Hour of the Bees (8 page)

“Rise and shine, girls! Breakfast!”

Mom’s call comes five minutes after I fall asleep. At least that’s how it feels. The disorientation of waking up in a strange new place hits me like a volleyball in gym class. Instead of my crisp white bedroom walls, I open my eyes to a poster of some ancient band called U2. Crackles in the blue ceiling reach out to the corners, like spindly tree branches.

Where am I?

“Girls?” Mom pokes her head into the room, and I remember. The ranch. Dad’s old bedroom. Serge. Bees.

Bees. I dreamed of bees. They’re following me, even when I sleep.

I sit up, so Mom sees I’m awake.

“Morning, hon,” she says, a smear of flour across her forehead. “Breakfast is ready. Come eat, Alta.”

The lump known as Alta grunts.

“You have ten minutes to get up and dressed, or your phone stays in my pocket all day.” Mom’s warning to my sister may seem harsh, but my family knows not to underestimate Alta’s sleeping-in abilities. A zombie apocalypse could start and Alta would snooze right through it. She’d be so zonked, the zombies would mistake her for one of their own.

How is the desert already preheated and ready for baking at eight o’clock in the morning? The warmth seeps through the walls, dry and oppressive. I’m already sticky with sweat. I kick off the sleeping bag like it’s suffocating me.

I remember last night: Dad’s truck woke me, and there were stars, and snakes, and a bloody sheep’s head . . .

There was Serge’s story, about the tree and the lake and the children, Rosa and Sergio.

Funny that he used his and Grandma’s names in the story. Funny, and also sad; he misses Grandma Rosa so much that she creeps into his fictional world.

My phone vibrates with a message from Gabby.
Raging Waters day! It sucks that you aren’t here. :P :(

A picture tries to download but stalls. Reception at the ranch flickers more than Serge’s memory. I know what the picture will show, anyway: Gabby and Sofie squinting in their striped tankinis, sunscreened head to toe, both of them hovering near Manny in the first row of the group shot.

Raging Waters day is for kids who graduate sixth grade. A bus picks them up in the morning, and they swim and talk and play at the water park until closing time.

I wonder if my friends left my space empty, the spot I usually occupy in photos, right between them, since I’m the shortest.

I peck out my reply to Gabby with extra force in my fingers.
I know :( Eat a mango-tango snow cone for me
.

Is it going to be like this all summer? My friends send me updates on all the fun things I’m missing, and I start every morning in a jealous haze? And then, a worse thought:
How long until they forget to send me updates at all? Until they forget me?

You’ll get caught up
, I reassure myself.
Two months at the ranch. Then junior high will be here, and you and Sofie and Gabby will pick up right where you left off
.

I almost convince myself.

Almost.

I get dressed and leave Alta to face the harsh reality of morning alone. The divine smell of breakfast leads me to the kitchen. Mom’s cooking again, apron tied around her middle, whipping up another gourmet Mexican meal from scratch: spinach omelets,
pan dulce
, and fresh spiced chorizo.

Mom waits until I’ve got a mouthful of cheesy eggs before she says, “I need you to help Serge in the barn today.”

Suddenly my food tastes of bribery. “Aw, Mom,” I say.

“Serge says the sheep need to be dosed and sheared.” Mom flips another perfectly symmetrical omelet onto a plate, a delicious bribe for some other unsuspecting soul.

“But I don’t know how to do any of that sheep stuff,” I say.

“Serge will take care of the sheep.” Mom lowers her voice. “I just need you to . . . supervise.” She cracks more eggs into the pan. “Alta! Get up now!”

“I
am
up!” comes the holler from the other side of the house, even though Alta’s most likely still horizontal under the covers.

Mom turns back to me. “Dad and I have our own to-do lists today. And you and Serge seem to have a special thing —”

“No, we don’t,” I say automatically.

“Sure you do,” Mom says. “You’re the only one he’s talked to besides Dad.”

I scowl, not wanting to admit that she’s right.

From the moment I met him yesterday, something about Serge has drawn me in — maybe the glow of his eyes when he looks at me, or the way his forehead is always furrowed, or the way he stares at his ranch, like he’s lost in love with this land.

When my parents told me we’d be spending the summer here, I expected to have stiff, forced conversations with this grandfather I’d never met. I expected he’d ask me about school, about my friends, about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t think he’d have anything interesting to say.

I didn’t think he’d spin a magical story about a tree and a lake and a boy and a girl. . . .

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll supervise. But I’m not touching any sheep.”

“Thanks.” Mom lifts Lu into my arms. “Will you take Lu with you?”

Humph. My friends are hanging out at the water slides, and I’m stuck babysitting Lu and Serge.

After breakfast Serge and I walk down the rickety porch steps, Lu in tow.

Dad’s on a ladder angled to the roof, holding a paintbrush. “Morning,” he calls. “How’s it look?” He gestures to the wood trim around the house.

To me, there’s no difference between where he’s painted and where he hasn’t — it’s all the same moldy beige.

“Looks good,” I say.

Dad hops down in front of us. “Where you heading?”

“Sheep need shearing,” Serge says.

“Mom’s making me,” I add, in case he thinks the real Carol was body-snatched by a new, alien Carol who’s a sheep enthusiast.

Dad frowns at his father. “In the drought?”

Serge folds his arms. “The ranch doesn’t shut down because of a drought.”

“But they’re so bony,” Dad says, his eyes weary. “Don’t they need their wool?”

“Are you a sheep farmer now?” Serge stretches, taller than I’ve ever seen him, his anger stretching tall, too.

Dad digs the toe of his boot into the grass like a little kid. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I’ve been running a band of sheep longer than you’ve been alive,” Serge says, “and don’t forget,
niño
: You left. I stayed.” He kicks up a tornado of red dust as he stomps to the barn. His oxygen tank leaves tracks in the dirt.

Dad bursts the bubble of silence. “Carol. Grandpa is . . .” Whatever he’s about to explain, it melts away in the heat. “Let me know if he does anything out of the ordinary.”

I sling Lu onto my hip. “I’ve never sheared sheep before. How will I know if he’s doing something out of the ordinary?”

Dad’s eyes flash black, the only cold in all the desert. “Just come get me if he does anything weird.”

Weird
. I turn the word over in my mind. Does Serge’s story about the lake and the tree count as weird?

Dad’s already back up on the ladder, muttering to himself. He paints in violent slaps, marking the wood with splotches shaped like little witch brooms. Of the two of them, Dad’s the one acting weird.

I follow my grandpa to the barn.

Yesterday, when I was looking for Lu, the barn felt like a sacred space, a cathedral in disguise. It must have been the illusion of sunset, because today, in the bright morning light, the barn is just a barn. Lu squirms, turning to jelly in my arms. I drop him, and he waddles to a worn-out saddle and bounces on it.

“You must forgive your dad,” Serge says, propping the square doors open. “He forgets how long it’s been since he was home.”

I don’t say anything. We all know how much Dad hates this place. Mom about keeled over in shock when Dad brought up staying at the ranch to help Serge move. “He’s still my father,” Dad had said. “He needs help. There’s no one else but us.”

“I know, but can’t we find a hotel?” Mom had said.

Dad had snorted. “There aren’t any hotels, Patricia. It’s the middle of the desert. The middle of nowhere. If we could camp outside and not be roasted alive, I’d buy tents tomorrow. Nope, we’ll have to stay in the house . . . with him.”

Mom had said, as an answer, “School starts August twelfth.” That’s when I knew my summer of sitting in Sofie’s front-yard hammock, walking to the gas station with Gabby for slushies, and splashing in the pool with my friends for hours flew out the window on an eagle’s feathered wings.

I chew on a hangnail. “It has been a long time for Dad” is all I say. I mean it as a defense both for Serge’s gruffness and for Dad’s meddling in sheep affairs.

“You don’t have to tell an old man about time,” Serge says. “I’m as old as time itself.”

His top half disappears as he rummages deep in a metal bin. “But let me tell you something I’ve learned,
chiquita
. Measuring time isn’t as simple as adding or subtracting minutes from a clock.” He hauls out his sheep-shearing things. “You must find your own measuring stick.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Serge gestures to the pasture. “Some count sheep to fall asleep. I count sheep to count time.” He hands me a bottle of tonic and a gray rubber spoon.

“I’m not touching sheep,” I say.

“I’ll hold them,” he says. “You shovel in the tonic. One spoonful per sheep. Get it all the way past the tongue, or they’ll spit it back out.”

I want to protest such a disgusting chore, but the shadows on the wall catch my eye. Four hands: two are mine, two Serge’s. His hands tremble, even in silhouette. Mine are young and steady.

I can lend them out for a while. I’ll help Serge measure time.

Serge fetches a sheep from the pasture while I uncap the bottle. Ugh! The stench of the tonic is so foul, my nose tickles. Serge tilts the poor sheep back, in a sort of choke hold: my first victim.

I’ve never stared an animal square in the face. The sheep’s eyes bulge out from its skull in two different directions. It struggles, but Serge tightens his grip, so the sheep sinks back, relaxing, like a giant ugly infant succumbing to a lullaby.

Now that I see a sheep up close, I understand why Dad didn’t think Serge should shear them. Its wool is scraggly, bug-ridden, and dirt-caked, a blanket of tangled split ends. Sheep are supposed to be puffy white cotton balls, clouds with legs. This sheep’s skeleton juts past its scrawny wool, like its bones are hangers for future wool-knit sweaters.

This is what drought is. Skinny sheep; desperate biting flies; desert sand so dusty it hovers in the air, because the sky has more moisture than the land. The feeling of joints and muscles tightening, because heat makes bodies wring themselves out, mummifying us alive.

This is the drought of my dad’s childhood, of Serge’s every day.

A dying land.

Lu’s bored with the saddle and is now banging two little garden shovels together to entertain himself. Serge and I dose sheep after sheep. Serge cradles their heads with such tenderness; he and the sheep have been doing this dance for years. I do my thing: hold nose, pour tar, insert spoon.

“Oh, the sheep I’ve shorn in this barn . . .” Serge scans the rotting wood rafters above us. “Do you know how Raúl measures time? In money. And bills. Things that time turns into dust and blows away in one breath.” He waggles his finger. “You must find a measuring stick that means something,
chiquita
.”