Valley Fever by Katherine Taylor Read Free Book Online

belly sped in through a gap in the screen, through the open window by the sink. “Spiders,” I said, “are good luck.”
    â€œNot in the house,” Mother said. “Smash it, will you?”
    â€œNot good, not good.” I squashed the thing with a paper towel. “Bad luck,” I said.
    â€œWilson says to wait until the grapes are picked and see what the situation looks like then.” Mother got that crease between her eyebrows she gets when she’s angry or tired or sad.
    â€œI don’t know why you listen to what Wilson says.”
    â€œYour father wants to listen to Wilson,” Mother said. With her index finger, she tried to put her eyelashes back in order. They were all crisscrossed one over the other. “Your father is a wonderful farmer and a wonderful husband, but he can’t spot an idiot.”
    â€œFelix listens to Wilson, I guess.”
    â€œFelix doesn’t listen to anyone but Felix.”
    â€œYou know, he talks a lot, but I’ve had wines that cost more than ten dollars at Uncle Felix’s house.”
    She looked at me, and all I could see was that awful crease. “You really can’t believe one word he says.” When I was in high school, Uncle Felix had federal charges brought against him for trying to pass off cheap grapes as cabernet. He had tossed cabernet leaves over grapes from a less expensive varietal. He worked out a plea to avoid jail, but he is now, technically, a felon. “You know that, right?”
    â€œLet’s go to Zapato’s,” I said. Even the flicker of heat from the stove to boil the eggs was too much to bear in this house, in July, in Fresno. I don’t know how Mother managed to bake the pie. “And then let’s go get you new nightgowns.”
    â€œI don’t like the food at Zapato’s. You like Zapato’s because you want a margarita.”
    â€œOr Bootsie’s.”
    â€œYes, you should go see Bootsie,” Mother said. “Poor Bootsie.” Bootsie Calhoun moved back from New York to look after the family’s property (her brother was useless and smoked too much heroin) and had opened a small but popular restaurant in the Tower District. Her father was killed in a car accident on Avenue 22. He’d gone missing, and by the time they found him in his overturned car on the dry embankment of the Mendota Canal, his identification and sheepskin seat covers and the hubcaps from his old Mercedes had been stolen.
    â€œYou should come with me,” I said.
    â€œI don’t want to go out of the house.”
    â€œMother.”
    â€œI lost the keys to the silver drawer. I don’t know where the keys are.” She continued playing cards.
    â€œThey’ll turn up.”
    â€œDo you think someone came into the house and took the keys?”
    â€œNo. I don’t think that.”
    â€œWell, my heart is racing. I don’t want to leave the house without knowing where those keys are. Don’t tell your father.”
    â€œDo you want me to crack your eggs for you?”
    â€œYou always mess up the yolk.” She tapped the egg delicately. “I’m afraid someone took those keys out of my purse.”
    â€œThey’ll turn up, Mom.”
    â€œDid you make toast?”
    I sliced the toast into six little strips and placed them in front of her, next to the cards.
    Mother dunked her toast soldiers deep into the egg so that yolk ran over the shell. “You made a nice egg,” she said. “I want you to eat yours.”
    â€œI can’t really eat.”
    She nodded. “You should call Bootsie Calhoun.”
    My throat filled. “You should call a lawyer.”
    There was a silence in which she flipped cards, gathered them up, and shuffled. “Maybe we should have a party. A party like we used to,” she said.
    â€œYou hate parties.”
    â€œI hate other people’s parties. My parties are fun.”
    â€œA