“The Presbyterian Church is having their Strawberry Social tomorrow afternoon,” Dad said. “Some of the crew are picking for it.”
And with that, he was gone. Once again, I felt like an idiot. Nobody had told me about the church social or the extra Sunday hours. Maybe everyone forgot. I certainly wasn’t going to beg.
Less than a week, I told myself, until Dad leaves for the reunion and I’m in charge. Then things will be different.
19
After church the next day, I found myself with free time on my hands. I thought about calling Randy, but decided I didn’t feel like it. I wandered over to the window and was surprised to see LuAnn, Meg, and Luisa sitting on chaise lounges under the big maple tree in our yard, drinking lemonade, talking, and laughing. I watched for a minute, then went outside to join them.
“Hi, Joe!” called Meg, giving me a big wave.
Luisa, too, said hi, as I wandered over in what I hoped was a casual manner, pulled up a chair, and sat down.
“I thought everybody was working,” I said to Luisa.
“The others are,” she said. “But I had laundry and cooking to do. I am making a special dinner for everyone tonight. And tonight I will give Manuel the pants, the baggies.”
“Luisa showed them to me,” Meg said proudly. “Manuel’s going to like them, don’t you think?”
“I know he will,” said Luisa happily.
“So, Joe,” LuAnn said, “if everybody else is working, how come you’re not?”
I shrugged. “I had stuff to do, too,” I said vaguely.
Luckily, she didn’t ask me what. Instead, she turned to Luisa and said, “Joe’s saving up to buy a motorbike.”
Luisa looked puzzled.
“You know motorcycles, right?” LuAnn asked. “Two wheels, fast, loud?”
Luisa nodded.
“Well, it’s sort of like a toy one of those, for kids who can’t drive yet. He won’t be able to ride it on the road or anything, just in the fields and along railroad beds and places like that.”
Oh, man. I groaned inwardly. Thanks a lot, LuAnn. Make me sound like a total dork, why don’t you?
Luisa was looking at me now, her puzzled expression back. “Why do you want this, Joe?” she asked.
“I—Well—” I stopped, trying to think what to say. Right then, I couldn’t remember exactly why I did want the Streaker so much. But that wasn’t the only reason I felt tongue-tied. I mean, here was Luisa, working so she could send money home to her family, money for food and clothes and stuff like that. I felt like a real jerk working so I could buy what LuAnn had just described as a toy.
Meg chimed in then, saying, “So he can take me for rides! Right, Joe?”
“Right,” I mumbled, looking at Luisa and shrugging, as if to say, “You know how it is with little sisters.” As if taking Meg for rides was my only reason for wanting the bike. Joe the magnanimous big brother, that’s me.
LuAnn must have been feeling merciful, or else she was tired of the subject, because she didn’t pursue it any further. Thank goodness.
As Luisa and LuAnn talked about what Luisa was cooking, I imagined her turning to me and saying, “Joe, would you like to come and join us for the special supper I am making?”
But I knew she wouldn’t. I thought about inviting myself and offering to bring something, the way we did with my aunts and uncles, and they did with us. But I knew I wouldn’t. I wasn’t part of Luisa’s family and, even though I was feeling more like part of the crew all the time, I’d always be the boss’s son. I’d definitely have liked to spend an evening with Luisa, but I was way too chicken to risk saying so.
I told myself to forget the whole idea. If I didn’t ask, she couldn’t say no. That was playing it safe. Then I thought, If you keep playing it safe, nothing will ever happen.
The more I thought about it, the more complicated it got. Lately, everything seemed complicated. Maybe it always had been, and I’d never noticed before.
20
For the next three days, I thought Mom was going to drive us—and herself—crazy. She couldn’t stop fussing about the reunion trip. It had been her idea, but as the time grew closer she started talking about backing out.
“I’m just not sure we should go,” she’d say about a hundred times a day. “I can’t help worrying about leaving Joe. I keep thinking of all the things that could happen…”
One minute she’d be talking about what she was going to pack, the next minute she’d say, “We shouldn’t go. We’ll just stay home.” Or she’d say, “Don’t forget to put the trash out on Friday morning,” or, “You have to watch this burner on the stove; it doesn’t always light.” Then she’d get a frazzled look on her face, throw up her hands, and say, “Never mind. We’re not going anywhere.”
I had to hand it to Dad. It would have been easy to say, “Okay, we’ll stay home.” Especially since that’s what he probably wanted to do. But he knew Mom. And I guess he knew that she really wanted to go, even though she couldn’t help worrying. He kept telling her everything was going to be fine, and he went right ahead looking at road maps to plan the route they’d take.
I believed he really wasn’t worried, and that made me feel pretty good. If Dad wasn’t concerned, it meant he had confidence in me. It meant he knew I could take care of things while they were gone. But Wednesday night when I was mowing the side yard after dinner, Dad came out and signaled for me to cut the engine so we could talk.
“Joe, you know how much this trip to Pennsylvania means to your mother,” he began.
I nodded.
“But I’m afraid she’s going to be fretting about you the whole time we’re gone.”
I smiled and shrugged. “She’ll see. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking,” Dad went on. “I understand that you don’t want to come along because you’d miss three days’ pay toward that motorbike. But I know your mother would feel a lot better about leaving—and I would, too—if you stayed with Aunt Kay or Aunt Mary. They’ve both offered to have you. Your cousins would love it.”
My cousins were great, but they were a lot younger than I was. When they weren’t climbing on me as if I was a piece of playground equipment, they were saying, “Joe, what are we gonna do now? Huh, Joe?” They were okay in small doses, but they wore me out fast.
“I know, Dad,” I said quickly, “but somebody’s got to keep an eye on things around here.”
“I’ve talked to Manuel about that,” Dad said. “He’s all set. It’s you we’re concerned about.”
I couldn’t believe it. He didn’t even think I could take care of myself, not to mention the farm. I’d been kidding myself thinking he was leaving me in charge. Joe the Big Boss? What a joke.
For a minute, I was too stunned and mad to speak. What did he think—I needed one of my aunts to cook my meals and tuck me into bed? Manuel could be head of a household and Luisa could work to support her family, but I was so pathetic I needed a baby-sitter because my mommy was going away for three days?
The air smelled strongly of freshly mown grass, and I took a deep breath. If I lost it and said what I was thinking, it would just make him mad. He’d probably tell me to go to my room, as if I were still a kid. I had to stay cool.
When I thought I could control my voice, I said, “Dad, Mom’s going to worry no matter where I stay, you know that. It’ll be so much easier for everybody if I just stay here. Nobody’ll have to drop me off and pick me up for work and all that. Besides, I think it’s important for somebody to be here. Somebody from the family,” I emphasized.
Dad appeared to be listening. At least he wasn’t arguing.
“I want to prove you can trust me and that I care about the farm, too, but how can I do it if you don’t give me a chance?” I asked.
Dad was quiet for a minute. Then he nodded. “All right, Joe. You’ve got your chance. You finish the lawn, and I’ll go tell your mother.”
21
When I came home at lunchtime
the next day, Mom’s van was all packed. While I ate, she went over the lists she’d written for me: lists of phone numbers and things to do and things to be sure and remember not to do. I nodded and listened patiently, not wanting to give her any reason to change her mind at the last second.
As usual, the lunch hour passed quickly, and soon it was time for me to go back to work. I got up from the table and said goodbye to everybody, because the plan was for them to leave around three o’clock, and I wouldn’t see them again until Sunday.
“Have a great trip, and don’t worry, okay?” I said.
Meg threw her arms around me and gave me a goodbye kiss.
LuAnn gave me an evil grin and said, “Try not to do anything too stupid.”
Dad gave me a hug and Mom kissed me a whole bunch of times, and I left in a flurry of “goodbyes” and be carefuls” and other last-minute instructions.
When I came back to the house after work, they were actually gone. I was enjoying the feeling of having the place all to myself when the phone rang. It was Aunt Kay.
“Are you sure you’re okay there by yourself, Joe?” she asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” I assured her.
“You know you’re welcome to sleep over here tonight. Your Uncle Bud can come get you and drive you home in the morning.”
“I know. Thanks. But I’m okay, really.”
“Well, then, how about having supper with us tonight?”
“Thanks, Aunt Kay, really, but I’ve got stuff to do.” This wasn’t exactly true, but nobody seemed to get it: I wouldn’t be on my own if I simply let Uncle Bud and Aunt Kay take over for Mom and Dad.
“Did your folks get in safe?” she asked.
“They said they’d call from Grandma Olmstead’s house, but they won’t get there for”—I glanced at the clock—“another two and a half hours or so.”
“Okay, well, listen, when you talk to them, tell them the zoning board meeting was cancelled for tonight because so many board members are away on vacation. I know your mom was worried that a yes vote about Tom Matthews’s project might stir up more trouble like you had before. This’ll help set her mind at ease so she’ll be able to enjoy herself.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be sure to tell her.” This news set my mind at ease, too. I didn’t have to worry about those guys coming back for another late-night drive through the farm.
“You call now, if you need anything, you hear?” Aunt Kay instructed.
“I will. Thanks.”
“Your Uncle Bud’ll be over tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”
“Okay, great. Thanks. ’Bye.”
As soon as I hung up the phone, it rang again, and I went through practically the same conversation with Aunt Mary. I warmed up the macaroni and cheese Mom had left me and took it outside on the porch to eat before the phone could ring again.
Later, when I was doing my dishes, Aunt Kay called back “just to check,” and my parents called to say they’d arrived safely. After that I felt like leaving the phone off the hook. But, knowing my relatives, one of them would probably drive over to make sure nothing was wrong.
I watched a little TV and turned in early, the way I’d been doing all summer. But I didn’t get much sleep. It wasn’t that I was scared of being alone in the house or anything like that. The thing was, I was used to Mom sticking her head in my room to wake me up in the morning. With her gone, I was so worried about oversleeping that I could hardly get to sleep at all. I kept sitting up in bed and turning on the light to check the alarm clock. Had I set it right? Had I moved the little switch to ON? Had I mistakenly set it for six p.m. instead of a.m.?
I was relieved when the stupid thing finally rang and it was time to get up.
I went out to the truck, where the crew had already started to gather. Everyone was there except for Manuel and Carlos. As I walked closer, Frank made a big show of pretending to look scared. “¡Silencio, todos!” he said in a loud whisper. “Quiet, everyone. No fooling around. The Big Boss is here!”
The others straightened up and tried to look serious, but they couldn’t hide their grins as David swept off his hat and gave me a humble bow.
“Morning, Boss,” he said. “We are—how you say?—at your service.”
Everybody cracked up at that.
“At my service, eh? Well, then, you can—” I was about to kid him back and say something kind of crude, when I remembered that Luisa was there. “Never mind.”
“Whatever you say, Boss,” Jorge said, giving me a sly wink.
“Hey, Boss,” said Rafael. “We finish la fresa today, we take the rest of the day off, sí?”
“No problema, Mula,” I said. “You take off all the time you want.” I paused and added, “Just remind me to take off dollars from your paycheck.”
Everybody was laughing and hooting at Rafael as Manuel and Carlos came out of one of the trailers and joined us. Manuel said good morning to everyone. When he jumped into the truck, the rest of us followed, taking our places in the rear bed. It just went to prove what I knew deep inside. There wasn’t really any question about who was the boss.
As it turned out, we did finish the strawberries that afternoon. Manuel drove off with the final load, and I got to play the part of Big Boss for a couple minutes, handing out the Friday night paychecks. Since Mom knew she was going to be away, she estimated each person’s haul for Thursday and Friday. My check was up to a respectable $249.38. I’d improved at berry picking, but hadn’t reached the point at which I made as much as I would on an hourly wage. So I was actually glad we were going back to hoeing cabbage. I hadn’t forgotten how hard and boring it was, but at least I’d get paid by the hour.
Uncle Bud drove in around six-thirty to see how things were going, and to bring me some cookies Aunt Kay had made. He said she’d told him to ask me again to come to supper. Before I had a chance to answer, Aunt Mary pulled up with a basket full of fried chicken, rolls, potato salad, and baked beans.
“Couldn’t let my favorite nephew go hungry,” she said, handing me the food with a smile.
I couldn’t help laughing. Why fight it? After one whiff of that fried chicken, all my big ideas about taking care of myself and being totally on my own flew right out of my head. I thanked Aunt Mary and Uncle Bud, and went inside to chow down.
After dinner I tried to watch TV, but the summer reruns stunk, and I felt too restless to sit inside. It was starting to get dark, but I decided to go out. I had told Dad someone from the family should be here to keep an eye on things, so I figured I ought to take a look around the barns and the yard. I didn’t know what I was looking for—anything that seemed amiss, I guess. Maybe I’d discover an intruder or something, and get my chance to be a big hero. Yeah, right.
I found myself drawing closer and closer to the crew’s quarters, and realized that part of what had drawn me outside was the hope of catching a glimpse of Luisa. Behind her trailer, the last pinkish-orange glow of the sunset was fading away. I stood very still, watching the shadows steal across the fields, letting the moist, heavy quiet of the summer night wrap around me like a blanket. Below our farm, to the east, lights came on in the cottages surrounding Seneca Lake, making its waters appear deep and dark and mysterious.
Maybe it was because I was feeling responsible for watching over the place, maybe it was because the air was so sweet and rich with the smell of growing things, or because the familiar chirps of the crickets and tree frogs and birds sounded so peaceful. For some reason, I felt I was really seeing our farm for the first time in a long while. I’d so often wished I lived in town that I hadn’t paid attention to the beauty of the land and the sky and the water all about me.
There had been so many things on my mind lately, and in my heart, too, and they seemed to rise up in the middle of my chest. I felt an ache there, as if there wasn’t room for all those feelings at once.
A voice spoke softly. “It is very beautiful, no?”
At first I wasn’t sure if I’d heard wor
ds or the echo of my own thoughts.
Then I became aware of a shape in the shadows beneath the big maple tree, and my heart made a strange leap.
“Luisa?”
“Hi, Joe.”
“Hi.” I walked closer. She was sitting alone under the tree. She must have been there the whole time. “I was—just looking around.”
“Yes, I saw you.”
Maybe it was the gathering darkness that gave me the courage to ask, “Okay if I sit down?”
“Sure.”
I sat on the ground beside her, leaning my back against the tree trunk. “What are you doing?”
“I come here most nights.”
“Really? What for?”
She pointed toward the sky. “I watch the sun go away. I look up, I watch las estrellas—the stars—come out. I wait for the moon to rise.”
I, too, gazed upward. Even as I watched, more stars appeared.
“When I left Mexico,” Luisa continued quietly, “my mother told me, ‘When you are lonely, when it seems you will never see us again, look up to the sky.’ She said, ‘Remember, Luisa, that we are under the same sky—the same sun, the same moon, the same stars. We are watching, too.’”
I gazed at the sky, imagining Luisa’s sisters, and her mother and father, looking up into the heavens at that very moment.
“When I do this,” Luisa said, “they do not seem so far away.”
“When will you see them again?” I asked.
“November, maybe,” she said, “after we pick the apples. But Manuel says there could be more work after that. Not here, at a different farm.”
Luisa not here, at a different farm. I didn’t want to think about that. Instead, I asked, “What about school?”
“I will go back, Joe, someday.” There was sadness in her voice, but also determination. “My family, when we save enough, we will all come here and be citizens. I will go to school, and so will my sisters. This is my dream.”
“That will be good,” I said.
Under the Same Sky Page 12
