The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (16 page)

BECAUSE I LIKE
Travis so much, I want to give him things. He loves words the way I love basketball, so for him I steal Maw Maw's stories. I make her retell them so I can record them in secret while we sit on the screened-in gallery and listen to bugs hit the zapper. I'll never be as good at tale-telling as she is—somehow the stories aren't the same in English—so although I know them all by heart, I want Travis to hear
her
versions. Between sips of sweet tea, she speaks to me, the nasally notes of her Cajun French hanging between us. There is a slow quality to her style, time for the words to bloom in your mind's eye. When she tells tales, the characters become so vivid they inhabit the space around us: sly Lapin and dopey Bouki, the ethereal
feux follets,
the Loup Garou. It is easy to imagine them living in the darkness beyond the porch, where dry land gives way to a soggy forest of cypress, palm, and lacey pine that runs to the Louisiana border.

I want Travis to know this part of my history; that my family tree extends to parts far north, that my people made an exodus out of Nova Scotia like the Hebrews out of Egypt; that I have people at all. Meeting Sylvie today felt like another clue to his true self. How sad that he can never meet Maw Maw and come to appreciate her as I do. She's a hard woman, but I owe my life to her.

I write a list of my reasons for spending time with him, because I like the tidiness of lists, and because I need convincing:

          
1.
  
I like the smell of his shampoo.

          
2.
  
I like that he likes the corny story of Evangeline.

          
3.
  
I like his pale eyes clear as creek water.

          
4.
  
I like his strong hands with their too-large thumbs.

          
5.
  
I like the way he watches me play ball.

          
6.
  
I like the way he reminds me that what I feel for the game is love.

          
7.
  
I like him.

In return, Travis gives me poetry and songs and simple warmth that seems miles away from the exhausting fusion Annie and I shared. After the first slipup on the boardwalk, I got control of the animal me; I showed Travis my promise ring and told him we deserved better than blind groping. He said he could respect that because my body was only a small part of what he loved about me.

At night as I sweat to sleep, frogs noisy beyond the window, I think of Annie. How easily she believed that I took her secrets to Beau. Yet here I am with her last confession still rustling black-feathered on the branches of my heart.
I have kept your secrets so long, Annie,
I think, willing the truth to her.
I still do.

ONE JULY DAY,
Travis and I listen to the recording of Jean l'Ours et la Fille du Roi while digging out a frozen watermelon by the river. The flesh is red and icy, its juice dripping down his bare chest like blood. We've spread an old quilt on the grassy slope of the bank, its gingham faded from washing. From where we sit, we spit the black seeds into the river, and I wonder if a watermelon vine will take root in the swamp and produce great bulbous fruit for the gator gars to pierce with their snouts.

The recording crackles to life, and Maw Maw sounds like a preacher at the pulpit, her voice dipping and rising for emphasis. I stretch myself out on my stomach, rest my head on a forearm, and close my eyes so I can focus on the words. Travis doesn't know French, but I make him listen anyway, to hear the beauty of the sounds, the flow of each syllable into the next, like river water over rocks. After we listen once, we play it again, and I translate each line the best I can:

           
The king was rich, swimming in treasure. He was a jealous man, and it made him cruel. He had a daughter that the people of his kingdom called the Jolie Blonde, for her hair like sunshine, her eyes pale as the morning sky. He had always told the good people of his kingdom that suitors would have to win her, she was that precious to him.

                  
There was a young man, not exactly handsome but with a special kind of face you remembered. He was named Jean l'Ours, John the Bear, and one day he became neighbors with the jealous king. Jean l'Ours was a successful man with huge, able hands. He had to have the best of everything.

I tell him about John the Bear stealing upon the Jolie Blonde while she bathed, and asking her to marry him though he had never seen her before, and how she told John she had to be won, not asked. I tell him about the hog auction that John the Bear arranged, so he could beat the king with his fine-looking hogs, and the five-hundred-mile race, and the hurricane he called up to stop the king's man from beating his own. I smile as I tell him the good news: that Jean l'Ours won the king's daughter, and that the king gave up his castle and huge bags of rubies, too.

“Your Maw Maw's kind of like the king,” he says, rolling over on his back. “She guards you like he guards his daughter.”

“She just wants to protect me.”

“But do you need protection? You're what, seventeen now?”

“Eighteen in October.”

“Eighteen in October.” He sniffed. “If I met your grandma, maybe she'd see I'm a good guy.”

“You know that's impossible.”

“Do you think there's something wrong in what we're doing?”

No one gets the privilege of your flesh until you're wearing white.
The answer is yes.

He continues: “Do you like being around me?”

“Of course.”

“Do I make you happy?”

“Travis, don't . . .”

“What? I'm just trying to make a point. We should be allowed to be around people who make us happy.”

If he knew how much Maw Maw lost when Charmaine coupled with Witness and then left us both, he wouldn't preach like he does. For a while, I keep quiet, twisting the ring around on my finger.

“Just because something is good doesn't make it right,” I say at last.

He nods, but I can tell he doesn't agree. Instead, he changes the subject. “I dig these stories.” He catches a drop of sweat from his upper lip with his tongue. “But I want to hear a real story. A story about you.” He pauses and looks at me with his serious sea-glass eyes. “If I'm going to love you, I need to know what you're about.”

Love.
It's the first time anyone besides Annie has said that word to me.
Love.
In his mouth, it's got the glow of a worn gold ring. I hear it from Maw Maw when we read Scripture together:
God is love. Love is patient.
But it's different then, chilled and silvery, not meant for me.

“Basketball's the only good story I have,” I say. He wouldn't love me if he knew the trash I was born out of. The truth is like fish. When people ask for it, they usually don't want it eyes and all. Playfully, he flings his arm around my shoulders, pulls in close, and buries his nose near my armpit. He whistles,
Woooeeee
.

“Quit!” I say.

He draws back. “How did I end up with the princess of Port Sabine?” His mouth crooks in a half-smile. “I am but a humble minstrel with no rubies or hogs.”

I laugh. “Oh, Lord help us.”

He grins. I reach out and touch his ear, studying it; even ears are interesting to me now, because Travis has them. It looks so delicate and exposed peeking from beneath his shaggy sand-colored hair. The lobe is soft between my fingers, and for some reason, touching it makes me want to cry.

“It's okay to want things, to take something for yourself now and then,” he says. “There's so much pleasure in the world. Watermelon, for starters.” He spits a seed with impressive force, and we watch it alight on the river.
Pleasure
. I don't like the word, the sound of it like a cat's purr. “I wasn't kidding before,” he continues. “I feel lucky to know you.”
But you don't,
I want to say.
I've given you stories because there's so much truth I can't tell you.
“And I do love you, Mercy.”

He's close to me, and when I shut my eyes to his searching gaze, I realize I'm trembling. “I better go,” I say, gathering my things and dashing up the bank. He calls out to me, but I don't look back, just jog home barefoot, trailing the muddy quilt.

THE NEXT MORNING
when I wake up, I feel a tingling in my right arm like pins and needles. I slide to the edge of the bed and dangle my legs down the side, massaging my arm hard to get the blood flowing. I get a sneezy feeling and then the overpowering urge to thrust the arm straight down, so I do, again and again and again, my forearm thunking softly against the bed. I grit my teeth, will the arm to stillness. But again it thumps downward,
one two three.

All I can think is
Shit, my shooting hand.
I stand and windmill both arms hard, then pull each one across my chest in a stretch. I wait for the weird feeling, but nothing happens. My breath comes in short gasps. Is it flu? Dehydration? A muscle spasm? I get those in season when I work my body to the bone. It's just a spasm.
Breathe. Relax.

Again my arm thumps down,
one two three.
Quick breath, too quick, panic like spilled ice water spreading through, making me shake.
Breathe. Breathe.
Darkness at the edge of the room, the ceiling suddenly lower, pressing down. I look toward the door for Maw Maw.
Help me.
When my eyes pass over the silver pool of mirror, a face stares back.

Her
face.

Charmaine, lips black with burn, parted, saying something I can't hear.
Shut up, shut up!
I press my fists into my eyes and rub, and when I stop, the face is gone.

Reaching for the water glass on my bedside table, I misjudge the distance and knock it to the floor, where it shatters.

“Mercy?” Maw Maw calls from down the hall. “What in heaven's name is going on in there?”

“Nothing,” I say weakly. “Dropped something.”

What I want to say is
Help me, Maw Maw. I'm afraid.
But I can't. I remember her call to Coach that night. I know she's looking for any excuse to keep me from playing ball.
Breathe.
I place my hands in the puddle of water on the floor, careful to avoid the broken glass, and bring them to my cheeks. The cool wetness against my skin brings me back to earth.

If Annie were here, she'd tell me to get up, stretch it out, and get over myself. She would tell me everything is okay and remind me of all the times our bodies have revealed their limits when we push them—through sprained ankles and torn ligaments and broken fingers, asthma attacks and vomiting and concussions.

There's no one here to direct me, though, so I'll have to make my own instructions. I reach for my notebook and write, white-knuckling the pen to stop my hand from shaking:

          
1.
  
Put on your khaki shorts with the blue Gap T-shirt.

          
2.
  
Brush your hair and teeth.

          
3.
  
Go to the kitchen.

          
4.
  
Eat egg-white omelette.

          
5.
  
Lift weights (legs, today).

          
6.
  
Make 200 shots.

          
7.
  
Get rid of the letter and photo.

I read through the list. Just looking at the instructions, I feel a sense of calm returning. I make a mental note to take it easier at Park Terrace, to drink more water and stretch better after games. Everyone knows the heat makes people crazy.