Like every other facet of the Sykes operation the hiring of Gideon, a dedicated, strong young person, was a genius business move by the gentleman farmer. Gideon, which means “Feller of Trees.” He had studied ag science for two years at the university before he’d dropped out to live his dream. In addition to his other gifts he was disciplined about waking at dawn, he was unsentimental about nature, and he knew chemistry. As much as Tommy’s grown children may have wanted to keep the farm in the family they had no interest in running it or even in living nearby. The understanding was that Gideon would make a life on the orchard, that he would not own the property but when Tommy eventually retired he would be the person in charge.
In July, at our first market, I wandered down to Gideon’s stand. I stood looking at his red blushy apples, varieties that were bigger than ours and shinier. “Did you spray for maggot flies this week?” I asked him.
He looked startled, I suppose because most people didn’t begin a conversation or an acquaintance with that question.
“Yep,” he said, “and for codling moth.”
“We did, too,” I said importantly. I said, “We’re trying that new disruption technology, the CM Flex.”
Maybe he laughed; it’s possible he was chuckling. “Good stuff.” He nodded. “It’s pretty effective.”
“I know it.”
Gideon was undeniably cute even though he was old, a man hardly taller than William, a pixie with soft-looking brown hair and pale-blue eyes. All at once I was aware of my knobby knees, my skinny legs, my shorts, my plain yellow T-shirt, my drab hair, my ragged fingernails. I had occasionally wondered what it would be like to kiss a boy and even though he was old, as I said, you couldn’t ignore Gideon’s upper lip, which had a freckle smack in the center, right below the philtrum. The other thing in addition to kissing, the thing I’d learned that was very different from the business of the ram and ewe, the tomcat and pussycat, the thing that President Bill Clinton and his intern had taught us—I had blocked that from my mind. Kissing Gideon’s freckle, the idea of it, made me feel sick enough. He was about to say something else to me when a woman butted in on us, blaring her righteous question: “ARE YOU ORGANIC?”
My new acquaintance began to explain the Sykes Orchard spray program, the Integrated Pest Management, a system designed to keep chemical applications to a minimum, the farmer spraying in relation to the pests’ life cycles. We used IPM, too, and like Tommy were in close contact with the university entomologists, running trials for research, trying to wean ourselves away from pesticides where possible. I had been at market before when those mothers assaulted us. The Crones Against Cluster Cancers. That’s what William called them. They were women who never wanted to know the hard science of your practice. They weren’t interested in parts per billion or the rate of breakdown or the lab results of residue, statistics that, if they’d just listen, would lower their blood pressure and maybe make them reasonable. Those mothers only wished us to know that we were the individuals poisoning their children and Gaia.
I said two things in front of Gideon just then. I said to the lady, “Do you like biting into a worm when you eat an apple?”
“I beg your pardon,” she said to me.
To the pork and beef guy right next door I asked, “How do your animals fare after their surgeries?” Really, that’s the kind of inane question those women were likely to ask.
Gideon stopped talking. His pale eyes seemed to spin. He said to the mother, “You should check out the Lombard Orchard. I think you’ll like their program and their apples better.”
The woman walked away. Gideon burst out laughing. He said, “When you’re older do you think you might consider marrying me?” He laughed again. “You are hysterical.”
His question made me run as fast as I possibly could back to our own stand. I got in the van that was parked by our stall and locked the doors. My first proposal of marriage, my very first proposal—Gideon, I thought, had maybe, in a certain way, meant it. Which made me feel dizzy and warm and pleased and distressed all at once—that freckle on his lip, for one thing.
What did it take to fall in love? That was a ridiculous question to have to ask when I’d seen Gloria topple over and when I myself had been in love with Mrs. Kraselnik. That is to say, you didn’t ask for it, you didn’t plan, but the spell was cast upon you anyway. Abracadabra: swoon.
Or maybe Gideon Hup and Mary Frances Lombard would have an arranged marriage, our union on the order of the House of Hanover and the Stewarts commingling. My father thought very highly of Gideon. And if William was too dreamy to farm, if he was going to be a Posse player for the rest of his life, then I’d have to make do with Gideon. We at the Lombard Orchard would steal Tommy Sykes’s manager, Tommy’s hope, steal him away in a blaze of duty to our enterprise, Gideon and me, with our expertise and enthusiasm impressing Sherwood and even May Hill. William would realize too late that what he’d wanted after all wasn’t for the having.