Chapter 8: Nobody's Fruit

I drove the load home.

I drove it to two other buyers on the way, one in Elk Rapids and one down in Kingsley.

Both of them had gotten the same phone call.

By the time I backed the truck up to the packing shed, it was nearly dark.

Luke was sitting on the loading dock in Grandpa's boots, eating an egg sandwich from the morning.

"How'd it go?"

"Nobody will take it."

He stopped chewing.

"Nobody?"

"Shane's lawyer called all of them. If they take my fruit, they're in the lawsuit."

"There is no lawsuit."

"There is if he files one."

I opened the walk-in.

The cold rolled out over our feet.

Six tons of cherries sat inside in stacked lugs, deep red and perfect.

Tart cherries last about a week cold.

After that they go soft, then they go to vinegar, then they go in the compost.

I stood there looking at them.

Luke stood behind me looking at them too.

"What's your margin on these at retail?" he asked.

"My what?"

"If you sell them yourself. By the quart."

"About six times what the co-op pays."

"Then why do you sell to the co-op?"

"Because six tons is a lot of quarts, Luke."

He pushed his glasses up.

"How many cars go past your stand on a summer day?"

"A few hundred. Tourists going to the lighthouse."

"And how many stop?"

"Depends on the pie."

He nodded slowly.

"Then it's not a cherry problem," he said. "It's a traffic problem."

In the morning, Megan painted a sign on an old sheet.

U-PICK CHERRIES. BRING A BUCKET. WE HAVE BUCKETS.

She wrote it left-handed, and it slanted, and it was perfect.

Then I went into the cooler and looked at what else was in there.

The wedding was still in there.

Two hundred little jars of cherry jam with gingham lids, the favors we were going to put at every place.

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