Randy White - Seduced

We weren’t close friends in school, but Roberta winced as if it pained her to say no. When she began to explain the rules of a state-funded facility, I apologized and moved on. I told her about Kermit’s interest in historic Spanish rootstock, and shared the theory about fruit that originated in Asia perhaps being more resistant to insects that also came from Asia.

“I’ve heard the name before,” she said. “He’s respected in the industry, but the scientific types, the true brainiacs, tend to dismiss him as a private-sector cowboy. Typical. You wouldn’t believe some of the egos in this business. Hilarious, really, how vicious it can get. So I wait, ignore most of what’s said, and form my own opinion. You and Kermit must be pretty close, huh?” Roberta, who wore a wedding diamond, had noticed I did not.

“We just met,” I said. “Something I didn’t make clear is, this isn’t Kermit’s idea. A friend of mine, a marine biologist, he’s the one who came up with it. I just happened to pass it along. Maybe that was a mistake.”

Roberta took the possibility more seriously than I expected. “Really? Maybe it was. If there was a list of discoveries made by people outside their field, it would cover this room.” She gave it more thought while halving the orange. “I don’t know… it seems so simple-too simple, really. Beat an incurable disease by literally returning to the roots of the original tree. Here… let’s have a look.”

She slid the plate toward me, and used a pencil to point. “Aborted seeds are the first thing I look for. These little guys are plump and healthy as can be. This is the calyx button-it’s where the stem connects to the center column of the orange. Looks good; no yellow stain, which is typical of HLB. But the leaves have been infected. You saw for yourself. That tells me the disease hasn’t had time to affect the fruit-eighteen months is all it takes, which isn’t long. You said your great-grandpa planted the tree?”

“Almost a hundred years ago,” I said, “but that could be an exaggeration.”

“Hmm,” she said. “It’s possible. Either that or the fruit’s more resistant, for some reason. Which is very, very unlikely, Hannah. Still”-she sat back to clean her hands-“it’s an interesting angle.”

“I have some other friends, a retired couple. They felt the idea had probably already been tried and failed. But since you and I have known each other so long, they said why not wrangle a meeting and ask you personally?”

“Nope, this is the first I’ve heard of going back to the original rootstock,” the woman said, and rolled her eyes in a humorous way. “It’s a little too obvious for us highly trained experts. The more complex, the better-that’s academia for you. In Texas, a lab is trying to splice spinach DNA with citrus genomes… I’m serious, by the way… Others are infecting periwinkle flowers with HLB to see what happens, then experimenting with penicillin, and some cryptic biocide-I can’t pronounce the darn name. Here, we’re plodding along with a three-pronged approach: insecticides, supplements, and the equivalent of a dose of aspirin. It’s a technique developed by Maury Boyd, a guy literally fighting for his life. It’s not perfect. The combination helps, but everyone knows the industry is doomed if we don’t find a cure within the next few years.” She sighed, then shrugged and got to her feet. “I don’t think Spanish rootstock is the answer, but what the heck? I can ask around. Who are these friends of yours again?”

“Actually, they’re my clients-I’m a fishing guide now.”

“I remember that about you: you liked to fish. How’s it going, you in a business that’s traditionally all men?”

“I stay busy; do light tackle, mostly. My clients, the ones who said I should talk to you, they just retired from a company they started. One’s an attorney, the other’s a scientist, so I figure they know what they’re talking about.” I paused before adding, “They founded a company called Biotech International.”

Roberta’s eyes widened at the name-or the word Biotech . I’d done a Google search on the Gentrys. They had pioneered the field of biotechnology, so the name and the word were practically synonymous.

I liked her slow smile. It brought a devilish light to her eyes. “Look at you, Hannah Smith. I remember you as the quiet one in the back of the room; a varsity swimmer who played clarinet. What I should have remembered is, you got straight A’s. Biotech International-that’s as big as it gets.”

“One of the things I like about guiding,” I said, “is you never know who you’ll meet.”

“When they got on your boat, did you have any idea who they were?”

“Not until I picked a few wild grapefruits for them and then we started talking about citrus at lunch. The way their faces lit up, I could tell they’re already bored with retirement.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“I don’t know enough about it to be serious, but they seem serious enough. They’re paying a full day’s charter fee for every day I spend working on a project they’re considering.”

“My goodness…” She began packing her laptop. “Say-why don’t you ride with me to this grove near Arcadia? We can talk more on the way.”

The girl who’d once led Holstein cows into a show ring waited until we were in her pickup to say, “Anything we discuss in the office is proprietary, but we can talk freely now-this is my truck. Hannah, let me tell you something. If you get a patent on a bio technique that’s even close to something that works-even years from now-you could make millions. Trouble is”-she smiled, still wrestling with the concept-“it won’t.”

Even so, at a stoplight she asked, “Do you think there’s a chance I could actually meet Dr. Gentry and her husband?”

All my life I’ve lived in Florida, but had never seen oranges processed from start to finish. The owner of the grove was too busy to show me around, and Roberta was too busy doing her job, so I was assigned a guide-when he wasn’t busy. Fine with me. It gave me room to piece together things on my own-and also phone Mrs. Gentry to tell her the progress I was making.

The northwest section of the grove-because it was the windward corner, I suspected-had been withered by disease. This left twenty acres of fruit to pick, and several crews were going at it as if they were in a race. In a way, they were. Oranges don’t continue to ripen when they hit the ground, they rot. February is peak season. It was profit now… or never.

Two-man teams, with red canvas bags over their shoulders or strapped to their belts, hustled a ladder from tree to tree. One man climbed and picked; the other picked, too, while steadying the ladder. When their bags were full, it was a race to semitruck-sized containers at the end of a row. Amid the catcalls and laughter was the combustion hum of open-cab vehicles called goats. (My guide didn’t know why.) These were equipped with a large hydraulic scoop that operated like a mechanical arm. The scoops transferred fruit from the containers into waiting open-bed trucks, and off the trucks roared to a nearby processing plant.

As I watched, strolling among the fragrant rows, I noted that each laden tree was connected near the roots to various tubes and sensor wires, not unlike a patient in a hospital’s intensive care unit. The grove owner was, indeed, fighting for his economic life.

Citrus trees, at peak sweetness, are also in full bloom. The color contrast of heavy-hanging oranges among blossoms of orchid white was pleasant. The tangy scent first reminded me of orange blossom honey… then of the perfume Shalimar. Automatically, I thought of the boathouse, and Kermit. His friendly face and brown eyes floated around in my mind until I saw Roberta striding toward me. It was not the first time since we’d arrived. About every fifteen minutes she had reappeared to continue a back-and-forth argument going on in her head.