All Over the Map (11 page)

Tara and Lucy talk about how difficult it is to be a fa’afafine on the island—no place to go, nowhere to dress up. Lucy disappears to her hut and comes back with a pineapple she cuts with a knife, the sweetest pineapple I’ve ever tasted. I ask how old they were when they knew they were fa’afafine.

“I changed my life when I was seven,” says Tara. “We used
to go to Sunday school, and we had to weed the plantation for the pastor, we were out in the weeds with the boys.” She looks out across the field. “I still remember the boy that did it to me, he was older than me. After that boy did it to me, then other boys would do it to me in the weeds.” She laughs, and I wonder how she can laugh.

Lucy wipes her mouth on her shirt. “I changed my life when I was ten. It was my brother-in-law,” she says. “When my father would beat me at home because I wanted to wear dresses and dance, I would run away to my sister’s house. She had a husband, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and when we went out to feed the pigs one night, he did it to me there. He showed me what was in his pants, and I didn’t know what to do, and he grabbed me and pulled me down.” She takes a bite of her pineapple.

“Were you scared?” I ask.

“No, I didn’t tell anyone,” says Lucy. “I could never speak of it to my sister, and my father would have beat me. I didn’t know I was a fa’afafine then, but my brother-in-law kept doing it to me in the fields, and then other older boys would do it to me, too.”

Lucy and Tara finish the pineapple, but I’ve lost my appetite.

“Let’s go to the surfer bar,” Lucy says, eyeing the car.

T
HE
M
AGOGO BEACH
club is the center of the local surfer scene, with huts on the beach to rent, camping supplies for sale, and a bar. Young Australian and New Zealander surfers, tanned and tattooed, pound down the beers after a long day riding the waves.
Tara and Lucy find a table, and the waitress, a trendy-looking Samoan woman in her forties, takes their order for beers. “Big ones,” says Lucy.

The first Vailimas are served, and before the waitress leaves the table, Lucy orders another round. She and Tara drink as if they don’t know when in life they’ll find another palagi to foot the bill, and I lose track of the rounds. The drunker they get, the less English they speak. I drink because I’m getting bored, tinged with sadness at these two fa’afafine and their gaiety, which now seems so forced.

At a nearby table, the young palagi surfers, blond and buff, are becoming raucous. “Hey,” Lucy yells over in their direction. “Why don’t you guys come on over and buy us a drink?” One of the young men glances over in our direction, nudges a buddy, and they all laugh uproariously.

Undeterred, Lucy swings her way over to their table and sits down. The young men seem greatly amused by her presence, and she acts as if she is wildly entertaining, not the butt of their jokes. “Come sit on my lap, baby,” one says in his thick Australian accent, and the others double over laughing. Lucy slides onto his lap, and he makes obscene pumping motions, holding her waist. He pinches her breast, hard. “Are these real?” he asks, and while the others laugh at her, Lucy beams like a child.

“You’re cute,” she says, throwing her arms around his neck. The joke has gone too far, and he pushes her, roughly, off his lap. In her inebriated state, Lucy falls off the edge of the bench. She picks herself up, dusting sand off, stunned, and then, just as others might cry, she bursts into laughter. The surfers have lost their
appetite for her, for the joke, and have returned to talking about the killer waves. They ignore her as she makes her way back to our table.

“Did you see that?” Lucy asks Tara. “I haven’t lost it.” She slumps back into her seat.

The sun fades, and the waitress lights some electric tiki torches inside the thatched hut bar. I take off my Italian sunglasses and set them on the table.

A strong young Samoan man with a tattooed armband approaches our table and pulls up a chair.
“Malo,”
he says, greeting Lucy, whom he seems to know. The young man turns his attention to me. “You’re American?” he asks, flashing a smile the same dingy white as the big shark’s tooth around his neck, a talisman surfers wear to protect them from sharks.

The waitress delivers three more big Vailimas. She eyes me. “Be careful with these,” she whispers, glancing around the table, but I wave on another beer. I can take care of myself. I study Tara and Lucy, who are joking about sex and boyfriends to cover up the loneliness in their lives stretching out in front of them like the endless sea. I knock over my beer, and it drips all over my sandals and dress. It’s sticky and I need air.

“I’m going over there,” I say, pointing to the ocean and pushing back from the table. “Splash some water.” I walk away in the sand, and the fa’afafine nod, barely registering. Their heads are low to the table, whispering to each other.

“Me, too,” says the Samoan surfer, following, and I don’t care, whatever. I wander by some camping huts to the edge of the water, dip my feet in, and wash away the beer. I look up at the
stars, so bright, and a wave comes up, startling me, pushing me onto my seat, my dress now sopping and sandy.

“Here,” says the Samoan man, taking my hand and pulling me up. How nice that he’s helping.

“Look.” I gesture at my dress helplessly. “Look what happened.” He keeps my hand in his, pulling me away from the water, pulling me along the beach.

I drop his hand. “Stay there,” I command and giggle and go to the other side of some brush to pee. I lift my skirt and squat; it’s hard to balance when you’ve had a few drinks. Men have it easy. Emerging from the bush, I don’t see the surfer guy, which is good. I just need to sit, to breathe, I don’t feel so good. Sit awhile and then find some water to drink.

There’s the surfer guy, coming toward me. He sits down, and then he is too close. “Baby, I want you,” he says out of the blue and puts an arm around me. Where did he get that line, this silly surfer? I push him away.

“I want to lick you,” the Samoan guy says, more urgently, and he starts pawing around. “Go away,” I say, pushing him more strongly.

I start to get up, and he pushes me down into the sand. “Really,” I say, angry now. “Leave me alone.”

“I want to fuck you, baby.”

“No!” He is ridiculous. I make a mighty effort to get up, and he puts his hand on my hip to keep my down. Red alarms go off in my head, and I summon all my will, my strength, that bolt of energy to fight him off, and his hand pushes harder on my hip bone and he laughs at me, drunkenly enjoying the game. He still
thinks I want to kiss him, fucking moron. No, I say, turning my head into the sand and closing my eyes. No.

I
WAKE UP
, curled in a fetal position. I have no idea how much time has passed. I brush sand from my mouth and look to see if the Samoan guy has gone. I push myself up to sitting and then lean over again. I heave up everything, the beer, the pineapple. I vomit until it’s bitter and my throat is raw and there is nothing left, but I can’t stop heaving. I close my eyes and try to breathe in deep. Some people would not be in this situation. Some people would be back in their hut, in bed with a book. Some people would not have gotten so fucking drunk with a bunch of drag queens in Samoa. But I am an idiot, I am a mess. In the sand I notice the shark’s tooth the surfer was wearing, the leather cord ripped apart.

I stand up, nearly sober, and walk back to the water’s edge. After a hard wave, there is a calm pooling of water. I rinse my face, then walk into the warm water in my dress, dunking my head, swimming under, washing everything, rubbing my skin until I feel clean. When I surface, I am alert enough to realize I should get out of the water. I wish I had a towel.

Back to the bar, Tara and Lucy are still at the table, their heads resting on their arms on the table. I tap them, and it takes a few minutes for them to register my presence. “There you are,” says Tara, rousing herself.

“Did you go for a little swim?” Lucy asks. “Did the surfer make you all wet?” Lucy laughs, but Tara notices my pale face and straightens up.

I locate my beach bag and go into the restroom, where I rinse my face and cup my hands to drink as much water as I can. I change into my sarong, clean again.

“Let’s go,” I say, back at the table.

“School tomorrow,” Tara says, struggling to her feet, giving her head a shake to get rid of the drunkenness.

Turning to leave, I remember something. “My sunglasses!” I search the table, my bag, and turn to Lucy. “Did you see my sunglasses? They were right here on the table.” Those were my favorite sunglasses. I found them in Rome, paid more for them than anyone should pay for shoes, much less sunglasses, but they’d been worth it, they were cool, women stopped me on the street to ask where I got those sunglasses. And now some drunk fa’afafine bitch has them hiding in her pockets. “Fuck!” I say, and Tara looks away, embarrassed.

It is not Tara’s fault. Forget it. But my favorite sunglasses. They’re gone.

“Let’s go,” I say, wishing we could leave Lucy behind. We speed back toward Lucy’s plantation and drop her off without saying good-bye. I slow down when it’s just Tara in the car, and she’s apologizing for the glasses, for their drunkenness, and I reassure her, no, no, it’s all fine. When I get to Tara’s village, the open-sided house, I can see the sleeping forms of her mother and father in the corner on the mats. I say good-bye to Tara, and then offer her the wet dress in my bag, which I never want to see again. “It needs a wash,” I say, “but it might fit you.”

“Fa’afetei,”
says Tara and gives me a gentle hug.

W
HEN
I F
INALLY
get out of bed in the morning, I stumble as I stand up. I rub the crease where my hip meets my leg, tender and sore deep inside. I must have strained it somehow. My head is pounding. I stand under the lukewarm shower until I am as awake as I’m going to get.

Coffee will help. I walk over to the main house and sit on the porch. The view of the waves is soothing.

A van of surfers pulls up. The driver’s tanned arm, leaning out the window, has a tattoo around it. My stomach jumps. The Samoan surfer climbs out of the van with some tourists, chatty New Zealanders, who are climbing the stairs to the porch. I want to bolt, but there’s no way to leave without walking straight past them. I put my head down and hide my face behind my coffee cup, wishing for my sunglasses. I will myself invisible as they settle into their table. I think I’m safe and then sense something or someone standing in front of me. The waiter with breakfast. I lift my head, and it’s the surfer. I cover my face with my hand and pretend it is a bad hallucination that will go away.

“I’m sorry,” I hear him say, and I cannot speak. I’m frozen, still as an animal whose only defense is to blend into the background. After a couple of beats, he moves, I hear him go down the stairs, and then, in the distance, the van door opening and closing.

I get up to settle my bill. I can’t eat breakfast, I have got to catch my plane. In a moment I’m driving away.

When I climb the stairs to the plane, my hip twinges sharply. I take my seat in the cramped plane and suddenly feel there isn’t enough air, the space is too enclosed. I close my eyes and breathe slowly. After the plane takes off, I peer out at the island, at its sultry greenness, and at the Falealupo Peninsula, the edge of the earth, entrance to the underworld with its evil spirits.

H
ome from Samoa, I unpack my bag and gather my clothes to throw everything into the laundry. When I touch the green flowered sarong I wore the last night on Savai’i, I drop the whole bundle on the floor. I throw the sarong in the trash—to get rid of the whole episode, it never existed—and go take a shower, even though I already had one that morning.

In just a few days, I’m packing again, back at the airport, boarding a plane to Houston. I’m suddenly exhausted from traveling, going through the motions, looking over my shoulder, nervous. I want to be home, but I don’t want to be home alone.

In Texas, I’m doing a prison story. At a coffee shop I meet an ex-con, the kind with tattooed tears by his eyes for the number of people he’s killed, and have to take notes as fast as I can to keep him from seeing how my hand is shaking. I pretend I need a third cup of coffee just so I don’t have to walk out with him, then wait until his pickup truck is a speck in the distance before I leave, driving in the other direction. In the rental car, I get disoriented and panicky and have to pull over several times to check the map and breathe.