by Paula Jolin
She sighed. Next to her, two women were tossing bags of split-pea flour into a shopping cart. “He cry every time his mums come near him with a comb,” said the big panty girl. “He holler like a raging lunatic. But she, she won’t cut a strand of hair till he two.”
“She smart,” said the second woman. A final bag of flour plopped on top of the pile. What were they making— enough accra to feed the town of Fillmore in a siege? “Meh cousin cut her boy’s hair too soon, and he didn’t speak till he was five. And he lucky, you know. Sometimes they never speak again.”
Superstitious Trinis. But Gillian found herself watching the women as they pushed their cart down the aisle. It wasn’t all confusion, was it? Nothing wrong with protecting yourself from maljo, the evil eye.
She turned back to the Matouk’s, picking up a bottle and passing it between her two hands. Who was she kidding? Plain Matouk’s would go perfectly with saltfish buljol if Dad ever got home early enough to make dinner. She sighed. Might as well make her way to the frozen pizza aisle again. Oh, for a country where she could roll up to the corner and dash into a shop for a roti—
But it wasn’t roti she was smelling now, it was the reek of cologne, a stink she’d smelled before. Gillian swung around, and there he was, lounging nonchalantly against an endcap of chickpeas. Thinking himself so sophisticated in his Sean John clothes, his so-close-it-might-be-a-Rolex, and that perfume he should have left in Paris. Skinny like hell, no ass; weak mouth, bumpy nose, zit-covered chin. Enemy of the people, Nick Loring.
Fooled from behind, for the second time in two days.
TWELVE
“YOU GODDAMNED BITCH.” Nick pushed himself off the endcap and came so close, Gillian thought he’d plow right into her. She dropped the Matouk’s—glass held, but the cover popped off, and a thin stream of hot sauce dribbled onto the floor. She struggled to find her courage, failed, but grabbed her voice. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“I want my money.”
“I’ll see your ass in jail for assault and sexual harassment,” said Gillian. Stretching it a little, but that was his problem. If only some stock boy had wandered by at just the right moment. “Get away from me, you mook.”
Nick stopped. “Mook? What is that, some kind of racist crap?”
Gillian took advantage of his confusion to push the panty man aside. Stupid white people. They were the ones who made the racial lines, and then they accused you of crossing them. Not enough that they had all the power, now they had to be the victims, too. “‘Mook,’ you idiot, is you: a jackass who can’t get a girl on his own. Now will you leave me alone? You want out of the program, all right with me. All the girls are quitting anyway.” So much for Trevor’s promise that he would keep her out of things.
She was ready to chalk her losses. Find her money—that would pay for the plane ticket, get her the hell out of here. Find Trevor’s own share, it belonged to her anyway; she was the surviving partner, wasn’t she? Should be enough to set her up once she got back home.
“Quitting? Which girls?”
“Lucy, she was the first one, Sierra, Emmie—”
It wasn’t Gillian’s face he slammed, but it was close. His fist pounded into a sack of brown rice, level with her head. The bag cracked, and a thin stream of rice spilled out. “Emmie’s mine,” he said.
“You talk like you’re some kind of slave trader.”
Slam. His knuckles must be sore. “Shit, you people are—”
Gillian drew herself up to her full height, taller than Nick, thank God. “‘You people’? Who you talking to? People in black sweaters? People of the female persuasion?”
“All I want is that you hold up your end of the deal, or give me back my thousand dollars—”
“Thousand dollars? Are you on crack? It’s a hundred a prom date. What are you, going to ten of them? Trevor told me you were haranguing him—”
Nick had stopped punching things. Now he was rubbing his knuckles, bent over a little, rocking and—was it?— laughing. “Don’t give me that innocent routine. You know exactly what’s going on.”
“Of course I do.” She just wished the going on was something else: her, heading off to the pizza aisle; Nick, disappearing in a haze of smoke.
“Then let’s stop playing games, okay? Do I look stupid enough to cough up money for some airhead prom date? Come on.” Nick pulled a black iPhone out of his pocket and took a quick look at the screen. Couldn’t she make him mad enough to slam that against the wall?
And, um, did he really look like he could get his own prom date?
“Colin Bing paid Trevor a thousand bucks to cork Minda Allison. So I wanted in—into Emmie.” He laughed at his own stupid joke. One more reason he had to look for dates in the for sale section of Craigslist. “She was supposed to come a week ago Friday, and she never showed. I wasn’t harassing Trevor, I was calling him, nicely, to ask where my merchandise was.”
Merchandise? Gillian calculated the distance from her foot to Nick’s piggy.
“He promised she’d be there this Saturday. I showed up early, checked into the hotel, snuck in a bottle of champagne, lit some candles . . . and spent the night romancing the pay-per-view.” The hand with the iPhone shook. Come on, boy, throw it. But he hadn’t completely lost his mind.
“Did it ever occur to you that that was the night after Trevor’s death? Maybe Emmie was upset?”
“Did it ever occur to you that I want my money back? All thousand dollars. He was into Colin for a thousand, too—and eight other guys. We want the money, or the girls.”
“Do I look like a pimp?”
“Do you need a mirror?”
Nasty. Gillian struggled to recover. “If this money existed— and I had it—what makes you think I’d hand it over?”
“Look,” said Nick. He began scrolling through the numbers on his iPhone. Probably bringing up 1-800-blo-jobs. “I have plenty of evidence. You’re not interested in buying it, I have no doubt Principal George will take it off my hands for free. And you know what? He’ll probably share it with his poker buddies down at the police station.”
The principal wasn’t really cozy with Boy Blue . . . was he? “And if the money burned up in Trevor’s crash?” Gillian couldn’t believe she was even saying this. “What then? Why should I be responsible?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” said Nick. Lord in heaven, he was serious. “And because I hold all the cards.” He was still staring down at the iPhone, but his fingers had stopped moving. It was half a minute before he spoke. “Trevor didn’t go back to school Friday night, did he?”
“Back to school Friday night? Before the crash?”
“No, after, as a ghost.”
He wasn’t serious? Gillian tried to read his face, found herself moving in closer, close enough to see the hairs poking out of his chin.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Was he leaning forward to kiss her? Jeezan ages, check out a guy—a disgusting, zitty white guy with morning breath in the afternoon—to figure out whether he’s talking about jumbies, and all he sees is an invite.
Nick edged in on her. The iPhone had made its way back to his pocket, and he had both hands free. “Seriously, Gillian,” he said, “if you want to work things out nontraditionally—”
“Don’t touch me!”
He didn’t back up, but the fingers heading in her direction ended up fiddling with a packet of curry stacked on the top shelf. She wasn’t exactly frightened, not in the middle of the supermarket, but even one other shopper walking by would have reassured her. What kind of supermarket was deserted at four p.m.? “I want my money, Gillian,” he said. “Or I want my girl. You have till the end of the month.” He reached behind the iPhone, pulled out a card. The mook had the nerve to tuck it in her pocket.
“Get the fuck away from me.”
But Nick was already turning around. He gave her a casual salute with his middle finger, and the damn iPhone was out again and up agai
nst his ear. “The end of the month, Gillian.”
She stared after him for a long time, not listening when she told herself it was time to move. Somehow pizza seemed cold and unappetizing, more suited for a doorstop than dinner. Did she sound that callous when she talked about Trevor and her money? I hardly knew the boy. Wasn’t exactly true, was it? “I picked you out of the crowd,” he’d said at Applebee’s, over their first plate of nachos. “You don’t put up with bullshit, I respect that. And you don’t always play by the rules— that’s what I’m looking for.” He raised his glass to her. A Diet Coke, but still.
Her Trini pride had been stroked—Trinis were famous for twisting the rules into pretzels and braiding them in their hair. Her hand went up to her head, touched the dozen tiny cornrows there. Of course, a true Trini didn’t cross the line— didn’t break the law the way, according to the panty man, she and Trevor had.
Nick was lying, had to be. Trevor might be—might have been—greedy, but he wasn’t a pimp. What was it he used to call the girls? Not meat, silver dragees. Those tiny little things you put on cakes but can’t eat. That must mean . . . must mean what? You could take them pretty to the party, but no touching? Or you could touch their bodies but not their hearts?
Gillian bent over to pick up the Matouk’s, stoppering the cap back on. She’d have to buy it now, but she wasn’t thinking about that. What evidence could Nick possibly have? Photos of Trevor handing money to the girls? Footage of Emmie saying, I am a prostitute and I work for Trevor Sanders?
The end of the month: Nick’s final words.
Seven days. The shit had better come through for her.
THIRTEEN
ALIYA’S ASSIGNMENT: blood.
She stood outside the butcher shop, chewing on the ragged end of a fingernail. Now she was the one calling this crazy. Still time to cancel. The other girls were wavering, they wouldn’t care. Miya only believed in things she could hold in her two hands; Gillian feared obeah more than she wanted to master it. Of course, Gillian had agreed to the grossest, stinkiest task. And Miya just typed On Thursday when Aliya asked her to add a dangerous job to her to-do list. Gillian, desperate to traipse home to the land of the laughing sun. Miya, wracked with guilt over her big mouth.
Fine. Maybe they were more interested than they let on. Let one of them get the blood. Let two of them dance around the May tree like jinn. Hey Aliya . . . She pushed her teeth down tighter, harder. All a big lie, of course, this e-mail from beyond the grave—but what if he did appear? Told Miya heaven was so much better than life, being waited on hand and foot by houri girls. Or gave Gillian step-by-step instructions for finding his buried-in-the-woods treasure. And they were so caught up in relief, in joy, that they never thought to ask if he missed her.
“Aliya, you look like you lost your best friend.” That was Mariam, coming out the door—who would have thought she’d be buying meat at this hour? She called a good-bye over her shoulder to Sami, who looked up, saw Aliya, and waved. Should have stuck it out in Syria, that Sami; he’d be much better looking over there. Hazel eyes, light brown hair, bushy mustache—the Syrian girls would swoon. Not Aliya. She liked dark-haired men, young men with hooded eyes and shaved faces and silver earrings.
“You okay?” asked Mariam.
“Hey,” said Aliya. Recovered herself at last. “Salaam aleikum.”
Mariam laughed. Her left hand held a package of meat wrapped in white paper. Her right one swung a drawstring Gap bag back and forth. “I decided at the last minute to pick up some kabob meat—I’m going to stir fry it, see if I can get Nabile to eat it that way.” She wrinkled her nose. “Lamb is more expensive every time I come in. How’d you know I was going to be here?”
“Oh,” said Aliya, “I didn’t; I came to ask Sami a favor.” She scrambled for something better. “And I was going to see if they had anything on special. For Mama.”
“A favor?” Mariam’s plucked eyebrows rose. “You want to be careful about that, Aliya—the next thing you know, you’ll be hearing at the Al-Akhbar newsstand that you’re engaged to him. You know how people talk.”
She did. Gossipmongers. You couldn’t sneeze in Fillmore without someone reporting it in the Arab Community News. That was why she was getting out. She wanted to be a private person, an American. Like Trevor was. His mom took care of him—paid the rent, put food on the table (although sometimes he had to microwave it)—but she didn’t announce his personal business over a loudspeaker: Trevor clipped his toenails at 5:05, people; clipped his toenails, write it down.
“Don’t look so fierce,” said Mariam. That was Mariam these days, prodding and pushing her into line. “I’m just trying to keep you from making the same mistakes I did.”
What mistakes? Hunkering down behind a pile of books? Sending e-mails to the AMA, the CDC, anyone she could think of, to get information for her science projects? Marrying a guy she barely knew?
“I know you think I’m being a pain in the ass,” said Mariam. “Don’t deny it, I can see it in your face. It’s just that your mama has no idea—no idea—what kids get up to at Fillmore.”
And Mariam did? “Yeah, thanks,” said Aliya. “I assure you I’m not getting up to anything with Sami.”
“I didn’t say that.” Consternation crossed Mariam’s face. She swung her bag a little harder. “You don’t have to be so touchy.”
Aliya let it go. Get defensive, you look guilty.
“So, what’s the something special for?” Mariam asked, her voice high pitched, determined to be cheerful. “It’s not your mama’s birthday, not her anniversary, Eid is long gone . . .”
Eid. Aliya looked away. She wouldn’t bite her lip, wouldn’t think about how she’d spent last Ramadan, some of it, being tickled by Trevor. What, on top of starving yourself, you can’t even kiss me? he’d asked her in the gazebo, when she should have been doing her Calculus. Or praying. Except the scent of his cologne drove her crazy and God forbid, she gave in. Baldessarini, the scent of heaven.
Mariam was saying something about Eid. Last Eid? Next Eid? Snap out of it, someone’s going to notice you’ve gone off the rails. “. . . when he comes.”
Aliya blinked.
“Ya adamiya,” said Mariam. Oh, upright girl. How descriptive Arabic is. And how deceitful. She snapped her fingers in front of Aliya’s face. “Wake up, Aliya. I know you’re an independent girl, it’s not like your baba’s going to force you to marry him. But I mean it when I say I think you’ll like him, I really do.”
Aliya paid attention in a hurry. What? Force her to marry who? People didn’t do that, not anymore. Not people like her father. Sure, he had a close-cropped beard and thundered on about the forbidden, insisting “a girl belongs at home” every time she planned an innocent study date at Sherine’s. But he’d also told her, “Someday you’ll be Dr. Aliya,” starting back when she was eight years old.
“What are you talking about?”
Mariam’s eyes flickered over Aliya, from her uncovered hair to her black ballet slippers. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you didn’t want to meet him. Rashid, remember? Nabile’s best friend? He’s sorted out his visa, I was there when your mama told you that, and Nabile’s already looking into buying a medical practice with him. And he, Rashid, is looking for a wife. It’s an open secret that you’re number one on the list.”
Aliya did know he was coming—sometime far in the future, after he finished his practice rounds or whatever they were called, the equivalent of a residency. Although maybe that was last May they were talking about it, and far in the future was now? Never mind, nothing to do with her. Rashid was old, late twenties, and Mariam herself called him fashion challenged. Aliya’d spoken to him exactly once, on Nabile’s cell. She’d figured Nabile handed her the phone so he could get his turn on the Wii without seeming rude.
So much for her powers of discernment.
Mariam smiled, her secret—and secretly annoying—I-am-a-married-woman smile. “It’s not that bad,” she said. �
��And after a while, it’s not bad at all. Remember that game we played when we were little, when we had to pick four boys we’d want to marry? Remember I always picked movie stars?” Aliya remembered. Lying across the bed, bathing suits still damp from the sprinkler, water dripping on the page and smearing the names. It had been Aliya who’d protested then, But he’s not a Muslim, and Mariam who’d shrugged her off, offered an easy, Oh, he’ll convert. “After you get married, after you fall in love, it’s better than being with a movie star.”
Change the subject. Aliya would not, could not talk to Mariam about love. “Besides,” her cousin said, opening her Gap bag and peering inside, “it’s not as though you’re in love with somebody else, you’re not one of those girls who falls for an unsuitable boy . . .”
Aliya couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t close her eyes either, because she’d see herself in one of those poufy white dresses, walking down the aisle of a church. A church! Oh, the blasphemy. But Trevor was standing at the end, dressed completely in black—and she couldn’t, wouldn’t look up, or she’d see from his eyes that he was dead. She knew those eyes: white and without irises, soulless. She’d seen them in her dreams.
“I should get inside,” said Aliya, gesturing toward Sami. He was already wiping down the back counter. “He’ll be closing up soon.”
“Okay,” said Mariam, pulling her bag closed. She smiled, blinked her mascara-lengthened eyelashes. “I think he’s mostly cleaned out, but he might have something put aside. Maybe you can coax it out of him; he’s always liked you.” She stepped out of the way, to let a woman in shirwal kamis step between them; the woman entered the shop and Mariam headed off down the street. “Allah maaki,” Mariam called over her shoulder, God go with you, which was funny, because she was the one walking away. But maybe her sixth sense knew that Aliya was the one walking away from God.
Aliya stepped inside, smelling the pungent sliced meat, the harsh antiseptic that kept the place clean. She took a deep breath and reviewed the excuses that Gillian had IM’ed her: school project, a play about war, Gillian’s cousin the vet had run out of blood.