Jodie Picoult - Songs of the Humpback Whale - A Novel in Five Voices

It’s remarkable to watch them from this distance, this guy I’ve come to trust like a brother and this woman who has done nothing but give me grief from the moment she’s arrived. Joley doesn’t hear her at first. He’s got his hands pressed around a tree he’s been grafting; his head bent almost reverently, willing it to live. A second later, when he lifts his head in that way he has, kind of dazed, he sees Jane and jumps off the high rungs of the ladder to meet her. He picks her up and swings her around and she wraps her arms around his neck and clings to him like she’s been drowning and just found a sure call for safety. I’ve never seen two people so different fit together so perfect.

Hadley and me and Rebecca are all watching this and getting kind of uncomfortable. It’s not just like we’re intruding; it’s as if everything-the orchard, the lake, the sky, God Himself-should be giving these two a little privacy. “Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off, Joley,” I say softly, “on account of you never see your sister.”

I start to walk back in the direction of the barn, figuring I can clean up after the shearing. I need to separate that last ewe’s wool, and tie the bags and get them into town sometime this week. I leave Hadley in charge of Rebecca, figuring the two of them are getting along all right. And then with the sun burning against the back of my neck, I make my way across my orchard.

I have never disliked someone so much so quickly. I’d say I wasn’t being fair to her, with the shearing accident and all, but I certainly gave her plenty of chances to see that I didn’t mean it on purpose. Ten acres back to the barn is a long ways, and the whole time I’m thinking of Jane Jones, and her face flushed to the same color as Ma’s dress, and the way one minute she could act so self-righteous, but the next minute she needed to cling to Joley for support.

I try to do a few things back at the greenhouse, but Im not concentrating well. I keep remembering stupid things from high school-dumb incidents with city girls who, most likely, Jane used to hang around with. I seemed to always go for that type: the ones who looked like they’d just scrubbed their faces so hard they’d turned pink at the cheeks; the girls who had straight shiny hair that, if you came close, gave off the scent of raspberries. I went crazy over them at first sight, my heart going a mile a minute and my throat getting all hollow until I got up the nerve to go over and try one more time. You never know, I used to tell myself. Maybe this girl won’t know where you’re from. Maybe she won’t be the kind who cares. Eventually I knew better. They didn’t have to say it outright; their message came through loud and clear: stick to your own kind.

So that was my first mistake with Jane Jones. I should have just let her go her own way. I should have pointed her in Joley’s direction and I shouldn’t have asked her to help out with the shearing in any way, shape or form. I started out just doing it for a laugh but that wasn’t right. She’s not like us. She wouldn’t get the joke.

I realize then that I have left the greenhouse without noticing, and I’m standing in front of a dead apple tree, staring at Joley and his sister. Joley notices me and waves me over. From the other direction, Hadley and Rebecca approach. “Where have you guys been?” Joley says. “We were getting ready to have lunch.”

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. “We were down by the lake,” Hadley says. “Rebecca was telling me all the stupid things you did at family Christmas parties.” He’s got a gift for situations like this. He can take knots and unravel them, smooth the kinks, put everyone at ease.

“Sam,” she says. She’s talking to me. “Joley says you have a hundred acres.” She looks directly at me, bright and friendly.

“You know anything about apples?” I say, too gruff. She shakes her head, so that her ponytail bounces on her shoulders. A ponytail. You don’t see many grown women with one; that’s what it is about her. “It really wouldn’t interest you.”

Hadley looks at me, as if to say, What the hell’s gotten into you?

“Sure it would. What varieties do you grow here?”

When I don’t say anything, Hadley and Joley go through the rigamaroleof reciting all the stocks and varieties at the orchard. I walk up to the dead tree, within inches of her, and pick at the bark of a branch. I pretend that I’m doing something important.

Jane walks to a nearby tree. “And what are these?”

She picks a Puritan, holds it up to the warm noon sun, and then presses it up against her lips, getting ready to bite. I see this from behind, and I know what she is about to do. I also know that this section was sprayed with pesticides this morning. I move quickly on instinct, throwing my arm over her shoulder so that her back presses against me, sharp and warm. I manage to swat that apple out of her arm so it rolls out of her tight hold, settling heavy, like an overturned stone.

She whirls around, her lips inches from my face. “What in God’s name is your problem? ”

I am thinking: Get in your car; go back where you belong. Or else leave your big ideas behind and let me run my place the way I know it should be run. I am thinking: Here, I am the big fish in the pond. Finally I point to the tree where she picked the fruit. “They were sprayed today,” I say. “You eat it, you die.” I push past her, past the catch of perfume that hangs about her and the warm outline of air that hovers inches from her skin. I brush her shoulder as I pass, and I step on the goddamned apple with the heel of my boot. I fix my eyes on the Big House; I keep walking. I don’t look back. Out of sight, I tell myself, is out of mind.

Because the Big House was built in the 1800s, all the plumbing’s been restored. Naturally, they have bathrooms but not many. Everyone upstairs has to share one master bathroom, one claw-footed tub with a pull-around shower curtain, one ancient toilet with an overhead chain-pull tank.

Today, I get up so late I’m sure that everyone else has already gone down to the fields. There’s no one in the bathroom, so I just walk in and turn on the shower. I let the room fill up with steam and then I’m singing the melodies of doo-wop songs, so I don’t hear the door open. But when I peek my head out to reach for a towel so I can wipe soap out of my eyes, I see Sam Hansen standing in front of the mirror.

He’s rubbed a little part clear, and he’s got shaving cream all over his face. I’m so shocked that I just stand there, stark naked, with my mouth hanging open. There’s no lock on the bathroom door, so I could understand him walking in. But actually staying? Shaving?

“Excuse me,” I say, “I’m taking a shower.”

Sam turns to me. “I can see that.”

“Don’t you think you should leave?”

Sam clicks his razor three times against the porcelain of the sink. “Look, I’ve got an appointment in Boston this afternoon, and a meeting in Stow in three-quarters of an hour. I don’t have time to wait for you to finish your three-hour stint in the bathroom. I needed to get in here to shave. It’s not my fault you picked such a goddamned inconvenient time to take your shower-practically afternoon, now.”

“Wait just a minute.” I turn off the water and pull the towel into the bathtub. I wrap it around myself and then I throw back the curtain. “You’re intruding on my privacy. Do you always walk in on people who are in the bathroom if you’re running late? Or is it just me?”

“Give me a break,” he says, running the razor down his cheek. “I told you I was coming in.”

“Well, I didn’t hear you.”

“I knocked, and then I told you I had to get in there. And you said ‘Mmm-hmm.’ I heard it with my own two ears. Mmm-hmm.”