Patsy

by Patsy (retail) (epub)

  11

  STANDING ON THE LANDING, CICELY WAITS AND LISTENS FOR sound. “Patsy?” she whispers softly, not wanting to wake Marcus or Shamar.

  “Yes?” Patsy responds, her voice climbing up the steps, out of the dark. Had it been a pair of arms, it would have been outstretched, the fingers spread wide for Cicely to pull her close to the source and tighten around her.

  “It’s me. Cicely. Can I come?” Then, in a whisper that sounds more like a prayer, Cicely says, “I need you.”

  PATSY GENTLY BRUSHES CICELY’S LONG, LIGHTWEIGHT HAIR down her back. Cicely hugs her knees and closes her eyes. From the way they sit—Patsy wide-legged on the bed, her nightgown hiked and pooled between her legs, Cicely’s back to her—they might have been home surrounded by the zinc-roofed houses, the susurrant coconut trees waving in the breeze, and the soft-sloping hills that birth the sun, then swallow it in the evenings. They are two girls again. Two girls surrounded by the walls of what used to be a house on Jackson Lane before it burned to the ground. It was right next door to Cicely’s house. Among ashes, away from their own hell, they found their secret hiding place. Weeds had grown inside and crept up the blackened walls toward light, and flowers had sprung from a discarded woman’s shoe left by the owner. The past extends itself to the quiet brownstone basement in Brooklyn. In the dim light from the wisteria lamp Patsy observes something openly ripe and languorous creep into Cicely’s pose when she lets go of her knees and crosses her legs at the ankles as Patsy brushes her hair. Her hands absently trail the insides of her thighs to warm them.

  “Don’t know how ah went without dis fah so long,” Cicely sighs above the hiss of the steam pipes, and leans back farther so that Patsy can see her face—the slope between her forehead and nose, the graceful rise of her mouth. The present rushes in like darkness racing over the land and crouches in the shadows as Patsy watches Cicely this way, in her inviolate state. How defenseless Cicely seems—has always seemed—as though she were never really fit for the roughness of life. Maybe that’s what Marcus is to her. Protection. Comfort. Resentment flows out of Patsy, into her fingers clutching the brush, through the length of Cicely’s hair, finally penetrating her skull. “Tek it easy wid me,” Cicely chides, opening her eyes. “Unless yuh want pull di hair out me head!”

  But Patsy only stares at her, her oil-stained hands in her lap where Cicely’s dead hairs have fallen. Patsy silently picks at them and balls them into her fist.

  “You should dye it black,” she says.

  “What?” Cicely asks, turning her head over her left shoulder.

  “Yuh hair. Ah prefer it black.”

  Cicely arches her eyebrows.

  “Dis doesn’t suit you,” Patsy continues. “Marcus doesn’t know everyt’ing.”

  Cicely laughs. “So dat’s what dis is about? Marcus?”

  “Everyt’ing is about him. Ah can’t do dis any longah,” Patsy says, closing her legs and pulling down her flowy chiffon nightgown over her knees.

  “Can’t do what?” Cicely asks, scooting away a little to give Patsy’s legs space.

  “Intrude on you an’ yuh family.”

  “Who says you’re intruding?”

  “Marcus nuh hide him feelings well.”

  “He has no say. You’re my friend.”

  “Cicely, don’t humor me.”

  “Ah mean dat.” After a brief pause, Cicely says, “He’s jus’ not used to guests in di house.”

  “What is it yuh see in him?” Patsy asks.

  Cicely’s mouth opens and closes, her eyes wide, incredulous, as if Patsy has struck her. “He’s my husband. Ah mean—I married him fah papers, yes. But yuh don’t know how hard it is here,” Cicely says.

  “We could live together. You an’ me. Jus’ like you said in dat letter—”

  “Dat was a long time ago.”

  “I know yuh not happy.”

  “A woman can’t survive without a man anywhere, Patsy,” Cicely says. “Not even in America. A man like Marcus mek all dis possible.” Cicely gestures at the space around them with her hands.

  “Is dat all?” Patsy asks. “Is dis di only t’ing he can offer you?”

  “How yuh mean? In dis country, yuh can’t be too picky, yuh hear? If yuh want to be legal, yuh have to marry a man. Yuh can’t get around dat.”

  “How’s dat different from being a prostitute?” Patsy asks.

  A hush creeps into the basement as Cicely snatches her breath.

  “You don’t get it,” Cicely says after a while.

  “What’s dere to not get? A man offer you papers instead of money. Same difference. Don’t tell me dat neva come wid strings.”

  “I think we done wid dis convah-sation,” Cicely says, struggling to get up.

  “What’s so hard, Cicely?” Patsy asks, her question like hands reaching to pull Cicely back down. “What’s suh hard ’bout considering other possibilities?”

  “We too old fah dat kind of t’inking,” Cicely says. “What? Yuh expec’ to come here an’ be girls again?”

  “Is not about age,” Patsy hisses.

  Cicely is quietly rubbing her temples. “Is like yuh living in a dream world. Even today at di job agency when yuh ask di woman ’bout school. Yuh not even set foot good inside di country, an’ already yuh t’inking ’bout school? Many of us haffi work hard to be stable before we can t’ink like dat. Is not suh it work. We’re women wid families. An’ wid dat comes responsibilities, whether yuh like it or not. It’s time dat you put t’ings into perspective. At least do it fah yuh dawta.”

  Cicely’s words stamp down on Patsy. She’s only half listening as Cicely goes on about sacrifice. How Marcus is such a good example. “He started out wid not’ing a’tall. Spent his whole childhood in foster care. If yuh know what dat’s like, you’d undah-stand. Him jus’ want di best fah his family, especially his son,” she says. “We’re giving our son the best education so dat he too can fit into dis white world. And no, it’s not called whitewashing his brain. It’s called survival. Marcus will tell yuh dat if yuh don’t run in di same ring wid white folk, there’s no way we can ever get a seat at di table. Now Marcus run him own business. Di best in Brooklyn. Him might even run fah City Council. Because of him, Crown Heights will be the next big real estate dream by di new millennium. Dat mean working late at night if him have to. It doesn’t make him a bad husband.”

  When she’s done, Patsy says, “It might be best for me to start looking fah places.”

  Cicely frowns. “But yuh don’t even have a job yet. I owe you dis much . . .”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  There’s a loud banging across the room, inside the rusted pipes, which causes Patsy to pause, relieved. She didn’t realize that her hands were balled into tight fists until now when she opens them to see the red sickle creases of her nails in the middle of each palm.

  “Dis damn old house,” Cicely mutters, unaware. Once the noise dies down a little, she continues. “All I’m saying is dat sometimes we haffi sacrifice.”

  “How much did you sacrifice, Cicely?” Patsy asks. “Tell me.”

  “Yuh t’ink I’m pitiful,” Cicely says.

  Patsy pauses, her rage falling away at the memory of them alone in Miss Zelma’s house—the shy yet curious way Patsy regarded Cicely, secretly vowing to protect her always. She realizes that her resentment of Cicely stems from Cicely’s awareness of her worth—the expectation that she’d always be cared for. Loved. Perhaps that is why Cicely always wanted her around—to brush her hair, rub her down, and soothe her with her words. In the dimness of the basement, Patsy sees it, though she’s powerless against it when she hears herself say, “You’re far from pitiful.” Her mouth is dry all of a sudden.

  “Please forgive me,” Cicely says.

  “What’s there to forgive?” Patsy asks.

  “Everyt’ing.” Cicely’s eyes are moist.

  Patsy knows what she means by everything. It is a balm more bitter than the sinkle bible she rubbed over
Cicely’s shoulders, its potency mediocre in comparison, considering all that is lost and forgotten in just one word—everything. Patsy doesn’t want to go down that road again, reopening sutures that had long been sealed.

  “Everyt’ing happen fah a reason,” Patsy says aloud now, sounding too much like Mama G, who willingly folded herself into the arms of life to be carried by it.

  “Does dat mean yuh forgive me?” Cicely asks, breaking Patsy’s thoughts.

  “Dat’s like not forgiving ah onion fah making me cry,” Patsy says, thinking of her freedom and how she has Cicely to thank for it. “It’s senseless. Is not your fault. Had it not been for you, ah woulda end up worse off.”

  In the heartbeat of silence that follows, Cicely chuckles, tears on her cheeks. “I’m glad we have each other. An’ ah hope yuh not comparing me to no onion.”

  Patsy lifts her friend’s chin with one oiled finger, smudging it with hair grease. “Yuh not pitiful,” she says again, half smiling at Cicely. The slow growl of the heater returns with Patsy’s thirst. Cicely holds Patsy’s hand to her face and closes her eyes, her long lashes creating shadows on the rise of her cheekbones under the glow of the stained-glass wisteria lamp. Patsy watches her face. Then, almost reverentially, she leans to kiss it softly, wets her lips with the tears on each cheek, traces with her finger the outline of her face, smooths her frayed bleached hair. Despite the tenderness, there’s a frightening possessiveness she feels for Cicely. Patsy remembers yearning in school to step inside Cicely’s skin. For beneath the shimmering gold exterior there lived promise—everything Patsy had ever desired. Each caress declares this, as her lips have not yet learned the shape of the thing with no name that surges in her blood. She stares down, with awe, at the figure in front of her, and finally kisses the scar on Cicely’s forehead above her left eyebrow. Cicely’s eyes fly open, glazed with something Patsy cannot read, which forces Patsy to pull away, her face warm and burning as though the look had struck her flesh.

  “I—I have to go,” Cicely says. Carefully she gets up, her dress loose around her as she makes her way out of the basement, up the stairs.

  Patsy lowers her head and gingerly touches the marks her nails have made in her palms. For a long while she sits, caressing her loss under the dim light, aware of the familiar darkness crouched just left of her shoulder—the only thing that is hers alone.

  AT ELEVEN YEARS OLD, PATSY THOUGHT EVERYTHING ABOUT Cicely was contagious. She imagined that Cicely was a neat dollhouse on the inside with no clutter, no figurines, no open Bibles, no rosemary oil, no old dusty stereo that played scratchy records for the mind to conjure up the ghosts of two strangers shuffling around the room. She also found it impossible to believe that a girl like Cicely, who was so beautiful and carefree, could have anything to be sad about.

  When Cicely first invited Patsy over to her house, it was an event. She followed Cicely home after school that day, excited. On their walk, they picked up sticks and grazed them against fences, delighted to see goats halt at the sound and hear dogs bark. It felt to Patsy like a prelude to something big—she was getting to play with a real life-size doll, having her all to herself. Cicely lived just over the gully, which seemed like a new world to Patsy then. People on both sides went to the same schools and church and utilized the same businesses. But politics divided the terrains, rendering one side orange for the People’s National Party and the other side green for the Jamaica Labor Party. Cicely’s area was orange and thus had little tolerance for Jamaica Labor Party supporters—”laborites”—coming into their territory. When the PNP won the election that year, their supporters grabbed their brooms and swept dust from their doorways and walkways into the streets to signify their victory, cleaning out their opponents, “G’weh! Is we run t’ings!” However, nothing about Cicely and her neighbors seemed odd or different based on their political affiliations. They waved howdy just the same. The women told them to pull up their slips, fold their socks, and, in Patsy’s case, fix her tunic, which was too tight. The men silently appraised their uniform-covered bodies, their lust evident in the way their shaded gazes lingered, hidden in overzealous hospitality and grins. “Oonuh stay sweet, yuh hear, darlings?”

  Cicely’s house smelled sweet. The smell was as alluring as it was pervasive, spread over the small living room with doilies on the center table and fake flowers on the whatnot. There was a small TV with antennas sticking out of it and a sofa with plastic covering. The wooden floorboards were polished to a shine. It didn’t look like a prostitute’s house, though Patsy had no idea what she thought a prostitute’s house would look like. Mama G made it seem as if Miss Mabley were Satan’s wife. The other women in the community acted like the woman was lower than a mongrel dog. Maybe because their men’s eyes followed her buxom body the way fleas followed the lowly animals.

  Cicely’s mother was a day woman. Not the type of day woman, like many in Pennyfield, who woke up at the break of dawn to march with baskets on their heads to sell produce at the market downtown or the cheap clothes they got in barrels from Curaçao in their makeshift stalls. Cicely’s mother also wasn’t one to get caught up in the hype of working at the Free Zone like most of the other women in their community who were in search of something resembling a living wage—women who ruined their eyesight and hands sitting in a factory for hours, hovering over industrial sewing machines to make brand-name clothes for big American companies that hardly paid them. Neither was Cicely’s mother the kind of day woman like Mama G, who took taxis to the foot of the hills in Upper St. Andrew to then walk several miles just to drop to their knees and scrub the marble floors of the rich. No. In retrospect, Cicely’s mother was a practical woman, a prideful woman, a businesswoman, who used her most valuable asset—her sexuality. Though she was in high demand, she never let that prevent her from sewing all Cicely’s school uniforms and dresses, diligently letting out hems and restitching them the taller Cicely grew. She took very good care of Cicely, never letting her want for anything. Because she and Cicely shared the same bed where she conducted business, no customers came at night.

  “Har pum-pum tight like gyal pickney own!” a drunk Mas’ Jerry once hollered within earshot of his woman, Miss Bernadette, who then smashed a rum bottle on his head at a dance held at Pete’s. Miss Mabley apparently skinned out to prove this fact to the woman scorned—her legs as wide as the Martha Brae River running in opposite directions on the boom box to reveal her golden pum-pum to the whole world. “Seet yah!” she said to Miss Bernadette, patting her exposed front. “Ah dis hol’ yuh man! Fi yuh singting nuh hol’ him. My good-good mek him come back fi more!” Patsy wasn’t there to see it, but the story about Miss Mabley’s golden pum-pum spread faster than a racehorse at Caymanas Park. As time went along, people spoke less about it (especially around Miss Bernadette), and some might have even willfully erased it from memory, but the pretty mulatta girl running around with blue-green eyes became the unforgivable thing that could never be forgotten. Because it was one thing for Miss Mabley to reveal her privates at a dance, but it was another thing for her to flaunt its capabilities in the faces of other women—its power to not only lure a white man, but bring forth a child more beautiful than their own children (or any child who had ever been born in Pennyfield).

  Cicely turned to Patsy the first time Patsy entered her house and said, “Shhh. My mother sleeping. Try not to wake har. She like har beauty rest.”

  Patsy looked in the direction of the bedroom, shielded by a thin red curtain. She heard the light snores coming from behind it. A pair of men’s shoes were parked at the entrance. Between the curtain and the doorframe, she could see a woman’s slim ankles dangling seductively from the edge of the bed. Cicely pulled Patsy along. They went to the back of the house to catch the last of the remaining May butterflies inside two jam jars Cicely found under her kitchen cupboard. When they each caught one butterfly, they took it out of the jar and examined it—the velvety yellow wings that colored their fingers with their yellow dust, the
worm-like bodies, the small legs, the bright, fire-lit eyes. The soft silky warmth of the wings made Patsy’s fingers tingle. “We should set them free,” she said. “See their wings? They were meant to fly.”

  “Let’s play pretend,” Cicely suggested.

  “Pretend what?” Patsy asked.

  “Pretend we live together by we self, an’ these are our babies.”

  Patsy looked at the two fluttering butterflies trapped inside the jars.

  “We need to free dem,” Patsy said.

  “No, silly. We could both be their mothers.”

  “What if ah don’t want to be a mother?”

  “Yuh want to be di father?”

  “Ah didn’t say dat either.”

  “Yuh want to play or not?”

  Patsy didn’t want to disappoint Cicely, so she said, “Dey don’t resemble us at all.”

  “We adopted dem,” Cicely said.

  “Adopt?”

  “Ah wish I was adopted.”

  “But you have yuh real mother.”

  “She’s not like di other mothers at school. Sometimes ah wish she was different.”

  “How?”

  A silence passed. Then Cicely asked, “You neva wish you was adopted too?”

  “No.”

  “Yuh lie.”

  “Who would adopt me? I’m not as pretty as you.”

  BY THE TIME THE SCHOOL YEAR CAME TO AN END, PATSY AND Cicely had established their ritual, playing hide-and-seek in Cicely’s backyard after school, catching butterflies they “adopted” inside jars to co-parent. They searched the bushes every afternoon for fluttering wings, unmindful of flies and other insects. Sometimes they ran along the gully, laughing too loud when they caught grasshoppers. Whenever they got bored, Cicely sat on Patsy’s lap or between her legs for Patsy to unlace her long braid of black hair, which fell like a long silk blanket down Cicely’s back. Patsy brushed it, happy to play with it like she would a doll’s hair. There was a newness to Cicely that she liked—her soft, condensed-milk skin, which smelled just as sweet as it looked.