Lemon Reef (6 page)

*

It was Christmas Eve, 1983. The day had begun with my parents telling me our neighbor had seen Del and me making out, felt it was his duty to inform them. Mortified, horrified, terrified by the news, my parents forbade me to leave the house until, as they put it, they could “find a way to help” me. This made Del's and my plans for the night—that I would sleep over as I often did—more complicated. I was thinking of ways to get to her house when she called.

“It's me.” Her voice was strained. “Are you still coming over?”

“Yeah.” I leaned back and felt the pillow fold around my head. I'd already told Del in a quick phone call earlier in the day that my parents knew we were more than friends. What she didn't know yet—what I was somehow going to tell her when I saw her—was that I had been forbidden from having any contact with her outside of school.

“I was scared you wouldn't be allowed,” she said.

“I'm coming.”

I looked at the clock, which said six p.m. I was waiting for my parents to leave. They were doing their usual Christmas Eve thing—going out for Chinese food and to the movies with other Jewish friends.

“Are you all right?” she asked. Then, in response to my quietness, she said, “I mean, could you just get here, please. They're at it again.”

I could hear her mother and father screaming in the background in Spanish.

As soon as my parents left, I stuffed my blanket to create the effect of a sleeping body, and then hopped on my bike and headed to Del's. Miami Shores, the neighborhood in which we grew up, had radically richer and poorer areas. My family lived closer to the waterway, although not on it, like the really rich kids at our school did. Del lived farther inland, on the west border of our school district. Second Avenue, which I crossed to get to Del's house, was a dividing line, a proverbial railroad track. Home and property sizes and values diminished block by block, with Del's mother's house skirting the lower end.

A year and a half since that first visit, when I had stood outside not being invited in, Del greeted me now by throwing open the door and expecting me to enter. The usual chili was not cooking on the stove on that night, just the scents of crowding and resentment folded into spindling cracks in the pasty plaster and the musky, dull air generating from a small wall-mounted metal heater.

Del's conversation with me on the phone picked up as if there had been no interruption.

“It's crazy here,” she said. “I can't believe it's Christmas Eve. My father left, so my mother said she's going out, too.” Arms up, palms out. “She's just gonna leave us—on Christmas Eve.” Del shook her head with disgust and looked at me wearily. “She promised she wouldn't drink tonight.” Another headshake. “She's
so
drunk. I feel bad for my sisters and brother, I mean, you know, they still look forward to this fucking holiday.”

We were stepping over…things.

“I think she got fired again,” Del said, once we had managed to navigate the shared living space and find refuge in her small but always immaculate bedroom. “She has to stop drinking, you know, it just doesn't work with a nine-to-five.” A car door slammed and an engine started, followed by a shrieking reverse and a peeling into forward. “Maybe she'll get killed,” Del said casually.

She turned to reveal her profile and hitched her middle finger to the edge of her tooth to gnaw at what little nail remained.

There was a red spot under her right eye that was already turning into a vague bruise. Bringing my hand to her cheek, I asked, “What is that?”

Del pushed my hand down and moved her head away. “What do you think? I don't want to talk about it.”

“Del,” I said, my breath momentarily skidding to a halt, “you tried to stop her from going out, didn't you?” I hooked her hair behind her ear to get a better look at the bruise. “You promised you wouldn't…”

“Will you stop?” She pushed my hand away firmly. “I have to think about what to do.”

I wanted to help. “We could see what's on TV.”

“
It's a Wonderful Life
,” we said at the same time, then laughed.

The door flew open and eleven-year-old Ida swung in. “Sid's up. He's hungry.”

Ida's fiery hair fell flamboyantly against her olive skin and dark eyes. Four years our junior, Ida loved to be included in our shenanigans. She had been the audience for our bad poetry readings, the fall guy for our practical jokes, the reluctant post for our soccer net.

“Hi, Jenna,” she said when she noticed me.

“Hi.” I stood up. “We're just trying to figure out what to do tonight.”

Next, ten-year-old Nicole fell with full forward momentum into the room.

“Del, you should see the tire marks Mom left in the driveway.”

Nicole was skinny and knobby kneed, with straggly blond hair and delicate facial features. She was either on the edge of erupting emotionally or over it, and it was never clear what made the difference.

“Jenna,” Nicole said, “you're here!”

I began walking toward the door. “Del and me are gonna—”

Del interrupted, “I.”

“What?”

“Del and
I
.”

I twisted my face and glared at her. “I hate when you do that! Now I forgot what I was going to say.”

Del shook her head. “Can we get out of my room, please?” She was ushering us toward the door. “Can we just figure this out somewhere else?”

Three-year-old Sid was standing near the refrigerator in a diaper. He had located a pan of leftover oatmeal and was making his way through it by handfuls.

Del shrugged her shoulders. “That works.”

She poured some milk in a cup and handed it to him. Then she patted his head and dutifully turned her attention to the others. “Do you girls want leftover chili and rice?”

Mimicking Del's parentified tone, Nicole began, “Do you girls—”

“Shut up, Nicole,” Del said. “Quit teasing me.”

“Quit teasing me,” Nicole taunted. “Who died and left you boss?”

Nicole's green eyes narrowed as she picked up the milk carton, held it up to Del daringly, and began to tilt it, threatening to pour the milk onto the floor.

Ida crossed her arms and fought tears. “Nicole, just stop.”

“Shut up. You fucking orphan. Go back where you came from.”

Ida was actually Pascale's niece. She had come to live with Pascale a few years before, after her mother died in a car accident.

“Nicole!” Del said. “Don't say that. We're her family.”

I noticed a bag of marshmallows on top of the refrigerator. “Hey, Nicole,” I said lightly and in the interest of distracting everyone, “let's roast these.”

“Where?” Del asked. “There's no fire.”

Nicole, who had put the milk carton down upon mention of the marshmallows, clamped her palm to her forehead in frustration. “How do you stand her?”

It took me a moment to realize the comment was directed at me. When I did, I felt thrilled but also worried at the implicit acknowledgment of Del and me as a couple. “Huh?” I was stalling, trying to figure out how to answer her.

Del recognized my evasive maneuver and giggled as if at a private joke.

I persisted in my task of distraction. “We could make a fire in the yard.”

“Oh yeah,” Del said sarcastically. “And let's just burn the house down while we're at it.”

“We won't,” Ida said, pleading. “They'll never know.”

“It's easy,” I said. To Del, “Remember, my brothers made one in the sand at the beach party the other night. They just dug a hole, put some rocks at the bottom, and then, you know, paper, wood, and matches.”

Del reluctantly conceded and grabbed Sid. The girls cheered, and the group of us stampeded into the small yard on a new adventure. The fire going, Sid perched on Del's lap, sticks in hand, marshmallows distributed, we competed for who could roast and eat a marshmallow the fastest, guessed at their shapes shifting under the flames, ate two and three at a time, made our teeth black, our lips sticky, and our throats dry.

Del shared her marshmallows with Sid. He sat in her lap, watching her face, the palm of his hand pressed firmly against her cheek. Nicole poked Ida with her stick. Ida cried. I bopped Nicole on the head with my stick. She threw dirt at me then got up and ran. I chased and caught her. Brute, the dog, circled us and barked with excitement, as we rolled in the mostly dirt lawn under the few scraggly fruit trees, laughing.

When the bag was finished, Del and I went to the corner store to buy more.

“Hurry, Jenna,” Del said, “the kids are alone with a fire.” Also, we had left Nicole in charge.

The storeowner, a burly russet-skinned man with a patchy beard and one thick eyebrow, was staring at the outline of Del's breasts etched through her fitted V-neck sweater—so much so, he seemed not to notice the six-pack of beer she put down in front of him. He just rang it up and pushed it over. I tossed the bag of marshmallows down on the counter, noticed the beer, and then I noticed the man behind the counter ogling Del. Del ignored him. She packed the beer into a brown bag, pressed up against me, and said softly in my ear, “It's for us, for later.”

My cheeks flushed and my stomach fluttered as I tried to count out the change to pay. We had combined what little money we had, hers from babysitting, mine from allowance. Del's demonstrative gesture toward me made the middle-aged man visibly uncomfortable. He averted his gaze, looked at the sprawling change and then lost interest in it altogether, shoved the bag at us, and urged us out of the store.

“Get out,” he said, pushing at the air in the direction of the door with both hands. As we walked back, her arm inadvertently brushing against mine, Del said, “I'm not sure we should let Nicole have any more sugar tonight.”

“Why?” The comment had irritated me. Del sounded like fifteen going on forty, and she was trying to take me there with her.

“The doctor said she has attention deficit disorder.”

“More like deficit of attention disorder,” I said. “You can stop her from having more marshmallows if you want to, but I'm not doing it!”

Del laughed. “I love you.” She pressed my fingers, which were now loosely hooked with hers. Then, quietly and more to herself, she said, “I don't know what I would do without you.”

I didn't respond. I hadn't told her yet that my parents were not going to let me come over anymore. She was no longer welcome at my house. We couldn't do sleepovers on weekends, or spend vacation days together, or fall asleep talking on the phone, as we tended to do on the nights when we didn't sleep in the same place.

Later that night, all five of us sprawled out on the living room floor with pillows and blankets and watched television together. I fell asleep, my head in Del's lap, Jimmy Stewart on the bridge. Del tickled my nose with a loose chicken feather. I woke up to her quietly smiling down at me, her shiny hair falling around my face, her affection for me amplified by the deep crinkles near her eyes. She gestured with a slight lean of her head for me to follow her. We stepped over the small, skinny, sleeping bodies washed in the television light and made our way down the hallway into Del's bedroom.

Once inside, Del locked her bedroom door, the sound of tectonic plates shifting. We left the lights off and made our way around gracefully, guided by shadows and familiar communicative gestures. A stream of moonlight bent through the window above the bed, ricocheted off a mirror, and splashed unevenly over the off-white walls we had recently finished painting. A soft beige-and-maroon bedcover drew remaining refractions of light down into itself, absorbing them as sand does the heat from the sun. I traced the light with my eyes, imposed a pattern upon it, subjected it to order, attributed intention to it. At fifteen, I still believed it could make sense.

“Merry Christmas, Jen.” Del kissed me, her eyes already leading toward a wrapped present. “I got you something.”

I opened it to find a collection of short stories by Franz Kafka.

“This is a joke, right? You're just giving me this to make fun of me.” I was angry all over again that
The Metamorphosis
, which I had nominated for that year's Christmas play, lost to an acid-influenced rendition of
How the
Grinch Stole Christmas
. “Oh yeah,” I said now, “and I'm the cynical one.”

Del laughed lovingly, pressed her forehead to mine, and said, “No conspiracy theories tonight.” She was telling me, as she must have sensed, there was not much time left.

I took her present out of my backpack and gave it to her. The gold crinkly paper it was wrapped in drifted to the floor, and she held a painted wooden carving in each hand. One was a blue-skinned character clad in bright yellow-and-purple silk, wearing a golden headdress and wielding a flaming sword. The figure accompanying him was his proud white horse.

She studied the figures closely. “Where did you get these? They're beautiful.”

“At the Hindu market in Coconut Grove.”

Dubiously, she asked, “Your mother took you?”

“No.” I shrugged. “I rode my bike.”

“Jenna, that's like fifteen miles.”

“It's okay. I made Gail go with me. I didn't tell her where we were going. She bitched at first, but by mile ten her competitiveness kicked in.”

Del was smiling and shaking her head disbelievingly. She placed the gifts on her dresser next to about a dozen other carvings of, as I had come to understand, the Hindu God Vishnu. Del had explained to me that Vishnu visits the earth in different forms called Avatars, marking and advancing its evolution. The Vaishnavas, his believers, await Vishnu's arrival in the form of Kalki, a man on a white horse. Kalki will bring about an end to evil in the world.

Del had learned about these myths from her neighbor Omri, who had moved in next door when Del was twelve. Del was tending to two baby marijuana plants she was growing in her backyard when Omri raised her head over the fence and asked about Del's interest in gardening. Gardening led to afternoon teas, during which Omri would tell Del stories about the wooden carvings. Pascale, eager for Del to do her chores, could only spit and swear at the old woman under her breath. Omri gave Del three signed, hand-carved figures. When I met her, Del was trying to complete the collection and had found several reproductions of the statues in local stores.