Delta Girls Page 5

  We snaked through a residential area filled with small bungalows and neatly trimmed yards, to a large field that had been turned into a parking lot. The crowd didn’t seem rowdy, just excited. A couple of carnival rides twirled in a park on the other side of the field, booths set up all around them. Loud music, heavy on the trumpet, pumped through a sound system. Lights poured down on some sort of arena in the distance even though sunset was still hours away.

  “Looks like the parade is just about to start,” said Ben. “We got here just in time.”

  THE CROWD BY the cars formed a channel between the park and a low, stucco community center on the side of the field. Everyone was turned toward the park, where a brass band, likely the one that had been blaring over the speakers, had assembled. The musicians began making their way down the aisle of cheering people, playing what was likely traditional Portuguese music. Quinn put her hands over her ears as they drew nearer. They were followed by a couple of cows decked out in garlands, pulling wooden carts full of waving children. Quinn took one hand from her ear to wave shyly back.

  “The cows were blessed earlier today,” Ben told us. “Along with the cows we’ll be eating tonight.”

  Behind the cows, women in traditional Portuguese outfits—colorful patterned scarves around their heads, equally colorful shawls over their white blouses, and wide colorful skirts—carried huge baskets of rolls. They tossed the bread to the crowd. I caught one—light and airy—and gave it to Quinn.

  “The bread was blessed, too,” he said.

  Quinn took a big bite, scattering crumbs down her shirt. “It just tastes like normal bread,” she said, disappointed, as if blessed bread should taste like magic. Eat it all up, I wanted to tell her. We need all the blessings we can get.

  A group of girls were next, ranging in age from about five to seventeen, wearing poofy, sparkly dresses, velvet capes, and tiaras.

  “Beauty pageant?” I asked.

  “Different kind of queen,” he said.

  The girls, it turns out, represented Queen Isabel; in the fourteenth century, she would sneak food to the poor, against the wishes of her husband, King Diniz. One day, Diniz came upon her when she had her apron full of rolls and demanded to know what she was carrying. “Roses,” she said, which made him suspicious—roses were not in bloom that time of year—but when he yanked at her apron, a flood of white flowers came tumbling out.

  “It’s kind of sad,” he said, “how much money the families pour into this. Some have the capes hand-beaded in Portugal, thousands of dollars. The festa is supposed to be about giving to the community, but these dresses have become a competitive sport.”

  The girls passed us and Quinn got very excited, waving and waving. An elaborately beaded saint beamed from the back of one teen’s purple velvet cape. A little girl’s pink satin cape featured a huge chalice and crown embroidered in metallic thread. A huge dove made of countless tiny seed pearls spread its wings across the red velvet backing of another. Some of the dresses had hoop skirts that made the girls look like they were floating down the dirt path.

  I found myself worrying about the girls forced to wear these fancy things, their faces fluorescent with makeup; I worried about what they must have endured at home, their mothers coming at them with curling irons and mascara wands, expressions and expectation equally intense. The girls all looked proud and happy to be queens, though. None of them seemed to resent the crown.

  When they reached the community center, a young girl walked toward them, holding a dove in a cage festooned with red ribbons. She handed the cage to the smallest queen, who opened its metal door. At first, the dove didn’t want to fly out, but the little queen shook the cage until the bird flopped out and flew listlessly into a nearby jacaranda tree.

  “It’s supposed to be the Holy Spirit,” said Ben.

  “Doesn’t look so spirited to me,” I said. Mrs. Vieira threw me an offended look, but Ben laughed, and we finally made eye contact. Just for a split second, but it made something zap in my blood.

  “I have to help my parents unload the jam,” he said. “Why don’t you two go check out the fair before the sopa starts?”

  THE SNACKS AT the booths were unlike any fair food I had seen before. Fried sardines. Dark red octopus stew. A dish made with pork and clams. Lupini beans. Salt cod. Chestnuts. Quinn looked appalled by most of the offerings, but the sweets caught her eye. Spiced cookies. Fragrant rice pudding. Lemony doughnuts dusted with powdered sugar.

  “You should probably have dinner first,” I said, but finally relented and let her have one of the doughnuts.

  “Save room for the sopa.” The woman smiled as she handed me the warm pastry. “You might want to go line up now.” A line was beginning to snake out the community center door. I handed Quinn the doughnut and powdered sugar immediately spilled down her front. She didn’t mind, so I tried not to, either.

  On our way toward the line, a guy sidled up to us, the air around him heavy with cologne. “Hey,” he said. “Aren’t you that girl …”

  “No.” My pulse flared. I grabbed Quinn’s hand and we started to walk away.

  “You’re not the girl over at Vieira’s place?” he called after us. “The one trying to pick the other day?”

  “Oh.” Relief washed over me, sweet as sleep. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am that girl.”

  “Word travels fast,” he said, and my ears briefly roared with blood again. I wondered if he picked at the Vieiras’, too; I felt embarrassed that I didn’t recognize him, that I probably wouldn’t recognize most of the pickers if they showed up in front of me, hair slicked back, dress shirts on. He flashed a peace sign and jogged over to the building.

  THE SOPA, IT turned out, was a free meal inside the cavernous, wood-paneled hall. Every single item on the menu was donated by the community—beef from local ranchers, vegetables from local home gardens, the pear preserves Mrs. Vieira had canned. Tons and tons of donated food, enough to serve a thousand people. The centerpiece was the sopa itself, a beef soup volunteers had cooked in hundred-gallon vats in the community center kitchen. The big hunks of beef were taken out of the soup before serving, sliced, and put on plates. We stood in line and waited as one volunteer put a piece of French bread in a bowl, the next volunteer ladled the soup over it, the next one put a sprig of mint on top, the next gave us a plate with the beef and more bread. The pear preserves sat on every table, along with local butter. The energy felt completely different from that of any of the soup kitchens Quinn and I had visited across the country, taking advantage of free meals at shelters and churches when our funds had run dry. Shame hung in the air of those soup kitchens like bacon grease, a palpable, discomfiting sense of lack, but this free dinner was all about bounty, celebration. Quinn and I found some empty chairs at the end of one of the long tables and sat down to eat; halfway through our meal, Mr. Vieira saw us and waved us to a table a few rows over.

  “We’ve been saving you seats,” he said over the din of the room when we carried our plates over to their table. I sat across from Ben. Beef, pink and wet, thickly sliced, fanned out on the plate beneath the curve of his soup bowl; I wished I hadn’t eaten mine so quickly—I wasn’t sure if it was rude to go back for a second helping. Mrs. Vieira looked around; she seemed happy to see people spreading her preserves on slabs of dense, slightly sweet bread, the crust shellacked with egg white and sugar. Ben smiled at his mother, his mouth full of cabbage. She was chattering away in Portuguese with a woman across the table—I had never heard her husky voice before; I had wondered, in fact, if she was mute. She seemed to understand English—perhaps she just didn’t like to speak it.

  Quinn finished her meal and asked if she could be excused.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “My people are good people,” Mr. Vieira said. “They won’t do nothing to hurt her.”

  How could I say no after that?

  “Just stay where I can see you,” I said.

  Before I knew it, Quinn was running around wi
th one of the festa’s queens, a little girl in an ice blue dress with a rhinestone tiara secured over her sprayed-stiff ringlets, a cape featuring a child saint also wearing a cape, done up in sequins. Every once in a while, I lost sight of them in the crowd and my nerve endings went immediately from zero to panic.

  “She’s over there,” Ben said, and I saw Quinn climbing out from under a table with the little queen. The moisture beneath my arms immediately cooled, and I slumped, weak with gratitude, in the plastic folding chair.

  “Thank you,” I said, but he had already turned to talk to his dad. I was kind of glad—that way he couldn’t see the tears that had sprung when he helped me find my girl.

  AFTER DINNER, QUINN and I followed the Vieiras and the rest of the crowd to the arena behind the park.

  “Rodeo?” I asked, looking at the dirt ground of the stadium, the guys in colorful outfits on horseback.

  “Bullfight,” said Mr. Vieira.

  “I thought those were illegal.” I had no desire to see someone get gored, no desire to see an animal fall to the ground, life draining out.

  “They make exceptions for us Portuguese.” Mr. Vieira snorted like a bull.

  “It’s bloodless,” Ben assured me. “It’s all done with Velcro.”

  The brass band walked into the center of the stadium; everyone stood as they played the national anthem, then “A Portuguesa.” A great cheer rose up afterward, people stomping the metal bleachers so hard, my teeth rattled inside my head and Quinn grabbed onto me for dear life. Then a single trumpet let out a blare, and a man on horseback trotted into the ring to more cheering and stamping. His outfit rivaled the festa queens’—he wore a bright yellow embroidered matador suit with hot pink kneesocks; his horse was decked out, too, with flowers and streamers and feathers.

  Quinn grabbed onto me harder as a bull lumbered into the arena. Its horns were topped with leather caps—they looked like adrenal glands capping long, curved kidneys. The bull was massive, its enormous body shimmering with each step, saliva streaming from its mouth in ropes.

  “I want to go, Eema,” Quinn said into my arm as the bull snorted and barreled across the dirt.

  “In a bit,” I said. The matador chucked a long streamer-bedecked spear at the bull. Its Velcro tip landed on the Velcro pad strapped to the bull’s shoulder and wagged back and forth. The band blasted a short triumphant tune.

  “I want to go now!” She screamed so loudly, some people around us stopped cheering and turned to look.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, and together we squeezed past the Vieiras and the other people in our row and made our way down the bleacher steps, Quinn crying hysterically.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked as we walked through the fairgrounds. “I thought you were having a good time.”

  “The monster …,” she started.

  “It’s a bull,” I said. “A normal animal.”

  “I know!” she yelled, as if I had said the most offensive thing in the world.

  “So what were you going to say?” I asked, but she walked faster so she’d be a few steps ahead of me.

  “I’m sorry, Quinn.” I ran to catch up. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t say anything, but slowed down enough so we could walk in step.

  Ben pulled up in the truck when we got to downtown Comice. “Need a ride?” he asked. My heart started to pound at the sight of him.

  It wasn’t a far trek back to the farm, but Quinn looked exhausted. “Thanks,” I said. We climbed up into the two-row cab. I let Quinn sit in front.

  “Where are your parents?” I asked.

  “I’ll go back for them,” he said. “Just wanted to make sure you two were all right. Bullfights can be pretty intense. Even without the blood.”

  Quinn took a deep shuddery breath. “The food was good, though,” she said.

  “The best,” he said.

  “Do you want to go swimming again when we get back?” I asked her. Maybe that could become our evening ritual—a way to cool off, relax.

  She shook her head, face clouding again. Of course she wouldn’t want to go swimming, not if she thought there was a monster in the water. I touched her arm and was relieved she didn’t try to shrug it away.

  THE NEW ENGLAND REGIONALS WERE BEING HELD AT their home rink—a big advantage. They knew each inch of the ice, could draw upon the energy of all of their practice sessions.

  The place felt different on competition day, though. Vendors in the lobby had set up booths full of skating dresses and tights, books and DVDs, lots of jewelry featuring little silver skates. New skaters, new coaches, new parents, milled about, sending their nervous energy into the air. Plus all the groupies had descended.

  Karen had seen Nathan’s groupies before, but not since they had been skating together. They were ferocious, these girls, running toward him, grabbing any part of him they could reach, pushing Karen out of the way just to graze the sleeve of his workout jacket. She looked to her mom for help, but Deena just smiled and nodded, as if to say It’s good for business. Let it go. Nathan, of course, was in his glory, signing programs and shirts and bits of cleavage, giving kisses left and right. Finally, Deena stepped in.

  “Okay, cowboy,” she said. “Save some of it for the ice.”

  No, Karen found herself thinking, save some of it for me.

  IN THE DRESSING room, a skater from Hartford cornered Karen as she hung her dresses from a hook on the cinder-block wall of the locker room. She had brought both dresses, even though they’d only be doing the short program today; she wanted the long program dress to soak in the competition vibe. “So,” she asked, “what’s it like, being with Nathan?”

  “Sexy sexy sexy,” said a skater from Rhode Island, pulling an elaborate makeup case from her wheeled bag. Her dark hair, like everyone’s in the room, was scraped back into a ponytail, glued to her head with glittery gel.

  “You would know.” A slightly older skater with Cleopatra eyeliner swatted her in the arm.

  “So would you,” the skater said back, hitting her with the chamois cloth she used to clean her blades.

  “Let’s take a poll,” said a skater from Vermont. “How many of you have been with Nathan?”

  Most of the skaters raised their hands. Only Karen and a fifteen-year-old Korean American girl from New Hampshire kept their hands down. Laughter broke out through the room like a rash. Karen was mortified—this was only Regionals. These skaters weren’t even the cream of the crop.

  “What?” the older skater said to Karen. “You can’t tell me you haven’t …”

  “I’m seventeen,” Karen reminded her.

  “Hasn’t stopped him before,” chimed someone else, leading to another round of laughter. Some of the women were peeling off their workout clothes, stepping into their competition dresses. She glanced at a breast and shuddered, thinking Nathan’s mouth has been there; she looked at a hip, and thought of Nathan’s hands. She could barely look at her own dress, hanging limp on the wall. Its redness mocked her; so much empty, sparkly passion.

  “I THINK YOU should kiss me,” Karen said to Nathan as they stroked, hand in hand, around the rink during their practice session.

  “What are you talking about, little girl?”

  They each did a three turn, started backwards crossovers together, right over left.

  “During the number,” she said. “At the end. I think you should kiss me.”

  “Not a good idea.” At the center of the rink, they switched directions, switched hands, left over right. Other couples moved around them, blurs in Karen’s peripheral vision.

  “I’m not so little.” It came out more petulant sounding than she would have liked.

  “I have too much respect for you to pull a cheap stunt like that,” he said, and a sudden giddiness burbled up her spine. Respect. Of course. Those skaters in the locker room, those skaters now holding their own partners’ hands as they all warmed up, dodging each other left and right—they didn’t have his respe
ct. Their trysts didn’t mean a single thing. Just skin on skin. Fleeting. Nothing. That’s why he hadn’t touched her again—out of respect. When she and Nathan finally got together, it would be total magic. Respect + passion = forever.

  “Besides,” he said as he lifted her over his head like an airplane, “your mom would kill me.”

  She looked down at him. “Screw my mom.”

  “Okay.” He grinned. “If you insist.”

  “Asshole,” she said as he let her down. Why did he always have to ruin the moment?

  He winked. “Ready for some throws?”

  She sighed and let him toss her through the air.

  ———

  FANS CROWDED THE bottom of the bleachers at the end of the practice session. They hurled teddy bears and flowers and various undergarments as Karen and Nathan stepped off the ice. Karen had gotten a few trinkets from fans when she skated with Brian, but nothing like this.

  “What was all the talking out there?” Deena asked as she helped scoop up the loot. Fans reached down, grabbed at Nathan’s hair, his sleeve, screaming. He kissed a few hands, picked up scraps of paper covered with phone numbers and doodled hearts.

  “Your daughter has quite a mouth on her,” said Nathan.

  Some of the fans shot Karen nasty looks. As if the only thing keeping them from Nathan was her and her dirty mouth. Karen picked up a stuffed monkey and tried to smile.

  “You both need to focus,” Deena said, shaking a pair of teal panties in their direction.

  “We’re golden.” Nathan snatched the underwear from Deena’s hand and put his arm around Karen. The panties tickled her elbow. “Aren’t we, babe?”

  He had never called her “babe” before.

  “Golden.” She felt the sun rise inside her chest.

  KAREN AND NATHAN were the third pairs team to skate their short program. The first two teams had a couple of bobbles, one triple that became a double, nothing too cataclysmic. Nothing too exciting, either. Decent scores, but nothing that would keep them in the top slots.