Summer In Iron Springs (7 page)

After admiring the
brooch for a few minutes, she glanced at her watch. “We better hurry or we’ll be late.”

They headed back out onto Park Street and walked to the Village Candy Shop. Jenna was already in line so they joined her and, after a quick glance at the choices, they ordered their ice cream and settled into a small booth in the corner of the shop. As they ate, Billy did impersonations of the snooty salesman from the gallery and Jenna laughed so loud everyone in the place turned to stare at them.

Before she left, Jenna made Phoebe promise to hang out with her the following week. Billy drove Phoebe back to Anna’s and, after turning off the truck’s engine, he walked around to the passenger side and opened Phoebe’s door. Then, giving her his hand, he helped her to the ground—something Jaxon had never thought of doing.

“That was fun,” Billy said, standing in front of her in the gravel driveway.

Phoebe nodded, her eyes meeting his. “Yeah, it was. I’m glad you decided to stalk me.”

Billy’s eyes sparkled when he laughed. “So am I.”

Four

“Wake up, wake up, wake up! Morning comes mighty early out here!” Phoebe was sure she was having a very bad dream when Norm’s voice
echoed through the house. “Come on little lady, time to get out of bed!” With one eye squinted shut, she peeked out from beneath the blankets to discover that it was five thirty in the morning. It had been less than six hours since she’d fallen into bed and unless the house was on fire, there was no way she’d be getting up any time soon. She pulled the covers over her head and sunk back into the covers.

             
“Get up, get up, get up! It’s time to go to work!”

After a long, much needed stretch she sat up, rolled out of bed and shuffled across the room. She pulled the door open just enough to see Norm’s smiling face.
Who smiles at five thirty in the morning and what is he so happy about? She gave him a blank stare. “What’s up?”

“Time to go to work!” was Norm’s unapologetic reply. “Get dressed, and get downstairs. We leave in ten minutes.” And with that cheery bit of news, Norm was gone.

Phoebe returned to her bed, plopped down, relaxed her feet and let her slippers fall to the floor. “They could have warned me I’d be starting work in the middle of the night.” She raised her arms above her head and stretched again. Then, she stood up and staggered to the bathroom. After brushing her teeth and getting dressed, she glanced in the mirror—her hair was a mess and she had dark circles under her eyes. There was no time for her to do anything about her appearance so she grabbed a hair tie and pulled her tangled hair into a ponytail. Then she made her way groggily downstairs.

“Here ya go,” Norm said handing Phoebe two pieces of dry toast. “If you want breakfast you’re gonna have to get up earlier from now on.”

She followed Norm outside and climbed into the cab of his truck. In moments, they were on the highway and after a long uncomfortable ride; the truck came to a stop at the orchard.

“Alrightee, let’s put you to work,” Norm said handing Phoebe a pair of gloves. “This’ll be as easy as puttin’ socks on a rooster.”

What the heck does that mean? Phoebe rolled her eyes and followed Norm into the trees. For someone as big as a house, he sure did have a lot of energy. It was all Phoebe could do to keep up with him.

“You see these pipes? Those are sprinklers for irrigating the trees. I need you to move all these pipes right here, to that row of trees over there.” Norm pointed to the row just south of where they were standing. He leaned over and picked up a pipe. “Here’s how you do it.” He dragged the pipe to the next row, showed her how to set it up and then moved on to the next pipe. “That’s all there is to it. Easy peasy.” Norm wiped his muddy hands on his jeans. “Call me on this if you need anything.” He handed Phoebe a two-way radio. “I’ll be around to check on you in a couple hours.”

“Wait a sec.” Phoebe looked around at the thousands of feet of pipe that lie in a row. “You think I’m going to be able to move all these sprinklers today?”

“Don’t think it, know it,” Norm said before leaving Phoebe to face the daunting task before her.

The first sprinkler she moved turned out to be an easier task than she thought it would be. She got completely soaked and was freezing cold. But other than that, it went pretty smooth and she decided the job might not be that hard after all. But the next sprinkler she picked up had a snake hiding beneath it. When it slithered toward her, she ran away as fast as she could, squealing loudly. When she got to the dirt road, she stopped and took a look around. There was no sign of the snake so she figured he must have given up on having her for lunch. She let out a sigh.

Billy must have heard her screaming because he came running out of the trees and hurried toward her. He put a hand on each of her shoulders. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes inspecting her from head to toe. “Are you hurt?”

Phoebe took a minute to calm her breathing before speaking. “There was a snake over there. It ran after me.”

Billy started to chuckle but stopped himself when Phoebe narrowed her eyes at him. “What the heck is so funny? It might have been poisonous.”

Billy reached up and removed a piece of debris from Phoebe’s hair and tossed it to the ground. Then, lowering his voice, he spoke calmly. “Snakes don’t run. They slither,” he said with a smile. “And those snakes aren’t poisonous, Feebs. And, believe me; they’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“I really doubt that,” Phoebe said, wiping a smudge of mud off her arm. “Are you sure they’re not poisonous?”

“Positive,” Billy said, smiling. “So, Norm put you to work?”

“All part of the plan to teach me a lesson, I guess.” Phoebe rolled her eyes.

“Well, that’ll teach you to stop painting your boyfriend’s face on the school wall, now won’t it?” Billy said and they both laughed.

Billy followed her to the area where Norm had assigned her to work.

“I have to move all those sprinklers today.” She pointed to the sprinkler pipes that extended further than her eyes could see.

“Do you want me to help you until you get the hang of it?” Billy asked.

Phoebe shook her head. There wasn’t much to get the hang of. Pick up a dirty, wet, heavy pipe and move it from one spot to another. “Thanks for offering. But, I got it.”

“Okay. But if you need me just squeal and I’ll come running.”

“Very funny.”

The work was hard—the hardest work Phoebe had ever done. Actually, it was the only work she’d ever done. After three hours of moving sprinklers, her hands were blistered, her back
ached, and she was covered with dirt and sweat. While she worked, she thought about the previous day. Anna had gotten up early and gone to church. She’d invited Phoebe to come along and when she found out that Billy was also going, she was tempted. But, when she thought about it, she was sure it would be terribly uncomfortable and boring so she declined the invitation.

Instead, she had taken advantage of having the house to herself by checking email and Facebook. She hadn’t expected to hear from Jaxon and it was a good thing because he hadn’t emailed. She’d gotten one email from Elise saying that she saw Jaxon out with Laree Sharman. Phoebe thought she should have been bugged but she wasn’t. There was an email from her dad—
Hope you’re settling in, I’ll call you soon
—short and to the point. Phoebe had picked up the phone to call him but hung it back up. She wanted to know about the conversation she’d overheard but she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.

Nothing but drama was happening on Facebook so Phoebe shut down the computer and took Bandit for a walk. She let him lead since he seemed to know his way around. He took her to the row of cabins where Billy and the others lived and Phoebe took a minute to glance at each one. She decided Billy’s was the one with the purple and yellow flowers blooming in the wooden flower box attached to the porch railing. She smiled while she admired them. The other three cabins were free of color or decoration. Billy’s—or the one she was sure was Billy’s—also had a wind chime hanging on the porch. The sound it made was pretty. It, combined with a nearby finch’s melody and the rustling of leaves, created a peaceful song. Something about the feel of Iron Springs was growing on her.

***

“You’re doing a great job, little lady!” Norm said when he came to check in on the progress she was making with the sprinklers.

Phoebe glanced up at Norm, using her hand to shield her eyes from the beating sun. She didn’t respond to the compliment but there was a part of her—a very small part—that enjoyed hearing it. For her whole life, she’d worked hard to hear similar words come out of her father’s mouth. But all she got from him were lectures on how she ought to get serious about her future and start thinking of something productive to do with her life. What he meant, of course, was that she ought to do something other than painting.

“Only three thousand more trees to irrigate before we start it all over again.” Norm chuckled.

“Great,” Phoebe said before forcing herself to get back to work.

Norm, as usual, was incapable of silence. He talked nonstop. He possessed more useless information than anyone she’d ever met and she was convinced that he planned to share it all with her all in one day.

“You ever heard of Steve Jobs?” he asked as he watched her carry a load of pipes along the dirt trail.

Phoebe gave Norm a flat stare. “No.” But I’m sure you’re going to tell me all about him.

“Well, you’ll be interested to know that he worked in apple orchards as a kid. He liked it so much that he named his company Apple Computers.”

“Wow.” Phoebe replied dully.

***

After what seemed like an eternity of muddy and exhausting work, Phoebe checked her watch. She had been moving sprinklers for five straight hours. The sun was beating down on her and her arms were covered with scratches.

“Time fo
r lunch,” John announced as he and Billy headed toward the area where Phoebe was working.

“Why are you always the one who announces lunch?” Billy joked. He patted John’s large belly and the two men broke out in loud laughter.

As soon as she heard John mention the word
lunch
, Phoebe became aware of her hunger. She hadn’t eaten the toast Norm gave her that morning and she’d worked up quite an appetite. Ready to fill her stomach, she took off her gloves and followed the others to the truck.

Stephen stood beside her while they waited for Norm to unload the lunch cooler. He smiled a wide, child-like smile at her. “You’re a hard worker,” he said.

“Thanks,” Phoebe mumbled. At first, she was uncomfortable by the way the shy man stared at her. But the kindness in his eyes quickly settled her feelings.

“You’re Bessie’s daughter,” Stephen glanced awkwardly at his worn out shoes.

“Yes,” Phoebe answered. She stared off in the distance.

“Bessie was nice to me.” The innocence in Stephen’s words made Phoebe wonder if he could possibly understand where Bessie was.
She didn’t even know if
she
was sure where her mother was.

“That’s good,” Phoebe said. She liked Stephen but her heart couldn’t take a conversation about her mother, not today. She headed toward the picnic table.

Norm opened a large red cooler and pulled out a big bowl of chicken salad, thick slices of Anna’s fresh baked bread, homemade potato salad, bottles of ice cold water, and an entire apple pie. Phoebe reached for a plate and two slices of bread and dumped a heaping serving of chicken salad onto the bread. Then, she piled a huge mound of potato salad onto her plate. She grabbed a bottle of water and sat down beneath a tree. Billy served himself and sat down beside her.

“You got a lot done already,” he said. He took a big bite of his chicken sandwich. “You really seem to know your way around an orchard.” He twisted the cap off his water bottle and drank the whole thing. Then, he grabbed a second bottle and opened it. “You see any more snakes?”

Phoebe bit into her sandwich and enjoyed the tasty combination of chicken, sweet grapes, crunchy celery and mayonnaise. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was starving or if it was Anna’s chicken salad, but the sandwich was delicious. “Nope, no more snakes,” she said. “But a raccoon fell out of a tree onto my head.”

Billy laughed and so did she. “It was a baby; he was really cute so I named him Fritz.”

She finished her bottle of water and took another one with her as she headed back to work.

***

“Are you comin’?” The voice came from behind her. Phoebe glanced over her shoulder and saw Billy standing there.

She raised her eyebrows in his direction and tightened her grip on the pipe she was carrying. “Coming where?”

“We’re finished for the day.” Billy smiled and pointed toward Norm’s truck. Norm was in the driver’s seat and the others were in the bed waiting for her. Phoebe wiped the sweat from her forehead and glanced at her watch—two thirty. She had worked for over eight hours. She looked at her arms; they were covered with scratches. A thick layer of dirt and sweat covered her completely and every muscle in her tired body ached. She did her best to brush the dirt from her arms as she followed Billy to the truck but it was an exercise in futility. Only a long, hot shower would get her clean. Once she was seated, she allowed her head to fall back. Her eyes closed and within seconds, she was asleep. Forty minutes later, the truck jolted her awake when it came to a stop outside Anna’s house.

***

Phoebe heard the knock at her bedroom door and the one that followed but she was so caught up in the painting she had propped in her lap that she didn’t bother answering it.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Anna said, joining her on the balcony. She pointed to the painting.

Phoebe nodded her head.

Anna gazed at the mountainside. “It was painted from this spot right here.”

“Yeah . . .” Phoebe spoke softly. She glanced at the painting and then her eyes moved to the mountain peak. “I was just comparing this one to the real thing. It’s that peak right over there, isn’t it?”