When Life Gives You Mangos

by Kereen Getten

  Count, Clara. Count.

  “Well, maybe your mother was only talking about you,” I snap. “Creeping seems to be your thing.” My voice is loud and crackly. My chest is rising and falling fast, and I’m pointing at her like Mama waves her finger at me when I’ve done something that disappoints her. The girl turns her head to look at me, completely unfazed by my outburst.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She sits up and dangles her feet off the bed. “I only wondered what you were doing, that’s all.” She walks around the bed and heads for the door. I listen to the door close and her bare feet skip across the pinewood floor.

  I hurriedly finish my chores and rush by a woman in Ms. Gee’s kitchen. She smiles when she sees me, and I assume it’s the American girl’s mother because they look the same, except her hair is short and dyed red. Her face lights up when she smiles, and her teeth are almost as white as Pastor Brown’s.

  I find Ms. Gee in the same place I left her, on the veranda. I don’t bother to ask if she wants to come to dinner because I know what she will say. Do you think I can’t cook for myself? I don’t need your charity or your mother’s poisonous food.

  Instead, I wait impatiently as she reels off the chores on her list one by one, demanding to know if I have completed them just the way she has asked. I don’t know why she needs me. She has a live-in maid for the summer. I cast a fiery look over at Rudy, who is sitting on the veranda wall again with the same book.

  “Can I go now, Ms. Gee?”

  She responds with the folding of her arms, leaning back into her chair, and staring into the night sky.

  As I walk down the steps, the American lady comes out onto Ms. Gee’s porch and asks if I want her to walk me home.

  Ms. Gee scoffs before I can answer. “Walk her home? She’s got two feet, hasn’t she?”

  “Clara, is it?” the woman asks, ignoring Ms. Gee, and I think she must have heard me talking to her daughter. I flush, realizing that she might have heard everything I said.

  I nod.

  “It’s pretty dark out there, Clara. Do you normally walk home by yourself?”

  I look from the woman to the girl to Ms. Gee.

  “Yes, I walk home by myself,” I tell her, and I am aware how different my accent is from hers.

  “By yourself?” she repeats, her eyes wide, as if I just told her I have no mama and papa.

  “Yes, by herself,” Ms. Gee snaps. “She’s been walking round here since she learned how. What do you think we’re going to do to her?”

  The woman’s face tightens, and she folds her arms across her chest just like Ms. Gee does after she explodes.

  “I’m not saying that, Mom, but in New York…”

  Now it’s my eyes that are wide. Ms. Gee is her mother? I can’t hide the shock as they argue back and forth. I didn’t know Ms. Gee had a daughter. I try to memorize their conversation so I can tell Gaynah when I see her. She loves talking about other people’s business.

  “Yes, yes. This isn’t New York. This is Sycamore, and there isn’t a soul on this hill that would harm that girl. You used to go off by yourself too. You would remember that if you hadn’t gone gallivanting to America.” Ms. Gee shoos me away as if I were a hen trying to climb her stairs for crumbs. “Go on, go.”

  I hesitate as the woman begins to say something else, then changes her mind and returns into the house, slamming the door behind her.

  It is a dark walk back from Ms. Gee’s house. The only light comes from the half-moon hovering above me as a guide. My feet sink into familiar ditches as I skillfully maneuver over the ground, climbing the embankment, then jumping over the same nest of stones that dug into my feet this afternoon.

  I can’t stop thinking about Ms. Gee having a daughter. I wonder why she’s never mentioned her. They don’t seem to like each other much, but that’s no surprise; no one likes Ms. Gee much. And the new girl isn’t the person I thought she would be. Turns out she’s just an annoying girl wearing too many colors and with too much to say. She and Gaynah will have plenty in common.

  The screech of crickets in the trees above can be heard between the outbursts of laughter coming from home. As I climb the hill to our house, I see people filling our veranda and spilling out onto the yard. Our house is like this every night. It becomes a meeting place for people when the sun goes down. Papa is handing out drinks and sharing a joke with Gaynah’s father. Papa’s tall, thin figure makes a shadow on the wall of the house, and his twisted hair falls just below his ears. Mama can never get him to sit down long enough to do those twists, so sometimes she’ll do it while he is sleeping.

  I walk along the perimeter of the yard to avoid detection. I’m not in the mood for people today. With Gaynah leaving me at Ms. Gee’s, Ms. Gee forcing me to do her chores, and that horrible American girl gloating because she thinks she knows everything, the last thing I want is to be around people.

  I spot Gaynah sitting on the veranda wall next to Calvin. So she doesn’t care where I’ve been. I feel the sting at the back of my throat, and my eyes well up. Well, now she won’t get to know what I know, that Ms. Gee has a daughter and they hate each other. I rush around the side of the house and into the darkness, where I won’t be seen.

  I hide in the dugout with a few bruised mangos Mama left on the ground. I used to take my surfboard down to the beach with Papa. It was the only place I could go and forget everything. When I was on my board waiting for that swell, it was as if there were no one else in this world but me.

  It was Papa who introduced us all to surfing. Me, Calvin, Anton. He fell in love with it when he worked as a lifeguard. No one in Sycamore surfed until Papa brought tourists to the swell where he lived. He also brought a new love of the sea with him. After his father died, he said it took him some time to want to be near water. Before last summer, before everything changed, we would spend time on the beach, just me and him, and he would tell me how being a lifeguard helped him to understand the sea, and how surfing made him fall in love with it again.

  It was New Year’s Day when he gave me my first lesson. The tradition was for all of Sycamore Hill to go to the beach. The adults were setting out food and we kids were playing tag in the sand when Mama came over and told me Ms. Gee wanted someone to help her back at the house. Ms. Gee didn’t have a phone, so she would just yell until someone heard her. Pastor Brown told her he would send someone, and that someone was me. Papa was just about to go out into the water, and he asked if I wanted to come to get away from Ms. Gee. I had watched him many times in awe as he skimmed the waves with his board, so I was breathless with excitement when he said he would teach me even as Mama yelled at him to stop overruling her.

  “It’s the holidays,” he said to Mama. “Ms. Gee can do without her for one day.”

  “Can you teach me too?” Calvin asked. Papa glanced over at Mama, who sighed, shaking her head.

  “You can explain it to Ms. Gee when we get home,” she said, walking away.

  Papa raised his eyebrows at us mischievously. “Okay, one at a time,” he said, and that was it. I was hooked.

  I think that’s when things changed between me and Gaynah. I don’t think she wanted me to spend any time with Calvin.

  “CLARA, CAN YOU DO SOMETHING OTHER than be under my feet all day?” Mama whips the broom over my feet.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go,” I mumble, holding my legs up in the air so she can clean the veranda. Mama stands up straight, her hands on her hips, her braids hidden under a silk scarf. She frowns at me, and her thick brows meet in the middle of her forehead. “Nowhere to go? The sun is out, and it’s summer break. Find something to do.” She nudges me with the broom, but I don’t budge. She sighs, swishing the brush across the floor. “Go to the river. You might find someone down there.”

  I roll my eyes when her back is turned. Gaynah will be down by the river, and I will ne
ver speak to her again as long as I live. I would rather put myself in a hole in the ground for fifteen years with no food and no water. No, I would rather be thrown in the very deep end of the sea, where the sharks live, with no life jacket, than speak to Gaynah again. And that’s saying something, because I don’t like sharks. Or water.

  “Clara!”

  I snap out of my daydream. Mama is not amused.

  “Go to the river, now.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  She takes a breath. “You can’t keep running away from things that scare you,” she says gently, and now she’s looking at me with sadness in her eyes. I don’t think she’s talking about Gaynah anymore.

  “And make sure you tell Albert where you’re going so he can keep an eye on you.”

  I groan. That’s all I need, Uncle Albert’s beady eyes spying on me. I drag my feet across the veranda and down the cracked steps that no one seems to want to fix.

  My home is rugged and flawed. It sits on the hill overlooking the ocean, half-brick, half-wood, painted sky blue. It used to be white stone and brown wood, but today Papa is painting it blue to match the sky.

  I climb down the embankment that leads into the banana grove behind the house. The leaves hover over my head like giant umbrellas, and it’s a nice shade from the sun. I see Uncle Albert in the distance cutting down bananas to take into town, and he waves, then wipes sweat from his forehead.

  “You going to the river?” he calls. I nod and he gives me a thumbs-up.

  The ground goes flat where Uncle Albert works. Then it slopes steeply toward the river.

  My plan is to sit on the hill between the trees, but I hear loud laughter and Gaynah’s screeching voice. I pause, looking back up the hill.

  I continue downward, still hidden, and sit with my back against a tree trunk, digging the heels of my shoes into the dirt to stop me from sliding. I’ll sit here for a little while. Maybe I will go farther down and maybe I won’t, but I am here, and that’s all Mama asked of me.

  I watch between the trees as Gaynah, Calvin, Anton, and the Wilson twins sit at the edge of the river, dipping their feet in. Anton cups his hands under the water, and everyone except Gaynah scrambles to their feet to get away from him. No one would dare get Gaynah wet when she’s wearing her favorite bag. They would never hear the end of it.

  Anton chases them with a small pool in his hand that quickly slips between his fingers until he is left with nothing but wet hands. He chases Amara Wilson, the elder twin by three minutes and the more fun of the two. She wears her hair the same way every day, just like her sister, in lots of short braids. It never changes, even when they’re competing in a relay race.

  Anton tries to wipe his wet hands on her face. She squeals, running away from him. I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy watching. Amara starts to climb the hill to get away, when she sees me.

  Anton catches up with her and follows her stare until he also sees me hiding in the trees. He breaks into a wide grin and waves. Slowly I raise my hand and wave back hesitantly. Anton and I don’t really talk. He tolerates me for Calvin’s sake, but I can tell he would prefer it if Calvin didn’t keep inviting me to join them.

  “Hey, hole girl,” he calls. “Why are you not in your hole today?” His smile turns into a laugh and he retreats back down the hill.

  I pull my hand down and hide it in my lap. How did he know? I feel the rush of panic as I try to think about all the people who knew about our hideout. No one knew. No one but me and Gaynah.

  She told them. Gaynah told them about our secret place. How could she! That was our secret.

  I will not cry.

  One.

  Two.

  My eyes meet Gaynah’s, and she’s smiling too. I clamber to my feet and run up the hill.

  I will not cry.

  Three.

  Four.

  “Hey! Careful!”

  I look up and it’s her, the American girl. She’s wearing a purple swimsuit with a pleated white skirt. Her hair is out of its buns today, and it’s a mass of tight curls held down by a headband made of pink and white flowers. I’m so shocked to see her that I forget to give her a cutting remark. She’s wearing cat’s-eye sunglasses again, so I can’t see her eyes, but she’s smiling like we are friends, and we are not friends.

  “Hello, Clara, are you leaving already?” she asks, surprised, but I think it might be fake surprise. Like she’s trying to be smart or something.

  “I was just passing through,” I say in a strange high-pitched voice. I sound like those posh ladies from East Avenue with the big houses. I continue up the hill.

  “But your friends are here.”

  See? Trying to be smart. Told you.

  “They’re not my friends,” I shout. Loud enough for everyone to hear. Everyone. “You can have them.”

  My heart is beating fast as I picture Gaynah’s face. She will pretend she doesn’t care. She might even pretend she hasn’t heard me.

  But she heard me. I made sure of it.

  “I’ll be here tomorrow if you change your mind,” Rudy shouts back.

  I reach the top of the hill and turn to look down the slope. Rudy places her towel on a rock and wades into the river. She doesn’t seem to notice Gaynah laughing and pointing at her.

  I try to count but I can’t focus, I’m so mad.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  I don’t know what I am angrier about: Gaynah telling Calvin and his friends about our secret hideout or Gaynah laughing at Rudy.

  I decide I am angrier about the hideout. That was our secret, where we went to get away from everything. Her bossy mom, her quiet father, who always has somewhere to go but no one knows where. My mom nagging at me to do things, and Papa…sometimes I even need to get away from Papa.

  I storm through the banana grove, ignoring Uncle Albert calling me. I don’t even know how Gaynah and I became friends. How did someone so mean become my friend? Did I get knocked on the head? Or did I just forget what kind of friend she was?

  Before I know it, I am at the house. Mama calls me as I pass her on the veranda, but her voice is distant and morphs into Gaynah’s laugh. All I can hear is her laughing. Her stupid, whiny laugh. She sounds like a tree frog.

  In my bedroom, I drop to my knees and feel around for the memory box that holds stories of our friendship—things we would only talk about in our dugout. The silver pin we found in the river. The notes we would write each other in class. The blue top we both got when we begged our parents for it because we had seen it on our favorite celebrity in one of the magazines Gaynah’s brother had sent her. The diary we shared, which no one else has seen. I grab it all under my arm and make my way out of the house.

  “Clara, what is the matter with you?”

  Mama won’t understand. She’ll tell me Gaynah didn’t mean it. It’s just Gaynah. Why do you let her get to you? she’ll say. I don’t want to hear that right now. I head back down the hill, through the banana grove and through the trees, almost falling down the embankment to the river. Rudy is still there, making two sticks dance on the water. The group is on the other side of the river, watching her like she’s a TV show.

  I stand at the edge of the river, throw off the lid of the memory box, and dump it into the water. The blue top, the diary, the letters, all of it. If Gaynah wants to be spiteful, then I can be spiteful too.

  My heart is beating so fast, I can barely catch my breath. Staring Gaynah dead in the eye, I bang the bottom of the box just to make sure it’s empty. Then I turn on my heels and retrace my steps home for the second time that day.

  AFTER THE INCIDENT AT THE RIVER, I realize there is no one I can trust. So I spend the rest of the day under the mango tree cleaning my board. I haven’t surfed since last summer, but I make sure to clean it and check for any
damage almost every day.

  The first few times I surfed, Papa lent me his board, which had been given to him by a tourist when he worked at the resort. He loved that surfboard and would never leave me alone with it in case I damaged it.

  One Christmas, Papa asked Clinton, Gaynah’s father, to make me a surfboard of my own. He had never made one before, but he was a carpenter, so he was used to making things. When Papa gave it to me, he told me if I damaged it, I wouldn’t be getting another one, so I keep it in my room out of the sun, checking it for dust every day.

  I can hear Mama talking to someone around the front of the house. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I know it’s not Papa. I pick myself up from the dirt and walk to the wall of the house to try to listen. Their words are muffled, but I bet it’s Gaynah telling on me. I peek around the wall. It’s Gaynah and Calvin standing behind Uncle Albert. He is handing the memory box back to Mama.

  I step back out of sight, my heart beating fast. Gaynah and Calvin told Uncle Albert about the box. Why? Are they trying to get me in trouble?

  “Clara!” Mama calls, and it’s that voice again. The strained, painful voice that so often sits like a wall between us.

  My heart sinks.

  I use the back door to enter the house, walk through the living room, and emerge at the front door. Mama spins around to look at me in complete bewilderment. She holds my blue top, which is dripping wet. “Why, Clara?” she asks, and I can’t tell if she wants to hold me or scold me.

  I lower my eyes to the ground. It seemed to make so much sense when I did it. Prove to Gaynah I no longer cared about our memories. But seeing Mama upset makes me feel silly.

  “I don’t want it anymore,” I mumble.

  “But this isn’t yours to throw away. There are things in here that don’t belong to just you. Why did you do it?”

  Because she makes fun of me. Because she makes fun of other people. Because she told everyone about our secret hideout.

  “Clara.”

  I glance at Gaynah through misty eyes, but she won’t look at me.