Delta Girls (19 page)

Nathan’s father still had a touch of orange on the edge of his right thumb. He was asleep, if not comatose, his face puffy, like a drowned man’s. Karen could detect a resemblance—the squareness of the forehead, perhaps. The set of the jaw. His skin was yellowish, but not from paint, his hair still mostly black, but sparse, with swaths of silver fanning over his ears. Dark purple shadowed his closed eyes.

“Hey, Pop.” Nathan sat in the olive green molded chair next to the bed. His father didn’t stir.

Nathan gestured for Karen to sit on the edge of the bed, but the thought of being so close to his dad’s bloated abdomen, his
wide open mouth, made her queasy. She slipped into the chair beneath the TV, tuned to a football game, the sound off.

“I brought Karen with me,” he said. “The girl I’ve been telling you so much about.”

His voice sounded strange, strained, as he spoke, but it was thrilling to know he had talked about her. For a moment, she didn’t smell the urine in the air, the smell of boiled green beans, the unmistakable scent of bodily decay. For a moment, “Help me” wasn’t ringing in her ears, echoes from the woman in the wheelchair who had clutched Karen’s jacket so fiercely, Karen had ended up pulling her halfway down the hallway.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Main.” She gave a little wave, as if Nathan’s dad could see her.

“Look,” chuckled Nathan. “You gave him a woody.”

She grimaced and closed her eyes, not wanting to know if he was telling the truth.

“I told you she was hot, Pop, didn’t I?” His voice had a weird edge to it again.

She found herself flashing on
Hop on Pop
, two little monsters jumping on the belly of a bigger monster, her mom leaning over her, reading in a deep, soothing voice. She loved how her mom used to read to her, before she could read to herself.
Hop hop, we like to hop …
Before daily skating practice, before competition. When she could hop just because she wanted to, just because it was a fun thing to do. Her mother smiling as she hopped around the coffee table …

“And you know a thing or two about hot women, don’t you, you bastard.”

When Karen opened her eyes, she was startled to see Nathan’s eyes were as wet as hers.

“Fucking bastard,” Nathan said, quietly at first, then louder. “Fucking drunkass bastard.” He smacked the bed with his fist. His dad’s eyes opened a slit; they looked like turtle eyes, slow and prehistoric. The irises slid to the side before his swollen eyelids clamped shut again.

Karen held her breath, heart pounding in her ears.

“Fucking piece of fucking shit.” Nathan smacked the bed again, this time closer to his dad’s head. His dad startled, let out a garbled moan. His monitors began to beep madly.

“We gotta get out of here.” Nathan grabbed the sleeve of Karen’s coat, much like the woman had from her wheelchair. She had to run to keep up with him down the hallway.
Help me, miss. Help me. Help me. Help me
.

NATHAN COULDN’T STOP
muttering as he drove—Karen couldn’t make all of it out, but at least every other word was some sort of curse. He banged the steering wheel, the car fishtailing over the wet road.

“Maybe I should drive.” Karen tried to keep her voice calm. She had gotten her license but hadn’t had much of a chance to use it. And she had never driven in a car without her mom, who was always ready to critique her use of brakes and turn signals.

“I’m fine,” he said, but then a deer bounded across the street a good block ahead of them and he swerved, narrowly missing an elm tree.

“I don’t think so,” she said. He grudgingly put the car into park and let her take the wheel. She sat in the driver’s seat and breathed deeply until she felt ready to tackle the rainy drive. The streetlamps flickered on, making the street look slicker, even more treacherous.

She flicked the windshield wipers on faster as he slumped lower in the seat. He hadn’t put on his seat belt. She leaned forward to try to get a better glimpse of the road.

“Does that happen every time you visit him?” Even twenty miles per hour felt too fast. She was grateful there was no other traffic.

He shook his head again. “It’s been building up,” he said. “I thought if you were there, it wouldn’t …” He karate-chopped the dashboard. “Fuck!”

Karen nearly jumped out of her skin. “You’re going to make us crash.” Her mom would kill her if they got in a crash just before Nationals.

He blew on his hand, shaking it. “Fucking asshole.”

“And you’re going to need that hand, too,” she said. “Get it together.”

“Fuck.” Tears streamed down Nathan’s cheeks. “I don’t want to be like him.” She had never seen his face like this, in such agony. It looked sort of like when he was dying as Tristan, but more horrible, more real. His head dropped down to his chest. “Please. Oh my fucking God, please. I. Don’t. Want. To. Be. Like. Him.”

I
SUPPOSE IT WAS INEVITABLE. AS SOON AS THE NEWS
hit the wires, people began to arrive, wanting to see the whales. People in wheelchairs, young families with strollers, older couples, college kids. People wanting to invade our space.

The Vieiras didn’t let anyone onto the property unless they paid twenty dollars and picked a bag of pears for the orchard, and then they only let them in for a couple of hours each afternoon, so we didn’t have too big a crowd on the island, but Roberts only charged five dollars a day and, for ten dollars more, let people set up camp in the dead part of the orchard. They could easily look across the slough and see us in our houseboat. I warned Quinn to keep the blinds down, especially when our lights were on at night.

“I think we need to think about taking off,” I told Quinn. “Too many people.” And not any time with Sam. She had stopped giving us updates, stopped hanging out on our deck. Every once in a while, she lifted her chin and smiled in my direction, but it seemed a formality, an empty gesture. How ridiculous of me to
think she might want me for a friend. I could feel my heart shrink quickly back down to hold just me and Quinn, our tight little circle.

“We can’t leave now,” said Quinn. “We need to make sure the whales are okay.”

“The whales don’t need us,” I said. “We better pack before this becomes even more of a circus.”

Quinn threw herself on the bed and glared at me. “I’m not going,” she said. “You can leave, but I’m staying right here.”

“I know you don’t want to go, sweetheart,” I said, “but we have to.”

“Why?” Her face was a red mask of grief. It pained me to see the creases between her eyebrows, the violent downward crank of her mouth.

“There’s too many people.”

“So?” Her voice was strangled.

“So …” I searched for an explanation. “Something could happen.”

“Something could happen even if no one’s there,” she said.

“It’s different,” I told her.

“How?”

“People are unpredictable.”

“So are whales.” She spit out the words. “So are pears.”

“Pears are pretty predictable,” I said.

“So are bees,” she said, and I instinctively reached for the EpiPen.

“Just start packing.” I grabbed her blue suitcase from the closet, set it on the bed. She turned away from me, so I opened the drawers and started to pull out the shirts and shorts she had folded herself—she was better at folding than me. She curled herself into a ball next to the suitcase and sobbed. I took her books off the shelves, set them on top of her clothes. I got her toothbrush, her bathing suit, from the bathroom. Our life felt so spacious when we were sitting on our deck, looking out at the
Delta sky, but it could be easily compressed into a few small containers.

I packed my own suitcase, packed our food, our toiletries, into paper grocery bags.

“We better head out,” I said, walking to the door. Quinn didn’t move.

“I’m not going,” she said. “I’m a Delta girl now.”

I felt a little chill. “They won’t let you stay here without me,” I said. “You’ll end up in foster care.” Just saying the words made my stomach clench.

She unfolded herself, glared at me again, and followed me, head down, to the car.

“Can we at least say good-bye?” she asked after she strapped herself into her seat belt.

“Bye, Abcde’s tent,” I said as we drove past. Quinn looked out the window, arms crossed over her chest. “Bye, pear trees. Bye, more pear trees. Bye, sheep. Bye, stable.” My voice felt too cheery, like a picture book narrator, like I was talking to a two-year-old, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “Bye, Vieiras’ house. Bye, Mrs. Vieira. Bye, Ben.”

Ben?

I stepped on the brakes. The car bounced, kicking up dust. Ben was with his mother in the garden, picking tomatoes. His UC Davis T-shirt had a few holes at the collar. He was barefoot, dusty. Beautiful. I felt something loosen in my chest.

“I thought we were leaving,” Quinn said through her teeth as the car settled into the dirt.

“We are,” I said. “But you’re right. We should take the time to say a real good-bye.”

BEN’S FACE BROKE
into a grin as Quinn and I got out of the car. He had shaved off his soul patch; it made his face look younger, even more touchable.

“Hey, you,” he said.

“Hey, you.” I could feel the smile on my own face. Such a silly girl.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the whales before I left?” He set down the basket of tomatoes and walked toward us.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the girlfriend?” I tried to keep my voice light, joking, but my throat closed in on itself and I had to cough.

He flinched a bit, but the smile didn’t leave his face. “It’s not the same thing.”

“They’re both big,” I said.

“She’s quite petite, actually,” he said.

“You know what I mean.” I rolled my eyes and tried not to picture him lifting someone petite and perfect into the air, her wrapping her beautiful legs around him, but I couldn’t help myself.

“You sound jealous.” He playfully cocked an eyebrow.

“Maybe I am.” Again, I attempted to sound like I was kidding around. Again, it didn’t work so well.

“I’m jealous, too.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem to take me too seriously. “You got the whales all to yourself. I have to share them with everyone now.”

“If you hadn’t run off so fast, I would have shared them with you,” I said.

“Too bad I ran off so fast, then.” He took a step closer to me.

“Yeah, too bad.” When I breathed him in, he smelled like tomato leaves and sunshine.

AFTER WE GOT
back in the car, I found myself driving into the island, toward the houseboat, instead of away from it. Muscle memory, I suppose. Or some other part of my anatomy asserting itself.

“Are we staying?” I could tell Quinn wasn’t daring to let hope into her voice.

“I guess we are,” I said, even though it hadn’t been my plan. My whole body felt oozy from seeing Ben, the same loose floppy feeling I would get when I climbed out of a pool after swimming for a long time. “We just have to be extra careful with these extra people, okay? Just don’t talk to anyone you don’t know. And make sure you stay close to me; I want to be able to see you at all times.”

Quinn started to cry again, but this time her eyes were bright and happy. I knew how she felt; I couldn’t keep the smile from bubbling up inside of me, either. If Sam never spoke to me again, it wouldn’t matter. Ben was back.

A
FTER THEIR VISIT WITH HIS FATHER, NATHAN STOPPED
disappearing at night. He stopped flirting with women at the rink. He didn’t slip innuendos into every other sentence. He held doors open for Karen and Deena, helped with the vacuuming, didn’t argue with the new choreography or complain about the new short-program costumes—unitard tuxes—even though the slick black outfits looked more like wetsuits than skating gear. Karen found the sea change sweet, if a little spooky. Definitely preferable to swearing and striking out at inanimate objects. Sometimes, though, she found herself missing the sassy comments, the probing eyes, found herself waiting for them like an expected cymbal crash that never comes in a song, leaving some part of her unsatisfied.

“You’re doing good,” she told him when she could feel how hard he was trying, how hard he was holding himself back, and he would look at her with such gratitude, it made her want to weep. And she got those looks often. She was with Nathan just about
every second of the day. Breakfast. Driving the now snowy roads to the rink. An hour of figures to work on their edges. An hour of freestyle before the rink opened to the public. High-protein snacks. Another two hours with the rest of the skating club, where they were given preferential treatment. If Deena wanted the sound guy to play their program twice in a row, no one complained, at least not to their faces; they were the only club members to be going on to Nationals, after all. Then there was Pilates. Ballet. Weight training. Lunch. Another hour or two on the ice. More high-protein snacks. Visualization exercises. Cardio. Dinner. Physical therapy, as needed. The occasional water-training session. Homework, when Karen could fit it in. An early bedtime, both of them falling asleep to their Walkmans, their short and free-skate program music set on an endless loop.