Three Little Words

by Harvey Sarah N.

  Sid is close enough now to see that Chloe is swimming toward him, flailing at the water like an out-of-control eggbeater. Wain is doing a slow breaststroke behind her, groaning as he swims.

  When Chloe reaches Sid, she grabs his arm and treads water. It takes a minute for him to realize that she is topless, and that Wain is holding her bikini top in his right hand.

  “Give me that,” Chloe yells. “And turn around—both of you.”

  Wain tosses her the scrap of fabric and she swims to the beach while the boys tread water, their backs to her as she pulls on her clothes. When she says it’s okay, they swim to shore, and Wain staggers up the beach behind Sid, sputtering, “I didn’t do anything…I didn’t mean to…” The tape that was wrapping his ribs has slid down around his hips, like a wet diaper.

  Chloe turns on him. Her hair is plastered to her face and she is shivering, but her fists are clenched, her body tensed as she leans toward him.

  “Get away from me, you little perv,” she yells.

  Wain steps back and turns to Sid. “She’s nuts, man. I didn’t do anything. Her top came off…”

  “Because you pulled it off, jerkwad. And then you had a good look,” Chloe says. “You’re lucky all I did was kick you in the balls.”

  “It was an accident,” Wain says. “The bow just came undone.”

  “Shut up, Wain,” Sid says. “And get lost. I mean it. Good luck finding your way home.”

  “I didn’t hurt her, man.”

  “Shut up,” Sid says again. Chloe is shaking now, her teeth chattering. Wain grabs Megan’s bike and rides away, swearing as his crotch makes contact with the seat.

  Sid sits on a rock and pulls Chloe down beside him. He rubs her back in small circles and she leans against him, her muscles gradually relaxing, her eyes closing.

  Sid puts his arm around her and she nestles into his chest. He hopes she can’t feel how fast his heart is beating.

  They sit in silence for a long time before she speaks.

  “That kid is super fucked up.”

  “I know,” Sid says. “Believe me, I know.”

  “I should have drowned him.”

  “Probably not your best choice.”

  Chloe shrugs. “It’s not that big a deal anyway. It’s not like he touched me or anything. And I hurt him pretty bad. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “What if he tries again?”

  “He won’t,” Chloe says. “I’m gonna tell him that if he ever does anything like that again, I’ll cut off his dick. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Sid says. “You’re the boss.”

  “Anyway, he’s your brother, Sid,” Chloe says. “I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

  “Half brother,” Sid says as they climb on their bikes and head for home. “Only a half brother. And he’s already in trouble.”

  Oh My God

  “You coming in?” Sid asks when they stop at the end of his driveway.

  Chloe shakes her head. “I don’t want to see that little shit anytime soon. Besides, I need a shower. My hair’s a disaster. Maybe I should cut it all off or put it in cornrows, like Fariza’s. What do you think?” She pulls a strand of hair in front of her face and examines it closely, going a bit cross-eyed. “The ends are, like, totally split.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sid says.

  “For my split ends? Not sure how that can be your fault.” She tucks her hair back behind her ears and smiles at Sid. Her lips are a bit cracked and the skin on her shoulders is peeling—not enough sunscreen—but otherwise she looks fine. Happy, even. As if nothing had happened. As if being naked in front of two teenage boys isn’t worth a second thought. He hopes that isn’t true.

  “No, for what happened at the lake,” he says.

  “Not your fault,” Chloe says. “And I handled it.”

  “I should have—” Sid starts.

  “Should have what? Defended my honor?” Chloe makes air quotes around the words. Sid nods.

  “Something like that,” he mumbles.

  Chloe grins and sticks her tongue out at him. “What makes you think I’ve got any honor left to defend?”

  Sid blushes and says, “I’m sorry” again as Chloe hops on her bike and rides off toward her house.

  He walks his bike down the driveway, trying to put off the moment when he will have to confront Wain. When he gets to the house, he sees Megan’s bike on its side in the rose bed beside the front steps. A single pink rose lies in the dirt next to the handlebars, broken off by the bicycle’s fall. Megan doesn’t look kindly on damage to her flowers—so few survive the local deer. Sid puts both bikes away, brushes the dirt off the rose and goes inside to put it in some water.

  The house is quiet. A note on the table says, Gone to the store with F for ice cream. Pls pick some rasps for shortcake and some toms. XO M. PS What happened at the lake?

  Sid crumples up the note, throws it in the garbage and goes to take a shower. The door to Wain’s room is shut. Wain can stay in his room for the rest of his visit, as far as Sid is concerned.

  When Megan and Fariza get back from the store, Sid is in the garden, picking raspberries. Fariza joins him, solemnly peering into the lower branches and plucking berries that have escaped Sid’s gaze. Soon they have more than enough for the shortcake.

  “Did you have fun today, Fariza?” he asks as they turn to go back to the house.

  Fariza nods and points at him. Her fingernails are the soft pink of the tiny shells he used to collect on the beach when he was small. Chloe must have painted them.

  “Me? Not so much,” he says. “Chloe and Wain had a fight.”

  Fariza frowns. The tiny furrow between her eyebrows looks like two small exclamation points. He reaches out to rub it away and Fariza pulls back slightly. It’s her first instinct—to pull away from contact—and Sid still has no idea why.

  Her mouth opens and closes a few times before she takes a deep breath and says, “Fighting is bad.”

  It takes all Sid’s willpower not to pick her up and hug her, but he knows it’s too soon. Instead, he says, “You’re right. Fighting is bad. But sometimes people fight. It’ll be okay.”

  Fariza clenches her small hands into fists. “It’s not okay.”

  Sid waits for her to say more, and when she doesn’t, he starts walking back to the house. He has only taken a few steps when Fariza comes up beside him and places her hand in his. “Don’t tell anyone,” she says.

  “Not even Megan?” he asks.

  “Not even Megan,” she says as they climb the back stairs.

  Why all the secrets? Sid wonders as he slices ripe tomatoes and washes lettuce from the garden. First Chloe and now Fariza. Is it a girl thing? He can understand—sort of—why Chloe doesn’t want anyone to know about what happened at the lake. But Fariza? Why would she want to hide the fact that she’s talking again? He sighs and checks the barbecue. Almost ready. Caleb comes outside with a plate of burger patties. Megan sets down a tray of drinks—lemonade, iced tea, water, beer—and plastic glasses. Fariza follows with a basket of buns. Elizabeth carries out a steaming bowl of corn-on-the cob, while Wain lurks in a corner of the porch, listening to his iPod.

  “Chloe not joining us?” Caleb asks when the burgers are done and everyone is seated.

  “I don’t think so,” Sid says. “She’s obsessing about her hair.”

  “What’s wrong with her hair?”

  “Beats me,” Sid says. “You know what girls are like.”

  “That I do,” Caleb says. “My sister Jo used to iron her hair and then check for split ends with a magnifying glass. And now look at her.”

  Sid laughs. His Aunt Jo had moved to Hawaii years ago to run scuba charters. She’s the least feminine woman he’s ever seen. Also the strongest. Megan turns and looks at him, one eyebrow raised, her lips pursed. He knows that look. The look says, You can’t fool me. I know something is wrong, and I wish you’d talk to me, but I’m not going to pry. He meets her gaze and shrugs slightly. He feels a bit bloat
ed, as if the secrets he is carrying are expanding in his gut. Or maybe he’s just hungry.

  Dinner is awkward. Wain’s manners haven’t improved and Elizabeth is obviously embarrassed.

  “Elbows, dear,” she murmurs. And, “You have a napkin.”

  Wain ignores her, bolting his burger and getting up from the table before anyone else has finished, leaving his dirty dishes behind. He refuses to even look at Sid. Fariza, who is clearly puzzled by the ear of corn on her plate, glances up at Wain as he leaves the table and goes inside. She taps Sid’s arm and points at Wain’s plate, where a crumpled napkin sits in a blob of ketchup. She frowns, and shakes her finger at the dirty dishes, as if they are naughty children. Her corn remains untouched. It occurs to Sid that maybe she has never eaten corn on the cob before.

  “So, Fariza,” Sid says, “there are two ways to eat corn. The right way—across the cob—and the wrong way—around the cob. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  He slathers an ear of corn with butter, sprinkles it with salt and pepper and starts to eat, going from one side to the other, the cob moving like the carriage of an old typewriter. “Ding!” he says when he reaches the end of a row. “Now you try.”

  Fariza dutifully butters and seasons her cob and sinks her teeth into the soft, sweet kernels. Her eyes widen as she chews, and before long she has made a narrow path across the cob. Butter drips off her hands and down her chin.

  “Ding!” Fariza says when she reaches the end of her second row. Everyone stops eating to stare at her. She grins and declares, “Corn is good.” A kernel is stuck to her upper lip and the tip of her nose is shiny with butter.

  Elizabeth clasps her hands together, Caleb drops his cob of corn on the floor and Sid does what he didn’t do in the raspberry patch earlier: he grabs Fariza around the waist and waltzes her around the table.

  Megan pulls Caleb and Elizabeth to their feet, where they form a circle around Sid and Fariza, chanting, “Corn is good! Corn is good!” Fariza giggles as they all aim kisses at her greasy cheeks. “That’s the most beautiful sentence I’ve ever heard,” Megan says when they finally stop whirling, and Sid plops Fariza back in her place at the table. “This calls for a celebration. Sid, could you give me a hand?”

  Sid follows Megan into the kitchen, where she gives him a rib-crushing hug before setting him to work whipping the cream. “You knew, didn’t you?” she asks as she rummages in the junk drawer for some candles. “You knew she could speak.”

  “Yeah,” Sid says. “She talked a bit when we were picking raspberries, but she swore me to secrecy. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but, you know…I couldn’t.” And I can’t tell you about Wain and Chloe either, he thinks. He can’t imagine that either of them is going to talk about what happened at the lake anytime soon. He’s not sure he wants them to anyway. Maybe Chloe’s right. Maybe it’s no big deal.

  “She trusted you,” Megan says. “And it made her feel safe. Safe enough to talk to us. You were right not to say anything.”

  “And who knows,” Sid says. “Maybe ‘Corn is good’ is all she has to say.”

  Sid turns the speed up on the mixer, but he can still hear Megan say, “It’s a start anyway. Now, how many candles should I put on the shortcake?”

  “So. The dummy can talk now?” Wain is sitting at the kitchen table the next morning, shoveling cornflakes into his mouth. He and Sid are alone. Fariza and Elizabeth are still asleep and Megan and Caleb have taken their coffee onto the porch.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Sid says wearily. He puts some bread in the toaster and gets out the peanut butter and honey.

  “You fighting with your girlfriend?” Wain asks. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and belches loudly.

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Girl like that needs a man, not some faggy artist. What’s with all your notebooks anyway, you and what’s-her-name?”

  The toast pops up and Sid jumps at the sound. Wain laughs. It’s a nasty noise, jagged as a broken bone.

  “Her name’s Fariza.” Sid picks up the toast, burning his fingers.

  “I know,” Wain says agreeably. “You guys drawing today?”

  “Probably.”

  Wain pushes himself back from the table and saunters out of the room. “I might join you,” he says as he goes. “Devi taught me some stuff.”

  Sid takes a bite of his toast and wills Fariza to sleep till noon. Perhaps by then Wain will have lost interest or Caleb will have taken him out on the boat. What Sid really wants to do, after he’s finished illustrating the stories in Fariza’s notebook, is start a fresh notebook of his own. He wants to draw what he sees around him, not what goes on inside his head. There must be a way of doing both, but he hasn’t figured it out yet. He has completely lost interest in Billy, who is doomed to stay in Titan Arum with the giant smelly plant and the horrible people. He must have finished at least ten Billy books over the years. It might be time to burn them or shred them, although that seems a cruel end for his companion of so many years.

  He finishes his toast and puts his dishes (and Wain’s) in the dishwasher. He’s sorting laundry when Fariza appears, one hand clutching Fred, the other holding her notebook.

  “Can we draw?” she says. Her voice is a bit raspy, but no more so than Sid’s when he first speaks in the morning.

  “Sure,” Sid says. “Breakfast first though, okay?”

  “Okay.” Fariza trots off to the kitchen where he can hear her ask Megan for some cereal. He wonders how long it will be before they all forget that she once had a vocabulary of only three words.

  There are two more Fred and Fariza stories in Fariza’s notebook: Fred and Fariza Go Fishing and Fred and Fariza at the Spa. When he draws Chloe applying a seaweed wrap to Fred’s skinny legs, he remembers the last thing Chloe said to him, and his face burns. He finishes a sketch of Fariza painting Chloe’s toenails, and then he starts to close the book.

  “There’s more,” Fariza says.

  He turns the page. It’s blank. “No, there isn’t.”

  She takes the notebook from him, turns it over and opens it from the back. Her wobbly printing covers the first page.

  “Read it,” she says.

  I was coffing one day. I had a sore throte. I got sent home from school. Mami tucked me into bed and brot me a glass of juice. The red kind I like. She and my sister Parveen were talking in the living room. I think Mami was crying, but it could have been Parveen. She stays out late. Papi and Amir—my brother—yell at her a lot and call her bad names. Mami gets upset, but she never calls Parveen bad names. I heard the front door slam. Everybody was screaming: Mami, Papi, Amir and Parveen. I pulled the cuvvers over my head. There were two big booms. Then the front door slammed again.

  Sid stops reading at the end of the first page. A bitter taste fills his mouth—as if his saliva has curdled. He can’t read any more. He doesn’t want to know what happens next. He’s a coward.

  Make It Stop

  Fariza’s hand quivers as she turns the page. Her small voice fills the quiet room.

  “I stayed in my room under the covers a long time. Then I had to pee really bad. So I got up and opened my door. Mami and Parveen were lying on the living-room floor. I tried to wake them up but I couldn’t. I started to scream. Mrs. Marshall, from next door, came and pulled me away from Mami and Parveen. I heard the sirens. Mrs. Marshall took me to her apartment and made me hot tea with a lot of sugar. The police came and talked to me. I told them about Papi and Amir yelling at Parveen and Mami. I told them about the two big booms.

  “I slept on Mrs. Marshall’s blue couch. In the morning, a woman came and told me that Mami and Parveen were dead. I wanted Papi, but she said he and Amir were in jail. I wanted to stay with Mrs. Marshall, but I couldn’t. She has two jobs and three little kids already. So I went to stay with strangers. I always said please and thank you. I wanted Mami and Papi to be proud of me.” Fariza’s voice wavers as she closes the book.

  Si
d doesn’t know what to do or say. Vomit rises in his throat, but he chokes it back. Fariza is sitting very still, her hands resting on the notebook.

  “Do you hate me now?” she asks when Sid doesn’t speak.

  “Hate you?”

  “Because of what I did.” Fariza starts to cry. She rocks back and forth, making a noise like a hurt kitten. Sid wants to wrap his arms around her, but he is afraid it might frighten her. She crawls into his lap and buries her face in his chest as he grasps for words. He understands now why she has chosen not to speak. Words are so inadequate, so insubstantial in the face of such pain. Words can’t protect you. They can’t clean your wounds or quench your thirst. They can’t stroke your hair or wipe the tears from your face. Words fly out of your mouth and evaporate. And still he has to try.

  “No, no, no, no,” he manages to say. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “But I didn’t get out of bed,” she wails. “I didn’t help Mami and Parveen. And I told the police about Papi and Amir.”

  “You were right to stay in your room,” Sid says. “I don’t think you could have helped Mami and Parveen. And it wasn’t wrong to tell the police about your dad and brother. Not if they hurt your mother and sister.” There are so many things he wants to say: Your father and brother are evil; they would have killed you too; you’re better off here. Maybe someday he’ll be able to say those things to her, but for now he searches for something simple, something innocent that will comfort her.

  All he can think of is a song Megan used to sing to him when he was cranky or upset, a song that always calmed him down. He still remembers all the words.

  When you’re down and troubled

  And you need a helping hand

  And nothing, nothing is going right.

  When he gets to the part about people trying to take your soul, he wishes he hadn’t started, but he keeps singing until the end.