The Orchard QUOTES

21 " Globe in hand, Grace slowly approached the big orchid, white and fragile and absolutely gorgeous. She very carefully slid the globe over it, and as she was doing so, she put her face into the center of the open flower, smiling as the breathtaking fragrance washed over her- luscious and nectared, candied apricots, airy notes of strange spice. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

22 " You ask a lot of questions for a girl in a tree."
"Asking questions is a sign of intelligence."
"I've heard that. Do your parents know you're out here?"
"You ask a lot of questions for a lady who looks like she's been up all night."
"Intelligence," Grace said playfully.
"Barefoot in the mud? I dunno. You don't 'look' so smart. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

23 " Grace rolled up her sleeves and joined the group in the kitchen, where Gladys, Pablo's wife, had worked all day directing many other women who kept food pouring out the front and side door, onto a long series of folding tables, all covered in checkered paper table cloths. While some of the women prepped and cooked, others did nothing but bring food out and set it on the table- Southern food with a Mexican twist, and rivers of it: fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, chicken mole, shrimp and grits, turnip greens, field peas, fried apples, fried calabaza, bread pudding, corn pudding, fried hush puppies, fried burritos, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, black-eyed peas, butter bean succotash, pecan pie, corn bread, and, of course, apple pie, hot and fresh with sloppy big scoops of local hand-churned ice creams.
As the dinner hours approached, Carter grabbed Grace out of the kitchen, and they both joined Sarah, Carter's friend, helping Sarah's father throw up a half-steel-kettle barbecue drum on the side of the house. Mesquite and pecan hardwoods were quickly set ablaze, and Dolly and the quilting ladies descended on the barbecue with a hurricane of food that went right on to the grill, whole chickens and fresh catfish and still-kicking mountain trout alongside locally-style grass-fed burgers all slathered with homemade spicy barbecue sauce. And the Lindseys, the elderly couple who owned the fields adjoining the orchard, pulled up in their pickup and started unloading ears of corn that had been recently cut. The corn was thrown on the kettle drum, too, and in minutes massive plumes of roasting savory-sweet smoke filled the air around the house. It wafted into the orchards, toward the workers who soon began pouring out of the house. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

24 " She leaned over the basket again, taking in the mouthwatering aromas wafting out of it. "Fried chicken? Oh, I'm thinking buttermilk fried chicken?"
Dylan was once again amused. "How do you do that?"
"I like food."
"You don't say."
"And I love Southern fried chicken." She tried to open the basket, and he tapped her hand jokingly.
"Sit," he said.
And she did, crossing her legs and plopping down on the blanket.
Opening the basket and playing waiter, Dylan began removing flatware and plates and red-checkered napkins, and then wrapped food. "For lunch today in Chez Orchard de Pomme, we have some lovely cheese, made from the milk of my buddy Mike's goat Shelia." He removed the plastic wrap, which covered a small log of fresh white cheese on a small plate, and handed it to her.
Grace put her nose to the cheese. It was heavenly. "Oh, Shelia is my new best friend."
"It's good stuff. And we have some fresh chili corn bread. The corn, I think, is from Peter Lindsey's new crop, just cut out from the maze, which is right down this hill." He motioned with his head toward the field, and then he handed her a big loaf of the fresh corn bread wrapped loosely in wax paper.
"It's still warm!" Delighted, she held it to her cheek.
Then he pulled out a large oval Tupperware container. "And, yes, we have Dolly's buttermilk fried chicken."
Grace peeled open the top and smelled. "Fabulous."
"It is!"
He also pulled out a mason jar of sourwood honey, a sack of pecans, and a couple of very cold bottles of a local mountain-brewed beer. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

25 " Do you know how to climb a tree?"
Grace straightened her posture. "Yes, I know how to climb a tree."
"Okay," Carter said skeptically.
"When I was your age, I practically lived in trees."
Grace grabbed hold of the trunk and began to hoist herself up. After New Guinea, this was gonna be easy.
"No offense, but you're not exactly my age anymore," said Carter, amused with herself.
Grace squinted at Carter. Then she looked at the wet tree trunk, then up at the girl who was holding her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. Grace was more than confident she could just climb up the trunk, but having been messed with, she decided to show the girl a little something.
Standing under the tree, she squatted, and then stood up, and then down and up again, and on the third time, she crouched down as far as she could, and throwing all her weight upward, arms reaching completely outstretched, she jumped as hard and as high as she possibly could, springing from the ground, and with both hands grasped the limb upon which the girl sat.
With amusement and curiosity, the girl looked down at Grace dangling below by her hands, exposed feet swinging in the mist. 'What is this lady going to do now?'
Shifting her weight, Grace swung herself forward and then back, and then forward again farther and back again farther, and forward again even more, and as she swung back, throwing her weight firmly, she simultaneously lifted herself upward and as she rose parallel to the limb pushed down on it forcefully and with a quick twist of her hips- 'plop'- set herself down right next to the little girl.
"I 'know' how to climb a tree," Grace said.
"Impressive," said the little girl as she raised an eyebrow.
Grace grinned, proud of herself. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

26 " You have a pretty name."
"So do you."
"Not like you. 'Grace' is the name of a princess or a movie star or, you know, something from heaven. Grace. The fruit of redemption." Carter said it as though repeating something she'd heard many times, which of course she had.
Grace just chewed, her mouth full of apple.
"At least, that's what they say," Carter continued.
"That's what they say." On the backs of Carter's hands Grace could see a few scrapes, the kind kids get from running around in the woods. Grace remembered when the backs of her hands looked just like that.
"'Carter' means 'driver of a cart.' In Old English or something. But everyone thinks of the ex-president of Georgia."
"Well, I didn't."
Carter stared at Grace, blinking, as though looking for something.
"I think it's a beautiful name," said Grace. "It's full of character. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

27 " His clean skin had a sweet earthy scent, like ripe roasted breadfruit, or warm oiled saddle leather. It was an evocative fragrance that rambled through her blood, at once comforting and licentious. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

28 " This is Clive Christian Number One. It's one of my favorite fragrances, and one of the most exquisite. It's made from entirely pure ingredients, mainly natural aged sandalwood from India and Tahitian vanilla, but a lot of the other ingredients - the ones that produce the fine top notes- they change slightly every year, depending on availability and the perfumers' preference."
Using her skills, she smelled the scarf. "Pineapple, plum, mirabelle, and peach, heart notes of jasmine, ylang ylang, orris, and carnation. I'm betting this is the '08. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

29 " Then she remembered. The apple. Reaching over to her bag on the passenger seat with her right hand, left hand on the wheel, Grace grasped the apple like a baseball and brought it to her face. Again, she held it under her nose and took in its scent. Wow. Even with the wind blowing around her, the fragrance was full and lush and sweet- though not overtly, like so many of today's commercially bred grocery store apples, but deep, dark, sugared, as the night in a Caribbean cane field. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

30 " I dug wild mushrooms out of a jungle in Gabon, plucked 'Vanilla pompona' orchids from Madagascar treetops, tracked down Sichuan hot pot pepper in a seedy back alley in Shanghai. I've sniffed test tubes filled with scents that are not of this earth. But I have never quite been struck the way I have been struck by your apple. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

31 " The kitchen smelled amazing. Turkey-apple sausage sizzled in a blackened iron skillet on the sturdy old eight-burner gas range. Thick slices of bread toasted in a shiny vintage Toastmaster. Hair tied back, sleeves rolled up on her blouse, apron around her waist, Grace tossed a handful of pecans into the skillet and let them brown with the sausage while she flipped a cheddar-filled omelet in another pan. The heady aroma of freshly ground black dark-roast coffee filled the kitchen. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard

32 " She loved watching him eat, as she always loved watching someone enjoy her flavors. But this was also very different. She could hear him breathing and making involuntarily sounds of enjoyment while he chewed and swallowed. It was primal, and she was intrigued, watching him lose control and give in to that. "

― Jeffrey Stepakoff , The Orchard