Naomi Jackson - The Star Side of Bird Hill

Donna, Chris, and Mrs. Loving backed away from Phaedra as if her anger were contagious.

“This day can’t get any worse,” Phaedra said.

With that, the sky opened up, and the rain the clouds had been holding back all morning was unleashed like an answer.

• • •

ONCE THE STADIUM had cleared and the cleaners started sweeping up cotton candy sticks, soda bottles, and wax paper from Kiddie Kadooment, it was clear that Dionne and Errol were nowhere to be found. The scent of popcorn hung in the air, and the empty food carts were strewn near the entrance like forgotten toys. Mrs. Loving packed up the children and went to the church in town where Father Loving was meeting with his old boys’ club from seminary. Called out from the cocktail party, he was alarmed to see his wife and the children. He handed his wallet to Mrs. Loving and waved them off to have dinner somewhere without him, shaking the ice in the drink that was in his hand as a farewell.

Even though they’d all been excited for Chefette, the children’s gusto was considerably subdued when they finally got there. They sat eating their chicken and chips in silence, no one taking the bait each time Donna tried unsuccessfully to strike up a conversation. Donna got sick after the second cup of her favorite cherry vanilla ice cream, and Mrs. Loving ushered her to the bathroom. Chris’s mother nodded when he and Phaedra asked permission to go to the play yard.

Outside, strong winds whipped up off Accra Beach; heavy rains had turned the sand beneath the plastic swings and slides into a thick sludge. Still, the cool breeze was a relief from the stagnant air inside the restaurant. Phaedra was getting onto one of the swings when Chris inched toward her. Phaedra moved back. Her mother’s death had made her wary of closeness.

“Phaedra, I want to ask you something,” Chris said.

Phaedra looked up at him, noticing the specks of glitter that sparkled at the corners of his eyes. “OK.”

“So, you know I like you, right?”

“OK.”

“And I was just wondering if maybe I could kiss you.”

“You don’t have to like me because you feel sorry for me,” Phaedra said. She was glad that the waves were crashing so hard against the shoreline because it meant Chris couldn’t hear her heart thump.

“I don’t feel sorry for you. At least that’s not a reason to kiss somebody.” Chris shook his head and looked down at her again. “So, can I?”

Phaedra shrugged her shoulders and held on to the swing’s seat. She let Chris rock her back and touch his lips to hers. She closed her eyes because even she knew this was what you were supposed to do when someone kissed you. And then she felt a strange tingle that started in her tongue and then traveled down her back. When she opened her eyes, she looked around Chris’s long torso to see Donna and Mrs. Loving standing in the doorway to the play yard.

Just then Father Loving honked his horn. Chris let Phaedra and Donna each have a window seat, even though all of them wanted to avoid the middle seat’s bumps up the gravelly roads outside the city. The car was quiet except for the earnest strains of a program on family radio. Phaedra hated the Christian shows that Father Loving played in his car, but with her thigh touching Chris’s, she sloughed off her annoyance and almost forgot about all the terrible things that had happened that day.

PHAEDRA HAD HOPED THAT when she got home, Dionne would be there, but she wasn’t surprised when she was not. After Hyacinth finished interrogating Phaedra, even though she didn’t think it would do any good, she called the police station from Ms. Zelma’s house. She didn’t like having to share her business, even with Ms. Zelma, whom she’d known since they were both little girls running up and down the hill. Hyacinth had her own pain pulsing behind her eyes, and she only felt her worry magnify when she heard the concern in Ms. Zelma’s voice, saw the way that she kept shaking her head and talking about how you can’t trust people these days and fussing over Phaedra more than she usually did, offering her a cool drink and biscuits, which Phaedra knew better than to accept. Since a few minutes after she’d gotten off the stage at the stadium, Phaedra had felt a thirst in her throat that several soda refills at Chefette couldn’t quench. But Phaedra knew that it was more than enough to expose that her sister had gone missing; Ms. Zelma didn’t need to know that she was thirsty too.

As Hyacinth expected, there was nothing that the police could do, given that Dionne had not yet been missing for three days. Hyacinth sucked her teeth hard at the officer who suggested that a girl gone missing during Crop Over didn’t register as a missing-persons case until a couple days after the parties died down. “Sir, I beg you not to pass your place,” Hyacinth said when the man asked if there was a friend’s or boyfriend’s house where her granddaughter might be staying. She thanked the officer for his time, hung up the phone, and bade Ms. Zelma good night.

When they were back inside their house, Phaedra opened the windows to let in fresh air while Hyacinth dished the pudding and souse she’d made especially for Phaedra to celebrate after Kiddie Kadooment. They sat down to eat, the shadows of Avril and Dionne hovering above the dining room table’s empty chairs. Phaedra pushed the pig feet and sweet potato pudding around on her plate, afraid to tell her grandmother she’d already eaten at Chefette.

“Your sister say anything to you about leaving?” Hyacinth asked Phaedra once she’d tucked away enough food to satisfy her.

“She said she wanted to go to Miami with Daddy.”

“I know that. But did she say anything about when?”

“I heard her packing, but then I didn’t really think she would leave. Dionne’s always threatening to do things.”

“That girl have her mother on her. From the first time I see that child, even when she was a wee little thing, her mind was made up about life and she wouldn’t hear another word about it. If she sees something shining, she just picks herself up and goes to it.”

Phaedra jiggled a piece of pork onto her fork, and thought for a minute about this reading of her sister, which she didn’t think was entirely untrue.

“Well, the only thing we have left is our work to do.”

Hyacinth took out a bottle of rum, and Phaedra raised her eyebrows, a reflex she’d acquired upon seeing her father and mother under its influence, their eyes and mouths turned wilder, as if a cork at the edges of their personalities had come unscrewed.

“But watch your face, Phaedra. If somebody was looking in here right now, they would think that you were the old lady and not me.”

“I’m not old. It’s just that I don’t like to see people drinking.” Phaedra frowned.

“It’s not everybody that turns their lips to a bottle is a drunk. Sometimes we have to coat the throat and wet the eye so we can see more clearly the road ahead.” Hyacinth twisted the bottle open and offered a thimble-sized shot to Phaedra, who shook her head no.

“That’s my girl. Sometimes people will come to you and ask you to do things you don’t want to do. And the only right answer is no. You start using your head now, it will see you through hard times.”

Phaedra nodded as if she knew what her grandmother meant; she watched Hyacinth tip the bottle to her lips, and then followed the rum as it slid down her throat.

They went into the yard where the moon, almost as brilliant as it was full, shone down on them. Hyacinth gave both herself and Phaedra baths scented with Florida water and jasmine and other herbs Phaedra knew the names of now. The water had been out in the yard all day heating up under the sun, and now it was shot through with a coolness that goosed Phaedra’s flesh and made her shiver as the night’s cool breeze moved around her. When they were clean and dressed, Phaedra and Hyacinth made their way up the hill to the church. At the edge of the cemetery, Phaedra hesitated.