Delta Girls by Gayle Brandeis Read Free Book Online Page A

boat.
    “Only all the Portuguese in the Delta,” he said, but that didn’t help.
    “Can we go, Eema?” Quinn looked so earnest, her eyes bright, her mind not on monsters for the first time all day.
    “Do you really want to?” I handed her another bottle. “You don’t even know what it is.”
    “I do, Eema,” she said. “I really really want to go.”
    Mr. Vieira looked at me as if to say
See? I told you
.
    “We’ll miss the mass,” he said, “but if we clean up fast when we’re done picking, we might make the parade.”
    ———
    MRS. VIEIRA WAS loading cases of her homemade pear preserves in the back of their silver pickup truck when we drove back to their house, freshly showered and changed. Quinn had put on what she considered her best outfit—a plaid dress shirt and a floral skirt, with green penny loafers; I had thrown on clean jeans and a black tank top, some worn huaraches, large sunglasses. A slash of lip gloss, which I hadn’t done in ages.
    Ben came out of the house, carrying another box of preserves to add to the stack. His cargo shorts gave me a good glimpse of his hairy legs. I blushed as I remembered their tickly heft.
    “So we meet out of bed,” he said as he walked down the steps, and I felt my blush grow deeper.
    He set the box in the back of the truck. The jars clanked and settled inside. “Need anything else, Ma?” he asked. She shook her head.
    He walked over and bent down next to Quinn. “Sorry I scared you last night,” he said.
    “It’s okay,” she said, but leaned hard into my side.
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said. I couldn’t seem to look him in the eye as he stood back up, but I could feel him the way you feel static electricity, a thick buzz all over my skin.
    WE PILED INTO the Vieiras’ truck—Mr. and Mrs. Vieira in the front bucket seats, Quinn squeezed between me and Ben in the bench seat behind them. The center of Comice wasn’t too far away—just about a mile after crossing the yellow bridge—but the road was so uncharacteristically full of cars, it took almost fifteen minutes to get there. I stared out the window the whole time, too embarrassed to look in Ben’s direction.
    Downtown Comice wasn’t much to speak of—just a couple of blocks of worn brick and wooden storefronts, many of them vacant, most built by Portuguese immigrants in the late 1800s,the Vieiras among them. The majority of the Portuguese settlers in the Delta had become dairy farmers, but a few, like the Vieiras, had turned to pears. You could still buy Portuguese sweet bread and wine and cheese and linguica from little shops that also sold Twinkies and Bud Light. The street, normally quiet, was bustling with families and packs of teenagers as we drove slowly past.
    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