Parking next to Leo’s Jeep, I peered through the rows of trees, looking for him. I thought I saw something moving several rows down, so I entered the orchard and made my way toward him.
As I walked, I became aware of two things.
One, my skin tingled. I was excited to see him! I wanted to see his face and kiss his lips and hold him close and hear his voice in my ear and feel his hands on my skin, after I told him, ‘I’m here to stay if I can still be yours.’
Two, my skin crawled. I became aware of the second thing as I wandered through the Macouns and the Empires, the Honeycrisps and the Sansas. And when I moved into the late-summer peaches . . . that’s when I felt it.
First came a low, droning hum, almost like feedback from a very low bass speaker. I called out to Leo, who I could now see moving a few rows away. My call changed the hum to something more recognizable, a familiar sound that bumped into the corner of my brain. Something familiar enough to make my skin pebble.
And then I saw them.
Bees.
Everywhere.
The droning hum was a collective buzz, which announced itself to my brain in a wave of awful, realization crashing across my body in a cold sweat and an absolute sheer terror. I wanted to run. I wanted to freeze. I wanted to—
“Roxie?” a surprised voice asked, and I saw Leo underneath a peach tree, oblivious to the million-bee chorus announcing that I was here and ripe for the picking. To those who are about to die, we salute you.
“Oh!” was all I could manage—and then the internal screaming began. One buzzed my ear, one buzzed by my nose, and several bopped around my head. Their bee noses must be drunk on the fear coming off me in waves. My eyes flashed to his, and he saw I was surrounded.
But . . .
I came to this orchard to get my guy.
Or at least tell him I’d like to be his girl.
I took a step.
I took another step.
The bees went with me, a cloud of nightmares hovering just inches from me, talking among themselves about how best to torture me. I had a sudden vision of the flying monkeys carrying away Dorothy, her legs kicking in the air. I only hoped that when the bees carried me off, someone would make sure my mother got my chef’s knives.
Steeling myself, I tried to speak. “Hi. Leo.” My voice was cracked and shaky, bordering on panic. “I wanted to talk to you . . . oh! I wanted to tell you . . . shit, that was close! . . . I, I’d like to—”
“Jesus, Roxie,” Leo said, marveling at the sight of me standing in a bee cloud, trying to carry on a normal conversation. “Just breathe, okay?”
“Yeah, trying to do that, not working so well,” I said shakily. “Anyway, I’m here because I wanted to tell you that . . . Motherfucker!” I got stung. So much for the theory that if you ignore them they’ll ignore you. Fucking rogue bee. “Ow!” Annnd there’s another sting. One landed on my shoulder, another landed on my ear, and though I held it together through all of that, when one had the balls to land on my nose, that was it.
I ran. But instead of running away, I ran toward Leo and his shocked face, which finally had the sense to show some healthy bee fear, and the two of us ran through the orchard, high-step running through the tall grass, swiping at our heads and windmilling our arms.
“Left, go left!” he shouted, and I followed, swatting as I went, feeling stings on the back of my calf and my elbow.
In a haze of screaming and twitching, slapping and jumping, we burst out of the orchard and into a clearing. And just beyond that? Water.