Delta Girls

by Gayle Brandeis

  A CONVERSATION BETWEEN

  THE AUTHOR AT AGE 41 AND

  HER 13-YEAR-OLD SELF

  Gayle at 13: So you actually became a writer.

  Gayle at 41: I did, indeed. Are you surprised?

  Gayle at 13: Not really. Do you remember when our second-grade teacher, Mrs. Koch, told our parents that I would be a writer when I grew up? They came home from the parent-teacher conference and shared what she’d said, and I was, like, “No duh.” I mean, I’ve been writing poems and stories since I was four years old. It’s cool that it really happened, though.

  Gayle at 41: I feel very lucky to be able to do what I love. What we love.

  Gayle at 13: Do you remember lying on your stomach on the living room rug and making up titles of stories you wanted to write?

  Gayle at 41: Oh, yes; I remember writing them in crayon on the cardboard from Dad’s dry-cleaned shirts. Long lists of titles, each one so full of possibility.

  Gayle at 13: Is that how you came up with the idea for Delta Girls?

  Gayle at 41: Ha! I can’t say it is. The first seed of the idea came after my friend Stephan told me about growing up on a pear farm in the Sacramento Delta. I never even knew there was a Delta in California until he told me about it, and I was intrigued by the lush, strange setting. Then I began to see stories about the two whales who swam up the Sacramento River, and a story started to form in my mind of a mother and daughter who end up in the Delta around the same time as the whales, all four of them searching for home.

  Gayle at 13: How did skating come into the story?

  Gayle at 41: I had been dreaming about skating every night—I think part of me really missed it. I even started taking lessons again, thinking that’s what the dreams were pushing me to do. It was great, but I got really dizzy doing the spins, and I realized that maybe I should be writing about skating more than I should actually be skating. At first Karen was a solo competitor, but then it dawned on me that I could play with the echo between “pears” and “pairs,” and the whole story with Nathan emerged.

  Gayle at 13: I can’t imagine not skating.

  Gayle at 41: I know—it’s such a part of your life right now. Almost every day after school, some days before school. I’m curious—what do you love most about skating?

  Gayle at 13: Don’t you remember?

  Gayle at 41: I remember a lot of it—the feeling of soaring, the cold wind on my face as I stroked around the rink—but I want to hear it from you while you’re still in the thick of it.

  Gayle at 13: My favorite part is when I step onto the ice during a competition or an ice show and the choreography melts away, and I just start skating to the music in whatever way my body wants to move right then.

  Gayle at 41: I remember our coaches were not very happy about us doing that, throwing away all the hard work of their choreography so we could go with the flow. Deena certainly never would have stood for that if Karen started to improvise.

  Gayle at 13: I can’t help it, though—it’s like something else takes over.

  Gayle at 41: Writing a novel is like that, too—I love when the characters take over, when they do completely unexpected things that surprise me. I don’t like to choreograph my stories in advance.

  Gayle at 13: That’s cool. I’m glad I still like to improvise, even if it’s off the ice.

  Gayle at 41: Am I how you imagined you’d be at forty-one?

  Gayle at 13: I never imagined myself at forty-one. I never wanted to grow up, remember?

  Gayle at 41: I remember very well. I thought I would live in the apartment across the hall from our parents—that was the farthest I wanted to move away from childhood.

  Gayle at 13: Why should I want to be a grown-up? Grown-ups wear panty hose and carry briefcases. Grown-ups are way too serious—they forget to have fun.

  Gayle at 41: Guess what? I don’t even own panty hose or a briefcase, and I definitely don’t take myself too seriously. In many ways, I feel like the same person inside as I did when I was you.

  Gayle at 13: Karen and Izzy are such completely different people, but I guess you do still seem like me, just with a few wrinkles, a little white hair.

  Gayle at 41: I didn’t have to run away from my life the way Karen did. I didn’t have to create a brand-new identity like her. But I’ve had moments when I’ve started fresh in life—just a couple of years ago, I made the incredibly difficult decision to leave my first marriage—and those experiences have definitely changed me. Still, I feel like the deepest part of me is the same that it was when I was your age.

  Gayle at 13: I never thought I’d get divorced. Then again, I never really thought I’d get married.

  Gayle at 41: I never thought I’d get divorced either, but life is full of surprises. And now I’m remarried. And pregnant.

  Gayle at 13: At your age? Ick.

  Gayle at 41: I think that’s what my older kids thought at first, too.

  Gayle at 13: Your older kids?

  Gayle at 41: They’ll be nineteen and sixteen when this interview comes out. Older than you are now.

  Gayle at 13: Weird.

  Gayle at 41: I agree—time moves so fast.

  Gayle at 13: Do they care that you write about sex?

  Gayle at 41: There’s really not a lot of sex in the book.

  Gayle at 13: But it’s there.

  Gayle at 41: It’s part of life. I want to write about all aspects of life.

  Gayle at 13: It’s a gross part of life.

  Gayle at 41: You’ll change your mind about that, trust me. Besides, as I recall, you searched for all the “good parts” in Judy Blume’s Forever not that long ago.

  Gayle at 13: That’s different. I was curious.

  Gayle at 41: And I’m still curious. Writing is a way to explore what makes us curious, don’t you think?

  Gayle at 13: I guess so. But you never answered me before—how do your kids feel about this?

  Gayle at 41: I have to admit, my daughter once asked if I could write some more “family-friendly” material. I dedicated my first young adult novel, My Life with the Lincolns, to her to honor that wish. But I think they also understand that it’s important to me not to censor myself when I write.

  Gayle at 13: Is your relationship with your kids like Izzy’s relationship with Quinn?

  Gayle at 41: The circumstances are vastly different, so it’s hard to say. I certainly have the same fierce love for them that Izzy has for Quinn.

  Gayle at 13: I was happy to see how much Quinn loved mythology. Are you still crazy about Greek myths?

  Gayle at 41: I still love them, but I’m not as up on them as you are—the pantheon and the stories are a bit fuzzy to me now.

  Gayle at 13: How could that be? I am constantly reading Greek mythology. I even made that Mount Olympus newspaper, do you remember?

  Gayle at 41: I do indeed. It told the Greek myths in journalism form.

  Gayle at 13: I spent so much time on that newspaper—figuring out what stories to tell, using rub-on letters for the headlines, finding images from different mythology books to copy. How could you let that go?

  Gayle at 41: I didn’t let it go, exactly. I’ve just had many enthusiasms over the years. Norse mythology is a newer interest of mine.

  Gayle at 13: But you never stopped loving words and writing, right?

  Gayle at 41: Very true. Do you remember our favorite vocabulary word in third grade?

  Gayle at 13: I do! It was “succulent.” We came home from school that day, and had a piece of fruit, and said to our mom, “My, what a succulent pear.”

  Gayle at 41: I’ve loved pear words ever since.

  Gayle at 13: Abcde loves pear words, too.

  Gayle at 41: Yes, she does. It was a blast to be able to write about a slightly unhinged poet; I have such fondness for Abcde. She was actually inspired by one of my poetry students, who told me that his mom had a student named Abcde. We were writing abecedarian poems in class; something just clicked, and my character Abcde wa
s born.

  Gayle at 13: I want to try to write an abecedarian poem now.

  Gayle at 41: You should—it’s great fun!

  Gayle at 13: All boys cooties deliver …

  Gayle at 41: Aren’t you a little old to be talking about cooties?

  Gayle at 13: I don’t want to grow up, remember?

  Gayle at 41: Ha! I like how you twisted around the grammar, though. Very Yoda of you. Speaking of twisting, did you figure out the twist in the story before it was revealed?

  Gayle at 13: Yeah—did you want me to?

  Gayle at 41: Not exactly, but I was hoping that if people did figure it out, it wouldn’t upset their reading of the rest of the book. Did it for you?

  Gayle at 13: Well, it kind of made me feel smarter than you.

  Gayle at 41: In some ways, you probably are!

  Gayle at 13: But it didn’t ruin the story.

  Gayle at 41: That’s good to hear.

  Gayle at 13: So is there anything you think I should know about my future? Any words of advice you want to give me as I grow up into you?

  Gayle at 41: I am hesitant to tell you too much, because I want life to be full of discovery for you. And I hate to give you too much advice, because you need to figure things out on your own. I will say that you have a couple of difficult years ahead of you, and part of me wants to protect you from them, but you’ll ultimately be fine. You’ll grow and learn and those years will be part of what makes you who you are. Who we are.

  Gayle at 13: Now I’m scared!

  Gayle at 41: I remember being scared of so many things when I was your age. When I was you. But please try not to be. It’s all part of the journey.

  Gayle at 13: That’s what Izzy said to Quinn, too, right? “Zero fear.”

  Gayle at 41: No one can make fear go away completely, of course. But you can choose how you react to it. Just try to be as brave as possible—in your skating, in your writing, in your life—okay?

  Gayle at 13: I’ll try.

  Gayle at 41: And I’ll try, too. Is it a deal?

  Gayle at 13: It’s a deal.

  Gayle at 41: Well, then … enjoy the next twenty-eight years! I look forward to seeing what adventures still wait for us.

  Gayle at 13: At least we know there will be more writing.

  Gayle at 41: That we do know.

  Gayle at 13: And many succulent pears.

  Gayle at 41: Yes. Many succulent pears.

  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. Discuss the themes of gestation, growth, and motherhood in Delta Girls. In how many different ways do these themes apply to the story?

  2. Before you realized that Izzy and Karen were the same person, how did you think they might be connected? At what point did you realize that Izzy was an older version of Karen? Which clues tipped you off? Were you surprised?

  3. Is Izzy a good mother to Quinn? What missteps does she take? How do Deena and Izzy differ as mothers? How are they alike?

  4. Consider this line from page nine: “Better to pluck it when it’s green, store it someplace cold, let it forget where it came from.” Izzy is talking about more than pears here. Do you agree with her? Has trying to forget her past helped or hindered Izzy? Quinn?

  5. Abcde is able to provide something for Quinn that Izzy is not. What is it, and why can’t Izzy fulfill this role? What does Abcde give Izzy? What do Vieira Pears and the community of Comice offer Izzy and Quinn?

  6. Why does Izzy want to keep the whales secret?

  7. How does Quinn’s study of Norse mythology affect her own story?

  8. Why is Nathan so jealous of Karen’s friendship with Isabelle? Her innocent interactions with Lance Finkel? Do you think it’s possible for a young person with serious goals—in dance, skating, music, acting, sports—to lead a somewhat normal life with fun and friends?

  9. When Karen becomes Izzy, she feels like a different person. Do you ever feel like someone else entirely when you look back at your childhood self, your teenage self, your young adult self? What about you has changed, and what events in your life fueled those changes?

  10. Why is Izzy so drawn to Sam when Abcde has proven herself to be such a loyal friend?

  11. Do you think Deena engineered the relationship between Nathan and Karen for publicity? Was Nathan seeing Deena all along?

  12. Try writing your own abecedarian poem. How does the form restrict your creativity? Release it?

  Gayle Brandeis is the author of two novels, The Book of Dead Birds, which won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change, and Self Storage, as well as a young adult novel, My Life with the Lincolns, and a writing guide, Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write. A former figure skater, she lives in Redlands, California, and has one child in college, one in high school, and one new baby.

  Delta Girls is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original

  Copyright © 2010 by Gayle Brandeis

  Reading group guide copyright © 2010 by Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  RANDOM HOUSE READER’S CIRCLE & Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Adrienne Rich and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., for permission to reprint “Delta” from The Fact of a Doorframe: Selected Poems 1950–2001 by Adrienne Rich, copyright © 2002, 1989 by Adrienne Rich. Reprinted by permission of Adrienne Rich and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brandeis, Gayle.

  Delta girls : a novel / Gayle Brandeis.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-52179-8

  1. Single mothers—Fiction. 2. Migrant agricultural laborers—Fiction. 3. Delta

  Region (Calif.)—Fiction. 4. Women figure skaters—Fiction. 5. Mothers and

  daughters—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.R345D45 2010

  813′.6—dc22 2010012555

  www.randomhousereaderscircle.com

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