head Ned. The little bantam stalked toward Jake and then patrolled the line between the boy and the chicken coop for a few minutes, as if to remind him who was boss. Jake finished his scales and played “Up Jumped Spring,” a piece he’d worked on over the winter. It felt like an appropriate song for the season and for the bees. The phrasing mirrored the quick, graceful motion of the bees and their contented, busy flight patterns up and over the field. Could the queen bees hear it? he wondered. He hoped so. Maybe they would understand what it was—a love song, an offering, a hymn of gratitude for his new life and the unexpected joys it brought forth.

  Now Jake looked at the two hives the third- and fourth-grade classes had built to house these two nucs. The third-grade hive was a traditional Langstroth like the ones he first saw at Alice’s. The fourth-grade hive was essentially a Langstroth hive laid out horizontally. It had the same number of frames, same inner cover and telescoping top. It was just long instead of tall. Some people might call it a leaf hive. This one was a Stokes hive, he would tell the kids, with a wry grin. Jake was now tending three of them himself, and they were thriving alongside the traditional Langstroth hives, just like Harry had predicted.

  Harry said the idea for the horizontal hive came to him after his first kite lesson with Yogi—an invention born of looking at the physics of a problem from various angles. If it were completely horizontal, Jake could add brood frames and supers to the ends. The bees would just build out instead of up.

  “They nested for thousands of years in logs and random holes before we made hives, so why not?” he’d said when Jake looked skeptical.

  It was an unexpected gift. Harry had given him the hive the morning of the march last May. The day Fred Paris’s goons had attacked them. What a fiasco. Stokes. Goofy bastard. Jake missed him.

  Jake shivered in the April chill and shifted his chair so the sun fell on his face. He put a hand on one nuc box and then the other. He closed his eyes and listened. There it was—that clear, ringing G-sharp.

  The bell rang. The door banged open, and the air erupted with the bright voices of twenty-two third graders, filing out of the building behind their teacher. They waved, smiled, and yelled Jake’s name.

  On his first day in their class in January, when he rolled into their room, they stared at his shiny bald head and the chair. Ms. Unalitin introduced him and told the kids he was going to tell them all about honeybees. One little girl put her head down and started to cry quietly. The teacher looked embarrassed.

  “Now, Ruby,” she said. “Remember what we talked about?”

  But Jake waved a hand.

  “It’s okay, Ms. U. Can I call you Ms. U? Most kids haven’t seen a wheelchair as fly as mine. They aren’t sure what to think.”

  He turned back to the class.

  “Okay, how many of you can ride a bike?”

  Several of the kids tentatively raised their hands.

  He cocked his head. “Really? Only the six of you? Nobody else in here can ride a bike?”

  More hands went up.

  “That’s more like it,” he said. “And how many of you bikers can pop a wheelie?”

  Hands shot up again, and kids leaned forward on their desks.

  “Awesome!” said Jake. “And how many of you wheelie-poppers can do a manual?”

  The kids lowered their hands and looked uncertain.

  “A manual,” Jake said, “is a wheelie plus a 360.”

  “Oh!” a plump boy yelled, kneeling on his chair and waving his hand. “My big brother can do that! He goes up and then around!”

  The boy leapt out of his chair and whirled himself in a circle. The other kids laughed.

  “Sit down, Joshua!” Ms. Unalitin called, but she was smiling.

  The kids looked back at Jake.

  “Well,” he said, “my chair can do even better than that. Watch this.”

  He popped a wheelie, did a 360 in one direction then back the other direction.

  “That’s a 720, kiddos! Wheelie with a double manual. Check me out!”

  They clapped and cheered and yelled, “Do it again! Again!”

  Now they streamed toward him, their small faces so familiar to him. Ruby, the one who had cried, sidled up close and leaned on the arm of his chair. Her breath smelled like graham crackers. The children encircled him and unzipped their jackets in the warming air.

  “Hey, chitlins!”

  “Hi, Jake!” they yelled.

  “It’s great to see you today. It’s a really special day. Anybody remember why?”

  Little hands shot up, and Jake pointed at Barbara, a gap-toothed beauty with long black braids who was a cousin of Celia’s. She grew shy when he called on her.

  “It’s Bee Day,” she whispered. “Día de las abejas.”

  “That’s right!” Jake crowed. “It’s Bee Day at May Street! I’ve got a queen for you to meet and her hardworking daughters and a few lazy drones. Let’s get started.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Alice Holtzman had been in a good mood all morning even before she confirmed that her favorite blue dress fit again. She pulled it over her head and smoothed the fabric down around her hips. She tied the belt at the waist and looked at herself in the mirror, pulled her shoulders back, and pushed her hair behind her ears. It was a nice dress and an old standby for special occasions. When was the last
time she wore it? One of the Ryan family birthdays? She loved this slate blue, which flattered her pale skin. But she took it off, deciding it was far too fancy. Slacks and a nice shirt would have to do for her visit to the Hood River County Courthouse today.

  Alice hadn’t expected the lawsuit that had blown up at the Hood River County Planning Department. Increased scrutiny following the SupraGro conflict revealed major problems within the county budget, and it came to light that Bill Chenowith had embezzled more than a million dollars. Today Judge Weisfield would read out the formal sentencing, which had already been reported in the paper. Bill would be spending the next twenty to forty years in the Oregon State Penitentiary.

  Debi Jeffreys had been the one who noticed. Debi the disgruntled office manager. Debi meticulously combed through the county financials and put it together that Bill had been skimming for years. Debi hadn’t had a raise in a while either, and she had three little kids to support.

  It’s always the quiet ones you need to watch, Alice thought to herself.

  She put on a pair of shoes—navy with a low heel. They felt tight, so she changed her socks.

  She thought of Bill and scoffed. The revelation cleared up a lot of questions, like why the budget was always so tight and how Bill paid for his nice boat that was moored at the Hood River Marina. Nancy was immediately demoted to her old position, and the county was still looking for Bill’s replacement. Rich Carlson had emailed her to ask if she would consider applying for Bill’s job. When Bill’s crimes emerged, he’d had a change of heart, he wrote. He hadn’t appreciated what a fine job she’d been doing. He sincerely hoped she would consider coming back, and either way, her pension plan would pay out as planned starting next year. Alice had deleted the email without replying.

  Now she walked outside and onto the porch. Automatically, she looked toward the barn, expecting to see Harry. She felt a small jolt whenever she did so and saw the bunkroom door closed firmly like a sleeping eye. She missed that bumbling boy.

  She glanced at her watch and saw she had some time before she had to be at the courthouse. She walked down the steps and headed toward where the bee yard used to be—that fenced perimeter that had grown from those first few hives to fifty last year, when Jake had come to stay. She smiled. Last year had been quite a time. She stood at the edge of the fence and looked at the broad expanse where the hives once sat. Now, instead of the painted white boxes set high on their stands, the yard was full of flowers—early bloomers like heather, foxglove, and heliotrope—that stood out in splashes of pink, lavender, and blue. The air was full of the scent of it, a heavy bouquet of bee-friendly plants. She closed her eyes, breathing it in. Summer would bring salvia, hyssop, lavender, Russian sage, and sunflowers. The flower garden had been Jake’s idea. He thought it would be another great tool for teaching the May Street kids.

  The air around her was alive with the zinging golden bodies of the honeybees coming across the field to light upon the flowers. By late summer of last year, Alice had understood that one hundred hives was not an impossible goal, despite the losses early in the spring. But she didn’t have room for that many in the old bee yard, so she moved them to the Ransom orchard, where there was more space. All hives but one had survived the winter. Now she had the space and the resources to grow as big as she wanted to. With good luck and splits she could have as many as one hundred and fifty hives by July.

  Alice gazed out toward the orchard. The trees held tight blossoms that would soon surrender to the warming spring days and explode in a white blanket that would toss around like froth in the west wind. Then those bees would be especially busy. And Alice would too, as she was now doubly blessed in honey and fruit.

  Alice had bought the old orchard from Doug at the end of last summer. He suggested it one August day when he and Alice sat drinking tea on his porch. They were talking about the county board of commissioners meeting where Stan had presented a proposal for banning some pesticides in the orchards and limiting others. It wasn’t a complete reversal, but it was a start.

  “Old habits die hard,” she mused.

  Doug nodded. “But people can change, Alice. These fellas are good old boys, but they love their trees. Give it time. Now what about you? What’s next?”

  Alice told Doug she didn’t know. She was looking at jobs in Portland, which would all involve a commute, but she hadn’t found anything. That was when he made his proposal about the orchard.

  “You know my kids don’t want the orchard, Alice. And I don’t want to move to Seattle. Me in the city? Impossible.”

  Doug insisted on holding the note so she wouldn’t have to take out a loan. Alice tried to refuse this generous offer, but her heart wouldn’t let her. Of course she wanted the orchard. It was what she’d always wanted since she had been that fourth-grade girl in Miss Tooksbury’s class. Yes, she said, absolutely. Doug would stay in the house as long as he wanted to, as long as he could and rent-free. As part of the deal Alice promised his children she would check on him every day and help him with shopping and errands. And spending time with Doug, well, that was no hardship. He made her miss her folks less.

  Alice Holtzman was now an orchardist and a beekeeper. She would have her first crop of pears and apples that fall along with another enormous harvest of honey. It all felt so right, like things had just fallen into place. That was what she’d told Dr. Zimmerman at her final session, when they both agreed that Alice seemed to be healing and moving on.

  “Steering your own ship again,” she heard her mother’s voice say.

  “Tough as a two-dollar steak. That’s my girl,” her father said.

  Alice heard a loud yawp and saw the brown body of Cheney streaking across the field from Doug’s house. Cheney and Doug were great pals now. The big dog wolfed down the breakfast Jake poured into his bowl and then ambled over to Doug’s for whatever tidbit Doug saved for him.

  Alice let Cheney into the house. “You behave, big boy. Stay off the bed.”

  He banged his tail on the floor and trotted down the hall to Jake’s room.

  Jake was an equal partner in the beekeeping business, which had officially outgrown hobby status last summer when they harvested four hundred gallons of honey at the end of the season. It had taken them the better part of a week, with help from Amri, Noah, and Celia, to harvest and bottle the crop. The shop had been converted into an assembly line where they took turns using the heat knife to cut the creamy wax cappings off the honey frames. They worked together loading the dripping frames into the extractor, monitoring the flow, and straining the thick golden syrup that poured forth. It was sticky, wonderful work. Celia had strained the wax cappings and made candles out of them. The honey sold for $20 a quart at the Hood River County Fair in the fall. After that, they had recruited Jake’s mother to set up their books, and Queen of G Honey had taken off. Ron and the nephews helped move the hives to the orchard, and they also built the network of ramps that Jake had designed to run throughout the apiary.

  Jake had more initiative than most at his age. He was certainly doing better financially than she had at nineteen, she thought wryly. Thanks to Amri’s lawyer dad, the kid had a trust that protected his stake in the honey business and his disability benefits. And lucky thing too. He had plans for queen rearing and cross breeding for mite-resistant bees that would keep Queen of G growing in new directions she couldn’t even have imagined. She laughed and shook her head. His enthusiasm never failed to surprise her.

  Alice climbed into her pickup and headed up the long driveway into town. She passed the high school and the gas station. She slowed down by the taqueria and made a mental note to call Evangelina and ask what she could bring to her youngest daughter’s quinceañera next weekend. The Monday after the extravagant party for the girl was Bud’s birthday. It eased her heart knowing she would spend the day before with his parents, Ron and Evie, little Ronnie, and the other nieces and nephews. Her family. Jake and Am
ri were coming too, and she thought she might invite Stan.

  Stan, as she had suspected, was a man worth getting to know. After that first beer at pFriem last summer, they went hiking up on Mount Hood.

  “Hiking! A healthy sheen on your brow!” She could almost hear her mother laughing.

  Holtzmans had always confined exercise to hard work, but Alice had taken to hiking. Over the summer Stan showed her his favorite trails along creeks and waterfalls up on the mountain. She and Stan were—what would her old-fashioned father have said? Keeping company. Nothing serious.

  Alice passed Little Bit Grocery and Ranch Supply, which she no longer haunted on off-hours. Now when she went she looked forward to seeing the people she knew—old friends and new ones. She pulled her seat belt off her neck and loosened the button on her pants, which just felt better. She stuck her elbow out the window and drove through her little town to the courthouse to see a bit of local justice meted out.

  * * *

  • • •

  Harry waited in line for the shower, holding his clean clothes under one arm and his toiletry bag under the other. He’d learned the hard way that anything left lying around would be filched by one of the other guys.

  He leaned against the sink and glanced at himself in the mirror. They’d let him keep the handlebar mustache, for which he was grateful. It took so long to grow in. It would have been a damn shame to have to shave it off for some vague regulation about facial hair.

  He looked stronger too. He was proud of that. He lifted weights and ran three times a week these days and felt fitter than he ever had. The work they had him doing was so physical it paid to be as fit as possible so he didn’t get injured.

  The water in one of the stalls shut off, and Harry heard loud whistling and a deep baritone singing “Shake Your Moneymaker.” The curtain swished open, and Yogi stepped out in fresh board shorts and a T-shirt. He saw Harry, dropped his dirty clothes, and launched into an air-guitar solo, whipping his long, wet hair around, finishing with a jump kick.