What the Waves Know

by Tamara Valentine

  “What?” Grandma Jo looked at the crock. “It’s organic.”

  “So is horse shit, but I don’t eat it on crackers,” Remy quipped, turning back to the window. “Real honey comes in little jars shaped like bears with the bee poop cooked out of it.”

  Grandma Jo laughed as she stuck her pinky into the crock and poked it in the air at Remy. “Just try it!”

  “Not on your life,” Remy answered without turning around.

  Grandma Jo marched over to me and stuck her finger in my mouth. I rolled my eyes and licked the remnants from my top lip. It was the sweetest honey I’d ever tasted.

  “Well, I’m going to need more than that for honey chicken anyway, so grab another,” my mother intervened.

  “Tofu,” Grandma Jo called over her shoulder.

  “What the hell is toe food?” Remy scooped up the stack of screens she had freed from the windows and stuck them outside the front door.

  “Tofu. You know, bean curd.”

  “I don’t know that Herman’s carries bean turd.” Remy glanced at my grandmother as if she might be insane.

  “Bean curd.” Grandma Jo laughed. “Oh, and whole wheat pasta. I’m going to make Izabella my famous homemade macaroni and cheese.”

  “I’ll buy it.” My mother came back through the kitchen doorway. “So long as I don’t have to eat it.”

  “You will eat it, and you will love it,” Grandma Jo said.

  “Can Iz pay with a check?”

  “Cash,” Remy called from the front step. “Maynard Herman only takes local checks.”

  We had passed Herman’s Market, a small storefront with a red and white awning and a broom leaned up against the wall, coming in two days earlier. I vaguely remembered seeing the crooked old man standing on the stoop with a shock of white hair slicked back as smooth as bleached vinyl to his scalp. He’d waved politely as we passed, but deep lines etched his expression into a permanent scowl.

  My mother dug three twenties free from her wallet, tossing them beside the list.

  “Get a sweater before you leave.” I rolled my eyes, looking down at the shirt Grandma Jo had brought me. I knew she just wanted it covered up. “Iz, I’m not in the mood. Just do it.”

  Untangling my ankles from Luke’s paws, I ran upstairs, pulling on the accompanying sweater, knowing my mother wouldn’t dare say anything in front of Grandma Jo, even if she disapproved.

  Walking over to the mirror, I tugged the shirttails of my blouse the way Grandma Jo had done the night before, letting them poke out from under the bottom of the sweater. Looking back at me was a snaky tendrilled Medusa with skin the color of curdled cream. Instead of brushing through the knotted uncombed spirals hanging to my waist, I grabbed an elastic band, pulling them into a messy mop at the back of my neck and looked at myself in the mirror, trying to make the word “hideous” come alive in my throat. Even that was just an ugly small hiss of air. Against my pale complexion, the spatter of freckles passed down by my father looked more like a splash of mud that refused to wash away.

  Sometimes, I pretended the girl in the mirror was someone else. I brushed through the loose curls until they softened and the light played off them in shocks of auburn. When she smiled back at me, shallow dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth in a way that was one part playful, two parts flirty. Her eyes said she knew something the rest of the world did not. But, all it took was a single shift of light and she always morphed back into me—silent as the moon strung over the world like a fat pearl and not nearly as pretty. Today, she was all me—awkward beyond the help of cheeks pinched pink and lip gloss, one part gawky and two parts weird.

  “Gotta go!” Remy called from downstairs.

  Sighing, I pulled on a pair of Nikes and trotted out to the driveway, slipping into the passenger seat.

  “Okay, kiddo. I’ll drop you at Herman’s then run to the landing to help Mr. O’Malley unload passengers and come back around for you in about an hour. You okay for that long?”

  I nodded.

  “If you finish early, there’s a soda fountain at the White Whale. Go around to the side and Mrs. Barrett’s got a small ice cream shop, any kind of soda you want. But don’t go anywhere off Main Street, okay? Your mom’ll have apoplexy if I lose you.” Remy gave me a sidelong glance. “You remember this place at all? I mean, you were pretty little last time you were here, so . . .”

  I gazed out the window at the fields and cottages spinning past as we drove along in the taxi and shook my head. It wasn’t entirely true that I didn’t remember; there was something hauntingly familiar about it all, but it wasn’t anything tangible, just a soft echo bouncing around inside me of something long gone.

  “Mr. O’Malley said last time you were here my mother brought you a rag doll for your birthday.” She looked at me as if waiting for a response. When she didn’t get one, she shrugged. “Well, that’s what he said. Who knows, sometimes his memory is like Swiss cheese. Old moldy Swiss cheese.” She laughed. “And she used to make rag dolls for a lot of kids on the island.” Outside the window, a horse nibbled at the tall tips of alfalfa blowing back and forth in the breeze.

  My mind skated back to my room in Tuckertown, where a rag doll with charcoal yarn for hair and a button nose sat covered in dust on my bookshelf. Somehow, I always thought it was from Grandma Jo, one of the kazillion dolls she’d brought back to me from her travels. But there was only one rag doll; I’d named her Mitsey. There was an inky smudge on her dress, the fabric on her left arm was worn, and the stitching had been pulled loose from my dragging her behind me through a good slice of my childhood.

  I can’t say why the fact that I might have met Mr. and Mrs. O’Malley, not to mention Remy, on one of our trips to the cottage had never occurred to me. Of course, it made perfect sense. I’d been to the island several times when I was little, and they lived right next door. But Remy seemed a person one couldn’t forget—ever.

  “Of course, I wasn’t around,” she said, as if she’d read my mind. “Too busy raising hell on the mainland and all.” There was a snag in her voice like a scratched record. “Anyway, even if she had, it was a long time ago; it’s probably long gone by now.”

  No, I wanted to tell her. I loved that doll, had slept with it every night after my father left, imagining she could read the thousand thoughts racing through my mind even if I had no words to bring them to life. But I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I studied the sunlight dancing off the purple nose of the Thunderbird, trying to yank the memory of Mrs. O’Malley free from the rock it was stuck under.

  “Alrighty, here we are.” Remy guided the Purple Monster up to the curb. “You remember how to get to the soda fountain?”

  I nodded, slipping out the passenger door and making a mental note to hold back a few dollars for it. Anxious to have an hour to explore the village, I intended to rush through the shopping so I’d have time to do so. Up and down Main Street, men with white coveralls armed with paintbrushes were slathering the sides of buildings with a fresh coat of color. A small movie theater was changing its marquee from The Sting to The Godfather Part II. Marlon Brando had been amazing in the first Godfather, but my heart belonged to Al Pacino. I decided maybe I’d ask Grandma Jo to bring me. On the corner, two teenagers wrestled with a brass letter R, trying to affix it to a sign that read, USTY NAIL TAVERN. Tourists were already beginning to land on the island and it was clear every resident was busy with last-minute preparations for the festival.

  “You know,” Remy leaned across the front seat, her skin sticking to the vinyl, “I’ve got a bike in the garage. Got it a year and a half ago with the idea I might take up cycling and fit back into those size eights I refuse to throw away. Both the bike and the jeans still have the tags hanging from their seats.” She laughed her smoky deep chuckle. “You’re welcome to cut ’em off if you want. I’d like to think it will get ridden by someone at least once.”

  I gave her a nod that said I was just the girl to do it and waved goodbye.

 
; Ten minutes later, I found myself fighting with a sticky wheel on an ancient grocery cart that seemed intent on knocking over Mr. Herman’s displays while he eyed me suspiciously over a box of Granny Smiths from the produce aisle. I finished the list in less than half an hour, making my way to the woman at the register amid a mountain of boxed dry pasta, the contents of which shook and shished like a baby’s rattle every time the wheel caught, skidding stubbornly over Mr. Herman’s polished floors.

  “What ya running?” The checkout girl, a gangly thing with stringy auburn hair and eyes the color of creamed coffee, snapped her gum, examining the items on the belt. “A day-care center? Let me guess: tomorrow’s macaroni-art day.” Leaning over to turn up the volume on the small eight-track player beside her register, she tapped her finger to the counter, keeping time with Terry Jacks as he sang “Seasons in the Sun.” When I didn’t answer, she flashed a mouthful of braces that nearly blinded me on the spot in the fluorescent light.

  Handing her the three twenties and taking three dollars back, I plucked the two paper bags off the belt before heading toward the front door.

  “Honey!”

  Taken aback at her friendliness, I turned to find her rushing after me, waving in the air the plastic bear full of honey I’d left behind.

  Outside, Mr. Herman’s broom leaned into the corner of the stoop beside an advertisement soaped onto the front window, reading: PORK LOINS ¢.90 LB ONE DAY ONLY. I stepped off the concrete stoop eager to taste one of Mrs. Barrett’s root beer floats. The White Whale was difficult to miss, but the reason that I almost did was because the sign with a picture of a harpooned white whale was hanging from two cast iron hooks directly over my head. I only happened to look up as I passed when the breeze caught it, sending out an obnoxious squeak.

  Tillings Island was a crisscross of small crushed-shell pathways zigzagging off to the shoreline, and the White Whale lay just across one from Herman’s. Beside the White Whale, two men pushed through the door of Merchant’s Hardware with a sack of nails. A trio of kids a few years older than me lazed against the wall of Merchant’s while two girls laughed hysterically and pitched stones into a corner. One of the girls was too fat for the polyester shirt she wore, making the buttons strain over the roll above her belt. She was a stark contrast to the pretty girl posed beside her, whose long golden hair had been swept to one side and fixed with a barrette in precisely the same fashion as a Barbie doll.

  “Shit! I nicked the enamel. Now it looks like a fucking arrow instead of a star. Look.” She shoved her polished fingernail under the fat girl’s nose.

  “Jesus Christ, Lindsey”—she gave the polyester shirttail a tug, pulling the hemline over the bulge around her waistband—“It’s a goddamn nail. Come on. See if you can finish him off.”

  “Fuck you. It took me a whole hour coming up with that design.”

  Taking a deep breath, I willed myself invisible and moved forward. I had not spent much time praying—okay, any time praying—during the last few years, but I sent up a small prayer now hoping they would be too busy focusing on Barbie’s chipped nail to notice me walking by.

  “Tell you what. That sucker drops with the next stone and I’ll paint your stupid nail back on myself. Tell her to pitch the damn stone, will ya, Riley? Everyone knows she’ll do whatever you say.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Lindsey growled, pitching the small stone in her hand at the fat girl instead, bouncing it off the deep panty bulge of her hip.

  “Ouch!”

  Lindsey smirked, glancing at a tall boy with mussed hair the precise brown of nutmeg. Dressed in raggedy painter’s pants with oil stains spreading over his knees as big as Dr. Boni’s inkblots, he gave her a weak smile before turning eyes as pale and green as sea foam in my direction. Balancing the two grocery bags clumsily on my hips, I studied the crushed-shell path as I crossed.

  This was the reason I missed the glance, the one that must have passed from Lindsey to the boy to me before she chirped, “Hey! You’re new around here, aren’t ya?”

  I looked up in time to see the fat girl behind her laugh, nudging her softly on the shoulder. Lindsey stood with one hip jutted out at an exaggerated angle as she ran the pad of her thumb over the chip in her nail polish. Apparently, her mother did not share my mother’s misgivings about makeup, because her hazel eyes peeped through dramatically lined charcoal lids and an unnatural tan lit her face.

  Behind her, a watery squawk and a ghost-like shift of white drew my attention into the shadows. A seagull huddled in the corner: one wing bent unnaturally upward, a slew of pebbles circling its talons. For an instant, it looked at me before casting its yellow eyes downward. The girl in the too-tight polyester shirt bent over, plucked a stone from the alleyway, and pitched it at the bird.

  “Damn bird’s too stupid to fly away.” She shook her head in disgust. But I knew that was not the case. When a thing is that scared and hurt there is only one place to go that’s safe: deep into a small crevasse inside yourself where nobody can follow. And if you died in the process—well, so be it.

  “What ya got there?” Lindsey turned her attention fully back to me. “Mommy’s groceries? Isn’t that precious, guys? She’s got her mommy’s groceries.” The group laughed, except for the boy with nutmeg hair, who was still staring at me intently. “Come on over here. Don’t be scared. I’m Lindsey. This here’s Carly, and that guy standing there droolin’ is Riley. Come on.”

  As it turned out, I didn’t need to come anywhere, the two girls were already making their way toward me. I glanced at the seagull again, letting my eyes linger too long. Lindsey followed my gaze, laughed, and picked up a large stone.

  “What’s the matter? You shy or something? It’s okay. You wanna play? Sure. Here. The one who finishes him off gets a free soda at Mrs. Barrett’s courtesy of the rest of us.” She took the bag from my right arm and shoved the rock into my palm. It was heavy and surprisingly warm. The bird followed it from her hand to mine, hobbling back against the sideboards of Merchant’s Hardware. “Go ahead, get it in the head. You can show them how it’s done, can’t ya?” she crooned, beginning to pick through the bag of groceries.

  “She won’t do it.” Carly smirked at Riley.

  “Don’t count on it. She’s a Haywood,” the boy growled under his breath. “Killing’s what they do best.”

  Turning away from the alley, I stared at Riley, feeling small bubbles of rage pop against the sharp edges of what he’d just said. I had never killed anything in my life, unless you counted my mother, who swore I was killing her another inch each day that I refused to speak. He didn’t know me, even if he somehow knew my family’s name. Still, he seemed to be wresting back an urge to spit in my face.

  “What’s the matter with her? She a retard or something?” Carly whispered. Riley ignored her, as though watching to see what I would do.

  I wanted to speak. I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up. The words were there, I could feel them splashing around like water in a well. But every time I tried to scoop them up and reel them into the day, they sloshed back over the bucket’s edge and washed into the shadows.

  “What will happen if you speak, Izabella?” It was my second session with Dr. Boni, and once again, it began with an impossibly simple question.

  I knew exactly what would happen. Words would tumble into the wind like butterflies and I would not be able to catch them before they fluttered out of my grasp forever. Secrets would escape. The stars would stop falling. The moon would stop dancing. The magic would die.

  Nothing, I’d scrolled on the paper before sliding it over to Dr. Boni.

  Retard. I glanced at the bird, letting the word roll around inside me until it crackled and burst to life and I was six years old again with Robert Goober Head calling me a retard and leaving my ant squashed into the playground mud with its legs pedaling in the wind. In two seconds flat, the same anger and embarrassment of that day lifted itself upright inside of me.

  Lindsey pulled free the small plast
ic bear filled with honey, holding it up with a tinny high-pitched laugh. Biting the inside of my cheek, I slid the other bag onto the crushed shells with a crinkle and drew my hand back softball style.

  The bird shuffled again and I knew exactly how it felt. The idea crossed my mind to overthrow the rock, intentionally missing the bird, and be on my way, never looking back. I could do it; I had a damn good pitch and I was downright masterful at never looking back—not ever. The bird cowered back another inch, as though the shadow could harden in form and create a shield capable of saving its life.

  Lindsey unscrewed the bear’s red plastic head, peeled back the foil, and stuck her pinky into the honey before licking her finger with a grin. “Go, girl, you can do it! Put it out of its misery.”

  I let the rock reel me into a half circle, pitching it into the wind with conviction. Lindsey squealed. There was an ugly crack, followed by a watery feeling in my stomach as Mr. Herman hollered from the other side of the hole the rock had left in his front window. His soap-scrawled ad now read: P- - - - -INS ¢.90 LB ONE DAY ONLY.

  “Ha! I knew she didn’t have the guts to do it!” Lindsey twittered, giving the plastic bear a squeeze over my head so honey oozed through my hair and dripped in gooey little globs onto my eyebrow. Small blobs plopped to the collar of my new sweater while Lindsey and Carly darted down the path from sight. Still leaning into the corner, Riley studied me with interested eyes.

  “You, there!” Mr. Herman barked at me. “I have Betsey calling the sheriff right now.”

  Turning around, I pushed a gob of honey from my eyelid.

  “Look what you did to my window! And if you think you’re not paying for the damages, well, we will just see what the po-lice have to say a-bout that.” Mr. Herman looked up and down the pathway, red-faced and huffing like a steam engine. A thin film of sweat shone on his brow and he was brandishing his broom like a knotty old sword.

  “In!” He thundered. “Now!” Mr. Herman took me by the sleeve and began tugging me back toward the store.