PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  NOT true, I wrote back. Passed out is all!

  They say Jayden Collins rescued you, she added next.

  “No, not Jayden,” I whispered quickly. Ms. Tripper opened her eyes and looked over the glasses riding on the tip of her nose. When she found the origin of the disruption she glared at me. I clamped my lids down real tight.

  In this neck of the woods, “they” was the utmost authority on near about every single topic under the sun. But this time they was half-wrong, too. Nobody hardly knew about Ridley, how I loved him like mad crazy, how he’d been the other hero to pull me out of the cold icy waters, how he was gonna be the boy to save my life for real, forever. Even Gwendoleen didn’t know nothing about Ridley and she knew more about me than anyone else in all of RFHS. For example she knew that I’d missed two whole years of formal education, once when I was eight and again when I was eleven on account of Mama having had misplaced herself. We kept on moving here and there so that Mari Kaye could gather up her bits and pieces and be whole again.

  All that motion didn’t much matter. During that time Mama read me at least a half-dozen books, like stuff that rhymed from that Doctor with the Cat, and real life mysteries starring the Hardy brothers who Mama said was good ole’ Southern boys. And she bought me a set of times-table flash cards, and I memorized them all. Mari Kaye would sooner let herself be caught out of the house without makeup than allow her only child be declared a dumb hick.

  Anyhow, one day Gwendoleen mentioned how she noticed I didn’t talk like most of the other kids round here and how she wasn’t trying to imply that was a bad thing, it was just an observation. I believed her because out of all the sixty-eight percent of the female population of RFHS, Gwendoleen Lambardeaux was the least critical.

  That was when I told her about how I’d been taught lots by my mother, and I reckon those lessons was the ones that sunk in most of all. Anyhow, I worked harder than a worker bee for his Queen trying to catch up, and I done it alright. I mean, I did it alright.

  So I was right ready to graduate, with Gwendoleen and all the rest of them. Then I’d go on and fly right outta here with my perfect love Ridley, and the sixty-eight percent would probably stick ‘round here and become gainfully employed at the Gas ‘n Sip or the Wash ‘n Fluff or the Clip ‘n Cutz or someplace linked to another place equally dead end. If it sounded something snobby, really it wasn’t nothing more than fact.

  With my eyelids still sewed up tight, I sensed Gwendoleen wiggling in her seat, dying to know if it wasn’t Jayden, then who, WHO was the boy who rescued me? I played her a little, not opening my eyes to as much as a slit, keeping her in suspense. Truth was, I knew I’d probably end up telling her. About Ridley. About how I was merely a handful of weeks from a brand new universe. I couldn’t very well pack up and leave Gwendoleen without an official goodbye. After a few minutes she forgot to wonder. That was the thing about Gwendoleen. She had the attention span of a house fly. But she always smelled like coconut cream, the kind you slathered on yourself when you lied under the sun vying for one of those tropical tans. There was something about that kind of consistency that I envied. The willingness to commit to one scent for life. To commit to one anything for life.

  I wondered if I was doing that very thing. I wondered if by high-tailing it ‘round the world with Ridley, I was making a choice that would last me for the rest of my natural born days.

  It wasn’t till way after homeroom, when I bumped into Gwendoleen again, in the hallway between art class and metal shop that she remembered to ask.

  “Hey, Truly. You never did say. If it wasn’t Jayden then who was it that rescued you?”

  “You don’t know him. Name is Ridley and he ain’t from round here.”

  “So is he, like, your boyfriend or something?”

  “He’s something, alright. Something else. I never known a boy like him before, and if things go accordingly, reckon I won’t know nobody after him.” Admitting it out loud gave me a high running through my bloodstream. It was either that or the paint fumes coming outta the art classroom. Whichever. I liked it all the same.

  Gwendoleen wrapped her long fingers ‘round my wrist and tugged me closer to her side.

  “Are you implying that you’re gonna marry this Ridley person?”

  “Not tomorrow or nothing like that! But one day . . . one day, maybe.”

  Gwendoleen nodded. Her neck was slender and long, too, like her fingers. She’d had her hair cut into one of those short bobs all the girls was trying out now. It made her neck look like it stretched clear down to her toes. “I always kind of figured you’d end up marrying Jayden.”

  “Me and Jayden? Hitched? No way. We’re friends is all. Never been nothing more. He’s almost like a brother to me. Or a cousin. No blessed way.”

  Once upon a time, and the good Lord knows this more than anyone else, I’d imagined that very thing. Once I’d even tried it on for size. Truly Ann Collins. I might have admitted it then, to Gwendoleen in the hallway with the stench of budding artists slithering up my nose. If I’d ever bothered to have her over, to hang out with her in my room and talk about boys and stuff or to have her share in one of Mama’s catered suppers. Maybe then we’d have become girlfriends on those terms. Girls that kept each other’s deepest secrets.

  She released my arm.

  “Anyhow, I’m happy to hear you didn’t die up there, falling off that bridge like that. My mother said about twenty-five years ago a young woman fell into the Pacachi River in the middle of January. Water was so cold, she froze to death. They say she committed suicide but it was never proven. Either way, that place is bad luck, Truly. You ought to stay away from there, from now on.”

  With that warning she was off and I watched her go, the back of Gwendoleen, rounding the bend and heading away. The Magical Knowing began gnawing and all at once Bee or Bea’s watery white face flashed before my eyes. Her voice chimed between my ears.

  “Will you tell my mother that it was an accident? Tell her I didn’t mean to go.” “They” didn’t know beans about beans. That girl didn’t take her own life. She’d told me so herself. Maybe if I’d ever bothered to make Gwendoleen my best friend, I could have told her that very thing.

  Later that day, I arrived home to find Mama smiling ear to ear at a tremendous bouquet of wildflowers sitting in the center of our kitchen table. It was a sight to see—not them flowers—my mother, with a big ole’ grin slapped across her face.

  “Calvin?” I asked. Honestly, with Mama you never could tell.

  She nodded and dabbed at the edges of her eyes with a dishtowel. “Ya’ll probably don’t recall this, Tru, but Franklin used to have a dozen pink roses delivered to me every Friday.”

  I slipped into the chair beside hers, letting my knapsack fall softly to the floor. “I remember,” I said. And I did, mostly ‘cause the whole house had smelled so pretty on those days.

  “Really makes a girl feel special when a man thinks enough to do a thing like that.”

  I wondered what kind of flowers grew wild and free in South Africa. I wondered if Ridley would bring them home to me wrapped in a big yellow bow.

  “Mama, you are special.”

  “It’s right kind of ya to say so, Truly.” My mother stood and placed her hand on top of my head, only for a minute, as if she was readying herself to say something kind in return. But then she pulled in her breath and let it out, without any words attached. She turned like she was gonna leave me there, alone with her beautiful flowers.

  “Hey, Mama . . . you know much about the tragedy that happened way back when, on Skinners Bridge? The one where the woman drowned in the Pacachi?”

  My mother kept her back to me. “What you wanna know about that for?”

  “Well, see, when I was under the water, I think I had this visitation—”

  “No. You didn’t. You was just dreaming or hallucinating or something.”

  “I don’t think so, Mama.”

  My mother gave me a real hard look, like she
’d caught me cussing out in church or something.

  “Truly Ann, don’t you remember what I told you about them visitations?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t recall ever discussing anything of the sort with her before. And as if Mama using my full name wasn’t serious business enough, she bent down close to me and kept her voice real low, as if she was afraid the universe might overhear.

  “They bring bad luck to folks with the Magical Knowing. Aunt Joan was the one who warned me of that. I was right lucky that I ain’t never had me one of them visitations and you ain’t had one neither. It was a dream you had. Just a ridiculous dream, is all.” With that Mama left and went straight to her room, closing the door behind her. We didn’t have any other talk between us all evening. And when at last I laid my head down for some sleep, from below I could hear Mama’s mattress squeaking up one hell of a holy ruckus.

  Six

  Ridley and I was ambling along, down by the part of town where the paved streets gave way to the dry, dusty dirt roads. We was holding hands, with our fingers all locked up tight together. It was something he liked to do, traipse ‘round here and there looking at how the roads of Richter bent and curved into one another. We’d walk for hours sometimes, till the soles of my feet felt about ready to peel off the bone. And we’d talk over the plans we had to leave this place behind, which now had a whole new feel to it.

  Reality.

  I didn’t let on that laying there quiet, behind my words I was doing my best to memorize these roadways, each twist and turn, even though it had hardly mattered to me much up till then. Home had been wherever Mama and I had set our belongings. Four walls and a roof and a plot of land loosely known as a neighborhood.

  Yet, I reckon ever since Papa Roosevelt gave us the house we’d lived in for these past years, it hadn’t occurred to me that we did have us a place we could think of as a hometown—walls and a roof and a plot of land where we sorta fit. It was a might strange time to realize it now. Mama always said that the mind was a squirrelly creature, hiding nuts and berries then digging them up when you least expected it.

  Ridley kept saying how I was gonna adore the lay of things in Johannesburg. How I was gonna feel right at home. Every time he said so I tightened my grip on his fingers, though I don’t think he noticed or minded much. Partly I was excited with the prospect of starting fresh, like a brand new batch of dough. I could become anything I wanted to be—a fancy croissant, if I so desired. Yet I was certain that if I stayed here with Mama, there was no doubt that before long I’d be an old loaf of white bread, moldy and stale and ready to crumble.

  “Tell me again, Ridley. Tell me about your place in South Africa.”

  He smiled and hung his arm over my shoulder. “It’s a great big apartment, on the tenth floor, the very highest one in the building, with a rooftop balcony overlooking the gorgeous city, only eight blocks from the art gallery and the park.”

  When I first found out where Ridley came from, I figured it was like a jungle, with lions and elephants running loose and wild, and folks getting trampled and chewed to death on a daily basis. But clearly this wasn’t the case.

  “It sounds so urban cheek.”

  Ridley chuckled. “You mean chic.”

  “Like a croissant,” I said, and he gave me a funny look but not in a bad way. “Promise me, Ridley. Promise me you’ll tell me something special about Johannesburg every day.”

  “I promise.”

  “Because Mama’s making me about as nervous as a termite in a wood chipper.”

  We stopped walking and Ridley stepped directly in front of me. He placed his palms on my shoulders and looked me square in the eyes. “Don’t be worried, Bug. It’s going to be wonderful.”

  Bug. That was Ridley’s tender name for me. As words go, it sounded gross, but it wasn’t so much the word as it was the way he said it, with the softest, gentlest tone in his voice. Made you forget all about creepy critters and termites and wood.

  “I hope so ‘cause I don’t think Mama’s all that crazy about the notion.”

  And partly I was worried. About Mari Kaye. About me. About me and Ridley. About Jayden.

  “Your mother strikes me as a strong lady. She’ll be fine.”

  Night was fixing to fall and all the colors of the sky would be slipping on outta sight. Soon I’d look up and if I was lucky, I’d see the stars and they’d see me. When I was real little Mama used to tell me that they was up there to keep tabs on me while I slept, to chase away the bad dreams and be sure I woke up happy. On the evenings when the nightmares came calling, I’d wonder why and she’d say,

  “That’s cause the clouds choked those pretty bright stars, Truly. Don’t fret none. Them nasty clouds are just passing through.”

  “What is it, Bug?” Ridley took hold of a strand of my hair and gently pushed it behind my ear.

  “I’m wondering if the stars in South Africa are the same ones floating ‘round right up above here in Richter.”

  Ridley smiled. There was something comforting in the way his lips curled ‘round the bottom of his face. “There are millions of stars. Plenty to go around. Now, you know what I think?”

  “No.”

  “I think you need something to help you relax a little.” Ridley reached down into the front pocket of his jeans and retrieved a small wadded tissue. He unwrapped it slow and careful, to reveal two little blue pills.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “They’re herbs from back home, called Pulsatilla. They will make it easier for you to rest without all this anxiety. Take them with some water when you get home.”

  He rolled the tissue back over the pills and placed them in my hand.

  “Thanks,” I said. Ridley always had one thing or another from his country made special to ward off the evils of the mind. But they was all herbal, grown in nature. They wasn’t illegal substances or nothing of the sort. Once I made the mistake of telling Jayden about them, and that’s how he got to thinking that Ridley was pushing drugs on me. Even though I told him he was dead to wrong, Jayden found himself something negative to hang on to and that was all it took for his hatred of Ridley to start growing big and strong.

  Ridley pulled me in close to his chest and I inhaled real deep. I loved how his clothes had that line-fresh scent even though I don’t reckon he was one to hang his things out in the breeze. Then he kissed me on top of my head, letting his mouth linger there as if he was being sure the kiss sunk way into my troubled brain.

  That there’s part of what made him such a great guy. The fact that he cared enough to wanna see me get my head on straight and all. I imagined us laying down together up there on that rooftop balcony, me snuggling right in the space between Ridley’s arm and chest, smack dab in the center of Johannesburg with a million stars lit up over us. Maybe if we was fortunate one of ‘em might even fall right down on us, which Mama believed meant you’d have good luck forever and ever, amen.

  “It’s going to be the beginning of a great new life, Truly.”

  We didn’t do no more talking. We walked on home, quiet thoughts strung out like a silky web between us, bugs of a feather, me and Ridley. It was right. It was good. He was right and good. And already twenty years old. A real man with a real job. Ridley worked for his uncle in a plant where they manufactured auto parts. He had plans and goals and a clear future. Was fixing to train in his trade here till I was done with school, then work for his papa back home. And here I was, wedged all up in his goals like a poppy seed caught in your teeth. Would I be the girl for him, the one he’d be linked to forever? When I was thirty, would he still wanna call me his Bug? What about when I was forty or seventy-two?

  Two hours later I undressed clear down to my bra and panties, and stood in the middle of my bedroom, staring at myself in the mirror on the back of my closet door.

  “Truly Ann Kaye,” I said, in a tone about as serious as a heart attack, “you need to do something with this body of yours. Linguine arms and pipe cleaner legs and t
hat soft doughy center! And don’t even get me started on those bosoms. You got a man plum crazy over you. Might even be wanting to make you his wife and here you are looking a fright.” I shook my hair and waited for it to fall into place again. Ridley said it looked thicker this color, instead of my natural white-blonde. He was correct. He was correct about most things. “You ain’t got just any man, neither. You got ya’ a smart man. So shape up!”

  I decided right then to adopt an exercise plan that I vowed to stick to like quills on a cactus. How could I expect to begin a whole new life as Mrs. Ridley Fisher with this raggedy old body? I spun. That’s when I saw him there.

  Jayden.

  At his bedroom window which was exactly in line with mine. And he was gaping at me in all my near-naked splendor. I snatched my robe from the closet and wrapped it ‘round myself quick as I could. Then I pushed for the window and opened the sash with a testy snap of my wrist. I rested my hands on my hips.

  “Are you like some kinda peeping Tim or something now?”

  Jayden took his time leaning down and speaking into his open screen. “It’s Tom.”

  “What?”

  “Peeping Tom, not Tim, silly.”

  “Don’t matter. Perverted either way. So’d you like what you seen?”

  “I wasn’t really looking, Tru.”

  “’Cause I’m going to the gym one day real soon, ya’ know. Joining an aerobics class or whatever.”

  Jayden smiled. I’d near forgot how sweet he looked when he gave me one of those sideways grins. “You about to go to bed?”

  “Reckon.”

  “I uh, I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  “Well now ya’ll seen every bit of me. Happy?”

  “Hey Tru?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Feel like hanging out for a while tomorrow?”

  “Maybe. I’ll call you.”

  Jayden nodded and straightened up. I turned away until he said my name once more.

  “Tru?”

  “What?” I said, looking halfway over my shoulder.