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

reddened. “He was telling someone that it was personal, you quitting, that they really needed to stick it to you. He said he knew just what would get to you. It didn’t make any sense to me, but I figured it would make sense to you. It was about Evangelina Ryan.”

When Casey said Evangelina’s name, Alice went cold, like someone had poured ice water over her. Evangelina. She stood very still as Casey told her the rest of what he had heard despicable Rich say about Bud’s sweet sister-in-law, Evangelina.

“Thank you, Casey. I really appreciate the information. I’m not going to explain it to you. I think it’s better that you don’t know the details.”

He nodded.

“There’s one more thing,” he said, and held up a small black object in his freckled fingers. It was a jump drive.

“These are all the documents outlining the county’s agreement with SupraGro. They had me transfer everything from Mr. Chenowith’s computer to Nancy’s today, and, well, I made a copy. I saw your picture in the paper with the watershed people, and I thought, I don’t know, maybe someone should look at this.”

Alice chuckled. “Well! Hood River’s Edward Snowden!”

Then, her face somber, she said, “Thank you, Casey. If anyone finds out I have it, I’ll say I took it myself. I owe you one, kid.”

Casey nodded and disappeared into the building.

“Never a dull moment at the Hood River County Planning Department,” Alice muttered as she climbed into her truck.

Now, sitting in her room, she scanned the master file and noted what documents might be useful to Stan’s group. Certainly, the details of the SupraGro contract and the authors of their so-called scientific study. They must have paid a pretty penny for the skewed data collected there. Then there were the details of Bill’s retirement package, seven figures, and his annual consulting fee, which was more than Alice had made in the last five years put together. Jesus. She thought of Bill’s eternal nag about the tight budget. She shut the laptop. She would begin talking to the orchardists tomorrow, starting with her neighbor Doug Ransom. Good old Doug. He would listen.

But first, this thing with Evangelina.

She wished she could have this conversation with Bud’s parents, instead of with Ron. It would be so much easier, despite the fact that Alice had not contacted them in over a year. But no, it was Ron she needed to talk to about the danger to his wife.

She remembered Evangelina the day of Bud’s funeral. The Ryans were Catholic, so Buddy’s service was at Sacred Heart. Alice sat with Bud’s parents in the front. Evangelina, Ron, and their kids sat in the pew behind. At the cemetery, Evangelina moved close and put her arm around Alice’s waist. It was such a small gesture, but Alice felt immensely comforted as she leaned into her friend’s arm. At the rowdy, crowded Ryan family events, it was always Evangelina who drew her in. They enjoyed each other’s company, although there were significant gaps between Evangelina’s English and Alice’s high school Spanish. But in that moment, when there was no language for such loss, Evangelina must have understood better than anyone else how Alice felt losing her life partner too soon. She might have asked herself the same torturing questions Alice did: What was the last thing I said to him? Did I kiss him goodbye before he left for that last trip? Did I tell him I loved him? Was it enough?

And yet Alice felt her own grief eclipsed by the sorrow of Bud’s elderly parents. Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children. Somehow Alice felt she didn’t have a right to show her sadness in the face of their loss. At the house after the service, she hugged them and didn’t know what to say. She thought of her own parents’ funerals and how she’d had Bud at her side. It was too much to think about. She excused herself to grab a sweater out of her truck, fully intending to go back in the house. Standing in the driveway, she watched extended family and old friends gather around the Ryan family, and it felt like a circle that had closed to her. Before she knew it, she was behind the wheel and was halfway home.

The family called, but Alice didn’t answer the phone. They sent young Ronnie down, and he banged on the door for a long time before giving up. They kept calling for weeks. She knew she should call back. Even with the ghosts of her parents shaming her, she couldn’t manage it. She was physically unable to get in the truck and drive to her in-laws’ house. When the numbness she’d felt wore off, it was replaced by a pain she hadn’t thought possible.

She took a month off from work. When she went back, work was the only vestige of her old life. She stopped going to bee club meetings. She let her sailing club membership lapse. She didn’t return phone calls. She turned inward. That was when she started going to the grocery store after 9:00 p.m.—when she didn’t think she’d run into anyone she knew. It was a lonely crowd she joined there. She began recognizing their faces. Most of them were men, in line with beer and cigarettes or baskets full of frozen dinners. Once she saw Evangelina there with her daughter, the two of them poring over the cold medicines. She turned around at the sight of them and hid in the meat department until she thought they were gone. Coward, she thought now.

She wished she could just talk to Evangelina, but she needed to make sure she communicated this information as clearly as possible. It had to be Ron. She grabbed her phone and texted him.

“Meet me at Twin Peaks tomorrow,” she wrote. “You say when. Important. About Evangelina.”

She hoped he would think twice before deleting her message. She fell asleep despite the pounding in her head.

The next day she sat with