The Orchard Bus – Part 1: Five A.M.

"This seat is taken," said Sam.

"By who?" said Aroha.

"By you."

She stared at him. It was five in the morning in the Central Otago hills, still dark and freezing, and the old orchard bus was already half full of pickers in woolly hats and thick jackets, clutching flasks of tea. Aroha was twenty-eight, a nurse from Auckland, on a season's break from the wards, in a borrowed puffer coat and a pair of muddy boots. She had never picked fruit in her life.

Sam, thirty-two, lean and tanned, with a shaggy mop of sandy hair and a wide, easy smile, patted the seat next to him. "I've saved it all week. The one by the window. It's the only one that isn't broken."

"That's very kind."

"It's not kind. It's strategic. I like having someone to talk to."

She sat. The bus rattled out of the car park and wound up the road into the hills. The sky paled slowly in the east, pearl and apricot, over rolling brown ranges. A frost glittered on the fence posts.

"What's the first rule?" she asked.

"Don't squash them."

"And the second?"

"Eat the ones that fall."

By seven, they were in the orchard. The trees stretched in long neat rows up the slope, heavy with fruit, glowing orange in the early sun. Aroha climbed a ladder with a bucket on her shoulder and picked her first apricot. It was warm and fuzzy and heavy as an egg. She bit into it. Juice ran down her chin. It was the best thing she had ever eaten.

"See?" said Sam, from the next tree, grinning.

"It's unfair."

"It's the job."

They picked all morning in the golden light. At smoko, they sat on upturned buckets with tea and fruit, watching a hawk circle above the ridge.

"Can I ask you something?" said Aroha.

"Yes."

"Why do you do this? Every season?"

"Because it's the one time of year I feel like I belong somewhere," said Sam.

"Green?" she said, a leaf, a ladder.

"Green," said Sam, going pink. "Very green. Come on. The best trees are at the top."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Last Tree.