Heavenly Bodies

by Rochelle Allison

  Grandpa Harry’s house is pretty big, the open floor plan allowing me to see all the way to the kitchen. The ceiling is high and angled, intersected by heavy, wooden cross beams. There’s no a/c, but massive fans spin in every room. Aunt Greta cranks the louvered windows in the living room open wide, explaining apologetically that hurricane season has been hellish this year.

  “There's a storm passing south of here. It will cool down soon,” she adds, noticing probably that I’m melting.

  “Have there been any actual hurricanes?” I ask.

  “No, we’ve been fortunate. Just a small tropical depression a month back.”

  Mom and Greta move with purpose, turning on lights and putting things away as Alex runs amuck. Grandpa Harry’s dog licks tentatively at my hand, his big, doe eyes entreating. Bending to pet him, I try desperately to recalibrate—this is now home. Inman Park is a memory.

  My stomach flips over.

  “There are several guest rooms,” Aunt Greta says, reappearing. “You want to choose one?”

  Mom smiles, hopeful and encouraging, and I’m so tired I smile back. Being at odds with her is wearing on me. I mean, I’m pissed off and I don’t know how long that’s going to last, but I don’t want to be pissed at her. Toeing off my shoes, I follow Aunt Greta down the hall. The tiles, smooth beneath my bare feet, gleam, and I look up, surprised to find skylights in the ceiling. They’re dusty, muting the daylight as it filters through. A tiny green lizard darts by. Startled, I miss a step.

  “Um, is that normal?” I ask, watching it scurry into the shadows. “Lizards?”

  “Yes, get used to it,” Mom calls, and I can hear the amusement in her voice.

  Gross.

  Aunt Greta motions to several closed doors. “Grandpa’s room is on the other side of the house, off the kitchen. But this is the largest, so…I think your Mom should take it.” She pushes open a door and gestures. “This one, though...used to be mine.”

  I follow her to the end of the hall, mentally crossing my fingers. My bedroom back home was a work of freaking art. I reinvented it several times over the years to reflect my whims and stages, my girls and I spending hours in the throes of gossip and plotting.

  This room is on the corner of the house. There’s an abundance of windows with metal louvers I can crank open and shut from the inside. An old fashioned dresser with an oval mirror sits across from a grand four poster bed, all made of the same dark, rich mahogany. I remember sleeping in this bed with Camille when we were little, whispering late into the night.

  I turn to tell Aunt Greta that, but she’s already gone. Opening my windows wide, one by one, I gaze out into the backyard. It’s nearly evening now. The overgrown grass sways gently in the breeze, spun gold by the last of the setting sun. Back in Atlanta, my room looked down on the street. Here, trapped in the warm idyll of my mother’s childhood home, it’s just earth and trees and sky.

  The first night is the hardest.

  My bed is too soft, and the blankets smell vaguely like moth balls. And it’s surprisingly loud. Crickets, a neighbor’s dog barking, the constant rustling of a million trees...thank God for my ceiling fan. On high, its whirring drowns out most of the nighttime cacophony.

  In the morning, I’m awoken by Alex climbing into bed with me. I reach for him out of habit and then freeze, because he’s soaked.

  “Alex, did you—”

  “I peed,” he whispers, kissing my cheek.

  Groaning at the damp spot he just left on the already musty sheets, I wrangle him into the shower.

  “Mom!”

  “What?” she yells back.

  “Alex wet the bed again.”

  She appears in the bathroom, drying her hands on a towel. “All right. I’ll deal with the sheets.”

  “Is there a washing machine?” I call after her.

  “Out back.”

  Of course it’s outside. Still, that’s preferable to the laundromat. Our washer bit the bullet once, and we had to lug our dirty clothes to Bobo’s Bubbles for about a month. I must have watched a lifetime’s worth of talk shows.

  I rinse Alex and wrap him in a towel, passing Mom in the hallway as she carries the wet sheets outside. “No more water before bed,” I say, toweling Alex’s curls.

  “But I’m thirsty.”

  “Yeah, but…just a sip, then. You don’t want to pee the bed again, right?”

  He shakes his head, then wiggles from my grasp and runs, naked butt disappearing around the corner. Yawning, I toss his towel over a chair and return to my room. Even without Alex’s pee spot, this mattress could use a good scrub.

  “We’ll get you a new one,” Mom says during breakfast, when I complain about the softness and the smell.

  I’ve been texting back and forth with Sage, but this gets my attention. “Really?”

  “A lot of the stuff here is ancient, Isla. Some of it is fine but other things, like the mattresses, can go. And the sheets. The ones in my room are from the eighties.”

  “No they’re not.” I laugh, stirring honey into my tea.

  “They really are.” She grabs Alex as he dances by and plops him into a chair at the kitchen table. “Anyway, Grandpa needs a new one, too.”

  “But Mom,” grumbles Alex, driving a little yellow car across the placemat.

  “Eat.” She pries the car from his fingers and sets a bowl of sliced bananas down in front of him. Grandpa Harry’s dog, inexplicably (or maybe ironically) named Larry, collapses at his feet, eyes shining hopefully up at the table.

  “When’s Grandpa coming home?”

  “Probably tomorrow.”

  I nod, blowing the steam rising from my mug. “I can’t wait to see him.”

  “Oh, you'll be seeing plenty of him," Mom says, jotting something into the little notebook she keeps in her purse.

  “Why do you say it like that?"

  “Well, his doctor has high hopes for full recovery—the stroke was minor—but it’ll take time. And besides that, he’s just…particular. Been living alone for a while now. Greta says he has his moods.” She shakes her head. “And his pride.”

  “I can understand that,” I say, remembering the Grandpa Harry of my younger years. Tall and gruff, with a voice that boomed across the house. He’d had a soft spot for me and Camille, though. And Grammie. When he wasn’t working or fishing he was in the garden, tending to his plants. Eggplants, tomatoes, pumpkins, sorrel, and squash—dozens more. Herbs like peppermint and basil. I can’t imagine being physically held back from doing the things I love.

  “I understand it, too,” Mom says. “But it doesn’t change that he isn’t where he used to be physically and his stubbornness could get him hurt. So just…be prepared for a lot of adjusting.”

  Because life has been such a cakewalk lately.

  “I might need you to help out, especially with Alex,” she continues, leaning against the counter. “At least until I can get him into preschool.”

  “I’m used to watching him,” I remind her.

  A warm breeze blows through the kitchen window, lifting the hair from my neck. The lack of air conditioning is taking some getting used to. This from a Georgia girl, used to swampy summers. I feel like I’m always sweating here.

  Alex, finished with his bananas, pushes his bowl away with a soft belch. “Can I have a snack, Mom?” he asks.

  “You just had a snack. Two snacks.”

  “But I need a yogurt.”

  “We don’t have any. I need to go to the store,” she says, springing one of his curls. She looks at me. “I thought we could go shopping today, grab what we need. Maybe even order the mattresses because once Grandpa’s home it’ll be harder for me to get out and do stuff like that.”

  “Sounds good, Mama.”

  She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

  I join Mom and Alex in the car. It’s a rusted green Explorer, and it was Grandpa Harry’s before he stopped driving.

  “A true island car,” Mama says fondly as we bounce
down the dirt road.

  “Is this what I’m going to be driving to school?” I ask, already envisioning my entrance on the first day of school, the ancient Explorer farting my arrival.

  “Either this or your cousin’s car,” she says, pulling out onto the main road.

  “Camille?”

  “Teddy.”

  Teddy, Camille’s older brother, is in college now. All I remember about him was his merciless teasing and propensity for Barbie dismemberment.

  “What kind of car? Is it as old as this?” I’m grateful for any set of wheels, really, but I miss my Maxima. It was old too, just not island-car-old.

  “I don’t know, Isla.” She shrugs and turns up the music.

  Shopping for mattresses is about as glamorous as it sounds. I choose my mine immediately, sucked in by the appeal of memory foam, but Mom takes way longer, considering adjustability and inner springs.

  “Alex!” I grab his skinny little arm as he sprints by the Sleep Numbers. This is the third time.

  “Stop,” he cries, writhing melodramatically in an attempt to escape. The irritable looking lady at the other end of the display pins us with a frosty gaze.

  “No,” I whisper, yanking Alex close. “Mama’s almost done. Can’t you chill for like, five minutes?” Thing is, it’s been an hour. I’m surprised he’s lasted this long.

  “Islaaaaa,” he whines, seconds from crocodile tears.

  Rolling my eyes, I pull him over to Mom, who’s still talking to the salesman. “Mama, we’re gonna go wait in the car.”

  “Oh, okay. I’m just about done.” She tosses me the keys, and I bring Alex outside into the blazing midday sun. The Explorer, thankfully, has air conditioning.

  We return to the house a couple of hours later with a trunk full of groceries and the promise of a mattress delivery by the end of the day.

  I’m about to ask whose blue car is idling in the yard when its driver’s side opens and a slender girl with cinnamon skin leaps out. It’s my cousin Camille, barefoot and in a bikini. I remember her having curly, black, waist-length hair, but it barely skims her shoulders now. This is surprising; her hair was one of the reasons I grew my own out over the years.

  “Finally!” she cries, jogging over. “I thought you’d never get back!”

  “How long have you been waiting?” I ask, hugging her.

  “Five minutes, maybe? But it felt like a hundred.” She gives me another squeeze and skips over to my mother, who she embraces just as tightly. “Hi, Auntie Charlene.”

  “Camille, you’re as tall as me,” Mama says. “How have you been?”

  “Good, good. Wait, is that Alex?” she squeals, bending to look inside the car as I release the car seat’s buckles. “Hi, baby! Do you remember me?”

  “I’m not a baby,” he says, sliding out of the backseat. He allows her to hug him before running off, chattering about a lizard on the porch.

  “He is so big,” Camille says, eyes like saucers as we help my mother carry groceries inside. “He was tiny the last time.”

  “Well, it’s been a while,” I say, smiling. “You’re taller, too.”

  “I know,” she says, making a face. “I had a random growth spurt last year. Had to get a bunch of new jeans.” She pauses, grinning. “Actually, I didn't mind that part.”

  “I bet.” I laugh a little, remembering what it was like to hang out with Camille. “I can’t believe you cut your hair, by the way.”

  Shrugging, she nods. “Sophomore year. I got tired of it.”

  “I like it.” Camille’s long hair was enviably beautiful, but I understand the need for change.

  “Definitely easier.”

  “So, are you going to the beach or something?” I ask, gesturing to her skimpy choice of clothing.

  “Yeah, babes. I wanted to snatch you up and show you around,” she says, putting a carton of milk into the fridge.

  “Oh…” I’m not really a beach person, but that’s probably all there is to do here. Besides, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to spend some time with people my own age. “I’ll ask Mama.”

  “Auntie Charlene,” Camille calls, darting off to find my mother. I shove the cheese and fruit I’m holding inside the fridge and follow her to the porch. Alex is on the steps, draping towels across Larry’s furry back.

  “I hope you weren’t planning on using those,” I say, making a face.

  Mama waves me off. “They’re ratty and old. Ready for the trash. Anyway, go ahead with Camille.” She scoops my brother up and kisses the top of his head. “I was going to put Al down for a nap, so it’s good timing.”

  “Are you sure? When are they delivering the mattresses?”

  “I’ll deal with that.” She gives me a wry smile, shaking her head. “Go on. Have fun.”

  This is obviously her way of getting me to go make friends and be social, but whatever. Hanging out with my cousin certainly trumps moping around the house, which still feels more like Grandpa Harry’s than ours.

  Camille follows me into my sadly impersonal bedroom, watching as I rummage through a bag for my swimsuit. I might as well be living in a hotel. I have furniture and clothes, but my personal effects are somewhere between here and Georgia. “Do you need help unpacking?” she asks after moment.

  “Uh…not really.” I glance around, noting the wobbly towers of books near my bed, the clothing oozing from suitcases. Whoops. “I’ll probably deal with it tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t this bed the best?” she asks, running her hands over the intricately carved mahogany headboard.

  I find a basic black two piece from last summer and pull it free. “Yeah, it is. All the furniture in this house is incredible.”

  “I know. It’s been in the family forever. You’re lucky.”

  My heart squeezes. Turning my eyes to the knot in my bikini, I focus on working it free. I definitely do not feel lucky. I’d take my old stuff over the cherished antiques in this house any day.

  Camille exhales quietly. “I’m an idiot.”

  I shake my head. “It’s okay.’

  But she nods, coming closer and grabbing my hand. “I can’t imagine having to leave home the way you guys did. You probably really miss it.”

  My throat thickens, and I give her a wobbly smile. “I do miss it.”

  Camille nods solemnly. “I know. I can’t wait to get off St. Croix for college, but when I think about leaving everybody, I just…”

  We fall quiet. Camille looks over my books, reading the back of one. “So you’ll go to the mainland for college?” I ask, peeling off my cutoffs. They came to St. Croix as old jeans, but I suspected they’d be more comfortable as shorts—and they are.

  “The States, yeah,” she corrects, amused. “Mostly everyone does.”

  “That’s cool. Where do you want to go?”

  “New York, I think. I’m looking at fine arts programs.”

  “Oh, cool.” She’d been into sketching way back when, always doodling in notebooks and giving me tattoos with markers. “You’ll have to show me your work these days.”

  “I’ve got a ton of it. My mom said you’re into photography now? The Palms has a dark room and stuff for yearbook.”

  “Really?” I wiggle into my bikini, relieved it still fits. I’m spilling out on top a little, but it’s not like I’ll be swimming. “I think I need a new suit.”

  “I can probably lend you one, but I think you look fine.”

  I’ve forgotten how easy going Camille is. I appreciate it. Once we’re in the car, she blasts the a/c and plugs in her phone. “Ever heard of First Kings?”

  “Is that a band?”

  “Yeah. Out of St. Croix, but they’re big all over now. Roots reggae.”

  She puts on a song and drives leisurely out of the yard, bumping along the gravel. Deep pink bougainvillea line the gate outside our property, punctuated by pops of yellow Ginger Thomas. Sunlight shines through a dozen shades of green. The sky's look-at-me blue, so pretty it makes my heart ache.
<
br />   My gaze is drawn up as we turn onto Centerline Road, also known as the Queen Mary Highway (according to Aunt Greta). Tall, solid trees cluster along the roadside, branches wide and reaching, meeting and tangling in a canopy over the road.

  Camille slows after a minute, flicking on her indicator. “I’ve gotta stop for gas,” she says, pulling into a small, dusty station. Strings of faded pennant flags stretch across the lot, fluttering in the breeze. She reaches into the backseat, grabbing her sundress.

  “I’m going in,” I say, getting out when she does. “Do you want anything? Snickers bar?”

  Camille climbs out of the car, tossing me a grin. “Good memory.”

  Door bells jangle as I walk into the otherwise quiet convenience store. Squeezing between the cramped aisles, I locate the candy bars and make my way up to the counter. The cashier, who looks completely stoned, smiles at me. “Good afternoon, miss.”

  I smile politely. “Good afternoon.”

  “Three dollars,” he says, resting his elbows on the counter. “Want a bag, sweetness?”

  I hand him a ten, wrinkling my nose at the endearment. “Sure. Thanks.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” he croons, winking like the lecher he probably is. He counts out my change, handing it to me as I turn to go.

  The door swings open before I can touch it, letting in a blast of hot air and obscenely loud bass. Trying to avoid a collision I step aside, but he almost walks into me anyway: a tall, deeply tanned boy in faded jeans and a bright, white t-shirt. I grab the door handle, tensing when I catch him staring back. His eyes are unexpectedly light—hazel or gold—as are the curls peeking from beneath his hat. He gives me the once over as we squeeze by one another, and then he’s inside and I’m outside, returning to Camille.

  Well, damn.

  “How was the beach?” Mom asks, kneeling beside the tub as she scrubs Alex down.

  I linger in the doorway, staring at my reflection in the little mirror over the sink. I’m already much darker than I was, sun-kissed into the best tan of my life. I’ll never be as toasty as Camille, but this will do.

  “It was fun. I met some of her friends.”