Offices and Orchards (A New Adult Sweet Romance)

Chapter 18

"Ok, so we did Galas the first week, McIntoshes last time, and this weekend we are moving onto the Cortlands. Do you know any other varieties of apples?" They had eventually finished up the dishes and despite the intermittent rain, had decided to head out for some picking for the afternoon.
"A few,"
"Well go on, which ones do you like?"
"I think I prefer the crispier kinds. My favourites are Pink Lady and Fuji, I like Royal Galas too, and Granny Smith. I used to like Red and Green Delicious as a kid, but not anymore. Not a fan of Braeburn. I've been thinking about apples a lot recently- I wonder why,"
"I'm very impressed! Ok, so actually Pink Lady, Fuji and Granny Smith are considered crunchy rather than crispy. The Gala is the odd one out of your favourites there because it's actually crispy. You've named apples with a range of sweetness to them, from Fuji at the very sweet end of the spectrum to Granny Smith at the tart end. Also, the apples you've named are from Japan and Australia and New Zealand. No American varieties. You kind of just described yourself! You've been to places all over the world, you're very sweet, but sometimes very tart, and dressed like a Granny." Harvey laughed at his joke. "Don't you agree?"
Autumn was wearing one of Harvey's old knitted sweaters that he always wore at the orchard since it was so warm and cozy against the cool, country air. She looked down at herself, wearing one of the hand-knitted sweaters from the farmhouse wardrobes and burst out laughing.
"So what apple varieties are your favourite? And two, what is the difference between crispy and crunchy?"
"Both excellent questions. So in general we say that apples are crisp rather than crispy. Crisp and crunchy refer to the texture of the fruit. A crunchy apple has crunch in its flesh, and crunch all the way through. A crisp apple, how do I put this? So like imagine a good french fry, which is crispy on the outside and tender and soft on the inside? It's the same kind of thing for a crisp apple. To answer your other question of which one is my favourite, I really can't say. It depends on the time of year, what I'm doing, even the weather or my mood on that day. There's an apple for every occasion. Speaking of which, for today's occasion, we're going to pick some dwarf Cortland trees. You ready for a little history lesson? Cortland apples are a New York apple over a century old I think, around the end of the 1800's, but I can't remember exactly. McIntosh – remember last week? That one's even older. After the Mac was invented, to breeders began to experiment with hybrids through what's called grafting. The Cortland apple is a marriage between a McIntosh and a Ben Davis apple. Named after where it was developed. so Cortland apples were popular in the 20th century because they keep well. Ben Davis, its father if you will, was a favorite too because it holds onto the branches until late in the season, and it was a reliable growth. What I mean by that is that it was counted on to produce solid crops year after year. In the 20th century though, improvements were made in packing and shipping techniques, and Ben Davis fell out of favor due to lack of flavor."
"A history lesson that rhymes! I guess I can find that on your blog? Which you still won't let me read by the way."
"Actually, I'm thinking of trying to resume my writing. Maybe I'll let you know if I do." He winked, "Nowadays, Ben Davis, and I don't really know its history, is impossible to find...Here we are, as you can see, it's a larger apple and it has green and red striations. Here. Take a bite."
The tree branches hung very low to the ground and Harvey had grabbed one, wiped it off on his shirt, and tossed it to Autumn. She bit in as he grabbed another one for himself, "See? Its flesh is snow white." He chewed his first bite and took another. "Cortland trees, and here we have dwarf trees, which just means an eight foot ladder will do instead of a sixteen footer, they all have kind of droopy branches, even after the apples have been picked. For whatever reason, Cortland trees always have vines growing up them, so people often think they are wild apples. Seeing a Cortland tree covered with vines always makes me think of old-growth forests, and what it might have looked like growing in like ancient Kazakhstan. You've probably been there, haven't you?"
"I've been to Mongolia. Kazahkstan is on the list, but I'm not sure I'd know to go wild apple searching in the ancient forests outside of Astana."
"I thought it's capital was Almaty?"
"Now I'm the one whose impressed, that's done obscure geography knowledge. Here's some more: the government relocated from Almaty to Astana about twenty years ago."
"Maybe we can go to both together?"
"Sure, Kazakhstan is such a common and popular holiday destination!"
"For some reason, I feel like we might tend to avoid mainstream things."
"You might be right about that," they smiled back at one another and Harvey resumed his lesson.
"Cortlands are kind of a mid-season apple, and are often a pickers-favorite, because unlike the Macs we did last weekend, they are large and do not bruise easily. If you've been picking Macs for awhile, which seem to fall off the tree if you breathe towards them - as you know - Cortlands provide a welcome change. Since Cortlands grow in pairs, as you see here, you can actually pick two at a time," Harvey expertly pulled off two apples from the low hanging branches in a single swift movement. Autumn did the same, and dropping one of them, and the other staying on the tree, "My hands are too small!" she laughed.
"The biggest difficulty with Cortlands is that they tend to hide. Since the inner foliage of the tree becomes quite dense, they are quite difficult to see," Harvey dropped to his knees and reached inwards into the tree towards the trunk, and pulled out his arm with two apples held deftly in his hand.
"Bravo!" said Autumn, clapping.
"Usually we might not pick in the rain since the moisture makes the apples softer and easier to bruise. It also makes the ladders treacherous and any slope becomes a little more challenging for a tractor hauling a half-ton bin of apples. But since we are just doing dwarf trees, I was thinking that I could do the upper parts of the trees with the eight-footer, and you could do the lower parts?
"Sure!"
Since there had been rain over the last few days, the trees and apples had been coated in small cool droplets that worked their way up your sleeves, or dropped into the picker's eyes as they picked. It also made it much cooler, and Autumn felt grateful for long sleeves, and the cup of tea Harvey had made for her to take out into the orchard. Of course she was also grateful for Harvey in general and that he had opened her experience into this new world of Autumn activities. They had fun together, with Autumn complaining about how wet Harvey's picking from above was making her. When they had finished about an hour of picking, they could both see that she had been right: She was soaking wet, while Harvey's jacket and hair, was only slightly damp.
"I'll warm you up," he pulled her in for a hug.
They spent the evening in front of the farmhouse's fireplace. It was not really cold enough to warrant a full-blown fire inside, so they kept the door to the balcony open to allow for some cool evening air to come in. They put on a frozen pizza and had some hot apple cider and spent the evening chatting.
"You went to one of those boarding schools with uniforms though right?" Autumn could not resist imagining a younger Harvey, dressed in khaki pants and a blazer.
"For your information, I went to an arts boarding school. And yes, we had uniforms. Not too far from here actually. I enjoyed it. They let me focus on literature, and it was great preparation for college. Also, that's the main reason all of my memos and presentations are so much better than yours."
"Ha!" Autumn replied, "You wish!" His face relaxed into an easy grin.
"I wore a uniform too, when I was at school in France,"
"Oh yes, I forgot about that,"
"It was actually a British school, so we wore the typical British schoolgirl uniforms: a black blazer and black pleated skirt with a white button-up and black tie. I hated them,"
The conversation was so easy with Harvey. Autumn talked about her experiences living and travelling abroad, Harvey talked about literature and his orchard experiences.
Harvey continued to surprise her though, as she never could have imagined arrogant, rude condescending Harvey would be a writer and literature aficionado, but after seeing the library at his house, reading his blog, she was privy to a different side of him. What was also very clear to her, and to him as well, was that through all of this, it was easy for them to be together, and the hours whiled away in conversation and laughter. But there was one thing she wanted to ask him about:
"So you know about the Australia thing right?"
"Yeah the one in Sydney? What about it?"
"Are you planning to apply?"
"Not sure yet, why do you ask?"
"Just curious I guess."
"Yeah, I'm not really sure if it's my thing, I mean good opportunity and all, but I don't want to be away for Christmas- and there's always work to be done at the factory, after the seasonal workers have left. I guess you're going to?"
Autumn paused- she didn't want to reveal the extent of her excitement about it.
"Yes, I think so. We'll see how it goes at least."
The next morning, Harvey did breakfast again. This time it was homemade bircher muesli with shredded apple yogurt and honey. "Granny Smith, one of your favourites," he had said. "We'll take a day off from picking today, Autumn. I saw your hands,"
Autumn held her hands up to examine them. Even though she had not done a huge amount of picking, her hands were showing some signs of wear and tear of a few picks now. There were a few scratches, welts and even a callus had hardened from the previous weeks picking most likely from carrying ladders and buckets around. She had not even noticed. "Yes, they do seem to need some attention," she held her hands up, turning them back and forth and noticing the dry, scratched cuticles.
"Actually, I got a swollen wrist from picking a little too enthusiastically yesterday. I'm a little out of shape these days,"
"You're nowhere near out of shape, mister. Out of practice then."
"We actually picked a ton yesterday!"
"Not sure you should use that expression, it actually means something here,"
"Ok fine, not a literal ton, but more than I expected at least," he held out his wrist to take a closer look.
"I've got some arnica and a heat rub, that should help, I always have my first aid kit when I travel." Autumn went upstairs to grab the supplies from her bag. She was happy to be able to look after Harvey a little bit, after he had taken care of her for the last few weekends. She took her time to gently rub in the arnica, and heat rub and then gently wrapped a bandage around his wrist.
"Not sure I need a bandage?"
"It's more to remind you to take it easy today,"
"It's time for a break from picking anyway, have you seen the rain? It's dumping down. I was thinking we could head over to the factory, maybe see some of the cider being pressed, you can see our more commercial orchards too. Many of the trees have already been picked bare, like the McIntosh and Cortlands, and a good dent has been made in the Empires and Jonagolds, but the other varieties are still fully laden,"
"Would those include Golden and Red Delicious by any chance?" Harvey looked impressed. "Someone's been doing their research."
"Just some basic readings,"
Unbeknownst to Harvey, Autumn thought she had found Harvey's old blog the night before. She would never admit to anyone, but she had spent quite a bit of time, scrolling through blogs about apples, apple picking, apple harvesting and so on - there were actually so many! She finally landed on one which sounded like it could be him, mainly because it reminded her of what he had said when he had spoken to her. It was written by someone called 'Adam Orchard', which could be anybody's pen name, especially an apple picker, but Autumn just had a feeling it was Harvey. Since they had picked McIntoshs last week and that Harvey's name was Mcintosh, she had read an entry about them first. Everything that the blog said seemed to echo the kinds of things Harvey had told her and she felt strangely closer to him as she read:
'This week we have moved into the world of Macs, some tastier than others, but all soft, and easily bruised. The rain of the past few days exacerbates these traits making the apples ever so easy to blemish. McIntosh are otherwise very enjoyable to pick. They come off the tree with only a small flick of the wrist and many of them are very sizable, almost reaching the proportions of a Cortland. Although the days have started out cool and wet the sun almost always shows its face by the afternoon. The forecast is for more rain and more Macs as we move into mid-September and closer to the autumnal equinox. It feels wonderful to be picking in the cool air upon which rides the nostalgia that makes this my favorite season. I am cool, damp and content.
The McIntosh harvest will continue through the month, and starting next week, Cortlands, Macouns, Spartans and Red Delicious apples should also start to be ready. They will be followed late this month and in early October by Empire, Golden Delicious, Rome, Ida Red and Mutsu. There is lots to look forward to.'
It was so romantic to think of Mr. Corporate himself, Harvey McIntosh, junior advisor at S and W, writing so beautifully about his love of the art of apple picking. And after learning about his academic past, she was even more convinced that it was him.