The New Moon's Arms (17 page)

I screwed up my face. “No.”

“Daddy only did that to me once. He never had to do it again. To this day, I can’t stand the smell of Pears soap.”

“So you got your mouth washed out with soap. My mother
died
, Evelyn. Ran away from me and Dadda and got her damned self drowned. You made my life in school hell for five
years
because your parents wouldn’t buy you a toy car?”

“When you wouldn’t help me look for my necklace, I thought you’d stopped liking me.”

“Not then, no. But you sure made certain I hated you after-

wards.”

“I’m sorry.” She was sobbing outright now.

“Oh, stop it. It’s not your fault Mumma disappeared. But it is your fault that you were being a jealous, selfish brat who couldn’t look beyond her own spoiled self long enough to see how I was grieving.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

My feet hurt. I sat on the stairs, sideways so I could still see Evelyn. Her tears slowed a little. She watched me cautiously. She looked bloody pitiful. “So,” I said, “you were jealous of me because I could get away with saying ‘fuck’ every so often?”

She sat too, at the top of the stairs. “And because you lived in such a cool place, and your parents let you climb trees, and you got to row to the mainland in your own boat.”

“Whenever I had to do that, it felt like my arms were coming out of their sockets by the time I reached the mainland.”

“Yes, but you got to do it. Mummy drove me everywhere, made me sit properly in the car in my proper little dresses with my knees properly together. Proper little China girl.”

“Oh, poor you.”

“You don’t give a damn, do you?” She hit the word “damn” shyly, like someone unused to saying it.

“No, I don’t. I don’t because of you putting mud in my hair, because of you getting everyone else to call me ‘Charity Girl,’ because of watching you get everything: all the nice clothes; all the nice lunches; all the nice friends.”

“Yes, if you think of it that way, I guess I wouldn’t care about me either.” She shuddered.

“Lots of people cared about you. You had all those friends. The teachers loved you. Your parents loved you.”

“And I never once climbed a tree, or rowed a boat to one of the out islands.”

“You never rowed a boat because you never had to. Poor little rich girl.”

“Rich little poor girl.”

“Well, that was original! What the rass you would know about being poor?”

“Nothing. And what you would know about having to be perfect all the time, to be good in Home Ec
and
Maths? Nothing.”

“They expected me to be good in all of them. And they were both right in the same school with me. They knew everything I did. So don’t give me that shit.”

“Huh.” It was part rueful laugh, part sob. “You right, you know? No wonder we were friends.”

“
Used
to be friends.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop it. You wearing it out.”

She sniffed again, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “God, that’s unhygienic,” she said. “If the nurses saw me, they would be horrified. Calamity, you don’t have a tissue or something I could use?”

I sighed and trudged back up the few steps towards her. “Here.” I pulled out the pack of tissues I carried in my bag and handed it to her.

“Thank you.” I sat on the step below while she cleaned up.

“Whatever happened to your father?”

“Dadda? Dead. A few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

My belly grumbled. I hadn’t eaten since lunch. Food was at home.

“What was it?” she asked. “Your father, I mean.”

“Lung cancer.”

She handed me back the packet with its remaining tissues. “That’s a hard way to go.”

“It’s why I’ve been living on Dolorosse. I was looking after him for the two years before he died.”

“Just you?”

“He only had me.”

“They never found—”

“Mumma? No.”

Silence.

“Well,” she said, “can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Call Samuel. Take you home.”

Silence. I looked down at my toes in their pinching, cracked-heel shoes. Those shoes had cost me half a month’s salary.

“Goddamned baby Jesus on a tricycle in frilly fucking pan-taloons.”

“That means yes?” She tried a tentative smile.

I met her eyes. I did not smile back. Hers faded. “Let’s go, then,” I said.

She nodded and got her cell phone out again.

Michael sat on my single bed, his whole body tense as a spring. I stood on the floor near him. I sucked in my lower lip, then remembered Dadda saying he could always tell when I was nervous,
’cause I tried to suck my bottom lip right off. Michael glanced at me, gave a shame-faced giggle. “Look at the two of we,” he said.

I smiled at that, though it felt like a school of tiny fish was making sport in my belly. “Yes, look,” I replied. I sat on the bed beside him. “Dadda still in town. Going to a fancy restaurant with that woman from the post office. They tell me they ‘on a date.’”

“That’s sweet,” whispered Michael. In his lap, his hands were shaking.

“It’s revolting. Dadda have no business dating.”

Michael pulled back and looked at me. “What, you want him to stay alone forever? Five years now your mother’s gone.”

I didn’t want to think about it. “He not coming home till late tonight,” I said. I reached to touch Michael’s shoulder, but overwhelmed by a sudden terror that he might think I was starting anything, I smoothed a section of the bedsheet instead. Michael and I had always been easy physically with each other, hugging and holding hands. But this was different. Staring at the faded paisley pattern on my childhood bedsheets, I said, “I don’t know what to do now.”

Michael barked with laughter. “God, you’re asking me? Ain’t this was your idea?”

I sighed. It came out trembly. “I know. But—”

“You’re a girl, Chas! I always thought I would do this with a man first.”

“You did? Always?”

“Yes.”

“But you never told me.”
I always hoped I would do it with you.

“I never told anybody.”

Even-steven, then. I never told you my secret, either.
My throat was constricting. I swallowed around the obstruction. “You want to not do it, then?” Please, I thought. But I didn’t know which: please yes or please no. I didn’t dare look at Michael’s face, so I concentrated on a point below his chin. There was a vein jumping in his long neck. My eyes grazed over his body. I could see a bit of his chest where his white school shirt was open a bit at the collar. He was propped up on his elbow, one hand lightly covering the other. His hands were wide and strong, the nails buffed. Even in his tailored school greys, it was obvious that his legs were hard and shapely. He was a calypso of muscle, style, and grace, and he was beautiful. Too beautiful for me.

“Let’s—” I blurted out, intending to call the whole project off.

“I want to do it,” he stammered at the same time.

Well, that was that, then. I pulled my eyes up to make four with Michael’s. He was looking at me gravely, his face ashen. “Like you frightened, too?” I asked him.

A rueful smile. “What you think, girl?”

I reached for his shoulder, instead found my hand settling in the warm hollow high on his collarbone, between his shoulder and his neck. He shuddered. He sat up with a jerk, his face rushing in towards mine too quickly. His lips were pursed for a kiss. It looked silly, and terrifying.

My brain shut down. I closed my eyes, made to kiss him back. Our foreheads met with a clunk.

“Ai!” yipped Michael. “Ow, man!” He held his head and laughed, looking sidewise at me. I put my palm to my own aching forehead and laughed along with him. The release of tension only made me even more shaky than I’d already been, but laughter; that was familiar. That we could do together. We giggled, then chuckled, then roared till we were both helplessly weak. Our arms tightened around each other. We were lying in each other’s embrace. How had that happened?

I gulped. I looked up at Michael. “Lewwe try that again, nuh?” I said. I didn’t pay any mind to how my voice croaked out the words.

“What, the head-bumping part?” he asked with a broad smile, which vanished when he followed it up with “or the kiss part?” His voice broke on the word “kiss.”

“The kiss,” I whispered. I put a hand on the back of his neck. It was warm and slightly oily, the way flesh gets after a day in the tropical sun. His neckbones pressed into the flesh of my hand. Skinny Michael. I pulled his head slowly towards mine. He moved with the touch, leaned in close, stared at me with a look of wonder. So close I could count all his pores. No. I wasn’t going to burst out laughing again. This was too important.

His lips and mine touched. Warmth of lips, my eyes crossing as I tried to keep them in focus. A giggle threatened to erupt from my throat. I closed my eyes. That was more romantic anyway, wasn’t it? Why didn’t all the blasted sex books tell you the important details?

I was so busy trying to deal with each new sensation that I nearly missed it when Michael’s tongue came fluttering nervously against my closed mouth. Startled, I opened my lips a little way, let him in. His tongue tasted warm. That was the only way to describe it. Warm and friendly and muscular and basically harmless. I touched it with my own.

His breath was coming faster. A small moan vibrated up from his throat, entered mine. I was getting damp inside my panties, I could feel it. Was that okay? Would it disgust him? Frozen, I kept kissing him, not knowing what to do next. He smelt faintly of sweat, a good smell. His face filled my field of vision. I fumbled with one hand until I found the buttons of his shirt, started to undo them. My hand descended until it touched his belt. That meant I was close to… I jerked the hand away.

Michael sighed, took his mouth from mine. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. With a determined look on his face, he put his hands to my waist. He undid the belt that cinched my school uniform. I thought my heart would explode, it was beating so quickly. “You want me to take the uniform off?” I asked him. He nodded, still not looking me in the face. I stood, pulled the pinafore over my head, let it fall to the floor. Even in the warm air, my legs pimpled from the chill of being uncovered. My fat legs. Some men liked them that way; I knew that from the comments I got when I walked through the streets of Cayaba. But some didn’t like it. I sat quickly back on the bed, so that the tails of my white blouse gave me some coverage.

Michael sat up and yanked his shirt open. But he hadn’t undone the very last button, the one below the level of his belt. It popped off and flew across the bed. He tried to smile at that, his face a rictus. I just looked. I couldn’t stop myself. Michael and I had been swimming together many times. I’d seen his chest before. This time, the sight of it made my mouth dry. Before I could think about what I was doing, I unbuttoned my own shirt and drew it off. At the bottom edges of my vision I could see the white flashes that were my cotton panties and bra. I was a little, raw girl, trying to do something big.

Michael wouldn’t
look
at me! He snapped his own belt open, undid his fly faster than I could see. He lay back on the bed, lifted his hips and pulled the pants down to his ankles. He was wearing snug briefs, bright blue. The contrast with his brown skin was lovely. Legs akimbo, he struggled to get the pants off his feet. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I guess this gets easier with practice.” He threw me a stricken look, and I remembered that we might never do this again. But surely we would with other people? Now I felt too awkward to try to explain what I’d meant.

Michael finally had the pants off and deposited in a bundle on the floor. He sat on the bed beside me.

“Michael.”

“Mm?”

“Take your socks off too.”

When we were done with our experiment that afternoon, Michael lay beside me, still shivering. He looked up into the ceiling, stared at the empty white space as though there were something there to see. He’d drawn my thin blue cotton sheet over his middle. There was barely space on my narrow single bed for the two of us. I tried to lie beside him, wanting his warmth, but taking care not to let my body touch his. He didn’t respond. I curled around my own belly, feeling my skin cool. I tried to take in the unfamiliar feelings of having been entered by another person (my private explorations with an empty, conveniently shaped deodorant bottle had felt more under my control), of having felt my internal spaces shift to make room for a new presence. Of the stickiness on my thigh, fast drying to a powdery glaze. Tried to decide whether I’d liked it. “Michael?”

“Shit!” He sat up suddenly, nearly tumbling me off the little piece of the bed I was cotched on. I reached a hand to the floor to steady myself.

“When your father coming home?” he asked.

“Late, I told you.”

“He might change his mind. I have to go.” He was on his feet, already had his briefs on, his shirt. He was stepping into his pants as he talked.

“But—”

“And I have homework to do, girl.” He perched on a corner of the bed, far away from me, started putting his socks on. He flashed me a brief, bright grin that went no further than his teeth. “Trig, you know? Blasted Mr. Pape. He’s going to take up the assignment in class tomorrow.”

I sat up, reached for my dress. “Let me walk you to the dock, then.”

“No, no, no. It’s all right. Don’t fret yourself.”

“But…”

He was out the door before I knew it, still buttoning up his shirt. I watched him run along the rocky road, his book bag tucked under his arm. He held it tighter than he had held me.

I stared at the fleeing flag of his white shirt until the dark swallowed it up. “You Make Me Feel Brand New” was playing on the asinine pink radio Dadda had given me two years before. When the song got to the lyrics
“Precious friend, with you I’ll always have a friend,”
I yanked the plug out of the wall. I sat on the bed and blinked until my eyes were no longer brimming. I got up and pulled on a smock top and my favourite jeans—wide-legged elephant pants in a soft brushed cotton. Then I went and made myself a quick supper. I had homework to do, too.

Next day when I went into the caf for lunch, Michael was already sitting at a table with his guy friends, talking and laughing. He saw me, but I looked away. I found an empty seat at the other end of the cafeteria.