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When Angel drove the tractor, he always stood up; if he sat down without a cushion on the seat (and he thought a cushion was for an old man with piles), he couldn't quite see the radiator cap. He was afraid that, if he sat down, the engine might overheat and the radiator would boil over without his noticing it. But most of all, it looked better to drive a tractor standing up.
He was glad he was driving the International Harvester; years ago, Raymond Kendall had built a swivel for the seat. He could let Rose Rose sit down--with or without Baby Rose in her lap--and he could stand a little to one side of the swivel seat and operate the tractor without awkwardness. There was a foot clutch, a foot brake, and a hand throttle. The emergency hand brake was next to Rose Rose's hip; the gearshift was by her knee.
"Why you wear that old baseball cap?" she asked him. "You got nice eyes, but nobody see 'em. You got nice hair, but nobody see it. And you got one pale forehead 'cause the sun can't find your face. If you didn't wear that dumb cap, your face would be as brown as your body."
This implied to Angel, of course, that Rose Rose liked his body being brown, didn't care for his forehead being pale, and had managed--despite the hat--to notice his eyes and hair (and to like them, too).
After filling the trailer with his first load of apples, Angel took a long drink from a water jug in the orchard, twisting the baseball cap backward on his head as he drank. Then he wore it that way, the way a catcher wears a baseball cap--or the way Candy wore it, with the visor tipped over her hair and the back of her neck. Somehow it looked better that way on Candy. When Rose Rose saw Angel wearing the cap that way, she said, "Now you look real stupid, like you got a ball for a head."
The next day, Angel let Candy wear the cap.
Baby Rose was sucking the pacifier, like a three-horsepower pump, and Rose Rose smiled at Angel. "Where's that nice hat?" she asked him.
"I lost it," he lied.
"Too bad," she said. "It was nice."
"I thought you didn't like that hat," he said.
"I didn't like that hat on you," said Rose Rose.
The next day he brought the hat a
nd put it on her head as soon as she was settled into the tractor seat. Rose Rose looked awfully pleased; she wore the hat the same way Angel had worn it--low, over her eyes. Baby Rose looked cross-eyed at the visor.
"You lost it and then you found it, huh?" Rose Rose asked Angel.
"Right," Angel said.
"You better be careful," she told him. "You don't wanna get involved with me."
But Angel was flattered and encouraged that she'd even noticed his interest--especially since he was unsure how to express his interest.
"How old are you?" he asked her casually, later that day.
" 'Bout your age, Angel," was all she said. Baby Rose slumped against her breast; a floppy-brimmed white sailor's hat protected the baby from the sun, but under the brim of the hat, the little girl looked glassy-eyed and exhausted from chomping on the pacifier all day. "I don't believe you can still be teethin'," Rose Rose said to her daughter. She took hold of the baby-blue plastic ring and pulled the pacifier out of the little girl's mouth; it made a pop like a wine cork, which startled Baby Rose. "You becomin' an addict," Rose Rose said, but when Baby Rose started to cry, her mother put the nipple back.
"How do you like the name Gabriella?" Angel asked Rose Rose.
"I never heard it before," she said.
"How about Ginger?" Angel asked.
"That somethin' you eat," Rose Rose said.
"Gloria?" Angel asked.
"That nice," said Rose Rose. "Who it for?"
"Your baby!" Angel said. "I've been thinking of names for your baby." Rose Rose raised the visor of the Boston Red Sox cap and looked into Angel's eyes.
"Why you thinkin' of that?" she asked him.
"Just to be of help," he said awkwardly. "Just to help you decide."
"Decide?" Rose Rose asked.
"To help you make up your mind," said Angel Wells.
