The Assistants

Today, Kevin had big plans for us that would not be deterred by any talk of guacamole. In the full spirit of the change in season, he’d thrown on a shawl-collared sweater, rented a car, and driven us an hour upstate to an apple orchard.

“It’s McIntosh season,” he explained as we waited in line to purchase empty plastic satchels and pay the entry fee. “The quintessential New York apple. Later we can bake a pie.”

Is this what Kennedy-like families did to ring in autumn? They picked apples and baked pies instead of taking down air conditioners and installing storm windows?

I’d never been apple picking before. It was unclear to me how we would reach the apples. Weren’t trees tall? Would we have to climb? But I kept quiet, and soon we were riding on the back of a flatbed truck out to the fields. We were surrounded by children—a group of fourth-or fifth-graders on a school trip—at least half of whom were shorter than I am, so I assumed some system for reaching the apples had been worked out in advance.

When the truck came to a halt, Kevin and I jumped down and made an effort to move in the opposite direction of the children. The dirt beneath the rubber soles of my Converse felt soft, almost powdery. And the fruit on the trees hung low. The air smelled sweet, like a lollipop. (Sweet as stolen honey, Robert would have said.) We were only about sixty miles out of Manhattan, but we may as well have been in . . . what state was known for its apples? Washington? Or was New York known for its apples? Is that why we were the Big Apple? I always thought that was a nickname that had something to do with prostitution.

Kevin unfolded the two plastic satchels he’d bought when we arrived. “Let’s hit the trees,” he said with such gusto I feared that at any moment he might embark on a monologue from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax.

“So all of these trees have the same kind of apple?” I asked.

“McIntosh,” he said.

Right, right, the quintessential New York apple, I remembered. So, basically, I could fill this bag in about two minutes and be done with it, head home with a satchel full of McIntoshes, and cue up Netflix, but I observed that’s not how it worked.

Kevin inched toward one tree like he was sneaking up on it. He felt and rejected two or three identical McIntoshes before plucking one from its branch.

I did as he did. The subtle, almost meditative nature of this process reminded me a little bit of how people talked about yoga. Yoga is pretty much just a lot of standing around in dumb poses if you’re not focused on your form, right? The nearly imperceptible details? Apple picking contained the same mystery for me.

“Look at this one.” Kevin held what he considered to be the perfect specimen in the palm of his hand.

“That’s a good apple,” I said.

“I want you to have it.” He held it out to me with both hands.

This must have been what Adam felt like in Eden.

“Thank you. I’ll cherish it,” I said, adding it to the pile in my bag.

“Hey.” Kevin got a funny look on his face. “Let’s go sit on that wooden bench over there.”

I followed him toward the bench, diminutive and rickety-looking as it was, like something a gnome might have built in woodworking class—but before we could reach it, a small herd of screaming kids piled onto it like it was a jungle gym.

“On second thought,” I said, turning around, “let’s continue standing.”

Kevin set his plastic satchel down carefully at his feet and wiped the dust off his hands. He was still wearing his funny face, and for a split second I was overcome by a wave of panic. Was he going to drop onto a knee and propose to me right here in the apple orchard? I hadn’t even put on eyeliner today.

“Don’t be mad,” he said. “I know you hate surprises, but I sort of have a surprise for you.”

“Okay.” I fully prepared to become enraged at whatever this surprise was. I figured if it were an engagement ring, he wouldn’t have prefaced the moment with a request for me not to get angry, so I really had no idea what was coming.

“Last week,” he said, “when I was hanging out with my friend Tim, I mentioned your project. And he totally flipped out over the idea.”

Tim was an editor at BuzzFeed.

“He just so happened to be working on this list of young New Yorkers who are trying to make the world better, and he was short on names and running out of time, so when I told him about you and your website . . .”

I couldn’t move and it wasn’t because the bag of apples in my left hand was cutting off the circulation to my fingers. That pain was far more manageable than the horror that was now running through my mind.

“You look mad,” Kevin said. “I didn’t mean to do it. But I was bragging about you, and then it just slipped out. I know how private you are about it, but I just couldn’t help it—I knew you’d be perfect for Tim’s list.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything.” I let my bag of apples drop to the ground.

Kevin’s eyes shot to where they fell, seemingly concerned for their structural dignity.

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