"Sure," she said, and took the lamp from my hand.
"It's nice to have someone else out here in the dark."
"Do you ever get scared out here alone?"
"I think I feel too tired anymore to feel scared. It takes too much energy."
"So why are you coming out here every night, anyway? We've already made a ton of money. Me and Lisa don't know why you're so obsessed with making more."
I paused before I answered so that I wouldn't say anything dumb, although part of me wanted to confess the $8,000 deal. "I hate to see these apples go to waste or those boxes. I just want to see them all sold."
"I guess I do too," she said.
Picking went a lot faster with her out there holding the light since I didn't have to keep climbing down the ladder to reposition it. I also felt safe somehow listening to her voice telling me about classes at school and what she wanted for Christmas.
After a few hours, she began to fade. Everything went dark all at once. I looked down, and she had dropped to the ground asleep, letting the lamp fall next to her. I didn't know whether to try and wake her up and take her home or not. In the end, I just turned the lamp back over and kept picking, leaving her on the ground. I would take her home after finishing up just a couple more boxes.
A little later I heard footsteps coming through the darkness. I turned and saw my dad walking up. He looked down at Jennifer and frowned.
"You just going to leave your sister lying here on the ground?" he asked angrily.
"I was about to finish up and bring her in."
"Maybe your mother's right. Why don't you come back home before you make yourself really sick."
"Let me just finish this up."
"Come on, I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here. You're going to hurt yourself and your sisters."
A feeling of resentment swept over me. If he was so worried, why didn't he try and help me finish? He hardly seemed to care if I succeeded. "I'm not trying to prove anything, Dad!" I yelled. "You're the one who's always talking about working so hard! I only started out here because I didn't want to work at that stupid scrap yard! But I can't stop now or you'll call me a quitter! I just wish for once you'd say I was doing something right!" What I said didn't make much sense, but I was so full of anger and frustration that I wanted to scream anything at someone.
My dad just looked at me. I thought he would shout something back, but he didn't. Something close to sympathy came over his face. "Do what you want, then. It's your health," he said. He picked up my sister and carried her home.
I waited until I knew he had reached the house, and then I switched off the lamp and carried it home.
I was exhausted but couldn't sleep peacefully. I kept thinking of yelling at my dad and my little sister lying there on the ground. Deep down I craved for him to say he was proud of me and I was doing something he never could have done when he was my age. That kind of thing would probably never leave his mouth. Maybe the best I could hope for was the fact that he didn't yank me off that ladder when I had yelled at him.
I also thought of Sam's and Michael's faces when I would have to tell them there would be no money for them after all. Mrs. Nelson was going to take everything just like I'd agreed to in the contract. When I did fall asleep, I dreamed that I was picking apples that wouldn't come off their branches. No matter how hard I pulled, they clung to the trees. I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself standing on my bed grasping at the walls of my room as if I were reaching for an apple tree.
***
Since the picking had begun, the one thing I had come to rely on was Amy's presence. Unexpectedly, during the second week of picking, she had stopped complaining or asking when it was all going to be over. She was out beside me every day until it got dark and all day on Saturdays. Compared to the nights when I was alone, those times hardly felt like work.
She never mentioned me staying up late at night. Maybe she thought that as long as she didn't acknowledge what I was doing, she wouldn't have to feel guilty about not joining me. When we would go out to pick, she would try not to look at the boxes I had finished the night and morning before.
She constantly encouraged me, though, whenever we were together. She would say things like "You know you're going to make more money than anyone else at high school did in their summer job" or "You know that my friend Paige Manning likes you. When this is over, you should call her because the two of you would hit it off." I didn't really believe what she was saying, but it was nice to hear it, anyway. When Sam would come tell us about a problem up at the road, Amy would always run off and handle it, telling me, "You stay here. I'll be right back."
***
On Thursday afternoon of the sixth week, Amy and I were already picking when Lisa stopped to talk to us on her way out to the road. She had a jelly jar full of green bills in her hands. This was just one jar of an assortment she kept under her bed with different amounts of money inside and labels taped to their outsides.
"I just want you to know that we've now cleared the $5,000 mark," she said excitedly.
"No way! That's amazing," said Amy.
"Yeah, good news," I added. I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible, even though it was actually terrible news. We had so little time left and were still thousands of dollars away from where we had to be.
"I never really thought we could sell this much," Lisa continued.
I bit my lip and climbed up my ladder. We had moved into the red apple portion of the orchard. Brother Brown called them Roman Beauties, but, according to Lisa, the Navajo customers just called them the "red ones." They didn't like them as much as the Golden Delicious, or "white ones," but were still buying them.
The leaves on the trees had begun to turn from the bright green of summer into the yellow green of fall. They felt leathery instead of soft like when they were new. While we picked, I listened to Amy humming along to the radio and chattering about her homeroom teacher. Everyone else was up at the road. Then I heard a sound I had never heard before. From behind me, there was a low thump. I looked around. Again in the distance, I heard the thump. I strained my ears to listen and heard another one.
My heart raced as I realized what the sound was: apples falling off the trees and hitting the ground.
We had reached the end.
It was probably only a matter of days before the rest of them were bad. I tried quickening my pace and even stopped worrying about the stems. I threw apples into the picking bag and practically jumped off the ladder to dump them in boxes.
My fingers began to shake from a combination of fear and fatigue. All I could hear were the thump of falling apples and the pop as I pulled others off their stems. The tree became blurry, and I could hardly keep my balance. As I tried to move off the ladder, I slipped and fell to the ground. Apples spilled out of my bag.
I lay with my face in the dirt, breathing it in. I pounded it with my fists over and over and then raised my head up and spit mud from my mouth. I rolled over and looked straight up into the branches of the nearest trees. Then there was Amy standing over me.
I sat up and put my head on my knees, and she sat down on the ground in front of me. She didn't ask what was wrong or if I was hurt. She didn't say anything.
It was warm for October, one of those days that trick you into thinking it's still summer. I felt the sweat from my head making the knees of my pants wet. The sky was changing from dark to light blue, and the first streaks of pink were forming above us. A golden light streamed through the leafy shadows and onto Amy's face. Even the beams of light seemed as if they were moving in slow motion.
"Do you remember when we were first learning to ride bikes?" she asked.
I didn't say anything.
"You could never balance very well," she continued. "But you kept trying over and over again. I remember your legs and arms were like one big bruise and scrape before you figured it out."
I looked at her silently.
"And then when I went to ki
ndergarten, you would ride your bike out to the bus every day to meet me. I always liked that. I still remember it really clearly." Her voice trailed off as she tried to picture it in her mind.
"Sometimes I wish we would have been in the same grade, though," she said. "You could have probably helped me with most of my classes. Maybe people would think I was smart too." She smiled.
Suddenly, I wanted to tell her everything—to make her understand and to make her forgive me. It wasn't going to be enough! No one was going to get any money. And I had done everything for the wrong reasons and had led them on the whole time. If she would just say it was okay, I could face Sam and Michael and my sisters and all their disappointment. I could accept everything else, as long as at that moment she said it was okay.
"Amy?" I began, my voice cracking. "I should have told you something right from the beginning."
She stared at me without changing her expression.
"I ... I ... kind of made this agreement with Mrs. Nelson. I was so stupid!" I said, pounding the ground again.
"I know," she replied, looking down. "She told me."
"What?" I gasped, with my mouth open. "What did she tell you?"
"About the $8,000 and how you would get the orchard."
"When?" I asked, still stunned.
"About a month ago. I think she doesn't really want you to have it anymore and was thinking the rest of us wouldn't help you if we knew about your agreement."
I sat up a little. Amy knew? And she didn't completely hate me? All of a sudden my forehead didn't feel as hot. "So why did you? Why did you keep picking?"
She didn't say anything at first, just grabbed a stick and started drawing on the ground. When she spoke, her voice was clear and calm.
"I never was doing any of it for the money. I never really believed you about making any money."
I smiled back at her weakly.
"Things are so different now from how they used to be," she continued. "Sometimes I get afraid when I think about what's going to happen to me."
"You mean after high school and everything?"
"I don't think I want to live here, but I don't really know. I've never been anywhere else. I just know it's going to be different, and as much as I complain about this place, I know I'm going to miss it."
She looked at my face, and then looked down again. "And I know I'll miss you too. Brothers and sisters stay close to each other, but cousins grow apart as they get older. Look at our dads. They're brothers and they do everything together, but do they ever talk about their cousins?"
"That doesn't mean we can't stay close!"
"It just happens. It already has, you know. We aren't like we used to be." She said this all in such a clear and strong voice that I couldn't argue. "So, anyway, I just thought I would like to spend this time together. One last big memory we would never be able to forget. Plus, now you really owe me big." She grinned.
"I still don't get why you just didn't quit when Mrs. Nelson told you."
"I think I just wanted to see it all work out. I wanted to see you succeed. You deserve to now."
She sounded so grown-up, but I could still see in her the little girl in ponytails getting off the bus. The sky was a burning red now, and it shone against her dark hair and sun-browned skin. She was so beautiful and I loved her. As she sat drawing on the ground, I could see the dirt underneath her fingernails. She was wearing an old sweatshirt she hated that her dad had gotten from a thrift store.
"Amy, I, I really will always remember this, but it's no use. We're more than four hundred boxes short just to clear the $8,000, and the apples are already falling off the trees. Haven't you heard the thumps?"
"I heard something, but I wasn't sure what it was. So that's it, then? We're just going to stop? We just give all the money to Mrs. Nelson and that's the end?"
"I don't know what else we can do."
"What if everyone just picks? We'll get our parents to help too. I'll convince them."
"I don't think they would, and I don't think there's time."
"Well, then, let's just keep the money and not give it to Mrs. Nelson. Or tell her we only made $1,000 or even $2,000."
"I don't know. Maybe she would sue us or something. Tommy probably knows how many boxes we've sold. He pays attention to things like that."
Amy started chewing her thumbnail like she always did when she was thinking hard. I knew she was considering a confrontation with Mrs. Nelson.
"Do the rest of them know?" I asked. "Sam, Michael, and my sisters?"
"No, I never told them. It's your secret. It's up to you to say something."
All the sick feelings came back. I remembered Michael's skinny body shivering after being drenched with the hose and Sam spitting the taste of Diazinon out of his mouth. I could see Jennifer asleep in the dirt with the lamp at her side.
"Ahhh!" I yelled, and pounded the ground again with my fist. "Why was I so stupid? Why did I agree to this?"
Chapter 16
The Last Day
I stared up at the sky and watched the thin clouds drifting apart in the sunset. Now that I had stopped moving, numbing exhaustion wrapped itself around me. My arms and legs felt like they were growing into the ground. My eyelids sagged shut.
I was jolted awake by the slamming of car doors and voices. I sat up and Amy was still sitting calmly in front of me.
"What's that?" I asked, looking around wildly.
"I don't know," she said, turning her head slowly.
In the distance I could see figures moving in the orchard, dozens of them.
"Someone's in the orchard," I whispered loudly.
"Sam and Michael and the girls probably," said Amy.
"No, there's too many of them." I got to my feet, and my legs felt weak beneath me. The figures were getting closer, and I could see they were carrying ladders. They were calling to each other loudly, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. It wasn't English, more like Spanish. When they were close enough to see their faces, I didn't recognize any of them. They gathered around where Amy and I were sitting and set up their ladders next to the surrounding trees. Without saying anything to us, they started picking apples with very quick hands.
I looked at Amy, who had stood up. She looked as shocked as I was. From the darkening edge of the orchard, I saw another figure moving toward us. It moved slowly and alone. A hundred feet away I recognized Brother Brown. I dropped my picking bag and stumbled toward him. He stopped when he saw me and waited for me to get within earshot.
"Thought you might use a little help," he said in his raspy voice.
I looked at him not sure whether he was some sort of dream. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.
"I hired this outfit through tomorrow. They finished up at my place a little early so I hope you still have a few trees left for 'em." He smiled with his whole mouth.
"I ... How did ... I don't..." My throat swelled up, blocking the words.
"I know. I know," he said in an almost tender voice. "Just put out any boxes you have left to fill and they can finish 'em off tomorrow." He took a last long look at me. "And get some sleep, would you." He turned and drifted off into the darkness.
I dropped to my knees. All the tears I had wanted to cry in the dark the weeks before came flooding out of me. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed until my face was streaked with teary mud. I rocked back and forth as all the pain and worry seemed to seep out of me. I felt something touch my shoulder and turned to see Amy standing next to me. I jumped up without even wiping my eyes and ran back to where the workers had their ladders.
I ran up to the first worker I came to and yelled at him, "Thank you! Thank you for helping!"
I got an embarrassed look in return. "Gracias!" I shouted.
The man gave a little nod and kept on picking.
I ran from ladder to ladder shouting "Thank you" and "Gracias." When I stopped to watch them pick, it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Their hands and ar
ms seemed to move effortlessly and automatically, three times as fast as mine. I would have sworn they were angels.
As they filled up their picking bags, the workers moved to the empty boxes set out beside the trees. When they saw the labels of ORANGES and PEARS, they looked at me as if to say, "Is this really right?" I nodded and motioned for them to go ahead and fill them up.
All the empty boxes we had scattered around the trees were quickly filled, and the crew left their ladders and picking bags and walked toward their cars and trucks, which were parked next to the orchard. The last one to leave turned to me and said, "Mañana."
I nodded my head and said, "Gracias."
Amy and I ran and quickly told the younger kids what was happening. They were closing up the station wagon after loading up a few unsold boxes.
"So let's get this tractor back and load up the rest of those empty boxes and get them out to the orchard. I need everyone's help because it has to be done before tomorrow," I said after explaining the situation.
"Are they really going to be able to fill all the rest in one day?" Sam asked in awe.
"Those guys can probably do it in a few hours," I replied.
Amy nodded her head in agreement.
A new wave of energy swept over me after we ate a little dinner. Michael and Jennifer held flashlights as we loaded up boxes and then dumped them among the unpicked trees. I was glad we had saved the new boxes until the end and felt proud to be able to spread them around. I was in bed by 10:30 and never slept better.
***
The next day was a Friday, and my mom had to roll me out of bed. I hurried out of the house in my pajamas to check if the workers were back in the orchard but saw no one. On the way to the bus stop, the orchard was still empty.
"Amy, there were people out in the orchard helping us last night, right? We put all the rest of the boxes out?" I asked.
"Yes! Why are you asking that?"
"I just want to make sure it was all real and I wasn't dreaming."
The Year Money Grew on Trees Page 16
