Learning to Breathe

by Janice Lynn Mather

  “Yes, Ms. Wilson,” I say, gritting my teeth as I follow Gary out into the hall. He walks out to the parking lot ahead of me so no one has to think we even know each other. Fine by me.

  “You crave trouble like a fatty crave ice cream, ay?” Gary unlocks his truck’s door and takes his time getting in before he leans over to open the passenger side.

  I bite my tongue as I sit down and slam the door shut. He never misses a chance to wash, polish, and buff this stupid thing. I wish I could scour it with steel wool. Maybe shine it up with a couple concrete blocks, for good measure. I see him cut his eye at me as he starts the truck up, silent as we drive up to the gate. The security guard is chatting up the cleaning lady again. Without even looking, he waves Gary through.

  “Getting sent to the office during your exams. Sharice must be so proud.” Gary swerves out of the school yard and onto the road. “Before you know it, you ga be following right in her footsteps.”

  Nothing. Just pretend he’s not here. Pretend I’m not here. Keep my mouth shut, and when we get back to the house, find someplace to walk to. I’m not going inside by myself with him. And if he so much as looks at me wrong, I’ll get right out of the truck and walk the rest of the way. Daylight makes me bold.

  “Hey, Doubles? That’s what they’s call you, right?”

  I switch the radio on and flip through the stations, stopping at a shrill, grating song being belted out by a girl who sounds airbrushed and chipmunked. Her voice is a chunk of bubble gum, too sweet, too sticky, too pink. I crank the volume up.

  “You forget whose car you ridin in, hey?” Gary’s voice pitches, a crack in his veneer of pleasantness. He wrenches the radio sound down, reducing the girl’s voice to an insect buzz. I want to piss him off. Want him to be annoyed. The truck tears down the far end of Main Street, where homes are set farther back from the road and businesses are all but extinct. He should be turning off toward the house soon.

  And then we’ve passed the street. Is he taking a different way?

  “Where we going?” The truck’s speeding up. Houses are sparse now, and petering to nothing but bush. No other cars anywhere. An image flashes in my head: his truck, parked by the water. His hands on me and daylight no savior; I could scream for days and no one would hear.

  “Let me out.” The words come out snagged, as if the inside of my throat is barbed.

  Gary swings down a hidden side street, turns so fast I’m slammed up against the door. “Take it easy.” His voice is even. The truck slows, but we’re still moving. We pass one half-built house, then nothing. The road is potholed. Up ahead it thins to a dirt track, then curves and disappears into more bush, dense and choked in vines. He rests a hand on my leg. Heavy, up high.

  “Let me out!”

  “I know you miss me.” Voice syrup, smothering and fake-sweet. “I know you miss our times. Been a while.” Slowing more. “I can’t come see you in the night when you all holed up in Smiley’s room. What happen, you too good for the sofa? Hey?”

  “Leave me alone!” I push his hand away hard and he swerves, then recovers, steering straight again. His eyes are briefly on the road as he grabs out at me. He just misses my arm. I know he was reaching for something else.

  “I don’t know why you playing cute.” He looks over. “You know you like that.”

  I see dust up ahead first, then a white jeep coming our way, bumper stickers slapped on the hood like tattoos. He is looking over at me again, hand back on my leg, pressing down, eyes on my chest. “You more like your ma than I thought. Only you ain all used up. Still nice and fresh.”

  I get ahold of the wheel, wrenching it to the right; the truck lurches across the road into the jeep’s path, turning sideways, hurtling toward bush and tree trunk ahead. Gary slams on the brakes so hard I jerk forward, and there are scraping sounds, twigs and branches clawing at the front hood, the windows and sides. I wrestle the door open against the leaves, running hard for the jeep. “Stop! Stop!” It’s pulling over. “I . . . help me.” Panting, fingers fumbling at the passenger door’s handle—thank God it’s unlocked—and then I’m jumping in, slamming the door shut before I even look at the driver. “Go! Go!” I shout into the face behind the wheel. Startled eyes, mouth an O of surprise, thick dreadlocks, hands raised as if he thinks I might try to rob him.

  “Hey, hey, take it easy. Y’all had an accident?” He peers into my face; I’ve seen him before, can’t think where, won’t stop to ask.

  “Just drive!”

  “Hold on.” The driver gets out, walking over to the truck. Why doesn’t he understand? I could run, except my legs are jelly and I can’t seem to move. The driver’s pushing his way through the overgrowth, heading for Gary. Idiot. “Chief, you all right?” He pokes his head between the greenery, right into the truck’s open door. “You need a tow or something?”

  “Don’t let him—” I gasp. Everything’s closing in, the air fighting me. I put my head against the dash. There’s a ding, ding, ding; he’s left the keys in the ignition. Drive, I think. Just climb over and drive. Ringing in my ears. My chest is going to explode. “Don’t let him—”

  “Everything cool, boss,” I hear the jeep’s driver say, through a fog. I bring my head up to see Gary fling his truck into reverse, pulling back onto the road and spinning around. He peels off, wheels throwing gravel into the air. I can still feel the imprint of his fingers searing into my leg. “You okay?” the guy asks, his voice closer. The jeep jostles as he gets back in.

  I drag air into my lungs. “My chest.”

  “It’s okay, you could relax. Whoever that was, he’s gone. Just me and my gardening stuff, and my bougainvillea, and we ain out to bother nobody.” He glances into the backseat, and I look too. A lawn mower, shovel, spades, a big pot with a half-wilted plant. Behind his seat, a machete. Cutlass Guy.

  “Hey, it’s you!” he exclaims, recognizing me at the same time. “Listen, take it easy. You ain dyin, I promise. Keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose. Deep breaths. Ain no big thing. Like this.”

  I can’t get what he’s saying, what he wants me to copy. I close my eyes, willing my heart to stop.

  “Good, just keep going, it’ll pass,” he continues, even though I can’t be doing anything right. “Don’t worry. It’ll pass, okay? Ain nobody here to hurt you. We go way back, remember?”

  “Cutlass Guy,” I wheeze.

  “Ah, there you go.” He laughs, an easy laugh, a laugh meant to make me feel at ease too. “I didn’t introduce myself the other day. I’m Dion. Remember, from the retreat? But yeah, I normally have a cutlass with me. Can’t keep those grounds looking good without it, right?” He starts the jeep up, pulling forward slowly. “You keep breathing, okay? That guy do you something? You know him? You want me call the police? Who he is?”

  His questions, too fast to answer even if I had breath to do it, soothe me and give me something else to focus on. Gary’s gone. It’s okay. For now, it’s okay. I reach down and realize something’s missing. My bag. It’s still in Gary’s truck.

  “Let me drive down to the retreat. It’s a couple minutes away; you could sit and catch yourself.” The jeep follows the road’s curve, pausing at the same gate I left by, that day. It’s closed this time; he hops out, swinging it open. We pull under an aged concrete arch and down a driveway that might have been paved before Independence. Wild grass and trees, short and stocky, tall and wide. He parks the jeep under a shady almond tree. “You doin better? You breathin, at least.”

  “Thanks.” I get out. The earth feels unsteady under my feet. “I’m fine. I better go.”

  “Oh, no, no, you ain goin nowhere,” he says. “Come in the office and sit down.” He leads me over to the same building that angry woman was painting. The job is done now, the wall restored to a cheery, even cream. An overgrown hibiscus spills over near the doorway. A potcake dog, lounging in the shade of an out-of-bloom bougainvillea, yawns as we pass.

  “Is the owner here?”

  “Joe
?” Dion nods, clumping up the stairs, lead-footed even in flip-flops. “She’s always here. I think she’s teaching a class now. Trust me, though, she ain worrying about you.”

  “What did you come here for, then?” A woman’s voice reverberates from inside the office. Joe. Guess she’s not in class after all. “You wanna come in and get paid to do nothing?” she continues. “You think that’s how this ga work? Get out!”

  I stop at the foot of the stairs. Dion shakes his head. “Oh boy. She on the warpath today.” He catches sight of me and chuckles. “Don’t worry about Joe,” he says. “She only carry on that way if she has a reason.”

  The same girl I saw sweeping barges out of the office, nearly knocking both of us down.

  “That woman worse than the devil,” she barks at Dion as she passes us. “Not enough yoga in this world to help her.”

  “Don’t let the gate hit you on the way out!” Joe yells after her from the doorway. “Absolutely incompetent,” she adds, almost as loudly. She sees me and her scowl deepens. “What? Now you back?” She tilts her head to one side, assessing me. “You sneaking in again? Or you decided to use the entrance this time? Or are you here to do yoga dressed in school uniform?”

  “I brought her here to use the phone,” Dion says mildly.

  “Better not be a long-distance call.”

  Dion brushes past her. “She had a problem up the road, some crazy guy in a truck. So it could be a call to the moon, if that’s what she needs.”

  Joe’s frown tells me she wants to say more, but in an instant, Dion’s transformed from docile beach hippie to infuriated big brother, and Joe doesn’t seem to want to deal with that. “Fine,” she concedes. “But I’m not in the mood for no more trouble today.” She thumps down the steps and marches down one of the pathways. I feel sorry for any class she’s supposed to teach.

  “You can come,” Dion says from inside. I venture up and into the office. He gestures at the cordless phone on a cluttered desk and turns to a bookshelf, pretending to study the titles. It’s his way of trying to give me privacy, I guess, without leaving me alone. “Joe’s all right,” he assures me, sliding a thick book off a shelf. “Call whoever you need.”

  I stare at the receiver. Who I need is Grammy, but she doesn’t have a phone. The only way I used to get her was through Mamma, but I can’t bear the thought of that voice again, all loose and free, only tightening to say those words. Do what you gotta do.

  “You need a directory?” Dion looks up from his book.

  “It’s okay.” I pick up the phone, cradling it to my chest, hope it might quell the fluttering in there. If I call Smiley, I’ll have to explain what happened at school, if she hasn’t heard it for herself by now. I put the phone up to my ear; I have to dial some number. If I call the house, there’s a chance Gary could pick up, if he’s somehow made it back already. I call my cell’s number and listen to it ring six times before the voice mail kicks in. “No one home,” I say, hanging up.

  “And nobody else you could call?” Dion sets the book down, worried.

  “Not really.” I head for the doorway. “Thanks.”

  “Hey, hey, hold on. I can’t let you leave yet. Who was that back there?”

  “Nobody.”

  “That wasn’t nobody.”

  “Just my cousin.”

  “That’s how your cousin carries on all the time?”

  “He have a temper, is all.”

  “But how y’all end up in the bush? I almost hit you, good thing I was paying attention. And if that had been up closer by the curve . . . Where y’all was goin, anyway?”

  “I guess he got lost.” Why am I covering for him? I pass my hand over the sore spot on my leg, pretending to smooth a pleat on my skirt.

  “Pretty hard to get lost. Ain nothin else down this road except us and the beach. You sure you okay?” Dion looks at me earnestly, with a truth-getting stare. A Grammy stare.

  Six months before I leave Mariner’s, Mamma and I are staying on the other side of the island, in a cramped apartment above a restaurant-bar that stays open all night. Mamma’s working downstairs to pay for the rent. Grammy’s forbidden me to go down there at all. Forbidden me to talk to anyone when I leave for school, when I come home in the afternoon. Down the rickety stairs, then up, no looking, no chitchat, no smiles. “Morning, afternoon, that’s it. Not even good evening, cause you ain ga be out that kinda time.” Gladys, who tends bar, must have told Grammy about the boyfriends Mamma’s started bringing up some nights. I sleep on the sofa, hard and stained, and Mamma closes the bedroom door, pretending that creates privacy. With the shudder of the music from downstairs, the rise and fall of voices, I figure no one can hear the noises coming from Mamma’s room. No one except me.

  One night when I wake up, I tiptoe to the bathroom, light as I can. Someone stands blocking the bathroom doorway. A new boyfriend. Even though shadows hide his eyes, I know he’s staring at me. There’s nothing to see, I have on the long cotton pajamas Grammy gave me, the drawstring at the waist double-knotted the way she told me to, and I have on the bra she said I should sleep in. I’m nothing but a wall of cotton with a red scarf tied down over my hair, and bare feet and sleepy eyes, and I have to pee.

  “You need something?” he asks. He says it like this is his house and I’m an intruder, a guest in the wrong place. The air around him is stale, a salty swampwater smell laced with something else. I know what it is but I don’t have a word for it. They all have that stink. The whole apartment has it, after they’ve been here. “Or you got a little something for me?”

  I stumble back. “Indy, go lay down,” Mamma calls out from the room, her voice low. “Baby, you comin back in? I need you, baby. Come on. She ain got nothin for you. She just a child. She ain even fill out yet.”

  He looks at me longer, slow, up and down, like that doesn’t matter, like that might be even better, but finally he turns and goes back in to Mamma, leaving the door open.

  My feet carry me to the front door, and I break all the rules. I leave the apartment, I step out into the night. A car’s headlights flash just below my feet as it turns, then heads up the hill. The bar’s outside lights are glaring. I duck down and sit at the top of the cool concrete staircase leading down to the bar and the street. Bite my lip. Even out in all this air, I can’t breathe. I hold my breath. I hold my pee. I stare out into the night, full of music, of voices that swing from anger to laughter, then back again. And in the morning, when Grammy meets me down at the foot of the stairs to walk with me to school, she takes my face in her hands, holding me so tight it hurts. “Why you still in your nightclothes? What happened to you?” Staring deep into my eyes, trying to read them, like she doesn’t trust my mouth for truth. “Anyone touch you, Indy?”

  I don’t know how to answer. He didn’t put his hand on me, but he looked, and there was touch in his eyes, and the thing that comes after touch too.

  “Hey? You okay?” Dion says again. When I still don’t answer, he abruptly switches topics. “Actually, it’s good you came back. You left your clothes here.” He reaches under a chair, pulling out a cardboard box. He produces my skirt and shirt, folded up neatly. The shirt is streaked and spotted with purple from lying wet against the skirt’s strong dye. The fabric, even stained, is familiar and soft.

  “Can I use your bathroom?”

  “Sure. You know where it is.”

  • • •

  In the bathroom, I change into my own clothes, then roll the uniform up tight and tuck it under my arm. Stepping outside into the fresh air, I glance around. Nobody. In the distance, I can hear Joe barking orders. I should leave. But where would I go? Back to the house, to Gary? The house might be empty, if he’s gone to work early. I know he missed hitting the tree, but did the branches and twigs scratch up the truck? If so, he could have gone to get it fixed. Or he could be back at Aunt Patrice’s house by now, fuming. Waiting for me.

  I head in the opposite direction from Joe’s voice and take a path that peters o
ut into sand. The trees fan out and scatter until it’s just a few casuarinas growing next to the wall that divides the retreat from the beach. Beyond it, the sea waits. I climb over and step onto the rocks jutting out into the water. I ditch the rolled-up uniform and kick off my shoes, letting the rough, pitted surface poke and jab at my feet. The sea bobs and jostles, smacking the underside of the rocks. I sit down at the edge and lower my feet into the water. Breathing is easy by the sea. My body wants the salt, wants the openness, the freedom ocean air gives. Close my eyes and I could almost be . . .

  “You found the good spot.”

  I nearly fall off into the water. Dion, a few rocks over, stands on one leg, the other bent up, foot snuggled against the inside of his thigh. His body is ramrod straight, hands raised high in the air, palms pressed together over his head. When did he sneak up here?

  “What you doing?” I say, trying to suppress my surprise.

  “Tree pose. Improves strength, balance, and focus. I thought you went home.”

  If only it was that simple. I can see him about to say something more, and chances are, it’s gonna be about Gary. “What happened with the girl back there, anyway?” I say before he can speak.

  “In the office? That was our cleaning lady. Or former cleaning lady. Turns out she wasn’t actually cleaning anything, just spraying Glade and flushing the toilets every once in a while.” He makes a face.

  “Nasty.”

  “I know. Especially since Joe only goes for that natural cleaning stuff. Herbs and whatnot.”

  “Sounds like my grammy. I used to have to help her scrub the whole house down with nothing but baking soda and herb vinegar.” I stand up. Normally, I’d reach for my bag, sling it over my shoulder. I’m lost without it. Nervous, too. Gary could be going through all my things right now. For all I know, he could have tossed the whole bag out the window and run over it with his truck, book and all.

  “Where are you headed to next?” Dion lowers his arms, then the raised leg. He wobbles slightly, then catches himself and switches, mirroring the pose on the other side. Where? If I had my way, nowhere; I’d stay right in this quiet spot with this rock under me and the water dancing in the light, slowly pulling up with the tide. Dion raises his arms. He looks more like an arrow than a tree, hands pointing straight up to the sky, ready to shoot himself into the blue. “Or you plan on staying here till the end of time?”