A Second Bite at the Apple

by Dana Bate

  The list goes on with a few more ideas, and Stu writes back within the hour.

  “Start with the cold storage piece,” he writes. “Would love to see where/how they store their apples.”

  Julie signs off on my contributing content to the Chronicle, too, as long as I give the market newsletter precedence on all market-related announcements and news. I’m a little worried I may run out of ideas and that by contributing to both, I will spend all of my waking hours on two enterprises that collectively will pay me about $150 a week. But Stu assures me there will be more lucrative opportunities on the horizon, so as long as I keep my ears open for a big story, I could be on my way to the career I’ve always wanted but that has somehow eluded my grasp.

  To jumpstart the cold storage piece, I coordinate with Maggie to visit Broad Tree Orchards’ facility on Friday, since I don’t have to work for Rick that day. We arrange to meet in front of Eastern Market, a year-round public market housed inside a nineteenth-century brick building on Capitol Hill, where Maggie delivers a bushel of apples every Friday morning before heading back to her farm in Maryland. But when I arrive in front of Eastern Market that morning, neither Maggie nor her truck is anywhere in sight.

  A gentle drizzle begins to fall from the sky, so I scurry along the uneven sidewalk in front of the market’s sturdy brick edifice, peering around the corner in case I misunderstood which entrance Maggie meant. But as I stare down C Street, I don’t see any sign of her there either. I head back toward the main entrance, taking cover beneath the green metal awnings that stretch along the sidewalk in front of the market from end to end. On the weekends, these sidewalks fill with vendors selling everything from cabbage to jewelry, and crowds flock to the outdoor market, particularly in the spring, when the entire block comes alive with activity, a beating heart pumping life into the surrounding streets and alleyways. On a weekday like today, however, the area beneath the awnings is empty, and I pace beneath them as drops of rain ricochet off their tops.

  Once I have been waiting fifteen minutes, I decide to head inside. Either I misunderstood Maggie’s instructions or, it being April 1, this is some sort of cruel April Fools’ joke, but regardless, I’m sick of standing in the rain and would like some answers. Or, at the very least, a cup of coffee.

  Even at nine thirty, the market bustles with activity, as people mill up and down the long, narrow thoroughfare and browse the numerous food stalls. The cement-paved market is a straight shot from end to end, lined on either side by butchers, cheesemongers, and grocers selling everything from chicken feet to lettuce. The steep, hipped roof rises nearly fifty feet, traversed by white metal scaffolding, and what little sunlight there is today pours through the skylights and windows lining the walls. The air carries a funky mustiness, the combination of aged cheese mixed with fresh fish and bread hot from the oven. A crowd is gathered at the far end of the market in front of the Market Lunch, which serves some of the best blueberry pancakes and crab cakes in town.

  As I make my way toward Capitol Hill Produce, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I whirl around and find myself standing face-to-face with Drew. He wears a weathered pair of khakis, New Balance sneakers, and a heather-gray hooded sweatshirt, his face covered by a layer of stubble just shy of a full-blown beard. As always, I’m enchanted by his dark eyes and warm smile.

  “Drew—hi.” I glance at my watch. “What are you doing here? I was supposed to meet Maggie at 9:15.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m here. Maggie ran into a problem with the supply truck, so she couldn’t make her usual delivery. She asked if I could give you a ride out to the orchard instead.”

  “Oh. Okay.” My heartbeat quickens. “Isn’t that really inconvenient for you? Don’t you have work today? Heidi said you work at the Alaska Wildlife Fund during the week.”

  “I do. But my boss is cool. She has a really lenient leave policy—especially for something like this. She’s a big supporter of the local food movement.”

  “Ah. Got it.”

  Great. Aside from the fact that I didn’t wash my hair this morning and look like a hungover college student in my comfortable “journalist clothes,” Heidi arranged our group date for tomorrow night, so seeing Drew a day in advance—and sitting alone in a car with him for an hour and a half each way—officially ruins all of my plans. I have an extremely limited first-date repertoire, and after today, I will possibly have nothing left to talk about.

  “I’m parked down the block on Seventh,” he says, nodding over his shoulder. “You ready?”

  I smile awkwardly. “I was born ready,” I say.

  This is going to be a disaster.

  By the time we have been driving for thirty minutes, I have officially sweat through my shirt. I keep my arms glued to my sides to prevent Drew from seeing the dark green circles staining my long-sleeved olive-green T-shirt, but as a result, I look like a spooked robot. Throw in some greasy hair and a few zits, and I officially look like an explosion of hormones.

  “So what is it like to work for Rick?” Drew asks once we have been driving for forty-five minutes.

  “Exasperating and delicious.”

  He laughs. “He’s such a character. Bakes a mean sourdough, though.”

  “And some pretty amazing brioche.”

  He taps the steering wheel with his thumbs. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

  “Mostly pretty mellow stuff. A little Bon Iver, a little Fleet Foxes. A lot of Elliott Smith.”

  “Elliott Smith? Didn’t he play at the 9:30 Club recently?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.” I glance in Drew’s direction. “He’s dead. He committed suicide.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  A lengthy silence hangs between us, probably because I somehow managed to steer our conversation in the direction of suicide. This is why I shouldn’t date. By tomorrow night, I’ll have us talking about the Holocaust.

  I stare out the window as we pass long stretches of farmland, a light mist of rain spraying the car on all sides. Once we have been sitting in silence for an intensely awkward five minutes, we both attempt to restart the conversation, speaking at the exact same time.

  “So,” we say in unison.

  “Sorry,” Drew says. “I didn’t mean . . . You were starting to say?”

  “No, nothing. I was just . . . You first.”

  Drew scratches his jaw and pulls around a traffic circle. “Can we start over?” he says.

  My shoulders relax. “That would be great.”

  “Tell me why you’re visiting Maggie’s cold storage facility. What’s this all about?”

  “I’m producing a short video along with a Web column for the Washington Chronicle’s new Buying the Farm blog.”

  “You work for the Chronicle?”

  “Not yet. Maybe someday. For now, I’m sort of a freelancer.”

  “And they’re interested in a cold storage facility because . . . ?”

  “Basically, the editors want to show people how cold storage works, and why you can buy apples almost all year round, even though the harvest ended months ago.”

  Drew nods. “Ah, got it. Cool.” He flicks his wipers to clear the mist off the front windshield. “How many of these columns do you think you’ll write?”

  “As many as they’ll let me? The blog is sort of experimental at this point, but I’m hoping it catches on so that eventually they’ll hire me.”

  “Ha, right. Wouldn’t that be nice.”

  I shift uncomfortably in my seat. “That wasn’t supposed to be a joke. . . .”

  “No, I know. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just know how hard it can be to break into food journalism. From what I’ve heard, it’s an exclusive club.”

  He’s right: It is an exclusive club. Back when I started my Perpetual Feast blog, I tried to attract readers by commenting on all of the food blogs I read daily—the super popular ones, with thousands upon thousands of followers and hun
dreds of commenters for each post. But none of them followed me back or commented on my blog. None of them acknowledged my blog existed. I felt like the new kid in school, who showed up in the lunchroom with her tray of food and tried to sit at the popular table, but all the seats were taken and no one tried to make room. I’m sure that’s why I had so much trouble finding a job as a food writer after college. I didn’t have the right connections with the right people, so unless I was willing to work for free, I had to look elsewhere.

  But the Chronicle’s food editor asked to meet with me, and now I’m writing for him, so for the first time, I feel as if I’m part of the club—if not as a full-fledged member, then at least as a welcomed guest.

  “I really think I have a shot at making it this time,” I say.

  “This time?”

  “I tried to break in during college, but . . . well, it didn’t really work out.”

  Drew smiles. “Well, I hope it does now. We’re not getting any younger, right?”

  I offer a faint smile in return and shift my gaze out the side window. “Right,” I say. Thanks for reminding me.

  We arrive at Broad Tree Orchards just after eleven o’clock, and Drew drives up a long dirt driveway, past rows of cherry trees covered with fluffy pink blossoms and bright blue netting. The farm stretches over a flat plain of more than a hundred acres, with barren, drab patches of still unplanted earth punctuated by vibrant swathes of pink from blooming peach and plum trees. We pass the main farmhouse, with its white clapboard siding and rust-colored roof, and make our way toward a large cement building with a flat roof and no windows.

  Drew parks in a large paved lot, and as we get out of the car, Maggie emerges from behind the building, her spiky, salt-and-pepper hair sticking out in all directions.

  “You made it!” she says as she approaches us. “So sorry about the mix-up. That damn truck makes my blood boil. If I had a nickel for every time it broke down and messed up my plans, I could retire.”

  “No worries,” I say. “I still managed to get here.”

  “Thanks to this guy,” she says, elbowing Drew. “I can think of worse things than spending an hour and a half in the car with this handsome devil.”

  My cheeks flush as Drew and I lock eyes.

  “We had fun,” he says, smiling, though I can’t tell if he means it or is just being polite.

  “Come on,” Maggie says, waving us toward the cement building. “Let me show you around.”

  She waves us around the back and escorts us through a narrow doorway, which opens to a large warehouse, where a series of locked metal doors sit side by side. She explains that each door opens to a separate, controlled-atmosphere cold storage room, where they load freshly picked fruit before sealing the room and sucking out nearly all of the oxygen. Without oxygen, the fruit stops breathing and ripening until they reopen the room, keeping the fruit as fresh as it was when they plucked it from the tree.

  “We opened the one at the end before you came to get the air moving,” she says. “Otherwise, there isn’t enough oxygen for us to breathe either.”

  She leads us into a small lockup at the end of the row, the right side of which is lined from floor to ceiling with large green crates, each one at least four feet on a side and filled to the brim with golden yellow- and blush-colored apples.

  “We’re actually down to our last round of apples, so it’s a good thing you came today,” she says. “At this point, our main focus is on getting ready for cherry and peach season. You’ll have to come back in August, when we start harvesting apples again.”

  She checks the oxygen level in the room on a small digital monitor and gives a thumbs up. I set up my camera in an empty corner and begin to film as a mustard yellow forklift enters and removes a crate from the top of one of the stacks. I shoot from all different angles as the forklift empties the room crate by crate, making sure I get plenty of close-ups of the bright, crisp fruit and the lifting machinery in action. When the room is empty, I meet Drew and Maggie in the common area, where workers repack the fruit into smaller, wooden containers to take to the markets. I get more footage of the fruit being unloaded, dozens of golden orbs tumbling into weathered crates, and once I’ve followed the crates onto the freight truck with my camera, Drew and I pile in the back of Maggie’s pickup truck, and she takes us out to the fields where she is planting more Goldrush and Pink Lady apples for next season.

  As she barrels around a bend in the dirt road, I slide across the backseat and press up against Drew, whose knee grazes mine. My heart races as our bodies press against each other, my torso nuzzling his. He looks as if he might reach out and rest his hand on my leg, but before he can, Maggie brings the truck to an abrupt halt.

  “Here we are,” she says, throwing it into park. “My new babies.”

  We hop out and head for the new plantings, my camera armed and ready. The rain stopped about thirty minutes ago, and though the sky is still tinged with gray, the sun has begun to peek through the clouds.

  “We’re boosting production on the assumption that this deal with Green Grocers goes through,” she says as I pan across the rows of new trees.

  “Julie mentioned a partnership might be in the works,” I say, clicking the Pause button. “Any updates?”

  Maggie shakes her head. “But I think the idea is to create a mini ‘farmers’ market’ within the store. It’d be a huge windfall for us. The former CEO made it so hard for us to get our foot in the door, but this new guy seems intent on doing away with a lot of the red tape.”

  “Sounds like it would be great exposure.”

  “It would.” She lets out a hardened laugh. “Hopefully the new guy won’t let the skeptics muck it all up.”

  I get a few more shots of the orchard, and then Drew and I hop into the truck with Maggie and head back to the storage facility, where I take a few more notes on the cold storage process and do a brief on-camera interview with Maggie. By the time I’ve finished, we’ve been at the orchard more than four hours.

  Drew helps me load my belongings back into his Camry, and we wave to Maggie as we pull back onto the dirt road in front of her farm and head back to DC.

  “That was awesome,” he says. “You’re really good at interviewing people. You ask all the right questions.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Definitely send me the link once the story goes live. I’d love to see it.” He reaches into his sweatshirt pocket and pulls out his phone. “Oh, and while you were shooting, I downloaded an Elliott Smith album. I figured we could listen on the ride home.”

  He taps on his phone with one hand as he steers with the other and rests the phone on the dashboard. The mellow harmonies of Elliott Smith’s guitar hum through the speakers on his phone, and as we turn onto the highway back toward DC, I think this ride might not be nearly as bad as I’d imagined.

  An hour and a half later, Drew pulls up in front of my house and turns on his warning flashers.

  “Door-to-door service,” he says with a smile.

  “Thanks so much for the ride. I’m sorry you had to take a day off for this.”

  “Are you kidding? You made my day.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. I don’t know what I expected when we headed out there today, but seeing you in action . . . it was cool. Gave me a whole new perspective on Maggie’s business.”

  “Oh. Well . . . I’m glad.”

  “We’ll have to continue the conversation tomorrow night. Heidi said eight o’clock? At Estadio?”

  “That sounds right.”

  “Cool.” He clears his throat. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  I smile and move to take off my seat belt, but before I do, he leans in and kisses me. His breath is warm, and he tastes of mint chewing gum, and his stubble tickles my chin, not enough to bother me but enough for me to notice. He kisses me softly as Elliott Smith’s voice hums through his speakers, and as his lips press against mine, an uneasy feeling arises deep in my chest, a se
nsation I cannot place, something that prevents me from giving in fully to this moment. What am I afraid of? Why can’t I just let go? What is wrong with me?

  Drew rubs his thumb gently along my jawline, and then he pulls away and smiles and reaches across me to open my door. I undo my seat belt, grab my bag, and slip out of the car, but as I watch him drive away, the uneasy feeling in my chest hardens into a tight ball, and I finally place it. It isn’t fear or anxiety or even insecurity.

  It’s guilt.

  CHAPTER 22

  I shouldn’t feel guilty for kissing Drew. But I do, and it’s all Jeremy’s fault.

  No, I take that back. It isn’t Jeremy’s fault. It’s Zach’s.

  What Zach and I had . . . it was special. We were best friends. We grew up together. I experienced so many of my firsts with him by my side: my first byline, my first Thai curry, my first time watching The Godfather and Casablanca. We lost our virginity to each other. When Libby got invited to parties by my cooler classmates, who were three years her senior and never invited me to anything, I didn’t care because I had Zach. We had each other. For a long and crucial stretch of my young adult life, his existence and mine were inextricably linked, and I cannot reflect on my development into the person I am today without looking through the prism of our relationship.

  Which is why his betrayal still stings after all these years. Looking back on it now, I should have seen it coming. Everyone told me high school relationships rarely survive four years of college. But I told myself Zach and I were different. We weren’t a couple of horny teenagers who were obsessed with one another, two kids who thought we were the first people to discover sex. Our relationship was deeper than that. We talked about our hopes and fears and dreams. We cooked together and went on walks in the park together and read books together. We were soul mates. At least that’s what I’d thought.

  When freshman year of college went by without a hitch, I thought we had it all figured out. We’d agreed to see each other at least once a month, alternating visits at Northwestern and Princeton so that neither of us had to shoulder the cost of a plane ticket every time. There were, of course, the obvious comparisons between our colleges at every visit—The Keg versus The Street, the preppy allure of Princeton versus the artsy character of Evanston—but we both appreciated that each of our respective universities suited our personalities. We were happy to see each other finally fit in, after feeling like outsiders in high school.