The Persimmon Pact

The rain came down like it had a grudge. Florence hauled her suitcase up the dirt path to the farmhouse, jacket soaked through, hair plastered flat, boots making that sucking sound in the mud with every step. She was twenty-eight years old and this was the most reckless thing she had ever done, which was sad, honestly, but there it was.

Her aunt had offered the housesitting gig back in March. A week in rural Japan, watching over an old farmhouse on the slopes of Mount Koya, surrounded by persimmon orchards. Florence had said yes before she could think about it, which was not like her at all. She thought about it the whole flight over. Twice she almost cancelled.

The key was supposed to be under the ceramic tanuki by the gate. She found the little raccoon dog statue, tipped it, and there it was, dry as a bone while everything else was drowning. So the owner had been by recently. Fine. She let herself in and stopped dead in the entryway.

There were groceries on the counter. There were two backpacks by the wall. And there, pulling off wet boots, stood Jeffery, twenty-nine years old now, taller than she remembered, looking like he had walked straight out of her junior-year elective and into her worst-case scenario.

"Florence," he said, grinning. "You look terrible."

"You look great, and I hate you." She dropped her suitcase with a wet slap. "What are you doing here?"

Behind him, a woman with a shaved-head-under-shaved-sides haircut and a podcast microphone in her bag leaned around the doorframe. "This is Cassidy," Jeffery said. "My girlfriend. She's twenty-seven, she's harmless, and she packed the good sake."

"I wouldn't say harmless," Cassidy said, shaking Florence's hand. "But I did pack the good sake."

Florence stood there dripping while Jeffery explained, like it was the most normal thing in the world, that he had been in Osaka for a travel blog piece, that he'd mentioned the area to Cassidy, that Cassidy had found the farmhouse on a rental site, and that when they'd seen the name on the owner's guest list, well. "We texted the owner. He said come on out. Said you'd be good company."

"I have not talked to this man in six years," Florence said.

"You dated him," Cassidy said, delighted, unpacking rice crackers like she was narrating.

"For four months, at twenty-three. It was boring and it fizzled out and we both agreed it fizzled out."

Jeffery snorted. "That is not how I remember it."

* * *

By eight that night the rain had softened to a mist and the three of them sat at the low table with a space heater fighting a losing battle. The sake was warm. The pickled plums were so sour that Florence's whole face folded every time, which made Cassidy laugh every single time, and she kept handing them over on purpose.

Jeffery refilled her cup and set the bottle down with a little clack. "Okay. So. Cassidy and I have this thing we've been kicking around."

"Here it comes," Florence said.

"An experiment. Three days. Three rules. Each day, one inhibition of yours, gone by sunset. We pick the rules, you follow them, and Cassidy keeps score. Neutral observer."

"Neutral," Cassidy said, raising her cup.

Florence looked between them. "And what do I get out of this?"

"You get to stop being careful for seventy-two hours," Jeffery said. "You've been careful your whole life. You told me that yourself, back in school. First kiss at twenty-two. Twenty-two, Florence. You played it so safe for so long that safety became the whole personality."

"That's rude."

"It's true, though," Cassidy said, and reached over to pat her knee. "We've got the emails. Well, he's got the emails. He talks about you like a character study."

"He talks about me," Florence said.

"I talk about everyone," Jeffery said, and poured himself more sake, ears going a little red.

Florence sat with it. Outside, the mist moved through the cedar trees, and somewhere down the hill a dog barked twice and quit. She was turning twenty-nine in a few weeks. Thirty after that. She had never done a single thing on impulse in her adult life, unless you counted buying a jacket she didn't need in 2019.

"Fine," she said. "Three days. What's rule one?"

"No apologizing," Jeffery said. "For anything. From now until sunset tomorrow. You apologize, the whole thing's off."

"That's it?"

"That's the whole rule," Cassidy said, already making a note.

* * *

The first test came fast. Florence reached for the teapot and knocked her own cup over, sake spreading across the table, and before her brain caught up she had said "sorry" and then clamped her mouth shut with both hands over it.

Jeffery threw his head back and howled. "One! That's one!"

"It slipped out."

"Two!"

"Okay, okay." Florence mopped the table with her sleeve, laughing now despite herself. "Okay. No more. Starting now."

They walked her down to the grove after that, once the rain quit for good. The persimmon trees stood in wet rows, branches heavy with orange fruit, and the fog hung so low it swallowed the tops of the cedars up the hill. Jeffery pulled a strip of soft cloth from his jacket pocket and held it up.

"Trust exercise," he said. "Blindfold. I lead you through the grove, you taste the fruit straight off the branch, no hands, and you don't apologize when you stumble. Cassidy watches the path, makes sure you don't eat a fence."

"This is ridiculous," Florence said.

"Also, you don't get to say ridiculous. That's an apology with extra steps."

She stood there a second, rain-damp air on her face, two people she had known forever and barely known at all waiting on her answer. Then she turned around. "Fine. Tie it."

The world went dark and soft. Jeffery's hand was light on her elbow, and they walked slow through the wet grass, and he talked the whole time so she could track him by his voice. Left here. Watch the root. Almost. He stopped her, and she heard him reach up, and then he said, "Open."

The fruit was cold from the rain and impossibly sweet, and the juice ran down her chin, and she laughed at herself for how good it was, biting again, and again, until Cassidy said from somewhere off to the left that she sounded like a raccoon in the garbage.

Jeffery walked her on a little farther, and his hand slid from her elbow to her wrist, and then he just held it there, not pulling, not saying anything, and the whole grove went quiet enough that she could hear her own breathing under the blindfold.

"Florence," he said, quiet.

"Yeah," she said, and did not apologize for anything at all.

* * *

The ofuro was steaming when they got back up to the house, a big cedar tub on the back deck with the mist sitting right on top of the water. Cassidy had gone in first and come out dripping, wrapped in a towel, hair stuck flat under her shaved sides.

"Florence. Get in here. Your clothes are soaked through and you know it."

"I'm fine. I'll dry off inside."

"You are not fine. You're clammy and you've been hunched over since the grove like a shrimp. It's an outdoor bath on a mountain. Nobody turns that down."

Jeffery was already in the water up to his shoulders, arms out along the rim, eyes closed. He didn't open them. "House rules are whoever's house it is. You're housesitting. So really, you'd be breaking your own rule by not bathing."

"That's not a rule, that's peer pressure."

"Peer pressure with a view," Cassidy said, and dropped her towel.

Florence looked away, then didn't. Cassidy was just built like a person, flat-chested and unbothered, and she slid into the water like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, which on this mountain maybe it was. Florence stood on the deck in her wet flannel and thought about how many times in her life she had said no thanks to something and gone to bed early instead.

"Fine," she said. "Turn around."

"Baby," Cassidy said, but they both turned around, and Florence peeled off everything and got in fast, water up to her chin, heat crawling all through her shoulders and down her spine. The cold air hit her wet neck and the hot water hit everything else and it was so good she made a noise she didn't plan on.

"There it is," Cassidy said. "That's the sound of a correct decision."

They sat like that for a while, the mist drifting, a lantern somewhere behind the door glowing through the sliding glass. Florence's legs floated up now and then and drifted back down. Once, coming down, her hand caught Jeffery's thigh under the water, just the side of it, solid and warm, and she pulled it back and then put it right back down on her own knee like nothing happened. He didn't move. His eyes stayed closed. She couldn't tell if he'd noticed and couldn't ask, because asking felt like apologizing and she was on the clock.

"That's rule two," Cassidy said, watching her.

"What?"

"Whatever you just did with your face. That's rule two material."

"Rule two already has a name," Jeffery said, still not opening his eyes. "Say every thought out loud. Everything that goes through your head, it comes out. No editing."

"In this bath?"

"Starting now."

Florence sat with that for a second, water lapping at her collarbones. "I can't do that. I think terrible things."

"Perfect," Cassidy said. "Terrible things are the good stuff. Go."

"I think, um." She looked up at the mist. "I think this water is too hot and I love it. I think your girlfriend is prettier than she acts. I think the plums are trying to kill me."

"Keep going," Cassidy said. "You're stalling."

"I think I'm stalling."

"Deeper."

Florence took a breath. The steam was doing something to her courage, loosening it up the way a hot bath loosens a knot. "I think Jeffery knows I touched his leg."

The water was very quiet.

"Do you," Jeffery said, eyes still closed, voice even.

"I think my hand brushed your thigh and I did it again on purpose on the way back down and I want to say it was an accident but rule two says it wasn't."

"Good," Cassidy said. "Now we're cooking. Next prompt." She turned around in the water to face Florence, and her grin under the lantern light was wide and a little mean in the best way. "Describe what you imagine his mouth would feel like on your collarbone."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes. Rule two. Everything aloud."

"That's not a thought, that's a, a homework assignment."

"It's my podcast," Cassidy said, shrugging. "I need content."

Florence looked at Jeffery, who had finally opened his eyes, and he looked back at her, and neither of them laughed, which somehow made it worse and better at the same time. Her collarbone actually prickled just thinking about it.

"Fine," she said. "Warm. I imagine it would be warm. He ran hot in college, he was always warm, he used to put his hands on the back of my neck in winter like an idiot and I'd jump a foot." She kept going before she could stop herself, the words coming out in a rush now, unedited, terrifying. "I imagine he'd start slow. Like he's reading it. Like my collarbone is a map and he's, I don't know, checking the route before he goes anywhere. And I imagine he'd be careful about it, which would drive me insane, because I'd want him to just, to bite down a little, and he wouldn't, not right away, because he's Jeffery and he'd make me ask."

The bath went so still she could hear the water dripping off the deck rail.

"Well," Cassidy said, after a moment. "Okay. Yeah. That's, wow, that's going straight in the episode."

"Cassidy."