was similar to the Rhine Valley in Germany and the Loire Valley in France (neither of which had he ever visited) and the wines this land produced were, in his admittedly biased opinion, similar, if not superior in quality to anything ever produced in California’s Napa Valley.
Twelve years before, as a teenager, Taylor had worked primarily in the vineyard, but now with the new setup, he was spending most of his time working in the tomato portion of the operation, with little time in the vineyard. For most of the fall and winter he assisted with the construction of the three new greenhouses and renovations to the warehouse and offices. During the late winter and early spring, he’d helped pruning the vines outside, planting new tomato plants inside, and helping with the bottling operations.
The efficiency of the hydroponics required eight men to collect a day’s harvest. It was hard work for meagre pay, and the picking crew consisted of those who could find nothing better, newly arrived Puerto Ricans for the most part, who began work at dawn each morning. They would pick tomatoes until one or two in the afternoon then work the afternoons maintaining the greenhouses and orchards, finishing their day at sundown. They stacked plastic baskets full of perfect, dirt-free ripened tomatoes on wooden palettes which adorned the edge of each narrow concrete path that ran through the length of each greenhouse.
It was usually Taylor’s mid-morning task to remove the palettes with a forklift and stack them beside the sorting line near the coolers and shipping area. There, the girls, who worked for even poorer pay than the pickers and who were nearly all Hispanic as well, would sort them according to size, colour and quality and repack them to be shipped out. This morning, Scotty Doherty had been tasked to take Taylor’s place on the forklift. As he pulled himself up to the loading dock through the bay door, Taylor could see all three forklifts motionless on the platform.
Randy Caines sat behind a small desk, filling out a logbook.
“Did Juan talk to you?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah. It sucks, but I’m not surprised,” said Caines with a dismissive shrug. “It’s about fuckin’ time you showed up. Where the hell is Doherty?”
“How would I know? You’re the manager.”
Caines peered up at him. “Don’t tell me you want time off too.
Juan already asked.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. So get to work. It’s backing up out there. The packers are going to be here soon, and they damn well need something to pack, don’t they?”
Most probably, Taylor surmised, Scotty had slipped into one of his many hiding places in the back of the warehouse or one of the older glass greenhouses to smoke a joint and doze the morning away. Taylor stepped through the warehouse and opened the doors leading to the first greenhouse. A quick glance inside assured Taylor that his suspicions were correct. Scotty was nowhere to be seen, and dozens of full palettes, each neatly stacked with baskets of tomatoes, lined the walkways in the greenhouses for as far as he could see.
Taylor, vaguely relieved at having something to occupy his mind, quickly hopped onto a forklift, fired it up and began to submerge himself into the warm routine of his usual daily duties. However, the stale smell of propane exhaust, the smooth touch of the steering wheel and the levers beneath his fingers did nothing to ease his thoughts away from the morning’s ghastly discovery. His fingers and mouth yearned for the touch of a cigarette, but he had tried to light three cigarettes since taking Wagner home. The tobacco tasted of ashes, burnt wood and flesh. Time slowed down around him, and Taylor felt as if he were moving underwater. He pulled the watch from his wrist and pushed it into his front jeans pocket, lifted the forks by wrenching down on the hydraulic lever and accelerated away.
He tried to summon some anger towards Scotty, his scrawny, good-natured co-worker, but could not find the energy. Each time his thoughts began to drift back to Anna, he would try to envision Scotty crouched and hiding, or asleep, in the rear of the smallest greenhouse, where the Voracci family kept their prized orange and lemon trees. Instead, he would see Anna Wagner, scorched and naked, exposed, staring at him with an open mouthed grimace.
Taylor hit the brake and made the forklift skid-stop on the concrete platform. Her image came to him again, and he snapped his head to refocus his attention and to escape the memory of her blue-grey eyes, the curve of her smile, her shining blonde hair. Such a beautiful girl she had been, shining bright with the possibilities of a full life.
Taylor wiped his eyes and turned his head to the side, staring pointedly at one of the pickers, a Mexican named Manuel, who had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and was washing his hands in the pale, soapy Pine Quat solution to remove the green stains of the tomato stalks from his hands. He seemed to feel Taylor’s gaze on the back of his head; he flinched, stopped washing then carefully moved away, as if a bee had lighted on his shoulder.
“Lot of tomatoes today,” said Taylor.
Manuel was one of the few pickers who could speak English. He searched Taylor’s face, his eyes soft with sadness, before replying with a simple nod.
“You’ve heard about Anna,” Taylor said.
“It’s a very sad day, yes.”
“Does anyone know how she got there?”
“No. But my friends, they are all very upset. And they are afraid.
They are afraid the police may not believe us that we did not know.”
“I’m sure the police will be fair.”
Manuel cocked his head and looked as if he had not understood Taylor’s words. “I hope so,” he said. “I hope they find the one responsible. For her sake, yes. But for our sake as well. I would not want to pay for the blood of another.”
With that, he dropped his head, offered Taylor a humble, uncertain smile and walked away.
Taylor drove the forklift a dozen feet forward and expertly slipped the forks beneath the palette. Working methodically, he stepped down and wound a single piece of nylon twine around the top layer of boxes, looped it into itself and tied a simple knot to secure the stacked black plastic boxes from jostling. Lifting the load six inches from the concrete floor and tilting it back a few degrees, he sped in reverse to the end of the greenhouse.
The door that protected the greenhouse environment from the warehouse had to be opened manually. As Taylor slid open the large plastic door, he realized for the first time what was missing. The workers weren’t singing, as was their custom. No one was talking. No one was laughing or smiling. They had all heard the news.
Once his load was in place with the other palettes, Taylor put his forklift in park. His fingers moved once again towards his shirt pocket, tapping his chest, reaching for a cigarette, his thoughts on the girl’s image again... He could not bear to say her name, not even silently in his thoughts, even though his tongue would press against the roof of his mouth to form the first syllable of her name each time he pictured her in his mind.
By the time he had placed two dozen pallets in the processing area, the crew of young women had begun to step up to their platforms on the sorting line. After one more trip, Juan had returned as well. Without a word, Juan started up the conveyor belts and graders and began dumping tomatoes onto the conveyor belt. The girls were silent, grim; Juan had told them the news.
Taylor drove up to Juan and looked at him pointedly. “I thought you had the day off.”
Juan
