side near the house. The roots were still attached at the base, and it had left a huge hole in the earth.
Will strode toward his father, who was cutting the trunk into eighteen-inch lengths. Just big enough to fit into their woodstove, which was how they heated the house most of the winter. Still, Will was surprised to see his father doing the cutting himself. Usually he had Humberto do the physically challenging work on the farm. Then Will remembered-Humberto was busy this morning.
“Want me to start hauling this toward the shed?” Will shouted over the chain saw’s roar.
Mr. Archer looked up at Will through thick plastic safety goggles. Frowning, he turned down the chain saw to a rumble. “What?”
Will gestured toward the shed. “Want me to start piling up the wood?”
“Carl’s going to do it,” Will’s father said. “He’s coming over later.”
“I’ll take care of the glass,” Will offered.
“Carl and I will see to it,” Mr. Archer said. He looked at Will warily. “You just take it easy.”
Will sighed impatiently. “I’m okay.”
“Just make sure the animals are fed tonight, and see if you can figure out what’s wrong with the gate. You can help me tomorrow. I’m keeping the stand closed for the day, but we have to be open for the weekend. Summer people need their gourmet vegetables.”
Will fought the annoyance that grasped at him like a monkey’s paw. He appreciated that his father was trying to do him a favor. But it was in his dad’s own particular way. Even when his father was being kind to Will, he never lost sight of who came first-the customer. Everything Mr. Archer did was calculated according to a mental profit- and-loss statement.
Will stood and watched his father for a moment. He actually would have preferred to have some work to do, but he didn’t want to have to explain why. As it was, the little chores his father had assigned him could be done later, in about an hour. Will started for the house, but when he saw that his mother’s car was in the driveway, he took a detour toward the garage.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in the musty garage. As usual, the first thing he saw was the light wood paddle over his father’s rarely used workbench. Skipper Award, it read. Tim had won it from the local sailing club when he was twelve, and Will had always envied it. Tim had been an outstanding sailor… and look where it had gotten him.
Will remembered the gentle rocking of the boat as he had stepped into the
And that was what he was starting to think about the girl the day before.
Will tried to shake off the thought, wondering when he would get used to the little land mines planted throughout his life. Everything in Will’s life was laced with Tim. His absence was a silent presence that lurked in unexpected corners. Now thoughts of the girl surprised him the same way.
Will hauled out his heavy black Honda motorcycle and pointed it toward the road. He was heading toward the beach.
Maybe there would be something there. Some sign. Some clue.
Something that would say,
Will strapped on his helmet and kicked the bike to life. He buzzed out the driveway and down the limb-lined road. An orange public works truck was parked on the side, guys in hard hats shoving branches into a portable chipper. Will gave them a wave as he passed and punched the accelerator.
He sped past his family’s own field of sunflowers-a customer favorite, surprisingly undamaged in the storm-and two hothouses of organically grown tomatoes and basil. The Archer family had owned farmland in Walfang for over three hundred years. They’d been here when there was nothing but farmers, fishermen, and preachers. Local streets were named for their ancestors-Archer Road, Old Archer Lane. Over the years, parcels of land had been sold off, developed to make enormous mansions with ancient-looking turrets and shingles on the outside, and spacious rooms, cathedral ceilings, and up-to-the minute appliances on the inside. Many of these houses boasted “green” and “eco-friendly” features, which always made Will laugh because, of course, the best way to go green was to not have a nine-thousand-square-foot house that gets used just two months out of the year. As he sped down the quiet side street, Will peered past the high boxwood hedges to catch glimpses of vast emerald-green lawns landscaped with ubiquitous hydrangeas and climbing roses, and he thought about the fertilizer that was spread with abandon, the water needed to keep everything green and lush even in August, the pesticides and sprays. These people’s idea of going green was to drive a hybrid car to the local farm stand and buy a few vegetables, then drive home again to eat beside the chlorine-laced pool instead of the beach that was two blocks away.
And the farm stand that they drove to? That was his father’s.
Despite the family history, Will’s father was no farmer. Of course there were farmers out here. A neighbor down the road-from another family legacy-had gone to Cornell Agricultural School. But Bertrand Archer had no interest in real farming. He owned land, sure, and hired people to plant and harvest the flowers and vegetables. But Bert had figured out that real farming wasn’t where the money was. The money was in retail, or in (as Will liked to think of it) his boutique vegetables. People in the Hamptons didn’t care how much Bert charged for a pint of tomatoes. If they saw fresh kettle fries being made at a roadside stand, they’d buy them no matter what the cost. If they were looking for a housewarming gift, they’d buy handmade lavender soap or a bouquet of flowers without thinking.
They didn’t count the change from their hundreddollar bills. They signed the AmEx receipt without looking at it. And if Bertrand Archer’s farm stand was the most expensive around, well, that must be because it was the best.
And so that was the kind of farming Will’s father did-he had enough greenhouses to stock the stand with heirloom varieties, and he grew enough corn to pile on a table near the road. He hired a good-looking local girl to make sweet-potato fries in the late afternoons, so that the smell would waft over customers, hungry from a day at the beach, who had stopped to buy that night’s vegetables. He kept ducks and two picturesque black sheep beside the stand, and sold little bags of grain so that children could feed them while their parents shopped. Bertrand grew all of the flowers close to the road, so that people could see the dahlias and sunflowers in their regal glory. He had Humberto and Alma do the picking early in the morning, and then disappear before eight, when the customers started arriving. And he worked the cash register himself, or else had Will or his mom do it. He told jokes and schmoozed, and let everyone know that he was the owner and that this was a family business. He pointed out the scones that his wife had baked, the flowers that he himself had arranged (really, just criticized Alma for not arranging properly). He gave the city folks enough local color so that they felt good about rubbing elbows with the “real” locals-the farmers who had worked this soil for generations. The salt of the earth.
But it was mostly just smoke and mirrors. Will’s father was a businessman, not a farmer.
There was nothing wrong with it, Bertrand Archer said. He was just playing a part, like a magician. People came for the show. They wanted to believe. You didn’t actually have to learn real magic; you just had to give them what they wanted. So he kept the farming picturesque, and left the dirty work to the suckers.
When Will’s father was young, Walfang hadn’t been the crazy tourist scene it was today, where a bungalow five blocks from the beach could rent for $10,000 a week. Gretchen’s family was technically “summer people,” too, since they lived in New York City most of the year. But her grandfather had bought the house in 1944, and Gretchen’s dad had grown up spending summers hunting for crabs with Will’s dad. So the Ellis family acted like, and were treated more or less like, honorary Walfangers. It always made Will crack up to see his farmer father hanging out with tattooed, ragged-looking Johnny Ellis.
The beach was lined with workers when Will pulled up to the boardwalk. He parked his bike and trotted down the stairs to the sand. It was crusty and partially dry in the sun, but-judging by how easy it was to walk on-Will guessed it was wet below the surface. A tall figure was photographing a pile of debris stacked near the overturned lifeguard chair.
“Angus,” Will called to his friend. “You call this helping?”
“Will!” Angus held up his hand for a high five and drew Will in for a dude hug. “I’m just getting some photos for the paper. They probably won’t use any of them, but whatever. Interning at the