May Day

May Day in the Salinas Valley is a fixed point on the communal calendar, a day when the Sunday School picnics traditionally take place in the Alisal, the wooded area against the Gabilan Mountains. The holiday is intimately linked to the blooming of the wild azaleas that grow in the skirts of the stream there, their salmon-pink blossoms serving as the natural signal that the season for outdoor celebration has arrived. The azaleas are so integral to the occasion that their absence can cancel the festivities entirely: in one cold year, a May Day picnic was drenched out of existence by a freezing rain, and not a single open blossom appeared on the azalea trees. Two weeks later they still had not come out, a delay that frustrated the plans of those who had been waiting for the flowers as a sign to proceed.

The Azalea Bloom as a Symbolic Threshold

For Cal Trask, the azalea bloom becomes a personal and romantic deadline. He had made the flowering of the azaleas the signal for a picnic he planned with Abra Bacon, and once that symbol was set it could not be violated. The Ford sat in Windham's shed with its tires pumped up and two new dry cells installed to make it start easily on battery, while Lee was alerted to prepare sandwiches when the day came. Lee grew tired of waiting and stopped buying sandwich bread every two days, asking Cal why he did not simply go anyway. Cal replied that he could not, because he had said azaleas. The Silacci boys, who lived out near the Alisal and came into school every day, reported that it would be another week or ten days before the blossoms appeared. Lee warned Cal not to overtrain his picnic, but the delay held.

The Picnic and Its Aftermath

When the Silacci boys finally brought the news that the salmon-pink blossoms were breaking free, it was a Wednesday near the end of May. Cal rushed to the English classroom and, just as Miss Norris took her seat on the little stage, waved his handkerchief and blew his nose loudly to excuse himself. He went down to the boys' toilet, waited until he heard the flush of water on the girlside through the wall, then slipped out through the basement door, walked close to the red brick wall, and rounded the pepper tree. Once out of sight of the school, he walked slowly until Abra caught up with him. She asked whether they should wait until tomorrow, but Cal looked up at the gay yellow sun—the first earth-warming sun of the year—and asked if she wanted to wait. She said no, and neither did he. They broke into a run, bought bread at Reynaud's Bakery, and joggled Lee into action. Adam Trask, hearing the commotion, looked into the kitchen and asked what the hullabaloo was about. When told they were going on a picnic, he noted that it was a school day, but Abra insisted it was a holiday too. Adam declined to join them, saying he had promised to go down to the ice plant to supervise the installation of new tubing. Abra promised to bring him some azaleas.

The Alisal and the Return

At the Alisal, the stream gurgled over round stones and washed the polished roots of the trees that held it in. The smell of azaleas and the sleepy smell of sun working with chlorophyll filled the air. The Ford sat on the bank, still breathing softly from its overheating, and the back seat was piled with azalea branches. Cal and Abra sat among the luncheon papers, dangling their feet in the water. Cal observed that the azaleas always wilt before you get them home, but Abra replied that they were such a good excuse. She reached over and took his hand, and he admitted he had been afraid to do that himself. When they returned to the Trask house late that afternoon, they found the lights on, the door partly open, and the house cold. Lee was shriveled up like a leaf in the chair beside the lamp. The telegram announcing Aron's death lay open on the table, and Adam had suffered a stroke. The day that had begun with the promise of azaleas ended in irrevocable loss.