Free The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel Page B

replaced the hat. Looking off into the willows, he said, “Being out here is the point. Fishing is just...” He searched for the right word. “An excuse, I suspect.”
    â€œThanks for letting it go.”
    â€œYou bet.”
    â€œI can’t fillet a fish anyway.”
    â€œI can,” he said, nodding. “But it’s a heap of trouble.”
    The surface of the lake became flat and still and solid as marble. I stretched out in the boat like a cat on a windowsill. To my surprise, I enjoyed this day. Ray was enjoying it, too, and that worried me more than being miserable.

Seven

    The next day, in late afternoon, Rose and Lorelei showed up on my porch, smiling and looking as if they’d just come from the beauty shop, not from the fields. Their hair looked freshly curled and styled, their cotton shirts still held creases along the tops of the sleeves, and their denims showed no sign of dirt, no tears or faded patches, either. Only their dusty, scraped shoes gave away that these girls had just come from working in the dirt. How did they do it? Obviously they wore gloves to protect their hands, but how were they able to keep their clothing so untouched?
    â€œWe skipped off from our overseer,” Rose explained.
    â€œShe’s Issei, very strict,” said Lorelei.
    I welcomed them in as I recalled the meaning of the name, Issei. First-generation Japanese emigrated to the U.S. were called by this name; they retained much of their traditional values and mores. These two sisters were clearly Nisei or Sansei, second- or third-generation American citizens by birth. As we later sat on the steps sipping Cokes out of green bottles through paper straws, they told me they had both been enrolled at UCLA before the evacuation notices went up.
    Rose said, “When I was only seven, I won first place in the spelling bee at my school. And ever since, I’ve wanted to teach English.” She finished her Coke and set the bottle down on the porch step without making a sound. “The language and the words,” she said, “must be perfect.”
    â€œAnd perfectly spelled,” Lorelei said, elbowing her sister.
    Rose spoke back, but her quiet voice could barely manage to criticize. “At least I’ve set my plans.”
    Lorelei played with her hair, flipping it just under her ear. She explained to me, “Back at school, I hadn’t settled on a major yet. Too many things interested me, so I was taking all the required courses first.”
    Rose snickered. “She studied the senior boys.”
    Lorelei laughed aloud, covered her mouth, and then blushed. “Only the clever ones. Or the dashing ones,” she said. She hung her hands over her feet and sat so that their shadow covered her work shoes.
    Later I told them about the history studies I, too, had abandoned. That once I had planned to go on expedition to Egypt, to help decipher the hieroglyphs, to aid in recording the excavation of tomb chambers buried in the sands.
    â€œAh, King Tut,” Rose said.
    At last, a conversation about another part of the world, off this farm. The discovery of King Tut-ankh-amen’s tomb in 1922 had awakened much of the general population to the wonders of ancient Egypt, but I doubted that its reach had extended to many others in the onion fields. “And so many other tombs, so many other kings and princesses, as well,” I said. “I was particularly interested in studying the pharaoh who ruled before King Tut, named Akh-en-aten.”
    They looked as if they wanted me to continue.
    â€œHistorians think he had a misshapen head and hips because portraits reveal this about him. And he believed in only one god, Aten, and he built a great holy city, Horizon-of-the-Aten, in his honor.”
    Rose looked at her hands, then she turned and asked me, “Do you miss it?”
    I hadn’t expected such a direct question. “Yes,” I answered her. Then I hugged my