World and Town by Gish Jen

Just when Hattie is beginning to think their trip a mistake, though, she catches Sophy glancing down the hill.
    “They like cookies,” says Hattie.
    “They do,” agrees Sophy.
    “I bet Sarun eats like a horse.”
    Sophy hesitates, but then says, “He does, he eats, like, everything.” She wrinkles up her nose.
    “He’s that age,” Hattie says. “My son, Josh, was the same way. The minute you slowed down on your meal, he’d lean in and say, ‘You going to finish that?’ ”
    Sophy laughs, her ponytail hanging free now. She stops to read Hattie’s bumper stickers but doesn’t ask what they mean, and climbs into the old Datsun naturally enough. Once they start driving, though, she stiffens, as if she needs to concentrate on her sitting.
    Hattie pulls down her distance glasses. “How do you people manage without a car?”
    “Sarun used to have a car,” says Sophy. “He just smashed it up.”
    “In an accident?”
    Sophy nods, sniffing. Up here at higher elevations, it’s more clearly spring; even with the windows closed, the air smells of manure anywhere near the farms. “He smashed up two, actually,” she says. Adding, “They weren’t his, exactly. He shared one with a friend and one with a bunch of guys.”
    “Ah.”
    “He was racing.”
    “Was he. Well, if he ever borrows mine, I’ll tell him no racing.” Hattie peers over the top of her glasses at Sophy, whose broad forehead is bright with light, like a second windshield.
    “There’s nobody to race around here anyway,” she says.
    “I see. Was anyone hurt? In these accidents?”
    “Yeah, but not Sarun, he was lucky.”
    “It sounds that way.”
    The market field is sunny and un-buggy, and warm enough that a few intrepid people are in T-shirts. Their spring arms are about as appealing as dug-up roots, but never mind—they swing them happily. Only Sophy hugs herself as if worried about hypothermia. She rubs her arms through her jacket sleeves as Hattie tries to get her to pick out some vegetables.
    “They’re fresh,” Hattie says. “Organic. I’ll treat.”
    But Sophy, it seems, likes her vegetables the way they have them in the supermarket.
    “In plastic, you mean?”
    “Organic means fifty cents a pound more, at least. ” Sophy’s arms open at last, her outrage flowing out to her fingertips.
    “Do you help your mom with the shopping?”
    Sophy folds back up. “I’ll be helping forever.”
    “Because she doesn’t speak English.”
    “Because she is never going to speak English.”
    “I see.” Hattie makes Sophy sniff some lilacs. “Now aren’t those something?”
    “They smell like soap,” Sophy says.
    A few stalls farther on they come, amazingly, upon some peonies—white with red flecks, festiva maxima . Most of them still in bud, but still—so early! It doesn’t seem possible. Thanks to a south-facing stone wall, though, the stall owner’s garden is a whole zone up from the rest of the area, maybe more.
    “Can I buy you some?” Hattie asks. “These are something special.”
    Sophy shakes her head no. Still, when she makes a trip to the bathroom, Hattie, quick, nabs a bunch and stashes them on the passenger seat of the car. And when she finds them there, Sophy exclaims with delight. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she says, sniffing them, then admiring them, then sniffing them some more. Her face opens as if blooming itself, and her smile is more than a matter of her mouth. The mounds of her cheeks rise up, her ears lift; the whole shape of her face changes. “What kind of flowers are they?”
    “Peonies.” Hattie starts the engine.
    “Peonies. I’ve heard of those.”
    “They were my best friend’s favorite flower before she died,” says Hattie—then, “Ant,” as an ant crawls out from between the petals of an open flower. “Ants do love peonies.”
    “Ants do love peonies,” echoes Sophy. Rolling her window down, she coaxes the ant first onto her finger and then on outside, blowing at