“A Big Child.” Quinn did a little dance, moving her ribs back and forth with each alphabetic syllable.
“You haven’t been getting into the wine, now, have you?” I joked.
Quinn rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to die if you can’t see me for a second, Eema!”
“I would certainly hope not!” The word “die” made my ribs contract.
I suddenly flashed on my own childhood. How I never was able to get away from my mother, either. How I told myself that if I had a little girl, I’d let her do whatever she wanted. I’d let her have all sorts of freedom to play, to explore. And here I had gone and put my daughter on an even tighter leash than the one I had grown up with. She hadn’t been more than a few yards away from me since the day she was born. The realization hit me like a frying pan. I had to blink a couple times to make sure the stars popping into the sky were not figments of my dizzy brain.
“Fine,” I said, a bit short of breath. “Stay where Abcde can see you.”
“Thank you, very wonderfully!” Quinn jumped up and down. “And that’s ‘u’ like the letter u, not ‘you’ like Y-O-U.”
Abcde gave her a high five.
I had to force myself not to chase after them as they ran off into the orchard in search of cottontail bunnies. Ben was still deep in conversation with his father, so I helped Mrs. Vieira and her cousins carry all the plates and bowls back into the kitchen. As they chattered away in Portuguese, I tried not to look back over my shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of Quinn.
And then Sam showed up and made a beeline straight for Ben. My stomach clenched as he gave her a quick hug and she smiled at him with that sparkly smile of hers, that stupid smile that makes you want her to smile at you forever. She wasn’t in her usual uniform; her sapphire-colored V-neck sweater made her hair look extra lustrous; she had put on makeup, and wore heels beneath her tailored jeans. I could see both Ben and his dad light up as they talked to her. I didn’t bring that out in people. I made people anxious. Or maybe I made myself anxious around people. Either way, I didn’t have her glow. I wanted to run over and tackle her to the ground.
SOMEONE HAD MOVED the picnic tables into a circle and started a bonfire in a fire pit at the center. At least four of the pickers, including Jorge, and one of the sorters, had guitars; they were sitting on top of the tables, strumming away together, playing what sounded like a heartbroken ballad in Spanish at the top of their lungs. All of them were either drunk or pretending to be, weaving their heads around and opening and closing their eyes comically. The crickets in the orchard provided a bass note to the music, chirpy staccato strings.
“‘El Borracho.’” Mr. Vieira sidled up next to me with his glass of Madeira. “‘The Drunk.’”
“That’s the song?”
He nodded and lifted his glass. “And me, if I finish this.” He took a big swig. I was tempted to grab the wine from his hand and glug it down myself.
“It’s a sad song,” I said; the singers looked like big goofballs with their drunken mugging, but their voices sounded shattered, forlorn.
“You think that’s sad?” He downed the rest of the glass. “Wait till you hear the fado.”
The nightly breeze started to pick up; I wrapped my arms around myself and wondered if I should go back to the boat to get a sweater, or maybe just turn in for the night, when Ben walked down his front steps, tuning what looked like a lute.
“I didn’t know you played,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit warmer. Sam was chatting someone else up now, one of the windbreaker guys who obviously had a crush on her.
“I haven’t for a while.” Some guys, you can tell they pick up guitars to try to look sexy. Ben looked a little awkward with his teardrop-shaped instrument, and somehow that made him all the more appealing. And not just to me. I caught Sam throwing glances his way even as she was talking to her besotted colleague. She hadn’t acknowledged me at all.
“What’s this fado your father is talking about?” I asked, trying to will some of Sam’s radiance into my face.
He shook his head; he and Sam shared a brief smile before he looked at me again. “It’ll rip your heart right out of your chest.” Too late, I thought.
The “Borracho” song ended, to uproarious applause, raised glasses.
Mr. Vieira called Jorge and his guitar over.
“The fado needs two guitars,” Ben told me. “The Portuguese,” he held his up, “and the classic.”
Jorge and Ben sat on one picnic bench, and began to pick out a few simple but moving notes; it was as if they had reached into my body and plucked at my innards. I had to wrap my arms around myself even tighter, Ben’s guitar resonating inside me like a bell. I tried not to look at Sam, who looked equally rapt. A hush fell over everyone who had been so raucous just a moment ago; it was as if we were in the presence of something important, maybe even holy. Mr. Vieira sat in silence on another bench, looking down at his lap. Then he took a deep breath, unfurled his spine, closed his eyes, and began to sing.
Even though he and Ben had both warned me, even though I had ample time to prepare myself, even though I had no idea what any of the lyrics meant, I found myself choking back a sob. The mournful tone of Mr. Vieira’s voice somehow uncorked all the sadness that had been hiding in the corners of my bones for the last ten years. The sadness I had been hiding from myself.
My throat burned. I hadn’t given myself the chance to cry, really flat-out, full-body cry, since Quinn had been born; I’d had to hold it together for her, to not scare her, to keep at least one thing steady in her life. Now, with Quinn off with Abcde, with only myself to look after, with Sam making eyes at Ben, I fell apart.
I ran from the music, ran, nearly blind with tears, into the orchard, where I could hear only the faintest cry of the guitar. I collapsed on the uneven grass and let myself weep until my throat was raw, until my bones released their cache of grief. I wept and wept until I came back into myself enough to notice ants were crawling up my legs, enough to see the white owl swooping above me on its nightly rounds. Sadness still coursed through me, but I felt calmer, lighter. I wondered if other animals felt sadness. I thought I had seen it in the eye of the whale, at least the mother whale, who had led her baby so far off course. When I heard coyotes at night, they sounded like they were keening. I stood, trying to shake the bugs off my skin. I had been living like an animal for so many years—seeking food and shelter, avoiding predators. What had I done to myself in the process? What had I done to Quinn?
I touched a pear tree to steady myself, felt the groove of a scar on its trunk, sliced against the grain. Mr. Vieira once told me about how he and Ben “anguish” each pear tree during the winter. They carve gashes into the trunk to make it think it’s threatened, that it has only one more season to live. The tree ends up producing loads of fruit the next spring, much more than it would have if it had never been hurt. The Vieiras trick it into a premature swan song, and the next year, they trick it again. You’d think it would learn, the pear tree. You’d think it would know it was being tortured into abundance.
KAREN AND NATHAN STEPPED ONTO THE FRESHLY resurfaced ice for the practice session before the free skate. Karen loved that moment, when the ice was still pure. She found that first dig of her outside edge, the crackle and crunch beneath her blade, the resonance of it throbbing up her leg, deeply satisfying. When the ice was well used, the snow that fell from skaters’ blades clumped into small white drifts, but on clean ice, the shavings sparkled like diamonds. Everything turned to glitter.
Karen and Nathan held hands and stroked around the rink, blades searching for uneven patches to avoid, raised swaths left like scar tissue by the Zamboni. Sometimes another skater’s toe pick carved a divot that could snag your blade during a spiral or landing. Good places to dial into your body and avoid. This ice felt good, though, smooth. No swampy sheen of water, no noticeable dips or imperfections. It was fast ice; they stroked harder and harder, gaining speed. He put his left arm behind h
er back and grabbed her left hand, held her right hand against her rib cage. They stroked around the rink some more as other pairs swept by, doing lifts and jumps.
“What are you waiting for?” Deena called out from the side of the ice. “You need to practice your combination!”
Karen and Nathan just kept stroking. Neither of them said a word. They didn’t need to—Karen could tell they both somehow knew they had to save up their energy, let the jumps and spins build inside of them so they’d be ready to explode during the actual program. They’d keep the audience in suspense, let the anticipation grow to a fevered peak. No sneak previews. Karen felt her mind meld with Nathan’s. She had never felt so fully in tune with anyone in her life.
“You blew it,” Deena said when they stepped off the ice. “You just threw the medal away.”
They were besieged by reporters. “Are you injured?” they asked. “Why didn’t you practice?” Nathan just winked at the camera while Karen beamed only at him.
KAREN THOUGHT SHE had felt the free skate as deeply as possible at Sectionals, but that was nothing compared to this. After their nonpractice practice, their free skate at Nationals felt truly free, truly alive. She became Isolde in every cell of her body. Her nerve endings registered every emotion, every swell of music, every twitch of Nathan’s muscles. She knew he had become Tristan, too. Their bodies were absolutely in sync, absolutely connected. The choreography didn’t feel like choreography—it felt like it was born out of their bodies, organic and whole.
At the end of the program, they lay dead in each other’s arms, their faces touching in masks of grief and bliss. Even after the music ended, they remained there, breathing against each other. The crowd grew silent, waiting for them to get up and bow. Instead, they stayed on the ice and kissed.
So many times, Karen had wanted to kiss him during that final moment of the program, had thought she felt him wanting to kiss her, their bellies and chests rising and falling together, lips yearning. Now, cameras rolling, the crowd rising, roaring, all of it fed that first kiss, its urgency, its inevitability. It was as if Karen’s body was split in half—the back of her frozen numb against the ice, the front of her warmed by Nathan’s lips, his arms, the taste of mint still on his tongue. So much sweeter than chocolate cake. The front of her felt it could lift away, fly to the rafters with him, leaving the back of her stuck to the rink like a discarded jacket. Her life was split in half, too. Life before the kiss, life after the kiss—two entirely different equations.
I STUMBLED BACK OUT OF THE ORCHARD, SPENT. THE crowd was much smaller now. A couple of the pickers were playing guitar softly, the Rolling Stones. Empty wine bottles littered the tables. The fire was dwindling in its pit. Quinn and Abcde were waiting for me, eating leftover pear tarts they had begged from Mrs. Vieira.
“Where were you?” asked Quinn. It was kind of nice to know she was worrying about me for a change.
“Just went for a walk,” I said, grateful for the cover of night—hopefully my eyes didn’t look too swollen, too red. Hopefully my weeping hadn’t carried like the coyotes’.
“Did you see the wild turkey?” she asked.
“I saw an owl.” My whole head was congested, dizzy.
“We saw two owls and a fox and a wild turkey and seven bunnies,” she said. “And bats.”
“Very wild,” said Abcde, and Quinn held up fingers—two in a Von one hand, three in a Won the other—before running over to the porch to get a drink of water.
“Thanks for watching her,” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.
“Any time, Izzy, I’m serious. She’s a joy. A beautiful child.”
Ben stepped onto the porch, next to Quinn. He waved at me, then bounded down the steps, Quinn trailing him. I caught my breath, wishing I could splash cold water on my puffy face.
“Where’d you run off to?” he asked.
“I needed to get a sweater,” I said, then felt like an idiot, since of course I hadn’t grabbed one. “Where’s Sam?”
“Sam?” he asked, as if he wasn’t sure who I was talking about. “Oh yeah, the whale girl—I’ve been helping her with some environmental data—pesticide use in the area, mostly. I think she took off with one of the reporters.”
I wanted to cry all over again, this time from relief.
“Hey,” he said. “Would you mind if I came down to the houseboat for a little bit tonight? I love to be on the water when the moon is full.”
Longing filled my body near to bursting. I looked back at the orchard. Did the trees suffer when we couldn’t pick their bounty fast enough? Were they like a mother whose milk comes in and her baby doesn’t want to nurse and she thinks her breasts will explode?
“We’re heading there now,” I said.
“IT’S SO PEACEFUL here.” Ben sat on a deck chair, his feet up on the railing. The houseboat rose and fell gently. A few campers across the way had lit bonfires. I could see some of them in silhouette, standing by the levee, watching for spray, for spines, even though the whales hadn’t made an appearance for a while. The full moon cast its glow all over the water, like a slick of cream.
“I love it,” I said, bundled in a sweater for real now. My body felt relaxed and sleepy after my big cry. I lay my head against the back of the chair and looked up at the stars, felt them prickle somewhere inside of me, lighting up the sadness that still lingered there.
“You should see it in the winter,” he said. “It’s cold, but I love when the tule fog starts to roll in.”
“What’s that?” asked Quinn.
“It’s the fog that settles into the valley after the first big rain,” he said, “really low and dense. Sometimes stays for months.”
“What do you like about it?” I asked.
“I don’t like it when I’m driving,” he said. “You can’t see the road. But when you’re in the houseboat, it’s awesome. It’s like you’re in some sort of misty magical place.” He sounded a little bit drunk, but in a loose and pleasant way. I could smell Madeira on his breath.
“Like Niflheim,” said Quinn excitedly.
“Just like that,” said Ben. “Where the world began.”
“Will we be here this winter?” asked Quinn.
“No, sweetheart.” I felt a pang of loss. “All the work will be done here by then.”
“Oh, there’s stuff to do all year long,” he said. “Pruning, spraying, you name it. I’m sure my parents could find something for you to do if you want to hang around.”
I wanted to hang my arms around his neck, hang myself all over him. I was tempted to inch my foot a little closer to his on the railing, but stopped myself. “I’ll look into it,” I said, trying not to get my hopes, Quinn’s hopes, up too much.
We sat in silence, looking out at the water. I must have drifted off to sleep in my chair; when I woke, Quinn had put herself to bed and Ben was gone. Someone had draped a blanket over me. My legs were stiff as I took them off the railing and limped into the boat. Quinn’s body gave off warmth under the sheets; I pulled the cold blanket from outside to my chest and ached for a different kind of heat.
FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE KISS-AND-CRY HELD REAL meaning for Karen. Tears of relief, of joy, of complete overwhelm, streamed down her cheeks as she and Nathan kissed again. Deep, slow kisses that made the arena disappear, that created a warm, sweet bubble around their bodies. They kept kissing as the judges revealed their scores, as those scores moved them into first place, as Deena screamed in triumph, waving flowers over their heads, showering their flushed faces with petals.
“NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!” DEENA kept saying in the cab after the medal ceremony. “National fucking champions, baby!”
Karen snuggled against Nathan, his hand on her leg. They pressed their medals together, made them kiss, too. Karen felt the metal clang inside her, as if her whole body were a tuning fork, open to a new vibration. She kept stealing glances at her mom to see how she was reacting to all the cuddling, nervous that she would try to break them apart, b
ut Deena barely looked at them; she was too busy talking about all of the upcoming events. Karen hadn’t let herself think beyond Nashville. Deena had put such a focus on Nationals, on getting noticed this year so there would be a better chance of getting on the Olympic team in 1998. They hadn’t talked about what would happen if they actually placed—the Champions Series Finals in Canada in two weeks; the World Championships—the Worlds!—in Geneva, Switzerland, in March. The invitations to appear on The Today Show, The Tonight Show, the calls from potential sponsors. Deena was in her glory, already scheduling interviews, setting up photo shoots.
“Now that you’re a couple,” said Deena, finally looking at them directly, as if sizing them up, scrutinizing them as a unit, “you’re even more of a hot commodity.” Nathan winked at Deena and lifted both thumbs. Karen nuzzled her head deeper into Nathan’s neck, breathed in the spice of his sweat and hair gel and cologne, avoided her mom’s appraising eyes. All she needed for glory was this.
AFTER WORK THE NEXT DAY, THE VIEIRAS ASKED ME TO go to Rio Vista, a few towns south, to pick up bags for our booth at the Pear Fair before the store closed. I hoped Ben would be able to join me, but he was busy helping his dad gussy up the old tractors for the parade. Abcde came along, instead. After so many years of just me and Quinn in the car, it felt weird to have her with us, almost like having a live tiger in the back seat; the car didn’t feel big enough to contain her energy. I half expected her to pounce as I drove. I rolled down my window so the scent of her dreadlocks—sweaty, herbal—wouldn’t suffocate me. Rio Vista wasn’t too far away, but it felt like we were in the car for hours, what with her alphabetical exclamations—“ferry greets humble itinerants,” “river seems terribly undulatory.” I wondered if her use of the alphabet was related to her hormonal cycle in some way—it seemed to be peaking.
Rio Vista was a small town, but compared to Comice, it felt huge, with its fast-food restaurants, its large drawbridge that the whales had been milling around of late. I had looked forward to seeing them again, but they had moved on by the time we got there. Hopefully on their way back to sea.
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