Robyn Carr - Sunrise Point

“Do you know how to make coffee?” he asked.

“I do,” she said. But she wasn’t sure she could make good coffee. “Where’s the pot?”

“In the break room. Behind the office.”

And she immediately thought, I’m such an idiot. There was a break room, a lunchroom! And lunch had never even crossed her mind. Well, she’d sneak an apple or two and tomorrow she’d bring a sandwich. In the break room was a large thirty-cup pot and she tried to remember how many scoops per cup of water, hoping for the best.

“Holy crap!” Tom Cavanaugh exclaimed. “Think you got enough coffee in this brew? My spoon could stand up in it!”

“My dad used to like it strong,” she said, squaring her shoulders, though she had no idea if her father even drank coffee.

“Go to the house,” he ordered. “Maxie is in the kitchen. Ask her for cream and sugar.”

No please. No if you don’t mind. “Sure,” she said.

And rather than walk, she jogged. Then she knocked on the screen door. “Come on in, Nora,” Maxie said. She was still wearing her robe and slippers, sitting at the kitchen table with her own coffee and a paper folded open to a crossword puzzle. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been sent for cream and sugar for the coffee. So far today I’ve failed in arrival time and coffee that’s too strong.”

Maxie laughed. “Is that right? Drain a cup or two and add water. That should shut him up. What was wrong with your arrival time?”

“I guess I got here too early and since I don’t know where anything is, I’m useless. Except for destroying his coffee.”

Maxie got a weird look on her face. “Sounds like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed. I’d be likely to admire that in an employee. The early arrival part, I mean. By tomorrow, you’ll know where things are. And he can make his own coffee.” She pointed to the counter. “There’s the cream and sugar. Which, by the way, Tom forgot to take with him.” Nora lifted the small pitcher and bowl and Maxi said, “I’m probably going deaf, but I didn’t hear a car or truck.”

Nora turned back. “I don’t have a car. Or truck.”

Maxie regarded her steadily. “I see. Quite a long walk, isn’t it?”

“Three-point-four,” Nora said. Then she smiled. “I made very good time. I won’t come so early tomorrow, since Mr. Cavanaugh isn’t in the mood for company first thing in the morning.”

Maxie grinned and said, “Fix the coffee like I told you. The first couple of days on a new job are always kind of sketchy. You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll try. And thanks for the job—I know it was your doing. I can’t tell you how much I—”

“A long, long time ago, many years before you were born, when I didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of, some old woman gave me a job picking apples and it was the best job I ever had. I hope it all works out for you.”

And that brought a very grateful smile out of Nora. “Thank you, Mrs. Cavanaugh.”

“I’m Maxie, and that’s final. You’re entirely welcome.”

* * *

The knee-high rubber boots were an excellent investment in keeping her feet dry. The ground beneath the trees was sometimes very soggy. She wore the boots over her tennis shoes. But it was cold on the wet ground, especially in the early morning, and rubber boots did little to keep her feet warm. Her toes were icy cold and when she took her lunch break, she pulled off the boots, the socks and tennis shoes she wore inside them and gave her feet a rubbing, trying to warm them.

The other pickers, all men, wore their rubber boots over expensive, steel-toed, lace-up boots. They didn’t need to rub the life back into their toes.

Nora ran into trouble with her hands, feet, arms and shoulders. She got blisters on her hands from toting the canvas bag she looped over her shoulders and after a few days of picking apples, the blisters popped, bled and hurt like the devil. She cut her hands on wooden crates and bins if she wasn’t careful. The men wore gloves most of the time; she didn’t have gloves and her hands took a beating. She had matching blisters on her heels, just from more walking than she’d done in her life. Although she was armed with Band-Aids, they rubbed off too quickly. Even though she was in good physical condition, carrying almost fifty pounds of apples up and down a ladder in a sack that strapped over her shoulders took its toll on her shoulders, back and legs. Her right shoulder was in agony from picking, but she didn’t dare let it slow her down. She was just plain sore all over.

She had to work hard to keep up with the men. She was no match, that much was obvious. But Buddy praised her efforts now and then, telling her she was doing great for a new picker. Of course, Buddy clearly wanted a date, but she tried to ignore that since it was never going to happen.

After the first day, she didn’t walk to work in the pitch dark anymore, but she did set out in early dawn and all the same suspicious animal noises haunted her. She managed to get to the orchard just as full morning was upon them so she could make the coffee, which she had perfected. She brought a sandwich everyday—apples were on the house. And she was always the last one to leave—home by six.

By the time she got home everyday, Adie had joined forces with Martha to get the little girls home from day care, bathed and fed, a contribution so monumental it nearly moved Nora to tears, she was so grateful.

“Adie, you must be exhausted,” she said. “They wear me out!”

“I’m doing very well,” the woman replied. “I feel useful. Needed. But I’ll be the first to admit, they’re quite a lot to manage in the tub. They like the tub.”

“Thank God for Martha!” Nora said. She tried not to let it show that she had a little trouble lifting the baby into her little stroller, but Adie wasn’t paying attention to that, thank goodness.

“You know what’s wonderful? How excited they are when I come to school to pick them up,” Adie said while Nora readied her children to go home. “The teachers say the girls do very well—they eat well and nap well and seem to love being there.”

Almost more important than the added income, her girls needed to be around loving adults and other children in a safe environment. “Is Ellie Kincaid there sometimes?” Nora asked.

“I see her every morning. I think she’s some kind of official sponsor of the day care and preschool,” Adie said. “She welcomes the children and makes a big fuss over them every day. I’m volunteering to help with milk and cookie time and watching over nap time.”

“Oh, Adie, you’re priceless.”

“Why not? I have the time. And I love the children.”

Nora didn’t see Tom Cavanaugh much that first week and when she did, they didn’t speak or make eye contact, not even when she arrived early enough to be sure his coffee was made. This suited her fine. She wasn’t prepared to have him judge her weakness by her wounded hands or her slow movements and winces due to muscle pain. She saw him talking to other harvesters from time to time, saw him using the forklift to move full bins, saw him in the cider press area. But they didn’t work together nor chitchat. Why would they?

He never complained about the coffee again. And he had remembered the cream and sugar every morning.

By the end of the week she was so tired she believed she could fall down and sleep for a month. Mr. Cavanaugh told the harvesters it was their choice whether to work or take time off on the weekend; they weren’t in a critical harvesting situation like over-ripening or an impending freeze. He paid overtime, so even though Nora could hardly bend her fingers from the tightness or lift her right arm, her picking arm, she signed on and hoped she could get a little help from Adie and Martha with the kids, or maybe Ellie Kincaid or one of the local teenage babysitters. Overtime, that was juicy.