Frangipani

by Célestine Vaite

  So it’s very unlikely for Madame Bellard to have told Leilani that she was such a pleasure to teach.

  Okay, next dress.

  “You know, the archbishop will be visiting our school next month, and do you know who will be reading him a passage from the Bible?” asks Leilani after a long silence.

  Ah, now Leilani is going a bit too far, Materena tells herself. There’s no need to bring the poor archbishop into the story.

  “Leilani,” she says, “that’s enough ha’avare, don’t you think?”

  “I’m telling the truth! The archbishop will be visiting our school!” Leilani goes on about how preparations for his visit are already in place. Walls are getting painted. Flowers are getting planted. Students are rehearsing greeting the archbishop. You kneel and you kiss his ring.

  Materena looks up at her daughter with tenderness in her eyes. Her story about the archbishop visiting sounds true and . . . Aue . . . Materena can’t believe her daughter has been chosen to read the archbishop a passage from the Bible. What an honor!

  “Vahine is so nervous,” Leilani says.

  “Oh . . . I don’t see why she needs to be nervous. It’s very easy to kneel and kiss a ring.”

  “She’s not nervous about that . . . she’s nervous to read for the archbishop.”

  “Ah,” Materena says, a bit disappointed. “I thought it was you who was going to read for the archbishop.”

  “Me?” Leilani cackles. “Like . . .” One look from her mother and Leilani changes her tone. “Oh, oui alors . . . I wish I were reading for the archbishop . . . But I read in class yesterday . . . my English teacher said . . .”

  “Don’t move, I’m making a mistake here,” Materena interrupts.

  Okay, next dress.

  “You know, Mamie . . . I won’t be able to wear any of these dresses once I have breasts.” This is Leilani’s declaration and Materena bursts out laughing. That Leilani, she thinks. She will stop at nothing to get a new dress. She’s so stubborn.

  “Don’t laugh,” Leilani urges her mother. “This is serious.” She explains that when you have breasts, you’ve got to wear dresses that can accommodate them. You can’t wear dresses that are tight at the top.

  Materena stops fussing over the stitches to meditate a little. But! It makes sense, what Leilani is saying. Once Leilani is going to start having breasts, she’s not going to fit into any of her dresses. Materena can’t believe she didn’t think about that. She could be wasting her time taking down all these dresses today because Leilani’s breasts are sure to be arriving very soon. They’ve already popped out a tiny bit. It’s only a matter of time before they erupt.

  Sitting in the back of Auntie Rita’s car on the way to town the next day, Leilani can’t stop grinning with delight. She’s getting a new dress today and Rita, being an expert with fabric, is going to help her and Materena, who’s not an expert with fabric.

  “And what’s the budget?” Leilani asks her mother, who is sitting in the front discussing fabric with Rita.

  Materena, looking over her shoulder, replies, “The budget, the budget . . . there’s no budget . . . If I have the money, I’ll buy a nice dress, it’s simple.”

  Then Materena goes back to discussing fabric with her cousin.

  “And I get to choose the dress, okay?” Leilani says.

  Materena glances at her daughter for a second and says nothing.

  Back to discussing fabric with her cousin. “So, Rita? When is the sale at your shop?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a dress with thin straps,” Leilani says. “I used to have dresses with thin straps when I was little.” Leilani sighs with nostalgia.

  Rita glances at her niece in the rear mirror and smiles. “Ah,” she says, “I would give anything to be able to wear a dress with thin straps.” Rita goes on about how much she envies women who can wear dresses with thin straps. Rita can’t wear that kind of dress. Her arms are too fat. But to wear a dress with thin straps once in her life at least would make Rita so happy.

  Materena puts a comforting arm on her cousin’s shoulder. “Cousin, your beauty is on the inside and that’s more important than the beauty on the outside.”

  “What do you mean to say here?” Rita asks. “That I’m not beautiful on the outside?”

  “But non!” Materena exclaims in protest. “Rita . . .”

  Rita chuckles.

  Ouf . . . luckily Rita is in a good mood today.

  Anyway, they’re in town now and after driving around for twenty minutes looking for a free parking spot, Rita scores one at last. Rita can’t stand paying for parking spots. She’d pay thousands of francs for an ornament, but there’s no way she’d pay hundreds of francs for a parking spot. It’s against her nature. That free parking spot puts her in an even better mood. Okay . . . all women out of the car. Let’s go and get that dress.

  First stop is a little shop where dresses don’t cost the eyes of the head, dresses that are on sale all year round. Leilani drags her feet walking into the shop, which is crowded with mamas, young girls, and babies in carriages. Pop music is blasting out of wrecked haut-parleurs.

  Ah! And what does Materena see hanging at the back of the shop? A dress that has not only been reduced by 50 percent but that is so beautiful. Feel the fabric! And check out the large pockets! Materena takes the dress off the rack and gives it to her daughter for her to go and try on, all the while praising large pockets. In Materena’s opinion, women can always do with large pockets. You can put all sorts of things in large pockets: money for the truck, pens, sandwiches, bottles of lemonade.

  Materena is still holding the dress, waiting for her daughter to grab it.

  “So?” she says. “Go and try that dress on, girl. I can’t wait to see you in it. You’re going to look so beautiful.” Then, looking at Rita, she adds. “Eh, Rita? What luck, eh?”

  Rita looks at her niece and sees the desperation in her eyes. She smiles with compassion. Yes, she knows how it is when your mother chooses the dress you’re going to wear.

  “The pockets aren’t ripped?” Rita asks Materena. She explains that when a dress is on sale it is usually because there’s something wrong with it. Rita always pays full price for her dresses.

  Materena checks the pockets. No, they’re not ripped.

  “And the zipper?” Rita asks. “It’s not stuck?” Materena checks the zipper. Non, it’s not stuck, it works perfectly. Rita feels the fabric and grimaces. “That’s cheap fabric,” she says, shaking her head with regret. “That dress is going to tear in the washing machine like that.” She clicks her fingers.

  “Ah, you think?” Materena asks. “And if I wash it by hand?”

  Rita feels the fabric again and looks up to the ceiling for a moment, as if deep in thought. “Three washes. After that the fabric is going to tear. But you decide, it’s your money.”

  Materena hangs the dress back on the rack.

  Next shop.

  Next dress . . . and Materena is so excited. She can’t believe her luck today! She just loves the red dots on that dress, they really give it an air of gaiety.

  Again, Auntie Rita steps in. “Cousin, the fabric . . .” But there’s only so much Rita can say about fabric and she’s running out of ideas. It’s Leilani’s turn now to tell Materena what’s wrong with the dress she’s just taken off the rack.

  “I don’t like that dress,” Leilani says.

  “What don’t you like?” Materena asks.

  “Everything, Mamie,” Leilani says, trying to keep her sweet voice. “The shape, the size, the color.”

  “What’s wrong with the color? Yellow is a beautiful color, what’s wrong with yellow?”

  “Mamie . . .”

  “Oh,” Materena says as she puts the dress back on the rack. “You’re not going to wear brown for the rest of your life!”

  Next shop.

  Materena doesn’t want to go into the next shop. She doesn’t like the shopkeeper, who always looks at you like you’re going to steal some
thing.

  Next shop.

  No, clothes in that shop cost the eyes of the head.

  Next shop.

  No, that shop looks too high-class.

  “Come on, let’s go in,” Rita says.

  “Ah non, cousin,” Materena says. “That shop is for rich people.”

  “Well, I’m going to look inside,” Rita announces. “You can wait outside.”

  Rita and Leilani walk in while Materena stands outside. Every time Leilani waves her mother to come in, Materena waves her away.

  Here’s Leilani taking a lacy black dress off the rack. Facing her mother, she puts the lacy black dress in front of her and shakes her shoulders. Materena widens her eyes, meaning: Stop it, hurry up and put that dress back on the rack before the shopkeeper sees you!

  Grinning, Leilani puts the dress back on the rack. Then she takes another one. This time it’s a very long white dress with frills, which again Leilani puts in front of her, but this time she bows before her mother with her eyes closed.

  But what’s this? Materena asks herself. It’s to try to get me into that shop? As Leilani puts the frilly dress back on the rack, Materena gets her purse from inside her pandanus bag, opens her purse (still in the pandanus bag) . . . Okay, there’s five thousand-franc bills, one five-hundred-franc bill . . . lots of coins . . . total (approximate) is seven thousand francs.

  Here’s Rita at the door with her handbag casually resting over her shoulder. “And so?” she calls out. “You’re coming in or not? You need an invitation?”

  Materena looks down at her thongs, cursing herself for not wearing her shoes today. Her feet were hurting so much this morning. Well anyway, her thongs are clean, she scrubbed them last night. We’re going to eat breadfruit today, tomorrow, and the day after, Materena tells herself as she walks into the shop, trying to muster all her dignity.

  Ah, at least the music here is soft and relaxing. Here’s Leilani holding a folded blue dress with thin straps, asking her mother if she can try it on.

  “Why not?” Materena says, looking at the well-dressed women in the shop from the corner of her eyes. “But let me feel the fabric first.”

  Materena discreetly checks out the price tag as she feels the fabric. Oh, what a relief! The price is quite reasonable. There must be something wrong with it.

  Materena asks Rita to feel the fabric.

  “Top quality,” Rita declares.

  All right, then. Leilani hurries into the changing room, followed by her mother. She pulls the curtains closed and begins to undress. After a while Materena pokes her head in.

  “Mamie! A bit of privacy here!”

  “Oh,” Materena whispers, half-cranky, half-laughing as she pulls the curtains closed. “Who do you think gave birth to you, you silly coconut.”

  Half a minute later and Materena is beginning to feel impatient. It doesn’t take a century to slip into a dress, and plus, another girl accompanied by her mother is waiting to get into the dressing room. How come this shop has only one dressing room available? Materena asks herself. But there are some stupid people involved in commerce.

  “So?” Materena discreetly calls out from behind the curtains.

  “This is the dress I want, Mamie!” Leilani calls back.

  “Can I look?”

  Materena is just thinking of walking into the dressing room when Leilani pulls the curtains open in one theatrical movement, then rolls her derriere, one hand on her hip, before marching out of the room. You would think she was on the podium for the Miss Tahiti contest. The girl who’d been waiting for the dressing room to be free walks in with her mother following, and Materena calls out to Rita to come and see.

  Rita appears in a flash.

  Her face lights up, “Aue! Boys are going to fall on their knees for you.”

  But Materena is not sharing Rita’s emotion. She had thought the length of the blue dress was just an illusion because the dress was folded. Frowning, Materena asks Leilani, “It’s not a bit too short?”

  “Non,” Leilani replies, “this is the normal length.”

  “Eh, stop . . . I wasn’t born in the last rain . . . Bend over.”

  Leilani bends over.

  “Eh here,” Materena says, “I saw your underpants.”

  Rita, cackling, tells Leilani that she better make sure to always be wearing clean underpantsthen. She winks to Materena and since Materena is not winking back, Rita makes a serious face.

  “That dress is just too short,” Materena says. “It’s shorter than all the dresses you have at home.”

  “No, it’s not!” Then, pleading with Auntie Rita with her eyes, Leilani asks her what she thinks.

  Aue, poor Auntie Rita, stuck between the tomato and the lettuce again, between the daughter and the mother. Is the dress a bit too short? she asks herself. Well, yes, but when you’ve got nice legs, you might as well show them off. If Rita had nice legs like Leilani’s, she’d be wearing short dresses every day. But here, Rita doesn’t have nice legs. When she sees Cousin Lily parading in her short dresses, making men of all ages trip over, Rita gets so envious. Some days, she feels like shaking Lily a little for her luck with those long brown muscular legs. So, is the dress a bit too short? No, not really, compared to what young girls wear these days.

  “Not necessarily,” she says.

  “You see?” Leilani says. “This dress is fine . . . Please, Mamie.”

  Please, Mamie, Materena thinks. That girl only says please when she needs me to open my purse. She looks at her daughter and that dress—that dress is just too short. What a shame, because the fabric is top quality.

  But what is a young clever girl going to get wearing a dress so short?

  She’s going to get a lot of attention from boys, boys who’ve only seen her in long dresses with thick straps, pockets, and huge buttons. Materena’s cousin Tapeta never buys her daughter Rose short dresses. She always says, “I’m singing at the airport five mornings a week on top of my job at the hospital for Rose to go to private school to get her papers, and not for boys to give her interested looks.”

  Materena feels the same way. “I’ve taken my decision,” she says. “And my decision is that the dress is too short.” She goes on about how a dress like this is only going to cause trouble with boys.

  “But I don’t want to cause trouble!” Leilani’s voice is no longer a whisper. “I just want to wear that dress for me!”

  “I understand what you’re saying.” Materena turns to Rita and asks, “What do you think?”

  And this is Rita’s answer: “Even if your daughter wears a sack of potato, boys are going to look at her because she’s got slim legs.”

  This answer comes out of Rita’s mouth in one go. There was no need for five seconds of contemplation. But then again, she’s not the mother of the young girl. She doesn’t have to worry about certain things like Materena has to. And if Materena doesn’t buy that dress, her daughter is going to do her long face. Aue! Imagine having the money to buy your daughter a new dress every week. What a nightmare!

  “Mamie?” Leilani pleads. “You know me. Do I look at boys? Non. Never. I don’t have the faintest interest in boys. I will go to university . . . I will become a professor . . .”

  But she will stop at nothing, that one! Materena yells in her head. And she’s going to be a professor now? Last month Leilani said she was going to be a social worker. She keeps changing her mind.

  “You’re going to be a professor now?” asks Materena. Leilani nods, her hands clasped in prayer, miming, Please, Mamie.

  Eh, eh, Materena remembers back to when she was fifteen years old and the fashion was for shirtdresses with a picture of a fruit on the front. When you scratched the picture of the fruit you could smell its scent. There was a shirtdress with a picture of an apple, a shirtdress with a picture of a pineapple, there were many choices and everybody had a shirtdress like that except for Materena. Then one day, her mother said, “All right, let’s go and get that shirtdress you’ve been ta
lking about nonstop.”

  But when Loana saw the shirtdress in the shop, she looked at the price tag and did her horrified eyes. “This dress costs the eyes of the head!” she said. “What am I paying all that money for? The apple or the cheap fabric? You don’t think we should buy ten pounds of apples instead of that apple here? And is this a dress or a shirt for when you sleep? It’s way below the knees.”

  “It’s a shirt!” Materena said with all her heart and soul.

  Loana shook her head and mumbled, “All that money for you to look like an old woman.”

  Eh well, times sure have changed.

  “All right, then,” Materena sighs, smiling to her daughter. “Hurry up, go and put your dress on the counter before I change my mind.”

  We’re a Different Generation

  There’s a boum, a party, this Saturday three houses away from where Leilani’s best friend, Vahine, lives. Vahine has been invited and so has Leilani, and of course Leilani is expecting her mother to say, “Yes, of course you can go to the boum.”

  Leilani has it all planned, so she tells her mother, who is hanging clothes. She’ll be wearing her new blue dress (it has already made one of the nuns so cranky she sent Leilani home to get changed). She’ll be picked up at around six thirty by Vahine’s mother, she and Vahine will be picked up at around eleven o’clock from the boum, she’ll sleep at Vahine’s house, and then she will be dropped home on Sunday before nine o’clock, for Mass.

  Materena, pegging a shirt, cackles. “For Mass? Why? Are you going to Mass this Sunday?”

  Leilani has stopped going to Mass for months.

  “Maybe,” Leilani whispers sweetly. “So? Can I go to the boum? I’m nearly sixteen years old.”

  “Leilani, your birthday is in nine months.”

  “Oui, I know, but I’m already sixteen years old in the head.” Leilani goes on about how she’s very mature for her age. She understands many things about life because she’s part of such an extended family. Most of her friends at school wouldn’t know what it means to share their last eggs.