Ben shook his head. “She wanted a last hurrah.”
“Hurrah,” I said flatly, and started to pick again.
“I always knew it was just temporary,” he said, and I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure if he meant Shanti or me. Or both. I just kept picking one pear after another, making sure each one was big enough, firm enough, pretty enough for sale.
Ben stood there for a while before he said, “I guess I’ll see you later,” his head hanging down.
He looked so forlorn as he was walking away, something in me softened.
“I might as well take that pear,” I called after him. “But only because I’m starting to get hungry.”
It broke my heart to see the hope in his face when he turned around.
“That was nice yesterday,” he said as he handed me the pear. “That moment in the kitchen.” It felt funny to hear him acknowledge it—putting the experience into words made it seem both more real and more small all at the same time.
The pear was warm in my palm, and smelled wonderful, but I didn’t want to eat it in front of him. I didn’t want him to think it would be so easy to get back to that moment. Not with Shanti still lingering on his skin.
“Yellow’s for friendship, remember,” I said, but when I turned the pear around to show him, I noticed a small blush had bloomed on its hip.
WHEN THEY WERE HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, DEENA sat them down in the family room and said, “We have to think about the Finkels.”
Lance and Cindy Finkel were a brother and sister out of Omaha. They looked like twins, but Lance was seventeen, Cindy fifteen. Curly auburn hair framed their freckled and open pixie faces. They had done well as Junior competitors—national Juniors silver medalists, fifth in Junior Worlds—but their first year competing at the Senior level, they were on fire. They had won every competition since—local, regional, sectional—and were considered strong competitors for the National title. The advance buzz was deafening; there was even talk about a quadruple toe loop in the works.
“How could they improve so much in one year?” Nathan fretted as he and Karen watched a DVD of the Finkels’ latest program, Karen’s mom wedged between them on the den couch. The Finkels were skating to a medley of songs from the cartoon Anastasia, which Deena thought was pandering to any future Russian judges. Plus riding on Tara Lipinski’s coattails. “Steroids?”
“They’re so tiny,” Deena said. “It’s not likely.”
“Plus they’re total Jesus freaks,” said Karen. They actually seemed like nice, decent kids, who prayed before every competition, whose parents were kind and supportive, but she knew she had to say something that sounded edgier.
“See.” Her mom pointed to the screen. “See how Cindy doesn’t flex her wrist back during their camel? It’s like you’re directing traffic when you spin, Karen. It’s like you’re telling the judges ‘Stop. Stop considering me for the gold.’”
Karen rolled her eyes behind her mother’s back. Nathan beckoned her with his hand, the opposite of stop. Watching his fingers curl in slowly, one by one, she felt a tingle imagining them on her skin. She stepped in front of her mom and sat down between Nathan’s legs. Her mom stiffened, but Karen didn’t care. She leaned back and let Nathan breathe for the both of them. The Finkels were good, yes, they were adorable, yes, but they were siblings. They didn’t have that quality that makes you wonder if they’re going to tear each other’s costumes off once they leave the ice, sequins and feathers flying. That’s what the audience wanted, she thought—chemistry, not love.
THE MOTHER WHALE WAS NOSING UP AGAINST Roberts’s levee when I went down to the houseboat to grab some more underwear. I hoped she wouldn’t beach herself on the slope of gravel, hoped the fresh water of the Delta wouldn’t keep eroding her skin, that the erosion wouldn’t go deeper, into her veins, her liver, her giant muscled heart.
Big knobs protruded all over her head; it made her look like those body mod people who have ball bearings implanted under their skin. I had read in the library that these were actually hair follicles; I wondered if the bumps itched or ached like razor burn, if she even noticed they were there.
She listed slightly on her side, showing more of the corrugated-looking folds of her lower half, and I remembered a goldfish I had as a child, a goldfish that started to tip over as it swam, that drifted through the bowl on its side for two days, fins barely flapping, before it went belly-up for good. I could barely look at the goldfish, knowing the end was near. I couldn’t stop looking at the whale, though. Neither could the crowds on both sides of the slough. Her pocked graying skin, the white beneath her flippers, the large rheumy eye warily taking us all in.
The Coast Guard boat, full of people from the Marine Mammal Institute, idled several yards away. Sam had taken off her blue windbreaker; the tank top she wore beneath her life vest showed off her slender, muscled arms. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She and her colleagues were all wearing headphones—some sort of listening device, I imagined. It took me a moment to notice the gun in her hand. She talked to one of her colleagues, the guy she had been chatting with at the party, who nodded, and then she lifted the gun, steadying her wrist with her other hand, and pointed the barrel toward Bartlett’s side. My stomach lurched. I was so glad Quinn was up in the house so she wouldn’t have to see this. I wondered if Sam would shoot the baby, too, if both whales needed to be put out of their misery. I wanted to shout out No! Don’t do it! but my voice was stuck in my throat.
I turned my head before the gun fired. The pop was so loud, it made my head seize with pain. I dropped down to the deck to catch my bearings. When I heard cheering, I thought it was just my ears ringing. But no, I turned to see everyone on the boat celebrating, giving each other high fives, jumping up and down. Sam looked triumphant. How could she whoop after killing such a majestic creature? I couldn’t bring myself to look at Bartlett. I didn’t want to see the life bleeding from her enormous body.
My legs wobbled as I made my way up the metal steps. The spectators on top of the levee looked surprisingly happy and excited, and I wondered what sort of alternative universe I had entered—a place where people celebrated the shooting of a whale. Maybe they were just buzzing from the drama of it, the adrenaline kick of gunfire.
Abcde came over to me, concerned. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look miserable.”
“They shot Bartlett.” My eyes stung.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Her face lit up, and my sense of being on some strange other planet returned. Abcde, too?
“Why is everyone so thrilled about this?” The tears were falling freely now.
“Oh, honey.” She wrapped an arm around me, pulled me close to her warm, patchouli-scented body. “You must not have gotten the memo.”
She explained to me that the gun was rigged to shoot a blank cartridge, which in turn propelled a syringe full of antibiotics. I felt weak with relief. The Marine Mammal people had passed around a flyer so no one would be alarmed by the gun, but somehow they had missed me.
“It’s the first time they’ve used antibiotics on a whale in the wild,” said Abcde. “A little place called Grandpa’s Compound Pharmacy over in Placerville mixed up the meds. Can you imagine Grandpa getting that call? ‘I need enough penicillin for a whale—stat!’”
I laughed, grateful for her thick arm around me. All the time I spent pining for Sam as a friend, I hadn’t let myself realize what a good friend this weirdo poet woman had become. Sam would be in even greater demand now that she was potentially a whale savior; I was glad I didn’t feel compelled to wait in line anymore.
Bartlett was thrashing gently in the water. I closed my eyes and imagined the medicine entering her blood and turning it briefly silver, like mercury, sending the gleam of health through her enormous body.
WITHIN A DAY, the whales gained back some strength, some color; they started to swim again, too, although they didn’t go far. Just circle upon circle around Comice Island. It was like we were being orb
ited by two breathing satellites, stretched-out moons with beating hearts.
“Makes me think of whirling disease,” Ben said. We had been careful around each other since the yellow pear, polite as we crossed paths in the hallway, the orchard.
“What’s that?” asked Quinn before she started whirling herself. I grabbed her arm before she spun too close to the edge of the levee.
“A parasite,” he said.
“Like mistletoe,” I said, glad to show off my recent knowledge.
“You don’t want to kiss under this one.” His eyes briefly caught mine at the word “kiss” before he looked away again. “The trout sometimes get it around here.”
“Does it actually make them whirl?” I couldn’t help but imagine kissing Ben underwater, under a bunch of pirouetting fish, but I tried to chase the daydream away.
“Yep,” he said. I wondered if he was having similar images in his mind. “It makes them spin and spin until they die.”
It must be beautiful, I thought. All those iridescent fish scales twirling, glinting in the sun. Beautiful and horrible all at once. I knew what it was like to spin until I thought I would die. To spin past the point of dizziness; to spin until the rest of the world was a blurred cylinder around me, one I was never quite sure I’d be able to reenter again. Just thinking about it gave me a wave of vertigo.
“But the whales don’t have that, right?” said Quinn.
“Not unless it makes them go round and round the island,” said Ben.
I MOVED OUR things back to the houseboat that afternoon, after some Marine Mammal Institute people assured me they wouldn’t do anything else to agitate the whales into more tail slapping. The cabin had aired out quite well. I did a thorough mopping and scrubbing and vacuuming to get out any lingering mildew, dragged the now-clean comforter down from the Vieiras’ house. It was nice to be back in our floating bed that night, to hear the gentle lapping of the water, the soft whine of the Delta breeze. Every once in a while, I could sense the whales moving past us during their laps around the island, deep and slow, like a thought that keeps returning, a song you can’t get out of your head. I missed having Ben right across the hall, though. As awkward as our dance had become, it was nice to walk past his room and be able to hear him breathe.
KAREN AND NATHAN MET UP WITH THE FINKELS FOR the first time in Paris, when they were invited to skate an exhibition together a few weeks before Nationals.
Karen caught Lance gazing at her from across the lobby of their glitzy hotel as Nathan and Deena waited to check in. She met Lance’s eyes and he blushed. He took a deep breath, as if to compose himself, and walked up to her, biting down a giddy smile.
“It’s so wonderful to meet you,” he said. “I can’t believe we’ll be skating on the same ice!”
His hand was startlingly soft and warm when she shook it.
“Looks like you’re the ones to beat this year,” said Karen, and he blushed even more deeply under his freckles.
“I don’t know.” He looked down, grinning. “Cindy and me—we didn’t expect to get this far this fast. I mean, we’ve been skating all our lives, so it’s not overnight or anything, but still …”
Nathan strode over pulling his large suitcase, hitting them with a blast of cold, hair-gel-scented air.
“Sorry to break up the play date, kids,” he sneered, “but we have work to do.”
“It was nice to meet you,” Karen said.
“No, no, the pleasure was all mine.” Lance flushed again. Karen found herself wanting to press her cool cheek against his warm one.
Nathan grabbed Karen’s elbow and led her away. “If I hear him mention you and pleasure in the same breath again …,” he hissed under his breath.
Karen turned her head and Lance waved.
THAT NIGHT, NATHAN straddled Karen on the grand, ornately carved bed, video camera in hand. She was still naked, but he had put his boxers back on; she loved seeing the line of hair that rose from his waistband, went up to his navel. She reached out to pet it.
“So what are we going to do about the Bobbsey Twins?” He leaned his belly toward her fingers. She could feel his pulse there, strong.
She looked right into the lens. “Let’s poison them,” she said, keeping her face as serious as possible before she cracked up, waving the camera away. He set it on the end table and pounced, muffling her laughter with his neck.
THE AIR WAS MUGGY IN THE ORCHARD THE NEXT morning, as if water had been siphoned from the Delta and hung suspended, invisible, in the space between the trees. I imagined the molecules of water glomming together, coalescing, turning back into a river over our heads; it would crash down to the ground under its own weight, drowning all of us in its warm rank depths, a river that would smell more of sweat than river, the flop sweat of the earth tinged with the sweet rot of overripe pears.
The pears had started to ripen on the tree. Our crews couldn’t pick them fast enough. Mr. Vieira had a constant crease in his forehead; I watched it deepen as the skin of the pears lightened, turning from a deep green to a pale green to a pale yellow, the brown freckles coming into sharper relief, liver spots on aging beauty queens. The air filled with their scent.
“It turns my stomach,” said Mr. Vieira. “All that sugar in the air.”
We picked them as fast as we could, one bag after another, one crate, one trailer after another, but by the time the pears made it to the packinghouse, many of them were too far gone. “Broken,” as they’re called when they turn ripe. Mr. Vieira had to weed those out before the trucks came to take them away to baby food companies and grocery distributors; he began to pile the rejects up outside, a mass grave, flies buzzing around the sweet rot, the pears browning, melting, the pile shifting as it sank its way into the earth.
A BUNCH OF the workers left for Oregon, their next stop on the picking circuit. It made me surprisingly sad to watch them go; I hoped the farmers in Oregon would treat them well, give them decent places to live, decent wages. I wished I had learned more Spanish; at least Quinn was able to say “Good-bye” and “Thank you for the big pear,” in Spanish, to Jorge, who gave her a huge smile and ruffled her hair before he looked over at me, worried he had crossed a line. I smiled and nodded and he shook Quinn’s hand, both of them beaming.
The Vieiras said I could stick around—there was more work to be done in the distillery and still a few decent pears to pick if you looked carefully. A few of the local pickers and sorters stayed, too, as did Abcde, who had a couple of weeks before she had to be in Squaw Valley.
More spectators showed up at the orchard after news spread of the whales’ dwindling health, their hopeful recovery, their constant island circling. The Vieiras raised the price of admission to twenty-five dollars for just two hours of access, but people were willing to pay anything to catch a glimpse of the whales. I steered away from the new folks as much as possible, but sometimes Abcde dragged me over to meet someone with a particularly interesting story—the guy who had recently started walking across the country and had vowed to not buy food for a year, only eating fallen fruit and foraged plants and food people gave him for free; the woman who flew in from Hawaii to play her pan flute for the whales; the “whale whisperer” who was sure he could say a few magic words and the whales would find their way back to the sea. When anyone asked about my story, I would say “I’m just a mom,” or “I just work here.”
The fallen-fruit guy, Danny, seemed to take an interest in me, though. He was only nineteen, about to take a leave of absence from UC Berkeley as he went on his quest. He had big bushy hair, a springy beard—he seemed to have willed himself to go feral just a month into living off the land. He certainly smelled feral.
“I appreciate a woman who works with her hands.” He gave me a knowing look as he scooped some pears up and put them in his canvas satchel, already stained from overripe fruit.
I wasn’t attracted to him in the least, but I let him hover around me just to watch Ben sneak glances at us, clearly trying not to loo
k jealous. I even let Danny kiss me once before he left for other pastures, while Quinn was off making an alphabet bead necklace in Abcde’s tent. His lips were chapped and his beard scratched my face and his breath was awful, but Ben was watching, so I pretended I enjoyed it.
“I see you have a new boyfriend,” Ben said later as we boxed up more bottles of eau-de-vie.
“Just a friend with benefits,” I said, and watched Ben’s face fall.
BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO PHILADELPHIA FOR Nationals, Karen’s period was a couple of weeks late. It didn’t concern her too much—she thought maybe she was lucky enough to get amenorrhea, like so many of the other girls. She was training extra hard, dialing the new choreography into her muscles. Plus, this was the most important competition of their career so far—their stepping-stone to the Olympics. It was not surprising her body would close up shop under the stress. But then she started throwing up every morning. And noticed how dark her nipples were getting. And the fact that her center of balance was just a little bit off.
The throwing up didn’t concern Deena. “It’s just nerves,” she said, “and it’s helping keep your weight down.” Karen knew it could be more than that, though. Nathan hated condoms but didn’t always pull out in time. The morning before the short program, she told her mom she had to go to the pharmacy down the street.
“I’ll go with you,” said Deena. “I need some Dulcolax.”
“I’ll pick it up,” said Karen. “I need some time to clear my head.” It was disconcerting to have Deena around after spending most of the year away from her.
After making sure no one with a camera had followed, she ducked into the alley behind the Walgreens and asked a grizzled man with a “Homeless, God Bless” cardboard sign under his arm if he would go in and buy the Dulcolax and a pregnancy test for her. She showed him a fifty and said he could keep the change if he didn’t tell anyone about the transaction.
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