One Bad Apple

by Sheila Connolly

  “Baldwin. Originated not far from here, in Massachusetts, in the eighteenth century. Very popular in the early twentieth century, until it got squeezed out by the McIntosh. Harvested that one myself, right here, in early November—it’s a keeper. Try it.”

  Holding the apple in her gloved hand, Meg took a bite. The skin was thick and resistant at first, but the flesh inside was coarse and juicy, with a spicy tang. It bore no resemblance to any apple she had ever bought in a supermarket. “Wow. It’s good.”

  “Of course it is. It hasn’t spent six months in a shipping container or a warehouse.”

  “I have these in the orchard here?”

  “These and many other varieties. As part of my job, I seek out and preserve old varieties that are in danger of disappearing forever. There are still many old stocks, lurking around the country-side here. Now that technology is improving, we need these forgotten varieties for genetic crossbreeding, to try and put the flavor back into this country’s apples. And I fear it is nearly too late. I’ve seen far too many trees or even whole orchards fall before the bulldozers of progress. But there is much we can learn from the old orchards, and it’s a shame to lose them. Why, you even have a quince, over there toward the road.”

  A quince? Meg wouldn’t know one if it bit her, or if she bit it. Her fingers were getting numb. “I’m sorry, but I really should go back and wait for the plumber. Is there something you want me to do?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll allow me and my staff to maintain our study program here. We won’t be in your way.”

  “Sure. Of course. Do I need to give you official permission or something?” It wouldn’t bother her if there were people wandering through her apple trees—she couldn’t even see them from the house. And she needed some time to think about whether having an orchard on the property was good or bad, in terms of selling the house. And how she felt about it.

  “That’s grand! We did negotiate a formal agreement, oh, years ago, when we first started using this orchard. I believe it was the Warren sisters who agreed to it? It might be wise to draft a new one for you to sign, if you don’t mind.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Meg couldn’t bring herself to worry about giving away rights she hadn’t known she had.

  Christopher beamed happily. “Wonderful! I’ll let our department chair know, and we’ll set the wheels in motion. Thank you so much! I’ve been a bit concerned because we need to start pruning soon. I’ll send you some reading material so you can familiarize yourself with what you have. Ah, I can tell you’re chilled. Let me walk you back to the house.”

  As they made the easier downhill trip, Meg asked, “What about the apples? What happens to them when they’re harvested?”

  “The Tuckers sold them to a local cooperative.”

  Meg laughed. “Funny—they never mentioned that to my mother. And she thought she was doing them a favor, keeping the rent low.” They reached her front door. “I’m glad you stopped by, Christopher. I’ll look forward to seeing what happens in the spring.”

  “It’s been my pleasure, dear lady. And you’re in for a treat!”

  2

  Meg hoped that the next knock on the door would produce the plumber, but when she opened it she found a middle-aged woman with fashionably styled blonde hair, wearing a smartly cut wool jacket and tailored pants, and clutching a clipboard. “Meg Corey?”

  Shoot. The Realtor she had called—before her plumbing had gone funny on her. She had forgotten that they had scheduled a walk-through today. “Yes, that’s me. And you’re Frances?” Meg drew a blank on the last name.

  “I am. Frances Clark, Valley Realty, biggest firm in the Pioneer Valley. You going to let me in?”

  “Oh, sorry, of course.” She stepped back to let Frances in, then went through her wrestling routine with the door.

  She turned to find Frances’s petite nose wrinkled, and sighed. “Sorry. The plumbing’s acting up. I called a plumber, but he isn’t here yet.”

  “Who’d you get?” Frances asked.

  “Chapin Brothers.”

  Frances nodded. “They’re good—at least, Seth is. Can’t say as much for his brother Stephen. Stephen’s heart’s not really in plumbing, if you get my drift.”

  Meg tried to imagine the intersection of hearts and pipes and gave up. “Well, someone should be here soon. You want to go ahead with the walk-through now, or come back some other time?”

  Frances checked her watch. “I’m already here, so why don’t we just get it over with? This is only preliminary anyway.” She scanned the room with a professional eye. “So, what’ve we got here—looks like your basic colonial, four up, four down. Bathrooms?”

  “Um, yes? One and a half.”

  “Come on, show me.” Frances led the way to the hall and then up the central stairs, Meg trailing helplessly behind. Frances continued to fire questions, and Meg answered as well as she could. Which wasn’t very well, since she didn’t really know the house, and certainly not its history, old or recent. She followed Frances the real estate agent, feeling more and more depressed. The woman had arrived armed with not only her clipboard but also a screwdriver, and she alternated between jotting an alarming number of notes and using the screwdriver to poke at things—plaster, woodwork, bricks. If she kept it up much longer, Meg was going to have to take the screwdriver and poke her with it.

  After a very long hour, they arrived back where they had started. “What do you think?” she finally asked Frances.

  “Meg—I can call you Meg, right?—Meg, you’ve got a real gem here. Authentic colonial, probably 1760s, nice piece of land—I checked the tax records. All good. But there are a few teeny, weeny problems that you should take care of before you even think about putting this place on the market.”

  Meg sighed. Even her unskilled eye could pick out problems, and she shuddered to think what she hadn’t yet discovered. “Tell me.”

  “Maybe we should sit down—this could take a little time.”

  “All right.” Meg led the way to the dining room, which looked deceptively sunny and cheerful. “Hit me with it, Frances.”

  Frances consulted her notes, flipping through the pages. “Let’s start with the structural stuff. From the top”—Frances giggled at her own joke—“your roof is shot—has to be at least fifty years old. Replace it. Your windows are single pane, no storms—big heating bills. The exterior needs to be scraped and painted, especially the trim. Your foundation seriously needs repointing. Haven’t you noticed a bit of a breeze in the basement?”

  “I try to avoid going into the basement. And the attic. And what’s repointing?”

  “Oh, well, that’s why you didn’t see the water stains on the roof boards where the leaks are—which are pretty obvious, since you don’t have any insulation up there. Repointing means replacing the mortar between the stones of your foundation. In case you haven’t noticed, most of your mortar is gone. Moving right along. Your gutters are nonexistent. Your driveway is mainly dirt with a sprinkling of gravel. Your barn out back is about to fall over, not that that counts in the formal inspection— which, by the way, this is not.”

  Frances sat back and cocked her head at Meg. “You know, it might not be a bad idea for you to get an official inspection done. Oh, not until you’ve taken care of a few of the problems. But it might make a good selling point. Reassure nervous buyers, you know? They’d probably want an inspection of their own, but it’s a good-faith gesture coming from you.”

  And it would cost her more money. “I assume you’re not done?”

  “Oh, Lordy me, no. Let’s see, did I cover all of the outside? Roof, paint, foundation, grounds.” Frances consulted her list. “Okay, let’s move inside. Systems. Your electric is half knob-and-tube, which makes modern buyers very nervous. It should be upgraded, and I’d put in a two-hundred-amp box while you’re at it. Your piping is mostly copper, which is good, but it’s old, and you’ve got a few leaks. And you could really use another bath. Your hot-water hea
ter, forget it. Your furnace? Not good. It’s got to be at least thirty years old, and it’s definitely creaky. How you holding up?”

  “I guess it’s nothing I didn’t expect.” Meg stifled another sigh. “Is that it, or do you have more?”

  “Sure do,” Frances said crisply. “Okay, we’ve covered the basics. Oh, and your kitchen appliances are pathetic. You’ll have to do something about those. Now, cosmetics. Looks like the last time this place had a makeover was maybe 1980?”

  “Could be.” Meg shrugged. “It’s been rented out since about then.”

  “That explains why none of the big stuff has been done, right? Absentee landlord?”

  “My mother.”

  “Gotcha. Anyway. Interior: wallpaper’s got to go—most of it makes me gag. Ditto the carpet. Floor in the kitchen, too. Haven’t seen that vinyl pattern in years. The bathrooms need upgrading. A lot of the woodwork could stand to be stripped.”

  Meg fought despair. This was worse than she expected; she’d had no idea that things were in such bad shape. “Look, Frances, can you tell me anything good?”

  Frances gave her a look of sympathy. “Sure. It’s a beautiful house, or would be if it were fixed up. Good-size rooms, good layout. Some original features, if you can dig them out from under the crap. Like I said, nice lot, pretty views. Close, but not too close, to town. This is a great area—all those colleges within a few miles. Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke. It just needs a little work.”

  A little work? Was Frances being sarcastic, or was she just naturally simpleminded? Meg wasn’t sure. “And there’s the orchard,” Meg blurted, surprising herself.

  Frances stared blankly at her for a moment, then nodded. “Oh, right, up toward the highway. That’s right—that’s part of this parcel, too. Pretty, in the spring.”

  Meg allowed herself another sigh. “So tell me, if I do everything you ask to the house, will I get a better price? Will it sell faster?”

  “Honey, that’s a hard one. I think the short answer is ‘yes,’ but I can’t give you a formula. You said on the phone you’re a banker, right?”

  “I am—was.” Meg wasn’t sure herself anymore. “But I specialized in municipal finance, not residential.”

  “Well, in any case, you know that sometimes it takes money to make money, right? I can tell you what buyers are going to want to see, and that might give you an idea of where to spend your money. You do have some money to put into it, right?” A look of anxiety flashed across Frances’s face as she saw her commission evaporating.

  “Some, yes. But from what you’ve been saying, we’re talking about a lot of expensive items.” Meg’s severance check was dwindling fast. Would she recoup all these outlays when the place sold? Or should she cut and run right now, before things got any worse?

  “I know. But it should be worth it, in the long run. Why don’t you get some estimates, see what it would cost you? And, to be honest, it never hurts to leave a few things undone—buyers like to feel there’s something left for them to do, gives them a sense of ownership. But that usually doesn’t apply to the behind-the-scenes stuff like furnaces. They like to do the pretty things, the ones that show.”

  Meg wondered, not for the first time, just why she had agreed to help her mother sell the house. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She hadn’t had anything else to do with herself after her job had vaporized, and there was nothing holding her in Boston. At least she had been careful to work out a formal arrangement with her mother—much as she loved her, Meg knew her mother didn’t have a head for business. Meg made sure that her mother had named her joint owner of the property, which would entitle her to a share of the proceeds from the sale. With the stipulation that Meg had to oversee repairs. When Meg had signed the documents, she had had no idea of the extent of those repairs, and now she was kicking herself. She had foolishly agreed to use her severance money to fund them (maybe her mother was more savvy than she had thought), to be reimbursed from the profits. Those hypothetical profits were diminishing daily.

  She squared her shoulders. “Okay, give me a time line. When would be the best time to put it on the market?”

  “Certainly not right away, if you were thinking of it. Market’s kind of slow right now, all across the state, and mortgage lenders are pretty wary. In any case, spring and summer are always best— places just look prettier, you know? I mean, unless you’re in a real hurry to unload the place. You could do it, but it would cost you. You’d have to lowball your price.” Frances wrinkled her nose at the idea.

  “So I’d have maybe four months to get it into shape?” Meg asked.

  Frances looked relieved. “Right. I really think it would be worth it. Oh, tell me—you have anything like a history on this place? I mean, it’s been here for a while, since before the Revolution. If you could come up with a good story, that might be a nice selling point.”

  Meg shook her head. “I have no idea. It belonged to a couple of my mother’s unmarried great-aunts, Nettie and Lula Warren, and I think they’d lived here all their lives. As far as I know, it’s always been in that family, and they were the last of that line. I’m amazed they left a will at all, but I gather they were into genealogy, so they knew that their closest relative was my mother. They did want the place to stay in the family. Anyway, I have been thinking about looking into the house’s history.” Whenever she had anything like spare time, which at this rate might be never.

  Frances beamed. “Well, there you go! You can look up some old maps, maybe some deeds—get copies of them, frame them, and hang ’em in the hallway. Lookers love that kind of thing. They think they’re buying a little history.” Frances checked her watch. “Well, I’ve gotta run. Look, Meg, I know this seems like a lot to think about, but if you put some effort and some money into the place, you won’t regret it. And if you need some names to do the work, give me a call.”

  Meg escorted her to the door. “Thanks, Frances. At least you’ve been honest with me. I’ll be in touch.” After she watched Frances pick her way along the icy path to her car, Meg turned to contemplate the interior of “her” house. Freaking white elephant, that’s what it was. History indeed. It was old, period. And it was suffering from all the ailments of old age—creaky joints, failing internal organs. It would take an unthinkable amount of work to do even half of what Frances had suggested, not to mention money.

  Once Frances had driven off, Meg cautiously opened the door to her kitchen—and closed it quickly: the smell seemed to be getting worse. This problem was not going to just go away. Where was the plumber? She was trying to do as much of the work as she could herself, but plumbing was outside her pitifully small area of home-repair expertise. She needed a professional, even if she had to pay him.

  Why had she ever thought she could rehab an old house in the rolling hills of Granford, Massachusetts? Until a month ago, she had had trouble keeping her apartment in Boston neat—and had been happy to call the building manager at the first sign of a leaky faucet or balky electrical switch.

  No more. Boston was her past, and she was now a resident of Granford, albeit a temporary one. Her mother had decided that this little project was just the thing to do while Meg waited for that perfect job to fall into her lap. Then again, her mother hadn’t seen the place in decades. When she had inherited the house and land from those aged aunts, she’d considered selling the place, but the real estate market had been soft back in the 1980s, so her mother had simply rented it out to a series of tenants with the help of a local Realtor, and more or less forgotten about it except as a tax write-off. And since she hadn’t needed the money, and owned the house free and clear, she had been content just to collect the rent, which easily offset the tax bills. Maybe Meg’s mother had inherited a Yankee thrift gene and couldn’t let go of a property easily. Or, Meg reflected, maybe it was just a case of “out of sight, out of mind.”

  But the last tenants had moved on a couple of months earlier, and nobody else had expressed an interest in a decrepit h
ouse in the middle of nowhere, so it had sat empty until Meg’s mother had had her little brainstorm. And as she had pointed out, Meg could job hunt from just about anywhere, couldn’t she, in this Internet era?

  But now Meg wished she had been a bit more specific about who was footing the bills for this renovation. Of course, part of that had been her own stupidity: She had had no idea what this “little” project was going to cost, or how long it was going to take. She had blithely assumed that she could dip into her severance pay, slap a coat of paint on the place, and put it on the market. She had learned quickly how wrong she had been. But now she was reluctant to go back to her mother and ask for assistance. Meg was the banker, wasn’t she? And she was supposed to be smart about money, wasn’t she? Maybe the events of the last few months had hit her harder than she had realized and muddied her thinking. So here she was, stuck—and spending money left and right.

  But if she was honest with herself, Meg had been ready—no, eager—for a change of scene, so she hadn’t looked too hard at what she was getting herself into. Being downsized out of a job was the last straw in a not-so-good year. A few months before she’d lost her job, she’d also been unceremoniously dumped by her so-called boyfriend, Chandler Hale. Being somewhere else for a while had appealed to her. And she wanted to do something that would wear her out enough to sleep at night without wonderingwhy she had apparently repelled both a lover and an employer in the space of a few months. Mom’s plan had offered the ideal opportunity, and Meg had conveniently ignored the fact that she barely knew which end of a hammer to hold. She had taken herself to Granford with high hopes—which had lasted until this afternoon’s visit with Frances. Three weeks of blissful ignorance had just come crashing down around her head.

  Meg had a dim memory of visiting the Aunties with her mother once, many years earlier, but she had no memory of the house. What she remembered best about the visit was being bored. The ladies were unimaginably old to her five-year-old mind. Worse, they were cranky and unaccustomed to children. They had offered tea in brittle china cups and dry store-bought cookies, and then had shooed Meg out to explore the yard while they chatted with her mother. Meg, dressed in her finest for this ceremonial visit, had had little interest in exploring the drafty barn or the muddy fields, and instead had spent most of the time kicking at clods of dirt and feeling much put upon. Meg’s mother had finally given up: her duty done, she had made quick farewells to Lula and Nettie, then collected Meg and scooted her off to the nearest ice cream place.