Fingerprints of Previous Owners

by Rebecca Entel

  His little sister, Gussie, likes to chime in once he gets started, and she is pretty serious for being eight. She says things like: So how can jellyfish live there if it’s all ice, huh? And Manny says: They swim around with heat packs strapped to their tops. Duh.

  Anyway, we play this game all the time, but I just remember some of the stories we make up that are extra funny, like the shark TV one.

  But I want to tell more about Picker. Picker died two months ago today, and no matter what anyone tells you, he did not have that virus that lots of dogs up north of town had. I know because when the vet Dr. Amerie was here, she examined him not once, but twice. Two whole times he had an animal doctor, from the capital, who was real smart, checking him all over. Dr. Amerie examined Picker when she set up her vet clinic in Lionel’s truck and came all the way around the whole island to check all the dogs and give them medicine if they needed it. I was playing with Picker and my friend Wanda when she came by, and she stopped and gave Picker a full all-over exam—but he didn’t need any medicine at all—and she had thiflae in her bag for Wanda and me. She really knew her way around from coming every year to take care of the dogs: she knew to pick the thiflae on the north side and put it in her bag, because she wouldn’t find much more over here by our houses. That was the first time she checked Picker, and then I took him to her again when he seemed to have weak legs one day, having trouble getting up the dunes after us when we ran up there.

  I knew where to find her because my cousin Lionel was staying with her in her hotel room, that little tiny inn on the bay that used to be open, too, but isn’t there anymore. It wasn’t like the resort because you could just walk right up. There wasn’t a gate or guards or anything, so you could knock on people’s doors and talk to them. At the resort—I know because Mom works there in the kitchen, and my brother works garbage, and my daddy used to, too—they go around telling all the tourists how nice everyone on the island is and how you can just stop them in the road, and they’ll tell you anything you want and give you directions and help you. But then how come they have all that guard business keeping everyone out but the tourists? Anyhow, I brought Picker there to Dr. Amerie, a real vet from the capital, and she gave him a look all over and found a little something stuck in his paw, and once she took it out and put some liquid stuff on it in case of infection, he was jumping and running just normal like before. And he was healthy as can be. And didn’t even try to lick the stuff off his paw because he was a really smart dog, too. So that was two times he’d gotten checked up by Dr. Amerie.

  I was playing out by the landfill, but my friends weren’t with me because they’d gone home for dinner. I knew I should be on my way, but there was such a nice breeze and a few dogs had come round, running after me and letting me run after them, and Picker was doing the thing he loves, which is brushing the backs of my knees with the side of his face whenever I ran a little slower, so I didn’t want to mess with the spell by going home. Figured just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes. Then the sky started turning all pinkish, and I knew if I didn’t get home for dinner both Mom and Daddy would agree on something.

  I started walking, and Picker and another dog, Henry, were walking along with me, which was usual for dinnertime. I had my bike with me, but I was walking it because I didn’t like to worry about the dogs getting too close to my spinning tires. I’d had my bike since the resort sold off their old rental ones down by the snack bar, and Mom got me this green one and fixed it up for me.

  We were coming out where the landfill road curves to the main road, and I heard these tourists, a mom and a dad, I guess, crying at each other, and I saw their rental car with the resort sun painted on the door over on the side of the road with a flat tire. I saw a girl sitting in the backseat with her skinny legs hanging out the open door; she just looked really bored, probably a few years older than me.

  I was about to tell them if they kept walking they could ask Mr. Bayard either to fix up the tire or they could call someone, since that was the closest house with a phone. I knew Mr. Bayard was home, too, because I’d been playing with his son, Manny, and Manny had just gone home for dinner. But before I could tell them anything, the dad was running toward me, saying all kinds of panicked things, and he put his hands around the handlebars of my bike and started pulling it toward him. I got scared and didn’t even think of telling them about Mr. Bayard then. He was leaning over me, yelling, and I was just trying to hold on to my bike, but that made him pull harder. His hands and arms were so tan they were darker than mine, but in a different way. His voice was getting angrier, saying all these things about being stuck and needing to go for help and needing to get his daughter back to the resort for dinner and what were they going to do if it got dark and if his daughter missed dinner. I saw him see the half-rubbed-out resort symbol stamped on my handlebars, and his eyes said the bike belonged more to him than to me anyway. His mouth said I better just let go of the bike so they could use it or, or, or...

  His daughter looked fine to me, not even sweaty, and she had a can of something she was sipping slowly, so not even thirsty. And like I said before, it wasn’t even that hot because there was a nice breeze and it was getting closer to being night. I don’t even think they’d been there that long because it’s not a part of the island where cars won’t go by and definitely people on foot going home for dinner. They couldn’t have been stuck that long if they hadn’t seen anyone else go by—but acting like they were so stranded, about to die of hunger. But I wasn’t thinking all of these things in my head like clear thoughts the way I’m saying them now; I was just all a jumble. I don’t want to keep hearing the man’s angry words in my head so I won’t say them to you. What he called me is not what I am.

  Finally I couldn’t hold on anymore, and I fell back, and the dogs just started barking a lot more than they already were. Not jumping or anything, just barking. And the man was so mad by then he started swinging the bike around and yelling at the dogs. Henry ran into the brush, but Picker didn’t. He kept on barking, and the man turned around and started walking back toward the car, and I figured he was going to make his plan then, and I got up and looked where I could run past them to get home without getting too close to those crazy people, but before I even got to my feet, he stopped and turned around and swung the bike right at Picker, and Picker got knocked toward the side of the road. Just lying there whimpering. I’m not embarrassed telling that I was crying more than that mom, and I ran home, and Daddy drove me back to get Picker, and I kept yelling that I wished it was Dr. Amerie’s time to visit, because there was no other animal doctor to take him to and what were we going to do, what were we going to do? When Daddy and I got back there, the man and daughter were still sitting in the car, but the mom and my bike were gone, and the man kept waving his hands at us, like telling my daddy to stay away from him and his daughter, but we were barely even looking at them, we just wanted Picker.

  Eventually we got Picker in Daddy’s car, and we took him to the clinic connected to the resort, because we didn’t have Dr. Amerie or any better idea. Mom was worried they wouldn’t even look at him, but the nurse named Shelby was nice and told us to bring him in because there weren’t any people patients waiting. At first I was in the room with him, but then after just a little while Daddy said maybe we should wait in the waiting room so Nurse Shelby could do her job best.

  After everything, no matter how sad I was, we had to sign papers. We weren’t the owners, but Daddy told me it was OK for us to write we were on the papers, since someone had to be called the owner in the end, he said. I can still see his back at the front counter out of the corner of my eye, even though I was looking down at my feet swinging, swinging off the edge of those plastic chairs you wait in. Daddy’s back and the top half of Nurse Shelby and the top half of some other guy working there, wearing the resort sun shirt and a superclean white baseball cap. He was just standing there, not making eye contact with Daddy, while Shelby told him the whole story. Daddy asked abou
t my bike but mainly talked about Picker.

  “The parvo file?” Daddy asked. Except he didn’t say it like he was really asking but pointing out some kinda stupidity. Mom called parvo the worm that hates dogs. “The parvo file!” He sounded mad. I decided to just squinch up my eyes.

  “We’re keeping track of the dogs on the island, mister. For when the veterinarian care team comes each year,” the guy said in a bored way.

  “Yes, I know all about that. We know her, we know the vet who comes. But this dog didn’t have that. He—I told you what happened. A guest at your resort.”

  I looked up but just a little bit. Daddy kept talking, but the man put the papers we’d signed in the file he’d first picked out of a drawer and then he just walked right out the room—my daddy still talking and Nurse Shelby standing there looking like someone should do something, but she didn’t know what.

  So if people say Picker died of that parvo that killed some other dogs, they are lying. Even if they’re grown-ups saying it. Mom tells me not to go around calling people liars, but Mom and Daddy both say you can’t go around not calling liars liars.

  When we play Arrival and stand up there all important with our chins in the air and our voices reaching out into the wind, we call this island all kinds of things and make up all kinds of stories about where we are and who we are and what belongs to us. But none of it is true. When we play Arrival we are just saying things belong to us, but nothing belongs to us. I never got my bike back either.

  Chapter Four

  Overtime meant they kept me as Maid into the night: cleaning various parts of the resort that I was sure could’ve been fit into someone’s schedule during the day. But it became clearer why they needed more staff on garbage duty: they were planning to renovate the pool area with new furniture, a new tiled path to the boat dock, and a refreshed reef mural on the bottom of the pool. “Exploding with color,” Claudia’s assistant told me.

  So once I’d put in all my full hours as a maid, I was to report to the truck area and assess how much extra garbage there was from the renovation and what could or could not fit in the regular dumping schedule. I had to strategize how to get all the extra garbage over to the landfill without exceeding the trucks’ gas budget for the week and without interfering with the crew’s regular duties. It was a puzzle, Claudia told me, but figure it out.

  Thing was, the pool deck already had the nicest furniture on the island. Thing was, the path from the boat dock to the hotel was already straight and smooth; the grounds crew kept it that way no matter what kind of storm tore it up during the night. Thing was, refreshed or peeling, the painted reef on the bottom of a pool was a dumb idea. The dumbest idea. I wasn’t one for dipping into a cold ocean, beautiful reefs around here or not, but if the tourists really wanted to see one they could go stand on the rocks near town where the water was clear and see at least a little bit of one, or they could wriggle into their neoprene skins and really see some beautiful coral out at the barrier reef. The resort’s boats would take them.

  If I’d been getting paid it would’ve been one thing, but I wasn’t. So how to explain to Mother why I was working so much and so long if I wasn’t getting paid?

  And how to keep to myself the under-skin itchiness from not going up inland after work? Since after overtime it was so, so dark, and I was so, so tired. How to soothe that itchiness just enough to get by?

  Puzzle: figure it out.

  I convinced Lionel to help me take a few loads over during the week, promising to pay him back for his gas. Didn’t know when that would happen, but I guessed he didn’t either and was willing to help me out, interest- and guilt-free. He knew helping me at work indirectly lightened his load taking care of Mother. And he was coming by the resort to give that American woman a tour anyhow. We’d see how that went, taking a tourist to your house in the dump. But who was I to say stop doing something that might get you stomped on?

  I didn’t know how Lionel was really going to work the dump into his tour, but he’d promised that he’d drop me and my garbage at the landfill while he and the American woman went around the island. I was worried he might drop me at the entrance where you can’t even see the landfill yet; I’d have to make multiple trips up the road to get all the bags there. It was hard enough moving them way past the truck entrance to where no one would see him parked. Still, better than figuring out another way to get them over there on my own.

  Counting the bags made me swear under my breath. I knew Lem, as the most senior custodian, knew how to arrange the bags on the truck so none would topple over the side the minute you got on the crappy road. But we were always a little stony around each other, even at work, so I hadn’t checked in with him the way I was supposed to. Lionel and I just started heaving bags into the back of the pickup.

  “How’d they expect you’d get over there?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. Walk, I guess.”

  He laughed. “They want you to walk back and forth all day or they want you to work?”

  “That question’s too smart for me to ask them. Just gotta get over there and dump the stuff and fill out all these forms so they can start planning for the renovation.”

  “Another one? Dammit! There’s no way I can handle them dumping even more. They just redid all those rooms, what, a year and a half ago? Man.”

  He kicked at one of the bags, then bent over to make sure it hadn’t torn. The black plastic seemed to stretch in the heat. Probably melting, too, longer we stood there.

  “Well, you can note something on the forms, but I guarantee you I’m gonna be over there with you dealing with garbage from the renovation anyway.”

  “Not garbage just because you throw it away,” Lionel said.

  We finished loading the bags. Lionel jumped up to make sure they were settled enough not to flop out along the road, and I got into the cab. Giving up on the conversation, I thought.

  “No overtime?” he asked as he climbed in.

  “Asking lots of questions got you fired, right? Just drive and don’t comment. I know you’re doing me a favor, but I’m already in trouble.” I leaned out the window for fresher air.

  “Why didn’t you have me pick you up earlier if you’re in such a rush, Your Highness?”

  “Didn’t want to get in more trouble.”

  “You’re gonna have to wait another minute. And you’re gonna have to scoot over.”

  “Sit in the middle of this tiny thing?”

  “Well, there are three of us. Can’t get paid for a tour if I put the tourist in the back with your garbage bags, can I?”

  “More her garbage than mine.” But I slid over. Leg against Lionel’s leg like when it was his dad’s truck, and we all piled in as kids. Lionel, me, Troy.

  I almost didn’t recognize B3 when she rapped on the passenger window. Her eyes were smaller behind thick glasses, and she wore what looked like a man’s old undershirt, paint-splattered, over sweatpants cut off at the knee. But she still had that huge bag with the palm tree, held close like a baby bundle.

  “This is my cousin Myrna. Myrna, Jasmine Manion.”

  She sort of waved at me as she got in the truck, and I was glad the quarters of the truck cab didn’t lead to shaking hands. Kept my eyes cast down like I was a puppet of the employee manual all of a sudden, even off the premises. Just nodded.

  “Working,” he said to her, nudging his chin toward me, as if she didn’t see my uniform plain as day. “I’ve got to drop Myrna off along the way.”

  The truck started up noisily, and Lionel turned left onto the road. Sitting so close I knew he could feel me tense at his turn. I moved a touch closer—made sure he could. Right would have taken us to the landfill more than twice as fast. He raised his eyebrows at me, daring me to question the fact of his tour in front of his tourist.

  I felt the antsiness of this garbage duty worse than my usual day’s last hour, knowing my machete was waking up for me. I put my water bottle between my feet and held on to the dashboard, abov
e the tape deck lined with road dust, trying not to jostle against her. She smelled like soap—one she’d brought with her, not the resort’s floral; I could tell by the smell, and I’d seen the thicker bright white loaf in her tub. Her hair held a whiff of chlorine just from sitting by the pool she told us was “heavenly”; I knew she’d never swam in it. I also knew Lionel and I both smelled like garbage. She didn’t seem to notice. Filled with her own scents, I guessed. She and Lionel started talking about how good the food was at the resort, compared with the meals on a cruise she’d taken last year. I knew the couple of gourmet magazines in her room sat on her husband’s nightstand. Out of tourists’ earshot, Lionel always cursed the mounds of food the resort trucked over and flung in the dump. The waste, he’d brood. Plus rats coming round.

  On our right the brush was occasionally interrupted by a house painted peach or white or deep green. On our left was the ocean. Black arrows of birds in the distance seemed to race us. Jasmine Manion stared by me—through me—to the ocean view that just kept on and on. Lulled. She clicked her tongue against her cheek, a tiny glub-glub that sounded like a clock ticking down. Her eyes scanned through the windshield, but I didn’t know what she was waiting for.

  “My great-grandmother was from Quickly Island,” she said. Lionel and I seemed to nod in unison: sensible reason for wanting a tour. “But we couldn’t find a resort or anything there, so we decided to come here.”

  “American resort? Nah, beaches aren’t so nice there. Mangroves all over and whatnot.”

  She’d probably never seen the tangled nest of a mangrove, but she nodded at what he said. All three of our chins bobbed up and down. My thigh squeaked against the seat as I shifted to unglue it.