Plums by Beth Russell

Plums
By Beth Russell

My mother showed me how to eat the fruit that had fallen from the old tree, picking up one plum after another. “That one’s too soft, see how the skin is wrinkled. Your finger can sink right into it.” She threw it toward the chicken pen. “This one has a hole, a bug has been at it.” She discarded that one, too. “This one is still green. See, it looks blue on this side but on this side its too pale. And feel it. It’s hard. That one will be sour.” She tossed it aside. “But look at this one. See how blue it is? Purple, if you rub the dust away. And look, it gives just a little under my fingers. Try this one.” Her rough hand offered it to me.

The surprise of that first tasting was the tight pop of the skin as it gave, spilling plum sugar across my curious tongue. Awash in delight I sucked the dense flesh away from the almond shaped stone, discovered the pit and spit it carefully into my small hand. “That’s its seed,” my mother said, and I marveled at its woodenness, then threw it at my little brother, Ben, who had come ambling over, curious to know what I was eating. While she chose for him, I began to forage, determined to get the good ones before he did.

Within the hour I had become a connoisseur, able to detect, even before I tasted, that firm full weight that marks the perfect plum. I learned the trick of biting away half, so that I could pull out the stone with my fingers and lick the hollow its absence made. I found that I could slide my tongue into that hollow, so that the fruit clung to me, the smooth outer skin fitting perfectly into the arc my palate. I showed my brother the trick, and he showed me the prize he had found. A big one. Ripened to perfection. The plum of plums.
“Give it to me,” I said.

My brother, at four, trusted me endlessly. He yielded his prize without a fuss. Grinning, I took a triumphant bite, expecting to encounter nothing less than perfection.
Which, when I bit down, was not what I found. My teeth, grown greedy and complacent, encountered something unexpected between skin and stone. I felt a small thing wriggle in my mouth. Puzzled, I looked at the part I still held in my hand. There it was, like a botanical illustration: cross section of a fruit with larval wasp. My eager bite had exposed an insect’s tunnel, and severed its soft body, leaving the head and thorax, pulsing at the hole’s dead end.
I had already swallowed. I threw the fruit down and ran for the hose, spat and spat and spat, filled my mouth and gargled and swished and vehemently spit, but I could not wash away that alien sensation. My brother watched my contortions unperturbed, munching away, his face sticky with juice. I wanted it to be his fault, I ran at him to punish him for what had happened to me, but my mother saw it coming and stepped between us.

“You got greedy,” she said. “Next time, look before you bite.” She reached to pick one off the tree. “See, this one’s good. There’s no hole.” I took it from her, examined the purple perfection of its taut skin. I saw the place at the top where the stem had been; my stomach lurched and I pushed her hand away. “That’s the place where it was attached to the tree, she laughed. She pushed against the tiny indentation, pulling the dark globe into its two halves. “See, there’s no bug in here.” She offered me the butterflied fruit. I considered it.
She considered me, and then took half. Watching it go in, I shuddered, but I wanted to taste what she was tasting. She smiled her delight in it. Leaning forward, she brought her lips toward my lips. I puckered to kiss her and suddenly the other half of the fruit was there, pressed gently into the place at the middle of my kiss. And I let my mouth go soft, I said yes. I opened again to that sweet, sweet thing.