Four Times Blessed, page 10
“Don’t get me wrong, I like it. But don’t worry. Now that you’re marrying me, once you finish your service you can stop with all that. You’ll like that, won’t you? I thought you would. See? I already get you. This is going to work out great.”
I’ve tried yawning three times. The last time I didn’t even cover my mouth.
“And tomorrow, I’m going out to interview some lobstermen for a special segment for when I get back to the city. My producers were so excited that I was coming here. They can’t wait until they have one of their own anchored in the Islands again.”
I look out on the silky black water. Ask it to calm me and grant me some more patience. Because the stuff I prayed for this morning is all run out. I squint at it. I don’t think it hears me. It just lounges out there, gorgeous as always.
I sigh. Again.
There are faint shouts coming from the beach. Absolutely sure that Andrew won’t notice, I look over my shoulder to see what’s going on.
Someone’s redirected the electric lights with some old bits of sail and duct tape, and shined them over onto some wonky figures. Seems like they’re having a really nice time. I wish I was a drunken fisherman.
I hear what we’d call in human acoustics class a rising juncture from Andrew’s drone so I give a noncommittal “Hm.” He goes on some more so I guess that answered that.
I hear a solid cheer from the beach, so I have to look again. They’ve made a pen with fuzzy outsides and a sharp inside that’s holding in three of them. I bite the side of my tongue. I just thought of something.
I think about it, I really do, but I can’t stop. My hand darts across the table and I catch Andrew’s arm.
“Oh, Andrew! It’s a party, come on, let’s go. We’re missing it.”
I hope he takes my solid grip for enthusiasm, and I yank. The table jostles, but he’s moving so I don’t stop.
On the way over, I thank the forefathers that this boy they’ve given me doesn’t seem capable of walking and talking at the same time.
I’ll have to remember that.
I hurry him through the opening in the seawall and we slush our way across the beach, washed up rocks chiming at our approach. I could swear I hear the seashells giggling as we pass.
I think it must be the tail end of one of my Uncle Groton’s meetings. I’m not really invited to these meetings, they’re just to talk about business and to rehash any interesting news anyone’s collected from crossing paths with fishermen from other islands. Then he makes sure they all know what their jobs are for the week.
When he was little, my brother used to try to crash the meetings with Gino’s older brother, and they’d either show up back at the meetinghouse with pouty scowls and an intense desire to run full speed through the kitchen, or they’d stride in, very businesslike, discussing little plans that they would never tell me no matter how much I whined. Or kicked.
I never saw the grown men again, though, until the next morning. I finally figured out a few years ago, one night in between semesters when I’d come down to the docks to read something under the lights, that the only reason anyone who isn’t an overexcited little boy sits through those meetings is because afterwards my Uncle Groton always does a tasting.
He has to make sure his product is good enough to sell with his name, I heard him say. Anywho, there’s lots of alcohol and the men all stand around it, joking and saying and doing things that would get on my aunts’ nerves, if they were there.
Andrew and I come to the unoccupied curve of the beach and start along the low walkway that slips out alongside the boat launch. Great grandmothers, even here the breeze is rancid with fumes. I decide this is close enough. I’d rather not throw up on Andrew and my first date.
We sit down. I take my shoes off and drop my legs in. They’re submerged all the way up my calves, but it feels good. The water is barely lukewarm.
Andrew crosses his legs and sits beside me. Then he has to uncross them. His limbs are thick and solid, but they seem to have a hard time folding. He finally gets into a position and stays there. He looks down at my hand longingly. I giggle and his eyes slip up, catching me for a moment.
“What are they doing?” he says.
I shrug, “Who knows.”
Some of the men’s heads turn towards us, enough that I think they must be talking about us. I tense up, ready to dismiss myself with Andrew. Being shooed away isn’t a good first date activity, I don’t think. Too awkward.
I wait for them to call out to us, but instead a few wave in what I’m pretty sure are hellos. My Uncle Groton gestures at us over his shoulder. It’s then that I realize who he’s talking to.
The brothers Lium and Hale stand before him, nodding and nodding. Lium keeps glancing over my uncle’s head. I wave but he doesn’t wave back. Dumb boy. They then disappear into the cluster.
My zizi would certainly have an opinion on this, but she’ll only want the business report from tonight, roll her eyes at the rest. This is good because I don’t think she’d be impressed by my dating skills at the moment. Using my uncles as a sideshow so I don’t have to talk to Andrew for a few minutes. It’s terrible of me. But I can’t help that I kind of like it. Actually, I really like sitting next to Andrew like this. I think there’s something quietly romantic about it, just the voices carrying across the water, the slinking ripples on the pillars, the creaking as Andrew shifts his weight.
“Whoa-ho-ho!” he says.
“What?”
“Look, they’re fighting.”
I try to see through the men’s wavering backs.
“Where?”
“Ah, man! Right there. Oof.”
“I can’t see,” I pout.
“Ugh,” he chuckles, “Looks like some kind of boxing match. Hey, you want to go back? This really isn’t a lady’s sport.”
“Nah, that’s alright, like I said, I can’t see it anyways.”
He shrugs, “Ok. We had something like this on the base in the city, you know. People would get dressed up and go out to watch. But I have to say, I never understood why the women would go. I myself find something about it distasteful, if you must know.”
“Probably just for entertainment,” I say, still grumpy.
He shifts around again, grunting. “So. Crusa.”
“Andrew.” Oh, but he’s very serious. I pull my legs above the surface and fold them. I turn to him.
The boy takes my hand with the bracelets and holds it gently. “Crusa. I want to talk to you. About what we’re doing.”
Oh, sweet forefathers. I feel a deep pang of dread. I was hoping we could just skip this sort of talk, since we don’t have much time anyways.
“Ok,” I say, very controlled.
“So. We’re getting married.”
“Yes.”
He sighs.
I fidget. I should be nicer.
“I want you to know, I take marriage very seriously. I want to be devoted to you and our family for as long as I live. I’ll provide for you, I’ll be faithful to you. I swear all this.”
I’m stunned, I think. I definitely don’t breathe, I know that. The squirming that Andrew is doing now seems alien, even though I was just doing the same. It should be impossible now.
“I like you, Crusa.” He pauses, then, “Can you see yourself married to me?”
My voice comes out stringy and high, but I somehow manage to say, “Yes.” It doesn’t feel like enough, though, so I pump my head up and down so forcefully that the boy laughs and holds my cheeks. I’m dizzy and I blush.
Then I scream and cringe into a little ball.
The stomp ripples through the planks. I curl up all my fingers and toes and count them. They’re sweaty, but they’re all there, which is good. Still, though, I’m afraid to move quite yet. I peek at the leg that’s two centimeters from my face.
It belongs to the boy Lium, flatfooted and peering straight down at me. A small smile touches his mouth. He doesn’t move either, stunned by the landing, I’d bet.
I’m about to share with him my opinion on it, when I hear a whole herd of stomping coming at us. I proceed to curl up again. What can I say? It seems like the best strategy at this point. And I do execute the move flawlessly, if I do say so myself.
The boots and legs calm down after a few seconds and I chance moving again. There, on the spit of walkway that’s no wider than my own two arms, the entire party is gathered.
There’s a bottleneck as they all seem to be trying to get to where Lium and Larissa’s husband are, further down. Lium, ahead of everyone, skirts down the walkway like it’s nothing. He reminds me of one of the guys on the TAG team, actually. One time, this guy, he dropped all his gear at our feet, cracked his neck, which was gross, and leaped up an alleyway. Straight up it. Well, it was more of a zigzag than straight, I guess, but still. I was so happy I was on his team.
Unfortunately for Lium, there’s no way he’s going up anywhere at the moment, zigzagging or straight.
The moment he realizes this is clear. He double-checks, then checks again, even as he hauls himself to a bouncing stop. On any of the other walkways, he could have taken a sharp right or left and circled around all of us. It’s too bad, really, that he chose this one, because this one just ends. Very bad luck.
There’s a splash, followed by sputtering and laughter. Rivulets seep under my fingers while whoever it is gets hauled up and wrings himself out. I gather my skirt and move into a squat, wrapping my arms around one of the nearby poles. I’m afraid if I stand I’ll get knocked in, too. I don’t even know where Andrew is. Oh, Sweet Mother of Mercy, I hope he wasn’t the one that just fell in.
Larissa’s husband, Jeremy is his given name, shouts. He shakes out his hands and starts stalking towards Lium.
Then he straightens. Because Lium has his head ducked and is charging right at him.
The men around me start grumbling and clear out to the sides, a few of them wobbling over the drop-off. One of my uncle’s looks at me like he’s not quite sure if he really sees someone there, then grunts. He reaches a reddish hand towards me and it smells sour. I dodge it with a small tilt. On my other side, a cousin pats me on the head, never glancing away from the action.
Lium’s burst right past Larissa’s husband and into the gauntlet they’ve created. Too fast, I think, because he’s already at the other end. He lets up on his sprint delicately and checks over his shoulder.
He grins right at me. My eyes widen and I glance back at Larissa’s husband, who is positively marching his way down to us.
“Oh,” says Lium. Which I think is an understatement. In what I really hope is the start of a good plan, he darts back the way he came.
The two isles of my uncles mash together, cutting him off. He skids and ducks through the midst of them. He kind of reminds me of a squirrel. Larissa’s husband chuckles, and I don’t like the sound of it.
“I think you’re done, son,” he calls, pressing aside another man’s bedraggled head.
“No way. This is my favorite part,” Lium calls back, scanning the spaces between the men’s knees. Seeing my head down there, he takes the time to grin again. I wince. He yells and all at once he stumbles forward, my uncles and cousins close in around him.
Larissa’s husband squeezes through just as Lium regains his footing. They lock gazes, and everybody tries not to interrupt, except for the ocean who’s splashing away.
Shrugging like he can’t think of anything else he should do first, Larissa’s husband reels back. He lets out a guttural cry and my nose pinches. It goes on, I know, although all I can see are the backsides of my uncles because my cousin’s hand keeps shoving me down. I elbow him in the calf, which just makes him laugh and shove me down while messing up my hair. I hear the hitting, though, the muffled whaps of flesh on flesh. My stomach clenches like it always does, revolting at the awful incongruity, as the soft sounds brush my own ears.
I hear someone laugh. My cousin forgets about me as everyone shuffles around and finds nowhere to go. They start yelling.
Keeping low, I work my way over just enough to see. Lium, mouth blotched with bright blood, hunches over Larissa’s husband, who lies at his feet. Her husband tries to heft himself up. Lium waits until he takes a knee, then stomps on him.
I flinch. I’d like to leave, actually, but I’m as backed in as everyone else. I could hop in and swim…
“Hoh!” says the cousin next to me. A few men clap their rough hands together. I see Lium on the ground with Larissa’s husband standing, at least functionally. He’s a little droopy. Anyways, Lium slithers to avoid the feet that keep coming at him from above. I look behind me and start judging the distance from here to the beach. There’s actually an empty mooring one over, if I could just get a few steps to the side…
I squeal when both Lium and Larissa’s husband crumple near me, the impact jostling my kneecaps. I rock back on my heels, away from their faces.
“Hi, Crusa,” chokes out Lium from the inside of Larissa’s husband’s elbow. “Enjoying the show?”
“No,” I say, my toes curling over the lip of the walkway.
“No? What do you mean, no?” I’m sorry, is this boy crazy?
“I mean, no, I don’t like watching you two punching and slobbering over each other.”
“Slobbering? I’m not slobbering.”
“Maybe, but he is.”
Lium steers Larissa’s husband’s head up to face him. He cocks his head to the side. Then one of them seizes a smidge of space and they scrabble around. Larissa’s husband ends up on the top.
Then on the bottom.
Lium pulls up the collar of the other man’s shirt and wipes his chin.
“There. Are you happy now?”
“Not really.”
“You. Are impossible.” He coughs, and then rolls away.
Both men get to their feet and pant at each other. They start circling, but they each run into a wall of my uncles. Lium backs up one long, careful step after another, towards the next mooring, and the next, and the other man follows. In a more straightforward fashion.
The walls melt in. Both men are out of breath, streetlights making their skin shiny. It’s as if they simply fall into one another, rest against each other, though their faces and veins strain as if they would rent apart. The other men start getting excited.
Larissa’s husband collapses to one knee, and the jeers cut out. Her husband stops panting. It’s only Lium I hear, snatching his hands purposefully from one spot to another, some pattern it seems he’s practiced many, many times.
My uncles stop fidgeting. All too cool and controlled to be natural, as they prepare for Larissa’s husband to loose.
But again, he is making me nervous. Something’s wrong. I squint at him. I think I notice an angle, then the tiny shift, it’s all that’s needed, and it sends Lium’s whole body sprawling over his shoulder and flat over the edge of the walkway.
With a resounding clatter, he hits the rowboat I just used a bare foot to shove in between him and the water.
He swears and sits up. The boat swings sharply.
“Ow,” he groans. He reaches over and grabs Larissa’s husband’s ankle. The man yells as he’s yanked down into the boat as well. All the men, plus me, crowd at the edge of the mooring.
We needn’t have hurried, as there’s really not much happening. Basically, the two men are just flopping around down there between the benches.
They roll too far into the stern, so I stomp down on the prow. It throws them off balance, and now they both swear.
“Honestly, after all that, now you complain?” I squeal.
Lium just frowns in my direction.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you from bellyflopping.”
“Well, it didn’t work.”
“I guess not, but you didn’t land in the water.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s a less wet thing. Are you two done yet?”
They turn to each other. Larissa’s husband punches at Lium with no follow through. Lium pops the man’s knee out from under him, and then lays back on the bench. I can see the lower part of his ribcage rise and fall again and again.
“I’m just getting started,” he says, and waves an arm in the air.
“Me, too,” says Larissa’s husband from somewhere on the floor of the boat.
I’m about to start channeling my zizi, I’m pretty sure, and feel pretty powerful just revving up to it, but my Uncle Groton appears beside me.
“It’s done. You did well. We’ve got what we needed. You, nephew,” he finds Lium’s gaze and holds it. The boat rocks. “I’m trusting you. We all are. You will not let us down. I’m proud to call you my own. You, come on up, old man,” he reaches an arm down to Larissa’s poor husband.
The men start talking and milling around. I decide it’s a good idea to grope the mooring post like it’s my future husband again, just in case. I’m kind of surrounded, so while I wait for them to clear out, I make some conversation.
“So. No offense, but as you do live on an island now, you really should work on figuring out where the land ends and the water begins,” I remark to the guy still sprawled out in the rowboat.
“I know where it ends.”
“Well, then, maybe you should work on remembering it.”
He lifts his head up.
“For your own safety, I mean. It’s not your fault, don’t worry. Maybe the ocean just wants to eat you.”
“Well, I am delicious. Here, come taste me.” He flings his arms out and they flop over the sides.
I try not to snort. “Uh, no thanks.” I lower my voice, “Hey.” He doesn’t look up so I nudge the boat. He grips the sides. “Not that I think you taste bad, but…what if it tried to eat you because you’re cursed?”
