Read Online Delta Girls by Gayle Brandeis - Free Book Online

various undergarments as Karen and Nathan stepped off the ice. Karen had gotten a few trinkets from fans when she skated with Brian, but nothing like this.
    “What was all the talking out there?” Deena asked as she helped scoop up the loot. Fans reached down, grabbed at Nathan’s hair, his sleeve, screaming. He kissed a few hands, picked up scraps of paper covered with phone numbers and doodled hearts.
    “Your daughter has quite a mouth on her,” said Nathan.
    Some of the fans shot Karen nasty looks. As if the only thing keeping them from Nathan was her and her dirty mouth. Karen picked up a stuffed monkey and tried to smile.
    “You both need to focus,” Deena said, shaking a pair of teal panties in their direction.
    “We’re golden.” Nathan snatched the underwear from Deena’s hand and put his arm around Karen. The panties tickled her elbow. “Aren’t we, babe?”
    He had never called her “babe” before.
    “Golden.” She felt the sun rise inside her chest.
    KAREN AND NATHAN were the third pairs team to skate their short program. The first two teams had a couple of bobbles, one triple that became a double, nothing too cataclysmic. Nothing too exciting, either. Decent scores, but nothing that would keep them in the top slots.
    “We’ll sail right past them,” Nathan said as they stretched in the holding area.
    “You better.” Deena laughed, but it sounded more like a bark, sending tingles up Karen’s neck. Karen’s heart did its normal pre-competition hummingbird dance. She took a few deep breaths, told herself,
Just skate, just skate, just skate
.
    When she and Nathan stepped onto the ice, the crowd erupted, and Karen’s heart threatened to jump out of her dress. As soon as the music started, though, the throbbing settled into her rib cage and her body went into autopilot. The audience clapped along with the jazzy rhythm, squealing when Nathan shook his narrow hips in time to the drums. Karen doubted anyone was screaming for her hips—the little shake always felt awkward to her, like she was pretending to be something she wasn’t. Her mother had often said, “You need to get your center lower, Karen. You’re too upright. Sink into your knees and your hips will be freer,” but it was hard to subvert all those years of being told to reach her spine up to the ceiling.
    Karen kept her mouth stretched into a smile. That took more effort than any of the jumps or spins or combinations; her muscles knew the choreography. Only her face felt strained. It was all she was aware of—not Nathan, not the edges of her blades digging into the ice; only the tightness of her cheeks, the set of her jaw. Then, before she knew it, the number was over, and she felt her face relax into a genuine smile of relief. Fans tossed more flowers and lingerie and stuffed toys onto the ice.
    “We did it,” Nathan whispered as they grabbed hands and lifted their arms in the air.
    Not yet
, she thought.

I FOUND MYSELF LOOKING FOR BEN WHEN QUINN AND I walked from our car to the distillery, when we stopped at the chicken coop and Quinn said hello to her favorite hen, the Araucana she had named Buttercup, the one who laid pale green eggs. The chickens had made Quinn a bit nervous at first—especially the rooster, who she worried might be Vidofnir, the Norse rooster whose crowing announces the battle that ends the world—but after Mrs. Vieira let her gather eggs and fill their waters, she grew to love them, even when they chased her around the coop, pecked at her ankles, pulled at her shoelaces.
    I tried not to read too much into the fact that Ben had gone searching for us, that he had given us a ride home—
he just has his parents’ generosity
, I told myself. We hadn’t talked much in the truck on the way home; he hadn’t walked us to the houseboat, just waved from the cab and went back to the
festa
. But I found myself wanting another glimpse of those dark eyes, those furry legs.
    Mr. Vieira walked up to us as Quinn was