I was picking apples one afternoon, just minding my own business, when this man walked up beside me. He said,

“Maybe if you pick 1011 apples I will love you.” I swear to god to you that’s what he said. And I kept picking my apples, kind of like don’t talk to strangers. It was a late warm month and that afternoon I could feel the sun spreading over the top of my skin; the air was quiet. I get tan in the sun. Very tan.

“I said maybe if you pick 1011 apples I will love you. You will have my love,” and he reached up and stopped my reaching hand. His fingers were surprisingly light. And his touch gentle. I almost didn’t want him to let go but don’t talk to strangers. He was young looking, a tweed coat and fading black trousers. The sun was burning him red. No wrinkles in his face but still there was something old-man about him, something of sitting at the window and looking outside, remembering the way it used to be.

“Why would I want you to love me, my friend” and I know, don’t talk to strangers but I just couldn’t help it, his words were candy and he’d already touched me once. And I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t help calling him my friend. It can be a quiet job, apple picking in this overgrown tangled plot; abandoned. Just your breaths and the apples knocking against each other and the breeze through the tree leaves. Some days.

“If you pick 1011 apples I will love you. And I will drive you away in my red pickup truck and take you where you want to go. That is what every girl wants. You are no different” and I don’t mind his imagination. Even if he does make me an every-girl. The beauty mark below my right eye itches. He steps away from my ladder and stands in the grass sea between rows. There is something lovely about him. Like an animal smelling a scent and losing its mind to the smell. He must smell the fermenting apples on the ground. That is what’s in the air.

There is a valley and this year like the last I have watched the foliage sweep its fire colors north south east west as the days turn shorter and the sky cooler.

“I can smell you,” he says, not looking at me, just down the row. Maybe he is speaking to the wind.

“Why must I pick a few apples for love, why is it apples equals love. From you?” I ask him this as I reach again for one through the branches, towards the heart of the tree. He says back to me

“If you don’t want to then don’t think of them as apples. Think of them as heads. Just hanging from the trees. And the more heads you pick the more brains you have. Because really in the end love is all in your head, no?” and he still doesn’t look at me but I look at him and then where he is pointed. His eyes go down the row. Intent. He sees something I do not. I go back to my apple picking.