Blue Sky with Clouds

Beginning-4

The Mediterranean climate they knew did not have such midseason nuances. The summer was warm, the winter, cold; in between, there were weeks of rain, a meteorological palette cleanser.

Lella said, “I like this Yankee fall. It helps me to imagine the townsfolk building the church, the children carrying pumpkins and bushels of apples to the back doors of kitchens, where the smell of pies wafts through the windows.”

Livia appraised Lella. “That’s quite a romantic image.”

“The romance of it is hard to resist,” Lella answered. “Life is at its sweetest and most precarious in this season: every sense in your being is called to attention.”

“We should make some scones.”

Lella sighed and turned to go inside.

Livia followed, desirous of doing something that would distract her from thoughts of Ming Lee. She and Lella had laughed about her concerns last night, sitting on the edge of her bed.

“She does have an appealingly quiet demeanor,” Lella had admitted. “It’s like gazing into a lake.’

“I sometimes wish I was physically attracted to women,” Livia had confessed. “It might make things easier. I have always made such a mess of it with men.”

“My dear Livia, don’t you think the grass always looks greener?” Lella remarked. “Besides, you can’t force that sort of thing. Women admire other women physically all the time.”

Just the same, Livia was curious about the stirring Ming had provoked. She craved intimacy with other women. Perhaps she just wanted someone to look up to her the way she looked up to Lella.

John arrived at eleven-thirty, and Ming, shortly afterward. They sat around the worn wooden table in the kitchen, on chairs from the Salvation Army store, eating scones and bacon and drinking cappuccinos made on Livia’s one frivolous purchase: the Gaggia 5910 Brera Espresso Machine. John had baked some pears with cardamom and Ming had brought apple cider and cinnamon sticks, which were simmering on the stove.

“This seems crazy,” said Livia, “Lella thinking about buying a church after she’s just arrived. But I called the realtor, and she said she could be here at one thirty. In the meantime, John and I are going to sample the soil in the orchard.”

“Can you do that?” Ming asked. “If it’s not your property?”

“Technically, no, but the realtor won’t know whether or not it’s contaminated,” John said. “Most old apple orchards are. It’s no different from doing a lead paint test on the window sills.”

“What will you test for?”

“Arsenic,” John replied. “I have enough gloves if you want to draw samples with us.”

Lella asked, “What would need to be done if you find arsenic? Would you need to remove the trees?”

“Oh, no. We can scrape the soil under the drip line of the trees – very carefully – and then we will replace it with new, clean soil.”

Lella considered this and then asked, “Do you know how much something like that would cost?”

John thought for a moment, then said, “All said and done, probably around ten thousand dollars. It depends on the volume of the soil removed and whether it can be disposed of on site. It needs to be isolated both above and below, to prevent leaching into the groundwater.”

Ming stood up. “I’d like to help.”

They gathered around John’s truck as he unpacked his sampling equipment. He named each item and explained how to draw the samples. Then they went into the orchard. It was planted on a grid, so Livia made a sketch on a piece of graph paper, assigning a number to each tree, to identify the samples. John suggested that they take a couple from the cemetery, too. Livia followed him further back into the property, among the old gravestones.

“Is this for control samples, or do you suspect contamination here, too?” Livia asked.

“Well, yes and maybe. During the Civil War, there were delays in burial and arsenic was used to preserve the bodies. This cemetery was in use around that time, but it’s not likely that a Yankee casualty ended up here.”

When they finished, John and Livia packed the labeled samples in a box on the truck and collected the gloves for disposal at the lab. They went back into the house where Ming and Lella were taking off their boots and sat down for a glass of warm cider.

Ming said, “I have never thought of agriculture as polluting the land.”

“And water,” added John.

There was a knock at the door.

Livia went to answer it and returned with Magda, the realtor. They followed her next door. She produced the keys and unlocked the side door of the church.

Livia and Lella had previously viewed the main room from the windows, so they headed for the stairs that ascended on either side of the raised platform at the back of the space. Upstairs, there was a small bathroom on the left and a kitchen on the right, separated by a short hallway that led to a full-width room with a ceiling that sloped on both sides so that it was full height in the center only.

John was downstairs checking the framing and the door jambs. He was discussing the details with Ming. Magda provided some history and answered their questions.

“It has such character!” she said, wrinkling her nose.

When they opened the door to leave, a lazy breeze dragged yellowing leaves across the wooden floor.

Lella shook hands with Magda and promised to consider it, while Livia looked on, wondering what Lella was thinking. Magda left in her SUV, foam dice swinging from her rearview mirror, waving and smiling with her realtor’s smile.

Ming spoke first. “I have to get back.”

Lella said goodbye to Ming, then asked John to walk with her around the building once more.

Livia followed Ming to the house and stood by as she gathered her gloves and jacket.

“Ming, may I ask you something?”

Ming turned to Livia. “Of course.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a sort of … aura?” Livia scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.

Ming bent down to pick up her bag as she answered. “Actually, yes.” She looked up at Livia.

Livia said, “I was wondering if it was just my impression. I needed to know if you were sending signals. To me, I mean.”

“No,” Ming answered. “I don’t intentionally send signals.”

“Sure,” Livia said. “You are as passive as a lighthouse shining its beacon into the night.”

Ming considered the tone of Livia’s remark, then added, “Maybe you’re used to being around people who always have their mind on something else,” she said. “I try to be present. I have discovered that when you are patient and observant, but not judgmental, that people are drawn to you. They have all this energy looking for a place to land.”

“Interesting,” Livia said, gaining time for her understanding to catch up. Then, she opened her arms to embrace Ming. It felt good, and Livia didn’t know why or even care. She was a professor, and Ming was a student. The need to preserve that distinction was Livia’s form of protection, but protection was meaningless to Ming, who squeezed Livia and then turned to go.

John and Lella entered the room as Ming was heading for the front door. She waved, without looking back.

Lella turned to Livia.

“John and I,” she said, “have an idea.”

John went to the fireplace to clear the debris and arrange a few logs for a fire.

Lella explained that they could start a ... “What’s it called, John?”

“A land trust,” he answered, striking a wood match against the mantlepiece.

“Yes,” said Lella. “We are going to put in an offer on the building, maybe $45,000. John believes he can get money for the cleanup of the orchard and have the students work on it. I’ll put up the down payment, and John will make the mortgage payments till we’re square.”

“Aren’t you being a bit impulsive?” asked Livia. “You’re here for a visit ...”

“We’ll have to work out the details.”

“With the goal of?” asked Livia.

“Fixing it up! Eventually, we can sell it.” Lella shrugged her shoulders. “But at the very least, we can give it a nice coat of white paint.”

“And John, you don’t think this will be risky?” Livia insisted.

“Not very,” he said. “A consuming hobby, maybe. We’d want to do some work ourselves.”

“How are you going to arrange all this in time to close a deal?”

“We’ll make the offer first,” John said, poking at the logs. Then he straightened up and joined Lella and Livia.

The three of them sat on the couch, John in the middle, watching the fire take hold.

“I suppose,” Livia said, “That you want me involved?”

Lella leaned over John, “Only if you’re interested.”

“Well, I guess I could chip in for some of the work. The floors need finishing. I can do some interior painting myself.”

“I can do the electrical,” John offered. “We can see where we are at Thanksgiving.”

“But I won’t be here much longer after that and Lella may be gone any time!”

“I’m just an investor,” Lella said. “Besides, I’ve no reason to return to Milan before Christmas.”

“In that case, I suppose it could be fun,” Livia said. “After all, I’m just teaching one course.”

They all stared into the fire.

Lella spoke after a short silence.

“Liv, I don’t want you to think that I’m planning on staying here the whole time,” she said, raising her hand when Livia opened her mouth to protest. “In fact, I have a few days left on my car rental. I am going to do some exploring, starting tomorrow. I’ll have to figure out what to do about a car after that.”

Despite her disappointment at this news, Livia was feeling a sense of comradery budding around their proposal. She felt, after several weeks of isolation, that she was involved in something. John was very different from her male friends in Italy, to be sure. He was “clean” and smart, not evasive or intellectual. Being with Lella was comfortable and familiar. She stretched out her legs and wove her hands together behind her head.

“How about some pasta all’arrabiata for dinner? I mean after we’ve enjoyed the fire a little longer.”

It was still early fall, but John had wanted to be sure the chimney had some draw. Besides, it was nice and cozy.

Watkins Glen

Monday morning was bright and clear. Lella packed a small bag and grabbed her sunglasses. She and Livia had a cappuccino before they said goodbye.

“I’ll call you tonight to let you know where I am,” Lella said.

Livia gave her a hug. “Don’t get lost, my dear.”

Lella followed the Hector Road southwest toward Seneca Lake. The names of places amused her: some Greco-Roman, some Native American. There were European surnames, too, probably of pioneers who had acquired large tracts of land. She drove from the town of Ulysses toward the town of Hector, stopping in Burdett to have a look around. That village traversed a slope that dropped down to the southeastern shore of the lake. The houses on the main street were a mosaic of styles and vintages. There were large, tattered homes, heroically Greek or fussily Victorian, some revived as B&B’s. Dairy farm compounds were interspersed among more recent vineyards with their new buildings and upscale landscaping. The descending fields offered spectacular views of the massive, glittering expanse of Seneca Lake. Like the other Finger Lakes, Seneca was embedded in hills at its southern end. Here, too, many streams stepped down in between walls of layered rock. The waterfalls, Lella thought, were as frequent as churches in Italy, surprising you around every corner.

Lella decided to drive down to the lake’s inlet. Route 79 joined 414, and the road ramped down to the wetlands at Seneca’s source. The Lake had once extended further south, to those hills that ran east and west, marking the southern reach of the glacier. There was where the material that the river of ice had tilled and carried was finally deposited in what is called the Valley Heads Moraine. Dozens of streams like She-Qua-Ga creek, which dropped 165 feet into the village of Montour Falls, wiggled and jumped their way to the Lake. Lella stopped in the parking lot of a marina to study a map of the area on her phone before turning north into downtown Watkins Glen. Livia had raved about the gorge here and promised they would hike up its stone steps and through its woodland paths before the end of the season.

The Glen had similar characteristics to the other small towns she had encountered: industrial-era brick buildings several stories in height with storefronts in various stages of vitality. The schlocky coexisted with the artfully restored. Lella parked her red Focus in front of the Glen Mountain Market Bakery & Deli because people were sitting at small tables there. Her urge for human contact was getting the better of her.