Learning to Breathe

by Janice Lynn Mather

  No one’s seen me—yet. I look down and realize one of my feet is planted right on an exercise mat, thin and cushiony like a sheet of rubber sponge. It’s bright red. I might as well be standing on a target. I have to sneak away, quickly, quietly. Bonus if I can find their bathroom without anyone noticing. Please, I pray, let me be invisible.

  “Hey!”

  Prayer denied. Cutlass Guy stands up, wiping his forehead with the back of the same hand that holds the machete. It’s a miracle he doesn’t lop off his ear. “Miss, you all right?” He takes a step toward me.

  “Sorry. I got the wrong place.” I back up against the wall. But where can I go? I can’t make the swim back to the dock. Even the beach feels too far.

  “You soaking wet. You always swim with all your clothes on? Hey, you ain fall off a boat or anything, right? You live round here? You speak English?” Cutlass Guy takes another step forward. He’s only Smiley’s height, would have to stand on tiptoes to look me eye to eye, but with that cutlass in his hand, I don’t care. “You swam up here? From where? Back that way?” He uses the machete as an extension of his arm, pointing at the ocean; the blade reflects the sun’s glare into my face, making me squint.

  “I going right now.” Forget the bathroom. I decide to make a run for the path between the nearest cabin and the woman painting. I take one, two steps before I trip, stumbling over the stupid mat. Cutlass Guy reaches out to catch me and I let out a shriek.

  I clap a hand over my mouth, but it’s too late. A plump woman with a box of groceries on one hip turns midstride to look at me. The sweeping girl drops her broom and stares. The class on the deck has let out and a few of the students pause to look too, their mats tucked under their arms, curled up like long cinnamon rolls. My gaze falls on the woman with the red scarf, paintbrush frozen, like she’s touching up the air. She’s the first person to spring back to life.

  “No! Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.” In a few bounds, she’s right in my face, brush still in hand, dripping butter-colored paint. “You the one who went and messed up our walls? You did this?” She points at the area she’s patchily repainted. “I should call the police on you. Trespassing and vandalizing and I wouldn’t be surprised if you stealing, too. You and whoever else did this, get out. Right now, out. Out, out, out.” She jabs the paintbrush at me like she plans to skewer me on it.

  “Hey, hey, hold on.” Cutlass Guy steps in between us. “Look at her, she ain no vandal. You see her with any spray paint?”

  “What are you doing here?” the woman demands, ignoring him. She is short and pointy-faced, younger than Grammy but older than Mamma, her skin dark and glowing from sweat or pure fury.

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “What, you don’t talk?”

  “Come on.” Cutlass Guy crosses his arms. “You ga yell at her while she stand here soaking wet, on a yoga mat?” He turns to me. “Look here, miss, you want sit down? Maya,” he calls to the woman toting groceries, “you got any switcher in the kitchen? She might be thirsty. You thirsty?” Maya nods and disappears down the path to the right. He swings back around to the painter, gesturing with the cutlass again. “We can’t just throw people out, man. We have to make sure she okay.”

  “Don’t point that damn cutlass at me,” she snaps. “You,” she says, spinning around to glare at me, “when I come back in ten minutes, you better be outta here. Wherever you come from, you go right back.”

  “You should spend a minute on the deck,” Cutlass Guy shouts as she stomps off, tossing her paintbrush down as she goes. “Need some yoga for that bad attitude.” He glances at me. “Don’t mind what Joe say. You don’t have to rush outta here. How could we kick you out? And this a yoga retreat and all.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, finding my voice again. “Y’all have a bathroom?”

  “Yeah, shore. Get it? Shore?” He smiles, showing off a perfect set of white teeth, and laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Of course, I know better than to trust a person on that alone.

  I shift a little. I really have to pee. “Um—where?”

  “Sorry,” he says, noticing I’m not amused, and points past the office wall Joe was painting. “Bathroom’s over that way.”

  I barely make it there; inside, I’m so relieved, I don’t have time to regret the shoes abandoned on the dock. While I’m in the stall, someone comes in and drapes some clothes over the door. I take them down; loose, faded sweatpants and a saggy T-shirt, still clothesline warm. I change, then wash my hands, leaving my wet clothes in the sink. Outside, someone’s set a fresh glass of switcher on the step. I chug it; cool, not too sweet, and just enough sour. I start down a path that leads me past the cabins. The girl with the broom is sweeping one of them; through the open door, I see a nightstand, a bureau, a narrow bed. What I’d give for something so simple, a home that’s safe, that’s all mine, that’s close to the sea. Worlds, or at least streets, away from Gary.

  There are footsteps, voices approaching me from the beach. I head down the path in the opposite direction, following it through the dense trees and shrubs until it widens, opening into an unpaved parking lot with a beat-up white jeep and a few other cars crammed together in the shade. I hobble over the gravel and through the black, rusty gates, down a long driveway lined with more trees. That gives way to a badly paved street, then the road curving back to where I began.

  My school shoes wait for me on the dock reproachfully. Beside them, the book still sits, blown open, its pages rustling back and forth. I slip on my shoes and think of shoving the book off the edge and into the water, sending it to the same fate as those waist-hating panties and that stupid busted bra. I don’t care about the underwear, I have more of those, but I’m starting to regret setting the bra free. Even with the broken strap, it’s the best one I had. I peer over the edge, sure it’s long gone, but miraculously, there it is, bobbing, curled around one of the dock’s posts. I reach down and fish it out. Maybe a few staples could make it wearable again. Or duct tape—that stuff will hold anything together. I wring it out and cram it into the pocket of the borrowed pants, then put the book back in my bag. There’s no point going back to school, not right now. I start walking, heading to the only place I have to go.

  2

  WHEN THE BOAT PULLS into Nassau Harbour, I scan the faces crowded on the dock, waiting to pick passengers up. There: a girl holding a homemade cardboard sign over her head, a stern-faced woman beside her. My cousin Cecile and Aunt Patrice. Uncle should be there too, though I can’t see him anywhere. As I step off the boat, Cecile pushes her way toward me and squeezes me in a hug.

  “You look just the same!” she says, letting me go to waggle the cardboard under my nose. My name is scrawled in thin pencil and a photograph taped underneath, for comparison, I guess. I recognize the picture; it’s the one Mamma sent in the mail, along with the letter asking them to take me in. It was taken two years ago in Grammy’s front yard. I’m barefoot, wearing an Androsia skirt and a plain white top, squinting at the camera. Mamma was there too, but before she sent the letter off, I caught her cutting herself out, making the photo shorter, and jagged. Even now, I can still see her arm around my waist.

  “Your uncle had to work,” Aunt Patrice says, by way of an introduction. Instead of a hug, she gives me a sharp nod, narrowing her eyes as if that might change what’s standing in front of her: me, fresh off the boat in an aquamarine skirt that’s sister to the one I wear in the picture, and a homemade blouse that suddenly feels homely, nothing to my name but the straw bag over my shoulder. She purses her lips, tasting something sour. Looking back at her, in her navy jacket and matching pants and bright red high-heeled shoes, I feel shabby, a stray dog next to a freshly groomed poodle.

  “I’m Smiley,” Cecile says with a grin that’s already decided we’ll be friends. It’s obvious why they call her that; her smile stretches her long face into a wide one, the happy dancing right up to her eyes. That, and she’s skinny and looks like Guy Smiley off Sesame Street; the same dark h
air, eyebrows that slope up, and so bright-skinned she’s almost yellow.

  “This is Cecile,” Aunt Patrice corrects. “Where’s your luggage?”

  I shift Grammy’s straw bag on my shoulder. “This all I have.”

  Her frown deepens as she turns away, making her way toward the parked cars. “But it ain ga be all you need.”

  “Smiley,” the girl whispers. She takes my bag in one hand, looping her free arm through mine, and smiles even more. I can’t tell if she’s trying to put me at ease or if she’s that unaware. “What your friends call you?”

  Just Indy, I’m about to say, when I hear a familiar voice call “D-D-D-Doubles!” I don’t have to turn to know it’s Churchy from Mariner’s Cay. “D-D-D-Doubles, it’s me!” He waves before he’s swallowed up in the crowd, his own people hugging him, taking his bags. I turn away. New start, I keep thinking. New start. New start.

  “Doubles?” Smiley laughs. “That’s what they call you? Doubles?”

  “Look like a double to me,” Aunt Patrice says, unlocking the car doors. “And starting off the same way as Sharice.”

  I get into the backseat, trying to play it off, but I know that name’s going to follow me.

  • • •

  Back at Aunt Patrice’s house, I don’t shower. I leave the ocean’s salt film on me. I’m supposed to keep my things in the living room, but I dump my bag in Smiley’s room, beside the bed where Aunt Patrice won’t see it, then head back out to the kitchen. On the way there, I glimpse myself in the front room mirror, even bigger in the oversized shirt and pants, then keep right on going.

  Gary’s been in the house sometime since this morning. His stuff is strung through the kitchen like he’s marking territory. A laundry bag full of chef’s uniforms from the hotel is dumped down by the washing machine, stinking of sweat, stale cologne, and whatever he cooked at work, a hodgepodge that makes me want to retch. I ram them into the washer, bag and all, and slam the door shut.

  I rifle through the fridge, yanking out the disposable aluminum pan he’s brought from work. Buffet leftovers: fried rice with egg strewn through like bits of shredded sponge; fried fish; ripe fried plantain, soggy with cold grease. I catch a whiff and my stomach tightens, the inside of my mouth starting to water, warning me. I grab the whole thing and run outside with it, reaching the garbage can just in time to be sick, my vomit splashing over the discarded food. When I’m done, I wipe my mouth with my arm and cover the bin with the plank of plywood we keep on top, weighing it down with a concrete block to deter curious stray dogs. Last thing I need is all this mess strewn over the front lawn. As I rinse my hands at the hose, Aunt Patrice’s car turns into the driveway. Aunt Patrice keeps it running while Smiley climbs out, unloading her bags. I keep my head down while my cousin heads for the door, hoping I won’t be seen.

  “Oh, you home,” Aunt Patrice calls through the open car window. She rarely uses my name, as if saying Indira comes with a fine. I straighten up awkwardly. “Why you wasn’t at school this afternoon?”

  “Um—I was feeling sick and they tell me I could go,” I fumble.

  “You had any boys in my house?” she barks.

  “What?”

  “Don’t answer me ‘what.’ Your ma ain teach you no manners?”

  Grammy Grammy’s the one who taught me. “No,” I say, then add, “ma’am.”

  “Better not. I know everything that goes on in this house.” She rolls up the window and toots the horn twice as she drives off. Like she just set me straight. Like she gave me fair warning. Like she’s said something brand-new. She must have forgotten the first day I was here, when she took care to lay out the rules. “You have boys in here, you out. You want sleep out like big woman, you out. You come home late, you out. Understand? Your uncle want you here, not me. I ain takin no wildness from you.” But she can’t know everything that goes on. If that was true, she’d know all about Gary. She’d know what he did to me.

  • • •

  Back inside, I find Smiley in her volleyball uniform, scowling into the fridge. Must be after four, then.

  “Hey.” She glances back at me. “What happened to all that food Gary bring home?”

  I don’t answer. I’m not in the mood.

  “He text me and say he brought stuff back from breakfast and lunch today.”

  I dig through my bag for a ginger mint. “I threw it out.”

  “What you do that for?” she complains, slamming the fridge door shut.

  “It smelled off.”

  Smiley sighs as she reaches for the house phone. “You mad?” When I don’t answer, she shuffles through a stack of takeout menus while I collect up papers scattered over the counter and through the living room—brochures, a work schedule, old flyers—and bundle them into a garbage bag. When I come back into the kitchen, Smiley’s hanging up the phone. “Come with me, let’s go get dinner,” she says, by way of an apology.

  “From where?”

  “Tasty Spot.”

  Food’s the last thing on my mind right now, but even if it wasn’t, Churchy’s family owns that place, fifteen minutes’ walk away. I turn my attention to the sink and start tackling last night’s dishes. I’m not interested in seeing anyone from school. Especially him. “I’ll stay here,” I say.

  “What’s wrong with you, why you always cleaning? You worse than my mummy.”

  That’s not saying much. Aunt Patrice will dump bags of groceries right on the floor for someone else to put away, eggs and raw meat and all. Shoes stay in a jumble by the front door. Once every couple days, she corrals us to clean the mess and excuses herself to choir practice, to her women’s group, to go hail a neighbor. Still, Smiley’s words send an ugly shudder straight up my spine.

  “Well, I ain nobody’s mummy.” I dry my hands on the legs of the borrowed pants. “Just trying to help out.” I fill up a pot with water, take a bay leaf and a chunk of cinnamon bark from Aunt Patrice’s spice cupboard, and toss them in to simmer. The kitchen still reeks of those sweaty clothes.

  “What’s that for?” Smiley watches from the table.

  “For the stink. You don’t smell in here?”

  Smiley stares at me like I’m from another planet. What’s new?

  “Never mind.”

  Smiley and I, we should never get along, let alone be cousins. She’s Uncle’s child, fully, unlike Gary, who Aunt Patrice had long before they met. But Uncle isn’t my real uncle either; one of Grammy’s cousins had him young and sent him to live with her and Mamma when he was a little boy. “Nothing new under the sun, Indy,” I can hear Grammy saying. “You ain the first baby I brought up for somebody.” Technically, Smiley and I are half cousins once removed. But there’s no technically in Smiley’s world. Only that grin. She flashes it now as she holds up something rectangular and compact.

  “Sure you don’t wanna come?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A wallet.”

  I snatch it from her and open it up. Credit cards, work ID, license. Gary’s face leers out at me from the picture. He must have left it on the chair.

  Smiley’s grin widens. “What you say somebody treat us to dinner?” She reaches over and slides out one of the fifties stashed at the back, brandishing it like a trophy.

  “Why?” I say, handing the whole thing back. It’s been weeks since I got one of Grammy’s envelopes with a bill or two folded inside. Aunt Patrice will let me have food, but she doesn’t give me allowance, especially since Mamma stopped sending money a few months ago too. Even so, I don’t want anything to do with Gary’s wallet, though I know later I’ll feel hungry. But Smiley gets all the spending money she wants from Aunt Patrice; she doesn’t even need to take this.

  She gives me a mischievous smirk. “Why not? What are big brothers for?”

  That’s Smiley. When’s she ever needed a reason? I gather up my straw bag from the living room, slinging it over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  “You should have heard Mr.
MacDonald asking about you,” Smiley says as we step into the Tasty Spot. Evening news is on the TV in the corner, and there’s Churchy behind the counter, stuffing Styrofoam containers into plastic bags and stapling on the receipts.

  Churchy glances up at us and stutters out a nervous “H-h-hey.”

  Us leaving Mariner’s Cay the same time, ending up at the same school, has been like having a funhouse mirror following me. Every time I try to forget how it was back home, Churchy is there, throwing back my true reflection as nothing but Doubles, easy Sharice’s chip-off-the-old-block daughter. I slide onto a stool while Smiley asks him how long before our order’s ready. I don’t acknowledge him; I’m still mad about him calling me Doubles in the classroom. Of all the times to dig up that name.

  “What’d you tell Mr. MacDonald?” I ask as Smiley hoists herself up onto the stool beside me. She swings her feet, pretending to be a preschooler in a big-people chair.

  “He ask me what I was doing in his class, why I wasn’t in my own classroom. I told him I came to give you a pad, and you went to the nurse’s office cause you had cramps, and he didn’t ask any more. I say you’d be back to school tomorrow.”

  “Oh, so everyone think I have my period,” I say, pretending to be annoyed. “Thanks.” Truth is, I’d give anything to be getting my period, for my biggest worry to be that I ran out of pads at school. I fan myself with my hand, hot in the borrowed clothes from the retreat.

  “What’s this crap you got on, anyway?” Smiley asks, reading my thoughts.