I’m not much better, though. I really don’t like how Mia’s attention is being monopolized either. The difference is, as they speak on the balcony, Mia will every so often glance in my direction, to check up on me. She’s feeling a little possessive as well, but she’s speaking with Robbe to give me time with my sister, which I appreciate. I appreciate it even more, though, when Robbe comes back in to retrieve another couple of beers and she follows just so that she can cross the room and touch my arm, smiling but not saying a word. She doesn’t have to.
What the fuck is it with guys anyway? Jesus, I want to kick the shit out of him. Doesn’t he understand that my little sister has the tremendous force of hormones raging through her body?
Are you really that clueless, Robbe?
Kel asked me if he could talk to me about something serious, which is a disturbing prospect coming from someone like Kel. We were heading up the block to the 7-Eleven to get ourselves coffee because our daily job was very much like being in the Army, or the FBI — a whole lot of boring interrupted by moments of excitement and terror. I could use a little excitement, so why not?
He told me that he thought it was time to find himself someone, but that he was having trouble figuring out where he could meet women, or what he would even say to them. I told him that I saw his dilemma. What would he tell the poor thing? That he facilitated workplace conflict resolution — with a gun? I smiled, amused that Kel was dealing with such mundane shit like falling in love.
I told him that maybe he should meet someone among the people we knew, though there were few women in the trade.
“Yeah. I know,” he said, becoming excited that I would bring up the idea. “That’s what I’s kind of thinking. Find someone in the business. Someone I can talk to and not be all secret and shit. I mean, I think I’ve a pretty solid rep. People know I’s not some fuck-up. I mean, some of these guys must have sisters and shit, don’t you think?”
I told him that, yeah, some of the guys had sisters and shit.
“I mean, I’s not so bad, am I?” He seemed to take a moment to consider his next question. “Would you go out with me?”
“Sure.”
I immediately worried that I answered too quickly, sounded too eager. There was Angel, after all, but that seemed to be dragging on and on and going nowhere. I liked Kel — we meshed. I could see being with him.
“When?”
“What?”
“When do you want to go out?” I asked, feeling pretty good about myself.
“Wait. What?”
It’s hard to imagine someone like Kel becoming flustered, but I was there to witness it. Shit, I was the cause of it.
That’s the effect I have on men.
“No. I’s sorry, baby girl, but I didn’t mean us. Not you and me. I mean, I like you and all, but you’re my muppet. We’re partners. Wouldn’t be right, our working together so close and shit. I’s just asking, is all. To see.”
“Rhetorical,” I said.
I looked about for a car to step in front of.
“Yeah. I didn’t mean it. I’s just asking.”
He was watching me closely after that.
“I would, you know, if we could.”
“Sure,” was all I could say.
Of course! I couldn’t even get the psychotic killer interested in me. Why doesn’t anyone like me? Thinking about it depresses the shit out of me for the rest of the week.
Byr then came to inform me that he knew that I was Fed, and that was when he offered me the deal. I took it. There really wasn’t much of a choice. I figured I would have to find some way out of it somehow, without ending up dead.
Then it struck me.
Hey, maybe that’s why Kel turned me down.
I mean, how would it look, his having a Fed for a girlfriend and then having to put a bullet into the top of her head?
Maybe I’m not so bad after all.
I felt pretty good after that.
Naddie drops a bombshell on me in the form of a passing comment.
…when Mom and Dad were talking about getting divorced.
I didn’t know that Mom and Dad’s marriage was close to falling apart, back during the last time all of us sisters were home. It was when I had my orders to Germany and I took a couple of days off during the move from Arizona. Naddie was seventeen, still in high school, and Tonya was beginning the graduate program at Harvard, so she was only a commuter hop away. Mom seemed almost giddy, having us all yelling and banging about the house again, and I thought that was a Mom thing, but Naddie now tells me that things were beginning to become tense between her and Dad back then. Mom was acting that way because she was happy to have the distraction.
It was why Naddie graduated high school early, to get out of the house. I had no clue and it makes me feel bad because I’m the only one who didn’t know. Even Tonya knew, because Naddie would visit her in the city so that she would have someone she could talk to about what she was dealing with.
Hearing this only makes things worse, because Naddie is now telling me that she went to our sister with her problems, that I wasn’t around for her.
Jesus, it makes me feel like shit. I guess that’s why I found myself crying again.
Shit.
The look on Naddie’s face — the stunned helplessness. When she was little, she knew exactly what to do to calm me down, but now, all she can manage is a pat of my shoulder and a few soothing words. Problem is, I am really losing it at this point. I don’t know why it’s happening; it seems way out of proportion in terms of a response, but it’s not like I can help it. I mean, breakdowns by their very nature are the definition of something outside your control, so there I am, feeling myself slipping over the edge again.
It’s Mia who rushes in without hesitation, sweeping me up in her arms and doing the thing she does. She holds me as my sister watches, the pain clear on Naddie’s face. She’s finding out that she too has been replaced, that she’s no longer my little Naddie Bear, and it’s as though I’m again telling her that I don’t want her around anymore.
Get out! Get out! Out of my room! Go the fuck away!
I want to tell her that I’m sorry for what I had done. It still breaks my heart and I want to tell her how sorry I am, but it seems that the tears are keeping me from saying the words.
17
Antwerp — Marsaskala
I was seventeen when I was a sophomore in high school, held back a couple of years when I first came to the States for the obvious reasons of having no formal education nor the ability to understand the American language. After a time, Tonya skipped a year, being the high-strung, ultra-achiever proto-daughter of Mom, and it scared me because damned if I was going to let her pass me up.
The only other person in my grade that was off age was Jeffery. And even then, he was only sixteen. His excuse was that he had Down Syndrome.
The girls in my class…. Well, the mean girls in my class thought it was odd that someone my age appeared to never’ve had a boyfriend, which wasn’t so much appearance as it was fact. I simply couldn’t get into the swing of things, between being stuck with people who were younger than me and my absolute fear of what I might have to do if I suddenly found myself with a boyfriend. I mean, it was the mid-eighties. Everyone was getting cable in their home and it seemed like all the guys did nothing but spend their afternoons watching the “foreign movie” channels that their fathers subscribed to — which is to say, porn.
It was a tough time of expectations for us girls. A transition that I really didn’t want to be a part of.
Anyway, these girls were horrified by my utter lack of experience with the male side of the species. (Actually, they were more horrified by their own reputations and were looking for any way to bring themselves to a more suitable moral equivalency by lowering the standards of everyone else around them.) Rumors started going around that I might be more into girls, which, back in those days, wasn’t nearly as cool as it is these days. No one even thought to use the wo
rd lesbian, because it really hadn’t become a part of the cultural lexicon in our school. I denied it, of course, but when asked to provide proof of my romantic attachment to any guy, what could I say? There was no one.
Then someone came up a the brilliant idea. I needed a guy, and, down the vo-tech corridor, Jeffery was heard clearly stating — to everyone — that he wanted to find himself a girlfriend that year.
What fucking fun.
“Why Cultural Studies?”
Robbe announced at the dinner table on the second night that Mia has a master’s degree in Cultural Studies from Columbia University.
Naddie’s gaze across the table asked him Why the hell do I care?
“It helps me with what I do,” Mia tells him, smiling faintly but keeping her voice neutral.
“What do you do?” Naddie then asks. She’s asked me this same question about two dozen times, but I don’t think she was ever happy with my answers. Besides, I’m not sure of the answer myself.
“I steal from the rich.”
Mia pauses to take the time to look at each of us in turn, to gauge our responses. Robbe looks a little perplexed. Naddie looks like she’s waiting for the punchline. Me? I quickly look down and poke again at the lump on my plate.
I can’t understand why Naddie has served us fish. She knows I hate fish. We both sacrificed large quantities of mashed potatoes to hide large quantities of fish during our childhood, which is why Mom still thinks we both like fish. I looked up in utter amazement when Naddie put the stuff before me and I sensed a whiff of that…fish smell, and then watched as she proceeded to eat it without the faintest hint of a grimace. What the hell?
Maybe this stuff’s not as bad as the fish sticks Mom used to give us.
I tried a bite and, no, fish still does suck, which is good because it gives me something to focus on rather than letting everyone see what I’m really thinking about, which is Mia’s blatant declaration. I hope to God she has a punchline.
“Fund-raising for NGOs,” she says. “I go around convincing corporations and individuals to let go of some of their vast hoards of wealth.”
“What sort of NGOs?”
“That project down in…” Robbe bangs the table in frustration, ready to burst if he can’t come up with it first.
Naddie and I both lean forward slightly in anticipation of some great revelation, because I’m wondering what NGOs we’re supposedly dealing with and Naddie’s wondering why her husband is interrupting her line of questioning.
“Bhutan? No. Burundi!”
He’s so satisfied with himself, demonstrating that he had, in fact, listened when Mia spoke. It’s the test that every man feels that he must pass with an intriguing woman: a willingness to sometimes pay attention to what she has to say.
I immediately think of Nash and return to work on my fish, trying to figure out where I might hide it.
What the hell is this?
And why is she making me eat it?
“You go to Burundi?” Naddie looks at Mia questioningly, then at me with disbelief that I would even consider such a thing.
Mia gives a self-depreciating scoff at Naddie’s sentiment.
“Oh, no. We don’t go to Burundi.” She glances in my direction before returning to Naddie. “We have to head down to Malta.”
Where?
Robbe states that he and Naddie frequently talk about going to Malta, but haven’t as yet taken the plunge. By the way it sounds, I guess I’m supposed to be excited about going to Malta, even though I have no idea where it is. Isn’t it in East Africa or something?
He asks Mia for a recommendation of a good hotel and Mia replies that there are plenty of good hotels on the island, but that she always stays at a private villa which belongs to some friends who loan it to her during her visits. That’s where we’re going to stay — at a villa, on an island.
This doesn’t seem to sit too well with Naddie.
“Well, I hope this family doesn’t just pop in on you this time.”
I’m reclining on a splendidly cushioned chaise lounge — dressed in a light, full-length cotton kaftan that covers my arms and legs but is still comfortable in the sun — looking out over the flat sheet of a cool blue pool of water to the even deeper blue of the sea. Mia was full of shit when she told me that we were there, on the island, because of business, but she wasn’t full of shit when it came to this villa.
The old guy that takes care of the place, Gerardu, recognized Mia the instant we arrived and welcomed her with a kiss on each cheek. He then made damned sure there was nothing for either of us to want, even making us dinner that first night — timpana, which we enjoyed out on the terrace as we sat in the lazy ocean breeze and watched the moon rise over the Mediterranean.
After bidding us farewell for the night, he left us on our own.
“Where does he live?”
I feel bad, thinking that we had just kicked him out of the house.
“He lives down in the carriage house at the base of the drive, where we came in.”
Okay, I no longer feel sorry for the man because that “carriage house” is a whole hell of a lot more opulent looking than the shithole I have waiting for me back in East Boston. Would the owners of the place be comfortable with an ex-con doing his job, seeing that I’m a girl and all? Female felons are believed to be considerably less dangerous, so they might simply disregard the three homicides. Actually, I guess it’d have to be four, because I’ll have to do away with Gerardu as well — dump his body out in that deep blue sea.
Still, I’m a girl.
Anyway, why are we really here?
Because you want to get me away from my sister, is why.
Things became far worse than could possibly be imagined. After a couple of days of Jeffery asking to hold my hand, and seeing the mean girls having a great laugh at both of our expenses, it traveled around school that I was humping a ‘tard.
So what did I do? What do you think? I metaphorically shoved Jeffery out ahead of me and put a bullet into the back of his head.
That sounds horribly violent, coming from a woman, but speaking as a woman who really did do such a thing to another human being, I can truthfully say that I was equally cruel to poor Jeffery.
He tried to take my hand one time too many, insisting upon it, and I spazzed out on him. I told him he was stupid and ugly and dressed funny and talked funny and walked funny and he was too stupid and ugly and all that for anyone to ever want to be his girlfriend.
I certainly don’t want to be your girlfriend, you retard! Don’t you get it? Are you really that retardly stupid? Go away! Don’t talk to me! Don’t touch me, you freakin’ ‘tard!
Yeah. Not my best moment.
I wish I could say that after Jeffery ran away crying that I had one of those After School Special moments. (Not the disgusting type. I mean the happy Hollywood-ending stories they used to have on TV. After school.) I suddenly realized what a terrible person I had become and after searching for Jeffery later, we became great friends and started doing things together because I no longer cared what other people thought. And then everyone else started seeing that they, too, had been bullied by the mean people and now I had become something of an inspiration to them all.
At graduation, having been voted Best Friend to Everyone, I personally thanked Jeffery during my speech and then walked out into the audience, Oprah Winfrey-style, to give my best, special friend a hug.
And then everyone cheered.
In reality, Jeffery hated me for the rest of his time at our school, which was only a few more weeks because he was suddenly moved away mid-year. I always had the terrible feeling that it was because his parents wanted to get their poor child away from the evil bitch that was me.
And that wasn’t even the worst part of it.
I laugh, and Mia takes it in stride.
“Okay. Let me clarify,” she says, raising a hand absently to get me to settle down for a moment. “I mean to say that staying with your sister was…use
ful to me.”
Okay, that is different. Much different from saying that she was happy that we stayed at Naddie’s for those two days. I was happy, staying there, but even I started to feel the strain by the second day. Not on me, but on Mia. It was clear in her voice that she was cutting close to the edge and I sensed that she was ready to go. I worried that she might leave without me.
I told myself that it was because of the job, but, really, I was lying to myself at that point. I was ready to go as well.
I ask her what she thought she found so useful and she tells me about some of the things she had learned while speaking with Robbe. She and him spent much of the time together, talking, though not so much as to create a rift between Robbe and Naddie. In fact, Mia made a point of breaking away from their conversations on a number of occasions whenever she sensed the desire from Naddie to speak with her husband. If it were up to him, I don’t think they would’ve ever quit talking.
But what can you expect from a guy that comes across the single most attractive quality any man can possibly find in a woman: her apparent interest in what he has to say?
Tonya was waiting for me, eager to find out what the hell had happened with me at school.
She was in junior high, in a different school system, but still heard all about it. Her friend Lin’s older sister went to my school, and Tonya decided to be merciless with me that day. She danced around and laughed and giggled as she asked if my marriage plans had been called off, or would Jeffrey and I reconcile in time for the wedding. You know, stupid sister stuff. I asked her to stop, because I was feeling so much like shit as it was, but this only encouraged her to amp it up, to start poking the buttons she knew would have the greatest effect. I wanted Mom and Dad to get home, to make her stop, but it would be another hour before Mom was home and Tonya knew this. She had to get it all in within the first half hour.
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