by Danyel Smith
“I can’t put you through any more trouble.”
“No trouble.”
“You must like Édouard,” Eva said, clumsily falling back on her wide, flirty smile.
“Eddie is Audrey’s brother. I told you.” Benjamin showed Eva the linens, and the restroom, and then left her.
In the first room she saw with a bed, Eva plugged in her cell phone and then lay down on the bare mattress. Tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep.
She looked at the bracelet both Ron and Dart had given her, and her mind went straight to late 1977. A banner year for pop music.
Eva was in seventh heaven. Right outside Carmel, California, in a snug living room that doubled as Eva’s bedroom. Her family lived in a rented caretaker’s bungalow behind an estate inhabited only during the summer. Eva’d never seen the owners, but liked them for providing such an excellent stereo. At eleven years old, Eva was slim as a Siamese cat. Dark hair parted down the middle and pulled into a severe ponytail, she was in jeans and Kinney tennis shoes and a Good Times T-shirt. She wore, as was her habit, a tangle of self-braided yarn and lanyard bracelets and flea-market bangles on both wrists.
Because her parents moved a lot, and what was breakable, broke, her parents held onto only a few Stevie Wonder albums, some other Motown artists, and some jazz vocalists. Eva was a radio junkie. By holding her cassette recorder next to the speaker in the living room, she could tape all her faves. At eleven, there was much to be fascinated by—what had before sounded like grown folks’ pleading conversations, or like tinkle-ring-snap for her to bounce around to in the car, now sounded big and pure and directed toward her. The Jackson 5’s 1970 ABC’was the only album Eva considered “hers,” and as “ABC” was the song the album was named for, she figured it to be the most important, and had begun to listen to it endlessly for all the bells and the rises and the short silent spaces, for Jackie’s part, Jermaine’s part, and Michael’s main part. All the boy’s voices fit the other’s perfectly, like rushing liquid puzzle pieces.
Ow! Eva shivered to Michael’s ad libs and to drums gone for a second and then drums back in a rush. Thrilled by the Jacksons’ urgency and rhyme, Eva was wowed to find out from her mother that “do-re-me” were musical notes, and that there was a song from a movie (titled, perfectly, Eva thought, The Sound of Music) called “Do-Re-Mi.” Everything came together—Me, a name I call myself was woven tightly in Eva’s mind to Michael’s breathtaking Come on come on come on lemme show you what it’s all about.
Whenever she was near a radio, Eva listened to the stories in and about songs, searched for meanings and connections between them. In the evenings, when Eva’s homework was done and her parents were tense or out or one of them was alone in the bedroom with Little House on the Prairie on blast, she twisted open a three-pack of fresh, blank TDK (high bias!) ninety-minute tapes. And on the ruled, folded slip TDK provided, Eva neatly penned the song titles and artists and other pertinent info (culled mostly from disc jockeys, her mother’s Ebony, her father’s Rolling Stone, and her own Right On!). Eva even taped index cards to the folded slip, so as to have more room for her own liner notes. By writing and rereading the info, Eva felt organized and thorough, and like she could get a better handle on why a song made her feel happy, or sad, or like dancing. Eva lived for the feeling of music, but had a taste for the art and science of it as well.
With her GE cassette recorder/player (black with a wood veneer) aligned perpendicular to the speaker (it was the best way, Eva’d found, after experimenting), and sitting so she could press the record and play buttons, as well as reach the volume and tuner on the receiver, Eva silently cursed the radio DJ for talking over the first bars of the Emotions’ “Best of My Love.” The beginning notes of the song—all zip and anticipation—was what Eva had been angling to get on tape for weeks. Eva loved the Emotions for their straightforward name, and for the romance of gospel siblings Wanda, Sheila, and Jeanette, previously known as the Sunbeams, fighting their way to the Top Forty with selfless aid from the valiant Maurice White, leader of her heroes, Earth, Wind & Fire.
Eva turned the dial with precision, knowing exactly the distance between her desired stations, looking for her song. Eva could tell by looking at the amount of tape left on the cassette that there was just enough room on Side B for “Best of My Love.” This tape was crucial, and almost done. A perfect collage, Eva thought, of how people felt about life and love in 1977.
“Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)”: Joe Tex, used to write words for songs for James Brown. Can’t believe he said the woman is fat. Mean, but a good song.
“Rich Girl”: Daryl Hall and John Oates, white, but sound like they are black. Number 1 in the Top 40. Says BITCH in it!
“Just the Way You Are”: Billy Joel. Cute. Short. Sunglasses. Better than Barry Manilow, but kind of the same as B. Manilow Both sound very real and like they mean it.
“Lovely Day”: Bill Withers, born on Independence Day. This is the best song of happiness. He has other good songs from before this.
“High School Dance”: The Sylvers. Foster is fine and he can sing. Trying to be Jackson-like and doing it so good. Best song. Best! Best! Best!
“More Than A Woman”: Tavares. Hate the name of this group. Good idea from lead singer to be more than woman to a boyfriend. A wife, a friend. Also: A BeeGees song?
“Gloria”: Enchantment. Nothing is better except Stevie Wonder and also Enchantment has “It’s You that I Need,” which is number one in my soul. “Gloria” was also Number 1 in the Top 40.
“Sir Duke”: Stevie Wonder, but also made me learn about other people. Dad’s favorite.
“Looks Like We Made It”: Barry Manilow. Number 1 in the Top 40. Like it because it seems happy from the title, but when you pay attention, it’s sad.
“I Wanna Get Next to You”: Best song ever. Hate name of group: Rose Royce. Mom says it’s a car.
“Keep Me Cryin’ “: Al Green. Only for Dad.
“Peg”: Steely Dan. Neither man in group is named Dan. The song is not steely. Dad told me what blueprint blue is. Love this song. The voices.
“Short People”: Randy Newman. I can’t believe someone made a song like this. Saying the things said. I love this song.
“Christine 16”: Rocks! KISS! No age rhymes with Eva or Evey.
“Boogie Nights”: Heatwave. Their name paints a picture of who they are and what song is like.
“Don’t it Make My Brown Eyes Blue”: Crystal Gayle. Number 2 in the Top 40. Blue is sad, not the color. Mom explained.
“Evey. Baby.”
“Hmm?” Still on the floor, twirling the knob from station to station, Eva heard her mother come in the back door.
“I’m here, but Mommy’s gotta go.” Eva’s mother’s name was Elaine, and at thirty-one, in this new town, she’d stopped introducing herself as Lanie.
“Where to?” Eva asked absently. “I’m going?” She didn’t want to miss another chance at the Emotions.
“Mommy’s gonna be gone for a lil’ while.” Elaine sounded stressed, but that was standard.
So Eva paid her no attention.
“A little while, Evey It’s bad. Mommy’s packing a bag.”
“Why?” The word was a placeholder.
“I told you. Evey.” Elaine stood in the door between the bedroom and the living room. She’d been crying for weeks, and had cried right before she came back to the bungalow. Elaine had imagined this scene a hundred times—how seeing Eva would confuse her, how grueling it would be to stay on course for departure. Eva seemed unnaturally vivid to Elaine—hair black as soot, red shirt too tight and wanting to burst into flames. The music was erratic and ghostly, and Eva’s fine future emanated from her in a glow. All this was excruciating. But Elaine was braced, and had been coached by her new man. Elaine wore justification and fatigue over her eyes like shades. “You know you’re my baby girl, right? My smart pretty lady.”
“Yeah.” Eva was intent on the stereo.
&n
bsp; Elaine made her teary voice playful. “Play Mommy her songs, then.”
Eva sighed, irritated. “Mom, I’m trying to—”
“Play me some Temptations, Evey. I know you have them on one of those tapes. ‘My Girl,’ or something. Nothing from after they kicked Ruffin out. Play it for me while I’m packing.”
“I don’t have ‘My Girl.’ “Eva did, but she hated it. Radio still played it relentlessly, and she was sick of it. “I have that rain song.”
“Play that, then,” Elaine said, her smile strong and fake. “And come talk to me.”
Eva went through her orderly Tupperware bin of tapes and found MOM’S FAVES VOL. 1. She slipped the unfinished 1977 compilation from the player, put her mom’s in, fast-forwarded to “I Wish It Would Rain,” pressed PLAY, and carried her cassette player by its handle into the bedroom. The closet was torn through.
“What are you doing?” Eva had sensed a building-up, but thought, when she thought about it, that the buildup was toward another move for the three of them, like usual. But this wasn’t how a move usually went down. “What are you looking for?”
“I had to get my stuff, Evey.”
Eva stood there with the chunky player dangling from her hand. Her mother’s voice—Sad? Eva thought. Mad?—seemed to be holding a lot of things. Elaine was placing folded clothes in a green army duffel Eva’d never seen before, but even moving slowly and precisely, she seemed hysterical. Eva didn’t know enough to sense guilt and vacillation. “So I’ll get my stuff,” Eva said, not moving, still clutching the tape player, and hearing raindrops and seamless harmonies and thinking that she was already away from the radio now, anyway, so she wouldn’t be getting the Emotions. Eva began to twist the tape player nervously. The music playing was distorted. “For how many days?” Eva said. She accidentally bit a hole inside her bottom lip and almost yelped. “How many underwears?” Eva was shaking.
“Underwear. Mommy’s gonna give you this note for your dad,” Elaine said. “For when he comes home.”
“Where will you be?” Eva saw her mom leaving. Eva realized this was no like-usual, Mom’s-mad, overnight trip. But Eva couldn’t comprehend that her mother would leave for a long time, without saying where, and without taking her. Tears started down Eva’s cheeks.
“Evey, Mommy’s sorry.” Elaine was struggling, but she’d added everything up—hatred of her husband, a hard-core and hopeless puzzlement about herself, a skewed, bitter respect for her husband, and a chance to be with a daring man who oiled her hard feet and encouraged her coldnesses. Eva, Elaine told herself, would be better off without a mother who always needed a new man who looked at her with fresh eyes. She knew it was cowardly and that it was the path of least resistance, but still to leave, and to return when Eva was old enough to listen to an explanation and an apology with a woman’s ears—it was what had to be done, Elaine felt, or she might damage Eva, or physically hurt Ned, or herself.
Eva was abruptly tired of “Evey,” and she wished, for a reason she couldn’t put her finger on, that her mother would say “I,” instead of “Mommy.”
“How are you getting there?” Eva, in her father’s manner, went straight to logistics as things became incomprehensible. “Dad’s got the car.” Eva heard Foreigner on the radio from the living room. You’re as cold as ice/Willing to sacrifice my love.
The radio’s off. The song’s in my head. Eva couldn’t hear her mother’s rain song anymore.
“Mom!” Eva screeched it.
“Evey.” The word was half of a whisper.
“I thought you wanted to hear the Temptations.”
Elaine moved into the living room, crammed duffel bag dragging. She looked around, and then went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It let out a gasp of ripe cantaloupe and spoiling milk. “There’s lots in here.” Elaine was blinking and blinking. She wouldn’t look at Eva, who was standing by the stereo. The rain song had faded into the raucousness of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”
Eva couldn’t hear it, because her mind was clicking. There’s a song for everything. “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac, “Just a Song Before I Go” by whoever, I can’t remember, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston, “The First Cut Is the Deepest” by Rod Stewart, “Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow” by Tom Jones, “She’s Not There” by Santana. There is a song that describes every single thing. They’re in my head. I could make a tape I could make a tape.
“When are you coming home!” Eva was demanding now. “What am I going to say when Dad asks!”
“Evey, Mommy’s gonna go.” Elaine walked to the door and took a quick look around. But she had all she was taking.
“Take the Tempts, Mom. It’s a lot of good songs on here other than the rain song. ‘My Girl’ is on here.”
“Mommy just needs a break, baby. You keep your tape. You keep it for me.” She touched Eva’s wrist, tugged her bracelets, and Eva hated her.
A break from me? “Elaine!” Eva was frantic. She tasted blood in her mouth. “What day are you coming back!”
Elaine looked at her daughter and told her the truth. “Soon as I can, Evey. Might be a little while, though. You’re gonna be good. Such a good girl. I’ll come back as soon as it’s okay.”
What’s changed. That’s what Eva wanted to know. I’m here on some weird island, but what’s changed?
She heard Benjamin’s car start and the radio.
You make my heart beat.
You make me feel so real.
Eva thought she heard Dart trudge in right before she fell asleep.
Eva woke to the odor of sweating onion. She’d no idea where she was. In her next breath, she took in Dart’s musky spoiled apricot smell and her stomach flipped with nausea and hunger.
Dart. Cat Island. Out Islands. Pregnant. Dart. Édouard and Benjamin. No Sun. Ron.
She resisted the impulse to go knock on Benjamin’s door, ask if dinner was coming now.
This is not a hotel. Eva got up, grabbed her cell, walked outside, and dialed Ron’s number. It was night.
He answered the phone, puffing. “You better had called.”
“I better had? For what?” Eva almost smiled a tight smile.
“Where are you?”
“What’re you all doing in Miami?”
“Living,” he said. “Handling business.”
“Stay out of Sun’s head.”
“If you were here, you wouldn’t have to worry about all that. If you were smart, you’d let me think you had everything under control. But you’re not smart right now.” He paused, but Eva didn’t say anything. “Why you dial my number then? Need rescue from the crazy house? Where’d Sun say you were … Out Island? What the fuck is that? Rehab? For your boy?”
He’s not on drugs. He’s off them. “What’s Piper doing?”
“Up under Sunny. Why do you worry about stupid shit? Sun wants you. She needs you to run point for her. You got her on lock, yet you’re holed up with homeboy like your life’s over because you’re pregnant.”
“Stop saying that!” The thought of anyone from her real life knowing about her pregnancy and making chess moves based on what Eva felt was a chink in her armor made her panicky. “Who’re you standing by?”
“Calm down. Get to Miami. I brought your shit.”
“What?” This wasn’t something Eva expected.
“It was handled. Lost City packed you up. You were checked out. Your stuff’s here.”
So happy about his gesture, she acted the exact opposite. “What if I needed my things?”
“What if you said, ‘Thank you, Ron. Thank you for thinking of my runaway ass.’ ”
“I barely brought anything over here.” What if you said, I’m coming to get you, Eva. Coming to read your mind and do everything that will make you happy.
“Your stuff’s in the hotel lockup. Here. So you need to ask yourself what that means for your plans. Have you taken care of what you’re so anxious to take care of?”
Eva was silen
t.
Ron said hotly, “Hello?”
“No.”
“Have you told the father? Have you asked the father?”
“I’m not talking about the father.”
“I know you know who he is.”
She was silent.
“Stop,” he said, “with the quiet shit.”
“I’m getting off the phone.”
“It isn’t me, Eva.”
She was silent.
“Confirm that,” Ron said. “Before you get off the phone. Confirm it.”
She pictured his paw around his cell. Big, dull fingers, nails round and flat as nickels.
“Playing bullshit games,” he said. “I hope your ass finds a life over there. I’m done.” And hung up his phone.
Eva stood there, phone in hand. She felt a presence, flinched. A small woman was behind her. “Have some tuna and some grits for you,” the woman said. Her voice was keen as Édouard’s apple blade. Her skin as creamy brown as ganache.
“You’re Audrey?” Tuna and grits? Together?
“M’rele Audrey,” she said, squinting in the moonlight. “Wife of Benjamin. Sister of Édouard. You, Eva, have met everyone but me.”
I guess. “Thanks for the food.” She opened the door to the house. “Dart’s asleep.”
“He should be hungry, too, after that swim.” Audrey slid two broad tins on the table. Her eyes were heartbroken and mean. Her earlobes dangled in halves. Audrey was younger than Eva by three years and looked ten years older. “I have dessert. Later. Everything you need.”
“You saw him.”
“All of him. No towel ’round himself walking to the house. I laughed.”
Laughed at what? And if you did, why are you telling me? Rude. “Your husband said he’d help us find a car,” Eva said. “So we could find a real place to stay for tomorrow. We’ll be out of your hair.”
“My hair is fine. You have money?”
“Yeah,” Eva said easily.
Audrey’s head sat back on her neck. “Then this a real place to stay.” Her eyes went colder than they were to begin with, but Eva was looking at Audrey’s hands as she peeled foil back from the tins, then at chunks of fish in there with cooked-down tomato and green pepper. Eva wanted to grab it with her fingers, steaming grits and all. Wanted to tell somebody she was pregnant, and that whether it had to do with the baby or not, she was so hungry, she was light-headed.