Duck Eggs
When Naomi Misteria is seventeen, she’s assaulted for the second time by a foster father. She promptly declares to her social worker she is done with family placement, and puts on the desk an article about a facility outside Poughkeepsie.
“It’s called the Mid-Hudson Juvenile Resident Facility,” she says. “The locals call it Lark House. It’s geared toward kids transitioning out of foster care to independent living. I want to go here. I can finish senior year and learn the skills I need.”
It’s perhaps one of the happiest years of her life, at least by Naomi Misteria standards.
Lark House is situated in a quaint village called Guelisten, high on a bluff over the Hudson River.
Naomi can walk everywhere at any hour of day or night.
The politics and drama of the local high school are no different from the half-dozen she’s attended, but perhaps something is in the local water system for nobody bothers or bullies her.
She works weekdays at the public library, weekends at a small bookstore.
She builds a vegetable garden for Lark House and takes cooking shifts in the kitchen.
She doesn’t make friends, but she grows comfortable with being friendly.
The career counselor at Lark House first reads about Schoenfeld’s in the Poughkeepsie Journal, and promptly shows the article to Naomi. “This place looks right up your alley. It’s a bit far but I wonder if they’d do a work-study with us?”
Naomi reads the feature again and again. Goosebumps rash up and down her arms and her toes curl tight. This place isn’t just up her alley, it’s her Somewhere. Her eyes blink rapidly as they devour the history of the Black Dirt Region, which sounds like something in a fairytale.
Once upon a time, somewhere in the Black Dirt Region, a witch grew a garden…
She reads about Mary Schoenfeld, whose German immigrant ancestors first bought the land. The CSA and partnership with local food banks. The flocks of chickens and ducks. The fields and crops. A pergola covered with wisteria vines—scions of plants that had survived Hiroshima.
Oh please, she thought, the newsprint trembling in her hands. Please. Please…
She cuts the article out and hangs it over her bed. Imagines herself living in such a place. Working there. Belonging there. She’s never prayed in her life, but every night before turning out the light, she reads the article and entreats whatever divine power may be: Please.
This is my Somewhere.
I know it is.
Please.
If they don’t already know how, Lark House teaches all residents to drive.
Getting a license is priority, as it’s the first step to independence.
Cars aren’t abundant, so four to five residents form a pod to share ownership of a clunker.
They learn to change oil, check tire pressure, handle the maintenance and take turns.
Naomi patiently waits for her scheduled day on the calendar, and on a brilliant Saturday afternoon she drives across the Mid-Hudson Bridge and down the Palisades to Orange County. Heart beating thick in her bound chest when she sees the sign reading, Schoenfeld’s: Farm to Market
At the end of the long drive is a covered stand, the day’s produce laid out in colorful piles or arranged in bushel baskets. Jars of honey line up warm and golden.
“Hello.” A young woman is arranging bouquets of wildflowers in tin buckets of water. “Can I help you with anything?”
“I read the article in the Poughkeepsie Journal. I was in the area. I just wanted to visit.”
“Did you now? That’s wonderful. Welcome.” The woman waves a general hand around. “Visit away.”
Naomi hesitates. “Do you work here?”
“I do.”
“Do you love it?”
The woman throws arms wide and smiles even wider. “Best summer job ever.”
Naomi takes her time walking the farm, checking off each thing she read in the now-memorized article.
The sprawling farmhouse. The barns. The greenhouses.
The fields. The flower gardens. The chicken coop and the duck pond.
She ambles down the path to the three renovated cottages which host artists every summer.
On the little patio outside one house, someone is painting at an easel.
This is Somewhere, Naomi thinks, holding her elbows tight.
This is Here.
A long walkway connects the farm to the house, with a pergola built over it.
Posts rooted in concrete, iron bars reinforcing the cross struts.
The vines winding around the base of the posts are as thick as her wrist. Hercules and the Nemean lion, locked in combat.
More delicate vines near the top, foliage like ferns.
At the far end she sees the man and woman from the article’s pictures.
The Schoenfelds. John and Mary. Such absurdly generic first names.
And yet they’re perfect. Naomi has to talk to them.
But she can’t be one of the many faces who come visit.
She has to make an impression. She has to make them not just see her, but remember her.
She ducks behind an outbuilding and takes off her sweatshirt.
Underneath is a T-shirt and under that, the Ace bandages binding her flat.
She unwinds and stuffs them in her bag. Just this once, she will let her breasts be her calling card.
They are the bane of her existence, but they are unforgettable.
If they speak of her later as the Girl with Big Tits, so be it. As long as they remember her.
She ties the sleeves around her waist, adding some padding to her hips and a bit more balance to her overall figure. She squares her shoulders and begins to walk down the vine-covered pergola, letting her hand trail on the foliage.
This is Somewhere and I am here.
I am a granddaughter of Ruta Skadi and you will remember I was here.
“Hello,” she calls. “Are you the Schoenfelds?”
“We are,” they say.
Mary is a rail: lean and straight and strong. Her graying hair hangs in a braid down her back. No makeup or adornment except a pair of dangling, silver earrings. John is softer. Slouchier. Also with graying hair and a beard, and bright, curious eyes.
Naomi has rehearsed her pitch, honing it short, simple and to the point. This is who I am, this is what I want.
“So if you think it’s possible,” she finishes, “the career counselor at Lark House asked if you’d call her.” Naomi hands over a business card. “I wrote my name on the back.”
“I think it’s more than possible,” Mary says, studying the card.
“Didn’t we do a farmer’s market in Guelisten a few years back?” John asks his wife.
“Hudson Bluffs,” Mary says. “And it was I, not we.”
John smiles at Naomi. “It was the royal we.”
“Beautiful area but a bit of a shlep for us,” Mary says. “So it was just the once. I remember Guelisten though. Holy cow, that town was a picture postcard.”
Naomi laughs. “Right? There’s got to be at least one Satanic cult in all that Normal Rockwell charm.”
Mary beams at her, and if she’d touched each of Naomi’s shoulders with a sprig of cloud pine, Naomi couldn’t have felt more anointed.
“Well, thank you for your time and the tour. I hope we talk soon.” Naomi gives Mary a conspiratorial glance. “The plebeian we.”
Mary gives a sisterhood wink and on that good note, Naomi shakes their hands and sets off down the driveway. She unties the sweatshirt from her waist and drapes it over an arm. Pins her shoulders and raises her face into the oncoming wind. She knows she looks very, very good from the back.
So concentrated is she on her rearguard action, she leaves her front open for attack. A boy is at the covered farm stand. A boy around her age. A good-looking boy dripping competent confidence who is going to take one look at her from the front and make decisions.
He’s not important, she tells herself sternly. He’s not part of the plan. Walk by and nod. “Hi” is all that’s required.
The boy is taking bundles of asparagus from a Radio Flyer wagon and stacking them on the shelves.
Gold brown hair fluffs out from under a backward ball cap.
Dark brows and lips that look, dammit, sculpted.
Beyond annoying, a guy with a chiseled mouth like that.
It looks rock hard but no doubt it would melt under a kiss.
Whatever.
“Hi,” she says. Brusquely. Like a challenge.
“Hey, how are you,” he says, a single mosh of sound through those ridiculous lips. “You like asparagus?”
“Sure.”
“Just picked. Still warm from the sun.” He separates a slender spear from a bunch and breaks it off at its natural sweet spot. He gives her the part with the tip, takes a bite from the bottom half, and goes back to unloading and arranging, the spear tucked in his mouth like a green cigarette.
“Hey, could you set this on the top shelf there?” He hands her a piece of cardboard nailed to a block of wood to make it stand up. “Put that rock on top of the wood so it doesn’t blow over. Thanks.”
The sign reads: Asparagus. Picked today. $2/bunch or 3 for $5. Try it steamed with fresh, poached eggs. And think of us later when you pee.
“I will literally put a poached egg on anything,” Naomi says.
“Holy crap, same,” the boy says with a gigantic smile. His teeth, thank God, are far from perfect. Impeccable chompers on top of the beautiful lips would be too much to bear. “You ever have a duck egg?” he asks, eating the last of his asparagus spear.
“No.”
“Want one?”
“How much?”
“Free for a first-timer. Hold on. Be right back.” He takes the handle of the wagon and sets out along the driveway, but stops after a few steps.
“Hey, can you put this out by the road?” From the bottom of the wagon he takes a large sandwich board, also advertising the fresh-picked asparagus.
Naomi takes it, pleased to be assigned these tasks. Her first job at Schoenfeld’s.
Remember this, she thinks, setting the sign carefully at the driveway’s edge, weighing the center down with a few rocks. Remember this day. It starts here.