Delta Girls

by Gayle Brandeis

  A cooking demonstration had been set up near the stage; the large fans in the corners wafted the scent of pears sautéed with butter and cinnamon across the room, along with a welcome—if loud—blast of cool air.

  As I walked through the building, a prickle traveled up the back of my neck as if someone was watching me. I turned, hoping it was Ben, hoping our eyes would meet in some meaningful way, but there was no trace of him. No one else’s eyes seemed pointed in my direction, either. I told myself it must have been just the fan ruffling against my skin, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. I slipped my sunglasses on as a shield.

  On my way back to the booth, I walked through the tent where people were eating their roasted corn and barbecue sandwiches and pear fritters and giant sausages. A band at one end of the shelter—a bunch of white guys at the far end of middle age—played loud boppy classic rock, everything from the Rolling Stones to Bob Marley, full of synthesized cheer. At the other end, a mechanical bull was set up inside an inflatable ring. A drunk woman with overtreated hair was trying to look sexy as she rode on it, but it looked more like she was having some sort of seizure. The bull tossed her off, her limbs splayed awkwardly in her tight clothes.

  “You should try.” Ben sidled up behind me.

  “Nah, I’m too good,” I joked, enjoying the feel of his breath on my neck. “No one would want to get on after me; they’d be too embarrassed.”

  “I’d like to see that,” he said.

  “I bet you would.”

  I wanted to keep flirting, but I was suddenly gripped with another sensation of being watched—not by Ben, whose presence felt warm and lovely against my back; this was a colder tingle.

  “I better go find Quinn.” I turned around and looked Ben in the eye. He seemed a bit confused, a bit disappointed, but he shrugged and said, “Okay.”

  “Maybe we can hang out later,” he shouted after me. I gave him a thumbs-up and kept walking, my heart in my throat until I found Quinn inside the bouncy castle in the children’s area.

  “She’s doing okay?” I asked Abcde.

  “Doing especially fine.” She made her dreadlocks bounce.

  “Don’t let anyone weird talk to her, okay?” I asked.

  “I hope that doesn’t include me,” Abcde said.

  “Bad weird, not good weird.” I was starting to feel less paranoid. The sensation of being watched had left my body. Maybe Sam had been there, shooting daggers when she saw me talking to Ben. Her eyes seemed capable of causing goosebumps. Quinn waved at me, her face gleaming. “I better get back to work,” I said, waving back. I looked for Ben on my way to the booth, but he had disappeared into the crowd.

  ROBERTS HAD SET up a hand-lettered sign, “Transitioning to Organic,” and was selling his pears inside reusable cloth bags. Our bags were cute, but paper, and the eco crowd was swarming to Roberts’s booth.

  “That sonofabitch,” said Mr. Vieira. “I knew he’d steal my thunder.”

  “He can’t do that, can he?” I asked. “Is there somewhere we could call to complain?”

  “The organic police don’t work weekends.” Mr. Vieira rubbed his face with his bandanna. “I should sock him in the nose.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to help matters,” I said.

  “We gotta get ready for the parade,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll deal with that numbskull later.”

  JORGE STAYED BEHIND at the booth to make sure no one would steal any pears, and the rest of us took off to either be in the parade or watch it go by. Mr. Vieira had asked if Quinn and I wanted to sit on the back of their vintage tractor and wave to the crowd. I had decided against it—there was the potential to end up in too many photos—but Quinn jumped at the chance.

  The parade was a small one—a woman dressed like a pear, a bagpipe band, a few hot-rod convertibles carting the teen Pear Queen and Pear Princesses, a trailer full of little girls wearing “Pear Blossom” sashes, a couple of people dressed up as whales, “Bartlett” and “Seckel” on signs hanging from their necks, some people in uniform on horses, a fire truck covered with waving kids, and the procession of tractors—but the community was out in force, cheering everyone on.

  Abcde sat with Quinn on the back of the Vieiras’ vintage tractor, and they tossed handfuls of wrapped hard candy—pear flavored, of course—into the crowd. It felt weird to stand on the curb, surrounded by strangers, and watch my daughter drive by, elated, throwing candy to the masses. She was usually too close for me to see her clearly, to see her the way a stranger might, to notice the slightly lumbering, unself-conscious way she moved her limbs, the way the sunlight shone on her dark hair from a distance. She seemed to love having that extra space, that time away from me, her whole face beaming.

  Roberts’s tractor was right behind, his robot hoisted on the lift in front of it, a big crepe-paper pear coming out of the cone on top. I wanted to boo him or toss something to knock over the robot, but restrained myself.

  Then Ben appeared, playing his Portuguese guitar as part of a roving band of musicians that closed the parade—some of them workers from the orchard, others I hadn’t seen before. Thankfully they weren’t playing the fado—it was lively music, contagious. He looked over at me and winked as he passed. The taste of pear flooded my mouth.

  AFTER THE PARADE, some of the workers set up their own booth in the front yard of a bungalow across from the fair. Signs were taped all over it, saying things like “We pick your pears so you don’t have to,” “Don’t let your harvest go to waste,” “Meet Needs Of Pickers” (that one was Abcde’s idea). The booth had flyers and petitions people could sign to make it easier and safer for people to cross the border to work the fields. The workers knew Bush wouldn’t pass any decent immigration laws his last year in office, but they wanted to set the groundwork for future change.

  From the Vieiras’ booth, I could see a steady stream of people, including Roberts, yell in the workers’ faces, but my colleagues didn’t back down. Carlos and Oscar, who also spoke fluent English, shared information calmly. Every once in a while, someone shouted, “Sí, se puede!” and others would join in. I wanted to go over to lend my support, but was too busy working.

  “Do we have some posterboard and a marker?” I asked Mrs. Vieira. “Or a big piece of paper?”

  She tore a large square of cardboard from the bottom of an empty box, handed me a Sharpie.

  I wrote DON’T BE FOOLED—THESE ARE THE ONLY ORGANIC PEARS IN THE DELTA.

  “Is it okay if I put this up?” I asked.

  She squinted at the sign and shrugged.

  I wanted to write something more inflammatory—ROBERTS LIES! or ROBERTS CARES MORE ABOUT ROBOTS THAN WORKERS—but didn’t want to turn a family event into a brawl.

  I propped the sign up on the counter, pulled my hat down lower on my head, and waited for the fallout.

  KAREN FOUND HERSELF COUNTING, NARRATING THEIR time together in her mind. “This is the third time we’ve done it.” “This is the seventh time.” “The twelfth time.”

  The fourteenth time was on the plane on their way to the Championship Series Finals in Canada. Nathan hustled Karen into the tiny bathroom as Deena slept off her Bloody Marys in the darkened cabin.

  “Have you joined the Mile-High Club before?” Karen asked, nervous about the germs that must be crawling on every inch of the lavatory.

  “I’m a card-carrying member, baby.” He shut the door behind him. “But never with anyone like you.”

  He had said this when he brought out the video camera for the first time, too—he had filmed himself with other lovers, but never anyone like her. Other women had acted like porn stars, contorting their faces and arching their backs for some future imaginary audience; he said he liked how she was shy about the camera, how she was focused more on him, how the sounds that came out of her mouth were more like whimpers than moans.

  The scent of air freshener and toilet cleaner was overpowering—not sexy in the least. Karen’s body was still sore
from their last encounter, which had lasted a lot longer than usual—she felt raw between her legs, felt like she had to pee all the time, but when she sat on the toilet, only a few burning drops came out.

  She wanted to say no, but she let him unzip her pants, push her up against the door, lift one of her legs up over his shoulder. The surface was bumpy and cold against her bare bottom; she tried to focus on that sensation, and not him ripping into her, banging her against the door, making it rattle so hard, she was worried it would fly open.

  “They’re going to hear us,” she said, but that only seemed to excite him more. He moaned and pulled out of her, spurting into the air. His semen glopped against her shirt, warm and wet, like a bird dropping.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” she said. She set the waxy cover on the seat, but when she tried to pee, nothing happened. Just fire. Nathan crouched before her and kissed her, dabbing at her shirt with a paper towel.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, and kissed her again.

  THE BURNING GOT worse, and she started to cramp low in her abdomen. By the time they got off the plane, she could barely stand up straight; she had no idea how she’d be able to carry her luggage, much less skate. She was too embarrassed to tell her mother about the symptoms, especially since she was worried about STDs; after they checked in to their hotel, Nathan drove her to an urgent care center on the outskirts of Hamilton.

  The doctor called it “honeymoon cystitis” and Karen felt a flush of excitement, as if it meant she and Nathan were practically married. She was given a shot of antibiotics, plus prescribed more to take during the week, and a vial of purple pills that would turn her pee bright orange. The doctor also told them to take a break from intercourse for at least five days. Karen was relieved; intercourse wasn’t her favorite part of their intimacy—it was the part she tolerated, not the part she enjoyed. When he was inside her, she never experienced the same stunning rush he could give with his tongue.

  “And good luck out on the ice,” the doctor said, winking as he handed them the prescription slip. Karen blushed and hoped her urinary condition wouldn’t wind up in the news.

  THEY RECEIVED SIXTH place in the competition. “Not bad for your first international event,” Deena had said. “Not bad at all.”

  That didn’t feel like her biggest accomplishment, though. Over their “break,” Nathan taught her how to use her mouth, her hands. She gagged at first, but slowly got used to his taste, his movements, his release. It made her feel proud to know she was capable of such a grown-up skill, that she was capable of giving Nathan so much pleasure.

  After the twinging lessened when she peed, they started up again, slowly, to avoid reaggravating her system. By the twenty-sixth time, she stopped counting. By the twenty-sixth time, she started to realize what all the fuss was about. She learned to not cringe, to not hold her breath when he pushed into her. To not care that the video camera was rolling. To not let her mind take her someplace else.

  It was like skating, she realized, like skating without choreography, the exhilaration and the flow and the contortion of it. The heart-pounding, cheek-reddening splendor. It was like skating without her mom watching.

  “I THINK WE should fire Deena,” Nathan said as they jogged along the shore of Lake Geneva the day before the World Championships. The Alps rose in the distance, snowcapped, majestic.

  Karen felt a blast of excitement and fear.

  “We got us to Worlds, she didn’t,” he said.

  “True,” said Karen, even though Deena had choreographed all their programs, sewn all their costumes, supervised all their workouts, gotten them to all their events. She felt a sudden rush of gratitude for her mother, for all that she had done for them.

  “We know how we move best,” he said. “We know what works for our bodies. We don’t need a coach to tell us what to do.”

  Maybe this would be better for Deena, thought Karen. Maybe it would release her to find a different life. Maybe it would stop her mom from looking at her the way she did sometimes when she thought Karen wasn’t looking, that gut-clutching mix of jealousy and pride.

  Karen took a deep breath, her lungs sore from the jog. The air smelled different by the lake. Sweet, like sugared rose petals. It was almost overwhelming, the scent. It drowned out thoughts of her mother as Karen and Nathan kept running, stopping every once in a while to kiss and grope on benches, in parks, but when they got back to the hotel and found Deena waiting in the lobby, Karen could barely look at her.

  “You smell good.” Deena leaned toward Nathan, took a big sniff from his neck. “Like the trees. It’s the trees that smell so good, you know. The pittosporum.” She held up a guidebook to show she had done her homework.

  “It smells like love,” said Nathan, and Karen melted into his arms, making sure her mother saw it, making sure she knew, over and over again, that Nathan was hers.

  WHEN THEY BROKE the news to Deena over dinner that they no longer needed her coaching services, she looked as if someone had shocked her with a cattle prod, but she quickly straightened her spine, regained her composure.

  “I suppose I should have seen this coming,” she said, looking into Nathan’s eyes, her own eyes wet, hurt, tears hovering but not falling. Karen held her breath.

  “I suppose it will give me more time to be your manager.” Deena started to rearrange the salt and pepper shakers. “I have tons of calls to make. Disney wants to do a special, and I think I have a Got Milk campaign lined up …”

  Nathan squeezed Karen’s knee under the table. Karen held back the urge to tell her mother they were just kidding, that she could still be their coach, that she had been a wonderful coach, that they were silly to ever think otherwise.

  “It’s just you and me, babe,” Nathan whispered into her ear, and a chill ran through her whole body. “You and me against the world.”

  I HAD BEEN LOOKING FOR BEN SINCE THE PARADE, SO I was thrilled to see him walking toward the booth. At least until I realized he was holding hands with a small Indian American woman. She wore khaki shorts, a bike race T-shirt, Tevas, a big smile. My heart sank.

  “Izzy, this is Shanti,” he said, his face apologetic.

  “Your research partner.” My voice sounded flat in my ears.

  “You’ve been talking about me, Benjamim? How sweet!” She wrapped her arms around his waist and I wanted to slug her. “I’ve heard so much about …” I thought she was going to say “you,” but then she said “the Pear Fair. I had to come check it out for myself.”

  “She surprised me.” Ben gave a half-smile, half-grimace. “I didn’t know she was coming.”

  Shanti was not much taller than five feet, but she was formidable. She looked like someone who could run a marathon and barely break a sweat. Or stand in front of a room full of students and make them fear her and fall in love with her all at once. Her body was wiry and compact, her eyes large and dark, like a deer’s, her shiny black hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. I took some comfort in the fact that her cheeks were a little ashy, her lovely eyes rimmed with dark circles.

  “Plus I have to see the whales, of course.” She smiled as if she were running for office.

  “Of course you do.” I could feel a sneer on my face, but didn’t do anything to wipe it away. “If you two will excuse me,” I said, avoiding Ben’s eyes, “I have more pears to sell.”

  “Izzy …,” Ben started, but I turned away before he had a chance to say more.

  I could hear Shanti ask him about my handwritten sign. So far, Roberts hadn’t shown up to protest it; maybe his eyesight wasn’t good enough to see it from his booth. I hoped he’d come over to complain so I’d have an excuse to punch someone in the face. When I turned back around, I could see Ben and Shanti walking arm in arm toward the auditorium.

  “Are you okay?” Abcde asked. She and Quinn were both drinking pear smoothies.

  “Hmmm?” I asked, watching the happy couple disappear into the building.

  “You look like you’ve seen a g
host.” Abcde took a big, rattling slurp.

  I had seen just the opposite, in fact; the abstract girlfriend made flesh. When she was just an idea, just a floating thought, she didn’t seem so bad. Not nearly as threatening as the shining sun of Sam. Now that I saw her real self glommed onto Ben, I wanted to throw up.

  “Just a little tired,” I said.

  “Can I have some more money?” asked Quinn. “I want to try to win a goldfish.”

  “Where are we going to keep a goldfish?” My voice turned shrill. “We can’t bring a goldfish with us on the road!”

  “I thought we were going to stay …” Tears sprang into Quinn’s eyes.

  “Not for long.” I slammed a bag of pears on the wooden counter so hard, the paper sack ripped open. Pears flew out, one hitting Roberts, who was storming toward the booth, in the chest.

  “And now you try to kill me!” he shouted.

  “Take your sign down!” The words roared out of me like a hurricane. They surprised me as much as they did Roberts. Quinn and Abcde took a step back, too.