I stop, not realizing how out of breath and dizzy I am until I almost lose my balance. I must’ve walked right past Mom in the dark last night after Kat dropped me off. Was she awake, the throw pillow under her head, watching me do a careful drunk step through the living room and up the stairs? Things have changed since Rhiannon, and I know it. Moms’ minds go straight to murder when their kids come home late. I look at the ground. Mags doesn’t have to say anything more.
I focus on work until I have to stop and take a long drink from Mags’s water jug, scanning the rows to our right and left. Today, the sight of Jesse makes me feel like I bit into a lemon. He’s sexy as hell, shirt off, tanned so deep that he doesn’t have to worry about burning anymore. Shea tosses something at him—a garter snake—and Jesse jerks away, laughing and cussing him out. Mason checks the snake over and then sets it on a rock, out of reach. I remember last night at the quarry and turn away.
Jesse was there, with his hands all over Emma Bowen. Hanging his arm over Maddie Clark’s shoulder. Grab-assing with Kat, who most guys stay away from because Kenyon’s always around, even though Kenyon doesn’t care. I was probably the only girl Jesse didn’t touch last night. In fact, he didn’t talk to me at all except to say hi. And here I was, panting for him, getting all giddy over a pair of old gloves. Wow.
At quitting time, I go up to headquarters to get our paychecks. Duke McCutcheon’s cinching the straps on a truckload of boxes bound for Danforth’s. Shea’s hanging off the other side, holding them taut. If I squint, I can see the family resemblance between him and Duke; add thirty pounds, a handlebar mustache, and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, and you’ve got it. Duke climbs down from the flatbed and swings into the driver’s seat. Funny to think that after those berries go through the winnower at Danforth’s, Mom will be sorting through them, fingers freezing through her gloves, picking out anything squished or white.
The guy in front of me in line for checks is a migrant, a short, muscular guy with skin the color of rosewood. I wonder what it feels like to be that dark. He speaks with a pretty thick accent when he tells Mrs. Wardwell his name. “Say again?” She squints up at him.
He repeats himself. There’s grumbling from people behind me, and I hear somebody say, “Don’t sound like English to me.”
The guy’s back has gone rigid, and he says his name a third time, slowly: “Al-e-jan-dro Sán-chez. Do you want me to spell it?”
More muttering. “Awright, shut up back there.” Mrs. Wardwell finds the check and gives it to him. He gets out of there pretty fast. I wonder what they’re saying about us locals up there in the cabins. Can’t really blame them for not wanting to mix with us, considering the way people treat them now. You can’t help but wonder if the ugliness was always there, though. I don’t think this much hate grows overnight, just because of Rhiannon. “You”—Wardwell crams all three of our checks into my hand—“keep the line movin.’”
As I leave, I hear somebody say, “Ale-who?” to a couple of snickers.
Mags and Nell are already walking to the car, Nell looking back with her hand cupped over her eyes to make sure I’m coming. I stoop to grab our water jug when somebody comes up behind me and slides their hand into the front pocket of my shirt, tucking in a bundle of buttercups. It’s Jesse, so close that I smell his fresh sweat and sports stick. He smiles, showing the chipped tooth that makes him look a little off center, a little wild. “There.” He walks backward, framing me with his hands. “Perfect.”
Speechless, I touch the flowers and watch him go.
SEVEN
MOM TAPS OUT a Kool, sweat glistening along her hairline as she fishes in her pocket for a lighter. It’s too hot to eat, too hot to move, and the girls are already out on the porch squabbling over a game of Crazy Eights, but she raises her eyebrows at me when I push back from the supper table. “Hold it. You’re on dish duty.”
“For how long?”
“Until I say.” She sparks the lighter three times, then pulls her mouth to the side, touching the tip of the cigarette to the flame. I run water into the sink, watching her, remembering how hard Mags tried to get her to quit those things a few years ago. Hardly anybody’s parents smoke; you just don’t see it. Mags used to hide Mom’s packs behind the couch or up in the attic, and then she’d leave printouts from the American Lung Association site on Mom’s nightstand. I took a look at some of those, and it made me notice little things about Mom, like the stains on her fingertips where she holds her smokes, and the faint yellowish tint to her skin. Finally, when my sister put a No Puffin sticker on the fridge smack-dab in the middle of all the clippings from Nell’s plays, Mom said, “Margaret, enough,” in the tone that brings things to a full stop in our house.
Mags stared back at her, her hands in fists. “They’re killing you. Don’t you care?”
Mom blinked—maybe winced—then turned away, smacking the top of the Kools carton. “I find any more of these missing, they’re coming out of your savings account.”
I sweat while I scrub and rinse. A June bug bangs off the window screen above the sink. I watch it, thinking. “Has Hunt ever been married?”
Behind me, Mom coughs. “What brought that on?” I’ve surprised her out of being mad at me. I’m glad Libby’s at work and not here to remind her.
“Just wondering.”
She’s quiet for a second or two. When I glance back, she’s letting smoke trickle out her nose, watching it waft onto the sticky evening air like moth wings. “He was. Before we knew him.”
“What happened?”
She shrugs. Her collarbones are sharp against her old wash-worn sleeveless blouse. “Didn’t work out. You don’t ask somebody for details about their ex.”
Which meant they’d talked about it. I slide a dripping plate into the dish rack. “Well, she must’ve been an idiot to let go of Hunt.”
“You think so, huh.” Her tone reminds me that she has a few opinions about idiots herself. I’m not off the hook with her.
“Yeah. Seriously, Hunt’s awesome. He’s never a jerk and he knows how to fix stuff and he makes pretty good money at Danforth’s, right? And he’s cute, for an old guy.” My words land hard when I remember what she said about me getting pregnant this morning. That’s right. I’m supposed to be mad at her, too.
Mom inclines her head. “Hunt fixed up this house with his wife. Put that trailer out back so his mother could live close. Planned to build a barn, too, so his wife could have horses.” The Kool grinds into the cut-glass ashtray, and then she’s crinkling the pack for another. She still wears her wedding ring, the one Dad bought at a pawnshop with his whole week’s paycheck. It’s engraved with some other couple’s names inside, but Mom didn’t care; it was a joke between them, calling each other Wendy and Greg, signing cards to each other that way sometimes. “Marriage went south before they had more than the foundation laid. Hunt filled it with dirt so one of you kids wouldn’t fall in and break your neck when you were out running around in the woods.”
“I didn’t know that.” She lifts a shoulder. “Wait. Is that where all the lupines grow?”