The New Moon's Arms

by Nalo Hopkinson

  I could hear the conversation, but I couldn’t make out the words. I could only sit there and feel bad.

  Michael came back on the line. “When you need the sitter?”

  I brightened up. “Six p.m.,” I replied. “I’ll probably be back home around eleven.”

  More conversation with the other voice.

  “Okay,” said Michael. “You’ll have a sitter.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. You always come through for me.”

  “I’m not coming.”

  “But, Michael, you just said—”

  “I’m not coming. Orso says he can babysit for you.”

  Michael’s fancy man? Alone with Agway? “But I don’t—”

  “Don’t start with me, Calamity. You should thank your lucky stars he’s willing to help you after how you treated us.”

  I had to ask. “Orso…he’s okay with children?”

  “I don’t even want to think about what you getting at with that little piece of veiled contempt. So I going to pretend I don’t understand you. If you had ever made the time to get to know him, you would know that Orso is the eldest of six brothers and sisters. When his parents were working, it’s he looked after them.”

  “He did?”

  “Orso know about feeding times and reading bed-time stories and wiping runny noses. He know all that that I didn’t have no chance to learn.”

  Ifeoma had never spent a single night in her father’s care. I wouldn’t allow it. Who knew what kinda carousing he was getting up to? I wasn’t going to put my baby into the middle of that.

  “Orso say he will see you five-thirty sharp. And now I’m hanging up this phone. Good day, Calamity.”

  The phone went dead. I put the receiver into its cradle. Back in the day, Michael and me could never stay on the outs for long. He would probably get over being upset. Probably.

  GENE WAS COMING AT SIX. At five-fifteen, I still wasn’t ready. I had showered and bathed both me and Agway. I was powdered and perfumed, and I had tried on one outfit after the other, and none of them worked. The green blouse made my belly look too fat. The lavender dress with the roses on it was too dressy, plus I had to wear panty hose with it or my legs would chafe, and I wasn’t wearing no blasted panty hose in this heat. My arms looked too flabby in the striped t-shirt. And the black slacks just made me look old, old, old.

  Agway was out in the living room, singing along with the theme song to his favourite television cartoon. When he didn’t know the words—which was often—he made them up. Shoulda been funny, but I was in no mood. Actually, I was in quite a mood. The four or five outfits spread out on the bed all looked like crap on me. I was getting sweatier and sweatier and more and more miserable.

  Someone knocked on the front door. I reached for my bathrobe, but Agway was way ahead of me. I could hear his feet pattering as he ran to the door.

  “Agway!” I yelled. “Careful! You going to trip! And don’t open that door without me!” Damned child had no native caution when it came to other people. Don’t know what his parents had been teaching him.

  Sure enough, by the time I had the bathrobe on and had made it to the front door, Agway had opened it and was burbling happily at Orso. Orso was squatted down, talking back. “What is that you say? Yes, I’m very pleased to see you, too.”

  Orso grinned as Agway threw himself into his arms. He stood, swirled Agway around in the air. Man and boy chortled. Then Orso saw me. “Excuse me, Agway.” He set the child down on his feet. “Good evening,” he said to me. He stood with his arms crossed, waiting.

  He was wearing perfectly faded jeans, a stylin’ pair of leather sandals polished to a fare-thee-well, and an impeccably ironed navy blue cotton shirt that made his dark skin gleam. It just wasn’t right for a man to be so well turned out. Made me feel frumpy. And he was waiting for me to say what I knew I had to say. “Well, thank you for babysitting Agway for me. That’s really generous of you.”

  “Mm-hm…”

  Man, I hated backing down! I nerved myself up for my apology, but Agway was having none of this boring big people pa-

  laver. He kept chattering at Orso, tugged at his hand to try to pull him into the living room.

  Orso smiled at him and picked him up. “Looks like he’s happy with you,” he said.

  “I’m trying. It’s good having him here.”

  “And you looked like you were about to say something to me just now.”

  I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth. Twelve hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. “I’m. Sorry.” I opened my eyes. He still had that expectant look. So I said, “I behaved badly the other day.”

  “True that.”

  “I should have minded my manners,” I told him in a rush. “You and Michael were guests in my house.”

  Orso had more hair to pull than I did. Agway was yanking on it now and pointing into the living room, urging him to come and see some wonderful thing or other. Orso laughed and disentangled his hand. “You not going to let me squeeze every last little drop of remorse from her, that it?” He put Agway to stand and took his hand. “Apology accepted,” he said to me. “For now. I tell you true, though; you on sufferance with me. Michael loves you so much he’ll put up with any nonsense from you, but I won’t let anybody speak to me like that twice.” Then he toddled off with Agway into the living room. I followed, speechless. Michael loved me?

  In the living room, Agway dropped Orso’s hand and grabbed his latest toy—an old briefcase of Dadda’s—off the coffee table, and proceeded to demonstrate to Orso how he had learned to undo the clasp, and how well chunky Dumpy (didn’t) fit inside the slim briefcase.

  Orso sat on the floor and got into the game with him, loading Agway’s toys into the briefcase and struggling to close it. That quickly became a game of tummy tickle, with Agway wriggling and laughing. Orso looked up and saw my expression. He stood up.

  “Calamity, we need to get one more thing out of the way right now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Men get me hot. Not children.”

  My face warmed up, and it wasn’t no blasted hot flash, neither. “Okay,” I whispered, shame-facedly.

  “Okay for true?” he asked.

  My face never did hide anything very well. He sighed. “You know, you have the perfect good reference for me if you want one.”

  “Who?”

  “Stanley. He been at our house almost every Sunday for the past five years.”

  Jealousy knotted up my belly. “So I hear.” I checked my watch. “Gene’s late.”

  “That’s a girl’s prerogative.”

  “If a narrow, dark-skinned man about our age knock on the door, that’s probably Gene. You could just tell him I’m dressing?”

  “Cool breeze.”

  I settled on the jeans and the green shirt. Sucked my tummy in and checked myself out in the bedroom mirror. Not too bad, if I kept the gut in. I got Agway’s snack from the fridge and took it for him. He plumped himself down on the floor to eat it.

  Orso was watching a reality show. It looked like the one where bosses switched lives with their employees for a month.

  I sat on the arm of the couch. “We just going to Mrs. Smalley’s; you know, the chicken place? You will call me if anything happen to Agway?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And if I can’t get through to you on your cell, I will ring for the ambulance, the Fire Department, the Coast Guard, and hail any cute passing fishermen and beg them all to come find you.”

  I couldn’t help it. I giggled.

  “What time Agway goes to bed?”

  “Seven, seven-thirty. I find if you turn the lights down around then, he will start to get sleepy.” Yay for diurnal rhythms. “I have some maami apple sliced up in the fridge. If he looking peckish, you could give him some for a snack. You help yourself, too, all right? Anything you want to eat. I curried some channa and beef, and there’s rice boiled, and ground provisions. And I’m babbling.”

  “Nervous?” He’d stood and
was looking through the book-

  shelves.

  “Yeah.” I checked my watch again.

  “About me, or about your date?”

  I snorted. “You not easy, you know?”

  Small, wary smile. “Take one to know one.” He slid two or three picture books off the shelf and brought them back to the couch.

  “Probably about both of you. More about him, though.” I pointed at one of the books. “Cendrillon missing page five. Not that Agway can tell.”

  That small smile again. “When you like this, I can see why you and Mikey used to be tight. He like us hot-mouth people.”

  “You want the hot-mouth truth, then? I hate it when you call him ‘Mikey.’ That’s what I call him.”

  “That’s all the bite you got? That was only ginger hot, not scotch bonnet pepper hot.”

  I sighed. “You right. Losing strength in my waning years, I suppose.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. Pepper sauce get hotter the longer you keep it. Agway, you want me to read you a story? Oh, I see you understand the word ‘story’…”

  I went and got myself a shawl from the bedroom, checked my makeup for the umpteenth time. When I came back out, Orso and Agway were deep into a copy of Horton Hears a Who. Orso stopped reading when he saw me.

  “You going to wear that blouse like that?”

  “Like what?” I tried to look down over my bosom.

  “Pull it out of the waist band lemme see?”

  I did. He nodded. “That suit you better.”

  “Thank you.”

  Someone knocked at the door. Agway scampered for it, Orso after him. Agway got there first and opened the door. It was Gene. He’d just come from work, was still wearing his uniform. Hot. My nipples got pointy just looking at him.

  He smiled at us. “Good evening,” he said. I introduced him to Orso, re-introduced him to Agway, who ducked behind my leg. Gene held out a new beach ball, uninflated. It was red and white. “For Agway. I could give it to him?”

  Which made him Agway’s new best friend, even though Agway didn’t have a clue what the ball was.

  “I won’t stay late,” I told him and Orso.

  “Have a good time.”

  AT EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD, Mrs. Smalley of Mrs. Smalley’s Chicken Boutique had passed away gently in her sleep one night. Her grandson Kevin ran the place now, and he knew better than to change the name of the restaurant that had been a Cayaba tradition for so long.

  Gene put the cafeteria tray with our fried chicken on it down on the table between us. “They didn’t have Pear Solo,” he said. “Shampa suit you?”

  I nodded. I had to strain to hear him over the loud tumpa rhythms blaring from Mrs. Smalley’s speakers, the cash register staff yelling orders at the cooks in the back, the customers yelling orders at the cash register staff. The place smelled of hot grease, fried chicken, and pepper sauce. I loved it here.

  Gene sat down and contemplated the plate on his tray: four pieces of chicken, about three potatoes’ worth of french fries, a tub of coleslaw, and two bottles of sorrel. “How you manage to eat all that?” I asked him.

  “You should see me if I don’t. You think I’m skinny now?”

  “Lean, not skinny.” But it’s lie I was telling. He was skinny.

  A hot flash came and went. I scarcely noticed it in the heat from the restaurant stoves. But I did notice the balsa wood glider plane that appeared in the air near the ceiling of the restaurant and began spiralling down. “Excuse me,” I said to Gene. I stood, pushed my chair back, caught the plane by its body. Only a small boy sitting at a table beside his mummy seemed to have noticed. His mouth was hanging open. I winked at him.

  Nine years old when I got the Pigeon glider. Not as fancy as Stanley’s; no motor or remote control. As I remembered, the wings and tail fins slipped neatly out of the body so it could all lie flat. I tucked the pieces into my handbag and sat back down.

  “Everything all right?” asked Gene, busy shovelling coleslaw into his mouth.

  “Totally fine. I just needed to stretch my legs out a bit.”

  The small boy was tugging on his mother’s sleeve and pointing at me, but she was watching the latest Roger Dodger music video on the television, rocking her head in time to the music.

  I bit into one of my chicken legs. The skin was crispy, and the meat was hot, peppery, and tender. The juice burst from it into my mouth. “Damn, I was hungry. I wonder what they put in the chicken to make it taste like this?”

  “Ground allspice,” he said through a mouthful of coleslaw. “In the breading.”

  “How you know?”

  He grinned. “I’m an officer of the nation, ma’am. People have to tell me things.”

  “Oh, yes? Well, I’m a citizen of the nation and it’s people like me you’re protecting, right? So tell me this, Officer; why you took the cutlass from the house without my permission?”

  His look was sharp. “Not from the house. We were outside.”

  “From my premises, then. Don’t try to twist words on me. Why you looking into my dead parents’ private business?”

  His head came up. His eyes were narrowed. “Come again? I don’t exactly need your permission to do my job.”

  “Uh-huh. You mean somebody re-opened the case? And your superiors put you on it?” I leaned across the table and hissed, “And was fucking me on my father’s funeral day part of your investigation?”

  He flinched. “No, no, and no,” he said, shame-faced. “Besides, if they re-opened it, would be the police handling it, not the Coast Guard. Tell you the truth, I just got a mind to look into your mother’s disappearance. On the side, you know? In private.”

  “Why? Anybody ask you?”

  “You know how sad Mr. Lambkin remained, long after your mother left? Some evenings I would go there after school for lessons, and he would still be in the pyjamas he slept in all night. Sink full up of dirty dishes. Eating peanut butter right from the jar, with his fingers if he couldn’t find a clean spoon. Couple-three times I did the dishes for him and got him some cooked food.”

  The old guilt. “Crap. I figured he was having a hard time. But in those days he wasn’t talking to me.”

  “I not giving you static over it. After I lost touch with him for so many years? I’m just saying, it’s because of Mr. Lambkin’s coaching that I made it into college at all. It’s he why I have this job. So if I can use the tools the job give me to clear his name, well, maybe I owe it to him to try. But I will stop right now if you want me to.”

  Christ. The food didn’t taste so good any more. “Not much hope of clearing his name now, though. Not with blood on the cutlass blade.”

  He saw my face, and held out his hand for mine. I couldn’t find my serviettes. Oh, those awkward social moments; lick the chicken grease off and then put my hand in his? Put my greasy hand in his and hope he didn’t notice?

  He quirked a smile at me and gave me a couple of his serviettes.

  “Thanks.” I cleaned my hand. He took it.

  “All right,” he said. “Look me in my face, now. You mustn’t fret.”

  “But…on the cutlass—”

  “I don’t even really know what it is yet. Might not be human.”

  “How you mean?”

  “The sample is old, and there was only little bit of it. It might have been contaminated with other things that were on the blade. They not sure whether it’s human or animal.”

  It was like I could breathe again. “You think it might be animal?” His eyes were hazel. I hadn’t noticed that before.

  “He used that cutlass for all kinds of things, right?”

  “True that. Even to chop up the chicken for dinner. Mumma was always after him to wash it.” I almost told him about the sealskin. I hadn’t found the time or privacy to burn it after all. I decided not to borrow trouble. If the stuff on the blade turned out to be seal, I would cross that bridge when I reached it.

  “Well, that’s most likely what it is.” He let my
hand go, got back to his supper. “Nobody ever found a body—sorry—that might have been your mother’s. So maybe she just ups and left allyou that night.”

  “Maybe,” I said bitterly. With my fork, I paddled around in my coleslaw.

  “So, if you give me permission, I would try to find out where she used to go, who she used to hang out with. See if I can turn up anything the Police missed.” He smiled. “Be kinda nice to rub their faces in it. Up to you, though. I not going to do anything unless you say.”

  He was on his third piece of chicken. Most of the fries were gone.

  “Christ. Watching you eat is like watching a Hoover vacuum.”

  He grinned and kept chewing. I opened my tangerine Shampa. In the years before the company specified that it was supposed to be tangerine, me and Michael used to try to guess what fruit the “real fruit flavour” on the label was meant to be. Lime? June plum? Shaddock? I took a sip of the yellow-green drink. No. Still didn’t taste a bit like tangerine.

  “They were fighting,” I said. “Mumma and Dadda. That night.”

  Gene didn’t seem to change his steady, focussed attack on the food at all, but something about him came fully alert to what I was saying. “Fighting? What about?”

  “I don’t know, some big-people something. They used to fight every now and again.”

  “He ever hit her?”

  “No. He would strap me if I crossed him. West Indian tough love. But he never touched Mumma. He wasn’t that kind of man.” I laughed. “Though I think he would have lost if he had been foolish enough to take Mumma on. She was taller than him, and wider. She used to joke she could pick him up and carry him out of a burning building if she had to. But I don’t think it was completely joke.”

  “They used to fight plenty?”

  “No. Just every so often.”

  “And what would happen then?”

  “Mumma would threaten to leave. Dadda would tell her to feel free. Sometimes she would go out for a few hours.”

  “To where?”

  “I don’t know. For a walk, probably. To cool down. Little more, she would come back. They would talk. By next morning, they would be laughing and joking with each other again.”