Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor 2)

As his hand hovered near the cane growth at the top of the plant, the leaves moved toward him visibly.

Sam’s affinity for growing things had revealed itself in childhood when he’d worked in a neighbor’s garden.

Fred and Mary Harbison had been an elderly childless couple that had lived in the neighborhood. When Sam was about ten, he had been playing with a boomerang he’d gotten as a birthday present, and it had gone through their living room window.

Fred had hobbled outside. His form had been as tall and gnarled as a Garry Oak tree, but there was an innate kindness in his stern, homely face. “Don’t run off,” he had said, as Sam had prepared to bolt. And Sam had stayed, staring at him with wary fascination.

“You can have your toy back,” Fred had informed him, “soon as you do some chores to help pay for that window. To start with, Mrs. Harbison needs some weeding done in her garden.”

Sam had instantly liked Mary, who was as short and round as her husband was tall and gangly. After she had shown him which sprouting green plants were weeds, and which were the flowers, Sam had set to work.

As he had knelt and pulled weeds and dug holes for bulbs and seedlings, he had felt as if the plants were communicating with him, telling him in their wordless way what they needed. Without even asking for permission, Sam had gotten a small spade from the Harbisons’ toolshed and had replanted primulas where they would get more sun, and had put the larkspur and Shasta daisy seedlings in different parts of the garden than Mary had told him to.

After that Sam had gone to the Harbisons’ house nearly every day after school, even after Fred had given back the boomerang. While Sam did his homework at their kitchen table, Mary always gave him a glass of cold milk and a stack of white salted crackers. She had let him pore through her books on gardening, and had provided whatever he told her the soil needed … kelp and seed meal, crushed eggshells, lime and dolomite, even fish heads left over from the market. As a result of Sam’s labors, the garden had burst with flowers and lavish colors, until people stopped their cars on the road to admire it.

“Why, Sam,” Mary had said in pleasure, her face soft and wrinkly-smiled in a way he had loved, “you have a green thumb.”

But Sam had known it was more than that. Somehow he and the garden had become attuned to each other. And he had become aware, as few people were, that the entire world was sentient and alive. He knew instinctively which seeds to plant when the moon waned, and which to plant when it rose. He knew without being told how much water and sun the plants needed, what to add to the soil, how to get rid of fungus with a soap-and-water spray, how to control the aphid population by planting marigolds.

Sam had started a vegetable garden for Mary in back of the house, and it had produced fat, flavorful produce and all kinds of herbs. He had intuited that the squash liked to be planted next to the cucumbers, and that the beans liked the celery but didn’t want to be near the onions, and at all costs never plant the cauliflower next to the tomatoes. As Sam tended the plants, bees never stung him and flies never bothered him, and the trees extended their branches as far as they could to keep him shaded.

It was Mary who had encouraged Sam to dream of owning a vineyard one day. “Wine isn’t about drinking,” she had told him. “Wine is about living and loving.”

Deep in thought, Sam went to the corner of the vineyard, to check on a vine unlike all the others. It was large and gnarled, alive but not flourishing. No fruit, only tightly closed buds. Despite Sam’s best efforts, he hadn’t yet discovered how to make it thrive. And there was no silent communication, no sense of what it needed … just blankness.

When Sam had first bought the property at Rainshadow Road and walked the perimeters, he had found the vine growing wild on an easement. It looked like the kind of European vinifera vine that had been brought to the New World by colonists … but it couldn’t have been. All the vinifera had been wiped out by unfamiliar insects, disease, and weather. The French had developed hybrids with native species that produced fruit without needing to be grafted onto disease-resistant rootstock. Maybe this vine was one of those antique hybrids. But it didn’t resemble anything Sam had encountered or read about before. So far no one else had been able to identify it, not even a specialist who’d been studying the photos and samples that Sam had sent.

“How can I help?” Sam murmured, passing his hand gently across the large, flat leaves. “What’s your secret?”

Usually he could feel the energy in the soil and roots, as well as the signals of what was needed; a change in temperature, humidity, light, or nutrients. But the vine remained silent, in trauma, impervious to Sam’s presence.

Leaving the vineyard, Sam headed to the kitchen to make lunch. He pulled a jug of milk and a wedge of cheese from the fridge. While he was in the middle of assembling grilled cheese sandwiches, the doorbell rang.

The visitor was Kevin Pearson, whom Sam hadn’t seen in a couple of years. They weren’t friends, but they had both grown up on the island, which had made it impossible to avoid each other. Kevin had always been good-looking and popular, a jock who had developed earlier than everyone else and had gotten the best girls.

Sam, by contrast, had had all the physical substance of a string bean, and had walked around with his nose in the latest issue of Popular Science or a Tolkien novel. He had grown up being his father’s least favorite son, the geeky middle one who preferred to study bivalves, mud shrimp, and polychaetes left behind in tidal pools at False Bay. He’d been competent at sports, but he had never enjoyed them the way Mark had, or approached them with the vicious energy that Alex had.

The strongest memory Sam had of Kevin Pearson was back in seventh grade, when they’d been assigned as a team to do a report on someone in the medical or scientific field. It had entailed doing an interview with a local pharmacist, making a trifold poster board, and writing a paper on the history of pharmacology. In the face of Kevin’s procrastination and laziness, Sam had ended up doing everything himself. They had gotten an A, which Kevin had shared equally. But when Sam had protested that it wasn’t fair for Kevin to get half the credit for work he hadn’t done, Kevin had given him a contemptuous look.

“The reason I didn’t is because my dad wouldn’t let me,” Kevin had told him. “He said your parents are drunks.”

And Sam hadn’t been able to argue or deny it.

“You could have invited me to your house,” Sam had pointed out sullenly. “We could have done the poster board there.”

“Don’t you get it? You wouldn’t make it past the front door. No one wants their kids to be friends with a Nolan.”

Sam hadn’t been able to think of a reason why anyone should want to be friends with a Nolan. His parents, Jessica and Alan, had fought with no boundaries, no sense of decency, screaming in front of their children or neighbors, in front of anyone. They didn’t hesitate to broadcast secrets about money, sex, private matters. As they tore at each other and diminished themselves in the process, their children learned something about family life: They wanted nothing to do with it.

Not long after the science project with Kevin, when Sam had been about thirteen, his father had drowned in a boating accident. The family had fallen apart after that, no regular hours for eating or sleeping, no rules of any kind. It had surprised no one that Jessica drank herself to death in the five years following her husband’s death. And there had been no small amount of guilt in the fact that somewhere in the mass of grief, the Nolan offspring had found it a relief that she was gone. No more phone calls in the middle of the night to come pick up a mother who was too drunk to drive after making an exhibition of herself at the bar. No more humiliating jokes or comments from outsiders, no more crises popping up out of nowhere.

Years later, when Sam had bought the land at False Bay for the vineyard, he’d needed to rent some heavy-duty landscaping equipment, and he discovered that Kevin had started his own business. They’d talked over beers, exchanged a few jokes, even reminisced a little. As a favor, Kevin had done some work for Sam at a fraction of his usual price.

Unable to fathom why Kevin could be at his front door now, Sam reached out to shake hands. “Pearson. It’s been a while.”

“Good to see you, Nolan.”

They took measure of each other in a brief glance. Sam was privately struck by the thought that Kevin Pearson, whose family had never allowed a no-account Nolan to cross their threshold, was now visiting his home. The former schoolyard bully could no longer kick Sam’s ass or taunt him with his social inferiority. In all measurable ways, they were equals.

Sliding his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts, Kevin walked in and cast a bemused smile around the entrance hall. “Place is coming along.”

“Keeps me busy,” Sam said amiably.

“I heard about you and Mark taking care of your niece.” Kevin hesitated. “Sorry about Vickie. She was a great gal.”

Even if she was a Nolan, Sam thought, but he only said, “Holly and I are about to have lunch. You want some food?”

“No, thanks, I can’t stay for long.”

“Want to hang out in the kitchen while I make sandwiches?”

“Sure.” Kevin followed Sam. “I’m here to ask a favor,” he said, “although you may end up thanking me for it.”

Sam took a frying pan from the cabinet, heated it on the stove, and drizzled some olive oil into it. Having long ago realized that Holly wasn’t going to thrive on a bachelor’s diet of pizza and beer, Sam had learned to cook. Although he still had plenty to learn, he’d reached a level of basic competence that had so far kept them all from starving.

While Sam poured the tomato soup into a microwavable dish, he asked, “So what’s the favor?”

“A couple of months ago, I broke up with my girlfriend. And it’s turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected.”

“She stalking you or something?”

“No, nothing like that. In fact, she hardly goes out at all.”

The cheese sandwiches sizzled gently as Sam lowered them into the hot pan. “That’s normal after a breakup.”

“Yes. But she needs to get on with her life. I was trying to think of someone for her to meet—someone she could have some fun with. And from what I’ve heard, you’re not going out with anyone right now … are you?”

Sam’s eyes widened incredulously as he realized what Kevin was getting at. And then he began to laugh. “I’m not interested in your leftovers. And I’m sure as hell not going to be thanking you for them.”

“It’s not like that,” Kevin protested. “She’s great. She’s hot. Well … not hot, actually, but pretty. And sweet. Supersweet.”

“If she’s so great, why’d you break up with her?”

“Well, I sort of have a thing going with her younger sister.”

Sam just looked at him.

Kevin’s expression turned defensive. “Dude, the heart wants what it wants.”

“Right. But I’m not dealing with your toxic waste.”

“Toxic waste?” Kevin repeated quizzically.

“Any woman would have major issues after something like that. She’s probably radioactive.” Sam flipped the sandwiches deftly.

“She’s fine. She’s ready to move on. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Why don’t we let her decide when she’s ready? Why are you so interested in finding a new guy for her?”

“The situation has caused some problems in the family. I just got engaged to Alice.”

“That’s the younger sister? Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Anyway … Alice’s parents are pissed off about the situation. They’re not going to pay for the wedding, or help with the planning, or any of that crap. And she wants the family to come together. But the kumbaya moment won’t happen until her sister gets over me and starts going out with someone.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You owe me, Nolan.”

With a scowl, Sam put the soup into the microwave and started it. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I knew that was coming.”

“All that dirt work and haul-off I did for you, for practically nothing. Not to mention helping you transplant that wild grapevine.”

It was true. The vine would have fallen victim to a road project if it hadn’t been transplanted. Not only had Kevin done a good job with the painstaking and difficult process, he had charged Sam a fraction of what anyone else would have.

So yes. He owed Kevin.

“How many times do you want me to take her out?” Sam asked tersely.

“Just a couple of times. Maybe once for drinks, and then for dinner.”

Sam put the steaming sandwiches onto plates, and cut Holly’s into four precise triangles. “After I take this woman out—if I can even get her to agree to go somewhere with me—the score is even, Pearson. No more favors. We’re done.”

“Absolutely,” Kevin said at once.

“How do you want to introduce us?”

“Well, the thing is…” Kevin looked uncomfortable. “You’ll have to find a way to meet her on your own. Because if she knew I had anything to do with this, she wouldn’t go for it.”

Sam stared at him disbelief. “So you want me to track down your bitter, man-hating ex-girlfriend, and talk her into going out with me?”

“Yeah, that’s basically it.”

“Forget it. I’d rather pay you for the dirt work.”

“Don’t want your money. I want you to take my ex out. Once for drinks, once for dinner.”

“I feel like a manwhore,” Sam said sourly.

“You don’t have to sleep with her. In fact—”

“What’s a manwhore, Uncle Sam?” came Holly’s voice as she wandered into the kitchen. She went to Sam and linked her arms around his waist, smiling up at him.

“Manhorse,” he said hastily, reversing the pink ballcap on her head so the bill hung in the back. “It’s what a guy smells like after he’s gotten sweaty working outside. But don’t use that word, or Uncle Mark will rip my lips off.” He bent obligingly as she reached up to pull his head down.

“Who is that?” she whispered.

“He’s an old friend of mine,” Sam said. He gave her a plate with a sandwich on it, sat her at the table, and went to ladle out some soup. Giving Kevin a narrow-eyed glance, he asked, “You got a picture of her?”