A huge placard had been hung at the entrance of Redwood Farm. The placard bearing the words 【Selected for Regional Organic Farming Transition Pilot Project】 was something that day laborers operating or working at farms nearby couldn’t help but take an interest in.
“Damn it...!”
Elowen Pike’s hands trembled as he looked at the photo a worker had taken. Someone might sneer, “What’s the big deal about some organic farm?”, but to Elowen, it was not something he could dismiss as merely “some.”
Even losing a school assignment when your computer shut down, destroying all your work, was enough to shatter you mentally. So having the organic certification he had toiled and suffered three years to obtain blown away by some yellow monkey bastard, and having that bastard try to gobble it all up for free—if that didn’t make you furious, you were undoubtedly a saint.
“Dad! Let’s go apply too! There’s no reason we can’t!”
His daughter Ilaina, who had inherited his temper to a tee, shouted with both fists clenched.
“I submitted the application.”
“Tell them to select us for the pilot project! We want that placard too!”
“That’s not something you can get just by wanting it! And we had our organic certification revoked just a short while ago, so we’re not even eligible for the transition project selection.”
In his heart, he wanted to make it happen a hundred times over, but even for a man with connections throughout the Department of Agriculture, what couldn’t be done, couldn’t be done.
“Ugh, this is so frustrating!”
Ilaina screamed and threw herself onto the sofa. Then she sprang upright and shouted at Elowen.
“Dad, you’re not just going to sit here like this, are you?”
For a moment, Elowen blinked and stared at his daughter. He was angry, yes, but what could he possibly do here...
“Well...”
“I absolutely cannot just stand by and watch. After they made us suffer like this... I refuse to see them doing well.”
“Of course, I feel the same... but won’t school be over soon? Then you won’t have to see him anymore.”
Elowen was notorious for his foul temper, never one to back down from a fight, yet even he hadn’t considered doing anything more about this. Apart from his anger, he simply believed there was nothing he could do. But his clever daughter seemed to think differently.
“I heard that bastard is enrolling at UC Davis too! Then I’ll have to keep seeing him!”
“R-really?”
“Don’t just sit there, Dad... think about it. There has to be some way to make him suffer. If I keep seeing him strutting around like that, I’ll explode and might even fall into depression. And he’s acting all high and mighty with that organic certification—if he really ends up getting a higher score than us for table grapes, Redwood Wine will definitely be evaluated as better than Silver Oak Wine, won’t it?”
At first, Elowen had only intended to calm his daughter down, but the more he listened, the more he reached the conclusion that this was not a situation he could afford to watch leisurely.
“That’s true, but the method...”
“There has to be one. Think carefully.”
Elowen stroked his chin, lost in deep thought, tilting his head as he couldn’t come up with any concrete plan. Then, spotting a worker moving outside the window, he soon clapped his palm.
“Ah!”
“What? Did you think of something?”
“The workers.”
“Huh?”
“Most of the workers here are immigrants. And quite a few of them are illegal immigrants.”
Elowen looked at Ilaina, who still didn’t understand, with a sly grin.
“You’ve given me a very important hint.”
---
The next day, around the time classes had ended.
“Oh my gosh, the aphids disappeared completely, like they were never there. I was so surprised. The ladybugs were cute, but the lacewing? How should I put it? It has charisma? Its movements...”
Since her story seemed like it would stretch on endlessly, I cut Chloe off.
“So how’s the situation? I’m talking about the yield.”
“Huh? Well... it’s coming along well. Since I keep watching him, the farm manager Mr. Edmond can’t pull anything suspicious either. And crucially, Dad checks my sector and my brother’s sector often. So the workers can’t pull any tricks.”
I had told her to keep a close eye on them, if nothing else, because the workers might cause problems. Something had been off ever since the excessive nitrogen fertilizer incident.
“That’s a relief.”
“I heard your vinegar is selling well? Mom went to Bristol Farm and bought some vinegar too.”
“Really? You could’ve just asked; I would’ve given you a bottle.”
It wasn’t that I wanted to give it to Chloe in particular, but when you’re farming, it was only natural to share what you produced with those around you. That was the Korean way.
“I should buy something like that myself. It’s not even expensive.”
It wasn’t me who was surprised by those words, but Armando.
“Oh, so Chloe had this kind of personality?”
She immediately glared at him.
“Why? What?”
“Huh? No...”
Armando immediately tucked his tail between his legs and swiftly averted his eyes. Just then, a call suddenly came from home. Since my parents usually didn’t call during school hours, I felt something was off and answered immediately.
[Wooseok, something terrible happened.]
Sure enough, I heard my mother’s flustered voice right away.
“Why? What happened?”
[Immigration is arresting all the workers! Half of the laborers who came out today ran away!]
“What?”
I immediately looked at Armando. I said to him as he stared at me with blank eyes.
“ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is arresting all the farm workers. Someone must have reported it. What are you going to do?”
At those words, Armando stared blankly at me before shouting.
“It wasn’t me! I’m fine!”
“R-really? Okay.”
Since Armando said he was fine, I immediately focused on the call again.
“Don’t worry too much. We’ve mostly finished the preparations that absolutely have to be done in spring. Tell the remaining workers that I’ll pay them 50% more, so ask them to work hard and meet today’s quota. If they want more, give them a bit extra.”
[Ah, okay. Good idea. Understood.]
After hanging up, Armando looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“How would I be attending school without a visa?”
“...Now that you mention it, you’re right. I was surprised because you’d said you crossed the border illegally before.”
“I did back then, but after Mom married a guy here, I left and came back and even acquired citizenship. It’s a bit complicated, but anyway, I’m clearly an American now.”
“Ah... thank goodness.”
“Damn it, you’ve remembered that all this time and been seeing me as an illegal immigrant?”
“Keuh... I was just surprised.”
“Anyway, so the farm’s been turned upside down?”
“Yeah. Half of them ran away. Isn’t it the same for you guys?”
When I looked at Chloe, she briefly furrowed her brow before shrugging.
“I don’t think so? If something like that happened, I would’ve gotten a call. It’s probably not happening throughout all of California; seems to be targeting some areas of Napa Valley? And when something like this happens, the farm owners immediately demand they reduce the scope of the crackdown, so it’ll end up being temporary.”
I was greatly surprised to hear such intelligent talk coming from Chloe.
“Wow, you don’t know a thing about farming, but you’re well-informed about stuff like that?”
“You idiot! Farming is specialized knowledge... I’ve been through countless immigrant crackdowns growing up. You be careful too. If the workers are illegal immigrants and something goes wrong, you could be fined for illegal employment.”
“Ah...”
I knew everything about farming, but I was freshly shocked that Chloe knew more about this immigrant arrest stuff. Come to think of it, it wasn’t strange that I had no experience with someone being arrested as an illegal immigrant while getting my doctorate in my past life.
“But who did this?”
At Armando’s offhand question, one name came to mind, but I didn’t say it out loud. Without solid evidence, running my mouth could end up harming the farm.
At that moment, my eyes happened to meet Ilaina, who was looking this way. Seeing her meaningful, smiling eyes, I was certain. She was planning to use her financial power to preemptively recruit skilled workers from Silver Oak.
A lack of labor would eventually lead to a decline in farm productivity, so it was quite a plausible strategy. However, they didn’t know that our farm had already finished almost all of the important tasks that needed to be done (shoot and vine management, soil management, pest and disease prevention, irrigation and moisture settings, etc.).
As I was shaking my head and secretly clicking my tongue, the classroom hallway became quite noisy.
“What is it? Is someone fighting?”
The boys rushed out at the sound of a fight, and I too couldn’t resist running out. But when I poked my head into the hallway, there was no one fighting; instead, I saw students filming something.
“Must be a graduation project film?”
Chloe approached out of nowhere and poked her head in too. While there were students studying agriculture here, they were actually only a small portion, and there were many diverse departments, among which there were classes and activities for those hoping to act or do stage direction.
“Ah... it’s nothing.”
As I was heading back to my seat, I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
Armando asked, and I stared blankly at the classroom floor before muttering.
“Sideways...”
“Huh? What?”
I remembered. A movie released in October 2004. A movie about wine and love that sparked a wine boom after its release. No, more precisely, it sparked a boom for the grape variety Pinot Noir.
I immediately began running toward my locker.
“See you tomorrow!”
“Where are you going?”
Leaving Armando’s voice behind me, I ran home. What was important right now was securing Pinot Noir.