by Amber Kizer
“Uh-huh. Positive. Go wild. Buy me a new shirt, too. Whatever.”
“How about boots?”
“If you can find fourteens.”
“Is that big?” No clue here. Sammy was just out of boys extra-small.
“Yeah, good luck. Focus on the possible. Now go.” He turned his back to me. “Custos, keep an eye on her.”
I wagged my finger at Custos. “Stay.” If I wasn’t here to protect him, she needed to be. Especially if she had a red phone line to the Powers with powers.
Thankfully, cute boutiques lined the streets of Carmel. I found a little black dress that was comfortable and classy but still leaned toward sexy. Perfect for impressing Tens embarrassing the old people at dinner.
I searched for boots for Tens, but only found ones that went up to a twelve. The shirt was easier. I bought a dressy rugby shirt in a cotton-cashmere blend that mirrored the blue of Colorado’s sky. It was a selfish purchase because Tens would look amazing and be irresistible to touch wearing something so soft and cozy.
That night while he showered, I admired myself in the mirror. The black knit dress fit my blossoming curves. Thin screamed ill to me, so filling it out felt right—it felt healthy and alive. I no longer resembled a starvation victim. I guessed there’d be a time or a point when I might want to stop gaining weight, but I was nowhere near that yet.
I pinned my hair up and put on the chandelier earrings I’d bought. They made my neck look long and graceful, but quite bare. “Are you sure you feel okay?” I asked Tens, as he came out of the bathroom dressed, his hair tousled and damp against his collar.
“Yep, sleep helped.”
I thought he was lying, but I let it go. “Do I look all right?”
“Hmm.” Tens studied me. “You’re missing something.”
“A sweater?” It might be colder than it looks. January isn’t July.
“Maybe, but open this.” Tens handed me a gift bag exploding with colored tissues and ribbons. The Helios crest decorated the outside of the bag.
I reached in and immediately knew by feel that this was the stunning emerald green velvet scarf I’d coveted when we’d first arrived. The one Joi had purposefully commented on with a wink for Tens.
“I was saving it for a special occasion.” Tens wrapped it around my neck and let it drape carefully across my collarbones and over my breasts.
“Thank you.” I leaned up and kissed him quickly, adoring the feel of the velvet on my bare skin. It fluttered as I moved and grew warm, as if I carried a living creature twined around my neck. Hugging him, I knew I’d made the right shirt choice—he rocked the blue.
He gazed down at me. “You’re beautiful. Always beautiful, Supergirl.”
“Even in SpongeBob flannels?” I teased.
“I’m terribly disappointed those no longer fit.” Tens’s voice dropped to a gravel pitch and hinted more than a little.
“Those were sexy.” I laughed until my heart seized with the memory. Sammy gave them to me.
“You miss him, don’t you?”
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand Tens. This was one of those times he knew my heart better than me. “More than words. I hope he’s okay.”
He rested his head on the crown of mine. “I’d know if he wasn’t. I’m sure I’d know.”
“You think?” I breathed in his warmth, his steady heartbeat.
His tone completely confident, he rushed to assure me. “I’m sure. I’m supposed to protect you. How can I do that if things like that sneak up on me? Maybe we should try to find them?”
“Maybe.” I tensed. Can I take that? Can I talk to my mom and not scream at her, or hate her, or say all the things I’ve shoved deep?
“When you’re ready, okay?” He backed off.
“Not yet.” I was still blindingly angry with my mother. I wasn’t as upset with my father, who’d been kept in the dark as much as me. What did he think when the dead piled up around me? When I seemed plagued with illness and injury and ghosts? I knew what he’d thought. The same things I’d assumed, the names I’d heard whispered at my back. Freak. Sideshow act. Witch.
My mother was the one who’d never told us. Not until it was too late and the Nocti had already found me. Us. Not until I’d been shipped off to Revelation and my parents took my little brother to run to points unknown. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to forgive her blatant omissions of what could have saved us all so much pain and suffering. If only she’d told me.
“It might help to hear what she has to say.” Tens stepped away, pulling me toward the door.
I shook my head. “We’re going to be late.” Changing the subject abruptly, I twined my fingers in Tens’s and we hurried on foot to Meridian Street and Rumi’s home. The air felt heavy with moisture, like we were standing beside the ocean.
Rumi’s living quarters were in the back of his warehouse studio and gallery. The entrance was a sliding glass patio door.
We hadn’t even knocked before he slid the door open. “Come in, come in.” Soaring strings played in the background, and candlelight danced behind forged iron lanterns and candlesticks. Scents of grilled red meat and hot bread, along with those of hyacinths and paperwhites, drifted over us. The lively chatter of guests wasn’t off-putting, but instead relaxed me immediately. The whole evening felt friendly and open.
I was unsure of what to expect because I rarely had good experiences in groups of people. I avoided crowds.
The soaring ceilings of the industrial space seemed like the only way a man of Rumi’s stature wouldn’t feel confined. Tibetan prayer flags hung from the rafters. I glanced around quickly, surprised to see very little glass, very little of anything. The decor was almost monastic. Few electronics, save a small stereo system, and bare walls dotted with wood mandalas and natural elements like driftwood and bird-feather wreaths that brought the outside in. The palette was browns, greens, and creams. Calming and meditative. The furniture was wood or iron, or a combination of both. It was the opposite of the candy-bright breakable clutter of the glass studio beyond the dividing wall.
I tried to hand Rumi a bag with his archives in it. “We’d like to look at these again if it’s possible,” I whispered.
“Just keep them for now,” he answered in hushed tones, and set the bag with our coats. “Let me introduce you to my friends.” Rumi circled the group and made introductions. Everyone else seemed very familiar with each other. With the exception of one woman, Nelli, who worked for the attorney general investigating abuse and neglect in the Department of Child Services, they all looked like they’d been AARP eligible for decades. Which didn’t mean they appeared infirm, or diminished in any way. The opposite was true; this was the vibrancy I had seen in Auntie beyond the window, not the dying person I’d met in Colorado. I was only beginning to understand how much work, how hard it was for most people to die.
Rumi referred to all of them as Ms. or Mr. and their first name, as if he owed them a respect that couldn’t be achieved on a first-name basis alone. None of them seemed to find it odd that a couple of teenagers were joining what felt like a regular gathering.
We sat down to eat almost immediately. The table was an impressive expanse of solid burl wood, topped with glass. Each place setting matched itself, but the items clearly came from different artists, working in different mediums. Even the silverware was to each its own pattern. Juicy, garlicy meat loaf, creamy scalloped potatoes, blanched greens with slivered almonds, French bread, and salads full of bright colors and textures were placed on the table and passed around family style. I sat by Tens, and Rumi and Gus took the ends, which left Faye, Sidika, and Nelli across from us.
The conversation was pleasant but not heady, until Rumi asked all of us to share a little more about ourselves.
Gus began, his full white mustache that curled at the ends bracketing his mouth. “I’m a retired history professor from Butler University. These days, I teach occasional classes. But mostly I’m a reenactor.” He pushed his wire-framed g
lasses up his nose with every other word.
“I’m sorry?” Tens asked my question, while everyone else nodded.
“I dress up and reenact battles from Indiana’s past. Jolly times. Uniforms, guns, cannons. Good fun.” He rolled up his sleeves, exposing sinewy, freckled forearms.
“Like the Civil War guys?” I asked.
He beamed, flashing cigarette-stained teeth. “Exactly, only around here there are more options than blue versus gray.”
Faye chuckled and shook her electric-red chin-length bob. “If you consider sleeping on the ground and eating hardtack fun … maybe.” Her manicure was an unmarred coral and she wore multiple rings on each finger. Her olive complexion hinted at Greek or Italian roots, but her accent was one I was coming to associate with Hoosiers.
“Ah, you’re just jealous of our state-of-the-art washing facilities,” Gus teased her.
She spoke directly to Tens and me, gesticulating wildly. “They’re making them use Porta-Potties for the environment these days, or they’d still be peeing behind trees. I’m so happy I’m not a pioneer woman with all those layers of skirts. Can you imagine trying to defecate with dignity back then?”
I snorted cider bubbles up my nose. Not what I had expected to hear from that wrinkled, good-natured mouth. I shook my head because she seemed to be waiting for my answer.
The conversation lulled while we ate. But at Rumi’s urging, the introductions continued: “It’s terribly hard to follow that mental image, but I write historical Indiana fiction, mostly about teenagers.” Sidika’s white hair reminded me of dandelion fluff. Her eyes sparkled with humor and her pastel pink chamois shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a chain with a gold wedding band hanging close to her heart.
“Fabulous novels,” Rumi boomed.
“You’re too kind.” She blushed with an honest humility and patted his hand.
Nelli, the youngest adult, picked up the conversation. “I’m Gus’s niece, and I worked for Rumi when I was in high school.” She laughed. “I tried to keep him stocked in pens—”
“Now, now!” Rumi interrupted. “Don’t be telling all my faults.”
Nelli’s dimple flashed. “I used to carry around a little dictionary to sort out his vocabulary, but while I was trying to find one word he’d throw out the next one and I’d get all confused.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t bother, just go with the flow and if you don’t understand a word ask him for a synonym until he says a word you know.”
Rumi’s laughter erupted. “That’s the impertinence that got you fired.”
“I went to college.”
“Same difference!” he called.
Gus turned his full attention to Tens. “Tell us about your name. Is Tens short for something?”
Tens wiped his mouth with his napkin and set down his fork. “Hmm, yeah, it’s, um … Tenskawtawa.”
Gus’s face lit up, as did Sidika’s. “Oh. For Tecumseh’s brother?”
“Who?” Tens asked, his eyes widening in question.
“Are you from around here?” Sidika clucked.
“No, I grew up mostly in Seattle.” His expression said that wasn’t quite the whole story.
“Your parents, then, must be from the area?” Gus asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Strange. Do you have Native American ancestors?”
This question helped Tens relax a minute amount. He hated being in the spotlight, but I couldn’t rescue him because I didn’t know the answers to give. Frankly, I was just as curious as everyone else about what he might say.
Tens nodded. “My mother’s family. My grandfather was Cherokee and my grandmother was Shawnee. My grandmother named me, I think.… ”
Gus nodded his agreement. “That’s it, then. You’ll see a lot of Tecumseh’s name around here. On schools and roads and monuments. The brothers formed a town called Prophetstown. Up until the interests of Tecumseh’s people clashed with those of the fledgling American government—this wasn’t a good thing. His brother, Tenskawtawa, is much less understood and documented.”
“Figures,” Tens muttered.
“What else?” I asked, to keep the conversation heading in this direction.
“His name came to be synonymous with ‘the Prophet,’ and he had quite the band of followers. He was steadfast in his beliefs, not given to compromise, didn’t see the need to change for the sake of his people. He was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Some might say he was not quite right in the head. Others suggest he had religious visions. But that tends to be what historians conclude when they’re writing from the opposite point of view of their subject.”
The entire table nodded. “True. Much easier to say someone is crazy, then it is to try to understand their perspective,” Sidika concurred.
“And if I may ask your last name, child?” Gus gesticulated with his fork.
“Valdes.”
“With an accent mark, or no?”
Why does that matter?
“No,” Tens answered.
“Cuban?”
“I think so. Maybe. It’s murky. My father’s parents came from there. I don’t know much.”
I needed to bring Tens to dinner parties more often. Who knew he’d open up when questioned by other people? Why didn’t he answer my questions this easily?
“Do you know the history of your surname, then?”
“No. Is there one?”
“Of course. All names have history. That’s what gives us scholars something to study.” Gus smiled.
There was a collective chuckle and Rumi proposed a toast to scholarship and study. “You don’t grow old when your mind is busy,” he added.
“Pshaw. My knees and knuckles grandly disagree with you!” Faye said with a smile. “Now, tell us more about this Valdés history, Gus.”
He swallowed and wiped his spotless mouth precisely with his napkin before saying, “Infants at a particular orphanage were placed in a turnstile door and a bell was rung. The nuns would come out to retrieve the baby; they’d take care of him and educate him until he reached adulthood. It was founded by Bishop Valdés of Cuba. Male children were taken in on the condition that boys who were raised at Casa de Beneficencia be given his surname, but without the accent on the e.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“That way, his biological relative who kept the accent would remain recognizable. They did this until the nineteen fifties, when they started picking surnames randomly from the telephone directory. Much less romantic.”
“So perhaps your paternal grandfather was an orphan?” Sidika asked.
Tens shrugged. “It’s possible, I guess.”
I knew he wasn’t trying to be evasive.
“And Meridian, where are you from originally?” Faye seemed to deliberately direct conversation away from Tens’s obvious discomfort.
“Portland.”
“And are you still in school?”
“No, I’m taking some time off.”
Rumi turned the conversation to the town’s politics and public education. Then a heated discussion erupted about the war, the attorney general’s new investigative branch into child and elder care, and an even hotter dissection of global warming legislation.
I enjoyed listening. I admired passionate people with strong opinions. They made life more interesting. I found the more I let myself be myself, the stronger I felt about almost every subject. I didn’t know if that was being a Fenestra and getting pieces from other people, or if that was me alone claiming my own skin. What my father might have referred to as growing up. I wasn’t sure I knew how my father or my mother felt about any of these issues. They didn’t just ignore my Fenestra fallouts, they kept our interactions as shallow as possible. Fear made people do the unthinkable.
Rumi asked Nelli about her current caseload. She was slammed with reports of missing children lost in the system. Her job was more puzzle and private investigator than social worker at the moment. I started to eavesdrop, but didn
’t catch much before Faye turned to me and asked, “Will you be going to the Feast of the Fireflies along the Wabash?”
Tens and I shared a questioning glance. “What is that?”
The other conversations died away as everyone gave their attention to our ignorance. I think we were the entertainment for the evening in the way visitors allow residents to be tourists for an hour, or a week.
“It’s a grand celebration that commemorates the French and Native American traders who met together annually at Fort Ouiatenon in the mid–seventeen hundreds.”
“There’s more to it than that.” Rumi refilled the adults’ glasses with wine and ours with sparkling cider. “Miss Sidika, tell us the story?”
“Oh, well—”
“Please. A favor to me. Our new arrivals should know the histories we celebrate in these parts.” Rumi winked at me.
She settled back in her chair, contemplated where to begin, and said, “Okay then, the lore says that a French settler child got lost in the woods along the Wabash River. It was late winter, around this time of year, and unusually snowy, quite cold.”
Gus interrupted. “So cold, the Wabash itself froze over solid.”
Sidika nodded and continued. “The animals all went to earth or fled. Food was not plentiful in the best of winters, but in this one, food was scarcest. Bark was boiled for teas; people even started to make mud griddle cakes, simply to put weight in their bellies.
“Now, the division of labor was rather simple in those days. Gender roles were clear when possible, but not always. The hard life on the frontier made it so everyone, all ages, carried a huge burden for survival. The children checked the traps for small animals like muskrats and beavers, while the men went out after bigger game like deer, bear, or wild turkey. These kids—who we’d consider young, probably between ages seven and ten, maybe younger—bundled up in furs and set out as usual. Hungry, cold, but determined to bring home some tiny morsel of food for their families.”