The Juliet Stories (22 page)

Okay, Mom, I’ll go barefoot. You win.

Her mother’s voice in Juliet’s head: It’s not a competition. And don’t you feel so much better? Isn’t this wonderful?

The appetizers are circulating, and Emmanuel holds two skewers of grilled sausage pieces mixed with shrimp. She drops the shoes under her stool and says, One of those for me?

No. Get your own.

Aw, c’mon. Share?

Get your own. They’re mine. I’m hungry.

Fine. She feels good. She stands and wanders after the Belgian woman. From up close, she is surprised to see the muscles in the woman’s upper arm as she balances the tray. The woman looks as though she could swing from vines in a jungle, sarong flowing.

Juliet takes a moment to choose from among the skewers of meat and shrimp arranged on a greasy banana leaf. She says, I’m vegetarian, but . . . and steps back from the tray directly onto a foot, bare heel intimately squashing bare toes. So sorry!

Oh, says the stepsister. But the
oh
does not refer to the treading of her toes, because the stepsister continues, So you’re that kind of vegetarian.

Well, no, says Juliet. I mean, I’m a real vegetarian, it’s just — I’m vegan, says the stepsister. She is still wearing the white bodysuit, paired now with a white wraparound skirt. She’s slender as a sylph.

I think I knew that, says Juliet. With her teeth Juliet slides a round of sausage off the skewer. She chews, thoughtfully, and then with passion. She says, This sausage has to be homemade, it’s literally the best thing ever. She corrects herself: I don’t mean
literally
literally. You know what I mean.

The stepsister, a scarlet wrap flung light as air around her shoulders, looks towards the ocean, which glints like a perfect postcard under the fast-falling sun. We hardly know each other really, do we, she says.

Do you think that we should? says Juliet. Should we spend more time together? Is that what stepsisters do?

It’s hardly practical, is it, says the stepsister. We live so far away.

Will your dad be disappointed if we don’t . . . get to know each other?

My dad, says the stepsister, already thinks we get along fabulously. He thought we got along fabulously before we’d even met, and he’ll think we get along fabulously even if we never speak to each other again.

Ah, says Juliet, as if she might use the information for something; she can’t think what.

We might not like each other anyway, says the stepsister.

Juliet chews another round of sausage. She says, I actually really like you right now. I don’t know why.

How much have you had to drink? says the stepsister.

Ha, says Juliet.

They smile quietly, privately, surprised. In a moment they will turn away, walk away. It is not that they can think of nothing more to say to each other; it is that they recognize the risk of investigating further, even superficially, of testing the limits of their mutual interest. Juliet thinks, Small talk is big talk floating on the surface, buoyant as one of Emmanuel’s balsa model airplanes. She thinks, What is this? This is the debris of small talk; more serious, a little plane wreck among the waves, and everyone climbs out wearing life jackets; everyone survives.

At the bar, Emmanuel is playing cards with the stepbrother.

Juliet begins a smile but does not complete it.

The stepbrother glances up but appears engrossed. Do you have any fours? he says.

You can’t play Go Fish with two people, says Juliet.

Yes you can, says Emmanuel.

No you can’t.

Can.

Can’t.

What do you call this?

Boring, says Juliet.

You don’t mean that, says the stepbrother. She tries to read his tone: Plain old reproachful? Jokingly reproachful? Needlingly reproachful?

We don’t really know each other, do we, she says, repeating his sister’s words.

We will, he says.

Oh God, says Juliet as the speaker system — portable amp and tinny microphone — crackles to life. Her mother’s voice whispers, seductively amplified, Testing, testing . . . Welcome everyone, welcome here, to this wonderful country I wish I could call home again, to Nicaragua.
¡Nicaraguita!

The guests applaud tentatively, uncertain: is she testing or toasting? Dammit, Mother, this is just like you, thinks Juliet.

Please, could I have another? Juliet says to the bartender. The owner, busy with wires and plugs, has been replaced behind the counter by a young man with his shirt unbuttoned to the breeze, lean,
guapo
.
Muy guapo
, she thinks.

¿Ron y Coca?
He indicates her empty glass.

Sí, por favor
.

You speak Spanish, says the stepbrother.

Not really.

How long did you live here?

A year and a half or so. I was just a kid.

Is it the same?

She laughs, not a nice laugh: she can’t help herself. No, she says. Sorry, no, I don’t mean . . . I can’t even compare. I didn’t see much on the bus from the airport. It’s a different government. It was nothing like this, okay? It was nothing like
this
. She points at the polished wooden bar.

Ask him, if you really want to know, she says, pointing with her chin at the bartender.

I don’t speak Spanish, says the stepbrother.

Me neither. Juliet smiles at the boy behind the bar, and he smiles in return, examining her in a way that she understands and for which she is grateful. She feels her body expanding under the boy’s gaze — not that she is growing larger, but that the muscles are loosening, making space between the ribs; the hip joints relax, the spine straightens, the chest rises. She looks down and makes an unnecessary adjustment to her skirt, arranging it across her thighs, looks back up and receives the drink he is waiting to slide across to her, so that their fingers will meet.

Gracias
.

De nada, señorita
.

What is her mother saying? She wills herself to not take in the words, to let them wash over her, pure sensation. The sound of her mother’s voice is gentle and insistent as the tide. Not too warm and not too cold, she strikes a perfect balance; she lulls them into thinking she is saying something worth listening to, but Juliet refuses to hear it.

I’m glad she likes my dad so much, says the stepbrother. Juliet has to look him directly in the eyes to determine: is he serious, or is that a joke? He meets her eyes: he is serious.

I’m glad you’re glad, she says.

I like your dad too, says Emmanuel. He’s going to take me kayaking.

Cool, says the stepbrother. Cool. He took me on this one trip, we kayaked in the ocean; there were whales.

Really? Emmanuel is impressed.

Gloria opens her song, stops. She is accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, and there is some fuss over the placement of the microphone. She begins again. The room stills. Juliet stares into her sweet brown drink, rocks the glass to move the fissured ice, tapping softly beneath the sound of her mother’s voice.

She does not, contrary to her expectations, hate this song. It’s not bad, really; really, it’s quite good; really, it’s good. It is. The quality is not in the words — her mother’s songwriting tends towards repeated phrases of limited originality — but in the melody, as it always is, and the unexpected rhythmic turns; and the voice, most of all.

She really can sing, Juliet thinks.

She has never gotten comfortable with this situation: being an audience for her mother, being in an audience, with an audience for whom her mother is performing. No. She rephrases the thought: her mother performs for herself only, and the audience is an afterthought, though a necessary one.

Afterthought, aftermath. Things her mother does not think about. Or does she? If she does, she seems untouched by reflection, she is not hindered: she makes herself free and unconcerned.

Why Nicaragua? It was not the first thing she said to her mother when her mother broke the news, plans in place, ring on finger, accommodations booked. I know it’s soon, but why wait? I’m not getting younger.

No, the first thing Juliet said was, Please don’t have a wedding. Get married by all means, enjoy being married again, whatever, but please, please, please, do not have a wedding. Do not make us come.

But it’s already booked! Don’t think of it as a wedding, think of it as a holiday on the beach.

Does Dad know?

Of course.

You told Dad before you told us.

He had to know. I needed to check your schedules to make sure nothing would conflict.

And then Juliet said, Why Nicaragua? Why not anywhere else? Anywhere?

But Nicaragua is the perfect place, said Gloria. I want to share it with Jesse.

You are going to wreck my Nicaragua. But Juliet stopped herself. She could do that. She could stop herself. It was proof she was not like her mother. See, Aunt Caroline? Not like my mother.

She has tears in her eyes. By gazing into the drink and not at her mother, she has allowed herself to let go, to ease into the song’s ending, its unwavering high note held softly but tenaciously. The note does not drop down or fall off the way your ear anticipates, but holds, diminishing by increments until you can hear it no longer, though you imagine you are hearing it still.

There is no assigned seating around tables, no formality surrounding the food. Heaping platters are placed buffet-style in the middle of the room, the smells of freshly grilled meat and wood smoke floating on the ocean breeze. The guests, sunburnt, dehydrated, crowd in famished anticipation.

Oh, wasn’t it beautiful, beautiful? Jesse’s former wife and current best-friend-forever bumps hips with Juliet, sabotages her into an embrace. And that song . . . I just melted.

Juliet holds an empty plate over her breasts like a shield. Mostly she can find things to say, whether she wants to or not; in desperate situations she will say out loud whatever fool thing enters her mind, but she searches her mind, and it is empty, empty . . . check: still empty.

Beautiful. Just like you. What a stunning family you all make all together. The photographs will be divine. The woman holds Juliet by the shoulders and pushes her away to arms’ length, the better to assess the truth of her proclamation.

Still nothing. Juliet works her mouth into a semblance of a smile.

Ah, the woman says, squeezing Juliet to her bosom, where Juliet’s knuckles, clutched around the plate, are dug into the woman’s trembling flesh by pure force. Juliet is oddly relieved: this woman is not in the least like her own mother, less substantial, wobblier. Juliet thinks, This woman would say anything to stay friends with an enemy, she would dissemble. Her own mother could not be bothered — there is that.

The woman smells of coconut suntan lotion and rum. I’m switching drinks, thinks Juliet.

The woman lifts her hands to run them through her own, platinum hair. Oh, this breeze, this glorious breeze. Juliet puts between them a platter of thick french fries cooked in beef fat. Pushing, hurrying, reaching over outstretched arms — Oh, excuse me, so sorry — Juliet heaps her plate: schnitzel of chicken, mussels, tomatoes stuffed with shrimp. When the woman turns, her lips forming a new thought, Juliet has escaped all the way to the condiments at the far end of the table. Juliet tilts her plate and mouths to the woman,
yum-yum
.

———

Your sister is going to starve, says Juliet. The three of them have chosen to eat at the bar.

I hear there are waffles for dessert, says the stepbrother. She can eat those.

Waffles aren’t vegan. Waffles have eggs and milk.

Really?

Totally making it up. I literally have no idea, says Juliet. My dad does all the cooking. He’s pretty good at it, if you like butter and melted cheese. Not
literally
literally, she adds, then stops and asks: Or is it literally literally?

What’s your dad like?

Well, he’s not here, says Juliet.

The stepbrother blinks.

And you’ll never meet him. So it doesn’t matter, Juliet finishes up.

Why would I never meet him?

Why would he want to meet you? Juliet glares over the top of Emmanuel’s head. It irritates her to have to state the obvious. She shakes her head in disgust.

¿Uno más?
says the bartending boy, reaching to clear her glass. Another one?

No, gracias. Quiero algo
 . . . She wants to switch poisons but she cannot think of another drink.

¿Vino? ¿Cerveza?
She shakes her head. Not wine, not beer.
¿Jugo de fruta?
he suggests. Fruit juice.

His selection is limited. Rum is, after all, a specialty of this country, the fermented clear juices of sugarcane. She gives up. It will just have to be.
Ron
, she says,
con cualquier cosa
. Rum with whatever. Let him choose.

Con ron
. He nods. She has no idea what drink will appear.

It sounds like you do speak Spanish, says the stepbrother. And I’m sorry about your dad. It’s nothing to me, I mean. But I’m sorry. If he’s unhappy.

That’s not what I said.

Bring the damn drink, she thinks. She does not mean to sound upset. She thinks, I am not upset. Upset is not the word that explains what I am. Unhappy is wrong, too. I am, I am . . . She looks at the half-eaten food on her plate and pushes it towards her brother — Do you want some? — but he shakes his head. How much does he hear and absorb? She thinks of him as a baby, but when she was his age — When she was his age, she was here, not
here
here, but here in this country.

She thinks, He knows more than I think he knows.

Juliet, I’m sorry, says the stepbrother. I keep saying the wrong thing.

She sinks a little, breathless, to be named by him. She meets his eyes. She shrugs. I don’t know what to say, she says. The bartender slides an oversized wineglass across the counter, decorated with a paper umbrella stuck into a chunk of pineapple that floats in an orange sea. He says, I hope you like it, pretty one — but not in English. She translates it in her head. It sounds better in Spanish. She smiles for him, a real smile, relieved to give and to receive on such simple terms.