“Okay then,” said Jason. “Maybe we should take a five-minute break before continuing. When we get back, we’ll go over the rules again.”
Everyone started to stand up or gather together to talk. I heard Liz mutter to Jason. “So that was a little intense.”
“Don’t worry about it — it’ll get easier with every one you do. The trick is relating to them quickly. Like look at what I’m wearing . . .”
I knew all of the kids in the room but spoke to none of them on a regular enough basis to join a cluster now. They were too busy talking about what had just happened anyway — for a minute my pride swelled up, like it used to when I captivated classmates with my stories. But it was doubtful anyone outside of the cafeteria would hear about it, since there hadn’t been an actual fight. Even when I won something, I lost, because it was never a big enough deal to be praised for. I stood up and started making my way to the entrance.
“Hey!”
I stopped so Mr. Silva could catch up with me. He pointed a finger in my face.
“I don’t want you causing any trouble in the hall, you hear me?”
“I just need to use the bathroom.”
There was a pause.
“Sir,” I said.
He reached into the breast pocket of his windbreaker and pulled out a pink washroom slip. “You’ve been warned,” he said before giving it to me.
There were two washrooms on this floor: one next to the gym that doubled as the girls’ locker room, and one outside Mme. Rizzoli and Mr. Esposito’s room. Ambling over to the one closer to class would let me waste more time, since it was farther from the cafeteria, farther from that unbelievably stupid circle.
I wished I was the kind of person who brought a gel pen to the washroom so I could draw on the stall walls and doors — it would have saved me the trouble of figuring out what to do while I tried to dawdle. Instead I made my way over to the shared sink in the middle of the washroom, stomping on the pedal so that water sprayed out and I could splash my face. When I took my foot off, I heard sniffling. Then sighing. Then swearing.
“There’s no toilet paper in this fucking shithole!”
A stall door opened with a whack and Anita stepped out, her eyelashes wet and her nose runny. It took a minute for her to see me but when she did, she jerked to a stop. Her eyes widened then narrowed and she clenched her jaw, clenched her fist, swallowing hard. She was ready. Ready for me to say something. But I could only stare at her. I’d only ever seen her cry once, when she broke her arm in the stairwell trying to jump from a landing to the floor. Getting injured was the only time any of us cried. Or cried in public anyway.
Anita’s closed lips trembled like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t open her mouth. She was waiting for me to go first. I wanted to laugh at her. Tease her. Call her soft. I was certain she’d have done that to me if I’d been the one who was caught. It was an urge I could feel with my entire body, like the triumph I’d felt at making her storm out of the cafeteria, the triumph that had made my arms and legs tremble with adrenaline. But I didn’t open my mouth to say anything, either.
I don’t know how long the two of us stood there before I walked over to the dispenser and ripped off a long piece of paper towel. I held it out for her to take but she stayed where she was. After a few seconds I turned my head to the side so I wouldn’t see. Wouldn’t see her walk up to me. Wouldn’t see her take the paper towel from my hands. Wouldn’t see her wipe her eyes and blow her nose and cry a little more into the rough brown tissue. I heard her sigh and knew it was safe to look at her again. Her face was tear-streaked and her eyes were raw and bloodshot; it was like I was seeing her for the first time.
“Wash your face before you leave,” I said.
“Oh right. Yeah.”
I nodded once and walked back to the door. Maybe before she would’ve called after me, demanded I keep my mouth shut about what I’d seen. Maybe before I wouldn’t have listened if such an order was made. But now neither of us said anything else as I left the washroom to go back to the cafeteria. We both knew that something was different between us and that tomorrow I would be back with the group, but that we’d never speak of this day again.
Fiah Kitty
My mother likes us to go to Christmas dinner at my grandmother’s either very early or very late, just before most of our family shows up or just after a bulk of them leave. It’s the one time of year my mother visits Nana’s house at all, both of them avoiding each other, speaking only when it’s time to exchange gifts. Tonight she decides on early, and we scrape the bottom of our boots against the Jesus Watches doormat three times. My mother peers into her cracked black purse, checking to see if she remembered Nana’s present — a pair of gloves, black and leather and kind of old-fashioned. When she confirms it’s there, she rings the doorbell. I can see her hand tremble slightly. If she catches me noticing she’ll build an inward wall that’ll take all night to break down, so I rub my hands together and look around the neighbourhood as we wait.
In the summer, giant green maple trees cloak this street in shade but tonight, fallen snow blankets their leafless branches. Nana has draped a string of white lights along the roof of her bungalow and hung a belled wreath just below the peephole on the door. There’s even a nativity set on the lawn. It’s all picture-perfect, like a drawing on a postcard, but the lurch in my stomach when the front door opens keeps me rooted in reality.
Despite my mother’s careful planning, we aren’t the only ones here. Two of Nana’s friends from Faith Community Baptist Church, Sister Ida and Sister Bernice, have decided to stop by before trudging through the snow to a late-night service. My mother and I will stay for an hour, eat our two plates, and then leave. It’s what we always do. Each Christmas, Nana carves a few slices of turkey for us before the grand unveiling of her work at the actual dinner. She’s a master at shaving off pieces no one will be able to see when she makes the ceremonious first cut after family prayer. But tonight my mother doesn’t seem that interested in eating. She didn’t even prep me before we got here, give her annual breakdown on the balance between spending time with Nana and getting out of the house quickly. She only told me to be polite.
“Don’t be so eager for the food,” she said. “We’re guests in her home.”
“But we used to live here.”
“When you were a toddler.” Her tone got mean, like I’d hit a nerve. “What does that have to do with right now, Kara? Hmm? Tell me.”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Like I said, we are guests in her home so wash your plate when you’re done eating, don’t just leave it in the sink.”
“But she’ll just —”
“I know she’ll just wash it again, Kara. I know she’ll wipe down the table right after you finish eating and she’ll spray our boots with Febreze right after we take them off. I know. But just do what I say and that’s to do what she says.”
For now, I sit at the dining table, a bamboo bowl in front of me because Nana has tasked me with making the salad and there’s no room left on the counters since the ham is resting there. Sister Bernice is helping her make the sorrel punch in the kitchen to the right of me and even though I haven’t sipped it yet, the thought of its tangy, sour taste makes me suck in my cheeks. To my left, my mother sits in the living room and chooses the spot at the far end of the sofa. It’s the spot that’s closest to the escape, because it’s directly across the archway that leads back into the foyer and the front door. Not that I think she’ll try to make a break for it or anything but she likes the security of a quick exit.
Nana never turns off the stereo and always keeps the same Christian radio station on low, even if the TV is on, so my mother picks up the remote and turns up the volume.
L’Oréal Kids Shampoo! Oh yeah! Bye-bye tears! No more ouch! No bad hair days! Great shampoo! And shiny hair too! L’Oréal Kids Shampoo, because we’re w
orth it too!
She shifts her hips on the plastic-covered sofa like she’s uncomfortable. She does this instead of wriggling her body to get as comfortable as she can, like she normally does when she sits on it.
Sister Ida stands in the opposite corner of the living room, the one by the archway that leads to the bathroom and two bedrooms at the back of the house. The tree fills that corner, the tip nearly touching the ceiling, and Sister Ida slinks around it, admiring the arrangement of ornaments. Nana went all out this year with the baubles and bows, the dangling candy canes and the black angel my mother bought her two years ago because she was sick of looking at the white one Nana always perched on top of the tree. Everything should clash but it works somehow, seducing anyone who looks at it into trying to figure out how it all comes together.
Nana takes the lid off the silver stockpot to check on the rice and peas, and peers into the skillet on the burner next to it. The plantain she’s frying makes my stomach grumble and she tells me to grab a saucer so she can give me one or two slices.
“This likkle girl here, she love the plantain, yuh know,” she tells Sister Bernice. “It nah Christmas food but mi cook it on Christmas for her. I bring she back to Hanover last year for my niece’s wedding, must’ve been Kara’s second visit to Jamaicar. Nothing troubled her when she visit the first time but last year? Lawd. She had a sickness inna her belly that make she chrow up. Only thing she could keep down was plantain and she nah want Bredda’s wife plantain, she only want fi eat what mi fry.”
She’s being chatty. Nana gets that way when she cooks sometimes and when it happens, I wonder if she even knows what she’s saying or if words simply tumble out of her as she works, hands moving above all four burners, stirring and mixing, seasoning and adjusting. It would explain why she doesn’t know when to stop saying things, when she steamrolls over unspoken boundaries and the chattiness turns to shouting.
Sister Ida runs a finger along the garland swirled around the tree and then smiles as she watches me eat a slice of plantain.
“Eloise, you must have been worried sick,” she says to my mother.
She and Sister Bernice have different accents than Nana; they speak in what she calls “the Standard way.” It’s what makes Rochelle call them stush if we ever run into them at the bus stop outside the McDonald’s.
“Oh, Eloise nuh go,” says Nana, waving a hand. “She had a, what yuh say, Eloise, yuh had a test? Mi nah remember, but she said it was too important fi miss.”
I roll a tiny bit of plantain around my tongue, watching my mother’s reaction. There’s a tenseness to her face, and I expect her to end this night before fulfilling our tradition — either by telling me it’s time to go so as to not make a scene in front of company, or by allowing her anger to eclipse decorum and telling Nana all the ways she is out of line. Instead she looks from Sister Ida to Sister Bernice, smiling tight-lipped and good-mannered.
“That’s right,” she says. She’s working at keeping her tone pleasantly neutral. “I couldn’t get an extension for my final exam and if I hadn’t taken it, I would’ve failed the course, which would’ve interfered with my graduation. I wish I could’ve gone.”
Her hands are clenched fists atop her lap and her expression stays fixed in one of decided patience. It makes me uneasy. There’s a script she’s following, but she hasn’t thought to tell me what my lines are.
“Ah, no bother.” Sister Bernice opens the fridge and puts the pitcher of sorrel on the top shelf. Her church suit, pastel pink and shimmering, distracts me for a minute. It restricts her movements so she bends awkwardly, and to keep myself from smirking, I sit back down at the dining table, taking the saucer of plantain with me.
“The three of you will go again soon. You would like that, right, Kara? Do you like going to Jamaica?”
I don’t answer right away. I wish Sister Bernice hadn’t addressed me. It’s easy being silent, listening to Nana’s friends coo over how well-behaved I am and tell my mother how lucky she is to have such an obedient daughter. Let them talk about me and treat me like I’m ten instead of thirteen. Being careful with my words and measuring my tone, speaking at all, is harder.
Keeping silent would be much easier if my grandfather were here. George Davis doesn’t speak much. To us, his family, he’s surly, but to everyone else he’s just quiet, and after five minutes of trying to pull words out of him, Nana’s friends end up leaving him alone. The very few instances I’ve been around him and company at the same time, sitting next to him meant I was left alone, too. But it doesn’t look like Nana’s house is the one he’s chosen for Christmas dinner this year.
My mother turns her head slightly toward me so I can see the warning in her eyes. I have to say something soon or I’ll go from being seen as well-mannered to being seen as facety, rude, insolent, and then I’ll be in trouble for sure.
“Yes, Sister Bernice, I do like going to Jamaica,” I say finally. “Last time I was there, Nana taught me how to play cricket in the yard.”
Satisfied with my answer, my mother returns her attention to the TV as Nana turns off one of the burners, laughing deep in her belly.
“Mi teach her cricket for true.” She eyes the tree from the kitchen and then she sucks up her chortling. “Eh-eh, Ida! Look at how yuh trouble my tree.”
Nana leaves the kitchen and walks past me to the living room. When she makes it to the tree, she shifts the garland around the branches.
“Verna, it looks exactly the same as before, come now,” says Sister Ida. Her tone is patient and mildly disapproving, but it’s no use. Nana has standards that no one but her can meet or anticipate. I’ve seen it first-hand, lived with it.
When I was four, before my mother moved us to the duplex on Belgravia Avenue, we lived in the basement downstairs. In the early afternoons, long before Nana got back home, I would sneak upstairs into her bedroom and play with the porcelain figurines on her dresser. My father was around at least part-time then, and whenever he caught me putting on my productions — dramatic arguments and theatrical reunions between the milkmaids and young lads — he’d rush me out of the bedroom and tell me to stay in the hall. I’d watch him spend the next ten minutes moving the figurines to the exact same places, at the exact same angles, I’d found them in, and then he’d take me back downstairs and close the door behind us like we’d never surfaced to the top floor at all. Still, when Nana came back home, we could hear her complaining about the way I’d troubled her things. I never understood how she knew after all the work my father had put in.
Sister Ida smooths down the front of her plum church dress and sits down on the opposite side of the couch from my mother, so there’s a space in the middle for one more person to sit. I start to chop more quietly so I can hear what they’re saying.
“Tell us more about cricket, mm?” she says. “I didn’t know you knew enough about cricket to teach your granddaughter.”
Nana turns from the tree, pursing her lips the way she does when she’s struggling to hold onto her irritation but can’t hold back a smile.
“How yuh say I don’t know about cricket? I canna chrow the ball far for true, but I know how fi run,” she says, walking back to the kitchen. “I’m fast like. I was the fastest one inna the neighbourhood. No, hear me say, inna the whole parish! That is why they used fi call me ‘fiah kitty’!”
That’s not what she told me when we were in Hanover last year. Then, she told me that the kids used to call her fiah kitty because of her temper. It was how she tried to warn me against disobeying her. “Yuh saucy, young lady, but I am fiah,” she’d said. “You canna boss me, yuh hear — they used fi call me fiah kitty because my temper run hot! Yuh nuh want fi get burned!” She would never be able to hit me, though, and we both knew it. My mother had stripped my grandparents of that right, leaving herself as the only person who could discipline me in that way. But Nana could yell. And the way she quarrelled, the way s
he seemed to breathe rage, I believed the story.
“It reminds me of Eloise and how she used to run track,” says Sister Ida. She reaches across the sofa and taps my mother on the shoulder. “You remember that, Eloise?”
My mother nods and even manages a little chuckle. It startles me. I can count on one hand the number of times I remember her laughing in this house. “I’m surprised you remember, Miss Ida.”
“Oh yes. I remember the old days before we all moved here, how you used to run along Flemington Road, outrunning the boys who thought they could beat you. Fast like the wind this one.”
“Must be in the blood then,” says Sister Bernice. She’s standing right behind my chair now, her hands gripping both finials. “Do you play sports, Kara?” she asks me.
“Hmm?” It comes out lazily, quietly, but my mother hears it from the couch. She refocuses her attention on me, and my cheeks flush with panic.
“I’m sorry, Sister Bernice,” I correct myself. “I didn’t hear you.”
But Nana, beside me again at the stove, answers the question for me.
“Kara nuh like sport,” she says. “Eloise, when she was small, she used fi always want to be outside but Kara like fi stay indoors and draw or read, exercise her mind, yuh know? She take after she grandpa.”
I know it’s a compliment, probably the best kind of compliment to my grandmother. She told me once that my grandfather doesn’t have any charm or humour, he has pride and smarts, a mind that likes to learn, and that’s why she married him. Still, it feels strange to hear myself be attached to him when he’s the person I see the least.
I wonder if Sister Ida and Sister Bernice know that even though my grandparents are married, he only sleeps here when he wants to, that they each lead second lives separate from the other. That Nana’s includes church and their friendship, while Grandpa’s involves other houses he can attend holiday dinners at. That even though he sees other women, he threw a fit last Christmas when Nana’s widower neighbour, Mr. Cardoza, arrived at her house at the same time my mother and I did.
Frying Plantain Page 5