Visitation Street (12 page)

Val follows Monique out of the tabernacle.

“They had a vigil for June,” Val says.

“Yeah?”

Monique’s dress makes her look as if she’s playing some sort of perverse dress-up—squeezing a childish dress over a woman’s body.

“June would have liked it if you’d sung something.”

“No one asked.”

“Remember when you’d sing in my basement when we were little?”

“Not really.” Monique fidgets with the lace bodice of her dress.

“One time we sold tickets to people passing by?”

“That sounds whack.”

Monique hadn’t thought so at the time. She had let Val and June dress her up in Rita’s clothes—a black crushed velvet dress and patent leather pumps. At ten, Monique already came close to filling out Rita’s party clothes.

The girls turned the Marinos’ vestibule into a stage and hung a red blanket over the front door. Val and June hit the pavement, drumming up customers for the “Best Voice in Brooklyn.” Four people, one of them June’s grandmother, paid fifty cents each to hear Monique. When the audience was assembled, Val whipped back the curtain and Monique sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” As she sang, more people gathered. When the song was over, Val demanded that the new arrivals pay up. She handed Monique the kitty.

It was a few weeks later that Paulie dragged Cree onto the street and shamed him in front of the block for being a bad influence on Rita. After that neither he nor Monique returned to the Marinos.

“Maybe you could sing something for June sometime?” Val says.

“Talking to the dead is Cree’s mom’s business, not mine.”

“Who says she’s dead?”

Monique tugs at the neck of her dress, letting some air onto her skin. “I’m done with singing today,” she says, walking off. “I’m gonna get my groove on elsewhere.”

Val half listens to the men’s quartet, trying to make up her mind where to go. Her head is beginning to hurt, an ache that rises from the spot at the back of her skull where a large Band-Aid hides a row of stitches.

She’s about to head off when she feels someone take her arm. She turns and sees Cree James. He’s wearing a brown sateen suit with sleeves that ride down to his palms. He looks good, sharp. His shaved head shines with some tropically scented oil. Cree’s not much taller than Val, with a round face and a wide smile that comes easily.

“Sorry about Monique,” he says. “Some days she’s too big for herself.”

“Whatever,” Val says. It was always June who was more hurt by Monique’s indifference.

Cree steps away and takes off his jacket, revealing a cream-colored silk shirt stuck with sweat to his skinny frame. Val’s aware of the looks she’s getting from people coming in and out of the church. They take in her uniform and her lanky frame—her pale skin and unremarkable hair. A drab piece of flotsam lost in the sea of Sunday color.

Cree unbuttons his collar and shakes his shirt free of his skin. “It’s true you don’t remember what happened?”

“Nope,” Val says. She turns and shows him the bandage at the base of her skull.

“That’s a trip,” Cree says. “What’s it feel like not remembering?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

“You remember seeing me on the boat?” Cree asks.

“Of course.”

“You told the police?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Cree wipes his smooth head. “I’m just asking. What else did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” Val says. On top of everything else, she doesn’t need his accusations. But when she starts to walk away, Cree keeps pace. “You’re not afraid my dad will see you?”

“That was a lifetime ago,” Cree says. “I’ve got better things to do than be afraid of your dad.”

“Why are you following me?”

“To make sure you don’t do anything foolish.”

Val stops walking. “Maybe I want to do something foolish.”

“Well, do you?”

“You coming?”

Val walks quickly in the direction of the water, Cree at her side. It feels good not to be alone. Just having Cree close is enough to distract people from June’s absence and from her part in it, Val thinks. All she needs is one friend, one person to stick by her. One person to make her feel less alone and less at fault.

She skirts the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the VFW. Noise from Coffey Park wafts through the neighborhood—a sustained echo of the ongoing party. She takes side streets to avoid anyone she might know. The afternoon is emptying out. Red Hook’s few shops are shuttered. People are returning home for Sunday afternoon cookouts or heading to the bar to keep the weekend going.

Except for a couple of dog walkers, Valentino Pier is empty. June’s shrine is already weathered. The pastel flowers have turned brown. The teddy bears are matted with grime. Val walks to the end of the pier. She grasps the railing and stares at the last spot she saw June. There’s a dark spill on the water, a shadow rising from below.

The railing is hot. Behind her Red Hook is unnaturally still. Val flings off her school blazer. She kicks off her penny loafers. She imagines that by now the vigil has let out and the VFW is beginning to fill for the reception. They will be unwrapping foil trays of lasagna and manicotti. The place will be sweltering. The men will drink more than usual. They will talk sports and pensions. They’ll go on about the neighborhood’s newcomers.

The high school girls will sneak plastic cups of Chianti and cigarettes in the small concrete yard. The boys will congregate on the far end, near the wall. Soon these two groups will meld. Parents will ignore their children who are pairing off and slipping away. And June will be out there somewhere, maybe not far from where Val is standing now.

It’s your fault
.

“Shut up,” Val says.

“I didn’t say anything,” Cree says.

Val starts unbuttoning her blouse, popping off two of the buttons in her haste. Cree put a hand on her arm to stop her, but she brushes him off. He looks away as if her childish bra embarrasses him. “What are you doing?”

She continues to undress.

Cree holds up his suit jacket, shielding Val even though there’s no one around. His silk shirt is untucked. His sweat has brought out the paisley pattern hidden in the fabric.

Val lowers the zipper on her skirt. She knows she looks like a little kid in her cotton underwear. The late-afternoon sun hits her belly and the tops of her thighs. She hoists herself over the railing and stands on the lip of the pier.

The water is the color of slate.

“Don’t act crazy,” Cree says.

Val doesn’t look back. She feels Red Hook fall away behind her as she disappears into the water.

The water smells like Brooklyn. She dives deep and swims away from the pier, combing away the light debris that clouds the bay. She plunges until her lungs feel pummeled and the water turns cold.

Then she feels arms around her waist and she is dragged to the surface.

“Jesus. Were you planning to come up?” Beads of water, like translucent ladybugs, are suspended on Cree’s shaved scalp.

Val slips from his grasp and continues swimming, pulling toward Jersey. But Cree catches up and restrains her. “Hey, hey, you know the rules. Watch out for the Governors Island current. Don’t get tangled in the pylons. Then you can swim in the bay.”

If Cree kisses her, June will be found
.

They tread water side by side. The Staten Island ferry crawls into view, inching across the bay. A tugboat chugs out of Erie Basin and begins to cross toward the East River—a small boat, green paint, the letter B on its stack. Its wake knocks Val and Cree together. Her head rolls back onto his shoulder. Cree wraps his arms around her for support. His fingers slip across her skin like a school of fish. She feels him loosen his grip and before he does, she pulls him closer. Then she turns and kisses him.

They plunge beneath the surface, their arms and hands sliding over each other, moving freely, frictionless. Val wraps her legs around his waist, feeling his stomach muscles tighten as he works hard not to sink.

June used to tease Val by telling her that if she didn’t practice, when the time came she would embarrass herself. But kissing Cree comes easily. It’s as natural as holding your breath underwater.

Through the green-brown water she cannot see how her body is and how she wishes it were. Cree doesn’t seem to care either way. Val swims a few strokes, but he’s right back behind her, holding on.

She bobs and submerges and rises again. She turns back toward Red Hook and shakes the water from her eyes. The world takes shape, revealing the hard contours of the rocks and pylons.

They are no longer alone. There is a man on the pier—the music teacher. He’s waving his arms and shouting Val’s name. For an instant, Val thinks of swimming farther out, until she is out of sight of the pier. She doesn’t want to hear her name.

If she swims to shore, June will come home
.

S
ince the morning Jonathan carried Val into his store, Fadi hasn’t let him pay for a cup of coffee. He usually throws something else in for free—a pastry, a couple of newspapers, a sandwich, even Jonathan’s brand of cigarettes. He’s clipped several stories about Valerie’s rescue and June’s disappearance and taped them around the counter. He’s highlighted Jonathan’s name in yellow marker.

These gestures make Jonathan uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to be associated with the missing girl.

“You going to the vigil for June Giatto?” Fadi says, sliding Jonathan’s dollar back to him with his coffee. “You’re the hero. The neighborhood wants you there.”

“I don’t think anyone will notice if I’m absent,” Jonathan says.

“I will.” Fadi glances over Jonathan’s shoulder to the street. He hands Jonathan a copy of his local newsletter in which he’s listed the time and place of the vigil. “If I had help, I’d go. Take these donuts to Mrs. Giatto for me.” He pulls a box of Entenmann’s from under the counter.

“Sure,” Jonathan says. He doesn’t have the heart to disappoint Fadi.

Music from Coffey Park is rolling down Visitation Street, signaling the kickoff of Old Timers Day on the backside of the neighborhood. Overnight, families from the projects have staked out plots of the park, jockeying to get prime real estate for their barbecues. All weekend people who grew up in the Red Hook Houses have been flooding into the neighborhood, taking buses across the country and up from Florida for the yearly reunion—a bittersweet summer rite.

Instead of heading toward the church, Jonathan enters the park. The air smells of sweet char. The police on the perimeter turn a blind eye to the coolers of beer and cups of high-proof punch. It’s not even noon, but many of voices already seem liquor loose.

A stage has been set up. A DJ who came up with Grandmaster Flash in the ’70s is spinning. Early hip-hop and disco rebounds off the luggage factory lofts and the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Jonathan’s is the only white face, but no one makes him feel unwelcome.

The party is just getting going, but the park is already packed. Men carrying foil trays of macaroni salad and slaw search out their families’ tables. Kids chase one another between the grills. Grandmothers parade their visiting grandchildren, introducing them from group to group. Elder statesmen, newly returned, walk through the park’s pathways like homecoming kings, eyeing the women they remember and the ones who are new. Jonathan listens to the baritone greeting of two middle-aged men, the shrill soprano shouts of a couple of grade-school girlfriends now in their thirties, the chatter of a grandmother seeing her nephew for the first time in years. He feels the thunderous claps on the back, the breath-denying hugs, the reverb of kisses as visitors are brought back into the fold.

He drums his fingers on the donut box with the four-on-the-floor disco beat and taps his foot with the syncopated electric bass line. Toward its center, the park is even more crowded. The ice in coolers is refreshed. The DJ turns up the volume and announces a dance contest. A middle-aged woman in a long, floral sundress and bright bangle bracelets passes Jonathan a large plastic cup. She pats his cheek. “Welcome to our party, baby. Have a little sweet tea from me.” Jonathan lifts the cup. “Don’t worry,” she says, “it’s plenty boozy.”

Jonathan sips the tea. It’s as sweet as it is strong and makes his eyes water. He wanders toward the side of the park closer to the waterside of Red Hook where two girls are doing double Dutch, their braids and beads beating time on their shoulders. Behind them is the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary—its stony, grim façade a rebuke to the colorful party. Fadi is mistaken, Jonathan thinks; the soul of the neighborhood is out here, not in there.

As he’s looking at the church, the doors burst open and a girl in a school uniform appears on the threshold. She shades her eyes from the sun. The doors close behind her. She begins to run straight for Jonathan.

As she draws near, Jonathan recognizes her.

“Valerie,” Jonathan calls.

Val slows to a stop a few feet in front of him. Their eyes meet, then she turns and rushes off. It is as if she is asking him to follow her, to save her from whatever she intends to do next. He drops the donuts and his drink and follows.

Val runs through the party, dodging dancers, sidewalk games, and makeshift dance floors. The crowd parts for her but is less tolerant of Jonathan, muttering and cursing as he bumps into their trays of coleslaw and coolers of beer. He tries calling out but he cannot be heard above the music and the chatter.

He loses Val in a large group gathered around a grill made from an oil drum. Jonathan pushes through this crowd and arrives at the far side of the park. In front of him Val is disappearing into the first of the courtyards.

His lungs feel tight. His breath pinches in his chest and throat. Val picks up her pace. She skirts curbs and tree guards.

Although the girl running from him is strong and agile, Jonathan still feels her limp, clammy body. He remembers the gravel in her hair, the foam that streamed from her mouth. He imagines that it was the proximity of his own body that revived her, made it possible for her to run away from him now.

His legs are heavy. His thighs burn. Valerie darts deeper into the projects and is thrown into shadow. In the first courtyard, Jonathan doubles over and places his hands on his knees. His heart thuds like a bass drum.