Part 21 (1/2)
Pause.
”I'm aware.”
This wasn't going to be as easy as Shoshana had thought. ”I don't really know how to say it...”
”Is this about the Alexis Allbright story?”
”Uh ... you mean the picture?”
”No. Story. Girl made everyone feel s.h.i.+tty about not being skinny, then gets fat herself. Makes for great print. I saw what she did to you on Oprah. Ouch.”
”Yeah, well, that's kind of why I'm calling.”
”Shoshana, my father used to have a saying. If you have a mouthful of s.h.i.+t, spit it out.”
Shoshana stared at the phone.
”Right. Well, the thing is...” She glanced down at the clipping on her lap. At Alexis's startled eyes, her protective hand over her midsection, unsuccessfully hiding her weight gain from the camera. Shoshana sat up straighter. ”I want to make a statement about the picture you ran.”
”Yeah? What kind of statement?” Shoshana could hear typing in the background. She pictured Judy Price as a mult.i.tasker: pencil behind her ear, jabbing at keys, drinking a mug of coffee, and talking to Alexis, the phone glued to her shoulder.
So Shoshana told her, and when she was finished, Judy Price had a humdinger of a quote for tomorrow's paper.
Shoshana went downstairs to wake up her lot; each person had a special role for the orchard's grand opening. After jumping up and down on Emily a few times and ducking her sister's threats to ”punch you in the vag,” she rapped on Greg and Jessica's door, likewise with Jane and Andrew (in case either couple was having some early morning loving, she didn't want to disturb them by opening their doors), and snuggled Andrea spoonlike until she finally agreed to get out of bed due to Frank Sinatra licking her face with his doggie breath. Next, she woke up Karen and Aggie, who had gone out late last night to the Black Horse Tavern, a bar in Mendham. Shoshana heard them come in sometime around two, Aggie's dreadlock bells jingling as she walked up the driveway.
”Wow, your haircut looks really pretty,” Karen said now, stretching her long legs and yawning.
”Thanks. Now get your b.u.t.t in the shower.”
Shoshana was opening the gates at ten o'clock, so she put out cereal and milk for everyone. Fuel. As her friends padded downstairs barefoot and ate, chatting away, Shoshana looked around and realized she had fallen in love after all: with the farm. It brought all the people she cared about under one roof, and gave her a pa.s.sion she'd never known she had: to grow and tenderly take care of apple trees. The scent of their trunks, the s.h.i.+ne in their leaves, the smell of fresh cider ... she was indeed in love. There was work to be done each season, and she was excited to take it on.
Joe Murphy and Greta arrived after most of the breakfast bowls had been put into the sink and washed by Aggie. Everyone got a kick out of Joe, who recently invited her whole crew over for dinner, plying them with whiskey and his stories of overseas travel when he worked in the oil industry.
Shoshana divided the work to be done: Joe and Greta would educate people on the history of the orchard and help them choose the type of apple they desired. Aggie, Andrea, and Jane were put in charge of commanding the apple pie booth. The pies were all made with Red Delicious; after a taste test with Greta, they agreed it was the best type of apple to make pies from. Andrew and Greg would serve free apple cider to guests milling about the grounds, and Jessica would woman the gate in case anyone needed directions up the driveway.
Shoshana offered a percentage of sales to all her friends, yet they'd politely refused. ”It's your orchard!” they'd exclaimed. ”Besides, it's fun to come out here to the sticks and mooch off you.” No one would accept any percentage of profits, not even Greg, who'd helped her trademark the orchard's name and drew up the business plan, which they finally went over together late last night.
Shoshana walked outside to put the final touches on the orchard, hanging a wooden sign at the foot of her driveway road so people knew where to turn when coming from town. Aggie had painted SHOSHANA'S APPLE ORCHARD in cheery red and green lettering. Aggie had also donated a four-foot-tall p.e.n.i.s sculpture to bless the farm, which Shoshana had quietly whisked away and hidden inside the back shed.
Pam returned from her s.h.i.+ft at the hospital just as Shoshana was about to open the gates. She stood with her arms around both her daughters' waists, surveying the property from the driveway. She saw the fresh coat of white paint Greg had put on the house. The yellow and violet mums Mimi planted so long ago had come up, dotting the landscape. She saw the pretty white rocks that now filled the driveway, the apple orchard that had once been a tangled jungle, now with seventy-five apple trees, cut short and thinned out, their beautiful branches hanging sideways like arms reaching for a hug.
”I am so proud of both of you,” Pam said, her eyes welling with tears. ”Mimi would have been thrilled.”
Shoshana smiled. It had been more work than she'd ever imagined, but with the help of friends both old and new, it all came together. Holy s.h.i.+t, she was a frickin' farmer! A reporter from New Jersey Monthly was coming out next week to interview her and take pictures of the house and orchard for a profile. She suspected Pam of calling the magazine, but she had no proof.
”I love it here,” Emily said. ”It's so you, Shoshana.”
”Will you keep the Hoboken apartment?” Pam asked.
”As long as I can afford to, sure,” Shoshana said. ”It's not that much for rent, and I like being able to live in the city and country at the same time. I can hang out here taking care of my apple trees, but hop on the train and be in Hoboken in an hour, go out in the city, see Broadway shows, and visit Em at work. I feel really lucky.”
”I just can't believe how little there is of you to put my arm around!” Pam said, giving her oldest daughter a squeeze.
Both girls laughed. Shoshana had been unsure how Emily would react to her weight loss, but she'd been nothing but happy for her sister. ”Being fat ain't fun,” Emily said one night as they lay on the gra.s.s outside the house, looking up at the stars, looking for the Milky Way. ”Let's be honest.”
There had to be a balance, which was the direction Shoshana was struggling with when it came to Fat and Fabulous. She wanted to exist somewhere in the middle of fat and skinny, and she was going to figure it out, no matter how long it took. She might not have all the kinks worked out just yet but she would. Her weight, her body ... it was all an adventure we call life.
Around eleven, when Shoshana started to fear no one would show up, a few families started walking up the driveway, looking curious.
”That's my cue!” Emily said, walking over to her little table where she had a PICK ALL YOU WANT FOR FIVE BUCKS! sign.
Soon after, cars started pulling up the driveway, and folks from Chester and many surrounding towns streamed into Shoshana's Apple Orchard. She recognized several farmers whose products she'd bought in past months, and walked over to greet them. The seeds Mimi, Georgina, Joe, and Bob had planted so long ago gave Shoshana some of the juiciest apples around, everyone agreed.
The day sped by in a blur. The opening was a smas.h.i.+ng success. She sold every pie, chatted with neighbors, loaded barrel after barrel full of red apples into pickup trucks, and finished the last of the apple cider. As the sun shot dark red and purple rays into the expansive sky, Shoshana and her friends packed up the tables and shared the very last apple pie, which Shoshana had saved, heating it up in the oven. Greta made an a.s.sembly line in the kitchen, plopping a scoop of vanilla ice cream on each plate. Joe Murphy had snuck nips from his whiskey flask throughout the day, and now slept sitting up on the living room couch, Frank Sinatra and Patrick O'Leary cuddling at his feet and his pipe still stuck in the corner of his mouth. ”Yer fa-tha would have been real proud,” he'd said to her earlier in the day.
He grunted a few times in his sleep, and then seemed to rouse himself. He was wearing the three-piece suit he'd worn the day she met him, the vest and jacket perfectly pressed and neat even though he'd been napping in it. Shoshana sat on a purple velvet armchair across from him, finis.h.i.+ng her pie. Sinatra woke and came to jump up on her lap, helping himself to a taste of the food on her plate, lapping it with his crooked tongue.
Greta came into the room with Pam. She wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n and walked over to Joe, pinching him hard on the nose.
”Christ, woman!” he howled.
”Oh. Sorry. I thought you were still asleep,” she said.
”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. No. Just a little drunk,” he muttered. ”And I haven't forgotten about our announcement, neitha'.”
”What announcement?” Emily asked. She'd walked into the room and sat down on Shoshana's lap. Shoshana grunted and then tried to cover her mouth so as not to let the sound escape.
”My mother used to say don't call it a trout till it's in the bank,” Joe said, standing and lighting his pipe.
”Eh, shut up, old man. You're in the bank, and you know it.”
”Wait, I'm confused. Who is the trout?” Greg called out from the kitchen, where he was playing cards with Andrew and Aggie and drinking a beer.
”Seems I'm to get married,” Joe said. And he blushed, which was so out of character Shoshana let out a huge laugh.
Pam ran to Greta and hugged her. ”Greta! I have goose b.u.mps. After all these years.”
Greta shrugged. ”Everyone we loved is dead. We figured, what the h.e.l.l?”
It wasn't exactly the most romantic of wedding announcements, but it would do.
”I t'ink this calls for some celebrating,” Joe said.
”f.u.c.k, yeah,” Emily said. She shook her head. ”Picture that, you two old buzzers, falling in love.”
”Well, don't get ahead of yerself, now, woman,” Joe said. ”It's more like I finally realized this beast on my back wasn't getting off.”
”Pshaw,” Greta said, laughing. ”You just didn't want to die alone, you old fart. You need someone to change your diapers.”