The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

from the local beekeeping club, and that guy at the state ag office . . . What was his name? Michaels?

The door clicked open, and she looked up, expecting to see Nancy saunter in with a whipped cream–topped smoothie in her hand. Instead, Rich Carlson stood in the doorway, batting a magazine against his leg and smiling aggressively. His close-together eyes and narrow teeth made Alice think of a ferret. His right front tooth was slightly yellowed, she noticed.

“Alice. Glad I caught you! I’ve got a small item to discuss.”

Rich grabbed a chair and propped his elbows on Alice’s desk. She leaned back abruptly.

“I don’t think Bill will be back today,” Alice said, knowing he wasn’t there to see Bill.

He gave her a tight smile and said it was Alice he wanted to talk to. She braced herself.

“Look, Rich,” she said, “I was just walking by the waterfront and Stan said hello. You know how Pete is.”

Even as the words came out of her mouth, she felt stupid. She sounded like a girl in trouble with the teacher.

Rich feigned confusion.

Alice pulled the newspaper out of the recycling bin and held it up.

Rich leaned forward and squinted at it. “Ah! I hadn’t seen that. I just wanted to talk to you about your vesting plan.”

“My vesting plan?”

Rich nodded and rocked back in the chair with his hands behind his head, stretching his elbows and knees away from each other in a way Alice had always found slightly obscene. Why did men do that?

“. . . Been at the county for almost twenty years,” Rich was saying. “Your pension disbursement would kick in two years from July 1, should you choose to retire.”

Twenty years. She knew that, of course, but the stark reality of it struck her then. Almost twenty years ago she was an energetic young graduate student and the county job was a temporary thing until the orchard passed to her.

Rich was saying something about annual review baselines and how the penalty clause affected the vesting date. A poor review could bump back the vesting period two to four years depending on what the committee decided. Multiple bad reviews could nullify the pension agreement altogether, he said.

“Of course, that has never happened before,” he said. “Not during my tenure. It’s just the official county policy, you understand. And the committee has to get a formal complaint through Legal about employee noncompliance. Jim Murphy says there’s nothing too much to worry about right now.”

He sat forward again, still smiling that non-smile, and pulled a pack of gum out of his jacket pocket. He popped a bright green stick into his mouth and chewed vigorously, snapping the gum in his teeth.

“Let’s keep it that way, shall we, Alice?” He stood up and slapped the magazine against his palm. “Well! Please tell Bill I thought the meeting went great today. You have a good day, Alice.”

He left the door open, and Alice could hear him whistling as he walked down the hall. She felt sick, and her ears rang as his words sunk in. He was threatening to mess with her pension over this photo of her with Stan, over nothing. She pushed her chair back and stood, looked at the air where Rich Carlson’s narrow face had hung. The air was sticky with electricity. Alice grabbed her bag and headed for the front of the building. Nancy stood next to the copier, teasing Casey and sipping on her smoothie. Her floral knit dress stretched tight across her rump, and she leaned toward the intern, laughing her big toothy laugh as he shrank away. She grinned at Alice.

“Where’s the fire?” she asked.

“I’ve got a meeting at the waterfront building site. Back after lunch,” Alice said, not slowing.

“Yes, sir, Alice, sir. Important business to attend to.” Nancy laughed and looked at the intern, trying to draw him in.

Alice stopped and turned. “I’m just trying to do my job, Nancy. What are you doing?”

She pushed through the front door, leaving Nancy’s astonished face behind her, and walked quickly down the sidewalk. She didn’t know where she was going and found herself striding down Oak Street. Her clothes felt tight, and she tried to catch her breath. That empty feeling yawned inside her, and the hole in her center gaped wide open. Dammit. Damn Rich Carlson.

She passed Bette’s Place, and it was all she could do not to push through the glass door and rush to the counter. She pictured herself demolishing an entire pie by herself, banana cream or strawberry rhubarb, in front of Bette and Grace, who had worked there for thirty years and had known Alice since she was born. Alice saw Bette through the window, her white hair above that silly pink apron, waiting on a full table. She waved. Alice waved back. She couldn’t do that. That was far too much drama for a weekday morning in downtown Hood River—a public display, taking her grief by the hand like a small, monstrous child and parading it for everyone to see.

She turned toward the waterfront and struggled to control the anxiety, her heart racing and her breath accelerating.

“Where did it begin, the feeling?” Dr. Zimmerman had asked her months ago, during what had been her third appointment.

The therapist worked out of a mother-in-law apartment behind an elegant, two-story Craftsman that overlooked the river from a high bluff. Alice felt at ease there. It didn’t feel clinical, like the hospital would have. She also valued the privacy, which was hard to come by in a town this small. The fact that Dr. Zimmerman was somewhat new to Hood River helped too. Dr. Zimmerman hadn’t known her since she was a child. She’d never met Al or Marina. She wasn’t from an orchard background and didn’t understand the complex network of old alliances, grudges, and gossip that formed invisible fences around the people who lived there. It also made things harder to explain because Alice couldn’t fall back on the customary small-town shorthand.

An October rain had lashed the windows