berry picker

In August they worked in the blueberry fields. Most berry fields were raked by migrant workers and high school kids, making their way down long lanes of berry bushes, the lanes marked by white strings. But not at this farm. Here they picked the berries by hand, a whole crowd of children and their benevolent boss.

She wanted to be just like her boss, tan and strong and funny, with beautiful light blue eyes. She sat as close to her boss as she could while they picked berries and listened to the radio, sometimes talking but often not. Her brother was nearby, with his best friends. And her best friend was there, too. Sometimes she and her best friend talked about the school clothes they would buy with their berry money. Her best friend had lists and bookmarked catalogs of all the outfits she wanted.

Some days the berries were bad, and she picked only six pints or so, six dollars' worth. On her best day she got 25. Some days it rained too hard to pick berries, and some days it just misted and they went out and got wet.

The sky was usually wide, August blue. The air smelled of berries, and when she was hungry she could eat berries and when she was thirsty there was a communal Coleman thermos of clear, cold well water. Berries squished into her shoes, stained her clothes. At night she dreamed of berry bushes. She learned to roll the berries into her hand, get a handful and then transfer them into the green cardboard pint box and then put the pint box in a row of others like it in the wooden flat.

From berry picking and from her boss she learned what it was to build exactly the life you wanted, bit by bit.