Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

She feels she is falling into a canyon of vaporous sadness. She walks deeper into the shopping corridor, the jangle of voices, electronic music broadcast from the boutiques, and the hooded wash of trade winds and palms. She becomes angry with herself for her sadness. Sorrow is a luxury, like that of home and school — like living in the gentle, indoor world.

SHE USED TO FEEL concerned about keeping up, knowing things like who the prime minister of England was, or what war was happening where. For a time, she tried going into the libraries — for the comforting quiet, the soft furniture — as well as for the books. But librarians were more eagle-eyed than teachers or police. They knew instantly who was actually working on a school project and who was just another street rat.

Two sisters used to run the small south branch of the Miami Beach library, Ms. Vera and Ms. Hoff. They let Felice stay and read all day long. They tolerated a limited amount of napping in the padded chairs. Ms. Hoff showed Felice how to set up an email account and how to browse online for news and current events. Ms. Vera gave Felice novels: Dubliners; Pride and Prejudice; The Sun Also Rises; Catch-22; Beloved . One day, Felice came across a novel on the Recommended Fiction shelf. It was about a man who was obsessed with young girls— nymphets . Hannah had used that word. When they had Mr. Rendell for orchestra, Hannah had said, he loves nymphets — watch out. As Felice read, the book began to bother her. She was angry with the show-offy language, some of which she couldn’t follow. But the story — about this babyish girl who fell into an old man’s clutches — captivated and horrified her and filled her with near-sensory memories.

“The kids at this school think they’re so great,” Hannah drawled. It was a week before Thanksgiving — Felice’s favorite time of year. They were lying in the east field, the air vibrating with late heat, the grass warm and crackling under their legs. “I can’t stand this place — I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”

Felice held her hand up so sunlight glowed peach and gold in the web between her fingers. Recently Felice’s friend Bella told her, with affected dismay, about a rumor going around that ever since she’d met Hannah, Felice felt that she was “too good” for the rest of them. They were starting to feel, Bella sniffed, that Hannah had a real “attitude.” Felice lowered her hand and squinted at Hannah, “So where you gonna go that’s so much better?”

Propped up on her elbows beside Felice, Hannah toyed with a ribbon of Felice’s hair. “Nowhere. Were you aware, by the way, that Rendell is madly in love with you?”

“Okay, that’s gross.” Felice clapped a hand over her eyes. “Lizard-Face. Yucky-do.”

“Oh yeah?” Hannah breathed, leaning so close Felice could smell mint gum. “Well, guess what? You own that dude.”

“Still grossing me out.”

“Maybe we should have him killed,” Hannah said speculatively. “It’s really pretty scummy, the way he checks you out. You know how they did it back home? Some guy starts giving a girl the eyeball… and schlerp! ” She dragged a finger across her throat.

Felice giggled, repeating the motion. “Yeah, schlerp to the music man!”

“Serious,” Hannah said, her face suddenly deadpan. “I saw it done. Ask me what happened to my big sister sometime.”

“You did not.”

She just stared hard at Felice, then rolled up to her feet and walked away, throwing back her hair and brushing off the grass, so Felice had to run after her.

THE BEACH GLISTENS before Felice as she heads down Fourteenth, board banging against her hip. The water looks like melted light, flooding above the horizon. She wades through another berm of afternoon tourism along Ocean Drive, then she’s on the footpath to the beach. She thinks of Emerson saying when you live at the beach, you have to remember to keep looking. She wishes he was there, then turns away, quickly, from the thought.

Berry and Reynaldo are in their place at the Cove, sitting with Heinrich — a model and crackhead — and Tracey, who looks spent and ugly from too much crystal, and mostly makes her money from stripping and hooking. Felice has seen her sleeping under picnic tables in the early morning — the hour when the craziest, most broken-down people drag shopping carts along the beach walk, trolling the garbage for empties, rinsing themselves at the freshwater showers. The kids sit on ratty towels and jackets, protected by a bluff of beach grass. They’re hunched around a popping, greasy-looking joint. Heinrich sucks smoke through his teeth, shaking his head, exhaling through his nostrils like a dragon. Felice joins them, folding herself onto a shared towel.

“Got any candy?” Berry asks, eyes watering. “I’m super hungry.”

“I wish,” Felice says.

“So you’re hanging out with the Young Aryans now?” Reynaldo asks her. “What’s up with that?” He tilts back his head, the joint hooded under his fingers, cupping a curl of smoke.

“No Aryans allowed,” Heinrich says. “Not on the beach.” He must have come from a shoot — the woodchip curves of his hair look like they’ve been sprayed with a glittering resin.

“Whatever, you guys.” Felice shrugs. “I think we broke up or something.”

A skinny tourist kid in a pair of board shorts leans over the wooden rail. “Hey.” His teeth are very white. “You guys know where I can get some junk?”

Reynaldo looks at the joint in his hand as if it had suddenly appeared there. Tracey lurches at the tourist. “Fuck off, surfer dick .” She has two vertical lines etched from her nostrils to her lips like parentheses. Everyone but Felice laughs. “Go the fuck back to Cheese-ville,” Tracey adds morosely. “Fuckhead surfer dick .”

“Jesus, fine, fuck you too,” the tourist says, backing away, then stops and shouts, “Bunch of no-job losers!”

Reynaldo sighs a wisp of pot smoke and watches it curl in the air. Berry takes the joint, pinching it between her thumb and index fingers. “This isn’t so bad, Heinrich,” she observes. “I’m getting a buzz. I just wish I had some Twizzlers.”

The tourist stalks off toward the crowded south end of the beach. Felice sees him stop short once or twice, as if struck by some new, cutting remark to fling at them.

“So what’s happening, baby?” Berry asks Felice. “I feel like we never see you anymore.” Her heavy-lidded eyes lower, examining Felice. “Is your skinhead nice?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Felice says, then adds, “Tomorrow’s my birthday.”

“It’s your birthday, baby?” Reynaldo asks. “That’s insane.”

Berry kisses the side of Felice’s head. “We’re going out, for sure. We’re getting loaded.”

“Birthdays,” Tracey says scornfully. “Fuck me.”

“How old are you?” Heinrich asks Felice.

She smirks.

“Old lady,” Reynaldo sings. “Eighteen.”

“Fuck you,” Tracey says to Reynaldo. “That’s the same age as me.”

Felice sucks in a breath, on the verge of a laugh. Is she kidding? She studies Tracey. Her skin is mottled and creased and browned, her hair is matted but thick. Tracey sleeps outside, she reminds herself.

“I’m sixteen,” Heinrich says. “I’m going to be in Milan — or L.A., I guess — by the time I’m twenty. My agent says I’ve got the spring cover of GQ in the bag. But I can’t wait to get into film. I’m done dicking around with modeling.”

“Sucking dick, more like it,” Tracey says.

“At least I’ve got a fucking life.”

“How about I’ll beat your fucking brains in you don’t shut the fuck up,” Tracey says, and takes a long, crackling hit on the joint.