No one, however, made me angrier than Philip. As if he had always been part of the farm, as if Gloria had never walked the earth, as if the universe existed to favor him, he took up the role of best right-hand man, the new star orchard worker. May Hill wasn’t squiring him around anymore, Philip no longer strictly in the role of her houseboy. Sherwood talked to him and enlisted him in projects and so did my father, Philip on everyone’s side. Which, admittedly, was not an easy position, being both a Velta and a Volta man. What else was supposedly good about him? He was strong. There was no doubt about that. He could throw bales and tackle a running sheep, and stack apple boxes, each one fifty pounds, eight-high in the cooler, one after the next, the top one over his head, unloading the whole wagon single-handedly. That was something my father could no longer accomplish—or anyway that’s what he said to my mother. But I knew if Jim Lombard had to he could still lift whatever he wished in order to get a job done.
Generally speaking Philip was gung-ho. He acquired a pair of denim coveralls so he could look the part, Philip coming along the path wearing a red baseball cap that said on the front, in black letters, WICKED. Farming had been his dream from his earliest memory, he’d done the whole WWOOF experience in his Gap Year, the work exchange on a farm, his in Italy, and to further his scheme he’d studied global environmental policy in college. Very likely now that he’d graduated he was going for world domination. At college it was he who had started the organic garden, growing produce for the cafeteria, Philip a Slow Food, locavoring, hipper-than-Alice-Waters pioneer. It was in Portland, Oregon, where he’d performed this awesome tilling of the earth. As if any effort was required to foment the revolution in that city.
So technically there was nothing to dislike about him, our cousin. He made friends with Gideon Hup, my fiancé, and they sometimes had beers together at the bar in town, sharing knowledge. My mother issued him a library card and although she was breaking the privacy law she freely told us what he was reading. Middlemarch, for one, Philip no slouch. He planted not just a standard vegetable garden in Gloria’s yard, but perennials such as asparagus, and he made a strawberry bed. That behavior, that long-term putting down roots, was unbelievable. The cheek of it. His furniture was from local yard sales, great finds, apparently, rugs on the floors, art on his walls, too, tasteful block prints, my mother said. Somehow or other I was never available when he invited us to dinner, off to rehearsal or busy with Coral. As if assisting May Hill wasn’t enough for him he was helpful to the ladies who had plots in the community garden. Everything about him, clearly, was intolerable.
Furthermore: Old Seattle friends occasionally turned up to marvel at his new life, which he was proud to show off, the extensive tour for childhood friends with names like Billy and Shaver. He called our place, our land, his home. I actually heard him say that.
What was going on? When I asked how long he was staying my parents would say extremely vague nothings such as “We’ll see,” or “He’s trying it out,” or “He’s very young.” Of course someone so smart and energetic would naturally have a girlfriend. He felt himself at liberty to visit her on weekends in Chicago, the two of them flitting around the Art Institute and eating artisanal cheeses and going to microbreweries. But that was one of the most critical identifying factors—the letting loose of the mouse to see who in the lineup of so-called princesses would actually faint. He didn’t even know that real farmers do not have weekends off!
I did my best not to speak to him when he was at our house for dinner or be in the same room with him alone not only because of my inborn dislike of him, but because of the kiss I had planted in his composition notebook. He may have come to understand that those were my lips, something I hated more than almost anything to remember, that kiss I would’ve so liked to have been able to erase.
He was always trying to draw me out at the supper table, which was unnecessary since there were plenty of conversational topics. My mother was ridiculously enthusiastic in his presence, and he and my father had a great deal of shop talk, and for William he often had specific questions about hardware and software, updates and crashes. For me, though, the ruby-lipped kisser, it seemed worth his while, for some reason, to struggle.
“You’re in Our Town, I heard,” he said.
I nodded, buttering my bread.
“The stage manager? It’s great they gave that part to a girl.”
There was no law that said the stage manager had to be a male.
“A lot of lines to learn.”
So what. Learning lines was not difficult.
“It’s one of my favorite plays.”