Mum was funny in her way, I guess. Like with my name. My mother’s the one who came up with this ridiculous thing. Best. Really, it’s Bathsheba. My father, quiet soldier that he is, just went along with it. He got to name the sons Benjamin and Bryant, so it was her turn for the girl child. My mother decided to keep the “B” thing going, which was fine. Brenda. Briana. Bobbie, spelled all cool. Even Blaire. I would have been the one black girl you know named Blaire. No. My mother went all the way up to the boundary of common sense and trotted back home with Bathsheba. Making it that much more appalling is the fact that she didn’t pull it from the Bible, like you’d assume. It’s the name of the fishing village in Barbados where she grew up. Benjamin, first son, couldn’t pronounce it—naturally, no one at school could, either—and he wound up saying Bestba. We dropped the ba a few years too late for my taste, and I became Best. I maintain that Bathsheba was her own private joke, quiet payback for being the one child who almost truly killed her during delivery.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Lindee snaps.
I have one of the cardigans slung over my shoulder, its softness cradling the entire side of my face as I lean into it. Lindee is peering at me, as are High Bun and two other randoms who are shopping the racks nearby. I’m confused, embarrassed. My face warms to searing in an instant. “I—I’m—I, uh. I don’t know what that was, sorry.” I turn toward High Bun and rattle off a string of disconnected stories and words, apologize for me and for Lindee, but she looks completely horrified by each utterance. The whispers, off to my left, they’re getting louder, longer, mixed with barely muffled chucking. This is my fault, though. I said too much at once. Talking just to move the stiff air between us all.
“What is happening with you?” Lindee says. Her voice hasn’t softened and neither has her glare. She finally decides to stop barking at me from across the sales floor and comes closer, dragging that left leg as always, and stands near my shoulder. She lowers her voice to clenched-jaw whisper, but purely for effect. “Are you going to smash the display cases next? ‘Cuz, let a bitch know beforehand.”
I shake my head, but my heart is racing and I have no idea what will happen next. A wild rhythm is thumping in my ears, punching in my chest. Everything is blurred now. Sounds are muffled. I’m swooning and there’s nothing I can think to do to stop it. “Don’t lock your knees,” I say to myself, an instant too late, as the rest of my body buckles.
Fainting was never my thing. Even at the funerals, they had two nurses at either side of me, and never once did I waver. “Don’t lock your knees,” the older one whispered to me as we all stood for the first hymn. “The blood will pool in your legs; make you pass out,” she said. I wanted to share this intel with my father, urgently. He was sitting next to the nurse on my right, the one who smelled like fresh lilac, and it took him a long, agonizing time—maybe twenty seconds—before he could gather himself up enough to stand with us. I needed him to know this, so he could stay up, stay standing, despite his missing heart. They didn’t bother coaching my mother on anything. She was sedated and told to remain seated through it all. But when we found our way graveside—the matching caskets resting on their perch—the nurses doubled-up, flanking her, holding her, helping her take the seven horrible steps to the edge of the deep holes. I heard it, when my mother asked to be left alone there. And after a tense half-minute, her pillars agreed to retreat. Like everyone else, I watched her, unsure if she would teeter or tumble or jump. My mother removed the black, curved brim hat that her church sister fitted on her (they pinned a classic pillbox on me) and she bowed her head. She stood there for—it felt like a year—not moving, probably barely breathing, until my father stepped forward and placed his gloved hand on the middle of her back. That’s when the sickest sound rumbled from the basement beneath the basement of her ruined heart and poured out of her mouth. It was a sound, a wounded howl, I hope to never hear again. She dropped to the cold, damp ground, still clutching that hat. The oldest nurse got to her first, followed by the pallbearers, and they, with my father, gathered up all the pieces of her, escorting her back to the stretched black car. I remember staring at the hat, dragged along the dirty snow. The church sisters rushed to my sides, shoring me, gripping me, certain that I would fold next, but I didn’t. I stayed up, my knees soft like my mind and my eyes as dry as chalk, and I listened to the pastor’s words—words that I can still recite without thinking.
We have entrusted our brothers Benjamin Errol and
Bryant Eric to God’s mercy,
and we now commit their bodies to the ground:
earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust:
in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transform our frail bodies
that they may be conformed to His glorious body,
who died, was buried, and rose again for us.
To Him be glory for ever.
Then we all said it, together with precision and passion: Amen.
I’m leaning on the door in the cab, trying to keep my breath even. Lindee said she didn’t want to run the risk of my hurling all over her new boots. Kendra isn’t looking at me. She keeps her head straight, eyes trained on the foggy Plexiglas divider. But Lindee, squeezed up in the middle seat, is practically burning a hole in my temple with that glare of hers. I can feel her breath on me too, but can’t look at her. I try to stay focused on what’s going on outside the taxicab’s window: a muddle of trees and gravel and steel gliding by. But my mind keeps falling back to those many other times riding in cabs with Kendra. Better times, when all we did was look at each other, giddy and laughing, talking about everything at once. I already miss her and it’s only been a week—exactly nine days since my stupid mini-meltdown. I want Kendra to look over at me, to start talking about the latest, ridiculous thing her dum-dum assistant Stacey said. I want her to assume, naturally, that she’s coming over after all of this to slather homemade mud masks on our faces, eat room-temp pineapple salsa with fancy water crackers, drink cheap bodega beer, and search for “Where Are They Now?” updates on all of MTV’s Real World casts, because it’s what we do. Or what we did.
Lindee called her sister when I passed out. Kendra was still at the showroom three or four blocks away. I was sitting on slippery fold-up chair in the boutique’s scruffy backroom when Kendra walked in behind Lindee. She gave me a bottle of water and weak smile before turning to Lindee and starting that wordless twin-talk thing they always do, comprised of rough shrugs, quick nods, sighs, and eye-rolls.
The cab ride has been silent, save the drone of the sports radio show playing louder in the front speakers than in the back. The driver’s not even talking on his cell phone through an earpiece, a rarity that only serves to up the awkwardness in the stuffy car. I’m trying to think of what else I could say to Kendra beyond what I have already. “You didn’t have to come.”
“But I did,” she said, and handed me the wet bottle of water.
I want to apologize, but also don’t want to say another word. I can’t be sure of what’s going to rush out of my mouth in trying to explain the outburst, explain anything. There’s so much she doesn’t know about my life—the old one—and once that thread is pulled, the unraveling will be ugly.
I feel Lindee’s hand slipping over mine. Of course it startled me—nothing to do with how cold her fingers are—but it jolts me back into the moment and I know what I have to do.
“Call in tomorrow. Stay home,” Lindee says as I drag myself out of the cab, parked badly on the curb.
“Lindee’s right,” Kendra says, leaning over but barely turning my way.
“I have meetings, deadlines. I can’t.” My voice is scratchy and everything else about me—hair, clothes, coat—is disheveled.
“Fuck them,” Lindee says. She does an elaborate hand gesture, her elbow and fists flapping about. “They need you. Not the other way. Fuck. Them.”
Kendra nods.
/> “Miss, you say two stops,” the cabbie shouts back at us. “Can’t stay here.” He has a vague South Asian accent, but his irritation is unambiguous. “You say two stops. No waiting.” He taps his meter. “Waiting, extra charge.”
“Listen, Mr. Goswami, there’s no waiting charge, okay? We’re not idiots. It’s seven-thirty; you’re already getting the peak-hour weekday charge. It’s right there”—Lindee juts her finger through the dingy plexi opening, toward his meter and face—“one dollar. And the second stop takes you back to Manhattan, all right, so calm down, please.”
He mutters something. It’s not English.
“Oh, don’t start down that road,” Lindee barks. “I know all those Hindi bad words, sir. Bengali too, so you’ll need to try harder, my friend.”
Kendra shakes her head and—at last—looks at me, exasperated, a grin curling up one side of her face.
“Lindee, you need some meditation,” I whisper. I nod at Kendra, a thank-you floated out into our weird, wordless space.
“And you need to figure out what’s going on,” Lindee says, her flat delivery returned, as if the ugliness with the cabdriver never happened. She elbows Kendra. “Right? That was a panic attack back there. Or a mini-exorcism. I mean, what was all that ashes to ashes Amen shit you were mumbling before you fell out? Were you speaking tongues?” Lindee chuckles and nudges her sister harder. Kendra shakes her head. “You should have seen that shit, Ken. Total hysteria in the middle of the store. Everyone in that place freaked the fuck out when she dropped. You know she can’t go back to Delle Donne boutique. It’s a wrap on that place for her.”
“Lindee, enough,” Kendra says, frowning at her sister. She looks sad, or maybe it’s pity mixed with a little horror—I can’t really tell. I know that I’ve seen that same look on other people’s faces before, a lot, like when I finally went back to school three months after what happened happened. None of my friends talked to me. The teachers pretended I magically faded into the walls. And the nurse and counselor worked diligently, pulling whatever scheme—hall passes, work at home, tutors, “rest time” in the infirmary—to get that high school diploma in my hand and me out the door.
Lindee cuts the tense quiet with one of her snorts. “Face facts, Best. This shit is serious, whatever’s happening with you.” She moves her stiff neck, shifting exaggerated looks between Kendra and me. “Oh, okay. Ken won’t say it, so I will. Get checked out. I’m not saying that crazy in contagious, but homeboy did just crack his marbles a few months back . . . at your place so, maybe burning some sage isn’t the—”
“Kalindee,” Kendra snarls.
“What? You’re thinking it too. Grant goes nuts, now she’s flipping out. It’s not a little strange to you—”
Kendra shoots an eye-dagger right into her sister’s face.
“Whatever. Like I told you, Best: that motherfucker was never intact to begin with. But I’ll leave that alone. Don’t want to upset you—again.”
I’m still not prepared to talk about any of it, and spinning this long lie thicker—I can’t pull that off, not tonight. But my brain is so pinched I can’t come up with a proper diversion. It’s dark, damp, and I just want to get inside. “Listen, you guys didn’t have to ride all the way home with me—thanks.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Kendra says. “Do you want me to come up?”
“No. No, I’m fine. Just tired and hungry and embarrassed. I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Kendra, you should just go with her. Make sure.”
“No, really. We did tell the guy two stops.” I push for a smile. I’m sure I look pained. The cabbie shakes his head. He’s listening in on our convo and I’m embarrassed all over again. I know I won’t see him after this awkward moment, but mortification is never concerned about the details.
“Whatever with this guy,” Lindee says, waving her hand at the back of his head. “He’s a cabbie and he really doesn’t know who he’s dealing with back here.” Lindee doesn’t give him a second side look. “We can come up for a bit. Watch Golden Girls or Friends or some shit.”
“Guys, no. Look. I’m good.” I nod. “I’m good, really.”
“All right, but if you change your mind, text Kendra. She can double back—maybe with some sticky green or Xanax or something.”
I nod and keep doing it until my jaw feels tight. The cabdriver’s impatience has spilled onto me. I need to get inside. “If I say I’m good for the twentieth time, maybe then you’ll believe me? Really. I’m fine. We’ll talk later, Kendra.” She folds her lips together and half-nods—the best I can expect from her. “Sorry I messed up the birthday-gift thing, Lindee.”
“Oh, whatever, bitch. You were no help to begin with.” There’s that smirk. “All right, get off the corner, ho. We better get this guy back to the real New York City before he throws sulfuric acid on us.”
Lindee can’t close the car door all the way before the cabdriver takes off. He truly doesn’t know who (what) he has in back of that cab. Poor fool.
There’s this spot on my rooftop where I like to be whenever I make calls home. When he asked, I told Grant it was about long-distance calls and janky cell-phone reception. I don’t use my landline. It’s white, corded, and has no displays or fanciness to it all—it’s completely ornamental, and I’m quite serious when I say that I don’t know the number to it. So the bad-reception story sold. But the real reason for my being in that specific spot on the roof has everything to do with the view. Unlike the crying closet at work, up here—especially on a crisp night, taking in all the bright pops of Brooklyn light—it’s beautiful. I can see clean across the buildings, with their patchy peeling covers, over to this soft glow that I believe is JFK Airport. And, of course, there’s the bank clock tower looking back at me. I’m not allowed to be on the roof, though. Technically, no one is. “It’s illegal up here,” the landlord said a few times on move-in day. “Big no-no on parties or grilling. It’s not safe.” But he didn’t know what he was talking about. It’s the safest place.
I dial the number and get into position—leaned up against a cracked asphalt shingle—and count the number of telephone rings. (Maybe it’s asbestos, not asphalt, and that’s what Mr. Bernhardt meant by “illegal” and “unsafe.”) My parents, even before the accident, never answered the phone in any timely way. And their answering machine too: it goes on for like ten rings before anything clicks over. I can’t imagine how many callers just hung up and never tried them again. I’ve been tempted.
“Hello,” my mother says, her voice soft, sweet.
I don’t bother with pleasantries anymore. I know how she’s doing. “It’s Bathsheba.” I gaze over at the clock’s red face, waiting for the typical long silence to seep through the phone.
“You’re calling,” she says. The sugar completely dissolved.
“Yeah. Hi. It’s late. Sorry.”
“He’s not here.”
That’s another thing: My parents are divorced, but still live in the same house. Actually, separate wings of the same huge house. There’s no acrimony. It’s definitely love wedged between them despite all the physical space they don’t share. After Benjamin and Bryant died, somehow it was more harrowing to crawl into the same bed at night, together alone. The agony of looking into each other’s faces and seeing those similar features of the lost boys—chin, nose, the way the mouth turned down in the deep of sleep—seeing all of that staring back was simply too much for either of them to bear. That’s what my father told me when he called my dorm one early morning. They filed for divorce three weeks after I left for university, six months after the funerals. But the idea of living in separate homes seemed absurd—if only to them—so they moved to a larger house and took opposing wings.
“Oh, he’s already gone over to his side?”
“He’s at the lodge,” she says.
“Really? I didn’t know he started that again.” I hope I sounded casual and not suspicious just then. But my father and that lodge don’t mix well. It’s not l
ike he’s a stranger to the drink; the rum shops in Trinidad carved out their influence early in his life. The lodge—with all its secrecy and pomp—it was different, and it pushed his drinking toward something more severe and sometimes scary.
“He goes on Thursdee now. A special committee.”
“That’s good. They miss him—I’m sure.”
“You want me to leave word that you called?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“A’right then.”
“Wait. Mum?”
“Yes . . . I’m still on the line.”
“I wanted to let you know that . . . I don’t think I can come up this time. It’s work. There’s a big story—an important one—that I’m working on for the issue. I know this is important too. Ten years, I know, but I can’t get the time off. I hope you understand.”
“I understand that you’re not a child. You make your own choices.”
“I tried to get the time, but this story . . . it’s a big one. They’re counting on me.”
“They’re counting on you,” she says, without tone, just my own words repeated.
“They are, Mum. It’s a big story. Actually, that’s why I’m calling Dad. I think he can help me with it.”
“Do you want me to let your father know you’re not coming?”
I know the question is really instruction. “No, I can tell him. I’ll call back, if that’s easier.”
“Good enough. You take care, then.”
“You too. Good night, Mum.”
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