Delta Girls (13 page)

“I don’t think of Florida as eastern.” Nathan downed his complimentary glass of champagne—only one, Deena had cautioned him. She herself was on her third flute.

“What do you think of it as, then?” Karen took a sip of her ginger ale. The bubbles snapped against her nose. Her seat was next to her mother’s and directly across the aisle from Nathan’s. If she wanted to, she could reach out and touch his arm. Or his knee, which rose so invitingly inside his jeans.

“Tropical,” he said. “Geriatric.”

“So you’re moving there in a couple of years?” Karen asked her mother with a laugh. She felt giddy, even bold, up in the air, lifting her gold-rimmed glass.

Deena said, “Ha ha,” but then fixed her with a glare so potent, Karen barely spoke the rest of the flight.

———

EVEN IN NOVEMBER
, the air in Florida was dense with humidity, like the inside of someone’s mouth. Karen’s eyelids felt heavy; she wanted to lie down on the tarmac and let the thick air blanket itself over her, but the palm trees that stood sentry outside the Tampa airport warned her to stay upright.

After the first-class plane ride, Karen was expecting an equally swanky hotel, but Deena pulled the rental car into the driveway of a two-story pink stucco building on a street full of furniture stores and cheap souvenir shops. Deena had reserved adjoining rooms; Karen daydreamed about opening the inner door to Nathan’s room in the middle of the night, knocking so he’d open his own. If her mother had enough of the little bottles from the minibar, she’d sleep right through anything.

“Get your suits on,” Deena said as they lugged their bags up the concrete and wrought-iron stairway. “We can do some water training.”

A small kidney-shaped pool sat within a chain-link fence in the center of the parking lot. A couple of kids paddled around the greenish water inside inflated plastic rings. When her mother had told her to pack a swimsuit, Karen had imagined a beach from a postcard, or at least a fancy pool, one with cabanas and plush lounge chairs, waiters carrying fruity drinks.

“Why’d you choose this place?” she asked. Her mother opened the door to their room; it was dark and smelled of mildew.

“It’s off the beaten track,” said her mother. “No one will know we’re here.”

KAREN FELT SHY
when they emerged from their rooms at the same time, her with a scratchy white hotel towel wrapped around her navy one-piece, Nathan in Hawaiian print trunks that rode low on his hips. He was shoeless, even though the concrete
was hot, even though he should be protecting his feet. His chest was smooth, but a wispy path of hair traveled down his belly into his waistband. Karen followed him to the stairway and watched the muscles of his back slide beneath his skin as he sprinted down the steps.

As soon as they went through the gate to the pool, Nathan ran and dove into the water, despite all the signs that warned against it. “What do you want us to do?” he asked Deena when he emerged, water dripping down his face. He shook his head like a wet dog. A couple of drops splashed onto Karen’s leg. Water beaded on his eyelashes, darkening them, making the blue of his eyes even more intense.

The kids were still churning around in their plastic tubes, their mother reading a gossip magazine in the area’s one patch of shade.

“Try some lifts,” Deena said from a rubber-strapped chaise. She looked like a movie star in her gold-toned bathing suit with a filmy leopard print cover-up, gold sandals with a little heel. Big sunglasses, big floppy hat that would make Karen look like a farmer but made her mother somehow even more glamorous.

“You’ll have to get in first,” Nathan told Karen, who stood on the top step in the shallow end, letting her ankles get used to the surprisingly cold water.

Karen tentatively stepped down to the next concrete landing. Her calves adjusted to the temperature, but the line where her skin transitioned from water to air was freezing. She knew the line from hips to belly would be especially hard to cross. The line from ribs to breasts would be even worse. She took a deep breath and stepped down to mid-thigh.

“Aw, come on,” Nathan taunted. “You can do better than that.” He dove underwater like a dolphin and swam under the kicking legs of the kids; his head emerged in front of the steps, gleaming, as he crouched in the shallow end.

“I like to take my time,” said Karen.

“So do I.” Nathan winked, and even though Karen wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, she had to hold on to the metal rail to catch her bearings.

“Sometimes, though,” he said, “you need to just dive in and get it over with.”

He splashed Karen’s belly. She bent over at the shock of cold. He splashed some more, big handfuls that drenched her shoulders, her hair.

“Stop it,” she said.

He stood up, water sheeting down his chest, and wrapped his arms around her—his cold wet body a bracing thrill—then threw himself backwards, carrying her underwater with him.

NATHAN HAD TOUCHED
her skin before, but never so much of it. Her legs were always encased in tights, her back covered with mesh. Now their limbs slid against each other underwater, briefly entwining, slick as kelp. Nathan put his hands on her belly and lifted her above the water, the warm air blowing goosebumps across her skin, then tipped backwards and let her tumble on top of him, both of them going under again. They stared at each other for a moment through the greenish water; Nathan smiled and blew bubbles through his nose before they surfaced, their bodies separate now, Karen’s nipples embarrassingly hard.

“Quit fooling around,” called Deena. “You have training to do.”

LIFTS FELT DIFFERENT
in the water, harder and easier all at once—an alternation between buoyancy and slog. They tried a few throws, too, the water grabbing onto her legs, dragging her down with its resistance.

“I wish the ice was this easy to fall on,” Karen said after Nathan dropped her during a hand-to-hip lift and she had twisted the fall into a dive.

“Ice turns to water when you skate on it.” Nathan lifted her again, this time lowering her slowly so her front brushed against his. “Maybe if I skated fast enough, I could turn the rink to water before you land.”

“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” said Karen, her chest against his ribs. She could feel a hardness in his trunks press against her stomach. It scared her a little, but also made her feel proud, as if she had accomplished something important, something adult. She wished the little boys weren’t still in the pool, watching from their plastic rings, their mother’s face now poking above her magazine.

“It’s true.” Nathan laughed, leaning into her. “The blades melt the ice.”

She wanted to tell him that she was telling the truth, too.

“You haven’t done the lasso axel yet,” her mother called from her chaise. Karen couldn’t see her expression beneath her large sunglasses, but she could tell Deena was irked. She grabbed onto Nathan’s hands underwater and he hoisted her away from him, toward the sun.

I
N MY DREAM, I TOOK A PEAR AND CLEAVED IT IN TWO
with my hands—it came apart easily, cleanly, no rough edges or spilled juice. The center was filled with dark round seeds, like a papaya, not like the typical two or four inside a pear; the scent of pear wafted out clear as day. I handed half to Quinn. She plucked a seed out with her thumb and forefinger, the way she used to lift Cheerios from high-chair trays in diners across the country, and put the dark pearl in her mouth.

“It’s sour,” she said, and I felt a jolt of fear. Apple seeds are full of arsenic; apples and pears are cousins, if not sisters. Pear seeds are probably packed with poison, too.

“Spit it out,” I barked, but it was too late; she had already swallowed it whole.

I WOKE WITH
a start, and watched Quinn breathe—the sweetest sight in the world—until the dream lost its hold. I microwaved a cup of Earl Grey and brought it onto the deck to try to enjoy the
sunrise. I loved how the water lapped against the boat in the morning, a gentle easing into the day. Birdsong rippled through the air. A light breeze played upon my skin, made me feel a bit more awake, a bit less freaked out. No sign of the whales, but it made me glad to know they were out there, somewhere, big and silent and peaceful. Next time they came back, we would really connect. Next time, they’d be able to tell me something I needed to know.

I set my mug down on the life preserver box, stood and stretched my arms over my head, darts of tightness shooting down my back. I found myself slipping into an old warm-up routine to loosen my muscles, starting with isolations in my neck, shoulders, rib cage, hips, moving into a simple rolling up and down of the spine, side stretches, lunges. It had been years, but my body remembered the whole sequence as if it had been only days. I put my foot up on the railing and bent sideways over my leg, one arm in the air, stretching out my poor neglected hamstrings.

Quinn wandered onto the deck, her hair pillow-frizzed. “I didn’t know you could bend like that,” she said.

“This is nothing,” I told her, so happy to see her alive and whole, unpoisoned. “I used to be a pretzel.”

“I used to be a cupcake.” Her smile was soft with sleep.

I didn’t often let myself think of what I used to be able to do; I felt a sudden wave of loss for my old flexibility, for how easily I could lift my leg over my head or drop down into a split. I took my leg down, put my other foot onto the railing, told myself I could get at least some of it back.

Quinn propped her leg on the life preserver box and bent over it like me. We stretched together for a while, which quickly slipped into dancing together across the deck, copying each other’s arm swoops and spins and waltzes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see our reflections glimmering in the water, moving in tandem across the slough like the mother and baby whale.

———

THE STRETCHING HELPED.
I felt faster, stronger than I had before when I practiced picking over my lunch break. My body felt more integrated—foot and thigh, belly, shoulder and hand, all working together. It wouldn’t be long, I hoped, before I could join the rest of the team. Show them how fast a woman could pick.

I thought I had been so stealthy in my practice, but Jorge walked toward us as if he had known where we were all along, carrying the largest pear I had ever seen. He held it out to me on both hands, like some sort of offering.

“I don’t need it.” I shook my head. My pear bag was almost full.

He nodded and pushed it closer to me. I took a step back. I could smell several days of sweat on his clothes.

“For the contest, Eema,” Quinn said excitedly. “The Pear Fair.”

He gestured to ask if he could give Quinn the pear. I shrugged, and he set it in her waiting hands. It was larger than her head when she was born.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Yes, thanks.” I still hadn’t completely forgiven him for the sticker incident, but I figured I could at least try to follow my daughter’s manners.

Jorge gave a sheepish smile and a little bow, then ambled off, walking as if he had a sore hip.

“We’re going to win for sure!” Quinn said, and ran to show Mr. Vieira.

Mr. Vieira stopped pruning for a moment and studied the giant pear as if it were a rare jewel. “This is a beauty,” he said. “Put it in cold storage, in its own basket so it don’t end up with the other fruit.”

Quinn ran off with the pear cupped carefully in her hands.

“The Pear Fair’s not going to be the same this year.” Mr. Vieira lobbed off a dead branch, let it crash to the ground. “Not much to celebrate, half our crop going to rot.”

“How are your neighbors doing?” I asked.

“Don’t know, don’t want to know.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him, but he snapped his pruning shears shut and that was the end of our conversation.

BEFORE OUR BREAK
was over, Quinn convinced me to walk across the bridge to Roberts’s farm. She said she felt like a spy; I felt more like a traitor.

“You’re Vieira’s girl, aren’t you?” Roberts strolled toward us as we came up the gravel driveway. He had replaced the clapboard on his two-story farmhouse with aluminum siding; it made the house look like an impersonator of itself. The air felt different on his side of the slough; maybe it was the pesticides in the air. My throat started to burn.

“My daughter wanted to see the robot,” I said.

“You’ve come to the right place, then.” His face beamed so brightly, my heart softened a touch.

He led us back to the orchard. A few workers, a couple of whom I recognized, were up on ladders, busy picking. So he still needed some human hands, after all. The trees were still full of fruit—it looked like he was having trouble getting enough pears picked in time, too.

“My pride and joy,” he said, pointing toward a tractor. “They’re not even on the market yet—I’m a test case.”

“That’s not a robot,” said Quinn.

“The robot’s in front.” He led us to a contraption sitting on a platform attached to the nose of the tractor. Quinn looked disappointed; she must have been expecting something from a sci-fi movie—a person-shaped machine with electronic eyes, arms like air-conditioning ducts, a tinny voice that said things like “At your service” in a vaguely British accent. This just looked like a tall red desk lamp. It even had what looked like a small white shade, be it an upside-down one, fanning out at the top—more, perhaps, like the collar on a postsurgical dog.