The Writer’s Orchard
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2004 by Sandra McDonald
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"Do you think we're lost?" Linda asked. "I think we're lost."
"We're not lost." Alex shifted the Camry down to third gear and gritted his teeth as the car rattled and lurched. They were ten miles off 1-95 in Maine along a rural road that rose and fell like the humped back of a dinosaur, and he was growing deathly sick of sun-dappled fields full of hay and manure. "Just keep your eye out for a blue barn."
Linda pulled out the map book.
"We're very close," Alex insisted. He reached for the radio but the damned thing only got AM anyway. The Camry, which smelled like sour milk and didn't have a working air-conditioner, was a disappointment overall. "You know, your sister could have let us borrow her SUV."
"She needed it for the chai tea carpool."
"Tai chi, you mean."
"She thinks you're only dating me to get access to a car anyway. Don't you think that's silly? I think that's silly."
"Why do you always answer your own questions?"
"I don't."
"You do. All day long I've been listening, and you always answer your own questions."
"Do I?” Linda tilted her head. "I don't think that's true."
Alex resisted the urge to slam the Camry into the nearest elm tree. Famous actor meets untimely end, the headlines would say, except supporting roles in four off-Broadway plays and a non-speaking role in a Mel Brooks musical had left him far from famous.
"I could write a story about this," Linda said. "Two lovers get lost in the countryside and have a great adventure."
"Last week you were going to write about two lovers who get food poisoning from seafood restaurant."
"I still think there was something wrong with that fish."
"The point is--" Alex stopped himself. Pointing out that Linda never actually wrote any of the stories she talked about would only lead to an argument. He was saved from finishing his sentence by the appearance of the long-sought-for blue barn at the top of the next rise.
"See?" he said. "Absolutely not lost."
Beside the barn was a dirt driveway that led to a two-story house of gray stone and green clapboard. Alex parked the Camry with a sense of triumph that quickly faded. The house's windows hadn't been washed in several years, and newspapers piled up by the front door had turned yellow from time and weather.
"I don't think your friends live here," Linda said.
"They only bought it last month.” Alex climbed up to the porch and twisted a brass knob on the front door. A bell jangled through the quiet air, but no one answered.
Linda reached for her phone. "I'm going to call them."
Alex circled the house. Around the back stood a smaller barn that had collapsed into itself and a ten-foot-high stone wall with a wooden door set in it. The door swung open under the press of his hand, revealing an orchard of apple trees and wildflowers. As Alex stepped forward he was pleasantly surprised to feel the stress of the trip drop from his shoulders like an old winter coat. Instead of manure he smelled freshly dug earth and the sweetness of apples. In place of Linda's chatter he heard the wind soughing through the leaves. The leafy branches above had stretched and entwined so thoroughly that the sunlight was filtered into a pale green unlike any he'd ever seen.
"Good morning," a man's voice said.
"Hello?" Alex asked.
An old man as slight and short as Linda stepped out from behind one of the trees. He looked seventy years old or so, with thick white hair and round spectacles.
"Morning," the man repeated. "What kind of story have you come to buy?"
"Story? I'm looking for Bob and Gwen."
"Bob and Gwen?"
"They don't live here?"
"Can't say that they do.” The old man lifted his shovel. "Goodbye, then."
"Wait," Alex said. He liked the soothing quality of the orchard, the way time and worry seemed to stop within its walls. "What did you say you're selling?"
The old man pulled a bandanna from his pocket and mopped sweat from his forehead. "Are you a writer?"
"No. I'm an actor."
"This is the Writer's Orchard."
"You sell stories?"
"Something like that."
Alex had imagined Maine full of storekeepers pushing overpriced antiques, down-home cookbooks and lobster T-shirts, but this farmer had invented a whole new niche. "Writers drive all the way up here and pay you money?”
"Some do," the old man allowed. "Some don't."
Maybe Linda would like one as a gag gift. "Say I was interested. What do you have?"
The old man scratched his nose. "Some short literary pieces. An Amish mystery with recipes thrown in. An international spy thriller with a strong romantic subplot."
"How much for that one?"
"Five hundred dollars."
"Five hundred!" Alex laughed. "For an idea you thought up over breakfast? If it's so good, why don't you write it yourself?"
"Not interested?"
"I'd have to be an idiot," Alex said.
The old man nodded. He walked away until the orchard swallowed him up completely. Alex shook his head at the foolishness of it all and plucked the nearest apple as a souvenir. Immediately the wind rose and whipped the branches over his head so wildly that he had to duck to keep from getting poked in the eye. The sun slid behind clouds, turning the orchard dim and cold and full of shadows. He hurried back toward his car, hoping to reach it before the sudden thunderstorm struck, but out by the house the sun was bright and hot, the sky clear all the way to the horizon.
"Linda?" he asked. "Honey?"
For a wild moment he thought she'd disappeared. Then he saw her standing with Bob and a pretty brunette on the porch of the house across the road.
"You dumbass." Bob met him halfway and enfolded him in a bear hug. Though Bob had lost his hair and beer gut over the years, the grin on his face hadn't changed one bit. "You could get lost in a closet, hoss."
Alex punched his arm. "We made it, didn't we? Man, do you have one screwy neighbor."
"One of several. Come on and meet Gwen. She's been waiting all week for the bigshot actor to arrive."
###
Bob's house looked like it had come straight out of the pages of an L.L. Bean catalog and his wife from a Victoria's Secret centerfold. She sat across from Alex in a tight pink blouse, making it hard for him to focus on anything but her breasts.
"You were really Matthew Broderick's understudy?" Gwen asked.
"I had every line memorized.” Alex put down his fork, glad to delay eating more glue-like spaghetti. "He's a great guy. His wife, too."
"You look like him." Gwen tilted her head. "No, more like Rob Lowe."
Bob reached for the salad. "What is it you do, Linda?"
Her mouth full, Linda gave a little wave of her hand. Alex answered, "Investment banking."
Linda swallowed. "Actually, I write. The bank's for paying the bills. Like Alex and LaPierre's."
"LaPierre's is temporary, honey. You've been at the bank for five years."
"It's how we met," Linda told Gwen and Bob. "My girlfriends and I went out
for dinner and Alex was our waiter."
"It's not permanent," Alex said, maybe a little harshly. Linda looked down at her plate.
Gwen picked up her wine glass. "I write, too. Poetry."
"Limericks," Bob said.
"Limericks are poetry," Gwen said.
"It's not like you do sonnets or anything, sweetie,” Bob said. "Remember freshman year, Alex? Theater 101. All writers are frustrated actors."
Gwen gave her husband a sweet smile. "And what are drama professors?"
"Speaking of writing," Alex said, and told them about the old man across the road.
"So that's his secret," Bob said. "No wonder he does such a good business. Steady traffic all summer long."
Alex agreed, "All those best-selling authors. We always knew they were hacks."
"Don't be a jerk about it," Linda said.
"What?" he asked, all innocence, but she wouldn't answer.
That night, as they readied themselves for bed, Alex retrieved the stolen apple from his duffel bag and presented it to Linda.
"For you. Forbidden fruit from the Writer's Orchard."
Linda examined it. "Do you think it's organically grown? It's probably full of pesticides."
"I don't know."
She put it aside. "Maybe later. Alex, you know I support you being an actor, right?"
Alex had never asked for her support. "What of it?"
"I'm not sure you respect me as a writer."
"I respect you." He slid his arms around her waist and kissed the hollow of her throat. "More than you know."
She cupped his face. "Do you love me?"
"You know I do."
That night he dreamt of tree roots snaking their way down Fifth Avenue and uprooting buildings with great roars of rage. At two a.m. he woke to Linda frantically searching through the dresser.
"Did you know where my diary is?" Linda asked. "I can't find it. I need it."
"No," he mumbled, and went back to sleep. In the morning the other side of the bed was empty. He heard a furious tapping of computer keys coming from Bob's downstairs office.
"Lin?" he asked, knocking.
"She's writing," Gwen said, poking her head out of the kitchen. Alex followed her to the counter, where she'd already burnt some coffee.
"How long has she been in there?" he asked.
"Just a couple of hours. She said she's been inspired to write a new story. I know what that's like"
He watched the way the sun highlighted gold in Gwen's hair and the way her breasts moved under her long T-shirt. "I'd love to read your limericks sometime."
Gwen gave him a lopsided smile. "I bet you say that to all your friends' wives."
He laughed, guilty as charged. Bob stumbled in, sleep still crusting his eyes, and kissed Gwen on the cheek. They were supposed to go golfing, the four of them, but Gwen suggested that Bob and Alex go ahead while she worked in the garden and Linda followed her muse.
"You could still come," Alex protested. "Linda'll be fine on her own."
"No," Gwen said. "You two boys enjoy the day."
Bob drove Alex out to the golf course near Bowdoin and they spent most of the day bullshitting in the sun. Bob said Gwen was a sexual dynamo. Alex said Linda could bend more ways than a pretzel. When they returned to the house Gwen reported that Linda was still composing her epic.
Bob asked, "She always get so wrapped up in projects?"
"You know writers," Alex said.
It was Bob's night to cook, which made Alex happy until he saw the homemade pizza's scorched crust and undercooked cheese. Afterward they watched a movie on the big-screen TV in the den, Alex lonely in an armchair while Gwen and Bob cuddled on the sofa like lovesick teenagers. Alex's annoyance at the whole situation built and built until a headache pounded behind his right eye.
"Linda," he said to the door, "if you don't come to bed now, don't come at all."
She didn't answer, and the door was locked when he tried to open it.
Up in the guest room, Alex stole Linda's pillow to prop under his own head. The house was silent but for an occasional passing car and the tapping from the office. In the morning he saw Linda curled up in a chair by the window. She looked bloodshot and weary but happy, like a mother with a newborn.
"It's the best thing I've ever written," she said. "A couple about to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary reflect on the nature and obligation of love."
"Do you realize how rude you've been?” Alex scratched the sides of his head as hard as he could. "We come all the way up here to visit and you hole up like a hermit."
Linda gazed out the window. "I woke up hungry and ate that apple. A little while later everything came to me--the characters, the setting, the conflict--Alex, it was like magic. It was the most amazing thing ever."
"It wasn't the goddamned apple."
"I'm sorry if I was rude. But this is what I do, you know?"
Though Alex tried to act like a supportive boyfriend at breakfast even he could sense the tension. Gwen and Linda parted like sisters, with kisses on the cheek. Bob slapped Alex's back and told him how to avoid a notorious Portland speed trap. During the long drive home Alex met each of Linda's attempts at conversation with monosyllables, and was happy when she gave up and settled for gazing out the window at the rolling hills of Massachusetts and Connecticut. On the train into Manhattan he took refuge in discarded sections of the Sunday newspaper and watched the haze-bound city draw near.
"Call me tomorrow," Linda said outside Grand Central. "Let's do Italian."
"I've got a reading to go to," he said.
"Tuesday? I want to show you that new bistro."
"We'll see.”
She laid a moist hand on his arm. "You said you loved me."
Alex pecked her cheek. "I'll call you later, okay?"
He didn't call her. He didn't return her three phone messages that week, nor the two the week after, nor the Hallmark card she sent saying she missed him. Easier that way, no messy fights, nothing said that they'd later regret. For a few weeks he feared she might show up at LaPierre's but each night at the restaurant brought other faces, other women. It wasn't until early October that he heard news of her from Joey, the goateed manager at the corner copy shop.
"I saw your girlfriend's story in the New Yorker," Joey said. "You know how hard it is to get in there? How much they pay? They reject me all the time."
Alex read the magazine while standing in a bookstore aisle and wasn't surprised that Linda's story was the one she had written in Maine. She'd set it in Alex's own home town and gotten most of the details right, including the unflattering nickname of the elementary school where the husband taught. He empathized with the husband, who'd dedicated his whole life to doing what was expected of him and had nothing to show for it at the end. To his surprise the wife was equally sympathetic, having put aside her own dreams in order to raise a family that had always taken her for granted. At the end of the eight pages he felt as if he'd lived that marriage with all its ups and downs, and was surprised that his ring finger was bare, and sad that no one was waiting for him at home.
"How'd you like your girlfriend's story?" Joey asked the next time Alex went in for copies.
"She's not my girlfriend," Alex said.
He got a call-back on a supporting role in a soap but was beaten out by an twenty-year old undergrad from Syracuse. Alex peered into the mirror, counted the days until he turned thirty and had new headshots taken. He changed agents. He became convinced he would be a waiter for the rest of his life, kowtowing to stick-thin models who pored over every item on the menu but then ordered only lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette sprinkled on top. A few days before Christmas he opened a holiday card from Bob and Gwen and impulsively picked up the phone.
"Hoss!" Bob said. "Merry Christmas!"
"You too. How's winter in the deep woods?"
"Same old." Holiday music and conversation floated in the background behind Bob's voice. Alex pictured Gwen in a tight red dress wi
th antlers on her head. "We're having a tree-decorating party."
"Beer cans and condoms?"
"Grown-ups buy real ornaments, pal."
A familiar voice asked, "Bob, should this go here? I think this should go here."
Alex sat up on his sofa. "Is that Linda?"
"Yeah. You two broke up, huh? Sorry to hear it. That story in the New Yorker, though, what a gem."
"Why is she visiting?" Alex could think of only one reason, really. "Did she go to the orchard?"
"She was in the neighborhood."
"In the neighborhood? In Maine?"
"Great news about her novel, huh? Huge advance. So how's Broadway?"
Alex didn't sleep well that night. Long before dawn he grabbed a sheet of paper and wrote down all the money he'd ever made from acting. The total didn't even break five digits. He bit the end of the pencil and eyed the paperbacks propping up the coffee table. Words on pages. Not as interesting or natural as acting, but surely not rocket science either.
"She can do it," he said. "No big deal."
It took him a week to arrange for time off from the restaurant and find someone who'd let him borrow a car. Driving through New England in snow wasn't nearly as scenic as it had been in July and the car heater barely worked, but he made it to Brunswick with sensation in most if not all of his toes. The blue barn's roof was heavy with snow and the orchard bare in the pale winter light. For some reason he'd imagined it would always be summer within its stone walls, the trees in perpetual bloom.
"Hello?" he called out. "Anyone here?"
Only the wind answered. Alex trudged over crusted snow and kept his hands burrowed in his pockets, wandering aimlessly until the smell and sight of wood smoke led him to a small shack. He knocked on the door and the old man opened it.
"I want to buy a story," Alex said.
The old man's brows furrowed. "Out of season."
"You must have some leftover. In a cellar somewhere?"
The old man gave him a closer look. "I remember you. You're the thief. Stole one for your pretty little girlfriend."
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