Ana of California (2 page)

“I know
.
”

“Honestly, I didn't mean to freak out and run. I'm trying to do the right thing.”

“I know you are, but that's not the problem.”

“Please don't send me back to the group home.”

Ana wiped her face. She told herself that if her eyes met Mrs. Saucedo's again, she might drown.

“I'll do anything,” Ana said. “Just please don't send me back there.”

She felt her voice slip and knew she'd never be able to catch it. Every breath seemed heavier and harder to swallow. She'd been to a group home before Ms. Fenton's; in fact, it was the last time she'd sat in Mrs. Saucedo's office arguing against another situation that had remained woefully unchecked. Ana could barely remember the faces of those who had surrounded her back then, though she could recite every word they said. Her memory flashed to the bathroom, the group of girls standing behind her as she tried not to make eye contact in the mirror. They were older and greater in number, swift and quiet in their attack. She was shoved from behind first and punched once or twice—she couldn't remember—before her head hit the floor. There were multiple feet near her face, that she remembered, and she'd kept her eyes focused on the chipped tile where there was a clump of her own hair.

“Take a breath,” Mrs. Saucedo said and slid a box of tissues across the desk. Ana Cortez had cried in her office on only two occasions. The first time, Mrs. Saucedo had put her arms around Ana's small, rigid shoulders, which refused to soften, unlike those of her own daughters. This time, Mrs. Saucedo remained still, willing herself not to do or say anything she couldn't promise.

“I'm serious about working for you,” Ana repeated. “I can sleep on the floor. You won't even know I'm here. I'll do all your filing, whatever job you want me to do.”

“Funny enough, I think a job is exactly what you need.”

In all the years that Lupe Saucedo had thought about Ana Cortez—and she'd thought about her more often than she'd anticipated—she had never truly known what to do. Ana was six years old when she was brought in the first time on an unseasonably cold Southern California night wearing dirty shorts and a pink coat. Unlike other children brought in under similar situations, Ana was talkative and had been known around the Ramona Houses as
La Boca.
The police officers had said she had told them her name was “
Fantasma,
” and when Mrs. Saucedo asked the young Ana why she wanted to call herself “ghost,” the girl had looked her in the eye and said she had made her parents disappear. It was the only time Lupe ever considered bringing a child home.

She'd been relieved when Ana's grandmother arrived, heaving with worry. She watched as the slight woman swooped the little girl into her arms and they both held on to each other and cried. It was a rare happy ending that lasted for just more than a year. Ana was back in her office the following spring, her hair drawn up in colorful ribbons that clashed with the bandages peeking out from the neck of her dress. Where she'd been surprisingly chatty the first time around despite the grim circumstances, she had remained relatively mute following the death of her grandmother.

Year after year, every time the slightly older Ana sat across from her, hair longer, frame slighter, Mrs. Saucedo felt a ghost was still with her. There were times she'd be shopping in the grocery store, her own kids in tow, and she'd catch the gaze of a child in someone else's cart. They'd be the same eyes—deep, placid, and reflective—wanting of
so much and so little in a single glance that Mrs. Saucedo would feel a chill pass through her.

“Put me anywhere you want then,” Ana said. “Doesn't matter. Like you said, I'm almost sixteen, right? So put me in a group house, and I'll put myself on the streets. I know how to take care of myself.”

“I have something more interesting in mind,” Mrs. Saucedo said, opening an e-mail.

“Let me guess . . . juvie? That's the next logical step, right?”

“We've yet to discuss the possibility of emancipation,” she explained. “Do you understand what that means?”

“I can live on my own if I want?”

“It's not as simple as that. You'll have to work at a job. Upon completion of that job, your employers will decide—along with me as well as a judge—whether you can formally emancipate yourself. Think of it like speeding ahead to eighteen only with better options. You and I both know living on the streets isn't easy, especially here.”

“What kind of job are we talking about?”

Mrs. Saucedo swiveled around the computer. On the screen was a photograph of a gray house with a red door, impressive but not imposing. There were white steps leading up to a wraparound porch with two chairs and several wooden boxes overflowing with wildflowers. The entire house was surrounded by lush fields of green.

“It's a one-month trial. If the work goes well, you'll stay through Labor Day and go to school there. If it doesn't, you come back to a group home and school here.”

“Where's there?”

“Have you ever been to a farm?” Mrs. Saucedo asked.

“Not really my kind of thing.”

“Well, I'm afraid this is your only choice.”

Ana stared at the house in the photo, which was set back against towering trees. She hadn't noticed it at first, but there was a woman standing off to the side. It was hard to make out her face, but she was captured smiling and in mid-wave.

“Have you ever been outside of Los Angeles?” Mrs. Saucedo asked.

“No,” Ana answered. “I've never even been to the beach.”

“Ever been on an airplane?”

“Nope.”

“Never wanted to travel?”

“Sure, but c'mon, Mrs. S., let's get real . . .”

“Let's,” Mrs. Saucedo said. She shut Ana's file and leaned across the desk. “Grab your
backpack.”

N
othing irritated Abbie Garber more than unexpected visitors during the summer harvest. Everyone in Hadley knew that for her it was a sacred time devoted to picking, packing, pruning, and preserving while managing the staff and overseeing produce season. What this meant for Abbie—proprietress of all products stamped
GARBER
FARM
—was a gentle dose of mania. The last thing she wanted was to finish the day feeling even the slightest bit behind.

“Emmett!” Abbie shouted out the screen door. “If that woman is here to bother Manny about the tractor, I will sharpen my shears on her Beemer's bumper!”

Abbie broke her own rule by letting the screen door slam shut. She walked toward one of the curtained windows at the front of the house, checking her reflection in the hall mirror along the way.

She took a breath before peeling back the linen curtain. Just beyond the wooden fence, on the perimeter of the fields,
stood her close but not-so-close neighbor Minerva F. Shaw, chatting with the farm's field manager, Manny, who leaned against his tractor stroking an overgrown mustache and looking the opposite of amused. While it was true the F stood for “Fellowes,” in memory of Minerva's long-dead first husband, why she kept the initial after she married her second late husband, Bob Shaw, had remained a mystery. Abbie didn't care to know the reason why, especially because she'd always given the F a different meaning; she just wanted Minerva to mind her own business.

“I'm going to give you five seconds, Minerva Fellowes Shaw,” Abbie said, turning to the pair of armchairs flanking the fireplace in the corner of the room. “And if you're still standing there when I pull back this curtain again, so help you, I will unleash the dogs.”

In actuality, Garber Farm had only one dog, Dolly, a retriever mix who favored lounging on the porch or barking at the wind to any sort of farm duties. Still, Minerva Shaw's repeated visits on matters of tractor noise, fence placement, and anything that was no business of her own enraged Abbie's proud sensibilities enough for her to imagine a pack of wild dogs once and for all chasing her meddlesome neighbor away.

There had been a time when Garber Farm housed a whole menagerie of animals. Abbie and her brother, Emmett, had enjoyed growing up on the idyllic Northern California farm, its fields vast, lush, and undulating up and down the hillside in shades of brilliant green. Their hands had helped their mother roll out pie dough and make preserves each season when they weren't helping their father plant every crop. And though the siblings spent most of their lives together, Abbie
had left home in her teen years, following the unexpected death of their mother.

Emmett Garber had lived in Hadley all of his life, sharing several of those years happily working and living above the barn with his beloved wife, Josie. But in the year of the codling moth, when the whole of the county had suffered nature's winged misfortune, Emmett Garber Sr. had died too, leaving the farm and all its dealings to both Emmett and Abbie equally. Though they both hadn't lived at the farm together in more than a decade, they came back together to take their rightful place as inheritors of the soil.

It was a turbulent time, especially for Emmett, but coming back to Garber Farm had been a blessing for Abbie. Mired in a troubled marriage with a man more devoted to his guitar, Abbie had been searching for a way to let him and a life in the city go. Following her father's death, she packed a single suitcase, donned her great-grandmother's old straw hat, which had been languishing in the back of her tiny closet for years, and left the ramshackle San Francisco apartment she'd worked so hard to love.

Though Emmett and Abbie had settled comfortably into farm life, there were times when the wind danced through the buckeyes or a majestic hawk circled overhead, and each one of them would feel a lump sliding down their throats. Abbie worked late into the night, making jam and a wide variety of pickles with names like Fab Figs or Beauteous Beets. On lonelier evenings, typically in the colder months or when Emmett had retreated to his haven in the barn, she would pore over recipe books or read online forums on the best way to make cider or tackle all-natural pest control.

Emmett preferred to harness himself to the land. He was
up every morning before dawn, tending to the more grueling workings of the farm; in truth, he preferred the silence in those early hours. Josie would awaken with him at the same time every morning. There would always be a cup of coffee and freshly baked muffin on their small breakfast table, and when he returned from inspecting the crops and opening the fence for the morning staff, he'd stride over the hill, sunrise illuminating the tiny barn, and Josie would wave to him from the window. These days, he took his breakfast with Dolly on the porch or back in the barn. Rarely did Abbie join him outside. It had been almost a year since Josie's unexpected departure, an event that rendered both siblings speechless. Their mutual affection for her reached back to a shared childhood. Abbie often watched through the window as Emmett stared out into the horizon, streaks of gray speckling his shadow of a beard, his cowboy hat drawn low.

Garber Farm was their life, and it wasn't an easy one. Emmett and Abbie felt a duty to preserve the legacy of the farm, one of the only small organic farms still in existence around Hadley. After all, Garbers had been farming this land for a hundred years. In order to stay afloat, they'd had to move beyond selling at the local farmers' markets. Their wide variety of vegetables and herbs was legendary, and more crops meant more work. Abbie had also taken to making seasonal batches of infused oil to sell along with pickles, preserves, and her award-winning hard cider, all adapted from her mother's or grandmother's recipes. Still, even in a successful year, they never had the margin the bigger corporate farms enjoyed.

They knew something needed to change. Emmett's solution was to retreat to the barn and brood, but Abbie figured a younger, more robust extra hand was what they needed to
shake things up. She worried about her brother and his melancholy ways and thought having a young person to live with them and take along on weekly deliveries might help clear out the cobwebs. It wouldn't hurt to have some help in the kitchen either.

After much debate, they settled on the idea of a farm intern who would work for school credit. Emmett reached out to Hadley High and Abbie posted a notice on the advertising board at Moon Pharm General Store. But the results were the same: the town's local boys were either on the football field, tending to their own family business after school, or, as Hadley's oldest and wisest resident, Alder Kinman, put it, “Sodding off in the forest with the rest of the jugs and thugs. Wouldn't you?”

Despite Emmett's initial protestations, Abbie contacted the local foster system. In the same way that she pursued the rest of her “harebrained ideas”—Emmett's words and often her father's too—Abbie went ahead with the paperwork, background checks, and home visit anyway, which occurred while Emmett was coming in from the fields. She knew the only way to change her brother's mind was to never give him any option in the first place, and he signed off on the matter hoping that would be the end of it. Abbie was surprised when the system matched her with a young woman from Los Angeles, less than a week after her approval came through. It was a “special case,” they had said, and one in which there was no option to dispute the gender. Emmett would grumble, but he'd get used to it. And Abbie relished the idea of female company. She reassured Emmett that the “foster student” was up for the challenge of farm work, and he never asked any more than that, not that she intended to elaborate.

The last person she wanted to explain all this to was
Minerva Shaw. It was only a matter of time before the news was all over Main Street anyway. Any bit of news became Minerva's sole duty to share. She was the self-appointed chief of Hadley's gossip police.

“No need to get everyone talking yet,” Abbie thought before opening the door and stepping onto the front porch. Minerva made her way up the stone-lined front path, hips swinging, her red heels awkwardly clacking up the wooden steps.

“I must say, I just had the most astonishing conversation with your brother.” Minerva trilled through coral-colored lips.

“Hello to you too,” Abbie answered.

“Likewise, dear.” Minerva removed her oversize sunglasses and tucked them into her pink leather handbag.

“He mumbled something about going to the airport . . . something about someone of the male persuasion coming to see you?”

“We do have visitors from time to time.”

Minerva pursed her lips and squinted as if inspecting a dappled onion. “Not to be a nuisance, but I'm just checking that all is well with you, my dear. I wouldn't want some cold-blooded killer swooping into your single-occupied farmhouse while the menfolk are away. As much as I love your brother, his silence is quite the concern since you-know-who vacated the premises.”

“We're fine, Minerva,” Abbie said. “Honestly, there hasn't been a murder in Hadley since the gold rush.”

“Of course you are,” Minerva said with a wink. “Well, enough with this idle chatter. I stopped by for some pickled carrots. I'd love to serve some with the wine and cheese tonight . . . maybe a bottle of cider too? I have a full house this weekend.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Abbie said as they headed inside.

Minerva could never bring herself to tell Abbie how much she loved the farmhouse, especially the kitchen, which was all white with wooden countertops and glass-fronted cabinets that showed off the Garber family's collection of mismatched Victorian china. A picture window above the sink looked out over the back garden, which was meticulously laid out with rows of herbs, lettuces, beans, and heirloom tomatoes, the perimeter bursting with wildflowers. A thin shelf built across the middle of the window displayed small bud vases and mason jars full of clipped rosemary and scarlet zinnias.

Abbie's touch was all over the kitchen. There were vintage tea towels near the sunken sink and a large green tin with
BREAD
painted across it in bold letters. Tucked into the corners of the countertops were well-used cookbooks leaning up against glass containers full of flour, sugar, and assorted baking goods. Along the walls hung antique plates and framed wildflower prints. There was flair to the kitchen beyond its warm, vanilla-scented spell, and it never failed to render Minerva Shaw speechless.

“I've got only a few jars of carrots left but plenty of cider,” Abbie bellowed from her cavernous pantry. “But we'll be back into full swing in the coming weeks. I can do two carrots for fifteen and bottles of cider for seven each.”

“Wonderful,” Minerva said. Her eyes swept across the kitchen, taking in the rustic table in the corner. “Sweet peach? You've laid out the table with your mother's napkins and those plates with the scratched roses. You weren't expecting me to stay for dinner, were you?”

Abbie emerged from the pantry with bottles in hand.

“Definitely not. Why?”

“Well, dear, because the table is set for three,” Minerva said. She draped her fingertips across her chest, her head tipped and primed for information.

“As I said, we're expecting company tonight.”

“You seem to be going through a lot of trouble for this mystery guest. Let me guess . . . an old Garber relative?” Minerva inquired. “Perhaps a certain faraway customer to which you or Emmett has become . . . close?”

Minerva always had a way of emphasizing the solitude the Garber siblings shared. She also had a habit of going out of her way to introduce any bachelor types drastically above and below Abbie's age range if she happened to run into Abbie in town. Abbie knew she meant well, but it was amusing.

“Yes, they'll be here for an extended stay,” Abbie offered.

“How exciting!”

“It's been difficult knowing exactly what to prepare, seeing as how my guest is coming from quite a ways away,” Abbie said.

Minerva's eyes widened as she cleared her throat.

“I have a lot to do to prepare,” Abbie said. She set the box of rattling jars on the counter and smoothed down her well-worn shirt.

“Yes, of course,” Minerva said, backing away from the table. She dug into her purse and pulled out an overflowing leopard-print wallet. She handed over the cash and looked down at the box on the counter, then back up at Abbie again.

Abbie smiled and picked up the box, carrying it out onto the porch, and noticed Minerva had parked her BMW all the way down the road.

“Please tell Teresa and the gals at the inn I send my regards,” Abbie said, setting the box in Minerva's unwilling arms.

She walked to the door before turning back around on the threshold.

“And Minerva?”

“Yes?”

“If you don't see me around town this weekend, or happen to drive by and notice the curtains drawn, don't be alarmed. I'll most likely be entertaining an adolescent murderer.”

“No need for sarcasm, my dear,” said Minerva, theatrically balancing the box and tottering down the walkway. “An unexpected savage might be just what you
need!”