I didn’t answer the phone. I chose to sit immobile and stare as it buzzed on the same table where I had shared the married man’s touch last night. When the buzzing ceased, I waited through several more slow seconds, hoping for the ping of a voice message.
There was none, but I grabbed up the phone and checked anyway.
It was Saturday night. On every island where lights blossomed, people weren’t alone and lonely. They were living their lives, having fun.
I began to pace… until I realized I could call Kermit back. That was perfectly acceptable-as long as I didn’t wait too long. There were many believable excuses: I’d been in the shower, the phone was buried in my purse, I’d switched it off and forgotten the darn thing. If it was business he wanted to discuss, then returning a missed call was the polite thing to do. Oh-by the way, had he stolen the young tree my uncle had planted?
My finger hovered above the Redial button…
I couldn’t do it. The drawings of a lonely child prohibited the risk of confusing her more. No one understood that better than I.
He’ll call back, I thought, then scolded myself for entertaining such a thought as hopeful. Worse, how would I react if, tonight, he surprised me yet again by truck?
No more tests for me. A wiser choice was to reactivate my plan for the previous evening. This time, I made it to my skiff, and my skiff carried me safely to Dinkin’s Bay on Sanibel, where I found the biologist playing chess with his friend Tomlinson. With me, I brought a sour orange for discussion, along with questions about the drug my mother had been smoking.
Fearing that Yosemite Sam and his boat might still be stranded in the backcountry, I stuck to well-traveled channels both ways.
That story was something else I shared with my friends.
ELEVEN
Monday afternoon, after another enjoyable charter with the Gentrys, I drove inland to the Agricultural Research Station in Immokalee and presented a box of tree leaves and fruit to citrus pathologist Roberta Daniels. We’d gone to high school together-one of those pleasant coincidences that wasn’t so coincidental. We’d also been in the same 4-H club.
“I was little surprised to get your call,” she said, greeting me in her office. “Farming never struck me as an interest of yours.”
My interest in citrus had blossomed during the last two days but was still secretly fueled by suspicion. Profit, however unlikely, was another motive, thanks to my fishing clients. The Gentrys knew a great deal about genetics and biotech patents.
I accepted a chair, saying, “I raised leghorns my first year in 4-H, then rabbits, but switched to clams. It’s what the state wanted us island kids to do, but, fact is, I got so attached to those rabbits, I couldn’t bear to sell them to a butcher. Eat a clam, though, it’s almost like you’re doing them a favor. Can you imagine the monotony of hanging underwater in a bag?”
Roberta had turned into an attractive, confident woman, yet still had her easygoing manner and farm-girl laugh. “That’s why I quit showing Holsteins and took up that-” On the wall, a photo showed her as a teen in the cockpit of a crop-dusting airplane. “We got free lessons, and flying got me interested in Ag science. You know, ways to protect crops without using poisons. There are days, I don’t know whether to thank the program or cuss it.”
“Four-H, you mean.”
“Head, heart, hands, health,” she nodded. “I bet you still remember the oath.”
We both did; the hand gestures, too. We were still laughing when Roberta pulled an orange from the box I’d brought, then inspected a couple of leaves. “What do we have here?”
“That’s sour stock my grandfather planted way back. There’re a couple of grapefruits in there, too, I picked on one of the islands. They grow wild, some places.”
“Feral citrus,” she said, correcting me, while she viewed the leaves under a light. “Well… these have a few canker lesions, and some leaf-miner activity-see the wormy-looking tracks? There’s psyllid damage, too, but not bad… not bad at all. The yellow dragon blotches jump out, if you’ve toured as many dying groves as I have.” She consulted her phone. “That’s why I don’t have much time. There’s a grove near Arcadia I have to inspect. The owner’s battling his butt off to save his crop. He knows this will probably be his last year in business if we don’t come up with an answer fast.”
Her attention returned to the box while she brought out a paper plate and a knife. “Are you asking if this fruit’s okay to eat? Looks okay… but there’s only one way to find out. Or is there something else on your mind?”
The hall wasn’t busy, but the occasional person strolled by. “Can we speak privately?” I asked.
We weren’t close friends in school, but Roberta winced as if it pained her to say no. When she began to explain the rules of a state-funded facility, I apologized and moved on. I told her about Kermit’s interest in historic Spanish rootstock, and shared the theory about fruit that originated in Asia perhaps being more resistant to insects that also came from Asia.
“I’ve heard the name before,” she said. “He’s respected in the industry, but the scientific types, the true brainiacs, tend to dismiss him as a private-sector cowboy. Typical. You wouldn’t believe some of the egos in this business. Hilarious, really, how vicious it can get. So I wait, ignore most of what’s said, and form my own opinion. You and Kermit must be pretty close, huh?” Roberta, who wore a wedding diamond, had noticed I did not.
“We just met,” I said. “Something I didn’t make clear is, this isn’t Kermit’s idea. A friend of mine, a marine biologist, he’s the one who came up with it. I just happened to pass it along. Maybe that was a mistake.”
Roberta took the possibility more seriously than I expected. “Really? Maybe it was. If there was a list of discoveries made by people outside their field, it would cover this room.” She gave it more thought while halving the orange. “I don’t know… it seems so simple-too simple, really. Beat an incurable disease by literally returning to the roots of the original tree. Here… let’s have a look.”
She slid the plate toward me, and used a pencil to point. “Aborted seeds are the first thing I look for. These little guys are plump and healthy as can be. This is the calyx button-it’s where the stem connects to the center column of the orange. Looks good; no yellow stain, which is typical of HLB. But the leaves have been infected. You saw for yourself. That tells me the disease hasn’t had time to affect the fruit-eighteen months is all it takes, which isn’t long. You said your great-grandpa planted the tree?”
“Almost a hundred years ago,” I said, “but that could be an exaggeration.”
“Hmm,” she said. “It’s possible. Either that or the fruit’s more resistant, for some reason. Which is very, very unlikely, Hannah. Still”-she sat back to clean her hands-“it’s an interesting angle.”
“I have some other friends, a retired couple. They felt the idea had probably already been tried and failed. But since you and I have known each other so long, they said why not wrangle a meeting and ask you personally?”
“Nope, this is the first I’ve heard of going back to the original rootstock,” the woman said, and rolled her eyes in a humorous way. “It’s a little too obvious for us highly trained experts. The more complex, the better-that’s academia for you. In Texas, a lab is trying to splice spinach DNA with citrus genomes… I’m serious, by the way… Others are infecting periwinkle flowers with HLB to see what happens, then experimenting with penicillin, and some cryptic biocide-I can’t pronounce the darn name. Here, we’re plodding along with a three-pronged approach: insecticides, supplements, and the equivalent of a dose of aspirin. It’s a technique developed by Maury Boyd, a guy literally fighting for his life. It’s not perfect. The combination helps, but everyone knows the industry is doomed if we don’t find a cure within the next few years.” She sighed, then shrugged and got to her feet. “I don’t think Spanish rootstock is the answer, but what the heck? I can ask around. Who are these friends of yours again?”