The Baddest Girl on the Planet

by Heather Frese

  “A spell for what?” Charlotte asks. “What are we doing out here?”

  I don’t know if telling her will make it not work, if it’s like a birthday wish or wishing on a falling star. I think fast. I need for her to help me. “A spell so the lighthouse won’t fall,” I say. Then I think maybe I also shouldn’t lie or it might not come true. “A spell so when I come back from visiting you, my home will be back the way it should be.” It’s a good part-lie.

  “What should we do?” Charlotte asks.

  I take her hand, and we start walking. I head toward the boardwalk. “It’s like a séance,” I say. “Only part prayer, too, so God will fix things.”

  “I’m not allowed to go down to the beach alone at night,” Charlotte says.

  I stop walking, just for a second, and drop Charlotte’s hand. “Do you want it to fall?” I walk on. Charlotte follows. We walk all the way down the boardwalk, then up the sand dune and over. My skin feels sticky with salt. I’m not sure how the spell will go, exactly, but I do know that when you want to work magic, you have to do it on the beach at midnight. We stand for a second and watch the silvery, frothy waves in the moonlight. We’re not alone, though. A campfire flickers and pops down at the high-tide line, black outlines of people sitting around it, smoking and laughing.

  “What do we do now?” Charlotte whispers. She’s standing very still.

  I chew on my fingernail. It seems to me that important spells and things work in rhymes, like the Jesus rhyme on the sand dollar, or Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Only I don’t like that prayer because it talks about if I die before I wake. Who wants to die before they wake? “It has to be in a rhyme,” I say.

  Charlotte moves closer to the campfire. “I think that’s my cousin,” she says. She yells Troia’s name.

  I clasp her arm and tell her to hush, but it’s too late; Troia comes over to us. Two other dark outlines start to move, too. It’s my stupid brother and his friend, Michael.

  “What are you two doing out here so late?” Troia asks. She’s wearing a pretty white dress that flaps in the breeze.

  “We have to work a spell,” Charlotte tells her, tugging on Troia’s hand. “To save the lighthouse. Otherwise it’s going to fall when it gets moved.”

  “How do you know it’s going to fall?” Troia asks.

  “Evie said so.” Charlotte looks at me. “She knows because her mom works with the lighthouse movers.”

  I start to feel weird and cold-prickly. “We just have to say a spell,” I say. “That’s all.”

  But Troia gets all riled up. I told you, tourists go crazy over that lighthouse. She says if it’s going to fall then we need to call somebody, and now. We can’t let them move it tomorrow. We have to intervene and save a landmark of America. I feel the slow pulse of an idea behind my eyes. “We could call my mom,” I say. “We could get her to come to the lighthouse and show her what’s wrong.”

  Troia calls for Nate and Michael. They come running over and she tells them we have to get Mom.

  “I’m telling Dad you smoked,” I say to Nate.

  But Nate just laughs. His laugh sounds different. “Like Dad cares,” he says. Then Nate says it’s crazy to call Mom, and he’s sure the stupid lighthouse is just fine. He’s real mean. “Why are any of you listening to that?” he says, and points at me.

  Troia puts her hands on her hips. She’s sassing Nate and I love it. “What harm can possibly come from calling your mother?” she asks.

  And then, get this, Nate agrees with her. It’s probably because she’s so pretty. So Michael throws sand on the fire and we all run up the boardwalk to the campground phone and Nate calls Mom. “Tell her we have to meet at the lighthouse,” I say.

  So Nate says that to Mom, and then he’s quiet, and then he says because I said the lighthouse is going to fall. He says, “I don’t know where she got the idea.” He rolls his eyes and it looks like he’s going to give up. Troia rests her hand on Nate’s arm. He shifts his feet in the sand. “Look, just meet us there,” he says, his voice firm, like Dad’s. He hangs up.

  Then I put the next part of my plan in action. “Call Dad, too,” I tell Nate. Nate stands there with his hand on the hung-up phone. “Why?” he asks. He slaps at a mosquito.

  Again, I think fast. “I heard him and Charlotte’s dad talking about the mechanics of lighthouse moving. Dad knows things, Nate. You have to call him. You have to get him to meet us up there.” Then I look at Troia. I take hold of her arm. “Right, Troia?” Then she says yes, that is a good idea, and why doesn’t Nate do that, and then Nate calls our dad.

  Me and Charlotte run up to Aunt Fay’s camper. Charlotte’s upset, and I feel bad, but not bad enough to stop the magic. She bangs open the door. Aunt Fay is already awake, though. “The lighthouse is going to fall,” Charlotte says. “Please, we have to stop it.”

  Aunt Fay stares at us. “What on earth are you girls talking about?”

  “It’s true,” I say. I cross my fingers behind my back. “There’s no time to dawdle. Mom and Dad have already been called. Now we have to get up there.”

  Aunt Fay stares at us some more. Then Charlotte starts to cry. I go stand by Aunt Fay. I look straight into her brown eyes. “Please,” I say. And I mean it.

  Aunt Fay sighs. She puts her hand on my head. “Get in the truck,” she says.

  And quick as lighting, Aunt Fay drives us to the lighthouse. Troia and Nate and Michael ride in the back of the truck. The parking lot to the lighthouse is all roped off, so Aunt Fay pulls over to a picnic table that sits in some pine trees. Charlotte and I jump out. Aunt Fay follows, and then the others climb out of the back. I can’t wait for Mom and Dad to get here, but then I remember the spell.

  But it’s Charlotte who says it first. I swear, it’s like we’re sisters. “We have to do the spell,” she says.

  Having Charlotte here makes me brave and strong. I climb up onto the picnic table. “We do it here,” I say. But then I feel less brave and strong. I don’t know any rhyming spells. This has to work.

  Aunt Fay climbs up on the table, too. She motions for Troia and Nate and Michael to get up. Troia and Michael do, but Nate just stands there with his arms crossed. “Thing is,” Aunt Fay says, “everything’s got energy. Plants. Animals. People. That lighthouse. So what we have to do is send some good energy out to the lighthouse.”

  I tug at Aunt Fay’s hand. “It has to rhyme,” I say. I close my eyes. I can feel the power. Soon Mom and Dad will be here, and everything will be fine.

  Aunt Fay coughs, and then she starts the spell. Her voice gets real low and official. “Cats and dogs, pigs and hogs,” she chants.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I say.

  Aunt Fay looks at me with one eye squinted closed. “Sturdy up the lighthouse logs,” she continues.

  I try it out. I make sure the real reason for the prayer is set in my head good. “Cats and dogs, pigs and hogs.”

  Aunt Fay chants it with me, “Sturdy up the lighthouse logs.”

  Charlotte starts in with us, and suddenly everything begins to make sense. “Cats and dogs, pigs and hogs. Sturdy up the lighthouse logs.”

  Troia and Michael chant, too. Nate stands there and watches. “Cats and dogs, pigs and hogs!” We chant it loud. “Sturdy up the lighthouse logs!”

  We turn in a slow circle on that table and we shout it, shout it, shout it out loud.

  The pine tree smell prickles sharp in my nose, and the midnight breeze is soft and salty on my arms, and it’s working—I can feel it.

  Any second now, two cars will come down that road.

  Four

  Dominican Al’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Honeymoon Extravaganza, Sponsored by Dominican Al’s Rum and Fine Spirits

  — 2014 —

  You are the lucky winner of a seven-day, six-night honeymoon at the spectacular all-inclusive Hacienda Paradisus Resort and Spa in beautiful Bayahibe, República Dominicana! You are a very single divorcée. Who do you choos
e as your all-expenses-paid traveling companion?

  A.) Your five-year-old son.

  B.) Walter, your aunt’s Yorkshire terrier and your current best friend.

  C.) Your former best friend, Charlotte, with whom you haven’t had a conversation that lasted longer than five minutes in the past five years while you raised a kid and got divorced while she finished college and started graduate school, and who is now a poet who uses words like pedagogy and pentameter in her e-mails.

  Answer: C. Your former best friend, Charlotte. You thought about taking the dog, but it would’ve cost $100 each way for his flight, and you’re too poor for that. You’re too poor for anything, which is why you entered every travel sweepstakes you could find this winter when things were slow at Outer Banks Realty. Your divorce was just finalized, and you needed to travel somewhere, anywhere, as long as it meant getting the fuck off of Hatteras Island. You did not win the Kitchens of India Sweepstakes to go to New Delhi or the Rax/Mountain Dew Country Music Songwriter’s Competition for a trip to Las Vegas. The Outdoor Network’s Monster Fish Contest to go salmon fishing in Alaska was a complete bust, and the obviously blind judges thought your son wasn’t cute enough to win the Klassy Kids photo shoot in Des Moines, Iowa.

  But you had a good feeling about Dominican Al’s Rum and Fine Spirits. You liked his pink-and-green logo and the peppy music on the website, even though you had to turn down the volume so no one at work would realize you weren’t working. You answered twenty trivia questions every day for a month to secure a spot in the honeymoon raffle. You were particularly proud of answering the final question correctly, that Spaniards originally sold potatoes as ornamental decorations rather than food. You won. You’d never won anything in your life, so you hadn’t considered who would go with you for the Once-in-a-Lifetime Extravaganza. You’re just hoping Dominican Al doesn’t do a background check and find out you’re divorced. Is “C.” truly the best choice for a traveling companion? Only time will tell.

  You step off the tiny airplane at the Punta Cana airport in the Dominican Republic (República Dominicana, you think in an imaginary Spanish accent that sounds strangely like Antonio Banderas) and the humidity greets you like a solid wall. You stumble against it, reaching out to grasp handfuls of hot, heavy air. It wraps around you like a cloak, thick and cloying. You squint in the sunlight and walk down the steps of the plane, shielding your eyes and scanning the runway for a tall, slender woman with red-gold hair and freckles to match. All you see is a thatch-roofed, wall-less building where throngs of tourists line up to get their luggage. You join them.

  You’re already sweating, which is ridiculous since you live on an island and should be used to heat and humidity, but this is different from home. You do a little excitement dance. You’re a tourist. All around you Spanish flows like water, supple vowels, elastic Rs. El Aeropuerrrto. You get your paisley bag and are looking for the bus to the resort when you see a tall, slender woman with cinnamon hair that was once red-gold, hair that swings down her back in a glossy sheet. You wonder how it stays so shiny in this humidity. Your own hair is already fuzzy.

  You pounce on Charlotte. She squeals and hugs you back, and you perform a tandem excitement dance. You feel like a little kid again, as if you were seeing Charlotte for the first time after she’d arrived on Hatteras for her annual vacation.

  Charlotte brushes her hand across your forehead. “I love the side bangs,” she says.

  “I wasn’t sure if they made my face look lopsided,” you say. You and Charlotte walk through the airport. “Is that new luggage?” you ask.

  Charlotte says she splurged last year’s tax return in the hopes that she’d travel more if she had good luggage. “This is its debut,” she says. Charlotte side-hugs you. You squeeze back.

  You and Charlotte find the bus and wedge your way on board. It’s packed, and you’re crammed between Charlotte and a large man wearing a fedora. Sombrero, you think, your imaginary Rs beautifully rolled. The bus jostles off into the streets of Punta Cana. You and Charlotte chatter and point out the window, remarking on the orange flamboyan trees, the glimpses of aqua water, the tall palms. You’re sweating all over the vinyl seat and should’ve worn a sports bra because your breasts jolt every time the bus hits a pothole, which is often. You whisper this to Charlotte, but she’s staring out the open window, her face sober. You look at her for a moment—the freckles you remembered so well are barely visible—then follow her gaze out the window.

  The bus lurches and sways, swerving through throngs of people, past brightly colored, crumbling buildings and skinny, barking dogs; past dirty children crouching on door stoops. Thumping music pumps from store windows. You think the people look happy, calling to one another, elbowing their way down the street. Charlotte says, “The Trujillo regime used the word parsley as a shibboleth to murder Haitians in 1937.” You don’t know what shibboleth means, but you like the way it sounds. Shibboleth. You don’t want to seem dumb, so you just nod. “The Haitians couldn’t say the R in parsley,” Charlotte says.

  “I’d be screwed if I got shibbolethed,” you say. “My Spanish Rs only sound right in my imagination.”

  The bus winds its way out of the city, and now you look at fields of sugarcane, roadside stands where flies buzz around shanks of meat hanging in the sun, cows with protruding ribs.

  Charlotte turns to you. She looks like she’s going to cry, brow puckered, eyes glistening. “Do you see that?”

  “I bet that sugarcane is good in mojitos,” you say to Charlotte. You’re trying to distract her from the sad, skinny cows. You can’t wait to have some fun.

  “I know I’m sheltered,” Charlotte says. “But I’ve never seen poverty like this.”

  You tell her you agree. You’ve never been out of the country, either. And even though you’ve had to make meals of ramen noodles and hot dogs some nights, at least you don’t live in a dirt-floored shack next door to a knobby-kneed cow and a squawking chicken. At least your son’s never had to weave bracelets and sell them on the street to tourists. You picture Austin on the side of Highway 12, hawking his wares.

  Charlotte says, “I just had no idea. And I hear that Haiti is so much worse.” Then she turns and pats your leg. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer.”

  The bus pulls up to a set of tall, wrought-iron gates. They open, and just like that, the world changes. Fountains spray delicate mists of water into the air, pink and orange and white blossoms cavort in landscaped arcs, and a Spanish-tiled building with arched doorways comes into view. The bus stops, and you unstick yourself from the seat, get your bag, and go inside. Ceiling fans whirl, and even though the building is open to the outside, it’s cool. You and Charlotte go to the desk.

  “Evie Austin,” you say to the girl at the counter. She wears a blue polo shirt with a yellow collar. She smiles at you. “I won a contest.”

  “¿Cómo puedo ayudarte?” she asks. The words trill and roll together. You don’t know what she’s saying, but it sounds beautiful.

  “May we please check in?” you ask. You wait for a second. “It was the Dominican Al’s Rum and Fine Spirits honeymoon contest.”

  “No hablo inglés. ¿Cualquiera de ustedes hablan español?” She half-smiles and her nose crinkles. “Permitamé conseguir alguien que habla inglés.”

  You look at Charlotte. Charlotte looks at you. You link your arm through Charlotte’s. “Mrs. and Mrs. Evie Austin,” you say. “Dominican Al’s Rum?”

  The girl at the desk motions over her coworker, an adorably round-faced man. His nametag says FREDDIE. Freddie speaks English and checks you in. You whisper to him that you and Charlotte aren’t really married. He grins. You ask how to make a phone call home to let your family know you arrived, and Freddie says it costs ten dollars a minute. You call anyway and end up spending forty dollars listening to your son talk about Chutes and Ladders. You let him and your mother know you won’t be able to phone again. Freddie wraps a yellow bracelet around your wrist, telling you not to take it
off. He straps Charlotte in, too. You and Charlotte tap your wrists together like superheroes and follow Freddie to your honeymoon suite.

  You’ve gained six pounds by the morning of the second day, or at least that’s how it feels. Charlotte says the buffets of food and slushy machines full of piña coladas and daiquiris are stunningly ubiquitous, but all you know is that they’re freaking delicious. You and Charlotte spent most of yesterday by the swim-up bar in the pool, testing out as many incarnations of Dominican Al’s Rum and Fine Spirits as you could muster. You reminisced about the summer you met and caught up on what your families were doing. You might have gone salsa dancing; you don’t really recall. You dimly remember telling Charlotte you were pissed she used the bath towel that was twisted into the shape of a walrus before you could take a picture of it. You’re still salty about that, to be honest.

  You and Charlotte both wake up with hangovers, skip breakfast, and go straight to the beach. You lie down on yellow lounge chairs under one of the thatch-roof umbrellas that spatter along the sand. You think that from the air, this beach would look like it was dotted with breasts. Tiny aqua waves lap at the shore, and palm trees wave their heads, tossing their fronds like a long-necked woman tossing her hair.

  You squint against the brightness and fish around in your bag for your rhinestone-studded sunglasses.

  “I like your bling,” Charlotte says. Her own sunglasses are green with white polka dots. You got them for her as a birthday present two years ago.

  “Thanks,” you say. “I like yours, too. Whoever got them for you has excellent taste.”

  You watch a water-aerobics class. Most of the women are topless. “Let’s go do that,” you say to Charlotte, reaching around to untie your bikini top.

  But Charlotte’s digging around in her beach bag. She pulls out a pen and a stack of papers. “I totally blew off yesterday,” she says. “I’ve got to work on this grading.”

  Charlotte had warned you when she agreed to come that she’d have to bring work, but you pout anyway. You poke out your lower lip and give her sad eyes, but Charlotte’s not looking. You sigh and lie back down. You try to take a nap. You’re bored. You bounce your foot up and down. “I’m going to get some food,” you say.