The box where I stored my clothes sat next to my air mattress, and I rummaged through the cardboard container—which had once held Big Island Pineapple, Premium Quality—and pulled out a bandana. I tied it over my hair and tucked all the loose strands inside to the best of my ability before stepping outside into the bright sunshine.
Once I was out of sight of my small house, I meandered slowly, stopping to pick up a ladybug on a tall blade of grass and watching as she crawled along my knuckle for a minute before she flew away. I wove a flower stem into a ring, and kicked a rock in front of me, following its winding path for a bit.
I ended up at the tree-lined fence of the Sawyer property as I usually did and stood looking over it, a feeling of wistful happiness spreading through me. I soaked in the vision of the sprawling farmhouse, the acres and acres of farmland—neat, green rows of strawberries, lettuce, melons, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and peppers—the vast mountains in the distance creating a picturesque backdrop. To live in a place like this! What it must be like! Everything was big and beautiful here, from the trees to the house to the land. I gazed upward, squinting against the sun. Even the sky seemed bigger here. And when evening came, if I was still lying beneath the oak tree next to where I stood, the moon and all the stars would seem larger somehow, too.
I pictured the inside of my own one-room shack—the air mattresses with several patches to cover the holes lying against opposite walls, the small table with two chairs, the dingy paint, the stained, threadbare carpet, and the old, mismatched appliances that lined the far wall to form a makeshift kitchen. Our bathroom was nothing more than a toilet, a small, rickety, plastic shower, and a utility sink hidden behind a sheet we’d strung up from the ceiling.
Our house had actually been a storage shed on the farm that had butted up against the Sawyers’. But the family had sold that land in sections to form smaller farms, and the new family that moved into the farmhouse rented the outbuildings on the property to farmworkers.
I rested my chin on my arms that were crossed on the fence and gazed at the stunning vastness before me. I thought about Preston and Cole Sawyer, the twin brothers who lived here, and couldn’t help smiling. If anyone should live in a place like Sawyer Farm, it was them.
To me they were bigger than life, too. Cole who was always laughing, always making some big joke, and Preston . . . Preston with his serious eyes and the way he’d tilt his head and look right at me when I was talking, the way his rare smile filled up my whole heart. A strange sort of shiver ran down my spine at the vision of Preston Sawyer’s smile, and I stood straight, shifting on my feet before going to sit on the ground under the lacy leaves of the massive oak.
This is where I came to dream. And to escape.
And now, I’d just have to stay here forever. There was no way I could face anyone ever again with hair like this. I wondered how long it’d take to grow out and if I could sustain myself that long by sneaking into the rows of vegetables and eating in the dark of night like an orange-haired Peter Rabbit. I knew the layout of the rows as well as anyone—knew just the path to take if I wanted a big, juicy tomato or a sweet, crisp carrot.
My mama had worked here years ago, doing picking work with the other migrant workers who farmed the land. She didn’t do farm work anymore though. It was the strawberries that had ruined her back—those low-to-the-ground berries that had her bent over all day long under the sweltering sun. La fruta del diablo, she called them. The devil’s fruit. I couldn’t even look at a strawberry without feeling a sympathy twinge in my shoulder muscles and lower back.
That had been my introduction to Sawyer Farm, tagging along behind the shape of my hunched-over mama as she’d pushed a wobbly, one-wheeled cart down the rows, packing strawberries into plastic containers so they fit just right. Eventually, I’d wandered farther away from her and that’s how I’d met Preston and Cole. We’d played together and I’d come to love going to work with my mama, come to love the land and the peaceful feeling of just being near it.
It was why I still came back even though my mama now worked in a nasty little motel off the highway. I pushed the thought of that place away, feeling a little shiver of disgust. My mama had been hired to clean the rooms, and I helped her sometimes when her back was really bad, but no matter what you did, you could never get that place truly clean.
I tilted my face up, letting go of the image of the filthiness of the motel and filling my mind instead with the clean, pure blue of the open sky. The sun slanted through the leaves of the tree, forming shapes of light on the bare skin of my arm as I held it in front of me, turning it back and forth slowly to watch them dance.
The day grew hotter, then slightly cooler as clouds drifted lazily by—a sad dog, then a parrot, then the three-toed foot of a giant.
I watched as a chain of ants moved a seed down the line, wondering what it felt like to have that many family members all working together, and questioning whether ants felt love.
A small sound surprised me from my half-dazed state. Peeking around the tree trunk, I expected to see a chipmunk or a bird, and not the boys walking across their yard unhurriedly toward me. My heart lurched, my first reaction to grin at the sight of their identical faces.
I turned around, beginning to stand, and suddenly remembered my destroyed hair. Oh no. I groaned, realizing there was no chance to get away now. I’d just have to hope they didn’t notice. Standing, I pulled the bandana low over my forehead and came out from behind the tree, tilting my head and smiling as they approached.
Cole was grinning in that way of his that always made me think he had some big secret, and Preston looked serious as usual. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We live here, remember?” Cole’s grin was slow and easy as he leaned his arms against the split rail. “We were up on the tractor and saw something red behind the tree. We thought it might be you sitting out here.” Oh. Well, that was a stroke of bad luck. I didn’t think anyone would spot me hidden behind the large tree trunk.
We still played together once in a while if I walked by and they were outside in their yard, but I knew their mom didn’t approve of me, and there’d been less opportunity since my mama had stopped working on their farm. It wasn’t as if I could just go up to their door and knock. Tell that little Mexican girl with the dirty feet to run along home now, I’d heard Mrs. Sawyer say, and it had made me ashamed and sad and so very, very small.
Lately I’d felt too old to play hide ‘n’ seek and the other games we used to play and I figured they must, too, since they were three years older than I was. So I’d been spending more time just sitting alone at the edge of their property, close enough to enjoy it, but far enough that I thought I’d be alone.