I scrambled to my feet, but the damage was done. There had been plenty of time for Dad to get a good look at me lying sprawled on the ground while the rest of the crew was picking away. When Dad got out of his truck and stood by the cab with his arms folded over his chest, I knew he was waiting to talk to me.
I was sure everyone was watching out of the corners of their eyes as I walked stiffly over to Dad. He reached into the truck and held something out to me. It was a quart of strawberries. Pale, unripe, dirty, packed in with bits of straw and leaves. I was surprised—and embarrassed—at how awful it looked.
I was dead.
“Is this your work?” he asked quietly. Somehow, when Dad got quiet, it was worse than if he yelled.
I shrugged, staring at the ground, too ashamed to speak.
“Look at me,” he said impatiently.
I forced myself to meet his angry blue eyes.
“Is this your work?” he repeated.
“I guess so.”
“You guess so?” He paused, and when I didn’t respond he said, “Well, I know so. And you know how I know? Because none of these other people”—his free arm shot out to encompass the crew—“would dream of picking a quart of berries that looked like this.”
I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I had really messed up this time.
“Well?”
I shrugged again. Wrong move. Dad was looking seriously mad now.
“Didn’t anyone show you how to do the job right?” Dad asked, and you could tell he already knew the answer.
“Gilberto showed me,” I said quietly.
Dad sighed. “Help me out here, Joe. I’m trying to understand why you would deliberately do a shoddy job.”
Oh, man. At that moment I wished a big bird would swoop down and carry me away, even if it was a flesh-eating bird with hungry babies waiting. How could I explain to Dad, who always did everything perfectly, what it felt like to be the slowest and the worst, no matter how hard I tried? How could I explain to Dad, who always had himself under perfect control, that I did it because I got sick of Manuel always being better at everything than I was? Because I was jealous of the way Dad acted toward him, compared with the way he acted toward me. Because I got so mad I couldn’t stop myself. How could I explain to Dad, who had worked hard almost every day of his life since he was a kid, that I hated picking strawberries and that I was so tired and sore and miserable I felt like sleeping for a month?
“Is it the money, Joe?” he asked. “Is that why you did this?”
“No,” I said finally. “Not really.” I had to pull myself together and think of some way to explain. “I mean, I see now what you meant about how I’d probably—well, definitely—make more by sticking with my hourly pay.”
It suddenly struck me that Dad had been more than fair—generous, even—to give me a choice. The thought made me feel even worse.
“And I was pretty slow, you know?”
Dad nodded.
“I was working alongside Manuel, and…” My voice drifted off.
Dad finished for me. “And you were trying to keep up with him.”
“Yeah.”
“Joe, Manuel has years of experience working in berries.”
“I know,” I said miserably.
“So no one expects you to be as good as he is the first day.”
“I know.” Especially you.
“The most important thing is doing a good job, Joe. Cutting corners doesn’t work. It always catches up with you. Someone has to sort through all those quarts you picked.”
Before Dad could say it, I did. “I’ll do it.”
“Come on, get in,” Dad said, climbing into the driver’s seat of the truck. “The produce manager at Tip-Top is expecting those berries before five o’clock. You ought to be able to finish in time.”
The ride back to the barn was a quiet one. It wasn’t the easy, comfortable kind of quiet, either. Dad’s silences always made me feel squirmy and fidgety. I couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking about, and this time I was pretty sure I knew: he was thinking about me, and what a disappointing screwup I was.
I spent the rest of the afternoon re-sorting the berries I’d picked so Dad could run them into the local grocery store in time for people to buy them for their Saturday night desserts and Sunday breakfasts. When I’d finished and counted up the total, I discovered that my haul for the entire day had been reduced to a measly eleven eight-quart baskets, which meant I had busted my butt for a crummy $19.80.
I was disgusted, not with the money—or lack of it—but with myself. I’d acted like a big, fat fool in front of everybody, and I’d managed to accomplish the exact opposite of what I’d hoped for. I hadn’t beaten Manuel, or impressed Dad, or proven anything except that I could act like a real jerk sometimes. I congratulated myself on my brilliant performance.
“Joe,” Dad called to me as he started up the truck to leave for the store, “the berries in the west field are coming in fast. The crew is going to work tomorrow. It’s up to you if you want to join them. After church, of course,” he added as he pulled away.
Did I want to go back and face the crew and squat in the dirt picking strawberries on the one day of the week I planned to spend doing absolutely nothing?
No way.
Was I going to do it?
You bet I was.