But Rebecca had been awake at that hour far too often in her life. And hearing those bells had never failed to soothe her. They signaled the end of the nothing-hour, the return of shadows, movement, voices. Already, with day not even broken, she could feel the August air warming on her skin. Glancing down, Rebecca was surprised to see that her hands were still shaking. She lifted her palms and turned them in front of her face, fighting the feeling that these weren’t even her hands. They were too flat, stripped of sensation. Nothing-hour hands.
… a little girl … with a night-light … alone up there in the middle of the night …
Here it went again: the conversation with her caller, replaying and replaying, threading itself through her brain like cassette ribbon.
Because she knew it was her caller’s last conversation?
Jamming her hands in the pockets of her light summer hoodie, Rebecca started down Campus Walk, past the stirring gum trees. She thought maybe she should go home to her one-bedroom basement apartment and sleep at least a little, because she wouldn’t have another chance until at least nine tonight. But she knew she wouldn’t sleep, anyway. Not after this Crisis Center shift, and not in that room, with the water heater clanking and the Rudzinskis’ babies burbling and chattering upstairs and the two cardboard boxes full of photos and old sweaters and cat toys and paperback Penguin classics that constituted the Complete Collected Mementos of the first nineteen years of Rebecca’s life sitting half-opened, still completely packed at the foot of her futon. Not under the window fan that passed for her air-conditioning, which clanked and stuttered and chopped the air into whispers. She wondered what that fan would have whispered to her tonight—what it would have done with the conversation she couldn’t seem to eject from her brain—and stopped to watch a robin hopping around what looked like a fallen nest at the foot of one of the trees. And so she was already still when the man stepped around the trunk and grabbed her.
With a yelp, Rebecca twisted, wriggled loose, shoved her palms into the man’s chest, and only then processed who he was.
“Oscar?”
Her shove had barely even moved him. But his arms retracted immediately to his sides. Rebecca caught her breath, saw the horrified expression on Oscar’s sweet, grooved face, and almost burst into tears. Instead, she balled her quivering fingers into fists, steadied her breathing, and called herself back to herself. From wherever the hell she’d apparently been, this whole damn night. “Lo siento mucho,” she said.
“En al,” he answered immediately, tapping his red campus maintenance uniform right over his heart, in the center of his name tag. “Lo siento.”
She shook her head, wondering how she’d managed not to see him, since he had appeared almost exactly where he always did, at the end of Campus Walk, in the midst of his rounds. Tonight, though, it felt more like she’d conjured him from some nothing-hour shadow, a sort of Oscar-faerie, trash bags at his feet as he stooped for wrappers or cigarette butts, the top of his uniform already unbuttoned to the surprising morning heat, tuft of black-and-gray hair swept sideways over his scalp and matted with dirt. Like Santa Claus, she thought, and not for the first time. Exactly the sort of Santa an orphaned Jewish girl might indeed invent: bone-skinny, groove-faced, and arriving not on Christmas Eve but every single night, bringing nothing anyone wanted. But taking away all kinds of things no one wanted.
“Hola, Oscar,” she said.
“Hola, Señorita Rrrrebec.” As always, he grinned after rolling the R, knowing that would make her grin back. And here she was doing that. She could feel it.
“Como esta, Oscar? Es su hija sienta major?”
Right on cue, Oscar’s grin widened. But this morning, it took a split second too long. And because it did, Rebecca saw clearly, understood properly for the first time in all the five-minute exchanges she’d had over the past three years with this man: that smile always came late, and took too long. In a way, Rebecca supposed she had her Crisis Center caller to thank; it was that conversation that had ignited every sense she had, as though she had just awoken, having sleepwalked her entire life away until right now, so that today, she not only noticed Oscar’s hesitation but understood what it meant:
Oscar’s daughter was not here. She had never been here. Oscar’s daughter was in Guatemala. And all the thousand things he’d told Rebecca these last few years were made up, or maybe remembered, or imagined, or experienced from afar, culled from letters or carefully timed, parceled-out cell phone calls.
So much for her fabled intuition. Jack and the ’Lenes would have been astounded.
“Sí, sí, gracias,” he was saying as he picked up the trash bags, “ella quiere…” Then he stopped, because she was touching his arm, squeezing his wrist once before letting go. “Ella es asi. Gracias, Señorita Rrrebec.”
He didn’t tear up or anything, just stood there smiling. His smile settled her, some, though it did little to calm the next shockwave of guilt. Of astonishment at her own myopia. He’d told her once—several years ago, before she’d officially enrolled at UNH-D but was already working triple shifts at the food service—that she was often the only person who spoke to him during his entire 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. shift, or after that, either, most days. And instead of sorting what that actually meant, Rebecca had indulged in a pride that embarrassed her, and that she’d tried to dismiss. And felt, still. She felt it even now, standing beside him, knowing what she knew.
Abruptly, Oscar lowered one of the trash bags off his shoulders, stepped forward, and the smile vanished from his craggy face.
“Es tu molesto?”
“I’m okay,” she said, too quickly. She had to get out of here, find somewhere to get herself settled. “I have to go, Oscar. Besa a su hija para mi.” Even as she said the words—the same words she always left him with—she wondered if she should. She no longer liked the taste of those words in her mouth: rubbery and flaccid, like old gum. Leaning up on tiptoes, she kissed Oscar on the cheek, lingered just a moment in his heat, the smell of garbage and leaves and cigarettes and pears that was simply him, to her.
Then she was walking away over the grass, not looking back, not letting him see. Because he wasn’t her father, or Santa. And he had his own daughter to miss and worry about.
She did note, in some corner of her churning brain, the movement behind Oscar. In the shadows of the Clocktower’s arched stone doorway, someone had stirred. But as she hurried away toward her room or the lake or maybe—though it was too early, even Joel and Amanda were probably still sleeping—Halfmoon House, she hoped only that whoever was in there would be thoughtful of Oscar. She hoped they would acknowledge his presence, or at least have the decency to clean up their own mess.
5
In her tent amid the reeds, in her sleep that wasn’t sleep, was instead a sort of succumbing, the only succumbing she had ever allowed herself or would ever, Aunt Sally listened for the day-music. It seemed a long time coming on this suffocating late-summer early morning, the muddy river just out of sight down-bank thick as sap, silent as it slid past, the reed-shadows on the tent walls lolling like ripped-out tongues licking soundlessly at the air or each other. There were days—whole decades, even—when Aunt Sally had willed herself, during pre-dawn hours, into a sort of stillness beyond sensation or sleep, so that she was no longer herself or even self at all, but an absence in the shape of herself, like dead grass.
But this was not one of those days. And in truth, she hadn’t had one of those days in some time. Lately, upon bedding down, she had found it harder than ever before to find that still spot. The Mississippi heat wasn’t helping (not that it warmed her, or ever could, but at least sometimes, in past years, it had been a weight). It also wasn’t the source of the problem. And now, all on their own, her fingers had found their way inside her wool nightgown to alight, trembling like those feather-white seedpods that blew, all summer, down the southern wind, at the tips of her sliding, heavy breasts. And as soon as she became aware of her fingers, they started moving,
sliding open, pinching closed, teasing, tugging. Opening again. Floating down the curve of her ribs to her hips. Calling her out. Waking her up.
She could hear the others just settling into their rest all over camp. Her monsters. Another night, and whatever they’d done to waste it, safely behind them. The anticipation of a special night, the first Party in ages, luring them into dreams, about which they’d be eager to tell Aunt Sally once they woke up, so that she could perform Policy, tell them their futures, guide their fortunes.
Of course, she could tell them that now, she thought, as her fingers traced slowly over her thighs. But what would be the use—or the fun—in that?
Somehow, though, the knowing did set her tingling, awakened her still more. Her fingers curled all the way between her legs, and just as they slid home, Caribou switched on the music.
His wake-her-up selections were usually so intuitive, so nasty-tasteful. But today, of all days, he had gotten it impossibly wrong, gone all mournful just as her whole body shuddered to attention, wanted to play. Worse, he’d somehow dug up that stupid whining spiritual, that mewling to What God There Was, hymn to some “home” no one she’d ever known had been to or seen.
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” If there was a less appropriate musical accompaniment to her current mood, Aunt Sally couldn’t call it to mind. Grunting her frustration, she stopped what she was doing and sat up.
At least the song reminded her of Mother. Actually, it reminded her of a specific argument they’d had, right out there in their rocking chairs while their monsters danced. A long time ago, now.
“You never feel like that?” Mother had asked, smoking one of her damn-fool cigarillo things while the song played.
“You going to fill up,” Aunt Sally had answered, gesturing at the cigarillo. “Keep sucking that stuff down, and you can’t really push it out.”
That had made Mother smile. “Then I’ll be smoke. Just imagine where I could float off to, then.”
“Not ‘home,’” Aunt Sally snorted. “Tell you that much.”
Mother had just sat, smoking, singing along in her dry-gravel rumble. And after a long time—the nights so long, then, so slow they seemed to spread across years, the way Aunt Sally had read nights did for parents on porches, watching children in yards—Mother had said, “You really never feel like that? Like a motherless child? That doesn’t speak to you?”
“I never think about my mother one way or the other.”
Mother had turned, then, looking surprised. That was why this argument was memorable: it was one of the rare times either of them had surprised the other. “How can that be, Sally? Considering who you are, what you come from. How can that be?”
And Aunt Sally—daughter of a slave, granddaughter of a slave, thrice-raped child of a raped child of a raped child—had drawn herself up, stared Mother down. “I think about my father sometimes. I think about him a lot, actually. But my mother? Turns out she was of no account whatsoever.”
She was thinking about her father now as she slipped out of her nightgown. For the first time in she couldn’t even remember how long, Aunt Sally dipped deep into her traveling trunk and withdrew her dancing dress, with its orange flowers. She slid that over her head, down her body, smoothed it as flat as it would go. The dress still fit her like a sheath except up top, where it couldn’t quite contain her. Aunt Sally gazed down at herself, at once pleased and taken aback: yet again, though for the first time in a long while, she had forgotten how much younger she looked than she was, or felt. And now that she remembered, she also regained awareness of just how much wake she threw out there, in the world beyond this tent, once she got herself up and moving.
Here I come, she thought, half-said, to her father, long gone. To no one in particular. To everyone she’d ever met, or would ever meet.
The tent flaps parted, and Caribou’s blond head appeared. He was in the middle of speaking but stopped when he saw her.
“That’s right,” she said. “Remember me?” She considered yanking him inside, pulling up her dress, shoving his mouth where her hands had been. But she knew, from experience, that even his mouth wouldn’t be warm enough, or warm at all. He was useless that way.
“I brought you something,” he said, all hoarse.
Aunt Sally grinned, even gave him a little handclap. In most other ways, Caribou had proved as useful as anyone she had ever had in camp with her. Downright industrious, sometimes.
“You going to stand there talking about it, or you bringing it in?”
More gracefully than Aunt Sally would have thought possible, Caribou glided—even while ducking and holding his silver serving tray aloft—through the flaps of her tent. Straightening, he laid the tray atop her traveling trunk and, with a flourish, lifted the cloche covering the white china plate in the center of the tray.
Aunt Sally shook her head appreciatively, then decided Caribou deserved better. She stepped forward and kissed him full on the mouth, pressing the full weight of her breasts into his ribs, the way she knew he loved, could hardly bear. “How do you do it?” she asked, just as Caribou dropped the top of the cloche and tried encircling her with an arm, and she danced back. “I never will understand.”
“Just a snack,” he mumbled, trying to get his hands back to his sides and his pants re-straightened and settled. His deer-eyes twitched. She watched him—let him—raise those eyes to hers. “Thought this might keep you from getting peckish before the party.”
They gazed together down at Caribou’s gift: a square of forearm, gnawed so neatly clean at either edge that it could have been sawn, and might have been. The skin so fresh that Aunt Sally imagined she could still feel life-heat rising from it, so marbled with vein and thick with juice that it looked fit to burst.
“When do you do this?” Aunt Sally teased. His finicky habits embarrassed him, which amused her no end. Some of them never did get used to eating with others, or to the mess.
Caribou lowered his head. But that brought his eyes back to her chest.
Aunt Sally laughed, gesturing at the plate. “What on earth did you do with all the rest of—”
“EXCUSE ME, BABY.”
The voice seemed to burst from the very air, fill the tent like a 4th of July firework. Aunt Sally actually flinched in surprise.
“EXCUSE ME, BABY,” it said again, its tone sassy, feminine, mid-London-ese.
Not until the third repetition did Caribou suddenly straighten, flush, and reach into his pocket. He pulled out his phone, and it purred in his hand. “EXCUSE ME, BABY.”
Aunt Sally put a hand on her hip, grinning her amazement. “That’s your … what do they call that? Ringtone?”
Lifting the phone to his ear, Caribou muttered, “Been so long since anyone called, I forgot I’d done that.”
Aunt Sally had already stopped listening, though. She was too busy eying the meat on the plate. How long had it been, this time, since she had last eaten? Did even hunger fade, eventually? And if it did, she thought—with no panic, but real curiosity, and maybe even a twinge of excitement—what would be left? What came after hunger?
Then the meat was on her lips, in her teeth, her tongue curling around it, drawing it in and in. She didn’t even realize she had closed her eyes until she opened them and found the phone in her face.
“It’s for you,” Caribou said.
Aunt Sally stared at the phone, then Caribou’s wide, unblinking eyes. With a scowl, she squished the meat between her teeth, sucked down the juice and just a bit of rubbery tendon-pith, and spit the husk onto the floor of the tent. “Clean that up,” she said, and took the phone.
“Aunt Sally?” said a voice she recognized immediately, and disliked as intensely as ever. Mother’s whining, whistling fool.
“Where’s Mother?” she drawled, licking her lips clean.
Then she just listened while he whined and whimpered and told her. When he’d sniveled his last, babbled something about making his way back down to see her and Caribou
and everyone sometime, as if they were all his family, or anyone’s, and finally shut up, Aunt Sally stood still for a few extra seconds. The news he’d imparted lodged in her stomach. It didn’t move or spread, just sat there.
Mother. Gone for good, this time.
Eventually, she said, “That all you called for?”
Just like that, he wasn’t whining anymore, was done with this conversation. And Aunt Sally knew her instincts had been right. She knew exactly why the little whistling shit had called in the first place. And for the third or fourth time tonight—and here, the night just getting started—she experienced something very like a genuine shudder. This one surfaced in her shoulders, her knees. All over.
He had called because he wanted to. The scary little bastard. He had called because he’d thought being the one to tell her this news might be fun.
“You come anytime,” she said. “I’ll always be waiting.” Then she disconnected and handed the phone back to Caribou. He took it, but seemed not to know what to do with it.
“Aunt Sally,” he murmured. “Are you…”
“I made a list,” she said. “For the Party. Things we’re going to need. It’s a long list.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to do something truly stupid, and also ill-advised: touch her hand, tell her he was sorry. But he really did have better sense than most—almost all—of her monsters. Possibly, he loved her, in his way. Definitely, he knew when to be afraid.
“I’ll go as soon as I’m done here.” He knelt to scoop up the meat-skin she’d spit at his feet.
“Not you,” she said. “Send the others.”
“They don’t generally take to going out during the day.”
“Well. Tell them if they’d rather, they can stay here with me.” She waited until he looked up and noted the expression on her face. Then she nodded. “Take them the list, send them on their way, and come back. I’ve got a special errand for you, my dear.” She reached out and touched the hair on his carefully bowed head. It always felt so soft, so cold, even in the dead heat smothering the late-summer Delta, like strings of melting moonlight. She let her thoughts alight, once more, on Mother. On riding out these Mississippi nights with Mother. On never doing that more.
Good Girls Page 5
