Gayle Brandeis - Delta Girls

A LSO BY G AYLE B RANDEIS

F ICTION

S ELF S TORAGE

T HE B OOK OF D EAD B IRDS

N ONFICTION

F RUITFLESH:

S EEDS OF I NSPIRATION FOR W OMEN W HO W RITE

Y OUNG A DULT F ICTION

M Y L IFE WITH THE L INCOLNS

F OR MY MOM

Delta

If you have taken this rubble for my past
raking through it for fragments you could sell
know that I long ago moved on
deeper into the heart of the matter

If you think you can grasp me, think again:
my story flows in more than one direction
a delta springing from the riverbed
with its five fingers spread

Adrienne Rich

P EARS RIPEN BEST OFF THE TREE .

When I picked beefsteak tomatoes in Illinois, the farm stand owners wanted fat, red fruit. In the Arkansas field, it was easy enough to pop a strawberry into my mouth, my daughters mouth, when the foreman wasnt watching. But pears you have to pick when theyre green and hard. When theyre not ready to yield to a thumb, a tongue. They may drive you wild with their scent, but theyll resist your teeth, make your lips and gums burn.

PEARS DERAILED US on our way to a blueberry farm in Washington, a family-run place that supposedly welcomed children and paid a decent wage. I had just left my job as a watermelon cutter in Niland, California, near the Mexican border; my task was to slice the fruit from its vine and hand it to the pitching crew that followed me around the dusty field. They hefted the melon from one man to the next, bucket-brigade-style, until it reached the pickup truck where it was stacked like wobbly cordwood. My daughter Quinn, meanwhile, sat under a nearby tarp with her third-grade math sheets, face flushed, water bottles surrounding her like a packaged moat.

We left before harvesting was finished; I didnt have a contract like the rest of the crew, whose broker sent them from farm to farm. As a free agent, it was easy for me to take off, find another job. Most small farmers were willing to pay a woman under the table; I only had a problem if they expected something under the table in return. Or if they wouldnt let my nine-year-old homeschooled daughter out on the field with me. I always hoped my dark hair, my skin tan from so much time outside, would help me fit in with each new set of fellow workers, but they inevitably pegged me for a gringa right off the bat. Quinns pale blue eyes probably contributed to this. The fact that I barely understood Spanish after all my time on the circuit didnt help, either.

I hadnt minded the melon pickingI felt kind of like a midwife as I eased the ripe fruit through the thatch of wood wool that protected it from sunburn, as I cut the stubborn umbilical cord, handed the bulky baby over to its line of waiting fathersbut the heat was another issue. A fellow cutter, a pregnant nineteen-year-old, had fallen ill from sunstroke, and I didnt want to risk that with Quinn. Plus the pitching crew made me nervous; I didnt like the way the first guy in line would hover over me as I knelt by the fruit so his crotch would be right in my face when I turned around, didnt like the way the group joked about me in Spanish. I would have felt even more vulnerable if it hadnt been for the knife in my hand.

IT WAS GOOD to be on the open road again, zipping up the belly of California. A car can get claustrophobic when youre parked for the night, when youre trying to sleep with the seat reclined as far as it can go, your whole body aching, your clothes sour, your daughter squirming in the back seat behind you, the air like an oven even with the windows open. But when youre driving and shes sitting beside you and the scenery is changing from desert to mountain to farmland, a mint green twenty-year-old Mercury Zephyrs a fine place to be.

Quinn put her grimy flip-flops up on the dashboard. How much longer, Eema? she asked, turning the vents to blow more air on the backs of her knees. Her faded turquoise shorts rippled and snapped around her legs like sails. I had never told Quinn that Eema was Hebrew for mother, had never told her to call me that, but she had been doing it since she was a baby. She never said Mama, just Eema.

If we drive straight through, twenty-four hours.

She made a noncommittal sound, then went back to her book and her bag of Funyuns. Quinn and I had fallen into the habit of eating convenience store food on the road, negligibly healthy things we could get for cheap: squishy bread with peanut butter, string cheese, granola bars, jerky, the occasional rubbery hard-boiled egg, tomato juice in lieu of fresh vegetables. Plus a rotating string of treats. The Funyuns filled the car with their bouillon cube tang, and I couldnt help but reach into the bag and crunch a few myself. I had a weakness for junk food, and didnt mind the bit of extra heft it gave my belly, my thighs. My body was strong, if achy, from all the farmworkmy body was there for me; it did what I needed it to do. Might as well reward it with some salt and grease.

WE ENTERED A stretch of I-5 with orchards on both sides of the road; the fruit on the trees was too small to identify as we barreled past at eighty miles per hour, sun flashing between the neatly planted rows like a strobe light. Pistachio, I found out when we stopped at a gas station; a small produce stand in the lot was selling bags of the pale green nuts, along with peaches and corn and wedges of watermelon in tubs of ice.

Need any pickers? I asked the woman running the stand, her white hair buffeted by the hot wind. My mouth was dry from the chips, my skin and eyes dry from the summer air. I was tempted to buy some watermelon, even though Quinn and I had glutted ourselves on it for dayswe would hijack melons that had busted open in a fall or developed sugar-crack on the vine; back at our campsite after work, we would plunge our hands straight into the sweet, mealy innards. We must have looked like lions feasting on gazelle, pink pulp hanging off our faces, juice pouring down our arms.

Nah, said the woman, we use machines. Shake the nuts right off the tree.

I GULPED ANOTHER bottle of water as we continued up the I-5. My whole body felt parched; I found myself wishing we had taken the longer route up the coast just so we could see the ocean shimmering beside us. When we crossed what looked like a river in Stockton, I was ready to rip off my clothes and dive in. Instead, I pulled over to check the air in my tires.

Is this the Sacramento River? I asked a guy who was refilling his wiper fluid.

Its the Deepwater Ship Channel, he said, green liquid glugging sweet through his funnel. You want to see the river? Go to the Delta. He handed me a laminated map, one made for boaters. As soon as I saw the spiderweb of waterways, I knew I had to check it out.

Over a thousand miles of water twisted through the Sacramento River Delta, the river routed by levees and dikes, creating wetlands and estuaries and little islands that didnt look like islands, a few palm trees parked amongst the willow and oak to remind you that you were still in California. The rich peat soil farmland was so dense with minerals, it was known to combust. Pears grown in the Delta made up more than half the states crop. Delta water made up more than two-thirds of Californias drinking supply.