Best African American Fiction Page 6

  The church is a small two- story, surrounded on the sides by a wide clearing of gravel for cars to park. Beyond the clearing, endless trees. Behind the church, the edge of the mountain. In front, the small road that leads to the main road. At the main road is the sign: Christ's Mission Evangelical with, an arrow pointing up the road less traveled. At the end of the road is the church. A simple structure. The bottom floor for worshipping and the second floor, with its outside staircase, for the children's classes. The congregation had planned to add on to it. But now as Violet steps closer, the church makes a screeching noise and seems to implode, as the upstairs crashes down into the first floor. Violet runs back to where Deirdre stands sweating.

  The women still do not trust each other. Now they never will.

  Because Thomas had his own room he didn't have to signal Jasmine's presence with a scrunchy or a tie. His naked doorknob made her think of their sleeping in the same bed as an innocent act. They lay down in the extra long twin bed and faced each other. She smiled to show him she was grateful, but he only looked at her, trying not to blink, until his eyes teared up. He touched her face. He kissed her forehead. And though that could have been just a brotherly gesture, they were, after all, in a bed together. And though they were fully clothed, though they had known each other for so long, they weren't really siblings after all. And so they kissed, and Thomas, who had kissed a few girls, tried very hard to be sweet and gentle. Tried very hard to not be forceful, but his whole body was in it. To him it was the beginning.

  To Jasmine the kiss was kind of nasty, but thrilling. It was her first real kiss. The first with tongue. She let him explore her mouth and press against her body. It was a curious thing to her and she imagined it would stop and then they would go to sleep and then never talk about it. But then he whimpered, “Oh shit,” and popped out of bed as though burned. She saw that something milky was seeping through the crotch of his boxers and had smeared on her thighs where they had been rubbing. “Oh shit,” he said again and seemed as though he would cry. She looked at him, fascinated and disgusted, as he bit his lip and pressed into a corner of the room.

  “I made you do that,” she said without thinking. “I mean, I made you do that without us even doing it for real.” Thomas didn't nod or address her observation in any way. He grabbed a towel. He turned his back to her when he took his shorts off.

  “I'm sorry,” he said, when they were back in the bed, new pajama pants on them both. “That's not how I wanted it to be.”

  It wasn't anything, Jasmine wanted to tell him, but couldn't. For a long time she didn't sleep, but finally her dreams were filled with images of her own feet climbing over walls of water.

  Early in the morning, she edged out of the bed. She took her clothes into the common room and dressed there with the sleeping roommate and the blinking TV as an audience. She left and took the train. She felt bold and brave, and other things she had never felt before.

  She rode the subway back to her dorm room and packed her small bag. She emailed her teachers to say that she had to go on a trip and would miss class and to please let her know what the homework was. She got on a train and then transferred to a bigger, sleeker train where the seats were soft and personal. She finished a luscious collection of short stories during the three hours the train took to get to the next city. When she arrived she caught a yellow cab. Only then, with the cab slamming through the city streets, did she marvel at herself again. She thought of her fast roommate and her loose sister and then of her own sluttish power over Thomas. “The new me,” she said to the audacious skyscrapers around her.

  But when she arrived and knocked on the dorm room door, she thought that this was all very crazy. It had taken her more than three hours to get here, but only now did she really consider what she was attempting. She started to run back down the hallway, her one small bag like a hump on her back, but by then Moby had opened the door and called to her, “Jasmine? Jasmine de Flaubert, is that you?” And she had stopped running and turned to him. “Yes, Moby. It's me— Jasmine.”

  5.

  Church ashes are not like any other. When this fire has cooled perhaps Dierdre will return and find a golden chalice that had refused to melt. Or the ruby from the preacher's wife's favorite ring. Dierdre will return and take the ashes in her palm. She might wonder if the New or Old Testament is sifting through her fingers. Perhaps it will be the Christmas story, there on her fingernail. Perhaps it will be Revelations settling on her shoe.

  But now, facing the fire, Deirdre has thought of what to do. Finally, now that the church is doomed and her pew pins a certified waste of money, she pulls out her cell phone and calls the police, who connect her to the fire station. They have no idea where on island she is and now the church is shuddering with the growl of an earthquake. It is making such a racket that Deirdre has to walk farther away to give directions to the fire station operator. And now Deirdre notices the trees and wonders if they will catch and she says slowly into the phone that the church is close to Crossroads and to take the road to Fortuna. But they must look for the church sign. They must look… and as Deirdre says it she looks at Violet de Flaubert, who is crying in front of the fire as though she is about to become a sacrifice. Deirdre wonders whether perhaps Violet has pulled down the sign the fire trucks will need in order to find them.

  Deirdre leaves the operator on the phone to back away from Violet and run to her car. Violet might be a madwoman, but she's smart. Deirdre knows her. She knows that Violet keeps liquor in her fridge and jokes that Jesus drank wine. She knows that Violet lets her youngest daughter wear short skirts and calls it “finding oneself.” She watches as Violet's face grows panicked but smaller as Deirdre reverses her car all the way down the long path to the main road.

  Now Violet is there alone. Alone with the maniacal fire. She must pull herself together. Where is her armor? Her mind moves frantically to thoughts of her eldest daughter. She looks down at the sooty lace of the tiny pillow in her hand. It is made of the same material as the dress. And then she is running. Violet runs a wide arc behind the disappearing church. She runs to look for Jasmine.

  When Thomas called home to his mother, he said that he had news. Difficult, but wonderful news. Deirdre knew, from the tension in his voice, that the news might be those things for him but a tragedy for her.

  “Jasmine and I are getting married.”

  As Deirdre's hand stiffened around the phone, she noted that her son did not say, “I want to marry…” or even “I have asked to marry…” He said it as though it would happen any minute and without his mother's say. Deirdre's hearing became very sharp as she listened to her son breathe. Finally he said, “It will be okay, Mama. We'll live in her school's married dorms. Neither of us will have to quit college or anything. I mean, Jasmine might have to take a semester off, but…” and then Deirdre began to scream. She poured her Christian obscenities into the cavity of the receiver.

  Thomas knew his mother. He knew she would get over this because she was tough. He rested the phone down quietly. He wasn't scared at all about getting married. This was what he had always wanted, and now it had been granted. He couldn't disparage it because it happened differently than he had hoped. It had happened. Now he would fast track their future together.

  Jasmine called her mother. She held her breath and listened to Violet say, “Hello. Hello? I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Try again.” After a few minutes Jasmine called back and heard the same sweet voice say the same thing. It took the fourth call in a row for her mother to pronounce calmly into the silence, “Look here, you cow, stop calling my fucking house.” And finally Jasmine announced into the phone, “Mommy, I'm pregnant.”

  The wedding was planned for Christmas Break. They were only freshmen in college. He was eighteen and she was still seventeen. The church folk would whisper, but Jasmine wouldn't be much more than two months gone when Thomas made her honest.

  With money his father sent him, Thomas bought Jasmine a diamond ring. He told his roommates that he was moving out to be a father and a husband. He told his advisor he was getting married and so would have to speed up his coursework.

  Jasmine only wore the ring when Thomas reminded her it was supposed to stay on her hand. She didn't tell her roommate anything. She did not tell Moby anything. She only thought on the way Moby had said her name, Jasmine, again and again in the dusky light, as though it was something holy. The musk of their bodies had made her feel safe when she lay there with him afterwards, but now she could not seem to wash it off. She feared people could smell it on her. That time with Moby was not something to tell a sister or a friend. It was not something to write in a diary. It was something to keep to herself, simply to know she was capable of it.

  Thomas bought their tickets home on the same flight. They held hands in the airport as they window- shopped and as they sampled the camouflage of Lancôme and Chanel on her wrists. Jasmine thought, yes, I can do this. I can be this woman. I can love Thomas like a woman would. They still hadn't had sex. But now he kissed her in a way that was all gentle—like he was calm now. And he whispered a little joke as the plane took off: “I can't believe you're so fertile. When we do it for real we ‘ll have to use the rhythm method so you won't get pregnant again too quickly.” She gripped his hand as the plane lifted and tried to smile. She wondered if he really believed himself.

  At home on the island Jasmine's younger sisters were either embarrassed that their sister was pregnant or eager to ask her questions about sex. The violinist sister didn't seem to care either way. She practiced and filled the house with her music—the same desperate song again and again. It was the song she would play for the wedding.

  Jasmine sat on the bed that was still hers in the room she shared with Daisy. She clenched her stomach to see if she could feel something that was more than herself. I'm not ready, she said in her head and hoped the baby could hear. I want you, but not now. Not in seven months either. Come back another time. I'll be good to you then. She lay back and pressed her fingertips into her stomach. Then she made two fists. But Daisy, the youngest, walked in. She sat on the bed at Jasmine's feet.

  “So, why didn't you and Thomas use protection?” The violin screeched from the next room, but then resumed its melody.

  “I didn't have sex with Thomas.”

  “Oh.” Daisy had been the first sister to do it and so knew a lot despite her age. “Well, then you're the Virgin Mary. And when she got pregnant she got married.”

  Jasmine touched her stomach with the flat of her hand. “I haven't talked to the other guy since. I just wanted to do it. It was just a one time thing. Just one brave thing that I did. And now it's done. Okay?”

  Daisy took Jasmine by the arm. She dragged her to face the bottom drawer of the bureau that they had always shared. Below the holey socks was a string of little square packets. Daisy pressed two condoms into Jasmine's hand. “For the next time you contemplate bravery.”

  The Thompson and de Flaubert houses became places of bustling activity. The wedding colors were purple at first, because that was Violet's name and she was the mother of the bride, but Thomas's mother insisted purple was a funeral color. So Deirdre picked out the pew dressings and the tablecloths and even the official color—a yellow that was almost gold. Deirdre's husband tried to offer that the color might be gaudy, but she wouldn't have it. “My son is a prince,” Deirdre spat, as if they hadn't made Thomas together.

  Anyone would have thought that Deirdre was the mother of the bride, what with the fuss she was making. The floor of her living room was strewn with invitation samples and yards of tulle. In the kitchen, stray Jordan almonds rolled around like tiny rotten Easter eggs.

  Thomas stepped over things and tried to be patient when his mother asked his opinion. “We don't need all this, Mama. The only reason we didn't elope was that Jasmine wanted her mother to be there for the wedding.” Sometimes Deirdre would look at her son as though he were a stranger and then go back to her catering menu. Sometimes she would look at him and then pull him close, as though he were just born. Either way, he would leave her shaking his head and marveling at his mother's passionate strength. Then he would call up his beloved to check on her, but often Jasmine was sleeping or out or sick. They had not seen each other since they'd arrived on island and their mothers had taken over.

  Violet hit her sewing machine like a calling and made the bridesmaid dresses all in purple, despite Deirdre's choice of gold. The dresses were short and simple because there was so little time. There wasn't time to make a wedding dress at all, so one afternoon Violet and Jasmine went to a boutique. There among the pretty things, Jasmine grew excited despite herself. The dresses were so lovely, she felt like a princess. Maybe she could get married after all. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. She thought that maybe she would talk to Thomas. Maybe he would say something romantic and her chest would swell with love, instead of the doughy feeling that filled her throat now when she thought of having to consummate their marriage.

  The dress they chose was too expensive, but they bought it anyway and put in on Mr. de Flaubert's credit card. With a corset Jasmine's stomach became totally flat and no one would ever have to know. The gown ballooned into the back seat of the car when they drove it home. The skirt of the dress was wide and fluffy, like a ballerina's tutu.

  6.

  And so it is easy for Violet to find Jasmine behind the church, the smoke curling around her like a lover, standing at the cliff, her tutu of a dress flapping about her as she rips it off and releases the corset and finally her belly. By the time Violet grabs her from the edge, the girl is only in her underthings. The wire of the can- can like a guarding loop around her.

  Violet holds her daughter until she herself stops crying and the smoke begins to burn her own eyes. She guides her daughter, can- can and all, to the car. They leave the virginal white dress in pieces behind them. As they are leaving, the fire trucks come screaming. The road is so narrow that Violet has to reverse her vehicle back to the smoldering church—and since they are there, they now have to stay so Violet can answer questions and lie that she has no idea how the church fire began. No idea at all. And she doesn't even pass an incriminating look at her half- naked daughter sitting like a stone in the passenger seat of the car.

  The firefighters don't address the almost- bride because they think her devastation is too precious to disturb. But really Jasmine is sitting there feeling the thing in her womb churn like a fist of fire. “Another time,” she commands it. And finally the blood burns out of her.

  When Deirdre walks into her living room she sees her son and his father ready in their tuxedos. They look at her with their eagerness and excitement, but Deirdre's face gives something away because Thomas stands as though ready to fight the thing that has hurt his mother. “Sit,” she says. It comes out dry and smoky. The boy sits slowly. Deirdre looks from the father to the son and sees, only now, that the two look alike. All she has contributed, it seems, is a slight lightness in color, a slight thinness of the lips, a slight narrowing in the nostrils. It is like someone has shown her that she does not really exist.

  She gestures for them to make room on the couch. “I have something to say.” She takes their hands into her lap. But then all she can say as she looks from one to the other is, “Marriage isn't everything.”

  The future leader of corporations and civic clubs and maybe even the free world stares at his mother as though she is mad, because there she is crying, and he has never seen his mother cry. “What are you saying, Mama? Pop, what is she saying?” Thomas clutches at his groom's boutonnière until he feels it come loose.

  This family has never thrown a Frisbee around together in a sunny park. They have never sat in a circle and told each other stories. They have never prayed together except at church. They have never talked to each other about the divine risks of love.

  DANCE FOR ME

  Amina Gautier

  T he girls on Lexington had it the worst. Hated maroon skirts the color of dried blood. Navy blazers complete with gaudy emblem. Goldenrod blouses with Peter Pan collars. And knee socks. Actually, knee socks weren't so bad. Knee socks served their purpose in the winter, keeping sturdy calves warm.

  The girls on East End wore gray or navy skirts, plain and not pleated, with a white blouse, sweater optional.

  Multiple skirts were another way to go. We had our choice of navy, gray, maroon and an unpleated light blue seersucker meant only for the spring. The choices allowed us to pretend we weren't really wearing a uniform. We merely hoped to be thought eccentric. Girls with fetishes for skirts with panels. But we fooled no one. Our clothing, our talk, our walk, our avid interest in grooming, and normal people's clothing, and daily preoccupation with what we would wear on up- coming field trips when allowed to be out of uniform, filled our time and talk. We had a special way of standing that was part lean, part slouch, as if posture were too much of a bother to consider.

  Nameless, faceless on a school trip, we stood out. Solid- colored blouses, pleated skirts, knee socks, loafers, bluchers, or oxfords. Pri vate school girls. Not to be confused with Catholic school girls. Or reform school girls (how many times did the kids in my neighborhood look at me in condescending pity?). Not to be confused with the girls from The Facts of Life. They were boarders. No matter how many times I tried to explain this, the kids in my neighborhood persisted in calling me Tootie.

  We attended a second- tier all- girls’ school. We weren't as illustrious as the private schools on the Upper East Side, yet not as seedy as the ones in Midtown. We clung to our small but unique differences. For example, having our choice of uniforms made us the envy of the other all- girls’ schools. Girls were sure to take it out on us during soccer games. Secondly, there was our partnership with a nearby all-boys’ school, our “brother” school two blocks away, which allowed us to have kissing partners whenever we put on a play.