Return of the Butterfly

by Sharon Heath

  Actually, she was right. I was exhausted. When Stanley stumbled out of his bedroom, bleary-eyed but insisting he was fine to take over, I took her advice. I went home and slipped under the covers, nestling my shoulders against my favorite down pillow and muzzily pondering aging.

  I heard the front door slam and the high-pitched voices of Melesse and Sofiya gaining in volume as they ascended the stairs. Sofiya was speaking in a combination of Amharic and English to her sister. I caught “mustn’t mention to Enat” and “if he does that again, just tell me,” phrases guaranteed to set off alarm bells, but my fatigue was too great. Promising myself to investigate later, I let myself slip off the cliff of consciousness into sleep.

  But when I woke the next morning, I recalled nothing but Mother’s craziness in wanting to dye her hair blue. It bothered me so much that it became the first item of conversation when Sammie arrived.

  I greeted her with a fierce hug, murmuring, “Thank God! I missed you terribly.” My best friend—or Belly Sister, as we liked to call each other—had been in England for the past three months on a sabbatical. We had no end of topics to catch up on.

  As we plopped onto the queen’s settee, I couldn’t help but tease her about the British accent she resumed whenever she traveled back home, along with her automatic response of “That’s brilliant!” to any good news I had to offer. But her reaction to my recap of my last conversation with Mother was nothing if not gratifying.

  “You’re joking, right?” Her thick, butterfly brows lifted in appropriate astonishment, and she pursed her lips disapprovingly. “You’ve got to admit it, Fleur Beurre, we don’t exactly have the most conventional of mums.”

  “Well, to be fair, yes and no.” Sammie’s mother had settled comfortably into her long-term relationship with Arturo Denardi, but when she’d first started seeing her considerably younger yoga teacher, Mother had called her a cougar. Which was a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black. Nonetheless, both women had been accomplished in their fields, Aadita even contributing to C-Voids and P.D. with her insights into quantum mathematics and her knowledge of Indra’s Web, and Mother nearly single-handedly overhauling the priorities of the $155 million budget of the LA Public Library system. Neither woman had been interested in retiring, though the somewhat older Aadita had reduced her teaching load at Caltech to part-time and Mother had traded her role as city librarian for a seat on the library department’s board of commissioners.

  “I can just see her, sitting down at one of her board meetings looking like an aging Avril Lavigne,” I muttered.

  Sammie added wryly, “Especially when the rest of them probably have tight perms and pale blue rinses that are about as far away from punk blue as possible. Your mum’s already more gorgeous and stylish than any of those old girls, but there’s no question, it’d be, well, off. I saw a couple of older shopkeepers in Notting Hill sporting a bright turquoise streak or two, but that’s London.”

  We both said, in unison, “Definitely not Pasadena!” and laughed. Sammie murmured under her breath, “The Judds,” and we giggled again.

  “Speaking of London, how was it?” Sammie had spent most of her sabbatical pursuing a solo walking tour of the Lake District, bookended by a week on each side in her beloved London. I would never have mentioned it, but it had felt like a major deprivation not being able to bend her ear with every detail of my final trimester of pregnancy.

  She seemed to hesitate, then replied brightly, “Perfect, if you don’t count the fact that they’re all still grieving over Brexit. But first things first.” She gestured toward my bun. “How are you doing? I feel awful that I didn’t call to check in, but ... well, anyway, isn’t she supposed to be out of that belly and keeping you up nights by now?”

  “Well, she’s keeping me up nights, but that’s only because she’s sitting directly on my bladder. The doc says to give her time. He doesn’t like inducing until a woman goes two weeks after her due date, and I’ve got a week and half before then.” I gave a sigh big enough for Sammie to scoot over on the sofa and put her arm around me.

  She tilted my face toward her and said, in dead seriousness, “Want a Smartie?”

  I screeched, “Where are they?”

  She got up and fetched her somewhat battered leather bag and dug into it, retrieving two hexagonal tubes with M&M-looking candies pictured on the package. It was a given between us that Smarties were far superior to their American lookalikes, being somewhat bigger and having thicker, crunchier, and more vibrantly-colored shells. Orange Smarties were filled with famously orange-flavored chocolate, and we each sagaciously saved ours for last.

  But they didn’t stop us from yakking away, our teeth smeared with chocolate; we were both known for being “high verbal,” and we proceeded to re-earn our reputations.

  When Sammie asked about the girls, I clapped my hand to my forehead. “Oh shit. I heard Sofiya insisting that Melesse should tell her if he ever did that to her again.”

  “He who?”

  “That’s just it. I have no idea. I was falling asleep when she said it.”

  Sammie frowned. “Sounds ominous.”

  “Right? Do you think I should just ask her myself? Or tell Makeda and let her handle it?”

  “Mmm. Well, she is the mum.”

  “I guess. If it were Callay—whatever it was, I’d want to know.” I felt myself edging toward the void and stifled the urge to pinch.

  Sammie knew me. “What is it?”

  “I don’t want anything awful happening to my girl. Ever.” Shuddering, I pushed myself up, muttering, “Gotta pee.”

  When I returned, easing myself down onto the sofa, I said, apropos of nothing, “There’s actually a story behind Mother’s craziness with the blue hair. She’s been a little wacko ever since she got her concussion.”

  “Concussion? What the fuck! I go away for three months and all hell breaks loose?”

  “That’s not even the half of it.” I explained about Cesar, describing the scene with him and Fidel with as much flourish as possible, only half-aware that I was laying it on thickly to get maximum sympathy.

  But Sammie merely sat quietly, and I assumed she needed a moment to let it all in.

  “Listen,” she said, staring so hard just behind my left ear that I actually turned to see what she was looking at. “Something unusual happened to me, too, while I was away.”

  My heart fell. “Oh, honey, what is it?”

  She flushed. “I met someone.”

  “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  She looked up and, with a little flick of her beautiful black locks, said, “Very good. Well, I hope so. I think so.” She gave me a searching look and added, “Her name’s Amira.”

  It took me a minute to realize that my sense of my friend was about to undergo a paradigm shift. I felt suddenly mortified that I’d been making fun of Cesar, who must surely dance somewhere in the alphabetical direction of LGBTQ. What must she think of me?

  What did I think of myself?

  “Right,” I sighed. “Don’t bother about what I said just now about Cesar and Fidel. Put it down to me just being an asshole. Let’s try this again. Tell. I want every juicy detail.”

  Favoring me with a reassured smile, she lay back onto the sofa with her head against its overstuffed arm. “Okay, Frau Jung. And can I tell you how much I love you? I felt the same as you when Amira and I were introduced at a party for a journalist just back from Iraq. Totally shocked. I mean, my heart started beating like a maniac the second I looked into those amazing green eyes.”

  I cackled. “I know all about green eyes! But wait, who is she? What’s she like? Did you get much time together?”

  “She actually took a fake sick leave from her job and came with me to the Lake District.” Sammie’s eyes came over all moony. “We were like a couple of gypsies, with just a couple of sleeping bags and some minimal cooking gear.” She laughed. “A hell of a far cry from how we met. She’s a BBC TV commentator. But don’t
get me wrong. They didn’t choose her for her looks. She’s drop-dead-insanely-gorgeous, but she’s as smart as you, Fleur, in a history and current affairs sort of way. Knows way more than I do about the Middle East, the history of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, you name it. And she’s witty. You and I are funny in a corny sort of way, but she’s got that ‘take the piss’ British humor that I remember from my school days, except when I was a kid it was typically aimed at me.” She blanched. “Oh, God, poor Melesse. It could be bullying—or it might even be something creepily sexual. You really are going to have to tell Makeda right away. I couldn’t bear the thought of that little angel being tormented.”

  I frowned guiltily. “God. You’re absolutely right, Sam, and I will. But come on. I’m dying to hear about this.”

  “Okay, but I guess I really am a little nervous telling you.”

  “Sammie, you could have grown a couple of horns and murdered someone and I’d still love you.”

  “Reminds me of that awful Trump comment that he could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose voters.”

  “Don’t even go there.”

  She laughed, putting a hand on my arm. “Just kidding.” She took a deep breath. “You really are my dearest, darlingest friend. Anyway, you know me. I’ve never been attracted to girls—at least I never had been—and, honestly, I haven’t been attracted to anyone since Jacob.”

  “I can believe that. That asshole could turn anyone off men forever.” And then I blushed. “I didn’t mean to suggest that was why you—I mean ... God, that sounded totally disrespectful. Honestly, I have no idea what I mean.”

  “I get it. I’ve been trying to figure it out, too. But I don’t think it’s anything to do with him. I think it’s all about her. I can’t really say I’m a lesbian.” She laughed. “Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it? Like I’m ashamed. Which I’m not. But I’d never even noticed women before in that way. But Amira? Oh, Fleur, I think I’m in love and we live worlds apart and she’s got the kind of job people die for and she’s there and I’m here and I know I’m getting way ahead of myself. But what am I going to do?”

  “Oh, sweetie. You’re reminding me of how it was when Adam left for his post-doc in Boston. And we weren’t even lovers then. It took me going all the way to Ethiopia for him to fly out there and finally tell me he wanted to sleep with me.” I paused.

  “What is it?”

  “Was it different? I mean, of course it was, but well, experientially?”

  She blushed, and I have to tell you that Sammie blushing is not an everyday event.

  “Girlfriend, some lines just need to be drawn, but I will tell you this. I never, ever thought I’d want to have anything to do with anyone else’s VaJewJew but my own.” We giggled. We’d shared a great admiration for Amy Winehouse’s music and had laughed ourselves silly when we first heard the name she’d dubbed her tweeter. Of course, the word tweeter was a whole other story. I’d used it so long I couldn’t recall if it had been passed along by one of the Vestal Virgins of my early life—Sister Flatulencia, Cook, Fayga—or whether it had come to me onomatopoeically when I had my first teenaged mini-explosions to fantasies of Hector Hernandez’s bulging member. Which were, by the way, ever so much nicer than the real-life version pushing itself into my unprepared tweeter.

  But Sammie was saying quickly, as if to glide past her embarrassment, “If anything, it always struck me as kind of gross to think about it. But I’m here to testify that when you’re in love with someone ... well, Hope Sandoval really knew what she was singing about.”

  “Mazzy Star? Fade into You?”

  She nodded knowingly.

  “God, I haven’t thought about that one for, what, fifteen years?”

  “Probably.”

  I lumbered over to my cell phone. “I think I have it.”

  As Hope Sandoval sang in that whispery voice of hers, Sammie asked, “Have you ever...?”

  I couldn’t believe there was something Sammie and I hadn’t talked about, but life was obviously more full of surprises than I’d ever imagined. “Been attracted to a woman? No, not really. I mean, I think Lemlem is the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, but I don’t think I’d want to be with her. More like be her.”

  “Be her? Why would you want to be her?”

  I gestured down to my gargantuan belly.

  “But you’re absolutely radiant, Fleur!”

  “Not that kind of radiant.”

  She hesitated, and then asked, “It’s not about Assefa is it?”

  I waved a hand. “Oh, don’t be silly. Of course not.”

  Chapter Five

  IT WAS A fine day to have a party. Wonder of wonders, it had actually rained a bit the night before, and the scent of poet’s jasmine was everywhere. Most of Sofiya’s classmates from her school’s “Beaver Group” of four to five-year-olds had already arrived and were already wearing paper hats and tooting mercilessly on their party horns. Mother was here, of course, as were Dhani and her family, as well as my physics team, including Bob. Bob had actually brought a date, an appealingly curvy and incessantly talkative county health inspector he’d met on an anti-Monsanto march. I learned only later that Saffron Melamud was one of the survivors of the terror attack in San Diego, and I marveled at the resilience of the human spirit that this young woman seemed so ebullient, so carefree.

  Dhani was in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. Adam and Abeba had just finished hanging across the back of the house a beautiful banner painted by Sammie that bore in exuberant Day-Glo pink the words “Happy Birthday!” and in squiggly Amharic, “Melkam Lidet!” Ignacio and No-Longer-a-Baby Angelina were busy blowing up the last of the pink and purple balloons. With a bunch of fat ones tied together on the Lutyens bench next to her and a rather anemic, smaller cluster at her father’s side, Angelina was good-naturedly teasing Ignacio that his beer belly was restricting his air supply. I loved watching the sweetness between them, such a far cry from anything I’d ever experienced with my own father. Angelina would turn seventeen soon and had all the confidence of a daddy’s girl.

  Cesar, needless to say, was not here. We hadn’t seen him since the day of the incident, and both Mother and Abeba were worried sick about him. Mother hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask Fidel where he thought Cesar might be, but pregnancy had made me brave and I’d marched up to his front door a few days ago, prepared to be confrontational. But Fidel was meek and redder than ever and confessed that he, too, was concerned about where Cesar might have gone.

  Truth be told, I got far more than I’d bargained for in my encounter with Fidel. As I was about to turn away from his door, my ex-neighbor had invited me in for an Arroz con Leche, which I could hardly refuse, since rice pudding (cooked Indian style by Dhani) had cinched my reunion with Sammie after our terrible rift when she was twelve and I thirteen. Me being me, I ended up spilling out the story of our rapprochement to Fidel in his cozy, black-and-white, checker-tiled kitchen, trying not to stare at the feminine cleavage making little gaps between the buttons of a burgundy shirt that clashed rather dreadfully with his ever-inflamed skin. When I got to the part of the story where Sammie and I had sought refuge on her front porch from a sudden downpour, she snorting rice pudding out of her nose and me giggling so hard that I’d peed myself, Fidel had thrown his head back in a laughter so broad I could see that each of his molars bore a silver filling. I wondered whether our country had crippled the state of Cuban dentistry with our embargo. And whether the feminization of this Fidel had turned him from a murderer into a more genial sort of man.

  As if to confirm the latter, Fidel had contributed to the conversation the information that rice pudding had a place at most of the world’s tables, its cultural variations including:

  1. A Lebanese dessert called Moghli, seasoned with anise, caraway, and ginger.

  2. Slátur, an Icelandic rice porridge served as a main dish that included cold liver sausage.

  3. The Danish Christmas version, Risengrød,
covered in dark fruit juice.

  4. Sutlijash, a Macedonian variant, perked up with black poppy seeds.

  It occurred to me that for someone so well versed in such a variety of international cuisines, Fidel had behaved like the worst of bigots toward the Kangs, but I knew I’d get nowhere if I let my mind travel down that particular dark alley. Instead, I exclaimed, “How did you know all this?”

  To which Fidel had responded, “Started my cheffing days at an upscale diner in West Texas, didn’t I? My boss studied at the Cordon Bleu.” (Except that Fidel pronounced it as “Cordonay Bloo-ay” in a combination of southern twang and Spanish lilt, causing me to surreptitiously pinch the flab beneath my armpit to keep from tittering.)

  But any hint of hilarity fled the scene as soon as Fidel demonstrated his need to clarify how he and Cesar had met. It had evidently been on the evening of Gwen’s last birthday bash, which filled me with melancholy; she’d seemed as healthy as a horse back then. “He was admiring my garden, and well, you know how things go.” (I didn’t). “We saw we had a lot in common. He speaks Spanish. Plays the guitar. Likes the same music. And dancing.” He flushed even more. “Oh, yeah. I guess you know that.”

  He seemed pressed to convince me that he hadn’t had anything to do with Cesar’s cross-dressing, the conversation becoming far more graphic than I might have anticipated. “He’s no trannie, you know, and I wouldn’t be either, probably, if my sum bitch of a father hadn’t yanked my pinga ever since I was a baby and then that worse sum bitch of an uncle hadn’t asked me every night of my life after Papi died how much I’d liked it. It got to the point where I couldn’t think of anything but pulling my pene and I couldn’t have been happier to get rid of the damned thing when Medicare decided to cover the procedure. I can’t tell you what a relief it’s been.”

  By that time my face was undoubtedly redder than Fidel’s, but he kept talking as if he were Mother’s old Chatty Cathy doll, whose string had been pulled one too many times and kept repeating “Let’s play house”—whatever that meant. While he droned on, I was captive to an unwelcome set of imaginings of young Fidel’s nightmarish world, wondering what excuse for a father would do that to his son and what kind of monster of an uncle would have taken pleasure in grinding in the torture.