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Authors: Gayle Brandeis

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BOOK: Delta Girls
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“If that’s what does it for them,” I said and immediately blushed. I hadn’t used an innuendo in years. I didn’t know I was still capable of it. A sly smile of recognition spread across his face.

“Well.” I took a deep breath. “I should probably get back to work.” It was the last thing I wanted to do, but Ben’s parents would be back any moment and I still had a load of bottles to wash. Ben stood to leave, then lingered.

“Have you two had a chance to explore the area much?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said, heart pounding.

“Well then,” he said. “We’ll have to remedy that.”

I told myself not to get too excited.

“Maybe we can drive around when we’re done for the day,” he said. “I’ve shown you the history of the orchard. Might as well show you the history of the Delta.”

AFTER BEN TOOK
off, I held a bottle to the light. The Comice inside, like most pears, had freckles all over its skin, but the specks didn’t appear to be on the surface. They looked like they were just underneath, like someone wearing a sheer blouse over a camisole spattered with tiny polka dots. Like the red and blue hockey circles below a fresh layer of ice. Like the past breathing directly under the skin of the present, sometimes so sharply, you imagine it’s right there with you.

A
FTER THE FIRST ROUND OF JUDGING, KAREN AND
Nathan found themselves in second place.

Karen squealed and hugged Nathan tighter than she ever had. He hugged back, but she could feel him looking around the rink, not pouring all his attention into her inside his arms.

“Don’t get too excited,” said Deena. “You still have the free skate tomorrow.”

“And we’re going to nail it!” Nathan broke away from Karen and raised his hand for a high five. She had to jump to hit his palm. When her skate guards landed back on the rubbery floor, her teeth clacked together.

“We should have been on top after the short,” Deena said.

“You like being on top, do you?” Nathan raised his eyebrows at her.

“You know it.” She smiled at him in a way that made Karen’s stomach clench.

“We should do something to celebrate.” Karen stepped in between them.

Nathan waved to someone coming through the stadium doors; Karen realized it was the skater from Rhode Island. “I know what
I’m
doing,” he said, and wrapped his arm around the woman, now in a tight ribbed turtleneck sweater, pointy-toed high heels poking out beneath dark narrow jeans, her face still in performance makeup. She laughed and pressed her grown-up body against him, looking straight into Karen’s eyes.

KAREN COULDN’T SLEEP
that night, even though her mother warned her she needed at least eight hours.

She tortured herself, imagining Nathan with Miss Rhode Island. Were they naked right now? Was her lipstick all over his skin? Had she let her hair come undone, the top of it still crispy with gel, the rest flowing around her shoulders, around his face? Did they do pairs moves together as a joke? Did he lift her, nude, above his head, taking her nipple into his mouth as he lowered her back down? Was that what people did when they were naked together?

Karen hugged a dozen fan-tossed stuffed animals to her chest, comforted by the fact that Nathan had briefly touched their fur.

THE NEXT MORNING
, Karen couldn’t look at Miss Rhode Island. She tried not to listen as the woman recounted her night, as she talked about Nathan’s apartment, which Karen herself hadn’t seen, as she talked about Nathan taking her to the “big O”—“and I don’t mean Olympics, ladies,” she said, to a chorus of locker room “oooOOOoo’s.”

Karen tried not to notice that Miss Rhode Island was looking in her direction the entire time she spoke, sending laser beams
into the back of Karen’s neck, trying to get under her skin, rattle her, throw her off her game. She tried to pretend she didn’t notice Miss Rhode Island’s untied skate lace draped on the floor like a tapeworm, tried to pretend she didn’t know what she was doing as she stepped on it with her own skate, slicing it neatly in two with her blade.

A
FTER I WAS DONE CLEANING BOTTLES, BEN DROVE US
to Locke, a tiny town about ten miles down the levee from Comice. It had been founded by Chinese immigrants, farmworkers mostly. One of the first towns built “by the Chinese for the Chinese” in the country, and the only one still on the map. Chinese immigrants were not allowed to own land, so they leased it from George Locke in 1915 and built gambling halls and restaurants and shops along a one-block street, the flat-faced wooden two-story buildings fronted with awnings that shaded the sidewalk, propped up with slender rectangular wood pillars. A few people sat on the second-floor balconies of apartments that used to be rooming houses for pear and asparagus pickers. Not to mention whorehouses staffed by white women. Locke was filled mostly with white folks now—only about ten of the eighty or so people living there were Chinese American.

The town had been named a National Historic Landmark, but it was dusty and neglected-feeling, as if no one cared whether
or not it hung around. Many buildings tilted sharply, leading to a general air of precariousness. Then again, maybe I just felt precarious being out in the world, being out with Ben, walking so close beside him the hair of our arms sometimes brushed.

Some of the buildings had been transformed into art galleries and exotica shops, but even those had a shabby, sleepy feel. We drifted into the Dai Loy Museum, an old gambling hall trapped in time, its faded wooden floor violently warped. I felt seasick walking up and down its dips. Tables were set for games of
pai gow
and
fan tan;
sandpaper still adhered to their legs for easy match lighting. The walls were a pale green, the color of old dental equipment.

Quinn ran around, popping in and out of the small lottery room and money rooms, looking at the displays of old cookware and newspapers, racing up the narrow stairs. I trailed behind her, worried the floor would collapse beneath her feet.

At the top of the steps was a small alcove with a metal cot, a thin mattress. A place for a guard to sleep. A small hole was cut out of the wall so the owner could look down at the gamblers, make sure they weren’t cheating. Ben pulled up behind me. I felt my cheeks redden.

“The dealers used to put pillows on their stools,” he said, looking over my shoulder at the gambling tables below. “If they took a break, they had to carry the cushions with them. It was considered bad luck to leave body heat behind.”

Then we’re in trouble
, I thought, remembering the heat he left in my bed long after he stepped off the boat.

“THAT WAS PRETTY
cool,” said Quinn as we walked out of the dim museum. “Did you read about the
bok bok
guys? They banged blocks to let people know everything was all right at night.”

“Holy shit,” said Ben.

“It’s not that exciting,” Quinn snorted.

“Not that,” said Ben. “Isn’t that that reporter, from CNN or something? What is she doing in Locke?”

He might as well have poured cold water down my back. I recognized the Asian woman from one of my rare moments of channel surfing, her hair straight and glossy, reflecting light. She and a small group of hangers-on, including a cameraman, walked up the narrow steps to the old Chinese school. Blood started to whip through my veins.

“Do you want to meet her?” asked Ben. “We should go meet her. Maybe we could be on TV!”

“I want to be on TV,” said Quinn excitedly.

“I need to find a restroom,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you in a little bit.” I walked quickly, shakily, in the other direction, and ducked into a dusty shop—“Locke Ness: Things Old and Odd.” The building used to be the “Victory Club,” one of the town’s other gambling halls, but now was filled with a funky assortment of ephemera. After looking at mariachi bands made out of seashells and jars full of buttons, I realized I really did need to use the restroom, but when I asked, the woman with flame-red hair behind the counter told me the only public one was in the old schoolhouse. “Or you can use the one at Al the Wop’s,” she said. “But only if you buy something.”

I poked my head out of the store and looked both ways to make sure the news team was not back on the street. The town looked like a movie set, but no contrived movie set could capture the true dinginess of the place, the sadness weathered into every plank of wood. I felt like a movie actor myself as I scurried across the street like someone holding a gun up to her chest.

The restaurant was really named “Al’s Place” but everyone called it “Al the Wop’s”—the name was even painted on the window—since Al Adami bought Lee Bing’s restaurant in 1934 and turned it into the only non-Chinese business in town. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. The ceiling was papered with sooty dollar bills, some new ones standing out like
leafy greens. Open jars of peanut butter and orange marmalade sat on every table. Several guys in biker jackets sat at the bar. I could smell decades of beef wafting off the grill, decades of beer and whiskey souring the air.

“Can I use your bathroom?” I asked, panting.

“You gotta order first,” the bartender said, looking as if I had woken him from a nap.

I took a quick glimpse at the menu and ordered the cheapest thing—fried bread—before I ran to the restroom in the back of the place.

The bread was sitting on the bar when I returned, thick slabs of it fried on the grill, dripping with oil. I sat down on one of the square black vinyl stools.

“I suggest it with the peanut butter.” The bartender pushed a jar in my direction, a knife already stuck inside, covered with greasy fingerprints.

“I put it on my steak,” one of the bikers near me said. He and his friends laughed when I winced.

“Try it,” the bartender cajoled, looking bored but serious about his command. I spread a layer on one of the pieces just so they’d leave me alone. They were right—the peanut butter melted against the warm bread, silky and delicious. I gave the bikers the thumbs-up, my hand shaking just a little, and they turned back to their own plates.

“How’d you get the dollars up there?” I asked the bartender, my feet jiggling on the bottom rung of the stool.

“Give me a dollar,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”

I dug one out of my pocket, even though I didn’t have many to spare.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put in a dollar, too.”

The bikers next to me chuckled.

He punched a thumbtack through the corner of my dollar, pulled a silver dollar out of the cash register, and wrapped my dollar around it. When he threw the dollars up to the ceiling, mine stuck, but his slipped out and fell right back into his waiting hand.

The bikers whooped.

“Nice.” I turned back to my bread.

The door opened a crack and the reporter poked her expertly made-up face inside. My throat went completely dry. Thanks to the peanut butter on the roof of my mouth, I couldn’t swallow, either.

“Is that who I think it is?” the bartender said.

“I’ll be damned!” said one of the bikers.

I turned away on my stool.

“Come on in!” The bartender’s voice was booming and jovial. “Price of admission is just an autograph.”

“Small price to pay.” She gave a measured anchorperson laugh as she stepped inside. Her heels clacked against the wooden floor. Her perfume wafted over me, a whoosh of air from her rapid gait.

As she shook hands and started to sign her name on napkins and menus and shirts, I slipped off my stool and hurried out the door, looking down as I passed the cameraman. I felt a little bad for not paying, but I
had
given the place my dollar. The bread wasn’t much more than that.

QUINN AND BEN
were wandering down the street, both still beaming from their brush with celebrity.

“She’s doing a story on the Asian heritage of the state,” Ben told me.

“She’s pretty,” said Quinn, “even though she has big teeth.”

“Can we get out of here?” I wanted to leave before she came out of the restaurant. “I’m not feeling so great.”

“What’s wrong?”

BOOK: Delta Girls
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