I hear Mags’s heavy footsteps overhead and hustle upstairs to the bathroom to get ready before she can beat me to it. No point in showering before raking, but after I brush my teeth, I look back at the mirror for a second and dab on a little waterproof mascara and some tinted lip gloss. Never know.
By the time we’re ready to go, Hunt is standing outside with Mom, sipping from one of our heavy white china mugs. Nell comes tearing around the house with our lunch bag banging against her leg, scared she’s late, one hand to the blue bandanna she ties over her hair while she’s raking. She calls to us, “I got meat-loaf sandwiches and Swiss rolls.”
Mags makes me pay her gas money every week, since I failed my driver’s test four times and Mom says I can’t try again until I get more practice, but Nell’s saving for cosmetology school—pretty funny for a girl who isn’t allowed to wear makeup—so Mags has her fix our lunch for us instead.
My sister respects saving up for school. She’s been building her college fund since she was twelve. She’s going to UMaine–Orono in the spring, after she earns money for books and stuff this fall. Most of her friends are starting in August or September. She broke up with her boyfriend, Will, back in May, right around their one-year anniversary; she says she wants to be “free” when she goes away. I think she’s nuts. Will was a dork, but he was real sweet. One time he had roses delivered to her in study hall.
Libby brings up the rear on her morning trek to talk Mom’s ear off, and her eyes narrow behind her glasses at the sight of Hunt. Without even a hello, she says, “She tell you about that light switch in the living room?” I don’t know how he manages to keep his face so still, but he doesn’t even flinch at how god-awful rude she sounds. “Makes a crunching sound like peanut shells when you flip it. Wiring’s gone bad.”
“I’ll take a look.”
Libby’s always carping about how our old farmhouse and the trailer are falling apart and how Hunt would rather repair than replace things. But I know for a fact that Hunt gave Mom a break on the rent after Dad died so we could keep living here and not have to move in with Gramma Nan, who lives way the hell up in Aroostook County and keeps pigs. The way I see it, we owe him big. I think Libby’s sour on all men because Nell’s dad took off even though they were engaged and she was seven months along with Nell.
As we pile into the car, I roll down the window and call, “Bye, Hunt.”
He flicks us a salute. Little stuff like that is how we know he likes us even though he doesn’t talk much.
As we pull out, Libby’s on her way inside to help herself to Mom’s coffeepot. I bet she’ll find a way to cadge some of Hunt’s bacon and eggs, too.
Jesse Bouchard has the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen, and I stare into them as he puts ice cubes in my hand and closes my fingers over them. The shock of cold on my fresh blisters makes me catch my breath, but I don’t look away. He’s got a chipped canine tooth you only notice when he smiles. “There. Bet that feels better.”
I nod. The ice came from Jesse’s water jug; he fished it out and brought it over to me when he saw me stop raking to blow on my burning palms. “Guess I lost my gloves somewhere,” I say. “Pretty stupid, huh?” I can feel it there, that pull when we lock eyes that makes my stomach twist in the best way. I’ve been crushing on him hard since last harvest, when some part of me woke up and really saw him for the first time.
“No. But you better borrow a pair or you’ll be a hurting unit tomorrow.” He sits back on his heels and grins. “And how’re you gonna make top harvester with jacked-up hands?”
I duck my head and laugh. Top harvester always ends up being one of the migrants, usually some Honduran guy in his twenties who travels cross-country, living crop to crop, somebody with endurance and a system to their harvesting. Being a raker isn’t the same as being a harvester; harvester’s a title you’ve got to earn. At the end of each season, the Wardwells pay out seven hundred dollars to whoever brought in the most pounds of berries, giving everybody a good reason to bust their butts. Shea might give everyone a run for their money this year; seems like every time I look up, he’s filled another box.
Jesse has a dancing light in his eyes—devilish, you could say—and I’m thinking he looks good enough to eat, when a fight breaks out over by the big cluster of boulders. It’s migrants against locals, and surprise, surprise, look who’s in the middle of it: Shea. He’s got a handful of another guy’s shirt, trying to drive him back against the rocks; the guy boxes him twice in the ear, and they fall down together in a tangle.
“Hey!” Duke McCutcheon, Mr. Wardwell’s strong right hand, is coming, but then Mason wades in, grabbing Shea under the arms and lifting him almost off his feet. Shea’s tall but wiry, lean everywhere Mason’s broad, and you can see it takes everything Shea’s got to twist out of Mason’s hands. The other guys clear out, making themselves scarce as Mr. Wardwell gets there. Migrants can’t afford to get canned. Most of them don’t have any money to speak of except what these berries put in their pocket week to week, and if they lose out on raking, they’ll go hungry until the potato harvest starts up north.
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Wardwell looks from brown face to white, but nobody’s talking. Mason’s hands go into his pockets. Everybody knows that somebody—Shea—must’ve brought up Rhiannon Foss, last summer, and the rumor that it was a migrant who did it. Not that Shea and Rhiannon were friends. Far as I know, he never had much use for her at all.
“This happens again, you’re both done. Got it?” Mr. Wardwell waits until they nod, then stalks off to his truck. Mrs. Wardwell hollers, “What happened? Bob?” from her roost outside the camper.
Shea swears, picks up his cap, and smacks it against his thigh before putting it on. He sees Jesse standing with me and stares a long time before turning away, shoulders stiff. Duke says something sharply and cuffs him on the back of the head. Duke is his family, an uncle or a cousin.
After we’ve all gone back to raking, Mags sighs, her long blond ponytail spilling over her shoulder as she dumps a rakeful into a box. “You sure know how to pick ’em.”
“I don’t like Shea.”
“Who would?” She glances at him. “But talking looks-only here . . . he is kind of sexy.”