Morning Glory

real.

Though Elly refused to discuss it, the war was coming, and when it did his number might be called. He pushed himself harder.

He put up next year’s wood, scraped the old linoleum off the kitchen floor, sanded and varnished it, and began fantasizing about installing a bathroom-if he could come up with the fixtures.

And in secret, he read about bees.

They held, for him, an undeniable fascination. He spent hours observing the hives from a distance, those hives he’d at first believed abandoned by the insects but were not. He knew better now. The appearance of only a few bees at the hive opening meant nothing, because most of them were either inside waiting on the queen or out in the fields gathering pollen, nectar and water.

He read more, learned more-that the worker bees carried pollen in their back legs; that they needed saltwater daily to drink; that the honey was made in stackable frames called supers which the beekeeper added to the tops of the hives as the lower ones filled; that the bees ate their own honey to survive the winter; that during summer, the heaviest production time, if the laden supers weren’t removed the honey grew so heavy it sometimes crowded the bees out and they swarmed.

Experimentally, he filled a single pan with saltwater one day. The next day it was empty, so he knew the hives were active. He watched the workers leaving with their back legs thin and returning with their pollen sacks filled. Will knew he was right without even opening the hives to see inside. Glendon Dinsmore had died in April. If no supers had been added since then, the bees could swarm anytime. If none had been taken since then, they were laden with honey. A lot of honey, and Will Parker wanted to sell it.

The subject hadn’t come up again between himself and Eleanor. Neither had she produced any veiled hat or smoker, so he decided to go it without them. Every book and pamphlet advised that the first step toward becoming a beekeeper was to find out if you are bee-immune.

So Will did. One warm day in late October he followed instructions minutely: took a fresh bath to wash any scent of Madam from his body, raided Eleanor’s mint patch, rubbed his skin and trousers with crushed leaves, folded his collar up, his sleeves down, tied string around his trouser cuffs and went out to the derelict Whippet to find out what the bees thought of Will Parker.

Reaching the car, he felt his palms begin to sweat. He dried them on his thighs and eased closer, reciting silently, Move slow… bees don’t like abrupt movement.

He inched toward the car… into the front seat… gripped the wheel… and sat with his heart in his throat.

It didn’t take long. They came from behind him, first one, then another, and in no time at all what seemed like the whole damn colony! He forced himself to sit motionless while one landed in his hair and walked through it, buzzing, the rest still in flight about his face. Another lighted on his hand. He waited for it to drill him, but instead the old boy investigated the brown hair on Will’s wrist, strolled to his knuckles and buzzed away, disinterested.

Well, I’ll be damned.

When he told Eleanor about it, she made up for the stings the bees had foregone.

'You did what!'

She spun from the cupboard with her hands on her hips, her eyes fiery with anger.

'I went out and sat in the Whippet to see if I was bee-immune.'

'Without even a veiled hat!'

'I figured you never found one.'

'Because I didn’t want you out there!'

'But I told you, I rubbed mint on myself first and washed the smell of Madam off me.'

'Madam! What in the sam hell has she got to do with it?'

'Bees hate the smell of animals, especially horses and dogs. It gets ’em mad.'

'But you could have been stung. Bad!' She was livid.

'The book says a beekeeper’s got to expect to get stung now and then. It comes with the job. But after a while you get so you hardly notice it.'

'Oh, swell!' She flung up a hand disparagingly. 'And that’s supposed to make me feel good?'

'Well, I figured since I read it in the pamphlet it must be the right way to start. And the book-'

'The book!' She scoffed. 'Don’t tell me about books. Did you wear gloves?'

'No. I wanted to find out-'

'And you didn’t take the smoker either!'

'I would have if you’d have given it to me.'

'Don’t you blame me for your own stupidity, Will Parker! That was a damn-fool thing to do and you know it!'

She was so upset she couldn’t countenance him any longer. She spun back to the cake she’d been making, grabbed an egg and cracked it against the lip of the bowl with enough force to annihilate the shell.

'Damn! Now see what you’ve done!'

'Well, if I’d have known you were gonna get mad-'

'I’m not mad!' She fished out a smashed shell and flung it aside vehemently.

'You’re not mad,' he repeated dryly.

'No, I’m not!'

'Then what are you hollering about?'

'I’m not hollering!' she hollered and rounded on him again. 'I just don’t know what gets into men’s heads sometimes, that’s all! Why, Donald Wade would’ve had more sense than to go out there into a beehive with no more protection than a smear of mint!'

'I didn’t get bit though, did I?' he inquired smugly.

She glared at him, cheeks mottled, mouth pursed, and finally swung away, too frustrated to confront him any longer. 'Go on.' The order came out low and sizzling. 'Git out of my kitchen.' She slammed another egg against the bowl, smashing it to smithereens.

He stood five feet away, arms crossed, one shoulder braced indolently against the front room doorway, admiring her angry pink face, the spunky chin, the bounce of her breasts as she whipped the batter. 'You know, for someone who’s not mad, you’re sure makin’ a hell of a mess out of those eggshells.'

The next thing he knew, an egg came flying through the air and hit him smack in the middle of the forehead.

'Elly, wh-what the hell-'

He bent forward while yolk ran down his nose and white dangled from his chin, dripping onto his boots.

'You think it’s so funny, go stick your head in a beehive and let them clean it off for you!' She stabbed a finger at the door. 'Well, git, I said! Git out of my kitchen!'

He turned to follow orders but even before he reached the door, he was laughing. The first bubble rippled up as he reached the screen door, the second as he jogged down the steps, scraping the slime from his face. By the time he hit the yard he was hooting full-bore.

'Git!'

He shook his head like a dog after a swim and cackled merrily. Behind him the screen door opened and he spun just in time to form a mitt for the next egg she let fly. It burst in his palms, against his hip.

He jigged backward, chortling. 'Whooo-ee! Look out, Joe DiMaggio!'

'Damn you, Parker!'

'Ha! Ha! Ha!'

All the way to the well he laughed, and kept it up while he inspected his shirt, stripped it off and rinsed it and himself beneath the pump. He was still chuckling as he hung it on a fencepost to dry.

Then the truth struck him and he became silent as if plunged underwater.

She cares!

It caught him like an uppercut on the chin, snapped him erect to stare at the house.

She cares about you, Parker! And you care about her!

His heart began pounding as he stood motionless in the sun with water streaming down his face and chest. Care about her? Admit it, Parker, you love her. He scraped a hand down his face, shook it off and continued staring, coming to grips with the fact that he was in love with a woman who had just fired an egg at him, a woman seven months pregnant with another’s man’s baby, a woman he had scarcely touched, never