First Avenue (20 page)

She heard the fast friendly voices of the women. She could not understand the words, but the meaning was simple enough.
Mrs.
Sanchez
and
Mildred
Abbott
sat side by side at the kitchen table slicing red and green bell peppers into thin delicate strips. There were women on each side of them, assisting in the slicing, making certain the two seated women had peppers before them. All heads were bowed in work, eyes downcast and separated from contact. They were linked by their voices. They had experienced voices and knew what to say.

Katherine went to the kitchen sink and rinsed her hands as she would in the kitchen on the farm. A woman appeared at her side. She smiled, spoke words.
Katherine
returned the smile. The woman pointed to a bottle of dish soap and gestured with her hands. “Soap,” she said.
Katherine
squirted soap into her hands and washed them beneath the faucet. The kind woman gave her a towel to dry her hands.

“What can I do to help?”
Katherine
asked.

“Come with me,” the woman said.

When
Katherine
was brought to the table of work, some of the voices began to speak English. It didn’t seem to matter. The work went on. Her companion gave her lettuce to chop and pointed to the onion cutters at the counter beside the sink.

“Better job here,” the woman said, and then touched her cheeks to show what she meant. The onion cutters bore their tears silently.

“Yes, better job,”
Katherine
agreed.

“
Olivia
asks me to thank you for coming,
Officer
Murphy
. We both appreciate that.”

The first name spoken by
Mildred
Abbott
sent a shiver through
Katherine
—reminding her of the child they had come to mourn. She looked down the table to the seated women who had stopped their work for a moment.

“Please call me
Katherine
.”

“
Katherine
,”
Olivia
Sanchez
said without translation. She nodded her head and smiled as though she had said a complete sentence.
Mildred
Abbott
smiled the same way.

“
Olivia
thinks you are not from the city,”
Mildred
said. “I think she means that as a compliment.”

“I grew up on a farm,”
Katherine
said. “I was there just yesterday.”

Mrs.
Sanchez
shook her head knowingly with
Mildred
’s translation. “Ah,” she said—another sentence. How did she know that?
Katherine
wondered.

“How did she know that?”

“It’s in the face,”
Mildred
said. “It’s a good sign. You have a lovely face.”

Katherine blushed. She was ready for the hands to begin again, to move the conversation away from her face, away from her. She looked down and made a small cut through the lettuce.

“Si,” the old woman said. She spoke several more words of Spanish and touched her face. Then she resumed cutting the peppers.

When they went out to the tree, another table had appeared. She and
Sam
sat together as instructed.
Georgia
took a place on the other side of the table.
Mrs.
Sanchez
sat at one end among the women,
Mr.
Sanchez
at the other among the men. He alone continued to wear a suit jacket.

Katherine was not used to Mexican food, if that was what it was. The old man across from her encouraged her to try the homemade red sauce in bottles standing every few feet on the tables. A sly grin spread across his weathered face, and she knew to use the sauce sparingly. Even so it burned her tongue. She drank cold tea, refusing to choke, and held the cold liquid in her mouth until it lost its ability to cool. Then she drank more.

“Good,” she said. “It’s very good.”

The old man motioned her to use more. He had dirt in his fingernails, immovable dirt from the soil. Dirt had also worked into the wrinkles of his hands, into the skin itself. The hands were, however, as clean as they could be.

“No thanks,” she said and then decided to tell him the truth, which was what he was waiting for anyway. She waved her hand in front of her mouth. “Too hot. It’s like fire.”

“Fire,” the old man repeated, grinning openly. “It is fire. We don’t use it either.”

It was true. She saw no one else who used the hot red sauce. It was decoration for the table, a memory of the days when their stomachs had been stronger. If so the fire in the bottles would last forever.

Sam laughed at her adventure with the hot sauce. The old man could not persuade him to try it. The old man’s eyes darted back and forth among the three strangers. He did not address
Georgia
, as though she were off-limits to his humor.

“Do you work with the orchards?”
Sam
asked.

“Oh yes. We have our own orchard. Together,” he said proudly. He made a circle with his fingers that included the others. “All of us.”

“Are those your trees?”
Sam
pointed over the man’s head to the orchard on the hill.

“No,” the man said without turning around. “Our orchard is not so big. We work there, too, sometimes. Big company. We are small, but we have good apples.”

“The best apples,” said his neighbor, whose open white collar was frayed at the edges from having rubbed too long against his rough skin.

“Yes. Enrico is correct. We think so, anyway.”

“You should come when we pick,” Enrico said. “You will see I tell the truth. Bring the ladies, too.”

Enrico seemed unsure about how else to describe them, how to fix the association among the three.
Katherine
understood his confusion. As one of the ladies, she smiled, but a smile would not clear up Enrico’s confusion. She wondered how
Georgia
had responded. There was a moment when no one said anything.

“They have work to do,” the old one said. “This man and this lady, they are police officers. They cannot come to see our apples.”

Enrico did not appreciate the older man’s sharp voice, but he seemed to agree that someone needed to say something. He smiled meekly while
Katherine
let hers go.

“What kind of apples do you grow?”
Georgia
asked Enrico. The old man had left her out of his sentence, and she left him out of her question.

“Delicious,” Enrico said. “And Jonagold. It is the Jonagold that I like best.” He liked it, also, that
Georgia
had spoken to him.

“Red delicious or golden?”
Georgia
asked.

“Both, lady.”

“
Georgia
,”
Georgia
said and pointed to her chest.

“
Georgia
?” Enrico asked.

“My name,”
Georgia
explained. “My father was from the South. He said my red hair was the same color as the dirt in
Georgia
. So that’s what he called me.”

“I have heard of that dirt,” Enrico said.

“Red dirt in
America
?” the old man asked.

“It’s true,” Enrico said. “I have heard of it.”

“It cannot be as good as our dirt.” The old man who enjoyed tricks was not sure that a trick was not being played on him.

“What difference is the color?” Enrico asked. “It’s what comes out of the soil that matters. They raise peaches in
Georgia
. Good peaches. Just like here. Isn’t that right.” He looked to
Georgia
for confirmation.

“That’s right.”

“We do better with apples than peaches,” the old man said. “The climate here is better for apples.”

“Yes,
Eduardo
, but the peaches are all right, too.”

“Sometimes, but it is better with the apples.”

Enrico looked around the table to see what the others might think.
Katherine
thought he might have said more in another place, but here he smiled at
Georgia
, the lady named after red dirt, and reluctantly nodded in agreement with the old man.

Katherine looked down the table where
Mildred
Abbott
and
Olivia
Sanchez
sat side by side—one pale and one brown. They had listened to the old man’s homily on apples and nodded their agreement like sisters. She scanned the faces of the people who sat together on the other side of the table on an assortment of chairs and benches until she came to
Mr.
Sanchez
at the end. His plate was still full with the food he had first taken. He looked at something above them, above the table, above the tree with the abandoned swing, above the dry hills with unnatural green trees. He also nodded agreement with old
Eduardo
. All agreed, then, that it was better with the apples.

When it was too late for him to come, when she had given up hope for the second day in a row, Maria saw the unmistakable blue of a police uniform at the front door. There were two uniforms and two different police officers. She was disappointed that it was not
Sam
Wright
, but she was curious, also, to see if they were anything like him.
Pierre
saw them, too, and walked up to the cash register where she stood.

“I will take care of the counter,” he said. “You go on a break now.”

She left the counter, wondering why
Pierre
had replaced her, and sat down by the window without bringing with her anything to eat or drink. It had not been that long since her last break.

The two policemen sat at the counter.
Pierre
poured them coffee even before they asked and stood close to them. The policemen sipped their coffee. When other men came in together for coffee, they usually tried to make some joke, to find something to laugh about.
Pierre
disliked their jokes and never came to the front when there were men at the counter. The policemen did not laugh or make jokes.

The two policemen did not cause a stir as happened the morning when
Sam
had come. There was no one left to stir. “No free doughnuts,”
Pierre
had said again that morning. “They’re all gone.” It was the same thing that he had said the previous morning, and yet he had thrown the old doughnuts away. It was his business what he did with the doughnuts, but she could see no reason to lie. Maybe they would stop coming if he told them the truth.

They still came—those seven or eight kids. Maybe they were not kids, but they were not adults either. They were about her age. They came into the Donut Shop early in the morning, sat in the chairs, and waited.