Patsy

by Patsy (retail) (epub)

  Book V

  BARREL OF LOVE

  35

  AT SCHOOL, TRU EATS LUNCH BY HERSELF. HER GAZE STRETCHES across the lawn, where other girls are eating their lunches undisturbed by the white-hot sun in the empty sky hovering close, toward the fence that divides the girls’ school from the boys’ school Sore-Foot Marlon once attended. The lunchtime chatter floats up into the branches of the mango trees and swirls with the gentle breeze across the schoolyard. In comparison, Wilhampton Boys’ School—hidden next door behind the high hedges and barbed-wire fences—is quiet, a hush that makes Tru imagine their bowed heads inside classrooms, their brows drawn close as they try to concentrate. They are never at lunch at the same time as the girls’ school—these boys who are groomed to be the next prime ministers, attorney generals, and businessmen. Both the girls’ and boys’ schools were founded by a British couple, Joseph and Martha Wilhampton, whose families owned plantations on the island. They bequeathed a good amount of their estate to building a school that would train the best and brightest, boys and girls, to lead the country. It was decided that the girls’ and boys’ schools would be separate, with different leadership.

  Most of the Wilhampton Girls’ campus is shaded with oaks and chestnuts and lignum vitae trees. Blue and white British-style uniforms decorate the old high school campus—one of the most prestigious in the country—with its colonial buildings so white that they appear to glow in sunlight. The hallways in the main building are lined with decorated plaques awarded to the school for excellence since 1845. There are also photos of fair-skinned beauty queens smiling with jeweled crowns on their heads under the alumni achievement board. Generous funds have been allotted to the landscaping, expanding the library and auditorium, repainting and remodeling the stripped and faded buildings that have been around since the 1800s. Men in khaki uniforms work the compound to keep it looking pristine, and women in hairnets mutely serve food in the canteen or scrub menstrual bloodstains off the toilets in the restrooms.

  A group of three girls—Nadine Rodriques, Jamela Coudron, and Saskia Rawlins—gather nearby on the wooden benches that circle a tree. Tru ignores them, though they talk loudly about what they’ll wear to the school fete in December, biting into crunchy apples they get in their barrels sent from America. They call themselves the Branded, but everyone else calls them Barrel Children—a name that could get the speaker punched in the face. Though it is true that these girls are raised by barrels sent from America or wherever their parents reside, Branded is a name they claim for the expensive brand-name clothes they wear to school fetes and parties—outfits that not many teenagers can afford unless if they’re wealthy like the Uptowns.

  The difference between the Branded and the Uptowns is that the Uptowns are wealthy high-colored girls admitted to schools like this one because generations of their families went there and continue to donate money. The population of the Uptowns dwindled when the school started admitting black girls—not the kind mixed with the milk-honey shade of the Lebanese or Indian, nor the café au lait hue of white and Chinese. But black-black from the bottom of Kingston’s melting pot. After what usually seems like long absences, the Uptowns are spotted around Kingston wearing uniforms of private schools their parents whisked them off to in a frenzy of panic. Some transfer to safer, uptown-friendly schools like Campion College. While the more moneyed ones flock to boarding schools abroad. Rumor has it that their departure halted repairs to the school’s library and auditorium—a dilemma that sent a stern message to Mrs. Rosedyl, the headmistress.

  The rumor became true when messages started appearing all over the newly painted walls—”Wilhampton is nothing but a kennel since that hag, Mrs. Rosedyl, let the dogs in.” Since then the school fee mysteriously quadrupled. A joke. Since girls like the Branded, funded by money sent by parents working overseas, still populate the campus—girls who have more in common with Tru, though she doesn’t share their bragging rights. In fact, Tru is envious of them. Girls who at least receive things from their parents, even if it’s only that. Things. Could she, Tru, if given the chance, be so forgiving?

  “I dunno,” Nadine Rodriques is saying in response to something. She’s resting her head of curls on Jamela Coudron’s lap under the tree, fully covered in a pink sweatshirt over her uniform, though it’s hot outside. “I haven’t yet told Daddy what to send for the fete. But whatever it is has to be bettah than Genevieve Sinclair’s, since I know she’ll be bringing Marlon. He’s so cute!” she says.

  “He is!” the other girls squeal in unison like a chorus of robins.

  Tru would’ve rolled her eyes had she not been pretending to be deaf to their conversation.

  “I want a boy like that too,” Jamela swoons.

  “Plus, he can get into any concert for free,” Nadine adds. “His uncle is a producer. He knows all di dancehall artists.”

  Tru almost chokes on her chicken bone, since Sir Charles only deejays at dancehall sessions in Pennyfield.

  “Have you seen dat gap in Genevieve’s teeth?” Nadine asks, her cat eyes narrowing into a near-perfect horizontal line of disdain. “You’d think an Uptown girl could afford to get braces.”

  “But she’s stylish, though,” Jamela replies. Jamela has a perpetually amused look on her face as though everything she sees is a wonder. She wears her straightened hair parted down the middle, pigtails on both sides of her head as if she’s still five.

  “Don’t mattah. She has bad teeth,” Nadine retorts, bursting Jamela’s bubble of awe.

  “Bad teeth, but good hair and nice skin,” Jamela replies, her vacuous stare reaching upward, through the tree branches, toward the clouds. “That’s why boys like Uptown girls.”

  “Sounds like you’re the one with a crush.”

  “Eww, dat's nasty! But let’s be real. Genevieve can do no wrong.”

  “Anybody can buy weave and bleach their skin for a likkle high-color like dat, you idiot.” Nadine snaps in patois—a forbidden language on campus, though the girls speak it in secret. They glance over their shoulders to make sure there are no teachers in sight to hear them.

  “Money can buy everything but good genes,” Saskia Rawlins, who has been quiet the whole time, interjects. “I asked my mother to send me a leather dress. Now it’s winter where she is in England, so it should be easy.”

  Tru sneaks a glance at Saskia, since she has never heard anyone else talk about their mothers being away. She mostly hears of fathers leaving for jobs overseas. Through her lashes she observes the girl, looking for a crack of anger, a tiny dot of resentment, a blemish revealing some form of hurt, which will ease the growing pressure inside Tru. She remembers the first Mother’s Day without her mother. Her teacher had the class make cards for their mothers—pouring out numerous crayons, Sharpies, vials of glitter, and glue sticks to paste red hearts with I LOVE YOU MOMMY scrawled on top. Tru had made a card that year. But she didn’t know where to send it.

  Next to Tru, a girl named Olivia Moore was excused from the assignment—the girl whose mother had died from cancer. Miss Powell allowed Olivia to read a Regina Rhinebeck novel from the pile of dog-eared books donated by the Peace Corps people from America, who came to the school. The rest of the class worked on their cards. Tru couldn’t ignore the pang in her gut, nor the knee-jerk impulse to grab the book out of Olivia’s hands and rip each yellowed, dog-eared page. Just to see her cry the tears Tru could not cry. Though death was the ultimate betrayal, Olivia, unlike Tru, was pitied, cuddled, for not having her mother present.

  But here, in the schoolyard underneath the shade of the tree, Tru observes nothing indicating Saskia Rawlins’s true feelings. She is well hidden behind the high slanted facial bones, small nose, and wide mouth, her sparkly dark eyes and deep brown skin completing the mystery. Tru snatches her gaze away when Saskia looks in her direction.

  “Leather?” Nadine asks, frowning. “In dis heat?”

  “If you can wear a sweatshirt to prevent the sun from messing with your bleaching c
reams, then why can’t I wear leather?” Saskia retorts, flipping her relaxed hair over one shoulder.

  Nadine rolls her eyes. “There you go again wid yuh self-righteous talk.”

  “I’ll wear dat purple strapless party dress I wore for my Sweet Sixteen party to the fete,” Jamela says, gazing dreamlike toward the flagpole at the roundabout where the Jamaican flag flaps freely in the breeze.

  Nadine sighs. Finally she says, “Dat dress is really cute. But people already saw you in it.”

  Jamela pauses to contemplate Nadine’s statement. “That’s true,” she replies too quickly.

  “What about you, Tru?” Tru looks up, surprised to see Saskia Rawlins smiling at her. “What are you wearing to the fete?” The other girls are quiet. “What yuh asking her for?” Nadine mumbles to Saskia under her breath. The whole fifth form knows that Tru is the designated freak, with her short hair and boyish ways, yet Saskia Rawlins insists on smiling at Tru. Sometimes she does it in passing, lingering just a few steps behind her friends. They barely speak at all, aside from brief encounters in morning devotions when each class in the upper school is lined next to the others in the large auditorium, or in the locker room after Tru’s class finishes PE and the net-ball team, which Saskia plays on, enters to gear up for after-school practice.

  “I’m not going,” Tru says, rising from the bench.

  TRU PREFERS TO WAIT UNTIL THE LOCKER ROOM CLEARS. SHE doesn’t have to wait long, because as soon as she enters, the girls cover themselves with their towels or whatever they can find, their eyes sliding toward her, then down. They dress themselves in record speed, scurrying out of the locker room, giggling freely outside as if they have just narrowly escaped death. Once there’s nothing but the sound of water dripping from the showerhead, Tru hurries up to change out of her uniform and into her soccer gear. She pulls a white polo shirt over her head. She examines herself in the long mirror to make sure there’re no bumps on her chest. But she still sees them. No matter how tight she does the bandage, she never feels secure. For good measure, she lifts her T-shirt and undoes the bandage, slowly releasing her breath before she adjusts it once again. A light sheen of sweat breaks out on her forehead. She sucks air, grits her teeth, and pulls, bearing the slight pain. She starts to sweat in the heat and her breath pales as a sob compresses her lungs. It comes out as a gasp.

  “Does it take you a while wid dat?”

  Tru freezes at the sound of the voice. When she turns, Saskia Rawlins is standing behind her. She’s already dressed in her net-ball gear—a white polo shirt with the school’s name written on it, a short pleated blue skirt that shows her knobby kneecaps and long legs with a pair of shiny shinbones, and a pair of white sneakers that look extra white next to her brown skin.

  “Yuh not flat-chested after all,” she says to Tru, taking a few steps toward her.

  “Why yuh not at practice?” Tru asks, suppressing her heavy breathing and quickly wiping away sweat and the tears of frustration that had fallen down her cheeks.

  “I was late,” Saskia says. “Coach bench me.”

  Tru knows that Saskia saw her. She waits for the questions written on Saskia’s face. Up close, it resembles a rich dark brown cut of velvet. Tru looks away.

  “So, is it true?” Saskia asks. “Girls are talking all ovah school.”

  “Dat is none of their business,” Tru says too quickly.

  “Dat’s what I tell dem too,” Saskia says.

  Tru grabs her things. “I have to go.”

  “It’s okay. I won’t tell.”

  “What’s there for you to tell?” Tru asks, slinging her book bag over one shoulder.

  Saskia shrugs. “It looks painful.”

  “Not as painful as having breasts.”

  “I don’t know ’bout you, but I like breasts.”

  “Good for you,” Tru says.

  “I meant to say—”

  “I didn’t take it any way,” Tru says. She can’t help but smile.

  “Wow, I never expected to see dat,” Saskia tells her.

  “What?”

  “You smiling. Yuh always so serious.”

  “There’s not much to smile about.”

  “Dat’s too bad.”

  The 3:25 freeze bell goes off outside—a call for abrupt silence on campus where all the students, teachers, and staff are expected to stop what they’re doing for a full minute of reflection—a tradition adopted from their British founders. Tru is stuck here with Saskia in the quiet, which sweeps through the empty locker room. She struggles under the blanket of stillness, feeling herself falling into a rare spell of shyness, fidgeting beneath the merciless hand on the clock and Saskia’s knowing gaze. This moment seems to last longer than a minute; longer, perhaps than anything Tru has ever endured in her whole life. When the bell rings again to end the freeze, Saskia is the first to speak. “Is someone coming for you afterwards?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to walk to di bus stop in Half-Way Tree?”

  “You’d risk dat?”

  “Risk what?”

  “They might say you’re tainted.”

  Saskia puts her hands on her narrow hips. “I dare them.”

  “Maybe another time,” Tru says, smiling.

  Saskia nods and bites her bottom lip as she digs inside her book bag and fishes a pen. “Here . . .” Opening Tru’s palm, she scribbles a number in the middle. Tru’s hand shakes a little. Saskia doesn’t seem to notice. When she’s done, she looks up at Tru. Before she says anything, her teammates enter the locker room and she discreetly lets go of Tru’s hand. But her touch echoes all over Tru’s skin. The girls’ laughter and chatter fill the space. They greet Saskia, surrounding her with their babble about how unfair Coach was today. Tru uses the opportunity to slip out.

  BY THE TIME TRU GETS TO THE PLAYING FIELD AFTER SCHOOL, Albino Ricky and Sore-Foot Marlon are in the middle of a game, playing with other boys Tru had grown up with in Pennyfield. They were playmates at Pennyfield Primary, running around with fake guns made of sticks and rubber bands as cowboys and Indians. Albino Ricky had the advantage as a cowboy, since he had access to real guns. Tru had access to real guns too, but was terrified of them. Roy never hides his guns. He keeps one in his sock drawer, one in the nightstand by his bed next to a King James Bible, and one he carries around for work, which he also sleeps with under his pillow. “Yuh jus’ neva know when a man need him gun.” Once Kenny took the gun from Roy’s sock drawer to play a game of police and bad man. He pointed it at Ray-Ray, a snotty-nosed boy down the road. Luckily the gun was unloaded. Ray-Ray ran home to tell his mother, who told Marva. That night Roy beat Kenny so badly that he walked with a limp for days. “Me not raising no bad man in dis house!” Roy bellowed as he beat Kenny, who tried to tell him he was playing a policeman, like him. Most of the guns Albino Ricky carried around—even now—were new, and the barrels empty. He got them from his Cousin Bentley, who got the name because he was often spotted coming out of or going into a nice car. He’s one of Pope’s boys. Albino Ricky never talks about his role in hiding weapons for his cousin, and Tru and Sore-Foot Marlon know better than to question him.

  Tru watches their graceful dance with the soccer ball. The ball seems so light, bobbing up and down on each boy’s head, knees, and chest before they kick it. Though they’re a small street team made up of ten, they play well, like a real team. There are boys on the sidelines dressed in their khaki school uniforms or regular clothes watching them and cheering. How joyous they look on this bald patch of land, sweat glistening on their brown faces, grinning from ear to ear with hands raised in the air. “Goaaaaaaaaaal!” they shout. There’s a burst of hoots and hollers around her as the boys give each other high fives. Once again, their happy, carefree dance seems to exclude her.

  “Whoa! Look who decide fi show up! Tru Juice!” Albino Ricky says as the group of boys clear out and it’s just the teammates standing around, guzzling water from Igloos or wiping their faces with towel-size rags that th
ey put over their heads. Sore-Foot Marlon and the other boys turn around as Tru approaches. She high-fives each of them. When she gets to Sore-Foot Marlon, he swiftly catches her hand and holds on to it. She doesn’t pull her hand away. At least not immediately. She smiles at him, aware of the sun warming her flesh. Tru’s nickname for Sore-Foot Marlon no longer suits him, since his once-malnourished body has developed into an athletic one with long, toned limbs that are no longer ridden with eczema and sores that ripped open with the stones she and Albino Ricky aimed at him when they were little. It’s as if the sores of Marlon’s childhood had swelled and burst and scabbed to reveal a smooth brown finish that has become a twinkle in every girl’s eye.

  “Pope was here earlier. Him was looking fah you,” Sore-Foot Marlon says.

  Tru looks at him, confused. “Pope? Why?”

  Albino Ricky speaks up. “Ah told him yuh can play. Ah didn’t mention you’re a girl, though.”

  “Why would you do dat?”

  “How yuh mean?” Albino Ricky asks, pulling another cigarette from out of his pocket. He sticks it in the side of his mouth to light it. His skin, like his hair, which is cut closely to his head, glows reddish in the sun. Albino Ricky gets a lot of girls too, because he’s the closest thing to light-near-white they’ll ever find in a place like Pennyfield. Plus, he’s a Casanova, coolly blowing smoke from a Craven A every chance he gets. He continues to talk with smoke coming out of his mouth. “You’re our best player, an’ Pope want us to represent Pennyfield. Yuh t’ink ah was g’wan ruin it by telling him our forward is a girl? We could be di next stars of di east like Harbor View, Tivoli, an’ dem places wid good players.”

  Tru is shaking her head, unable to believe what she’s hearing, unable to believe he would do such a thing without her permission. “But ah don’t live in Pennyfield anymore.”

  “You’re still one of us,” Albino Ricky replies. His tawny eyebrows, as fine as corn silk on his freckled face, are drawn; and his dark eyes that seem to burn away his lashes are locked with Tru’s.