Delta Girls (7 page)

“You should probably have dinner first,” I said, but finally relented and let her have one of the doughnuts.

“Save room for the
sopa
.” The woman smiled as she handed me the warm pastry. “You might want to go line up now.” A line was beginning to snake out the community center door. I handed Quinn the doughnut and powdered sugar immediately spilled down her front. She didn’t mind, so I tried not to, either.

On our way toward the line, a guy sidled up to us, the air around him heavy with cologne. “Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you that girl …”

“No.” My pulse flared. I grabbed Quinn’s hand and we started to walk away.

“You’re not the girl over at Vieira’s place?” he called after us. “The one trying to pick the other day?”

“Oh.” Relief washed over me, sweet as sleep. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am that girl.”

“Word travels fast,” he said, and my ears briefly roared with blood again. I wondered if he picked at the Vieiras’, too; I felt embarrassed that I didn’t recognize him, that I probably wouldn’t recognize most of the pickers if they showed up in front of me, hair slicked back, dress shirts on. He flashed a peace sign and jogged over to the building.

THE SOPA, IT
turned out, was a free meal inside the cavernous, wood-paneled hall. Every single item on the menu was donated by the community—beef from local ranchers, vegetables from local home gardens, the pear preserves Mrs. Vieira had canned. Tons and tons of donated food, enough to serve a thousand people. The centerpiece was the
sopa
itself, a beef soup volunteers had cooked in hundred-gallon vats in the community center kitchen. The big hunks of beef were taken out of the soup before serving, sliced, and put on plates. We stood in line and waited as one volunteer put a piece of French bread in a bowl, the next volunteer ladled the soup over it, the next one put a sprig of mint on top, the next gave us a plate with the beef and more bread. The pear preserves sat on every table, along with local butter. The energy felt completely different from that of any of the soup kitchens Quinn and I had visited across the country, taking advantage of free meals at shelters and churches when our funds had run dry. Shame hung in the air of those soup kitchens like bacon grease, a palpable, discomfiting sense of lack, but this free dinner was all about bounty, celebration. Quinn and I found some empty chairs at the end of one of the long tables and sat down to eat; halfway through our meal, Mr. Vieira saw us and waved us to a table a few rows over.

“We’ve been saving you seats,” he said over the din of the room when we carried our plates over to their table. I sat across from Ben. Beef, pink and wet, thickly sliced, fanned out on the
plate beneath the curve of his soup bowl; I wished I hadn’t eaten mine so quickly—I wasn’t sure if it was rude to go back for a second helping. Mrs. Vieira looked around; she seemed happy to see people spreading her preserves on slabs of dense, slightly sweet bread, the crust shellacked with egg white and sugar. Ben smiled at his mother, his mouth full of cabbage. She was chattering away in Portuguese with a woman across the table—I had never heard her husky voice before; I had wondered, in fact, if she was mute. She seemed to understand English—perhaps she just didn’t like to speak it.

Quinn finished her meal and asked if she could be excused.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“My people are good people,” Mr. Vieira said. “They won’t do nothing to hurt her.”

How could I say no after that?

“Just stay where I can see you,” I said.

Before I knew it, Quinn was running around with one of the
festa’s
queens, a little girl in an ice blue dress with a rhinestone tiara secured over her sprayed-stiff ringlets, a cape featuring a child saint also wearing a cape, done up in sequins. Every once in a while, I lost sight of them in the crowd and my nerve endings went immediately from zero to panic.

“She’s over there,” Ben said, and I saw Quinn climbing out from under a table with the little queen. The moisture beneath my arms immediately cooled, and I slumped, weak with gratitude, in the plastic folding chair.

“Thank you,” I said, but he had already turned to talk to his dad. I was kind of glad—that way he couldn’t see the tears that had sprung when he helped me find my girl.

AFTER DINNER, QUINN
and I followed the Vieiras and the rest of the crowd to the arena behind the park.

“Rodeo?” I asked, looking at the dirt ground of the stadium, the guys in colorful outfits on horseback.

“Bullfight,” said Mr. Vieira.

“I thought those were illegal.” I had no desire to see someone get gored, no desire to see an animal fall to the ground, life draining out.

“They make exceptions for us Portuguese.” Mr. Vieira snorted like a bull.

“It’s bloodless,” Ben assured me. “It’s all done with Velcro.”

The brass band walked into the center of the stadium; everyone stood as they played the national anthem, then
“A Portuguesa.”
A great cheer rose up afterward, people stomping the metal bleachers so hard, my teeth rattled inside my head and Quinn grabbed onto me for dear life. Then a single trumpet let out a blare, and a man on horseback trotted into the ring to more cheering and stamping. His outfit rivaled the
festa
queens’—he wore a bright yellow embroidered matador suit with hot pink kneesocks; his horse was decked out, too, with flowers and streamers and feathers.

Quinn grabbed onto me harder as a bull lumbered into the arena. Its horns were topped with leather caps—they looked like adrenal glands capping long, curved kidneys. The bull was massive, its enormous body shimmering with each step, saliva streaming from its mouth in ropes.

“I want to go, Eema,” Quinn said into my arm as the bull snorted and barreled across the dirt.

“In a bit,” I said. The matador chucked a long streamer-bedecked spear at the bull. Its Velcro tip landed on the Velcro pad strapped to the bull’s shoulder and wagged back and forth. The band blasted a short triumphant tune.

“I want to go now!” She screamed so loudly, some people around us stopped cheering and turned to look.

“Okay, okay,” I said, and together we squeezed past the Vieiras and the other people in our row and made our way down the bleacher steps, Quinn crying hysterically.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked as we walked through the fairgrounds. “I thought you were having a good time.”

“The monster …,” she started.

“It’s a bull,” I said. “A normal animal.”

“I know!” she yelled, as if I had said the most offensive thing in the world.

“So what were you going to say?” I asked, but she walked faster so she’d be a few steps ahead of me.

“I’m sorry, Quinn.” I ran to catch up. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

She didn’t say anything, but slowed down enough so we could walk in step.

Ben pulled up in the truck when we got to downtown Comice. “Need a ride?” he asked. My heart started to pound at the sight of him.

It wasn’t a far trek back to the farm, but Quinn looked exhausted. “Thanks,” I said. We climbed up into the two-row cab. I let Quinn sit in front.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“I’ll go back for them,” he said. “Just wanted to make sure you two were all right. Bullfights can be pretty intense. Even without the blood.”

Quinn took a deep shuddery breath. “The food was good, though,” she said.

“The best,” he said.

“Do you want to go swimming again when we get back?” I asked her. Maybe that could become our evening ritual—a way to cool off, relax.

She shook her head, face clouding again. Of course she wouldn’t want to go swimming, not if she thought there was a monster in the water. I touched her arm and was relieved she didn’t try to shrug it away.

T
HE NEW ENGLAND REGIONALS WERE BEING HELD AT
their home rink—a big advantage. They knew each inch of the ice, could draw upon the energy of all of their practice sessions.

The place felt different on competition day, though. Vendors in the lobby had set up booths full of skating dresses and tights, books and DVDs, lots of jewelry featuring little silver skates. New skaters, new coaches, new parents, milled about, sending their nervous energy into the air. Plus all the groupies had descended.

Karen had seen Nathan’s groupies before, but not since they had been skating together. They were ferocious, these girls, running toward him, grabbing any part of him they could reach, pushing Karen out of the way just to graze the sleeve of his workout jacket. She looked to her mom for help, but Deena just smiled and nodded, as if to say
It’s good for business. Let it go
. Nathan, of course, was in his glory, signing programs and shirts and bits of cleavage, giving kisses left and right. Finally, Deena stepped in.

“Okay, cowboy,” she said. “Save some of it for the ice.”

No
, Karen found herself thinking,
save some of it for me
.

IN THE DRESSING
room, a skater from Hartford cornered Karen as she hung her dresses from a hook on the cinder-block wall of the locker room. She had brought both dresses, even though they’d only be doing the short program today; she wanted the long program dress to soak in the competition vibe. “So,” she asked, “what’s it like, being with Nathan?”

“Sexy sexy sexy,” said a skater from Rhode Island, pulling an elaborate makeup case from her wheeled bag. Her dark hair, like everyone’s in the room, was scraped back into a ponytail, glued to her head with glittery gel.

“You would know.” A slightly older skater with Cleopatra eyeliner swatted her in the arm.

“So would you,” the skater said back, hitting her with the chamois cloth she used to clean her blades.

“Let’s take a poll,” said a skater from Vermont. “How many of you have been with Nathan?”

Most of the skaters raised their hands. Only Karen and a fifteen-year-old Korean American girl from New Hampshire kept their hands down. Laughter broke out through the room like a rash. Karen was mortified—this was only Regionals. These skaters weren’t even the cream of the crop.

“What?” the older skater said to Karen. “You can’t tell me you haven’t …”

“I’m seventeen,” Karen reminded her.

“Hasn’t stopped him before,” chimed someone else, leading to another round of laughter. Some of the women were peeling off their workout clothes, stepping into their competition dresses. She glanced at a breast and shuddered, thinking
Nathan’s mouth has been there;
she looked at a hip, and thought of Nathan’s hands. She could barely look at her own dress, hanging limp on
the wall. Its redness mocked her; so much empty, sparkly passion.

“I THINK YOU
should kiss me,” Karen said to Nathan as they stroked, hand in hand, around the rink during their practice session.

“What are you talking about, little girl?”

They each did a three turn, started backwards crossovers together, right over left.

“During the number,” she said. “At the end. I think you should kiss me.”

“Not a good idea.” At the center of the rink, they switched directions, switched hands, left over right. Other couples moved around them, blurs in Karen’s peripheral vision.

“I’m not so little.” It came out more petulant sounding than she would have liked.

“I have too much respect for you to pull a cheap stunt like that,” he said, and a sudden giddiness burbled up her spine. Respect. Of course. Those skaters in the locker room, those skaters now holding their own partners’ hands as they all warmed up, dodging each other left and right—they didn’t have his respect. Their trysts didn’t mean a single thing. Just skin on skin. Fleeting. Nothing. That’s why he hadn’t touched her again—out of respect. When she and Nathan finally got together, it would be total magic. Respect + passion = forever.

“Besides,” he said as he lifted her over his head like an airplane, “your mom would kill me.”

She looked down at him. “Screw my mom.”

“Okay.” He grinned. “If you insist.”

“Asshole,” she said as he let her down. Why did he always have to ruin the moment?

He winked. “Ready for some throws?”

She sighed and let him toss her through the air.

———

FANS CROWDED THE
bottom of the bleachers at the end of the practice session. They hurled teddy bears and flowers and various undergarments as Karen and Nathan stepped off the ice. Karen had gotten a few trinkets from fans when she skated with Brian, but nothing like this.

“What was all the talking out there?” Deena asked as she helped scoop up the loot. Fans reached down, grabbed at Nathan’s hair, his sleeve, screaming. He kissed a few hands, picked up scraps of paper covered with phone numbers and doodled hearts.

“Your daughter has quite a mouth on her,” said Nathan.

Some of the fans shot Karen nasty looks. As if the only thing keeping them from Nathan was her and her dirty mouth. Karen picked up a stuffed monkey and tried to smile.

“You both need to focus,” Deena said, shaking a pair of teal panties in their direction.

“We’re golden.” Nathan snatched the underwear from Deena’s hand and put his arm around Karen. The panties tickled her elbow. “Aren’t we, babe?”