All the Finest Girls (5 page)

Using the top of my bedsheet, I wipe the sweat from my face, then dress quickly in yesterday’s clothes. I grab the satchel that holds my books and last night’s homework assignments, untouched, undone. At the end of the hallway, I pass my parents’ bedroom, their door wide open. Except for a tangled sheet, the bedclothes have fallen to the floor, so I can see the whole of them asleep. My father’s face nestles against the curve of my mother’s neck, his arm across her bare torso like a fallen tree limb. My mother’s pale, fine hand rests on my father’s naked hip. Her face is turned away from him toward the wall. I take the stairs on silent feet.

5

P
ETIONVILLE WAS SHAPED
like a mutant nautilus shell, all the roads bending at broken angles but eventually leading east to the town’s hub, near the wharf. I walked down the hill from Marva’s house and crossed the main road onto a narrow street. On either side, shacks leaned helter-skelter against one another, and where a thin strip of front yard might be, scabby dogs lay asleep in the dirt. Out there at midafternoon, life was almost imperceptible. The air hung rotten and briny.

Perched on one foot in the entryway of a house on the corner, a woman watched me with an expression as blank and shutterless as the door in which she leaned. Balanced on her hip was a reedy little girl with plaited hair, her smooth body naked from the waist down. The baby reached for her mother’s hair, but the woman took hold of the girl’s hand and shook it. She broke into a smile, dandling the baby on her hip, cooing in her ear. I could tell by the softness of the woman’s mouth that she was younger than I. I smiled, tight lipped, and looked at my feet as I kept walking.

My thoughts were fitful and unmoored, drifting here and there in the quiet gulf of early afternoon. I was feeling bad for myself. I guess I’d wanted the Alfred family to like me, though I’ve no idea why I thought they should. Lou’s face flickered before me, its tender expression hewn to some terrible murky sensation that caught me under the ribs and made me wince. When the vision dissolved, I had another. In three-quarter profile, swinging a twisted magazine like a bat, I saw in my mind’s eye Daniel Moss. Daniel, to whom, by sadness, I was also bound. My waist felt the warmth of that little girl’s legs encircling me. And then, with a little self-preserving shove, I landed back in the concrete center of my new surroundings.

Coming to an intersection and a broader avenue, I saw before me a grassy lot bordered by a rusty fence. Back from the fence down a mottled path stood a church. Two stories tall, it soared above the other buildings, looking bravely dignified despite the white paint that peeled away from it in big flocked patches. Its roof, a red tin cap, shone bright with a fresh coat of paint, and the yard grew green and thick. Rows of lilies turned their wimpled heads toward the sidewalk. In the upstairs window of the adjoining parsonage, a young man in a black suit polished a silver chalice. He looked down at me, then slipped back into a dark room. In here I figured, inside the walls of this strange place, Lou and I would soon be together again. I turned away and felt a quickening cold down my spine.

I was just at the edge of the town’s center, within sight of the wharf, when I turned to a hissing sound behind me. Two boys in school uniforms stood watching me with wide eyes. Another boy, taller than the pair and holding his shirt and tie, appeared from a doorway. He pushed between the two boys and walked toward me. I looked at my watch in a vain attempt to appear late for something. The taller boy let out a laugh. Within moments the street was alive with children fresh from school and brimming with stifled energy. They all seemed to be pressing toward me, though I had turned my back and kept walking. A chubby girl ran up next to me. She was so close I could feel her breath on my neck.

“Whereyoufrom?” she asked, pulling lightly at the hem of my shirt.

There were shops and businesses here, but the shutters and doors were all closed.

“Excuse me?” I backed up against a wall to look at her.

“Excuse me,” she mimicked, tittering with a hand over her mouth. The other girls on the street laughed in chorus.

“Ex-cuse me,” said another girl, following me as I began walking again. The children, about a dozen, were on either side of me now, unified in a hungry pack. Fixing my sight ahead, I stepped off the sidewalk and began crossing to the other side of the street. Over my shoulder came the sudden, eardrum-piercing screech of a vehicle’s brakes. I backed up, stumbling on the curb and falling onto my backside. The car, an old Cadillac pulling behind it a trailer and a battered skiff, swerved to avoid me and landed with a crunch. Its nose rumpled up against the concrete storm drain that ran along the opposite side of the street. Teetering briefly on its trailer, the boat toppled and fell to the ground. The children screamed with enthusiasm and rushed to inspect the damage, leaving me alone in the shade.

A white man in rolled shirtsleeves and a loosened tie came out of the Cadillac, hand on his head.

“Shit, mon,” he said, looking from the front end of his car to the overturned boat. Two boys, one with a surprising red Afro, stood by his side and nodded vigorously.

“Yah. Shit, mon,” the redhead offered in agreement while the other boy hopped into the driver’s seat and pulled on the wheel.

The man turned and his eyes fell on me. Coming quickly over to me, he squatted by my side.

“Are you all right? Can you move your neck?”

He held his palm to my forehead, then made an examination of my shoulders as though he half expected to find a couple of jagged bones sticking through my shirt.

“I’m fine,” I said, rubbing the gravel off my hands and trying to get up. The man was clearly not a doctor, and I felt foolish and vulnerable there on the curb. He held me in place.

“No. Don’t move! Are you sure nothing’s broken?”

“Yes,” I said, freeing myself. “I’m sure.”

Across the street, a small girl was wrapping herself in the boat’s luffing sail as though it were an ermine cape. The man was sizing me up from head to foot.

“Jesus Jumpin’ Judas,” he bellowed, “what the hell were you doing in the middle of the street?”

I felt a rush of anger.

“Why were
you
driving so fast?”

The man stood back, mouth agape. His clothes were well worn but of good material, and they hung on him with a what-do-I-care messiness. I figured him for the sort of expat I knew gathered like barnacles down here. Beach bums who came for the sun and rum, too bleached and stupefied to go home again.

“You could have killed one of these kids,” I said, high now on making my point, despite the fact that the children I was defending didn’t seem to me particularly defenseless. “How dumb can you be?”

I crossed the street to inspect the damage. Except for the curling flakes of paint that had come free and scattered on the sidewalk, the boat — already well weathered — seemed OK. She lay on her side, blocking the road, her keel sticking up like a fin. At the stern, the name of the boat was painted in a faded, curving script.
Cinema Girl.
The skiff’s owner was now leaning over the dented front door shooing a flock of children from inside the car.

“Gwan out of there, all of you,” he shouted, “before I tan your hides!”

His aggravation didn’t have much impact on the children, who had dissolved not into fear but fits of giggles.

“Is there someone I should call?” I shouted to his broad shoulders, head gone inside the Cadillac’s interior. I was anxious to be gone from there, to find a quiet place where I wouldn’t be the object of attention.

The man stood up and thought, filling his mouth with air like a blowfish. Finally, he exhaled.

“I don’t know. Shit. I’m supposed to be picking out my mumma’s headstone a half hour already gone. My brother’s gonna dead me.” He looked at his watch and shook his head. “Damnit!”

I tried to see beyond his rough facial hair and shaggy ringlets, which fell in a mess over his glasses, but it was difficult to imagine. This had to be Philip, Derek’s older brother, but he looked nothing like Lou. Though not as fair as I, the guy before me was white. Or nearly so. Something flickered in my memory but hadn’t time to catch fire. My mind raced.

“Oh wow,” I heard myself murmur. “I’m so, I’m so sorry.”

Jesus Christ, I thought, what were the odds? The children had by now piled out of the car and were watching the two of us, their mouths slung open in fascination. Other people emerged from shops and houses onto the sidewalk, standing in groups taking in the spectacle.

Touching his lips in a gesture of private thought, Philip leaned against the Cadillac’s wrinkled hood. The car wobbled and he laughed ruefully. Behind his back, I could see the busted fender, crumpled like tinfoil into the driver’s-side headlight.

“Can I get you a cab?” I asked, immediately aware of my stupidity. It didn’t take a native to see that taxis weren’t in abundance in Petionville.

Studying his feet, Philip waved off my question. At last, composing himself, he looked over to a half dozen men standing in the shade of a shop awning, already mobilized to come to his aid. Within a few minutes, they had made a circle around the little boat and were lifting it with a collective heave back onto its trailer. When the trailer rig had been disconnected from the car, it was rolled out of the street, and the men let it rest while one of them went to fetch a mechanic. Philip, in a rush now, reached into his car and grabbed a briefcase. Then he was off, halfway down the block in a loping run before I could introduce myself. Feeling a bruise begin to swell on my behind, I stepped gingerly inside a narrow storefront that was now open to get something to drink.

It was a dank affair. The store’s rickety shelves held a row of dusty household goods, boxes of Hollywood chewing gum, and plastic crates filled with scratched Fanta bottles. An old top-loading cooler hummed behind the counter. As I reached into my pocket, the chubby girl who had badgered me before appeared at my elbow.

“You gwana have a Coca-Cola?”

Behind the register stood a boy no older than seven, a little half-moon of snot dried beneath his nose. He waited patiently, picking at a scab above his elbow. I looked at the girl and raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” I answered, feeling punchy from the sudden ebb of adrenaline. “Why do you want to know?”

“No reason. Me usually
love
Coca-Cola.”

She turned her head to one side and shot me a sly close-mouthed grin.

I bought two Cokes, and soon the girl and I were sitting in a patch of shade on the sidewalk next to Philip’s car. She smelled unwashed, sweetish and a little gamey.

“Whereyoufrom?” she asked again.

“New York.”

“Dat’s where Donald Trump lives.”

When I laughed, she set her mouth in a hard line.

“Why do you know that?”

“Him rich. Me have an uncle dat went dere once. In Queens.”

I asked the girl, who had moved close to me now and was touching and inspecting my hand, what her name was.

“Lyris. Me mumma name Lyris same. She work a Sunny Bay. You know it? Big hotel a Oriente. Me live wit Granny-Jean. Where you chilren live?”

“I don’t have any.”

Lyris whistled and shook her head.

“Why? You cyaant? From sickness?”

“No,” I answered with a brightness trying to veil my indignation. I had an urge to defend myself, to explain to this kid that in America, thirty-two was not so very old to be childless. “I just haven’t,” I replied instead. “Do you want another Coke?”

Two of Lyris’s coterie came down the street, barefoot, breaking into a run when they saw us on the curb. Lyris held up her soda bottle as a shield.

“Gwan,” she said, warning them away and grabbing tightly at my arm. “She me new auntie. Me white auntie.”

Lyris turned to me and grinned. Her smile revealed a mouth full of snaggleteeth in a kind of pitched battle with one another, and with uncharacteristic shyness, she tried to press her lips closed around them. She was a beautifully, spectacularly ugly girl and, despite her peskiness, I liked her quite a lot. When I stood up to get three more sodas, the girls began to chatter like gulls.

I hadn’t yet managed to move from the curb before Derek’s blue car rounded the corner. I watched as it neared, sunlight glinting off the windshield. Philip was gesturing from the passenger seat, and before long the car idled beside me, Philip and I looking at each other through the open driver’s window. I thought I saw Derek ever so slightly shake his head, though he kept his attention on the empty road.

“For true?” Philip said to Derek, laughing now at a conversation the subject of which I had no trouble guessing. I felt the heat of my embarrassment flooding up from my shirt collar. Derek didn’t bother to reply to his brother but addressed me through gritted teeth.

“Yah wanna ride back to the house?” he asked.

Philip was laughing harder now, holding one side as he unfolded himself from the tiny seat.

“Jee-sus Jumping Judas,” he crowed, glancing over at me again and splitting up with guffaws. “It
is
her.”

Between the two, I couldn’t decide with whom I would fare worse. Pulling himself together, Philip sighed and hitched up his sagging trousers.

“No, no, I’ll bring her back up,” he said, relieving me of having to make a choice. Coming around to the curb, he banged on the hood of his brother’s car. “Hey, mon,” he said to Derek, “check out the
Cinema Girl.
”

Derek eyed the Cadillac instead.

“Fender looks pretty bad. Better find Clifton. Out by Billy Point.”

And with a rev of the engine and a plume of exhaust, Derek pulled away and headed out of town.

Standing close to me now, Philip studied me carefully and then, again, began to laugh. A fraying wire switched in me and sparked.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Philip placatingly. “Who needs a drink?”

Moving off down the street toward the waterfront, Philip looked like a giraffe, his long legs independent of him, knobby knees akimbo. I was still rooted to the sidewalk when he turned back.

“Come on, Connecticut!” he shouted, smiling.