Chapter 3
“Crusa, honey, close up the shutters in your room before you go to sleep. There’s a big storm brewing. I can feel it in my bones. Do you feel it? Well, you will when you’re as old as me, but I bet you don’t feel it now, my beautiful girl. You’ve grown so lovely lately.”
She reaches out for my fingers and kisses them.
“I never liked that school of yours, making you kids wear those ugly outfits. They make you cut your hair like a boy and wear boy clothes, and then of course they can’t tell any of you children apart. Then they make me sew nametags on all those terrible outfits so they know which ones are yours. But really it doesn’t matter, does it? Because all the clothes are the same!
“I don’t know why they did that. Are they crazy? Why do they want everyone to look ugly. But I like that they fixed you all up so nicely before sending you on. Not that they had to do much to you, pretty girl. Just growing your hair out made such a big difference. I can’t even see that mole on your scalp anymore. Come. Give me a kiss.”
I go to her and put my lips on her forehead and she smiles.
“Good night, baby. Sweet dreams.”
“Good night, Zizi. Love you.”
“I love you too, honey.”
Halfway up the stairs she yells to me, “Crusa. Don’t forget about the shutters.”
I mumble and wave at her.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I realize I forgot about the shutters as one swings around and swats the side of the house, and wakes me. I jump out of bed and get my nightgown all soaked by hanging half out the window, trying to drag the stupid things closed.
There. We’re all good. Nothing to worry about.
I see no reason to tell my zizi about this, but I’m afraid she’ll find out. She always does. I bet she heard the shutter when it slammed. I listen through the wall to see if I can hear her snoring.
Kind of hard to tell what with the storm and all. I shrug, throw a different nightgown on, and settle back.
There’s no moon tonight. The wind wheezes in and out of my room through the cracks, sucking air like an old deckhand. With each breath, the door smacks its bolts against the hollows of its own locks. I groan. I can’t sleep with all this noise.
I look over at my cousin Eleni in the bed next to mine. It’s from when I used to share this room with Camillo, before he moved into the old vestibule downstairs. He loves it down there. It’s dark and smells like old sweat, because before him it’s where my uncles stored their old fishing gear. Back then, we didn’t go in if we could help it, and since it still smells the same, me and most people have kept up that practice, no offense to my brother.
Still contemplating the form of my cousin, lost to her dreams, I frown. I’m bored.
And I have a wicked desire for her to be woken by the storm.
I throw a pillow behind my back, careful not to add a misplaced note to the night, and slump against it. Then there’s a flash and a crash right on top of each other.
I start counting down the number of Mississippi’s in between the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls. I allow each passing moment of time in seconds (t sec) = (n + (1)Mississippi) = 1 mile that the actual crash of hot and cold is from my position=(0,0,0), where n= consecutive positive integers. Assume 1 mile=1.609 km.
I should probably be using calculus for this, but I left my slate at the lab today.
There’s another rumble and I tense. I also forget to count. Oh, forefathers, I missed it. Now I’ll have to wait for the next one.
The lightning flashes again. Good. Eleni jerks under the covers and pops her head up, dark hair strewn all over her face.
“It’s ok, Eleni, it’s just lightning.”
The thunder comes again, and she plops her face into her pillow and groans. We listen to the rain and wind until the next flash tackles the next crash. They wrestle each other outside our window, then fall out of sight.
“Why does this always happen to me on the one night of the week I don’t have to get up before the butt crack of dawn to carry a bunch of dead fish up a mountain?”
“It’s just the island, Leni, not a mountain. If it weren’t so steep we’d be underwater tonight. Plus, the fish aren’t always dead. The clams you brought home to Zizi yesterday were almost all still alive. I know, I cleaned them and stuck them in the pot.”
“Shellfish don’t count as fish.”
“Neither do whales, and you just called them ‘monster fish’ at supper.”
“That’s because that’s what they are. Really big fish. They have tails and flippers, they swim in the ocean, and you can eat them.”
She contorts her arm so she can hold up her hand and count off these reasons on her fingers. All while keeping her face in the pillow.
“They don’t have gills,” I say.
“So? Neither does a clam. And according to you, you can count that as a fish.”
I think about that.
“I think our problem is that we’re thinking of fish the animal and fish the food as different, but we’re using the same word. Also, I would say a clam is a mollusk. Molluska bivalvia something.”
“Huh? Don’t try to be smart with me. It’s three o’clock in the morning!”
“Sorry. Hey, Leni. What about a jellyfish. Would you count that as a fish? It doesn’t really have fins, but it does swim and you can eat it.”
“A jellyfish?” She lifts her head up and turns it to me. “It’s a half-fish.”
“Half fish and half what?”
“It’s fish and…plant. Because sometimes it swims around and stings you like it’s smart and angry at you, and other times it just floats around like seaweed.” And her head goes back in the pillow.
“Hm, I think it’s a whole fish because it hatches little babies and eats other fish. You’re right about how they act, though.”
“Crusa, why are we talking about this?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going back to sleep.”
“Aw, Leni, come on. Don’t you want to stay up with me?” I smile and clasp my hands.
“No.”
“But I can’t sleep!” Yes, I’m pouting. I’m quite accomplished at it, if I do say so myself.
“I don’t care.”
She rolls over so her back is to me, but that just means I can jump over her into her bed before she sees me coming.
We mew and growl a bit as I take some covers and she tries to kick me into the wall.
“Ow, Leni, stop it! You just got me in the shin.”
“I’ll do it again if you don’t stop squirming over there and let me sleep.” She punches out with her eyes closed to make good on her threat, so I punch her back.
“I like eating jellyfish.”
“You are so weird.”
“I know. Night, Len.”
“Night, Crus. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
There is a pounding coming from the wall behind my empty bed.
“What are you two girls doing? It’s the middle of the night, why are you not asleep?”
“We are, Zizi!”
“Yeah, night, Zizi!”
We listen to her mumble something, but she doesn’t yell anything more back. We giggle and soon Eleni really does fall back asleep.
I listen to her soft breathing, and, knowing the rhythm so well, I fall into it myself soon enough.
The next morning, I open one eye at the window, who I guess lost its shutters sometime in the night, and observe that the hour has taken on the same color as Eleni’s eyes. The birds are off and chirping. There is the scent of fresh cut greenery in the air. It’s altogether a lovely morning.
I, however, detest greenery and birds and beautiful colors at the moment.
I roll upright with heavy eyelids and then just sit, slumped at the edge of the mattress.
I have a spasm in my neck. Probably from falling asleep shoved against the wall last night. The ache wakes me up enough thoug
h, that I can stand and shuffle my way to the closet.
I feel around for my stiff pencil skirt, the same color but somehow less pretty, than the groggy light outside. I finger the heavy belt woven through the loops, and the white blouse that goes with it. And the hat and the tie.
I throw everything on with practiced movements that almost put me back to sleep. Casting a narrow glance at the lump in the bed who doesn’t have to go to school anymore and gets to sleep in, I walk barefoot to the door.
It slams behind me and I honestly don’t know if I did that or if it was due to a sudden change in air pressure.
Either way, I disappear from the hall before anyone can come blame me.
I guess it’s not technically school that I have to go to anymore. It’s an official, honest to goodness military appointment.
Our first steps into the real world, as they told us at the commencement ceremony. Commencement means “beginning,” did I know that? Yes, yes, I did. It had been a word on a vocabulary test they’d given us in second grade. And still they ask me the question on the very day they graduate me. Honestly.
It was only my military discipline, which they also taught me, which was smart of them, I guess, that kept me from rolling my eyes.
Which is a good thing, because I was sitting in the front row. That’s what they make you do if you graduate first in your class.
My aunt called the school three times that day to tell me to brush my hair. I could just imagine her, hiking up and down the little trail to use the public phone on base. I felt guilty about it by the fourth or fifth time a swab ran up to me with a phone, so I gave it to my chaperone Ms. Tiffany to answer, on account of she’s the one who hunted me down at four a.m. that morning to straighten my hair so flat I thought it’d disappeared. And then picked at me with her comb every two seconds.
During the ceremony, I saw Ms. Tiffany in the front row of the audience, dress uniform starched and pressed to a degree that you might call luxurious if it weren’t what it was, all the while her hand twitching towards her side pocket. For the comb, I’m sure.
Basically, this all meant I was paranoid the entire ceremony, thinking every strand on my head was standing on end like I’d touched one of those static ball things they have in the academy museum.
But all that doesn’t matter because I never have to go back.
No more Ms. Tiffany lurking three paces behind me. No more four a.m. hair-related surprises. No more static balls.
Life is good.
Plus, I got my first choice of appointments. And I came here. Back home. To the base that just happens to be a fifteen-minute walk from the meetinghouse.
My whole family was absolutely thrilled when I got the appointment. It wasn’t that hard actually, considering there’s not much competition to get yourself sent to a tiny research base out on some random colony. I told them this, but they still acted all impressed.
Going on and on.
It got pretty embarrassing.
And then, when I got off that helicopter for the last time, I could see the pilot laughing his head off. Because my aunt had dragged the entire island to the airfield to walk me back home.
She gave me the most beautiful graduation party on the town green that evening. She and my other aunts decorated the trees and the lawn with white tents and ribbons streaming from the branches. There were jars of wildflowers set on the corners of picnic blankets to keep them from blowing away, and she set all my girl cousins to squeezing lemons the whole night before so we could have lemonade. They even kept it chilled all day in the brook, running to fetch cup after cup.
My uncles even slaughtered a calf. I’m not sure that was really for me. I think it was mostly so they could spend the entire morning standing around the spit set up in the shade of one of the ladies’ tents that was originally meant for a food table, but mysteriously grew legs and walked itself right over the men’s heads. Or so they said.
That day, the men stood around drinking my Uncle Groton’s alcohol and watching the meat cook all morning, taking a taste here and there, making sure it was good enough for the rest of us.
My zizi wouldn’t let me do anything to help because it was my special day and I would just end up ruining the sundress my cousins had made for me as a gift, and did I really want them to think that I didn’t appreciate all their hard work and thoughtfulness by getting it dirty.
I tried to help Eleni with the last of the lemons, figuring lemon juice is mostly clear so it wouldn’t stain, but I got my hands slapped away. After that, I sat with a mouth like I was sucking on the juiced rinds watching everyone else run around, listening to Camillo whine that I didn’t have to do anything, and tried to remind myself that I was grateful.
And I was. Right up until they made me cry by telling me I’d done them all proud by graduating from one of the most elite military academies in North America.
Which really, I had nothing to do with. I was sent there, after taking some government-mandated test when I was five. I don’t even remember taking the test, but apparently, my zizi tells me,
I ended up scoring on the 98.8th percentile, so she got a letter that said Congratulations! On behalf of the Commander General of the Midatlantic States of America, we are pleased to inform you that your child/ward has been accepted into the M.S.A. Military Training Program. He/she has been awarded an academic scholarship due to his/her exceptional test scores. We believe he/she possesses a great aptitude for military service.
We are excited to have him/her join in our mission to protect the North American League of Nations from those Foreign, Domestic, and Natural threats to our homeland security and prosperity.
Your child/ward has been selected for the following:
School: Long Island Coast Guard Academy-Support Campus
Program: Homeland Defense Sciences
Career Track: Analysis and Interpretation Specialist
Your acceptance of this letter indicates your dedication to the M.S.A., its Constitution, Leadership, and all its Citizens for the duration of the program to be followed by a term of military service.
We look forward to receiving your confirmation of this acceptance!
Please use the following Personal Self-Identification Number for all following correspondence.
Your child’s/ward’s PSID: MSAN-LICGA-SC-NEICCT-002194
Then there was a printed signature from the Commander General.
I know this not because I could read words like “congratulations” or “correspondence” when I finished my first year at the one-room island schoolhouse, but because my zizi kept the letter and put it in a frame.
I pass by it now at the bottom of the stairs, along with a huge school portrait with a thirteen-year-old me in my uniform jumper and moppy short hair. I used to cringe whenever I went by, but now I just kind of try not to sigh.
Yup, I’m up there, God and the angelic ancestors help me, on that wall right along with pictures of the rest of the family. Wedding photos with flowers and suits and gowns and shiny bridesmaids all smiling at the camera, pictures of girls with lots of black hair and the same jewelry, baby boys with chubby cheeks and comb-over’s. Even a picture in black and white of a serious looking couple, the woman in a funny hat and stockings and a man with a walking cane. Those were my first forefathers who came to America. At least that’s how the story goes.
I yawn again as I tromp down the last few steps into my zizi’s kitchen. I’ve got another long day at the base’s sound labs ahead of me. As I haven’t taken my boards yet, all I’ve been allowed to analyze is data from Food Services, Weather Broadcasting, and anything my advisor is too busy to do himself.
People on base consume a lot of chili powder and banana pudding.
Squinting into the dim downstairs, I see a few men gathered around the glowing fireplace, chewing on crusts of dark bread. They’re watching my zizi poke at a slumbering ember so she can start breakfast.
“Morning, Zizi. Could I help you at
all?”
I try to rip off my own hunk of bread from a loaf on one of the hardwood tables, but the end, exposed to air overnight, has fossilized, apparently.
“Oh, good morning, sweetheart. How sweet you are to offer. These men just stand around and stuff their mouths while an old lady fights with fire. You’re all good for nothing.” She goes on, but I’m not really paying attention because I’m still fighting with the loaf of bread, my fingertips turning pink. I try banging it on the table.
Nothing.
My Uncle Groton, technically my third cousin twice removed or something, takes the bread with a rough, knobby hand, and brings it to his mouth. He wrenches off a hunk with his teeth, slathers it with at least four tablespoons of butter, and hands it to me with a couple of pats on the cheek.
“Oh, um, thank you, Uncle.” I hold the bread with two fingers. He points to his cheek, “Kiss.”
I quickly give him one and start looking for which table my backpack got stuck under as someone was cleaning up last night. I know not to actually ask who or where, because all that gets is a why didn’t you put it away yourself? Then you wouldn’t have this problem. And the only real response I have for that is I’m lazy, I guess.
No luck under the tables. I wonder if it got put with all the coats and stuff in the closet by the front doors. The clutter in there drives my zizi crazy, but she says it’s not worth killing her back to clean because it’s too good of a place to leave the stuff you can’t decide whether you need or don’t need until you’re right at the door.
I move aside some smooth-handled, crusty-bottomed rakes that I suppose someone realized they didn’t need for eating dinner last night. Ah, my bag! Forefathers, it’s all tangled…ow. Stupid rake.
I rub the back of my head and glance back around the little wall. My zizi is batting away my Grandpa Bluff, who usually works on one of my Uncle Groton’s boats, but looks like he’s spent his entire life strapped under them.
She tells him that he doesn’t know how to stoke a fire. How does he not know how to stoke a fire? He’s an old man. No matter, she’ll teach him right now, she says.
I decide to take my leave at this point before I, as the only other female in the room, am asked to demonstrate proper fire-starting technique.
Safely outside, I pad over the dewy clover and crabgrass, then march over the low stone wall set more or less against the woods.
The path’s not far. I could traipse around the green’s path and down the downhill path, and meet it that way if I wanted to, but I prefer my shortcut. And the glow-infused, ravaged forest opens soon enough, into the narrow tunnel.