The Lemon Orchard (5 page)

“Would you like me to have a word with him?” Lion asked.

“No, why?”

“You seem bothered. As if he’d upset you.”

Lion waited. She merely sipped her martini and didn’t reply; the expression on her face led him to believe Roberto had upset her indeed. But she wasn’t asking for help. His darling Julia was a thinker, just like all the intellectuals on the Riley side. She was probably pondering the anthropological implications of something or other as they related to orchard workers.

They finished their drinks and went inside. Ana had left everything perfectly ready for them: the table set, stove on low, the
mole
barely simmering, corn tortillas in the steamer. Julia exclaimed over how great it smelled, helping Lion serve the dinner. She was here, they were talking and laughing and eating, but every so often she’d glance east, at a wall that had no windows, as if she were trying to look through plaster and see all the way to the barrios of East L.A.

Julia

The road down from Lion’s mountaintop house was even more treacherous after dark, hairpin twists and turns and some stretches unpaved. Topanga Canyon smelled like sage, and the air, heavy with moisture from the ocean, felt like black velvet. By the time Julia got home, she was sweaty and shaking.

The property welcomed her. Low lights lined the driveway, and the Casa’s front porch was lit warmly. Globes of moist air surrounded the lanterns, casting a tantalizing glow—all the more so because she couldn’t remember leaving them on. The night felt hot, her skin clammy. She parked in the circular drive, fumbled in her bag for the keys, and let herself into the house.

“Hi, girl,” she said to Bonnie, who was waiting in the front hall, creaking to her feet to greet Julia. “Want to go for a walk?”

But as she was looking for the flashlight, she heard the fountain trickling and thought of how good water would feel on her skin. After quickly changing into her blue one-piece suit, she flipped the switch by the kitchen door and watched the underwater lights illuminate the big swimming pool. She and Bonnie walked down the orchard path, smooth stones crunching underfoot.

Her aunt and uncle had taught her to crave night swims as a child, and she’d passed that love on to Jenny. They would walk five hundred yards down to the beach and dive into the Long Island Sound, with nothing more than moon and starlight to show them the way.

The weather didn’t matter. They would swim on stormy nights as happily as warm, calm ones. Now she hurried down the orchard path toward the cliff trail and wondered how she could make her way down to the Pacific. She heard the surf pounding, saw white lines of big waves in the black water, and had a sudden craving for the ocean.

Both she and Jenny had loved rough water, swimming after storms. It took everything she had to make Jenny stay inside till the worst was over—and when it was, they’d run down to the beach, lean into the strong wind, feel the power of the tremendous waves in the usually tranquil Sound.

The summer before Jenny died, Hurricane Noreen came barreling up the East Coast. They’d watched it on TV, seeing houses on the Outer Banks battered by surf that crashed over their rooftops, knocking down chimneys and sweeping several houses out to sea. People in Black Hall and weather forecasters were saying this might be the storm to rival the Great Hurricane of 1938, the last one to really devastate the Connecticut shoreline.

Jenny and Timmy went to Black Hall Hardware to stock up on supplies. They bought extra candles, flashlights, water jugs, and two-by-fours to secure the shutters over the windows. Peter was in Denver, taking depositions, but he called to make sure the boat was hauled and the terrace furniture stowed in the garage.

Timmy’s parents needed his help at home, up Route 156, near the Connecticut River. Julia had watched the two kids clinging to each other, as if the hurricane might rip them apart forever. They were together constantly, and when that was impossible, texting and phoning. There was almost bound to be a power outage, and Julia could already imagine Jenny’s panic. But she was secretly glad to have her daughter to herself.

Together she and Jenny shuttered the windows, and nailed in the two-by-fours to reinforce the wrought-iron closures on the house’s most vulnerable east- and south-facing sides. Julia let Jenny climb the ladder and bang in the nails. Together they climbed out on the gently sloping roof over the seaward sunroom and cleaned out the gutter, to keep the rainwater flowing.

Bonnie felt the change in barometric pressure before they did, and began barking and running down to the beach and back. The temperature rose and felt damp and tropical. The air was still, the sky blue with high thin clouds. When the wind barely started picking up, it turned the leaves on the maple and oak trees upside down, and the sky became the color of a yellowing bruise.

Julia and Jenny changed into their bathing suits and ran through the yard and down the long sandy oak-lined path, Bonnie flying ahead of them. This stretch of beach was wild, part of a nature sanctuary. It was backed by marshland, with fine green grasses rippling in long patterns.

Hard against the marsh grass were huge tree trunks, wood silvered by countless storms. Julia could name each hurricane or blizzard during which each tree had washed up.

She wondered whether Noreen would uproot oaks and pines, wreck docks and cottages, and deposit the detritus along the shoreline. And Jenny was right—storms sometimes shifted the sand and earth, revealing artifacts from the Indian period, and here on this very beach was revealed a nineteenth-century 350-ton warship that had fought the British in the War of 1812 and been wrecked here during a hurricane.

For now the elements were just starting to rise, the normal-sized waves swelling to giant rollers that broke on the bar and came seething into shore with a layer of white foam.

Julia and Jenny dropped their towels and dove in. The air was so warm, but so was the water, as if the tropical storm were already here but hadn’t yet fully shown itself.

One year a message in a bottle had washed up. Jenny had opened it immediately.

Hello, my name is Willa, I am 12. The storm is coming. My family lives on Chincoteague, Virginia. If you find this, please write me.

Jenny had written back, and for a few years she and Willa had been pen pals, but the friendship had trailed off. Since then, during every serious storm, Jenny had sent her own messages in bottles, and had heard back twice—once from a girl in Bass Harbor, Maine, and once from a World War II veteran in Devon, England.

Julia and Jenny swam for a long time, then dried off and headed back to the house. Julia had stocked up at the A&P and Ritter’s farm stand with provisions that would last if the power went out. They had the outdoor grill for cooking, and an antique oak ice chest that had come with the old house. Just in case, Julia had bought two blocks of ice from the fish market to hold the food.

Bluefish were running, so Julia had picked some up. She and Jenny made a classic summer dinner: grilled fish, red potato salad made with vinaigrette and grain mustard, butter-and-sugar corn on the cob, and fresh peach ice cream from Paradise Ice Cream for dessert. They ate outside, on the porch, with candles in hurricane lamps. The wind began to shake the trees, and they could hear the surf smashing over the sandbar.

“I want to get married in a hurricane,” Jenny said.

“With a tent in the yard that can blow away?” Julia said.

“Yes! And Timmy and I will wear wetsuits instead of a suit and a gown, and we’ll all go swimming at the peak of the storm. Maybe we’ll say our vows in the water.”

“That’s romantic.”

“You’re the best mom.”

“I want everything to stay just like this,” Jenny said.

Julia nodded because she knew exactly what she meant.

“I’ll go away to college in a couple of years,” Jenny said. “We won’t be together.”

“What? You think I’m not moving to college with you?” Julia asked.

Jenny laughed and snuffled. “Don’t joke.”

“I’m not.”

“If I get into Brown, Providence isn’t so far. An hour and a half.”

Julia nodded. Jenny had thought this through. They were still holding hands on the table, and Jenny wouldn’t let go. Julia had thought Jenny’s biggest worry was what would happen with Timmy. He probably didn’t have a chance at Brown, but they’d been talking about his applying to other schools in Rhode Island.

“Mom, what if I decided not to go?”

“To Brown? First of all, it’s so hard to get into—I think you have a great chance, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Also, just because Dad and I went there doesn’t mean you have to. There are lots of other great choices.”

“No, I mean not go to college at all.”

“Why would you say that?”

Jenny shrugged. “I don’t know. What if I just stayed home and worked?”

“I’d say you’re giving up a really good chance at life and finding out who you are. Sorry if I sound corny and motherly, but that is my job.”

“I love what we have,” Jenny said. “I love being home. What if I was away and something happened to you?”

“I’m healthy. I’m going to live a long time and be a great old lady. You don’t have to worry for decades and decades.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“But still . . .”

“Jenny, I know how you feel. You’re making me remember exactly what it was like. I loved my parents, too. I remember some nights, lying in bed, knowing they were safe in the next room, closing my eyes tight and just wishing so hard that we could just stay like that, the way we were right then, forever.”

“That’s exactly how I feel.”

Jenny moved her hands over the candles as if casting a spell.

“Let us be this way forever,” she chanted.

“Let it be so,” Julia said. “The spirits have spoken.”

Jenny laughed. She seemed to shake off her dark mood, and jumped up from the table. They cleaned up the dishes, and Jenny disappeared into her room to call Timmy. The storm picked up, and wind howled off the water. The first rain started to fall, pelting the shuttered windows. The lights flickered, but stayed on.

“It’s here!” Jenny said, running into the kitchen.

“Let’s call Dad before the lines go down,” Julia suggested. They dialed his cell, and it went straight to voicemail. Jenny left a message telling him he was missing a great time. Julia decided to try his room at the Brown Palace Hotel. The operator rang his room, and he picked up.

“We just wanted to say hi before the hurricane knocks the power out,” she said.

“How’s it look so far?”

“It’s blowing hard.”

Jenny ran to check the anemometer. “Steady forty, gusting to sixty-five so far! Can I talk to him?”

“How are the depositions going?” Julia asked.

“Good, but very busy. I’m sorry I’m not there with you,” he said, but Julia felt sad because she knew he was saying it because he thought he should, not because he really meant it.

“Thanks,” she said. “Hope it goes well tomorrow. Here’s Jenny.”

“Hey, Dad! It’s howling here. Mom and I are about to go swimming again.” As she spoke, Jenny watched Julia for a reaction. “Yeah, it’s dark, and the waves are huge. We’ll be careful.” Jenny smiled. “Okay, have a good night, Dad. Too bad you’re not here. I really miss you.”

She hung up the phone and turned to Julia, waiting.

“Yeah,” Julia said. “Let’s do it.”

This was just the storm’s front edge—it would get much worse later. They put on dry bathing suits, but Jenny paused before running out the door. She scribbled a note, found an empty wine bottle.

“Mom, you write something, too,” she said.

Julia read what Jenny had written:

Hello from Black Hall, Connecticut, USA! My mother and I are about to go swimming in Long Island Sound in Hurricane Noreen. We hope this note reaches you wherever you may be . . . hurricane currents travel far and wide. Write us back here: Julia and Jenny Hughes, P.O. Box 198, Black Hall CT 06371

Julia wrote:

Tonight we are mermaids, and the sea is ours. We’re a force to be reckoned with. Mothers and daughters forever!

They sealed the note in the green wine bottle, stuck the cork in as tight as it would go, and headed down the path with flashlights, Bonnie beside them, barking at the wind.

When they reached the sand, they felt the hurricane plowing into them. Holding hands, they stood knee-deep in the surf; the tide was going out, so they walked a few more yards before dunking in. Jenny held the bottle. The waves were steady, big and beautiful, with white tops that glistened even in the darkness. Julia saw Jenny let the bottle go. It bobbed on the surface, the tide and currents sweeping it to who knew where.

They swam and dove and played in the waves. Being a beach girl had no expiration date; Julia loved the storm energy as much as Jenny did. They hadn’t even brought towels. Heading home, they felt the rain wash the salt from their hair and bodies.

By the time they reached the house, the power was out. They lit candles and sat on the porch, listening to the storm build and build.