“Actually, they’re my clients-I’m a fishing guide now.”
“I remember that about you: you liked to fish. How’s it going, you in a business that’s traditionally all men?”
“I stay busy; do light tackle, mostly. My clients, the ones who said I should talk to you, they just retired from a company they started. One’s an attorney, the other’s a scientist, so I figure they know what they’re talking about.” I paused before adding, “They founded a company called Biotech International.”
Roberta’s eyes widened at the name-or the word Biotech. I’d done a Google search on the Gentrys. They had pioneered the field of biotechnology, so the name and the word were practically synonymous.
I liked her slow smile. It brought a devilish light to her eyes. “Look at you, Hannah Smith. I remember you as the quiet one in the back of the room; a varsity swimmer who played clarinet. What I should have remembered is, you got straight A’s. Biotech International-that’s as big as it gets.”
“One of the things I like about guiding,” I said, “is you never know who you’ll meet.”
“When they got on your boat, did you have any idea who they were?”
“Not until I picked a few wild grapefruits for them and then we started talking about citrus at lunch. The way their faces lit up, I could tell they’re already bored with retirement.”
“You’re serious about this.”
“I don’t know enough about it to be serious, but they seem serious enough. They’re paying a full day’s charter fee for every day I spend working on a project they’re considering.”
“My goodness…” She began packing her laptop. “Say-why don’t you ride with me to this grove near Arcadia? We can talk more on the way.”
The girl who’d once led Holstein cows into a show ring waited until we were in her pickup to say, “Anything we discuss in the office is proprietary, but we can talk freely now-this is my truck. Hannah, let me tell you something. If you get a patent on a bio technique that’s even close to something that works-even years from now-you could make millions. Trouble is”-she smiled, still wrestling with the concept-“it won’t.”
Even so, at a stoplight she asked, “Do you think there’s a chance I could actually meet Dr. Gentry and her husband?”
All my life I’ve lived in Florida, but had never seen oranges processed from start to finish. The owner of the grove was too busy to show me around, and Roberta was too busy doing her job, so I was assigned a guide-when he wasn’t busy. Fine with me. It gave me room to piece together things on my own-and also phone Mrs. Gentry to tell her the progress I was making.
The northwest section of the grove-because it was the windward corner, I suspected-had been withered by disease. This left twenty acres of fruit to pick, and several crews were going at it as if they were in a race. In a way, they were. Oranges don’t continue to ripen when they hit the ground, they rot. February is peak season. It was profit now… or never.
Two-man teams, with red canvas bags over their shoulders or strapped to their belts, hustled a ladder from tree to tree. One man climbed and picked; the other picked, too, while steadying the ladder. When their bags were full, it was a race to semitruck-sized containers at the end of a row. Amid the catcalls and laughter was the combustion hum of open-cab vehicles called goats. (My guide didn’t know why.) These were equipped with a large hydraulic scoop that operated like a mechanical arm. The scoops transferred fruit from the containers into waiting open-bed trucks, and off the trucks roared to a nearby processing plant.
As I watched, strolling among the fragrant rows, I noted that each laden tree was connected near the roots to various tubes and sensor wires, not unlike a patient in a hospital’s intensive care unit. The grove owner was, indeed, fighting for his economic life.
Citrus trees, at peak sweetness, are also in full bloom. The color contrast of heavy-hanging oranges among blossoms of orchid white was pleasant. The tangy scent first reminded me of orange blossom honey… then of the perfume Shalimar. Automatically, I thought of the boathouse, and Kermit. His friendly face and brown eyes floated around in my mind until I saw Roberta striding toward me. It was not the first time since we’d arrived. About every fifteen minutes she had reappeared to continue a back-and-forth argument going on in her head.
I didn’t understand what she was talking about but had listened with a feigned intensity as if I did:
Spanish rootstock couldn’t possibly make a difference for one simple reason: it no longer existed. On the other hand… many citrus varieties were nucellar. This meant they might produce clone seedlings. Clone seedlings might be virtually identical to trees first sprouted five hundred years ago.
In the space of one conversation, the woman had gone full circle, first dashing my hopes, then fanning them to life. Now here she was again, determined to impeach her previous conclusion.
“Okay, okay, here’s another problem. Not all citrus varieties are nucellar. Some are zygotic-two entirely different things. Their seedlings are produced sexually through pollination, so they inherit genetic material from both parent trees. With me so far?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, though I was sure-I had no idea what she was getting at.
“But here’s what really throws a wrench into the mix: zygotic and nucellar citrus embryos can occur in the very same seed. Isn’t that crazy?”
I conceded, “Which is bad news, I guess. Okay, that much I understand.”
“No! What I’m saying is, your biologist friend might be right. If-and this is one heck of a big if-if seedlings from the original Spanish stock still exist, they could only be found in a spot so remote that there is zero chance of cross-pollination.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said. “You’re telling me what you call feral citrus-oranges or grapefruit I find on islands that were once farmed-they are definitely not the same as the original Spanish citrus. Is that right?”
“Zero chance,” she said. “That doesn’t mean older rootstock isn’t heartier. It’s worth checking into. But, aside from a few feral trees, face it, Florida’s too populated for a genetically pure ancestor of those trees to survive.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “I might know just the place. My uncle and I picked oranges there years ago-if I can find the spot again. It won’t be easy. He never used a GPS, or even a chart.”
“Not so fast,” Roberta countered. “One”-she held up a finger to keep count-“I don’t think it’s possible the original stock hasn’t been genetically altered in some way no matter how remote. Two, aside from the samples you brought, there’s no reason to believe older sour rootstock is more resistant to the disease. We’ve got nothing to compare the samples to. That’s the tragedy. Know why? Because after the last big hurricane, some idiots in Tallahassee decided all the old citrus had to be destroyed-including our oldest pioneer trees.”
“Roberta, hold on,” I said. “I feel like I’m in a Ping-Pong match here. The Gentrys want me to see this thing through, and I will-unless you tell me it’s pointless.”