All the Finest Girls (21 page)

“De boys went to stay wit Mumma, though she hadn’t barely spoken to Lulu since she took up wit Errol. Me and Josephus were saving up for a car, but we gave de money to Lulu for plane fare. And her and me went shopping for some new dresses, a winter coat. I remember dat coat, brown wit a lickle fur round de collar. Lulu wouldn’t pick it out. Jes’ kept shrugging her shoulders till I had to grab her and tell her to look at it as a opportunity, yah know. Seeing de world. Poor Lulu. Seems like she was just dying on de inside.

“De night before she left, we all up at Mumma’s getting de boys settled in, and me find her out back, looking out at de ocean. She holding dis lickle bitty shirt of Derek’s in her hand and she smelling it, and crying. When me went to her, she wouldn’t speak, but she didn’t need to. All her sorrows was out dere plain to see. Her looking at me like ghosts dancing in her eyes. Like she saying nothing was evah gwan be de same. I knowed her well enough to understand she was saying dat. And she was right. Noting
was
very good for her pass dat.

“At de airport, Papa saluted her like a sailor, but he wouldn’t hug her. Mumma neither. Dey disapprove of her very much. Derek, den jus’ a bitty ting, he held on to her knees, just crying and crying. Pitiful. So sad. Fi he was really still a baby. Philip tried to act de big boy, but you could see how it was ripping him up too. As fi Errol, it looked for a time like he wouldn’t even show up. Finally he walk in de terminal, pissing drunk like me nevah seen him. Him couldn’t look at her he so ashamed. It was Lulu had to tell him it was gwan be arright. She have to tell
him
. Lawd. What a day dat was.”

Marva, who had been so deep in her story I wasn’t even sure she knew who she was talking to, turned to me suddenly and patted my knee. “Dat’s when she came to
you
,” Marva said with forced brightness, half hoping with her weak smile to soften the truth she was revealing. She pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and offered me a fruit candy. In the look we exchanged at that moment, however, there was, I thought, a decision that we were too far in for niceties. Our bus was making the last of its switchbacks down onto the island’s outer road as Marva related the events after Lou’s departure.

“De boys cause a stir wit Mumma, getting on de ropes wit her till finally Philip went down fi live wit Errol. He had taken back up wit Patrice den full-time, Foxy gave him his job back, and Patrice say she could care for Philip but not de two. I knowed Derek took dat hard. Seems he thought Patrice chose Philip because he had de good skin like Errol and she. I suspect he was right about dat, though me knowing Errol nevah felt dat way. Errol did miss Lulu terribly. He wrote and he called her up dere, saying he still loved her and he was sorry. But me tink he couldn’t figure how to fix tings, so he let dem slide. My mumma was getting sicker, wit diabetes, and she having a hard time wit Derek. He was into a lot of mischief, just like Michael once was. Finally all de pain of it was too much for Lulu. In seventy-seven, she came home. Couldn’t stay away from her babies any longer.

“De boys went deir separate ways den. Philip was doing real good down at de Eldertown school and he didn’t want to come home. Lulu could see he had all de advantages, so she let him stay, even though it hurt her. And Derek, he punished my sista hard for leaving him. Dat made Lulu sick in de end. I know she felt a lot of guilt for so much, and it all came and put dat infection in near her heart. Left her open for cancer, and den went and made her crazy. Poor Derek’s been angry wit his papa and mumma so long, now he’s just angry wit himself.

“Errol been trying to win Lulu back all dese years. It’s funny about love, because I really believe dat man loved her to his core, but he couldn’t do de hard ting. He chose de easy one wit Patrice. Living was just easier for him down dere. But he wrote and call my sista all de time, sent her lickle tings, flowers. Lulu didn’t study him, though, she couldn’t. She cut him dead, for it was de best way to get along. Patrice died a few years back, and we all thought maybe she would take him back, but it didn’t happen.

“But den, out of nowhere, last week, she ask me about de ring I showed yah. About getting a chain. Next night, we sitting out after dinner and Lulu looks at Derek. She say, ‘Let’s take a ride, Errol.’ Just like dat! She was in a lot of confusion in her head dese past years, tinking one person for another, but I nevah heard her speak dat man’s name. She say, ‘Let’s take a ride, Errol. I love de sea.’ Me went and phone Errol and said it was time. His time had come. Him and her talked. She sounded just like a schoolgirl again. It’s why poor Philip bring dat boat up here, yah know. Errol asked him to put it inna water fi him and Lulu to take a ride together. Since his mumma pass, Philip been tryin’ to ease Errol’s pain. Figured jes’ to go along for the time being, pretend a lickle like it didn’t happen.

“Oh, it rips me up, Addy! Even when Lulu was crazy, I
gots
to believe Lulu knew dat love is hardship. People are nevah perfect. Love is a mortal pain, but yah
gots
to love. Yah gots to love or yah aren’t wort yah flesh on de open market. She was going to love him again because she
always
loved him. If she only hadn’t gone off in her craziness dat night. I still cyaant believe it.”

Marva turned her face away from me, toward the window. Along the windy coastal road on which we traveled, the pastiche of prickly grass and moraine began slowly to give way to shantytowns and homemade road signs. We were hurtling suddenly, much too quickly, toward the hustle and life of our destination. Now, as the bus made another of its wheezing halts and the ladies shifted places, calling good-byes, Marva quit her narrative and began smoothing her balled-up handkerchief across her lap. Thermuda hovered again, zeppelinlike.

“Is dere anyting we cyan do for yah, Marva, before tomorrow?”

“No, but tanks. And God bless.”

“You going to see him, den?”

“Who?”

“Errol.”

Marva cocked her head at Thermuda thoughtfully and smiled.

“No. Doesn’t look like I am, Termuda. It’s de boys’ business and me not interfering no more.”

“OK. Well. Annie and me be seeing you tonight.”

Thermuda pushed her way out the back door and, pulling out a ring of keys from the voluminous folds of her waist, made her way across the road to a whitewashed concrete rotunda.
MRS. HOT DOG,
read the sign, and below in a red script,
Only Jesus Saves. Have a Godly Day.

“Damn busybody,” said Marva, recovering her old fire. “Her daughta been following Errol around since de day Lulu first bringed him home. Worked his campaign just to be near him all de time. She ain’t nevah married, and all her teeth are gone; she so ugly now. Tss.”

I leaned back and watched out the window as Thermuda’s hut vanished. The bus tipped dangerously around a rotary, and moments later we were in Eldertown proper. The hollow feeling I’d had that morning returned, billowed like a curtain on a windy day. The bus came to another halt. Marva stood up and, numb, I followed her out into the high sun, realizing at once that I’d left my hat on the rusty rack under which we’d sat. But when I turned around, the doors had closed and the bus was shuffling away.

19

DEAr MUMMA. I AM FInE. THAnK YOU FOr THE gUITAr I WAnTEd ALOTT. THIngS IS HArd HErE.

I lie on Lou’s bed and peek beneath her arm with one open eye. The nubbly spread is damp against my cheek, the air still thick and wet with the bulky heat of the day. Lou’s room is the warmest in the house, and though the sky is end-of-the-day pink, the fan turning its lazy head offers no relief. It only moves hot air and flutters the paper in Lou’s hand. Under the sloping eave sits June, knitting tiny cream-colored booties. She listens and nods as Lou reads from the letter.

I AM PLAnnIng To BE VEry gOOd So yOU COULD PLEASE COME HOME nOW. I WILL dO no QUArILIng Or CryIng AnD SUCH.

Lou halts and a couple of tears make their way down her nose, dropping on the letter before she can wipe them away.

Cat.

There he is. Cat, away for so long. He enters the room, makes a dead run for the corner. I close my eyes tight, but when I open them he is still there. Taking his yellow-eyed fill of me.

Today. Todaytodaytoday. Today is the Fourth of July.
Oh say can you see,
sang the lady on the podium, after the parade. I sang along, tried to teach Lou, but she wouldn’t pay attention. At the fair, the Coldbrook Volunteer Fire Department had a booth,
DUNK THE KID, WIN A PRIZE,
and Lou let me climb up onto the chair. I screamed for her to watch, but she kept looking down at the envelope clutched in her hand. When Teddy Rubinstein pitched the softball on target, I let my breath out under the frigid water and felt my head turn to bubbles, filling with whiteness, with air. A fireman pulled on my T-shirt and up I came. Faces smiling, hands clapping.

Teddy has gone to a baseball game in Germantown. Mom has gone away too. Again, yesterday, somewhere, out the door and down the drive before I could change my mind and ask where. I’ve been giving her the silent treatment
Please, Snooks, stop. Stop giving me the silent treatment.
Beyond my toes, beyond the foot of Lou’s bed and out the window, my father kneels in his summer garden. I can see him turning brown earth with gentle hands
someamazingflower
and stopping to caress a new pink petal. Cat hisses, plucks at the screen.

IT SEEMS LIkE I AM nOT nOWIng HOW yOU LOOk FOr IT HAS bEEn SO LOng. DO YOU rEMMEMbEr ME? I rEMMEMbEr yOU grAnny AgnES IS FEELIng POOrLy nEErLy EVEry nIgHT nOW. SHE IS nOT nICE AND bEETS ME SOMETIMES. I gOT gOOd MArkS THIS QUrTEr.

Lou thinks I’m asleep. Thinks I can’t see the fine blue paper and the blocky words that wander a sloping trail to the edge of the page. The paper is not like the paper I use to write to Owen. I use lined white notebook paper, and he writes me back on the other side. Owen Prowse 354 Woodlawn Street Bay Shoals, Mass. Today is the Fourth of July. So seven, fourteen, three weeks before we go to Further Moor. Owen says he’ll teach me how to drive this summer. Owen is waiting for me, he says in his letters. You’re the only summer dink I like, he says.
Hatethosefuckers.

I AM ALWAyS LOVIng YOU MOST.

Lou and I will go to Further Moor. It will be all right then. It will be OK. Cat meows like he is sick. Lou wipes her eyes and keeps reading to June.

ALSO PLEASE SEnd SOME MOnEy FOr I AM nEEDIng THIngS. PHILIP SAY HE HAVE A nEW MUMMA nOW BUT I AM yOUr dEVOTEd SOn

dEREk HODgE

Folding the crepey paper between her cocoa fingers, she tucks the letter gently again into the ribbon-edged envelope and presses it like a dying bird to her chest. Outside the window, Dad gets off his knees and wipes the dirt from his jeans. He’s wearing the shirt I bought him for Father’s Day. A shirt to cover his white chest and back, to cover himself. I rattled the money out of my jelly jar for it
Well, peanut, how about that. Isn’t that something?
Yes. Something.

“When I sleep, June” — Lou’s voice is nearly a whisper so she doesn’t wake me; her hand, wide and warm as coals, strokes my hair — “When I sleep, June, I’m dreaming dem small still, like when I left. Babies. June, I feel I’m like to split inside.”

Andtherocketsredglare thebombsbursting inair

“I knowed it,” says June.

“And true she isn’t wanting me here anymore, interfering wit her and de girl.”

“Yah.”

“I cyaant stay here no more. I cyaant.”

“Mmhmm.” June nods.

Up prickles Cat’s back.
Land of the free and the home of the brave
Yellow eyes. Claws spread.

Red belly

above me

Slick wet smell of fur.

20

T
HE
E
LDERTOWN MARKET
lay before us, a local bazaar the size of a city block. The place was crammed with people, busily buying and selling on rusted card tables, in wooden stalls, and under umbrellaed kiosks sprinkled with road dust. Marva clutched her bag and waded into the crowd, but I hung back, feeling strange and distracted. The story Marva had told me on the bus shook my brain so that everything inside it was suddenly awry, out of kilter. I worried what I might stumble into if I moved too quickly. Instead I let my eyes wander beyond the market to the U-shaped promenade skirting Eldertown harbor. At the top of the curve, wedged into the cleavage of two green mountains, sat the behemoth of a cruise ship I’d seen off the northern coast that morning. It muscled up against the town dock, pressing its gleaming white hull into the pier. Insanely out of scale with the town, the boat transfixed me.

A long stream of people moved down the gangplank like a rainbow-colored army of ants, turning this way and that into narrow streets. I could see someone still on deck, diving from a platform into a serene blue Olympic-sized pool. The
pim-pam
of steel-drum music blared from speakers that resembled giant white-wall tires. The portholes were planetary in a white sky.

This sight, with all its state-of-the-art grotesquery, pulled at me and filled me with crazy longing. Why was I not a girl on a cruise? With a ticket to ride? I wanted to swim in that pool, lounge on one of the countless white deck chairs that lined up in perfect sepulchral rows (as though in paradise you did not die but napped and tanned for eternity). I wanted a straw bag and a clean polo shirt; I longed to eat lobster thermidor, whatever that was, beneath the frozen spume of a whale carved from ice; to be at sea, going nowhere, deciding between activities, asking the purser for an extra pillow, archery lessons, directions to the disco or the shuffleboard area. With just the slightest turn of the dial, I could be that: a white tourist on vacation who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the faceless blur of black people whose water I was befouling with my tons of bilge and gasoline. Just a pink American grooving on the incredible scenery and enjoying the hell out of myself.
Out
of myself. That was the operative phrase. Temporarily blinded by my daydream, I caught sight of Marva’s bright pink dress disappearing down the market midway just in the nick of time.