Just outside the ceremonial fale, Rex pantomimed the process but uttered nary a ku-sa-fa. Even he possessed some instinctive grasp of protocol.
“Are you bored?” Valerie said after half a dozen cups had been served. “I am. Let’s go find Mike. He said he’d take us up the mountain.”
Mike was Toni’s younger brother, whose sheer, pale skin reminded me of a gecko’s. Valerie and I found him sitting by one of the pilings that held his family’s house high off the ground.
“Enough fiafia?” he asked.
We nodded without speaking, dull from hunger and tedium.
“Come on. There’s a trail that goes up the mountain. We can see the ocean from there.”
Mike led us to the edge of the village, where a narrow but well-worn path sliced through tangles of vines, clumps of banana trees, and masses of plants I’d never seen before. Single file, the three of us tramped up the path; the higher we climbed, the fainter the aromas from the underground ovens became and the less I thought about my hunger and the festivities we’d left behind. Watching fruit doves with iridescent green wings flutter through the forest, hearing their strange calls—a cross between a moo and a purr—and breathing in the moist air with its ever-present blend of floral fragrances, I found myself caring less and less about anything at all except what we might encounter around the next bend.
We were exploring—a word that gave me a soft thrill—just as I’d explored my neighborhood as a child. From the time I was old enough to leave our back yard on my own, I’d wandered the nearby woods, climbing up and down the banks of its muddy creek and imagining myself to be trekking in exotic places. Getting to know my surroundings—and myself—through the challenges I devised. Never mind that the creek was no wider than my twin bed, with banks barely higher than my head. When I scrambled up its sides I was scaling the Matterhorn like the boy in Third Man on a Mountain. When I tottered across the narrow drainage pipe that spanned the creek, placing one foot in front of the other and holding my arms out for balance, I was a tightrope walker traversing the Colorado River. In these fantasies, the unknown was more alluring than unsettling, and I was ever the plucky adventurer.
In all my imaginings, though, I never saw myself here on a mountain slope in Samoa. If I thought about the South Seas at all as a child, I probably pictured expanses of sand with clumps of palm trees—cartoon desert islands. Even when Danny and I daydreamed and drew pictures of our island hideaway, Samoa looked like a palm-studded pancake.
I never dreamed of the mountains, and if I had, I never would have dreamed such mountains as these. Upholstered in tufted green, like mounds of cut velvet cushions, they rose from the sea and were robed in mist like the taupou in her fine mat. What vital knowledge did they possess? Would they share it with an outsider like me?
As we neared the summit, Mike led us to a clearing where we could look out in all directions. Straight ahead, the ocean glinted as if sequined, and in every other direction were those mountains. Those mountains.
This place. This curious, velvety, luscious place. This begging-to-be explored place. This possibly unknowable place that might test my limits in ways I could not imagine. I was not—and might never be—prepared to embrace island life in its entirety. But I was, in my own awkward, swaying way, ready to make my own fiafia with this island.
Chapter 5—Mango Rash
It is a matter of astonishment to many that the luscious mango, Mangifera indica L., one of the most celebrated of tropical fruits, is a member of the family Anacardiaceae—notorious for embracing a number of highly poisonous plants.
—Julia F. Morton, Fruits of Warm Climates
A thatch of sun-bleached hair caught my eye. Then a white t-shirt. The hair, the shirt, and the rest of the boy materialized from the shadowed edge of the tennis court, where Valerie had brought me to meet the tribe of teenagers who hung out there every night.
I’d seen that hair, that shirt, that boy, somewhere else. Or did I only think I had?
It came back to me like a recollected dream, fleeting images at first, and then the thread of context: from the back of Dr. Donaldson’s Jeep, our first day on the island, I’d seen the t-shirt boy—blond hair combed straight back, surfer-style; jeans stretched taut—as he pulled into the parking lot of Nia Marie’s general store on his motorcycle, switched off the engine and lit a cigarette. When my mother’s head was turned, I’d glanced over my shoulder for a second look and felt that feeling—half-flutter, half-tingle, radiating south from my solar plexus—a sensation I associated with boys and activities my parents would not appreciate. The rest of that day, I’d watched for him on the road, but he’d disappeared, and I started thinking I’d imagined him, a phantom surrogate for the real boy I was missing. Now here he was again, real as could be, and Danny was the one who existed only in fantasy.
I felt the boy’s eyes on me, but I didn’t meet his gaze, pretending to be riveted on the scene unfolding around me. By day, the tennis court was nothing but a rectangle of pitted concrete surrounded by rusty chain-link fencing, but every evening, it was the place to make the scene and socialize, like the Sonic in Stillwater, sans carhops and tater tots.
Girls in Bermuda shorts and summer tops clustered together, alternately whispering and shrieking, glancing over their shoulders at the older boys, who hung back in the shadows, cigarettes dangling from their lips. A couple of younger kids, not yet in their teens, rode Sting-Ray bikes in figure-eights, slicing through the crowd like swift fish through a reef. A Samoan boy shinnied up a palm tree and threw down coconuts; someone cleaved off the tops and passed around the unhusked nuts for drinking. Not exactly lime Dr. Pepper, but I’d give it a try.
The night had the feel of a midsummer evening in the small-town America of my childhood, where all the neighborhood kids drifted out of their houses after supper for a game of Kick the Can. Without cars or other signs of status, we weren’t adolescents posing as adults; we were just a bunch of big kids who’d come out to play under street lights and stars.
Except for that blond boy whose eyes were burning through me. I sensed his games were not so innocent.
“New girl, eh?” The boy was walking toward me now, regarding me evenly as he took a drag of his cigarette.
New girl. I liked the sound of that. Until now, I’d been so absorbed in my own reactions to this foreign place, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would be considered a novelty, fascinating for the simple fact of my unfamiliarity. Living sixteen years in the same town where I was born, I’d never been the newcomer, but I’d often wondered what it would be like. Would other girls clamor to be my best friend? Would boys nudge each other when I walked by? Or would I just blend in with the kids nobody noticed? In my daydreams, I imagined I’d somehow become more likeable, less flawed, in a new setting. That simply changing residences would erase my insecurities and transform me into the sort of girl I imagined Graffiti Barb to be.
Now here, with this boy, was my chance to find out if I had been reconfigured into a brand-new, better self. I’d had a trial run when Valerie introduced me to the other girls a few minutes earlier, but I wasn’t sure how I’d come across; I was still trying to figure out what they thought of me—and what I thought of them.
There was Marnie from Alaska, whose hair—wavy in all the wrong places—was offset by brown eyes as appealing as the eyes of a little animal you wanted to cuddle. And Suzi, skinny, with a peeling sunburn, who came from Wisconsin (“America’s Dairyland,” she informed me in a sarcastic tone). And Joyce, a copiously freckled Californian who wore mismatched, oversized rings on all ten fingers, calling attention to the peculiar color of her hands and arms, like a nicotine stain run amok. My suspicion, later confirmed, was that she’d been experimenting with QT, a lotion that was supposed to turn your skin golden but produced a shade more like tangerine.
Like the places they came from, the girls’ reactions to me were all over the map. Marnie played hostess, gliding over to greet Valerie and me as w
e crossed the street from Valerie’s house, directly across from the tennis court.
“You like parties?” she asked straight off. I nodded; she smiled. “Good, you’ll fit right in.”
I’d fit right in? Graffiti Barb status just like that? Could it be so easy?
Suzi made me think not. With a smile that was more like a sneer, she’d made a snarky remark when we were introduced. I chalked her attitude up to immaturity and tried not to take it personally, but I knew from that moment we’d never be close.
Joyce fell somewhere between Marnie and Suzi on the congeniality scale: no caustic remarks or sneers, but not what you’d call chummy. Reserved, I guess you’d say. She asked about my silver ring: “What are the Xs for?”
“It’s a club. Back home. They’re Greek letters: Chi Chi Chi.” I could’ve said more, but I didn’t want my new acquaintances to think I was comparing them to friends I’d left behind. Even if I was. Anyway, we were interrupted when one of the older guys—not the t-shirt boy yet, but another—sauntered over, moving slower than I’d ever seen anyone move, swaying from side to side and rolling his head and shoulders with each step. Fluid, like a slow-motion scene in a movie. He looked Samoan, but he wore American-style pegged pants and Beatles-style ankle boots; his hair, a rusty shade much like Joyce’s QT tan, rose straight from his forehead into an unruly pompadour of frizz. It made him look like a clown, but a hipster clown, with a goatee and sideburns. I stifled a giggle.
“Hey, girls, who’s your new friend?” His words rolled out as slowly as he walked, and he slurred them as if his tongue was too big for his mouth.
“This is Nancy, Fibber,” Marnie said. “The new doctor’s daughter. From Oklahoma.”
“Okla! Homa!” Fibber said it like it was a figure of speech, not the name of a place, and he laughed, a slow-motion ha-ha-ha, as if someone had told a joke. “Where’s that? Is it close to California?”
“Not in any way,” I said. “It’s nowhere, really.”
“Nowhere!” He laughed again. Then he called toward the shadows, “Hey, Dick, come meet this cool girl from Nowhere.” That’s when the boy in the white t-shirt appeared and made his move. That’s when this girl from Nowhere lost her cool.
I stared at the ground, absorbed with the meanderings of a crack in the concrete, trying to figure out how my brand-new self would react to the t-shirt boy’s overture. He was within inches of me now. I could smell the just-laundered whiteness of his t-shirt, the sea water baked into his hair, the duskiness of his cigarette.
“So, new girl from Nowhere, do you have a name?” he asked.
I was dumbstruck—not just in the figurative, flabbergasted way, but actually unable to make words come out of my mouth. I wasn’t accustomed to boys coming on so strong; they were usually the ones acting sheepish and tongue-tied. But this motorcycle-cigarette-t-shirt boy was nearly a man, exuding maturity, experience, and something else I had no vocabulary to describe.
Your name, stupid, just tell him your name. What’s so hard about that?
The night was warm, but I was more aware of its moisture, an enveloping vapor like breath on my skin.
“Hey, I know I don’t look too good with this mango rash, but you could at least look at me.” Dick crooked a finger under my chin and tried to tilt my face toward his.
I peeked up. “Mango rash? What’s that?”
Dick pointed to his lips, ringed in red as if he’d painted on a clown mouth and tried to wipe it off with Kleenex. “See? This is what happens when you eat a green mango. Neat, eh? Don’t ever try it. Burns like hell.”
“She’ll never kiss you now,” Fibber said. “Ha-ha-ha.”
In the distance, a motorbike whined through the progression of gears—first … second … third—the pitch rising with each shift. I absorbed the sound in a visceral way: inside me, clutch engaged, throttle revved. I met Dick’s eyes with a gaze level as the Oklahoma panhandle.
“I guess there’s a lot I’ll have to learn about this place. And to answer your question, I’m Nancy, from Oklahoma, also known as Nowhere.”
“Well, Nancy, let’s get away from this crowd, eh?” Dick rested a hand on my shoulder and guided me to a crumbling curb. I sat down; he sat beside me, close enough for our knees and shoulders to touch. The tingle returned; it fizzed in my stomach and made my skin feel surprised.
“So, what’s it like in Oklahoma? Pretty flat, eh?”
“Well, actually, no. Not where I’m from—it’s more rolling, and—” Dick was looking at me like he wasn’t really interested in the topography of my home state. He offered me a cigarette from a pack of Kents. I shook my head “no.”
“Don’t smoke, eh?” He pulled out a cigarette for himself, lit it and inhaled deep and long, watching me the whole time.
“Well … not really, no.” I wished I did. Girls who smoked gave off a bored, too-cool-to-be-bothered-with-you vibe that contrasted distressingly with my eagerness to please. I’d tried smoking, but it made me feel seasick.
“So you’re a good girl.” Was he teasing or mocking me?
“Well … not always,” I lied. Actually I was, in comparison. There were some things my parents didn’t know about, mainly involving Danny and our tentative excursions into each other’s erogeny, but for the most part I followed their rules. It just seemed easier than dealing with my father’s anger—the quiet kind that stung as much as a slap.
I toyed with my ring, embedding its Xs deep into my palm. Dick grabbed my hand and pressed it against my thigh to keep it still.
“See, if you’d have a smoke you wouldn’t be all fidgety like this.” He raised my hand to get a closer look at the ring. “What are the Xs for?”
I almost launched into a discourse on Greek letters and high school social clubs, but I stopped myself. Narrowing my eyes in an imitation of Valerie’s squint, sly and knowing, I said, “I can’t tell you. It’s secret.”
Dick smiled in a way that also was sly and knowing; the mango rash exaggerated his expression. “So, the good girl has a shady side. Will you tell me if I guess it?”
“Maaaybeee.” I gave him another angled look as I drew out the word, amazed at how easily coquettishness came to me now.
“I’m guessing it’s kisses from your boyfriend back home. Am I warm?”
Another sly smile. A shrug.
“Well, hey, if there is a guy back home, forget him. I’m taking you to a dance Friday. Goat Island Club. I’ll pick you up on my bike. You live in Barb’s old apartment, right? Been to some bitchin’ parties there.”
I tensed up, flushed, my hand still in Dick’s. I pictured Danny’s face in the frame on my dresser, perpetually smiling, unsuspecting. When we’d discussed “dating other people,” it had seemed so abstract, so unlikely. Now I couldn’t remember exactly what we’d agreed to. Was it okay to go out, but not make out? Had we even made any rules?
“So? Pick you up at seven?” Dick stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete and flicked the butt into the darkness bordering the bright rectangle where the other girls flirted with the pack of Samoan and American boys who’d drifted over. Their laughter faded in and out like a party overheard through a wall.
My hand itched. Was mango rash contagious? How odd that something so juicy and inviting could cause such misery.
“So?” Dick asked again, his fingers pressing mine.
Answer him. Just tell him no. Or yes. No, definitely no. But maybe …
I shifted my weight away from him and felt my muscles strain. I shifted back and rested my shoulder against his. Oklahoma Nancy would not be waffling like this. She wouldn’t have flirted with this boy in the first place, not when she already had a boyfriend. But Samoa Nancy? She’d come here open to new adventures; taking up with t-shirt boy could be the beginning of a big one.
Headlights from passing cars swept over us like a tide. I took comfort in knowing the Pontiac Tempest my parents had shipped over was still on a boat somewhere in the Pacific.
There was no way my father could cruise by to spy on me tonight, as he often did when I was out with friends in Stillwater.
I looked at Dick. He was smiling as if he already knew my answer.
“Okay, sure,” I said. “But not on the bike, okay? My dad won’t let me.”
“Wouldn’t want to upset Daddy, would we?” That mocking tone again.
I slipped my hand out of Dick’s, stood, brushed off the back of my shorts, and took a few steps toward the road. “I’ve got to get home,” I said over my shoulder, “I’ll see you Friday.” A few more steps. I turned.
“Unless …”
Still sitting on the curb, Dick was smoking again, watching me with a half-smile.
I half-smiled back. “You could give me a ride home tonight—if you drop me off a little ways from the apartment.”
We took off, Dick smoothly working the clutch and shifting gears: first … second … third … the engine humming more urgently as it neared each peak and then settling into a murmur. I didn’t wrap my arms around Dick’s waist—I hung on to the back of my seat with both hands—but our thighs touched. And just before the end of the ride, I leaned close, brushed my cheek against the white t-shirt, and committed its scent to memory.
Chapter 6—Double Ugly
Tiki—a large carved talisman of humanoid form, common to the Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean. These talismans often serve to mark the boundaries of sacred sites.
—Wikipedia
The way my father cradled the parcel, I thought he was carrying a baby. As he crossed the courtyard and neared our front porch, though, I realized the figure in his arms was not a child, but a carving—his latest find from the tourist fale in Fagatogo where villagers sold handmade wares.
Mango Rash Page 5
