Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver [33]
Taylor smiles, catching the slender, almost dangerous thing that has passed between them. She clatters coffee mugs and pours black grounds into the filter. “Your accent makes me homesick. I know it’s Okie, but to me it doesn’t sound that far off from Kentucky.”
“I was just thinking that,” Annawake says. “You sound like home to me. Almost. There’s a difference but I can’t name it.”
Taylor stands by the stove and for a while neither woman speaks. Taylor takes in Annawake’s appearance: her black brush of hair all seems to radiate out from a single point, the widow’s peak in her forehead. Her skin is a beautiful pottery color you want to touch, like Turtle’s. She’s wearing a maroon cotton shirt with blue satin ribbons stitched on the yoke and shoulder seams. Taylor fiddles with the gas burner. They listen to a long guitar riff and Jax’s voice coming from outside:
“Big boys…play games. Their toys…follow me home. Big boys play games, big bang, you’re gone…”
Annawake raises an eyebrow.
“That’s my boyfriend’s band.” Taylor looks out the window. “Hey, it’s working. No birds.”
“Is this some kind of experiment?”
Taylor laughs. “You must think I’m cracked. I’m trying to keep the birds out of the apricot tree. My little girl likes apricots more than anything living or dead, and she’s the kind of kid that just doesn’t ask for much. I’ve been going out of my head trying to think how to get the birds out of the fruit.”
“My grandma planted mulberry trees next to her peach trees. The birds liked the mulberries better. They’d sit in the mulberry and laugh, thinking they were getting away with something good, and leave all the peaches for us.”
“No kidding,” Taylor says. “Wish I’d thought of that twenty years ago.”
“Your daughter. That’s Turtle, the apricot lover?”
“That’s right.”
After another long minute of quiet, the teakettle begins to rattle. Taylor lifts it and pours hissing water into the coffee grounds. “She’s not here at the moment. She’ll be real surprised when she comes back and sees those birds gone.” Taylor smiles down at the counter in a way that surprises Annawake because it is almost timid. Private. It passes, and Taylor looks back at Annawake. “Jax took her and a neighbor kid to see these two new rhinoceroses they got in at the zoo. He and Turtle are trying to write a song about endangered species.”
“What’s the story of that name?”
“What, Turtle? Well, not as good as yours. It’s just a nickname more or less, because of her personality. Turtle is…well, she holds on. From the time she was little she’d just grab me and not let go. In Kentucky where I grew up, people used to say if a snapping turtle gets hold of you it won’t let go till it thunders. Do you take cream or anything?”
“Black, please.”
“That’s the story,” she says, serving Annawake and sitting down opposite. “There’s not much about us that hasn’t been in the papers already. To tell you the truth, I think we’re storied out. No offense, but we’re hoping to just get back to normal.”
Annawake shakes her head slightly.
“You’re a reporter, right? I just assumed you saw us on TV. You said you’re here for some kind of a journalist convention?”
Annawake holds her coffee mug in both hands and takes a sip. “I’m sorry, I’ve misled you,” she says carefully, one phrase at a time. “I did see you on television, but I’m not a reporter. I’m an attorney. I’m in town for a Native American Law conference.”
“A lawyer? I never would have guessed a lawyer.”
“Well, thanks, I guess. I work in an office that does a lot of work for the Cherokee Nation. That’s what I want to talk with you about. Turtle’s adoption might not be valid.”
Taylor’s cup stops an inch from her lips, and for nearly half a minute she does not appear to breathe. Then she puts down the cup. “I’ve been through all this already. The social worker said I needed adoption papers, so I went to Oklahoma City and I got papers. If you want to see,