I’m floating.
She felt weightless, a perfect combination of sun and water, cold and hot, steady in his arms. For a magnificent moment, the world fell away and she was somewhere else, before now, or long from now, and she wasn’t hungry or tired or scared or angry. She simply was. She closed her eyes and felt at peace for the first time in years. Safe.
When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring down at her. He leaned down, so close she thought he might kiss her, but he whispered, “Do you know how beautiful you are?”
She wanted to laugh at the obvious joke, but she couldn’t make a sound, not with him staring at her. After a moment, her silence turned the moment awkward. Still, she had no idea what she should have said.
He carried her back to the grassy shore and set her down and left her there, shivering and confused, both by his words and her sudden feelings for him.
He returned with a serape, which he wrapped around her shoulders. Opening the basket, he called for the kids, who ran up, dripping water from their clothes.
Ant collapsed beside Elsa. She pulled him under the serape with her.
Jack opened the basket and pulled out bottles of Coca-Cola and tamales filled with beans and ch
eese and pork and a deliciously spiced sauce.
It was the best day any of them had had in years, since before the dust and the drought and the Depression.
“It reminds you, doesn’t it?” Loreda said much later, when the park had emptied and the sky had darkened and the stars had come out to shine.
“Of what?”
“Home,” Loreda said. “I swear I can hear the windmill.”
But it was just the water, slapping rhythmically against the shore.
“I miss it,” Ant said.
“I’m sure they miss us, too,” Elsa said. “We will write them tomorrow and tell them all about this wonderful day.” She looked at Jack. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The exchange felt oddly intimate, or maybe it was the way he looked at her, or the way his look made her feel. You scare me, she wanted to say, but it was ridiculous and what did it matter anyway? This was just one day, a vacation. “And now…”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Jack stood. So did Ant and Loreda. He got them settled in the back of his truck and then opened the cab door for Elsa.
Back to the camp. Real life.
The road home was long and lonely and winding. In her head Elsa started a dozen conversations with him, found bits and pieces to say, but in reality she sat in silence, too confused to say much of anything. Today had felt … special, but what did she know of things like that? She didn’t want to humiliate herself by imagining some feeling that wasn’t there.
At the entrance to the Welty camp, Jack pulled off to the side of the road and parked. Elsa watched him walk through the headlights’ yellow glow to open her door.
She stepped out; he took her hand.
“I’m going up to Salinas soon. To try to unionize the workers up there. Maybe head over to the canneries. I’ll be gone awhile. So…”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“I didn’t want you to think I just … ran off. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“That’s an odd thing to say to a woman you barely know.”
“If you’ll notice, I’m trying to change that, Elsa. I want to know you. If you’ll just give me a chance.”
“You scare me,” she said.
“I know,” he said, still holding her hand. “The growers are scared, the townspeople are angry, the state is bleeding money, and people are desperate. It’s a volatile situation. Something’s gotta give. The last time it exploded, three union organizers were dead. I don’t want to put you in danger.”