Blue Hole Back Home: A Novel (12 page)

The rope burn I gave myself that day stayed with me for at least a week—maybe two. I slid down the rope inch by inch as it—and me with it—ticked back and forth, back and forth. And not until the rope nearly stilled and my feet nearly touched the water’s surface did I finally let go.

I swam underwater nearly the entire way to shore, and when my face broke the surface, Emerson hurled my towel at me.

Welp kicked a rock out near me, into the Hole.

Jimbo, at least, was waiting to shake my hand. “You’re a brave one, Turtle.” And then he drew my head close to his mouth. I felt his breath on my ear. “My first time looked a little like that.” And then came a kiss—only a brush of a kiss on the top of my head. But it left me unsteady.

“I hereby herewith heretofore proclaim this Ladies’ Night. Dr Pepper’s on the house,” I heard Jimbo announce—from several feet away now. “That’s Steinberger’s house.”

_________

Like the fall of a theater curtain on the last act, dusk dropped onto the Blue Hole. Pink smudges still glowed from behind the circle of trees at the rim, but in our hollow of earth, darkness came early. That evening, darkness came like a friend, warm and humid and close, wrapping my chilled skin like a blanket, with little weavings of light where the fireflies were venturing out. The deep woods were damp from a hard rain the midnight before, and I could smell the chestnuts and hemlock and soil.

I found myself thinking of the book Emerson had left open at the breakfast table a couple of mornings before. I’d caught only a couple of lines of what he’d highlighted before he’d caught me reading and scooped it up in
Sports Illustrated
. But the ones I did see stuck with me: “All will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” Stuck with me, let me be clear, because it was completely and hugely ridiculous, and when I’d asked Emerson about it, he’d mumbled about its being a fourteenth-century Julian of somewhere I didn’t catch, and then he stalked off.

“
Fourteenth
?” I yelled after him. “Dang, Em, you’re just falling farther and farther backwards.”

That evening, though, at the Blue Hole, the scents of the pines rising around me, the crickets commencing their gig, the boulders beneath me as familiar and firm as old friends, it occurred to me suddenly that if—not that it really could be, but
if
—this could ever be true—
All will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well
—then, well,
here
was the place.

Emerson and Jimbo sat on either side of the new girl, all three of them watching the next swings off the rope and laughing. Bo turned to motion me over, and I came. Maybe because I was cold from my drop in the Hole and needed to feel warm skin beside me. Maybe because Sanna and Em turned and motioned me over too. Maybe because it suddenly seemed all clear to me, all good. Just as Farsanna had made us speak about our futures, somehow we would all make something fine and noble and good of ourselves. I could see that just then. The future suddenly rose up before me as clearly and strong as the hemlocks rising up from the base of the Hole. Maybe hurt couldn’t find its way to us here.

The pink smudges washing to gray, the last of our light to climb out, helped us keep time. And clearly, it was time to go.

The last I saw of Mort Beckwith that day was his struggling up the opposite bank, where other swimmers were gathering their things and beginning the trek up the path. Bobby Welpler came alongside him, for no reason I could imagine. Welp stood with his back to the water, and to us on the far side of the Hole, so I couldn’t see his face. Mort Beckwith, though, shook his head and nodded, shook his head again, and then turned and looked straight at me—I was sure it was me. Then one of the girls who’d been sunning herself on that side of the Hole slipped her arm around Mort—what little of his girth she could cover. He smirked down at her, and when she lifted her face up to him, I saw she was Neesa. The two of them turned from Welp toward the path.

I spun around for Emerson, to see if he’d seen. But he and the rest of our crew had already started the trek toward the path.

Only Sanna hung back to be sure I was coming. “You are not hurt?” she wanted to know.

“Naw. You? Shoot, you had me scared stiff.”

She held up her palms to show ropeburn.

I held up mine.

She cringed. “You please will forgive me, Shelby? It is my fault, no?”

“No,” I laughed. “Hey … um … Sanna.”

“Yes?”

“You know … you can call me Turtle.”

Single tree trunks were now only barely distinct from the mass, the deep woods. Jimbo paused at the bottom of the footpath. “Hustle up your shell there, Turtle. Hey … you two lovely ladies all right?”

Sanna only nodded at him, while I said we were fine. Even then, though, I knew he was not waiting to hear my answer, but was watching the new girl begin her climb up. Even then when Sanna nodded but did not answer him, I saw that she’d had to think about not speaking, had to concentrate on moving up away from him, hand over foot over hand up the path.

I saw Emerson watching her, saw her smile back at him. Saw her keep her distance from him, too. And I saw that in the fifteen feet between them—a distance which all day I’d taken as a positive kind of nothing—lay the early spinnings of a thread connecting them, the three of them bound together in their careful distance apart.

Me? I tried not to watch. Tried to tread water above the loneliness that broke over me in a wave.

13
Sri Lankan
Sambol
and Ice Cream

Like it or not, I was on my way the next day to Farsanna’s rectangle of house to sleep over.

I rummaged through my T-shirt drawer for some appropriate thing to sleep in at a Muslim house. Or a family whose parents’ parents had practiced Islam, at least. And from what I could see of Mr. Moulavi’s boulder of a back there through the plate glass, visible clear out to the road after dark, he must be still hanging by one hand onto something religious. Seemed to me nobody prayed with their face to the floor just to sniff out the carpet.

My cousin dropped by in the midst of my search.

“You know they don’t drink alcohol,” L. J. said, as he approached my room.

“Who?”

“Muslims.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, well, neither do you Baptists. But that’s why you always take two Baptists fishing, right? You take one, he’ll drink all your beer.”

“No, I mean Muslims
really
don’t imbibe. Not just talk about not.”

“I’m underage anyhow. Remember?”

“Nevertheless.”

“What?”

“Read me your T-shirts, Turtle.”

“Captain Jack’s Beachfront Bar,” I said. “Myrtle Beach Grand Strand Cocktail Hour, Press the Flesh Spring Fling … Fine, you made your point. I’ll take the football jersey.”

Though maybe, I thought as I packed, it didn’t matter all that much, not really. If I couldn’t cover up clear down to my wrists—and I knew I couldn’t, not in this heat—maybe there was no sense in trying not to offend. And besides, if Mr. Moulavi allowed his daughter the kind of freedoms he did, what could they expect of some tomboy American girl who’d stumbled into a friendship with her?

I watched L. J. leave the room and looked down at Big Dog, who stood next to me. “What if,” I said to the dog, “she wants to talk about … them. Either of them.” I sighed.

The Big Dog whined in female solidarity—or maybe she was begging for barbecue scraps.

“Either of whom?” It was Emerson, standing there at my door.

“You weren’t supposed to be listening.”

“I live here. Remember?”

“So that’s why the sink’s always gunked up with shaving cream?”

“So what are you gonna do if she wants to talk men?”

“That’d be fine. I just don’t want to talk about boys. Not any boys I know anyhow.”

“Think she’ll make you her confidante?” He leaned against my doorframe and crossed his arms.

He looked so sad and vulnerable just then, I wanted to hug him. But I didn’t.

“She’s not … Farsanna’s not a gabber, Em. Maybe that’s why I can put up with her. I s’pose she’ll talk if she wants to.”

“You’re not gonna ask questions?”

“Not a chance.”

“How come?”

“’Cause I don’t want to know.”

“Why?”

I zipped closed the athletic bag I used as an overnight case. Then turned and patted his cheek. “Why do you think? If she was partial to either one of you over the other, I’d have to hate her forever.”

Em patted my hand patting his cheek. “You know …”

“Know what?”

“You’re not bad, Turtle.”

“As girls go.”

“Or even in general.”

“Nicest thing you ever said to me.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Jimbo, Em, and I worked together all day mowing lawns and trimming garden beds, mostly with their usual good cheer spiked with peanuts in Coke, but now and then in a silence that was brittle and sharp as old tin. Em and Jimbo together dropped me in front of the Moulavi house. Because I’d insisted I needed the wind in my face and the Big Dog beside me—which was not true in the least—the boys shared the cab. I knew they needed to talk, and I knew I’d rather not ride with Bo just then. I wanted to punish him—though he didn’t seem to be suffering without me like somebody deprived.

Those two didn’t speak a single skinny word to each other the entire trip out to the far end of the Ridge. Emerson pulled into the Moulavis’ drive.

I readjusted the Big Dog’s collar and put my face up to the open cab window. “I wonder what’s for dinner?”

“Man cannot live on key lime alone, you know, Turtle,” Jimbo assured me. “Hard-boiled octopus’ll do you good.”

“Thanks. Y’all on your way to the Hole?”

“No,” they both said without checking to look at the other.

“No? It’s hot as blazes today—like that’s a change. I’d sure go if I didn’t have a dinner date.”

They both looked at me, and not at each other. Then both turned to watch the front door.

I tried again. “Game on tonight?”

Em shook his head. “Nope.”

They both kept their eyes on the front door.

“Well,” I said brightly, “I reckon I’ll run their dinner late if I sit here any longer.”

Scowling, Emerson crossed his arms like a barricade over his chest, like he had to hold something in. “You ladies have a nice time.”

Jimbo leaned forward, squinting at the house. “Tell her howdy.” He nodded towards the driver’s seat. “From both of us.”

“Yep.” I threw my legs over the side. “See
both
of y’all tomorrow.”

I don’t know much about what I ate that night, but I do remember fumbling for my water between each bite, and not asking to know what I was eating, or where it swam or crawled or slithered in life. The curry alone would be with me for days. There were white fleshy chunks that must have been some sort of seafood, and white rice, and chilies—and Farsanna mentioned the coconut milk.

“It’s
sambol
,” Sanna told me. “Like this is the way you must eat it.” She scooped it up with her right hand and pushed it into her mouth with her thumb.

I braced myself for another bite but stalled, thinking up what Momma would have said, and then making myself say it: “Your mother must be considered a marvelous cook in Sri Lanka.”

Farsanna nodded and watched me.

“My father works often late,” Farsanna offered, a few moments into our meal. “Tonight also he will not join us for dinner.”

“His job worked out then? That’s good news.”

“Not,” she said slowly, “the job for here we moved.” She shook her head. “Not the job for which we moved here.”

“Say it too right and you’ll sound all wrong, like L. J. Just the
job we moved here for
. So this isn’t the same one?”

“The one that was promised,” she looked across the table at me, and I had the sensation of her punching the words, “seems no more to exist.”

“Not to exist?”

“Not to exist. For
him
.” She raised her eyes, and I had to fight the instinct to duck.

“Oh. That’s not such good news.” I waited.

She stabbed at her rice.

“So then,” I asked, wondering if I shouldn’t, wondering what Momma would say, “where’s he working?”

She found things to stare at in her rice. “At the paper mill is where for my father there is work.”

“Way over in Clive? That must be thirty miles away!”

“Yes,” she said. “It is. And he comes to here with a degree from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. My father is a smart man.”

I sat, rearranging the
sambol
to appear substantially nibbled. Mrs. Moulavi limped back through the kitchen door to refill our water glasses and our rice. Rising, Farsanna caught her mother’s arm. “
Mata
, you must not need to serve us. Sit. Rest your legs.”

But Mrs. Moulavi shook her head. Her head was slip covered, as usual, but if that was supposed to hide her good looks, it didn’t much help: seemed to me it put a frame on the face and lifted it off the dark of the wall behind her. One hand on the table and helping her balance, she straightened a little. “I am not tired.” She kissed her daughter on the top of the head and stroked her daughter’s hair. My breath snagged on my throat as I wondered if she could feel a knot or gash where Farsanna had been wounded on Seventh.

Sanna adjusted her mother’s hijab. “You are never saying you are tired. But sometimes I know you are tired.”

Mrs. Moulavi turned to leave. “I am worried only,” she whispered.

“Doesn’t your mother,” I suggested when the folds of gauzy fabric retreated, “want to come sit down and eat with us?”

“She will wait for the return of my father from work. Then eat in the kitchen.”

I was at a big, empty loss for anything gracious to say that would make that information seem normal. “Yeah?” was the best I could manage.

“My mother prefers for herself the old ways of our—of Sri Lanka.”

And then, as if she’d been listening, Mrs. Moulavi appeared in the doorway.

“Well,” I said when it was clear she had no plans to speak, “thank you for the delicious dinner.”

Chips of charcoal looked out of her face. They were like Farsanna’s, those eyes, at least in color and shape—but the mother’s looked like they might already have burned out, couldn’t any longer catch fire.

“How do you like your new home?” I asked, trying the tone Momma would’ve used at that point.

Mrs. Moulavi’s eyes, whatever she could see from them, lay on her daughter. “Our home is Sri Lanka.”

“Oh.” I shifted in my seat and had to unpeel my hot, sweat-damp skin from the metal folding chair. “How do you like it
here
?”

She rotated her gaze to me, and then to my legs sprouting out from the frayed blue-jean growth of my cutoff shorts. Perhaps she could see at least that much.

“American women …” she said vindictively almost, her accent thicker, murkier than her daughter’s.

“
Mata
!” Sanna put in, a warning, effectively truncating at least that one sentence.

There was no tablecloth to cover my legs, skinny and bare, and they stuck out from me, obscene.

“At the store,” Sanna’s mother continued, “spices I do not find.”

I pictured the Piggly Wiggly shelves. Were there not plenty of spices? Cinnamon, allspice, cloves. Lots of brown sugar.

Farsanna rose from the table with an upheld palm for me to remain seated—a sign that reminded me of the map she made with her hands. She and her mother gathered dishes in a single sweep and disappeared into the kitchen.

Their voices collided, hard-edged syllables gathering speed, driven at each other head-on, and crashing.

When Farsanna appeared at the door, she wasn’t smiling, wasn’t pretending anything other than that I’d heard every word. That I’d understood not one word didn’t matter, and she knew it. I’d understood plenty: that Sanna and her mother had been arguing over me—and what I represented.

She swiped at one of her own bare thighs below her khaki shorts, like she was dusting off dirt I couldn’t see. “You would perhaps like to walk?”

For a second, I thought she was asking me to leave. And then I saw her reach for a fistful of coins left on a rickety stack of veneered shelves, and realized she meant we
both
might need a walk.

“Where to?”

“You did not like your dinner.”

“I—”

“Possibly you’d like ice cream?”

It hit me suddenly she’d been using contractions here and there. “But,” I tried pointing out, “there’s no car—”

“The Dairy Queen’s down the road, not very much far.”

I pictured the thin-shouldered highway outside her house, imagined the day’s heat, stored and heaved back at us from the asphalt. But I considered also this hot cave of a house, and Sanna’s mother so full of worry and sharp-sided regret. I felt for change in my pocket, and nodded. “Okay.”

Stepping out the back door, she patted her thigh and the Stray appeared at her side. She scratched him behind one ear, and I did the other as we attached a makeshift leash to him and set off.

_________

Dusk had dropped gray sheers over Stonewall Jackson Pike and fireflies pin-pricked the gray. The occasional eighteen-wheeler thundered by us as we walked on the road’s shoulder, but other than that the highway was not heavily traveled that night.

Sanna glanced at me as we walked. “You will please forgive that. My mother,” she began.

“Please.” I held up my hand. “I understand how mothers can be.”

“My mother is sad for leaving Sri Lanka. She did not intend meanness.”

“I reckon most of them don’t—mothers, I mean. Most of the time. And
still
!”

“Still,” she agreed.

And we smiled at each other.

“My mother,” she said, “didn’t like to come to America.”

“It was your dad’s idea, huh?”

“
Only
my father’s. For many, many years, my father’s.”

“Your mom’s objection was what, mainly? All the skin we show here?” I lifted one bare leg—bony, but at least freshly shaved—for demonstration.