Things Aren't Always What They Seem

When I lived in Washington, DC I worked one day a week for a farmer who drove into town from his farm in West Virginia to sell produce. He sold lots of different things but his main crop was apples. I learned a lot about apples in that job.

I wore overalls and t-shirts to work totally playing the part of the little farm girl even though really I was just one year removed from my New Jersey upbringing where the only farm I went to was the one we visited on class trips and before Halloween for the picking of our pumpkin. But nobody needed to know that now, did they? For all they knew, I was the farm girl who picked the apples. I was the one who woke up early to muck the stalls and make sure our buttermilk was freshly churned and our trees were free from blight.


The farmer had all kinds of apples. My favorite variety was called a Nittany named for the Nittany Lions which was the mascot of Penn State where this particular variety was created. After a few months I found out, that other than a few boxes, the apples were purchased just outside the city limits at a produce market where all the small stores and vendors bought their goods. But nobody needed to know that, did they? For all they knew these apples were picked fresh every week and brought all the way up from West Virginia in that quaint little West Virginia pick up by these quaint little West Virginia farmers. It didn’t even matter if it was apple season or not.

One week the farmer asked if I could handle the stand by myself for a few hours as he had some errands to run around town. He walked off and halfway down the street I saw him join up with a young girl with long straight hair and tight jeans and a red and black plaid flannel shirt falling casually off her shoulder, grunge style. He came back a few hours later and I watched them kiss goodbye just around the corner from the stand. But his wife didn’t need to know that, did she? For all she knew he was off earning money to keep their West Virginia farm dream alive and keep their 3 daughters in piano lessons and 4-H fees.

A few months later the farmer asked if he could borrow my apartment because he needed a nap and was so tired and my place was right up the street and all. Even though I knew that his nap wasn’t really going to be a nap I gave him the key. What was I going to say? When I went home later that evening I found the bed all messed up and an empty bottle of cheap champagne in the garbage can. Probably a condom in there too but I didn’t need to know that, did I?

The next week a customer asked me about a certain apple, whether it was any good, where they came from, and how I liked farming. Good. West Virginia. Then I paused, “Well, it’s hard you know, because sometimes apple farming isn’t always what it seems. Sometimes you think you’re getting apples and really what you’re getting is a big old can of worms.”

She looked quizzically at me but chalked it up politely to some kind of West Virginia vernacular to which her city self just wasn’t privy. “Yes,” she said. “Sometimes things just aren’t what they seem.”

“No they’re not,” I replied, heavy on the New Jersey accent.