When Life Gives You Mangos

by Kereen Getten

  In the distance, beyond the cars and minibuses, taxi drivers shout their destinations, competing for customers. Beyond them, sea air wafts over the seawall. It mixes with the heat and the bodies, the car exhaust and the smell of fish. My white T-shirt and blue overalls cling to my body.

  I run to catch up with Mama as she navigates the traffic circle with cars speeding around the corner. We pass the courthouse, only to cross over again to the market. I try to blow air on my skin, but my breath is as warm as the heat and makes no difference.

  I wipe the sweat off my skin. Mama turns as we approach the market. “If you don’t see your father—”

  “—don’t go in the water.” I groan, “Mama, I won’t.”

  “I’ll come and get you when I’m done,” she says, planting a kiss on my forehead before disappearing into a crowd of people. I wipe her kiss away, afraid someone from school might have seen, then take the small gap between the wall that separates the market from the beach and walk down a narrow path. The path stops right on the sand, and that’s where I stop too. My breath catches in my throat as I look out at the sea. Waves crash onto the white sand and I step back, as though they will reach me from here. I grip the board as my breathing gets quicker.

  Calvin and Anton share the water with four or five out-of-town surfers. Tourists who travel around the world to surf. Occasionally there is a whoop as they catch a good wave. Anton’s older brother, Junior, sits on the hot sand talking to a girl, his teeth perfectly white and his Afro fade newly cut. Occasionally he glances at the sea to check on Calvin and Anton. I’m surprised he gave up his time to watch them. Usually Junior is too busy with girls for his brother. But I guess things have changed.

  I search the beach for Papa and spot him in the distance cleaning his boat. I shuffle along the sand until my back is against the wall, and that’s where I stay until Calvin finds me. He must have spotted me when he came back in from riding the waves, even though I tried to stay hidden. He beckons me over. When I don’t move, he drops his board in the sand and walks over.

  “You’re here,” he says, looking down at me, water dripping from the curls in his hair. He observes me for a second, then sits next to me. I feel so stupid that I came down here thinking everything would be okay. Now Calvin will know how scared I am. He will tell Gaynah, and she will use it against me like she does everything else.

  “Pick leaf tomorrow,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees. He grins at me. “You ready to lose?”

  I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Not this year. We have a plan that is going to annihilate you all.”

  He laughs, “Big word. Let’s see if you remember it tomorrow when you lose.”

  THE GAME PICK LEAF HAS THREE rules.

  You can only pick a leaf from the tree named by the appointed leader.

  The leaf must come from the tree itself and not the ground.

  Never, ever, steal the leaf from your opponent. That is an automatic disqualification for your entire team.

  The leader, usually Calvin or one of his friends, chooses the name of the tree. The first one to pick a leaf from that tree and bring it back to the starting point is the winner of that round.

  The game always starts from my front yard. Maybe because our house is at a point higher than the others, making the race back to the finish more exciting. We push and shove our competition out of the way, even going as far as to step over them if it gets us ahead.

  Or maybe it’s because our house is surrounded by the most trees: A guinep tree hanging over Uncle Albert’s house below. At the back of the house a mango tree, and a banana grove down a steep embankment.

  Eldorath is the only other person with a garden filled with trees. He is the only one around here who lives in a big house too. But it’s too far up on the hill for any of us. It used to be a plantation house, when the British owned our island. Eldorath is family, but you would never know it. He doesn’t come to our house every night like the rest of the village. He doesn’t come around at Christmas or birthdays. In fact, we hardly ever see Eldorath. Not anymore. Not since the town turned against him.

  He doesn’t have the most popular tree, though. He doesn’t have a guava tree.

  If the call is for a guava leaf, you have to trek down the hill, along the dirt road past Pastor Brown’s house. Then left, down a steep embankment to where Ms. Gee lives, behind a forest of trees.

  Ms. Gee is blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other. Mama says she might be the most miserable person she knows.

  There is a joke around the hill that if you need a knife, you can ask Ms. Gee, because her tongue can cut anything. Ms. Gee doesn’t leave her house unless it’s life-or-death. All she does is sit on her veranda in her rocking chair screaming some poor kid’s name to help her with her chores. She doesn’t pick on anyone in particular; we’ve all had our turn cleaning Ms. Gee’s yard or washing her clothes.

  But she has the one thing we all want: the guava tree. The one tree that sends us all into a panic. No one wants to enter Ms. Gee’s yard for the guava leaf. There is one other guava tree in the village. It’s a ten-minute trek down the hill, outside the school. Most of the kids will go for that tree, but not me and Gaynah. We know that Ms. Gee’s tree is worth the risk, if we do it properly. Going into Ms. Gee’s yard means extra points for sheer bravery. But also, her house is closer. If we can creep into Ms. Gee’s yard without her knowing, we can be back with a leaf before the other kids have even reached the school. An easy win for us.

  Amber Wilson, the taller of the twins, and the bossier of the two, picks the teams today. She splits us into groups, she and her sister in one, Anton and Calvin in the other, which leaves me with Gaynah. Amber gives me a “sorry, not sorry” shrug. Calvin offers me the look of pity that I see in everyone’s eyes these days.

  “Want me to be on your team?” he asks. Anton isn’t happy with this and pulls Calvin back.

  “No,” I say, folding my arms firmly against my chest. I can hear Gaynah huffing to my left. She turns her head away, nose in the air, as though she doesn’t care that Calvin invited himself onto my team. But she cares.

  I don’t want Calvin on my team anyway. He is my main competition, and I already told him I was going to beat him.

  It was always meant to be me and Gaynah against them. It’s one of the few times Gaynah has agreed with me that we can’t let the other teams win. But we haven’t spoken since yesterday. I’m still mad at her for calling me a baby, and she’s obviously mad too, because her lips are pursed tightly together and she refuses to even look at me.

  When it comes time to find out the tree we are picking from, of course Amber chooses the guava tree. It’s the one that causes the most chaos, and the one she and her sister are most certain they will win.

  Gaynah and I may not be friends, but she needs me to help her get the leaf. A win for her means status among the other groups, and status means the attention of Calvin Brown.

  I don’t care for any of their friendships. All I want is to prove that Gaynah can’t do any of this without me. She needs me.

  We follow the others down the hill. Each group splits in different directions with excited squeals. Gaynah stands in the middle of the road, the only road that leads up and down this hill. She watches the others leave in the forlorn way you see dogs do when their owner leaves them. I find a rock and sit down. I’m not kissing her feet. If she wants to play, she’s going to have to speak to me.

  I find a stick and draw in the dirt because, let’s be honest, I can stay silent for hours. Days, even. Gaynah, on the other hand—

  “Fine,” she huffs, “come on.” She marches off shouting her plan, which isn’t her plan at all; it’s ours. We spent hours planning our attack.

  “You distract Ms. Gee, and I’ll run to the tree and pick the leaf.”

  That is not the plan.

 
“Why don’t you distract Ms. Gee?” I say, thinking I’ve had my fair share of that miserable old woman.

  “Because you won’t remember the plan,” she retorts. “We’ll get caught.”

  I don’t know what she means. I don’t forget things now; I forget things that happened before. I remember she was mean to me yesterday. It’s Gaynah who messes things up. She’s clumsy, she’s not fast, and she’s terrible at jumping. But I think this has nothing to do with the game. I think Gaynah is just trying to hurt me by reminding me I have problems with my brain.

  “I get caught because you always make me go,” I reply angrily.

  “How would you know? You don’t remember.”

  “I remember everything that happened yesterday and last week and last month.”

  She faces me head-on, hands on hips. “Do you really not remember what happened last summer, Clara, or are you pretending for attention?”

  Tears brim in my eyes and I’m so mad at myself for crying. My lips twitch. “Why would I make that up?”

  She waves me away in the same superior manner her mother does. I hate it when she does that. I want to tell her not to talk to me that way. But instead I am forced to catch my breath as pictures of the sea flash through my mind. My legs become unsteady and I look for something to hold on to, but there is nothing.

  Without looking back, Gaynah marches off, her walking swiftly turning into a run as she tries to beat me to the house.

  She only has a few seconds on me, so despite my shortness of breath, I chase her at full speed, ignoring the sharp stones digging into my feet. I charge up the embankment, where the soft grass cushions my soles.

  As I gain on her, she pushes faster. Her thighs bouncing off each other, her long hair blowing wildly.

  Out of the two of us, I am the faster runner. I came in second in the class race and fifth in the entire school. Gaynah didn’t place in either of them.

  Ahead, the embankment comes to a sudden end and rejoins the dirt track. If I run fast enough, I can jump ahead of her and win. We are neck and neck; I can hear her heaving for breath and I know she is struggling. Without breaking a sweat, I dig my head into my chest and power past her with ease.

  Clara: 1.

  Gaynah: 0.

  By the time she reaches me, I am already leaning against the coconut tree, arms folded, legs crossed. Usually we would fall on the ground laughing, but this time a slight smirk plants on my face.

  She slows down to a casual walk before reaching me, her head stuck in the air, her heavy breathing giving her away.

  Without a word, she strides past me and up the dugout path to Ms. Gee’s house. I follow, but the victory turns sour in my mouth because I miss my best friend.

  MS. GEE’S WOODEN HOUSE BALANCES ON four stilts. It looms before us like a beast daring us to trespass. Its red zinc roof and red steps that lead up to the veranda are the only spots of color on the otherwise gloomy house. It’s unlike most of the other houses around here because she refused to replace it with brick to make it safer. Storms are a regular occurrence on the island, one of the drawbacks of living somewhere tropical. I have been through two storms and one hurricane. Each time it comes, Sycamore feels it. Our houses get damaged, Papa’s boat needs fixing for the hundredth time, trees fall, the roads flood, and if you’re lucky, school is out. Mama says Ms. Gee just doesn’t like being told what to do, even if you’re trying to help her.

  Gaynah lowers herself behind the tall grass. I creep up behind her. We peer through the grass stems, toward the veranda. The rocking chair creaks with every move.

  The back of Ms. Gee’s unmistakable gray bun is the only thing we can see of her. Gaynah gives me the thumbs-up.

  I swallow hard and straighten my frame from the cramped position I’m folded into. Forcing one foot in front of the other, my eyes fixed on the back of Ms. Gee’s head, I step into the yard. That’s when I see her. The new girl. She is sitting on the veranda wall, reading a book and wearing an oversized multicolored top over jean shorts, her curly black hair pulled high into two buns finished off with two giant white bows. Just like Gaynah said. Our eyes meet and I stop short.

  She is a rainbow of colors exploding into Ms. Gee’s gloomy house. She stares at me and I stare at her and neither of us moves. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gaynah creeping on all fours toward the tree. She freezes too when she sees the girl. A look of horror explodes over Gaynah’s face. She has been caught creeping into Ms. Gee’s yard, and Gaynah doesn’t like being in trouble. Neither do I, but I won’t get punished the way she will. Her mother won’t let her see daylight for at least a week.

  The girl’s eyes screw up tight, and her jaw moves from side to side. Gaynah and I sneak a look at the tree. I know she is thinking what I’m thinking: Should we just run for it? Time is ticking, and Calvin and his group are surely on their way back now.

  As if she senses an intruder, Ms. Gee’s head twitches to the side, and she leans forward.

  Nobody moves. Not even the girl.

  The rocking comes to a screeching halt, and Ms. Gee lurches forward. Her nose jerks upward, and she sniffs the air like an animal trying to catch the scent of its prey.

  Without warning, as if spooked by something, Gaynah jumps to her feet and runs across the yard toward the guava tree, kicking stones into the air as she goes. Quickly, to mask the noise, I purposely walk into the pan that collects rainwater for when the water gets cut off, which happens at least once a month.

  The sound of my feet in the water pan is hollow, but it is enough to have Ms. Gee jumping out of her chair. She grabs her stick and scurries to the railing

  “Who’s there?”

  Gaynah freezes inches away from the tree.

  “Who’s there? Are you trying to trick a blind woman? Wait until I tell your parents.”

  That is a threat I know Gaynah does not take lightly. I see her legs shake at the mere mention of her parents. The snotty girl disappears and is replaced by the girl I know so well. The girl scared of never being good enough for her mother.

  “It’s me, Ms. Gee.” I run around the veranda to the front and stand at the bottom of the steps. Ms. Gee’s frown deepens. She cocks her head to the side.

  “Clara?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She leans over the veranda railing and tilts her head again, then straightens and looks directly at me.

  “Anybody else in my tree?”

  I shrug while motioning to Gaynah to do it now.

  “Clara? Child, are you deaf?”

  “It’s only me, Ms. Gee,” I say.

  She shuffles along the railing. Using her stick, she hurries down the wooden steps until she reaches the yard. I want to scream Abort! Abort! but Gaynah is too focused on the leaf to pay me any attention.

  Gaynah makes a final lunge at the branch and catches the edge of a leaf. She curls her fingers around the stem and yanks at it. The leaf slips through her fingers, and it splits, so all that’s left in her hand is just a small piece of guava leaf, but for her it is enough. She turns on her heels and disappears down the gully.

  I watch her go, wondering if she will hand the leaf in, then come back to share the blame.

  But I have a sinking feeling she won’t be back. Before, when we got caught, we got caught together. She would not leave my side, and I would not leave hers.

  “Clara?”

  I turn to Ms. Gee, who is glaring above my head with such intense rage, I think she might self-combust.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Get in the house now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  These days, I face Ms. Gee alone.

  THE SUN SINKS INTO THE HORIZON, welcoming another cool evening breeze. The night air fills with loud music and laughter from our house.

  It feels so lonely down here in Ms. Gee’s house,
wrapped in the quiet but still able to hear people in the distance.

  As I finish ironing the last of her clothes and begin to fold them, the new girl bursts into Ms. Gee’s bedroom like a firework. “Hi, I’m Rudy. What’s your name?” She has a strong New York accent. Her face is round like a dough ball and her skin is a dark reddish brown like the sun as it sets in the nighttime. She plonks herself onto the bed with a smile as wide as the room.

  “Clara,” I say as steady as possible. My heart is beating fast and I don’t know why. I feel her eyes on me and wait for the questions—what were we doing in Ms. Gee’s yard, what kind of person sneaks onto someone’s land just to get a leaf. I can imagine how bad it must have looked.

  I turn my back on her to place Ms. Gee’s flowery skirts in the second drawer from the bottom.

  “So, what were you doing?”

  I place the skirts neatly in the drawer. “When?” I don’t look at her because for some reason I feel guilty, and Ms. Gee must be close to her, so maybe she’s mad at me.

  “Before, when you were creeping around the house.”

  I swallow hard. She’s only been here one day. She knows nothing about us or our game. I press the skirts down so they fit in the drawer while counting under my breath.

  I can’t afford to lose my temper in Ms. Gee’s house. If she hears me, she’ll find something else for me to do, and I could be here all night.

  “I wasn’t creeping,” I say as calmly as I can.

  The girl spread-eagles on Ms. Gee’s bed, staring up at the zinc roof. “My mother says if you’re creeping, you’re not doing anything good.”

  This girl has lost her mind. I mean, who does she think she is! I don’t even know her, and she thinks she knows me.