PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Yet, I couldn't protest. I couldn't even try.

  Mama followed me halfway to my room, her mouth on full-speed chatter. Telling me how Calvin would be moving in right away. How it was something of a pity I would be leaving for Africa so soon. How we'd hardly have time to become a real family. My ears and chest and heart seemed to miss Papa Roosevelt right then more than I ever had in my life.

  "Now you have your prince and I have mine," Mama said, fluttering behind me.

  I only wanted to sleep. To shut my eyes and pretend it away. I was feeling bratty and resentful and curious with suspicion. Not at all what Mama deserved.

  I sat on the edge of my bed and she sat too. Mama's thigh pressed mine, and I felt the current beneath her skin.

  It was her hope.

  In an instant I was tucked up inside the excitement flowing within my mother- in a pool of her pure faith, connected by the invisible threads of the Magical Knowing. Everything from that vantage point was looking about as fit and fabulous as could be.

  Mama leaned in close and rested her forehead on mine.

  "When you and Ridley get married one day, you'll have a daddy to give you away. Won't that be special, Tru?"

  I nodded and smiled. "Yes, it will. It’ll be real special." I tried with all my might to believe myself.

  Mama started off, but I took hold of her arm, keeping her from going. "I'm just curious. Did Aunt Joan ever have any kids?"

  I had no intention of telling either Mama or Ridley about my road trip with Jayden. But for entirely different reasons. I figured that it was merely a lie of omission which, according to my mother herself, wasn't an out and out lie, but more like truth's shady step sister.

  Mama expelled her breath. Seemed she wasn’t wanting to say much at first. Could tell by the way her lips got snugger across. "Well now, she did, in fact. A little girl. Believe she called her Lilly. But see, Joan wasn't wed or nothing at the time, and she didn't have the means to keep the child. So she gave her up to a family from the other side of town. Why you wanna know this stuff anyhow, Tru? It’s over and done."

  I hitched my shoulders. "Just filling in the blanks in my mind, I guess. So does anyone know where she is now? This Lilly girl?"

  "That's the thing of it. The child grew up and had a falling out with her parents. She showed up on Joan's doorstep one day, every bit a young woman, looking for her rightful mama. I was only a young’un at the time. Not a smidge older than ten or so. Didn’t have no clue ‘about matters of this kind. By then Joan had married a lovely man, Charles Redmond.”

  “I never realized she even had a husband. Always thought she was a McKaye, like us.”

  “No, she wound up hitched, and seeing’s how Charles was never able to have kids a his own, they took the girl in for a while. Was all getting on real fine. The girl even took Charles’ last name as her own.”

  "That was good, wasn't it?"

  "It was good right up until Charles fell ill and passed. Vee started acting out. Seems she had some trouble of the mind--"

  "Wait. You said Vee. You mean Lilly, don't you?"

  "Well, the folks that adopted her had changed her name. To Vivienne."

  The skin over every inch of my body puckered. I tried to keep my face from dropping to the floor.

  “Mama, I ” I couldn’t get another word to fall out before Mama snapped ‘round real quick so as to change the subject.

  "I oughta get back to Calvin. Rude to keep him waiting on me.”

  In that instant the rosy ran out of Mari Kaye’s glow. She started for the door, trying to look light as air, surely hoping I didn’t know.

  But I did.

  Clear as day.

  Lilly was Vee.

  Vee was Lilly.

  That meant I'd been entertaining visitations from kin. If Mrs. Mari Kaye DuPont and Aunt Joan was correct . . .

  I had a date with death.

  Ten

  Gwendoleen said that when we finally graduated it would feel like we’d been sprung from the pen. Emancipation. Sweet as crystal. That girl sure knew a thing or two about feelings. The “big day” as Mama was calling it, had arrived at long last, and that was surely how it felt. Sweet.

  Even with that big ole’ royal blue robe all wrinkled and swimming over my best cotton dress. Even with the sun beating down on my head decorated with that dumb cardboard cap. And even with Mama and Calvin and Ridley setting all lopsided in small metal folding chairs sunk part ways into the dirt. Sweet freedom. It didn’t even matter that Ms. Tripper had led the entire football-field-turned-graduation-arena in a silly meditation to invoke a peaceful departure.

  Mama, who hadn’t been promoted beyond the tenth grade, was saucy with glee over having a child who owned a diploma. She had fashioned a mini-stack of Kleenex beneath her watchband so as to have the convenience of dabbing her eyes or blowing her nose whenever necessary. With her brand new husband at her side, Mari Kaye DuPont was the picture of a proud mama. Ridley kept a steady smile so that any time I managed a look back, I was certain he was happy. Happy that last week I had received my passport in the mail. And that in only five days we was bidding farewell to the likes of this bowlegged, weary and stagnant little town.

  My armpits was damp and I had to pee. The Magical Knowing had been sending me flashes of heat and I wondered if it had anything to do with Vee, who hadn’t bothered to show up recently to wish me congratulations or good luck or goodbye or anything of the sort.

  Might have been for the best. Seeing as how I had stumbled upon her true identity and with that, it meant that her and I conversing was deadly dangerous. Jayden was seated one row in front of me, all the way at the end of the aisle. He and I didn’t have much goings-on the past week since our trip to see Aunt Joan. I knew, from the Magical Knowing and from plain ole’ common sense that Jayden was trying to figure out how not to hate me for leaving. It was one of those sticky situations, the kind that could potentially take years to fix. Still, I was certain that some girl would come along soon enough, one with the wherewithal to slip into Jayden’s heart and stay there forever. That would surely be enough for him to forgive me, or forget why my moving off with Ridley ever mattered to him in the first place.

  Gwendoleen, whose chair was only a few feet from mine, caught my eye and hitched a thumb over her shoulder. She mouthed “He’s cute,” then waggled her brow. I knew she’d spy Ridley as soon as she was able. I paid her a smile. Two grueling hours later, when we had officially been branded “graduates” I grabbed hold of Gwendoleen before she high-tailed it out of there. I kept Mama and Calvin and Ridley waiting on me long enough to say a fitting goodbye and leave her with one small request.

  “When I’m gone, would it be too much trouble for you to drop by and check on Mama now and then? I know ya’ll don’t know each other that well, but she’s real neighborly and kind.”

  Gwendoleen nodded. “Of course. Here.” She lifted my hand and turned it over, then slid a marker out of her pants pocket. “My new cell. When you get where you’re going, shoot me a text with how to reach you.”

  “Thanks. I will. For sure.”

  Gwendoleen, with her lovely cherry-wood skin and her coconut smell, folded me into a squeeze I wasn’t expecting.

  There was something in that moment, a new sensation. Lasted a couple seconds and then it was gone. Like a hairline crack in a perfect sheet of glass. And in that moment the entire day felt more bittersweet than I ever could have imagined.

  #

  Two suitcases.

  I’d told Ridley that I was the type that traveled light.

  Truth was, I was the type that didn’t have much more than two suitcases worth of stuff worth dragging from one continent to another.

  I stared at the entire likes of me, contained in my brand new graduation luggage from Mama and Calvin. These, she said, hadn’t come from the Walmart, the way hers had. She and her husband—and I was still trying to get comfy with the sound of that one—had gone all the way to the mall where wealthy folks
shopped and sipped expensive coffee with whipped cream clouds swirled on top. Mama reported that she had plunked down a whole mess of hundreds to see me off to my new life in the very finest style.

  I didn’t wanna tell her that I would have been just as happy to borrow her crappy Walmart luggage. Mari Kaye DuPont was suddenly doing all sorts of things she hadn’t done back when she was the Other Woman. Like spend money on stuff that ought not cost so dang much. Like fuss over Calvin as if he was the Pope or the President or somebody regal like that. Mama hadn’t ever made such a huge deal over Papa Roosevelt, though I reckon that was a distinction reserved for men who provided fourteen karat gold wedding bands. I opened my dresser drawers, rifling through to be sure I hadn’t forgotten anything urgent. Temptation dared me to take that ugly ole’ troll doll. I picked it up fast then dropped it. That was part of this Alabama world and for sure I’d be needing to let go of it. Of it all. Beside that doll was the note I’d started writing the night I first met Calvin DuPont. It was a right stupid notion to believe that Mama would ditch a man based on anything I could fabricate and record on a sheet of loose leaf. I tore it in two and tossed it in the trash.

  The back of my neck was sticky with sweat. My bedroom window was opened up wide but the curtain was still. No breeze. Humidity creeping. I stepped up close to it, lifted the screen. Jutted my head outside. But I wasn’t really looking for the wind.

  I was looking for him.

  Jayden’s bedroom light was off. I assumed he’d gone off to one of the many parties celebrating the end of our high school experience. I breathed in and then left a sigh behind me as I turned away.

  A minute later I heard the whine of the window track across the way. And then,

  “Tru?”

  I returned to that space, still open and waiting. “Jay. Thought you mighta been out kicking it up.”

  He kept his head behind the screen so that his face was scribbled over in a wiry checkerboard pattern. “Just got home from a couple house parties. Pretty lame stuff actually. Whatcha up to?”

  “Packing.”

  Jayden shifted. “You really gonna do this, then? I mean, you’re gonna let that guy take you away from . . . from home?”

  I scratched at an inch on the back of my knee. My skin started pinching the way it did when the Magical Knowing was about to start in. “Can’t you be excited for me? Even just a little?”

  “I shoulda killed that guy when I had the chance. That night at Skinners.”

  “Right, Jay. So then you woulda been some sort of murderer and they’da took you off to jail. That makes perfect sense. You surely should have done that very thing.”

  I couldn’t contain my sarcasm. This was Jayden. The exact reason things between us would have never worked out. Fists of justice wasn’t the way to go about matters in this world.

  “You have no clue of the mistake you’re making, Truly. That guy stinks of trouble. You of all people should be able to tell. With all the things you supposedly know.” Jayden’s tone said that he wasn’t ready to concede, not even on this night meant for tender goodbyes, that maybe he was wrong about Ridley.

  I edged back. “I guess I don’t know all that much about some stuff, Jay. But I know enough to realize when someone is hating on me. And I know something else.”

  Jayden Collins, my boy next door, squared his eyes up with mine, and I went on without bothering for a breath.

  “I know that I will always love you in my own way. In spite of it all.”

  He didn’t say nothing else, just shook his head and closed his shade.

  And just like that, Jay and I was over.

  #

  “You’re ready to go, aren’t you?”

  It was smack dab in the middle of the night, in the gut of a string of dreams about the twinkling stars of what was going to be my new home. And there she was. Vee stood before me, her wild red hair flowing like it was floating on water. I rubbed my eyes. Found my voice.

  “Where have you been? There’s something you should know about us. If you don’t already. Your mama—”

  “I sure miss Reggie. That was his name was. Reggie. Met him at a dance in Richter. He was the only guy I saw myself sharing my life with. Had one of those strong chins, the kind with the dimple in the middle. You know?”

  I didn’t want to hear about her boyfriend. The one with the dimple in his chin who had sent her over the edge of that skimpy rail and into the Pacachi. Not now. “I know who you are. I know who your mama is.”

  Vee went on. “Did you tell her that it was an accident?”

  “No! And I don’t even think you and me are supposed to be talking to each other. They tell me it’s bad luck. No offense or anything.”

  Vee was wrapped in a long white gown that seemed to suspend her weightlessly. She retreated so that it was harder for me to find her.

  “We all need to follow our hearts, Truly. It’s what people were designed to do.”

  “Does that mean I’m right in leaving? Is Mama right, too? Is it a bad omen that you and I speak?”

  Before she could reply, my cell phone rang. At once the trance was broken and Vee was gone.

  I grabbed the phone from my night stand. Ridley’s face smiled up at me. I pressed the button.

  “Rid? You alright?”

  “Baby, there’s a problem. I just found out that there’s been a terrible fire back home. My apartment building has been completely destroyed. Completely.” I hadn’t ever heard Ridley sound so panicked in all the time I’d known him.

  I sat up in bed, clutching the sheet to my chest. “My God. How did this happen? What does this mean?”

  Horrible thoughts flew ‘round in my head. And words I didn’t want to think.

  Homeless. Omens. Bad luck. Death.

  The Magical Knowing that had been gnawing at me today, with its flashes of heat. Perhaps it was that South African fire brewing. Perhaps it was a sign. The curse of the visitation was underway.

  Mama was right.

  I could barely collect a decent sentence. How could I possibly tell Ridley that it was my fault, indirectly? “I’m, I’m so sorry, Rid. What are we gonna do now?”

  “We’ll simply have to change the plan a little. My family owns this small bungalow on the outskirts of Johannesburg. We will move in there until the insurance pays. Then we’ll find ourselves another place.”

  A bungalow. That sounded nice. Quaint. Kinda sweet, in fact. Wouldn’t make a difference anyway as long as Ridley and I was together. I told him that I was sorry. The way people do when they’re passing out condolences for something they had no hand in creating. I told him that I loved him and that everything would be fine.

  “I love you too, Truly.”

  Emancipation. Sweet freedom wasn’t nothing of the sort. I was every bit a haunted prisoner of fate.

  Eleven

  Two days before we boarded the plane, the engine in Mama’s car seized. One day prior to that Calvin tripped down the stairs and broke three toes. And Ridley’s papa had suddenly been stricken with a nasty virus, so contagious he'd been quarantined for a month. That meant I wouldn't be meeting his folks anytime soon. It also meant that the bad luck streak was officially at hand.

  I stared out the window of the airport taxi as it steered us through the streets of Johannesburg. Ridley pointed out this thing or that and promised to take me here and there. Everywhere. This strange foreign land didn’t look all that strange. In fact it looked like any other metropolis to me. Square brown buildings and grey sidewalks, red and green traffic snags and people of all colors scurrying ‘round like they meant it.

  I had to shut my eyes to find her. The pink Mari Kaye. Still dressed up in her favorite polyester pant suit and a frosted smile. She'd snapped about twenty pictures before we was set to go. Me and her. Just me. Me and Ridley. Yada. Yada. I had taken just one. Of Mama all by herself. And now my phone was in need of charging and the only way I could see her again was if I focused on the flipside of my eyelids. Focus real hard.
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br />   There she was. Puttering from room to room of the house gifted to us by dear Papa Roosevelt. I could hear her, too. In spite of the rumbling engine and Ridley running on at the mouth like a tour guide. And in spite of the two little blue pills Ridley had given me so I wouldn't be scared to fly; them pills which tended to make me see things all hazy and slanted. I could hear Mama blabbering on about this being an adventure when inside of herself her heart had a brand new ache. Was as if her parting words was caught up between my ears.

  "You go on now and see this ole' world, Truly. Just don't you never forget your way back to Richter, Alabama. And be sure you bring me something pretty when you visit!"

  She'd been creepy-slap happy. I reckon she didn't remember that I knew her thoughts. The ones deep down and not so deep down. They said, "It'll be you and me first and forever, Tru."

  "Tru? Bug?" Ridley had his palm on my knee. I hadn’t even noticed that the cab had stopped moving. “We’re home, Bug.”

  Ridley jumped out the door on the other side and sailed ‘round to help me out, too.

  We had arrived at a place clearly outside the city limits. Bryanstown, he’d said, or something of the sort. Resembled the shanty towns at home except the rooftops here was made of orange clay. I stepped out into the sun as the driver popped the trunk to get our bags.

  Trees and paved roadways. Front doors and fenced-in yards. If this is what an adventure looked like, I surely had some more learning to do.

  Ridley paused in his rummaging to loop his arms ‘round my waist. “I’m so excited that you’re here with me. It’s like living a dream.”

  It was things like that which gave me cause to forget the scent of Mama and Richter and everyone I’d left behind. Ridley laid one hand against the middle of my back.

  “Shall we?”

  #

  Here in South Africa, Ridley had to go to work at his papa’s shop where they mass-produced auto parts, same as Ridley’s uncle did in the States. I’m not sure when it was I had convinced myself that by coming here Rid and I would be spending every waking hour together as if we was snapped at the hip, ‘cause clearly this wasn’t so. I tried my best not to be resentful or real bitchy about the hours I spent on my own. Even went as far as to entertain myself any way that I could. I planted an herb garden. Rode a bicycle that I dug up in the shed behind the bungalow, and brushed up on the words folks in this part of the world used most frequently. Seems they was quick to point out that I wasn’t from ‘round here originally based solely on my manner of speech. I figured I ought to try to mold my mouth into different shapes so as to produce different sounds.