Delta Girls Read online

  Some of the buildings had been transformed into art galleries and exotica shops, but even those had a shabby, sleepy feel. We drifted into the Dai Loy Museum, an old gambling hall trapped in time, its faded wooden floor violently warped. I felt seasick walking up and down its dips. Tables were set for games of pai gow and fan tan; sandpaper still adhered to their legs for easy match lighting. The walls were a pale green, the color of old dental equipment.

  Quinn ran around, popping in and out of the small lottery room and money rooms, looking at the displays of old cookware and newspapers, racing up the narrow stairs. I trailed behind her, worried the floor would collapse beneath her feet.

  At the top of the steps was a small alcove with a metal cot, a thin mattress. A place for a guard to sleep. A small hole was cut out of the wall so the owner could look down at the gamblers, make sure they weren’t cheating. Ben pulled up behind me. I felt my cheeks redden.

  “The dealers used to put pillows on their stools,” he said, looking over my shoulder at the gambling tables below. “If they took a break, they had to carry the cushions with them. It was considered bad luck to leave body heat behind.”

  Then we’re in trouble, I thought, remembering the heat he left in my bed long after he stepped off the boat.

  “THAT WAS PRETTY cool,” said Quinn as we walked out of the dim museum. “Did you read about the bok bok guys? They banged blocks to let people know everything was all right at night.”

  “Holy shit,” said Ben.

  “It’s not that exciting,” Quinn snorted.

  “Not that,” said Ben. “Isn’t that that reporter, from CNN or something? What is she doing in Locke?”

  He might as well have poured cold water down my back. I recognized the Asian woman from one of my rare moments of channel surfing, her hair straight and glossy, reflecting light. She and a small group of hangers-on, including a cameraman, walked up the narrow steps to the old Chinese school. Blood started to whip through my veins.

  “Do you want to meet her?” asked Ben. “We should go meet her. Maybe we could be on TV!”

  “I want to be on TV,” said Quinn excitedly.

  “I need to find a restroom,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you in a little bit.” I walked quickly, shakily, in the other direction, and ducked into a dusty shop—“Locke Ness: Things Old and Odd.” The building used to be the “Victory Club,” one of the town’s other gambling halls, but now was filled with a funky assortment of ephemera. After looking at mariachi bands made out of seashells and jars full of buttons, I realized I really did need to use the restroom, but when I asked, the woman with flame-red hair behind the counter told me the only public one was in the old schoolhouse. “Or you can use the one at Al the Wop’s,” she said. “But only if you buy something.”

  I poked my head out of the store and looked both ways to make sure the news team was not back on the street. The town looked like a movie set, but no contrived movie set could capture the true dinginess of the place, the sadness weathered into every plank of wood. I felt like a movie actor myself as I scurried across the street like someone holding a gun up to her chest.

  The restaurant was really named “Al’s Place” but everyone called it “Al the Wop’s”—the name was even painted on the window—since Al Adami bought Lee Bing’s restaurant in 1934 and turned it into the only non-Chinese business in town. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. The ceiling was papered with sooty dollar bills, some new ones standing out like leafy greens. Open jars of peanut butter and orange marmalade sat on every table. Several guys in biker jackets sat at the bar. I could smell decades of beef wafting off the grill, decades of beer and whiskey souring the air.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” I asked, panting.

  “You gotta order first,” the bartender said, looking as if I had woken him from a nap.

  I took a quick glimpse at the menu and ordered the cheapest thing—fried bread—before I ran to the restroom in the back of the place.

  The bread was sitting on the bar when I returned, thick slabs of it fried on the grill, dripping with oil. I sat down on one of the square black vinyl stools.

  “I suggest it with the peanut butter.” The bartender pushed a jar in my direction, a knife already stuck inside, covered with greasy fingerprints.

  “I put it on my steak,” one of the bikers near me said. He and his friends laughed when I winced.

  “Try it,” the bartender cajoled, looking bored but serious about his command. I spread a layer on one of the pieces just so they’d leave me alone. They were right—the peanut butter melted against the warm bread, silky and delicious. I gave the bikers the thumbs-up, my hand shaking just a little, and they turned back to their own plates.

  “How’d you get the dollars up there?” I asked the bartender, my feet jiggling on the bottom rung of the stool.

  “Give me a dollar,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”

  I dug one out of my pocket, even though I didn’t have many to spare.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put in a dollar, too.”

  The bikers next to me chuckled.

  He punched a thumbtack through the corner of my dollar, pulled a silver dollar out of the cash register, and wrapped my dollar around it. When he threw the dollars up to the ceiling, mine stuck, but his slipped out and fell right back into his waiting hand.

  The bikers whooped.

  “Nice.” I turned back to my bread.

  The door opened a crack and the reporter poked her expertly made-up face inside. My throat went completely dry. Thanks to the peanut butter on the roof of my mouth, I couldn’t swallow, either.

  “Is that who I think it is?” the bartender said.

  “I’ll be damned!” said one of the bikers.

  I turned away on my stool.

  “Come on in!” The bartender’s voice was booming and jovial. “Price of admission is just an autograph.”

  “Small price to pay.” She gave a measured anchorperson laugh as she stepped inside. Her heels clacked against the wooden floor. Her perfume wafted over me, a whoosh of air from her rapid gait.

  As she shook hands and started to sign her name on napkins and menus and shirts, I slipped off my stool and hurried out the door, looking down as I passed the cameraman. I felt a little bad for not paying, but I had given the place my dollar. The bread wasn’t much more than that.

  QUINN AND BEN were wandering down the street, both still beaming from their brush with celebrity.

  “She’s doing a story on the Asian heritage of the state,” Ben told me.

  “She’s pretty,” said Quinn, “even though she has big teeth.”

  “Can we get out of here?” I wanted to leave before she came out of the restaurant. “I’m not feeling so great.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I checked Ben’s face, but he just looked concerned.

  “You smell like peanut butter,” said Quinn. She showed me the signature on a tourist brochure: Dear Quinn, Shoot for the Stars!

  “Let’s just go.” I grabbed Quinn’s hand and pulled her to the car.

  ———

  I STAYED QUIET as Ben and Quinn chattered away on the way home about an elaborate community kitchen garden in Locke—some of the remaining Chinese residents grew bitter melon, fuzzy melon, winter melon there, plus long beans, Chinese okra, other vegetables I hadn’t heard of. When the conversation turned to television news, I felt myself pull into myself even more.

  “You better save that signature,” said Ben. “It will be worth something someday.”

  Any energy that I had been sending out to Ben was sucked right back into my own muscles. He must have sensed it; his energy stopped reaching toward me, too. I felt hard and lonely inside my skin, my whole body closed, like a fist.

  NATHAN LOOKED FLAYED IN HIS RED UNITARD. KAREN could barely touch him during their practice session. Her own dress, which had seemed so sexy, felt like a stupid joke.

  “I hope you washed your
hands well,” she said. “I don’t want to catch anything.”

  “Listen to you, Miss Germophobe,” said Nathan.

  “I’m sure she at least has HPV,” said Karen.

  “Someone has their panties in a wad today.”

  “Someone has seen too many panties,” she said.

  She wanted to strangle him when he laughed.

  MISS RHODE ISLAND and her partner were late coming to the ice for practice. No one in the locker room had been willing to give up a spare lace, so the pair’s coach, to Karen’s delight, had to buy a set from one of the busy vendors in the lobby and then take the time to relace the boot. Rhode Island shot Karen a hateful look as she skated by in her ice blue dress, holding her pissed-off partner’s hand.

  Karen wanted to feel a surge of triumph, but she just felt tired. And off balance. She fell after the throw triple salchow and jarred her tailbone. She didn’t even attempt the side-by-side double axel. She felt dizzy after the death spiral. She could see her mother lifting her arms in exasperation.

  “Get it together,” said Nathan. She wanted to kick him with her blade. She wanted to see his red blood seep through the red fabric, drip beautiful red drops all over the pearly ice. Instead, she dug her fingernails into the backs of his hands during their next press lift, and was disarmed when he gave her an affectionate squeeze back.

  KAREN TRIED TO catch her bearings, to find her center, as they walked around in their skate guards to keep their muscles loose after the practice session. She snapped her headphones on, listened to Tristan und Isolde over and over again, trying to visualize the performance, trying to drown out the other music and the crowd’s cheers and gasps as one couple after another took to the ice for their long program. Still, she couldn’t concentrate. She looked over at Nathan, headphones clamped over his ears, too, as he lunged and stretched and rolled his head around. As he marked the choreography, lifting his empty hands, tossing a ghost Karen.

  She could barely hear the music, even with the volume turned up. All she could hear was the blood in her head. She took a deep breath, rolled down the length of her spine, let all the blood rush to her face. When she rolled back up, she felt light-headed and stumbled a few steps backwards.

  “Come on, Karen, focus, please,” her mother said, her voice tight with stress.

  Karen closed her eyes. She tried to slow her heart inside her chest, valves flapping, muscles contracting. She tried to imagine herself sitting inside one of its chambers, Nathan in the other one, just a thin membrane between them. She imagined pressing her hand to the wall, feeling his hand pressing back. If they breached that membrane, she thought, it wouldn’t kill her. It would just make her heart more open, more whole.

  WHEN WE GOT OUT OF BEN’S CAR, WE FOUND MR. AND Mrs. Vieira by the chicken coop, shaking their heads. Feathers were everywhere. Blood, too.

  One chicken was splayed open, hollowed out. Quinn ran toward it, dropped to her knees, and wailed. The autograph fell from her hand into the dirt.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Coyote,” said Mr. Vieira.

  Coyotes didn’t live on the island; they had to cross the bridge to get to the farm. The image struck me as funny—it made the coyotes seem civilized, somehow, like they should be wearing little suits.

  “A coyote ate Buttercup!” Quinn was beside herself. I bent down and wrapped my arms around her.

  “On a farm,” said Mr. Vieira, “you learn not to name the chickens.”

  “I know how you feel,” Ben whispered to Quinn. “I used to name the chickens, too.”

  Quinn cried even harder. I pulled her tight, rested my chin on her warm hair.

  “I hope you’ll feel better soon,” Ben said to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him.

  “Thanks for taking us.” My words felt flat in my mouth. I wanted to be effusive. I wanted to say “Let’s do it again!” but I held back. I watched his blue-jeaned legs walk away, past poor eviscerated Buttercup. Strange how something so alive can be so easily reduced to feathers and skin. I wondered if any of her beautiful green eggs had been inside her when she was eaten, if they were now settling, broken, inside the coyote’s belly.

  I kissed the top of Quinn’s head, then lifted the autographed flyer from the dirt and tried to smooth it out. In its short time on the ground, it had grown wrinkled and smudged.

  “Do you want to go for a walk through the pear orchard?” I asked Quinn, hoping to distract her.

  “The coyote might be there,” she fretted.

  “We could go back to the boat,” I said.

  “The coyote could be there, too,” she said. “Or the monster!”

  “Quinn,” I started, but she sobbed so hard, I knew she wouldn’t hear me. She picked feathers from the ground slowly, one by one, as if she were performing some ritual, and set them on top of the flyer in my hand. A couple of the words had smeared; now it looked as if the reporter was instructing Quinn to “Shoot the Stars!”

  BACK ON THE boat, Quinn curled up in bed, feathers cupped in her palm. I put the signature in the back of the Norse mythology book to try to flatten it out.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a coyote,” she said, her body rocking a little. “Maybe it was the monster that got her.”

  “It was a coyote, sweetheart,” I said. “Coyotes kill chickens all the time.”

  Quinn had always been practical—she had known I was the tooth fairy, had never believed in Santa Claus. This talk of monsters was totally out of character for her.

  “Why don’t you believe me?” Quinn sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. I saw all the scratches on her legs, all the mosquito bites.

  “Monsters aren’t real.” I felt like a broken record. “You should know that, Quinn. You’re old enough to—”

  “Eema!” Quinn scooted back against the wall, her face a spasm of fear as she pointed to the window, arm trembling.

  I turned toward the glass.

  “What the hell!” I jumped back, too, fell onto the bed next to Quinn, knocking my head on the paneling. An enormous eye was looking in our direction, a dark bulky head rising partly above the water.

  “I told you,” Quinn said. “I told you!”

  I grabbed onto Quinn as the houseboat bucked. I couldn’t make any sense of what I was seeing. It couldn’t possibly be real. Was it a movie prop? A robot? But then the huge rheumy eye looked right into me, and what robot could do that? The light swayed over us like a pendulum. All I could think was Hold Quinn, hold Quinn, hold Quinn, as if my arms could protect her from whatever was trying to tear our house apart.

  The eye disappeared, followed by a spume of water that sounded like someone squeezing a huge fireplace bellows; some sprayed through the window screen, spattering both of us with cold wet drops. Quinn shrieked and scrunched herself into a ball, but recognition flooded my limbs.

  “Oh my God.” Awe mixed with the fear in my veins. “It’s a whale. It’s a whale, Quinn.”

  Quinn raised her head. “What’s a whale doing in the river?”

  “It must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.” I wiped the beads of water from my face. The boat was rocking less now. I stepped over to the window and craned my head out, but the water was still, placid. A pair of herons rustled through the tule reeds, but otherwise there was no sign of life. I looked across the slough at the great heaps of gray tree trunks and imagined the great body gliding underwater, maybe even under our boat, and felt very very small.

  “Should we call the police?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, looking out at the dark water. “Let this be our secret.” What could the police do, anyway? The whale would surely find its way back to the sea.

  “What if it wants to hurt us?” she asked.

  “Whales are peaceful.” I hoped I remembered this correctly. “If anything, it wants to play.”

  “And it’s our secret.” Quinn snuggled against me, her breath still a bit ragged. Buttercup’s feathers fell from her hand, scattered over the bedspre
ad like honeymoon rose petals.

  I knew how large secrets could grow within a person; holding a whale inside would be a piece of cake.

  DEENA GENTLY PULLED KAREN’S HEADPHONES AWAY.

  “You’re on, sweetheart,” she said.

  Nathan was already striding toward the ice. Karen ran to catch up. When she stepped on the ice, she immediately fell. She stood and her feet slipped out from under her again. Her hip burned where she landed; her ears roared with blood, with the murmurs of the crowd. Had she forgotten how to skate? Was it all over—could they kiss their skating dreams good-bye? A feeling rushed through her like cold water; she couldn’t tell if it was fear or relief.

  “Your guards,” said Nathan. “You forgot to take off your guards.”

  He kneeled down and slipped them off her blades, then stood and waved the hard plastic in the air like spoils. The audience cheered.

  “They’re in our pocket now,” he whispered as he set the guards on the low wall that rimmed the rink. “Falling is the best thing you could have done.” Karen wanted to believe him, but she felt rattled, stripped naked. She could barely feel his hand as he led her to the center of the ice.

  “YOU WERE A zombie out there.” Deena looked drained after their program. “Isolde should not be a zombie, Karen. Isolde should be buzzing with life.”

  Karen could barely remember skating. Her body had done the right moves in the right order—she hadn’t stumbled, hadn’t fallen, at least not as far as she could recall—but her mind hadn’t been in it. Her heart hadn’t been in it, either; she and Nathan were still stuck inside their separate chambers there, even as he shoved his hands into her armpits, against her thighs, even as her crotch hovered just over his head. She felt dizzy, breathless, as she let her mother lead her toward the bleachers reserved for skaters awaiting their judgment. A low-rent “kiss-and-cry,” only a couple of local cameras trained upon them. She felt too blank to cry, too blank to offer up her cheek, her lips, for a kiss. She sat still and fought to keep her eyes open. When a little girl in a skating dress came over, excitedly, to deliver the next crop of fan presents, a wave of nausea barreled through Karen and she threw up all over the stuffed animals. The little girl jumped back and ran off, crying, leaving bile-soaked teddy bears on the floor. Karen let Nathan usher her out of the rink while Deena stayed behind on the bench, smiling for the cameras, waiting for their scores.