The Best American Short Stories 2016

by Junot Díaz

  I get it, Genevieve said.

  —a ticket, Amanda was saying, that Grant and I bought so that we could go out to dinner at least once on our only vacation in four years, instead of babysitting for Leo while you go out.

  The women both looked at Leo, flinching.

  Whom I love very much, Amanda said. But, still.

  Do you feel better? Genevieve said. Some people just don’t mellow with age, she said to her son.

  Leo slid off his stool and went out the veranda doors, down the long slope toward the pool.

  If I didn’t love you like a sister, I’d throttle the shit out of you, Amanda said.

  Her boy gone, Genevieve’s smile was too. The skin of her face was silk that had been clenched in a hand. I guess you have the right to be upset, she said. I’ve been using you. But you know that food’s the only thing that wakes Manfred up, and Leo can’t go to those restaurants.

  Amanda breathed. Her anger was always quick to flare itself out. She came slowly over the distance and hugged her friend, always so tiny, but so skinny these days, her bones as if made of chalk. Somewhere within this sleek new woman was a redheaded girl who was quiet and cool, who opened the window many nights so Amanda could climb in and sleep in peace. I’m just frustrated, she said into Genevieve’s hair. You know we’re mostly fine with it, especially since you’re letting us drink all of your champagne.

  Genevieve leaned against Amanda and rested for some time there.

  Oh, my. Well, hello ladies, Grant said, having come down the stairs silently. His lanky arms suspended him in the doorway, his eyes lovelier for the sleep still in them. So beautiful, her husband, Amanda thought. Scruffy, the flecks of white at his temples. Unfair how men got better-looking as they aged. He’d been only a little more beautiful than Amanda when they had met; but maybe he masked his beauty under all the hemp and idealism then.

  When the women stepped apart, Grant said, Even better idea. Let’s take it all upstairs, and he winked.

  Big fat perv, Amanda said, and kissed him, her hands briefly in his curls, and went out into the driveway, walking a circle around the dead bird before setting off on a run down the hill toward the village.

  Genevieve and Grant listened to Amanda’s footsteps until they were gone. Grant smiled, and after a moment, Genevieve smiled back. He came close, touched the curve her hip outlined in the fabric of her tunic. Genevieve looked down the lawn; Leo was all the way past the pool, in the cherry orchard, huddling over something in the grass, and Amanda was gone. She looked at Grant wryly. She nodded, touched his smooth stomach under his shirt.

  They heard a step, heavy on the stairs. Manfred.

  Fuck, Grant mouthed.

  Later, Genevieve mouthed. She clicked the gas on the stovetop, pulled eggs from the refrigerator. The flush had already faded from her cheeks when she cracked them in the pan.

  Grant set the espresso maker on the stove; Manfred entered the room. His hair was silvery and swept back, and he carried himself like a man a foot taller and a hundred pounds lighter.

  The old swelling in Genevieve’s chest to see him in his crisp white shirt and moccasins. He sat at the scrubbed pine table in its block of sun and lifted his fine face to the warmth like a cat.

  Darling, she said. How do you feel today?

  I’m having difficulty, he said softly. Things aren’t coming back.

  She measured out his pills into her hand and poured sparkling water into a glass. It hasn’t been three weeks yet, she said. Last time you got it all back at around three weeks. She handed him the pills, the glass. She pressed her cheek to the top of his head, breathing him in.

  Eggs are burning, Grant said.

  Then flip them, she said without looking up.

  The bees above Leo were loud already. Grass cold with dew. Leo was careful with the twigs. He wouldn’t look at the vines beyond; they were too much like columns of men with their arms over one another’s shoulders. Beyond were tractors and the Frenchmen in the fields, too far to pluck meaning out of their words: zhazhazhazhazha. There was a time before Manda came, and after his father returned from the hospital looking like a boiled potato, when there had been a nice old lady from the village who had cooked their dinners for them. She’d let Leo stay some nights with her when his mother couldn’t stop crying. Her pantry had been long and cold and lined with shining jars and tins of cookies. She’d had hens in her yard and a fig tree and got cream from her son. That’s where he’d go if Manda didn’t take him when she left. With the thought, his body buzzed with worry as if also filled with bees. Manda was his beautiful giraffe. He’d set all the rest of them on fire if he could. When he was finished with his work, he went back up the hill. In the kitchen, Grant was drinking coffee and reading a novel, and Leo’s father was slowly cutting a plate of eggs to bleed their yellow on a slab of ham. There was yolk on his chin. Leo took the poker and shovel from the great stone hearth. There was a tiny cube of cheese in the corner that Leo looked at for a long time and imagined popping in his mouth, his molars sinking through the hard skin into the soft interior. He resisted. Outside, the falcon was heavier than he imagined it’d be. He had to rest three times even before he passed his mother doing cat pose beside the pool. She always tried to get him to do it with her, but he didn’t see the point. Corpse pose was the position he preferred to do himself. In the orchard again, he put the bird on the pile of twigs that he’d built. He stood back, holding his breath. The wind came and the bird’s feathers ruffled, and he watched, feeling the miracle about to bloom. But the wind died again, and the bird remained stiff on the nest he’d made it, and it, like everything, was still dead.

  As soon as they were in the car, Amanda felt lighter. She didn’t like to think this way, but there was something oppressive about Manfred. A reverse star, sucking in all light.

  We may as well get lunch in the city, Genevieve said as they wound through the village.

  I can’t believe we’re going to Paris, Amanda said. She thought of pâté, of crêpes, neither of which she’d ever had served by an actual French person. Her wet hair filled the car with the scent of rosemary. Leo in the backseat flared it, eyes closed.

  You’ve never been to Paris? Genevieve said. But you were a French major in college.

  Those were the years their friendship had gone dark. Genevieve had been shipped up to her fancy New England college, had forgotten her old friends among her new ones. Amanda had been stuck at UF, pretending she hadn’t grown up down the street. They reconnected a few years after graduation, when Genevieve took a job in Florida, though Sarasota barely qualified.

  Never made it to France at all, Amanda said. I had to have three jobs just to survive.

  But that’s what student loans are for, Genevieve said. When Amanda said nothing, Genevieve sighed and made a circular gesture with her hand and said, Aha. I did it again. Sorry.

  After a little time Amanda said, My mom once quit smoking and saved the money so I could go. But my dad found her little stash. You know how it goes with my family.

  Sure do. Yikes. How is that hot mess?

  Better, Amanda said. Dad got put into a VA home, and Mom’s wandering around the house. My brothers lost the forklift business last year but they’re okay. And my sister’s in Oregon, we think. Nobody’s heard from her in three years.

  Even Mina? Genevieve said. You said she was in college. She hasn’t heard from her mom in three years?

  Even Mina, Amanda said. She’s been living in our spare room to save money. It’s fantastic to have her around, she’s like a beam of light, does all the dishes, takes care of the garden. But then again I basically raised her, even when I was pretty much a baby myself. You remember. I had to change so many fucking diapers that I couldn’t even try out for soccer. Sophie was such a whore.

  Genevieve laughed, and then saw Leo watching them in the mirror and stopped, blowing her cheeks out. Mine are the same as ever, she said. Marching clenched and seething toward eternity.

  Remember that Fr
ost poem we used to say when we were wondering which of our families would kill us first? Amanda said. Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. Et cetera. I would have given anything for a little ice.

  At least you had some joy in your family. At least there was love, Genevieve said. She blinked fast behind her sunglasses. Amanda squeezed her knee.

  At least your family never made you bleed, Amanda said. All the time.

  Forgotten from the backseat, Leo’s little voice: I thought you were sisters.

  God, no! Genevieve said, then looked at Amanda and said, Sorry.

  Amanda smiled and said, I wouldn’t mind sharing some of your mom’s genes. Her pretty face. At the very least, her cheekbones. What I could have done if I’d just had those cheekbones. Ruled the world.

  You have your own beauty, Genevieve said.

  Privilege speaking, Amanda said, making the circular gesture with her hand.

  Leo thought about this through two whole villages. There was a field full of caravans, kids running and a roil of dogs that made him shiver with longing. Why would Amanda want to look like his mom when Amanda was so very, very lovely? But when he started to ask, the women were already talking about other things.

  The sun moved. Manfred moved his chair with it. He thought of nothing, time the consistency of water. Energy was being conserved until there was enough to let it blow bright and blow itself out. He couldn’t see it coming yet but could sense the build. Silence, nothing. The songbirds were holding their songs; all outside was still. The tall man the women had left behind flittered from place to place without settling. Manfred didn’t bother to listen when he spoke. At noon the sun was overhead and the last slip of warmth fled. Manfred was left in the cold. Soon, he would stand; he thought of the dinner he would make tonight, planned every bite. His energy was finite, after all, and he must save it. He opened his fingers to find that the pills had dissolved into a paste in his palm, the way they had the day before and the day before.

  The women had taken a table in a plaza framed with plane trees. The empty carousel spun. Amanda once saw a mother who had lost her children in a grocery store who had had the same hysterical brightness.

  Monoprix? Amanda said. Her first Parisian food and it was from a five-and-dime.

  Honey, we only have an hour and the café’s not terrible. Also, Leo loves the carousel, Genevieve said.

  The backs of Amanda’s eyelids felt sanded.

  Lunch is on me! Genevieve said.

  Well, then: Amanda ordered the lobster salad and a whole bottle of cold white wine. The waitress frowned at her French and answered in English. Genevieve was driving but motioned for a glass for herself.

  Leo gazed at the carousel without touching his steak-frites, until Genevieve loosed him with a handful of euros and he ran off. He spoke in each animal’s ear until he settled on a flying monkey. The man operating the carousel boosted him up, and Leo clung to the monkey’s neck, and the music began, and the monkey moved up and down on its pole. Amanda watched Leo go around three times. He was serious, unsmiling. She ate his fries before they went cold.

  I’m sorry this isn’t nicer, Genevieve said. You’ll have time to eat well before you fly home next week.

  I hope so, Amanda said.

  Truth is, we’re cutting costs a bit, Genevieve said wearily.

  Amanda laughed until her eyes were damp. So ludicrous. Where are you cutting costs? she said when she caught her breath. Your 15,000-square-foot house in Sarasota? The castle in the Alps?

  A flicker of irritation over Genevieve’s face; but this too she quelled. Sarasota is being rented to a rapper for the year, she said. And the castle has been sold.

  But. Wait. I thought that was Manfred’s family place, Amanda said.

  Three centuries, Genevieve said. It couldn’t be helped.

  Amanda picked up her full glass and drank and drank and put her glass down when it was empty. You really are broke, she said.

  No joke, Genevieve said. Bankrupt. Manfred’s mania went international this time. The rapper’s rent is what’s keeping us afloat. What is it they say? It’s all about the Benjamins.

  That’s what they said when we were young. Well, in our twenties. I thought the house where we’re staying was yours.

  No. Manfred’s sister’s. The poor one, until about six months ago.

  Ha! Amanda said. It was so unexpected, this grief for her friend. She’d become used to seeing Genevieve as her own dumb daydream. The better her.

  Don’t cry for me, Genevieve said lightly, squeezing Amanda’s arm. We’ll be okay.

  I’m crying for me, Amanda said. I don’t even know who to envy anymore.

  Genevieve studied her friend, leaned forward, opened her mouth. But whatever was about to emerge withdrew itself, because Leo was running toward them across the plaza, his head down. The carousel had stopped. The air had stilled and there was a sudden silence, like wool packed in the ears. Darling! Genevieve called out, half-standing, upsetting the last of the bottle of wine.

  And then the blanket covering the sky ripped open, and Leo, still running, vanished in the downpour. Leo! they both shouted. In a moment, the boy appeared on Amanda’s side of the table, and he put his cold face on her bare legs. Then there was the blind run through the rain, holding the little boy by the hand between them. They reached the parking garage, a wall of dryness. They laughed with relief and turned to look at the curtain of rain a foot beyond them, at the wet dusk that had descended so swiftly in midday.

  But as they watched, shivering, there was a great crack, and a bolt of light split the plaza wide open, and the lightning doubled itself on the wet ground, the carousel in sudden grayscale and all the animals bulge-eyed and fleeing in terror. The others crowded into Amanda, put their faces on her shoulder and her hip. She held them and watched the tumult through the sear of red that faded from her vision. Something in her had risen with the rain, was exulting.

  They were still wet when they arrived at the airport. Genevieve’s dress was soaked at the shoulders and back, her hair frizzed in a great red pouf. Leo looked molded of wax.

  Mina, on the other hand, was fresh even off the plane. Stunning. Red lipstick, high heels, miniskirt, one-shoulder shirt. Earbuds in her ears, accompanied by her own soundtrack. Even in Paris, the men melted from her path as she walked. Amanda watched her approach, her throat thick with pride.

  One more year of college, and the world would blow up wherever Mina touched it. Smart, strong, gorgeous, everything. Amanda could hardly believe they were related and found herself saying the silent prayer she said whenever she saw her niece. The girl hugged her aunt hard and long, then turned to Leo and Genevieve.

  Leo was looking up the long stretch of Mina, his mouth open.

  Genevieve said, But you can’t be Mina.

  I can’t? Mina laughed. I am.

  Genevieve turned to Amanda, distressed. But I was there when she was born, she said. I was in the hospital with you, I saw the baby before her mother did because Sophie had lost so much blood, she was passed out. I left for college when Mina was five. She looked just like your sister. She was fair.

  Oh, said Mina, leaning against Amanda. I see. She means I can’t be me because I’m black.

  Amanda held her laugh until it passed, then said, Her father was apparently African American, Genevieve.

  I’m sorry? Genevieve said.

  I grew up and everything got darker, Mina said. It happens sometimes. No big deal. Hi, she said, bending to Leo. You must be my very own kiddo. I’m beyond pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Leo.

  You, he breathed.

  We’re going to be friends, Mina said.

  I’m so sorry. It’s just that you’re so beautiful, Genevieve said. I can’t believe you’re all grown up and so gorgeous.

  Mina said, You’re pretty too.

  Oh, God! The condescension in her voice: Amanda wanted to squeeze her.

  Let’s get a move on, Amanda said. We have to speed home if we�
��re going to get to the shops down in the village and buy some dinner before they close.

  Amanda knew that in the car Genevieve would tell too much about herself, confide to Mina about Manfred’s electroshock therapy, about Leo’s enuresis, about her own gut issues whenever she eats too much bread. Amanda would sit in the front seat, ostentatiously withholding judgment. In the backseat, Mina and Leo would be playing a silent game of handsies, cementing their alliance. Out in the parking garage, the day felt fresh, newly cold after the rainstorm. As soon as they left the city, the washed fields shone gold and green in the afternoon sun.

  It was time. Manfred rose from his chair. Grant nearly choked on his apple. All morning, he’d swum in the pool and pretended to work on the website he was designing—the very last he’d ever design, no more jobs lined up—and all afternoon he’d played solitaire on his computer. He’d come to believe that he’d been left alone in the house. The other man had been so still that he had become furniture. It had been easier when Grant believed himself alone. He had all day in silence to defend himself against the thought of Mina: the kiss he’d taken in the laundry room, the chug of machine and smell of softener, the punch so hard he’d had a contusion on his temple for a week afterward. He could be forgiven. It was all over soon enough, in any event.

  The women will be back presently. We should make our preparations, Manfred said, walking out to the Fiat that Grant and Amanda had rented.

  Crazy motherfucker, Grant said to himself, but reached for his keys and wallet. He started the car and almost pulled out onto the road, but there was a line of tractors heading up the hill homeward. They had to wait for the spindly things to pass. Where are we going? Grant said, watching the tractors trail around the bend.

  The village, of course, Manfred said, his hands tightly clenching his knees.

  Of course, said Grant.

  The bakery was out of boules, so Manfred selected baguettes reluctantly. He bought a napoleon for dessert, he bought a pastel assortment of macarons. Leo loves these, he said to Grant, but before they reached the greengrocer’s he’d already eaten the pistachio and the rose.