13
The peacocks had been at it since before sunrise, the horny males belting out those fake screams of ecstasy that were their secret weapons for luring a mate with their supposed prowess. Men, thought Sunny as she poured her first cup of coffee. Through the kitchen window she could see Joe out on her lawn, already perched in his usual spot on the wooden bench under the maple, sipping espresso from a tiny ceramic cup, Bear curled up with a stick by his feet. She grabbed a sweater and crossed the dewy lawn to join them.
“That screeching is going to be the death of me, I swear it, Joe. Worst alarm clock ever.”
“And good morning to you too, kiddo. I trust you had a good night’s sleep, at least until you were awoken by our lovely birdsong.” He tapped his cup lightly against hers and took a sip. “But then I’m sure you are familiar with the story of the peacock and the nightingale, aren’t you?”
“Nope,” she yawned. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” Sunny sat back against the trunk of the tree and closed her eyes as she waited for the coffee on her lap to cool.
“Well, you see,” he began, “in the story, the peacock goes to the goddess Juno to complain that she had not given him the song of the nightingale, a song wondrous to every ear, while he became a laughing stock each time he opened his mouth. Juno consoles the peacock by pointing out his beauty and his size.” Joe held both his arms out wide to illustrate. “The peacock then asks ‘What is the use of beauty, with a voice like mine?’ ‘Your lot in life has been assigned by the Fates,’ she tells him. ‘Each must be content with his own particular gift.’ In other words,” Joe leaned back next to Sunny, “take care not to strive for something that was not given to you, or you will waste your life being disappointed by what you don’t have.”
“And I suppose there is a message for me somewhere in there?”
Joe just shrugged his shoulders, then drained his cup.
“Well I still can’t stand those birds.”
“I’m sure Rick would be more than happy to come take care of them for you if you asked him.”
“What do you mean take care of them?”
“He shoots them.” Joe placed his cup on the bench and positioned his arms as if they were holding a rifle. “Kaboom!” he said as he pulled the imaginary trigger. “I’ve seen him do it plenty of times.”
Sunny cringed at the thought. “Jeez! What’s with that guy?”
Joe shrugged his shoulders again.
“He’s such a strange one, Joe. And I wish he’d stop honking on me to buy him out. If he wants to sell, and I want to sell, we should just sell, right?”
“Rick may be an unpleasant man, but he’s not a stupid man. I suspect he has his reasons. Like they say, Chi ha una retta coscienza possiede un regno. His own desire leads every man.” Joe lifted both feet and placed them gently on Bear’s soft brown behind. “So, maybe you should buy him out.”
“Why on earth would I do that? What would I do with a place like this? Not to mention where I’d ever get the money from,” Sunny snorted. “You’re looking at practically my entire bank account right here.” She swept her arm over her head. “That is, if you shut one eye and block out half of it.”
Joe laughed. “Well, you know what they say. Where there’s a will there’s a way.”
“You know I have no will. And you also know that I don’t want to stay here forever.”
“Who said anything about forever? Forever is a long time, kiddo. Trust me. I know.”
“This isn’t the life for me, Joe. Can’t you see that?”
“I see all sorts of things.”
“Well, maybe you do. But you can’t see what’s in my head. Sometimes I can barely make out what’s going on in there myself.”
Joe shrugged his shoulders. Sunny had a sudden urge to shake the old man. “Besides,” she continued, “even if I did have the money to buy Rick out, then what? I just sit here on the top of this damn hill and get fat? How would I live? I know how hard it is to get work on this island. Not that I’m even considering doing that, mind you. Not on your life.”
“So you say.”
“Okay, old man.” Sunny put down her cup and folded her arms in front of her chest. “What are you getting at?”
Joe sat up straight and rubbed his hands together, his eyes bright with excitement. “Okay. Fine. You want to work? You can work. Now, here’s what I’ve been thinking. First we spiff up the place a bit. Not too much. Not too slick. We want it to look authentic. A little landscaping, maybe a couple of parking places. Perhaps a fountain over there.” Sunny followed the path of his bony finger. “Then we’re all set to go. Weddings in the vineyard. A cheese shop in the shed. And in the barn? A tasting room. Wines from all over the state. My cooking. Your hospitality. We’ll kill ’em, kiddo!” He clapped his hands together like a boy at his first circus.
Sunny leaned forward, propped her elbows on her knees, and planted her forehead in her hands. “Not gonna happen, Joe.” She let out a huge sigh. Bear slid out from under the bench and planted a lick on her nose.
“I’m just saying.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just saying no.”
Joe shook his head, then took her hands in his own. “You know, Sunny Tedder, there are times in your life when you have to take advantage of what fate has given you, just like Juno said to that whiny peacock. And also just like what I said to myself when I had to leave here, but then found Italy. You are so busy striving for what’s not yours that you don’t appreciate what is. You had Jack’s love, and you always will. It lives in this place, and it lives in our friendship as well. What is no longer yours is the life you had at that coffeehouse in Afghanistan. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use your gifts, and find your happiness, somewhere else. Trust me. I know.”
Sunny wondered, not for the first time, what Joe wasn’t telling her about his own past. No doubt he’d talk about it, in his own time. For now she simply looked down at the muddy ground and rubbed her forehead, and silently cursed the lump that was forming in her throat. “You’re killing me, Joe. Do you always wake up like this?”
“Chi dorme non piglia pesci. Those who sleep don’t catch any fish.”
Sunny swallowed and stood. “Please, stop with the proverbs already. And while you’re at it, stop complicating my life. It’s complicated enough as it is.”
The trouble had all started eight days ago, when Candace showed up.
“Have I had a week!” Candace said in typical fashion as she blew through Sunny’s kitchen door like the bombshell that she was. Sunny stepped back and couldn’t help but smile. The Candace Show was in town. She’d missed her old friend who at first glance looked, not old, but at least her own forty-something years for once. It was as though she had finally settled into her face, instead of keeping up a constant battle with it. It suited her.
“What happened to you?” was Candace’s second line. Sunny looked down at her own baggy sweater and expanding thighs. But before she had a chance to get angry, she heard another voice behind her.
“Salaam, Sunny jan.”
She slowly turned to see a tall, green-eyed young woman in a long pink tunic and matching scarf, with pants that covered a pair of legs that seemed to go on forever. The girl stood in the doorway, looking so much like her older sister that Sunny had to blink twice. “Layla?”
The girl stepped forward and kissed Sunny three times on the cheeks.
“Oh my God! Layla! Look at you!” She held the girl by the elbows and checked her out from head to toe, shocked at how much she had changed from that skinny twelve-year-old Sunny had left behind in Kabul. “Come, please. Come in.” She took the suitcases from Layla’s hands and shoved them into a corner. “What an amazing surprise!”
Candace leaned on the counter as Sunny pulled out a chair and gestured for Layla to sit. “I can’t believe it’s you! You came all the way here with Candace to see me? How is Minnesota? When do you have to get back to school? How long are you two going to be here?”
> Layla sat back in her chair, eyes wide, as if Sunny’s questions were a speeding train coming straight at her. She turned, confused, to Candace.
“Give the girl a chance, Sunny.”
“Well, how long can you stay?” Sunny directed the question to Candace this time.
“Me? I, unfortunately, have to be out of here ASAP. Headed to DC. All the money people are in town.” She began to count off her obligations on her fingers. “A big fundraiser, some meetings with donors …”
Sunny tried to hide her disappointment. “Well, okay then, so we’ll just have to make the most of our time together. I’ll show you guys everything—”
“But Layla,” Candace continued, “Layla would be happy to stay a little longer. Right?” She turned to the girl, who simply shifted her beautiful eyes back and forth between the two women.
“But I thought—”
“It is so nice of you to offer, Sunny. Things have been a little difficult for Layla in Minnesota. You know, adjusting and all? Her host family turned out to be not as sensitive to Afghan ways as they should be, especially the teenagers in the house. You know how kids can be. It’s been hard on the girl, and she’s been begging to go home. But Yaz and I have agreed that she should try to stick out her stay, if any solution could be found. So I thought to myself, who would be more sensitive to Afghan ways than Sunny Tedder herself? So here we are!”
“But I’m not staying,” Sunny protested. “I can’t—”
“Well, how long will you be here?”
Sunny had no answer.
“It’s settled then.” Candace grabbed an apple from the counter and rubbed it against her sleeve. “Layla will stay as long as you do.”
“Why can’t she stay with you?”
“Please.” Candace shook her head as she swallowed a bite. “My life is no place for a girl like Layla. Airport to airport, back-to-back meetings, a new hotel room practically every night, crappy room-service meals, and then every morning getting up and starting it all over again.”
“But my life isn’t either! I have no home, I’m not settled.”
Candace looked around the kitchen, her eyes stopping on the fresh-cut chrysanthemums on the table, the cookies cooling on the counter, the cat curled up atop the heating vent under the door leading to the living room. “You look pretty settled to me.”
“But I’m not a mother.” Sunny could hear her own voice cracking. “I don’t have the faintest clue what to do with a teenager.”
“Well I’m not a mother either, in case you haven’t noticed. And really, what’s there to do? You feed them, make sure they have clean clothes, and try to keep them out of trouble.” She tossed an apple to a startled Layla. “Easy-peasy! Oh, and she needs to be studying English. Not that she doesn’t already do pretty well with it, from hanging around the coffeehouse and lessons in Kabul. But it’s part of the deal for the visa. And no worries about money, I’ll pay.”
For one quick moment, every infuriating thing about Candace that used to trigger Sunny’s ire came flooding back like a sudden storm. But seeing the poor girl, so far from home, so far from everything she knew and everyone she loved, was enough to make Sunny keep her mouth shut. She’d manage for the short time she’d remain on the island.
And like a fairy godmother, with a wave of her wand, Candace was gone.
Now, from her seat on the bench beside Joe, Sunny watched as the girl emerged from the house, wrapped in a blanket from head to toe.
“Salaam, Sunny jan,” Layla called out with a sweet smile.
“Good morning to you too, sleepyhead,” Sunny called back.
“Ohayō,” Layla said to Joe with a little bow as she reached the bench, using the Japanese greeting he’d already taught her.
“Buongiorno, bella,” Joe answered back.
Sunny sighed. Better start looking for an English teacher, she thought to herself.
“Just look, Sunny,” said Joe as he graciously extended his arms to offer Layla a seat on the bench, “you have wanted so badly to be in Kabul? Now the Fates have brought a little Kabul to you.”
Upon waking earlier that morning, Layla had stretched her arms up over her head and yawned. How lazy she felt beneath the puffy blanket Sunny had insisted she sleep under. It must be very late, she assumed by the light coming from behind the curtains. She was not used to the silence that came from having a room of her own. Of course when she was very little, growing up in the mountains, she had slept in the same room as her entire family, their beds pushed up against the stone walls, away from the hearth in the center of the room where her mother would prepare their meals, and where they would all eat. There were two other rooms below, but those were used to hold wood and grain, not sleeping people. In Minnesota, she had shared a room with Brittany, her host parents’ daughter, who was the same age as she was. Layla had never seen any room like it before. It was as if Brittany were a princess in a pink palace, her bed draped with pink gauze hung from above, a thick pink carpet covering the floor, a sparkly pink chandelier dangling from her ceiling. The only thing the girl lacked, in her opinion, was the grace of a princess. Layla fought to mask her shock each morning as they dressed, Brittany trying and discarding outfit after outfit of skirts that barely covered her private parts and shirts that clung to her breasts like the skin of a grape. And the secret parties that would happen when Brittany’s parents weren’t home, when boys and girls would wrap themselves around each other and rub their bodies together in what they called dance, some of them sharing alcohol and cigarettes they’d brought hidden in their purses and knapsacks. But the worst was the argument Layla had witnessed between Brittany and her mother. Who knew what had caused it? Probably something unimportant, but it escalated quickly and before Layla knew it Brittany had stormed up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door, shouting “I hate you!” at her poor mother, who simply turned and went back to the kitchen. Layla had at first wanted to hide, embarrassed and ashamed by the disrespect shown by this girl. Yet soon those feelings became clouded by a coldness growing inside her, a sense of despair for a world where the elders were not treated with the honor that was their due.
But here at Sunny’s house all was peaceful and quiet, and Layla’s dreams had been plentiful. Some she remembered with a smile. Like the one where she had been in the small back courtyard of the coffeehouse, playing ball with Poppy and her little niece Najama. The Kabul sun shone from overhead, the shadow from the pomegranate tree long and slender. The old woman Halajan was standing against the wall watching them with a smile, her breasts hanging loose and low, her head scarf pushed back, and her leathery face turned upward toward the sun like a turtle reaching from its shell. The dream had been so vivid she could almost smell the cigarette smoke that gave away Halajan’s secret every time she entered a room. She missed the old woman, with her sharp wit and keen eye. She missed everyone, and everything, back home.
Her other dreams were not so good. Layla had never been able to shed the nightmares about the men who had taken her as revenge for her sister’s escape, the memories of those days before Jack had come to rescue her. She had been only twelve years old then, but sometimes it seemed like yesterday. Yazmina had been gone for four months when the same big black SUV that had snatched her away from their uncle’s home returned, this time for Layla. The snows had melted, the roads were clear, and the men were determined to get what they came for. But before they got far with her, long before they could reach Kabul, where she would have been sold to the highest bidder to be his third or fourth wife, or forced into a life of slavery or prostitution, this strange Western man dressed in a shalwaar kameez, with eyes that sparkled like blue ice and a voice that spoke with calm authority, appeared like a hero in a Bollywood movie and whisked her away and into the arms of her beloved sister. There had to be a special place in paradise for a man like him, she was sure of it. If it weren’t for Jack, she might have never seen Yazmina again. And if it weren’t for Sunny, her sister might never have even survived. She made
herself a quick promise to try very hard to like it here, to make it work, to show appreciation for all Sunny and Jack had done for her family.
And then there were the dreams of peacocks. She had to laugh a little. Why on earth would she dream of peacocks, silly animals she hadn’t given any thought to since she was a child?
She stood and turned to face her image in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door, and unfastened the single black braid that hung to her waist. Her shiny hair flowed down thickly over her shoulders, like the cascading waterfalls in the mountains back home. I wonder if Sky will be coming today, she thought as she made one slow stroke with the brush, then another, just as her sister had taught her. Such an odd boy, with those holes as big as plums in his ears, and silver jewelry inside his mouth. She shivered a little just thinking of how that must feel. And those tattoos! At home they would be forbidden, and any boy who would dare to have one would be certain to keep it hidden under his sleeve. And yet, there was something about Sky’s gentle eyes, and his sweet smile, and the way his funny curls bounced up and down when he laughed.
“Stop!” she said out loud to herself, yanking her hair practically out of its roots with the brush. What was the matter with her, having thoughts like this? Of course she had not spoken to the boy, other than to say hello, and had only watched him when she knew he wasn’t looking. But then, when he was in the same room with her it was as though someone had taken her by the shoulders and spun her around and around, then left her to stand, her head remaining dizzy and light. Nonsense, she quickly told herself. Perhaps it is merely coincidence. Perhaps there is something here on this island that is making her ill. She checked her forehead with the back of her hand and, satisfied that there was no fever, quickly rebraided her hair, wrapped herself up in the blanket that hung on the back of the chair, and went to say good morning to Sunny.
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