Four Times Blessed (15 page)

             
I hear what we’d call in human acoustics class a rising juncture from Andrew’s drone so I give a noncommittal “Hm.” He goes on some more so I guess that answered that.

             
I hear a solid cheer from the beach, so I have to look again. They’ve made a pen with fuzzy outsides and a sharp inside that’s holding in three of them. I bite the side of my tongue. I just thought of something.

             
I think about it, I really do, but I can’t stop. My hand darts across the table and I catch Andrew’s arm.

             
“Oh, Andrew! It’s a party, come on, let’s go. We’re missing it.”

I hope he takes my solid grip for enthusiasm, and I yank. The table jostles, but he’s moving so I don’t stop.

On the way over, I thank the forefathers that this boy they’ve given me doesn’t seem capable of walking and talking at the same time.

I’ll have to remember that.

              I hurry him through the opening in the seawall and we slush our way across the beach, washed up rocks chiming at our approach. I could swear I hear the seashells giggling as we pass.

I think it must be the tail end of one of my Uncle Groton’s meetings. I’m not really invited to these meetings, they’re just to talk about business and to rehash any interesting news anyone’s collected from crossing paths with fishermen from other islands. Then he makes sure they all know what their jobs are for the week.

When he was little, my brother used to try to crash the meetings with Gino’s older brother, and they’d either show up back at the meetinghouse with pouty scowls and an intense desire to run full speed through the kitchen, or they’d stride in, very businesslike, discussing little plans that they would never tell me no matter how much I whined. Or kicked.

I never saw the grown men again, though, until the next morning. I finally figured out a few years ago, one night in between semesters when I’d come down to the docks to read something under the lights, that the only reason anyone who isn’t an overexcited little boy sits through those meetings is because afterwards my Uncle Groton always does a tasting.

He has to make sure his product is good enough to sell with his name, I heard him say. Anywho, there’s lots of alcohol and the men all stand around it, joking and saying and doing things that would get on my aunts’ nerves, if they were there.

Andrew and I come to the unoccupied curve of the beach and start along the low walkway that slips out alongside the boat launch. Great grandmothers, even here the breeze is rancid with fumes. I decide this is close enough. I’d rather not throw up on Andrew and my first date. 

We sit down. I take my shoes off and drop my legs in. They’re submerged all the way up my calves, but it feels good. The water is barely lukewarm.

Andrew crosses his legs and sits beside me. Then he has to uncross them. His limbs are thick and solid, but they seem to have a hard time folding. He finally gets into a position and stays there. He looks down at my hand longingly. I giggle and his eyes slip up, catching me for a moment.

“What are they doing?” he says.

I shrug, “Who knows.”

Some of the men’s heads turn towards us, enough that I think they must be talking about us. I tense up, ready to dismiss myself with Andrew. Being shooed away isn’t a good first date activity, I don’t think. Too awkward.

I wait for them to call out to us, but instead a few wave in what I’m pretty sure are hellos. My Uncle Groton gestures at us over his shoulder. It’s then that I realize who he’s talking to.

The brothers Lium and Hale stand before him, nodding and nodding. Lium keeps glancing over my uncle’s head. I wave but he doesn’t wave back. Dumb boy. They then disappear into the cluster.

My zizi would certainly have an opinion on this, but she’ll only want the business report from tonight, roll her eyes at the rest. This is good because I don’t think she’d be impressed by my dating skills at the moment. Using my uncles as a sideshow so I don’t have to talk to Andrew for a few minutes. It’s terrible of me. But I can’t help that I kind of like it. Actually, I really like sitting next to Andrew like this. I think there’s something quietly romantic about it, just the voices carrying across the water, the slinking ripples on the pillars, the creaking as Andrew shifts his weight.

“Whoa-ho-ho!” he says.

“What?”

“Look, they’re fighting.”

I try to see through the men’s wavering backs.

“Where?”

“Ah, man! Right there. Oof.”

             
“I can’t see,” I pout.

             
“Ugh,” he chuckles, “Looks like some kind of boxing match. Hey, you want to go back? This really isn’t a lady’s sport.”

             
“Nah, that’s alright, like I said, I can’t see it anyways.”

He shrugs, “Ok. We had something like this on the base in the city, you know. People would get dressed up and go out to watch. But I have to say, I never understood why the women would go. I myself find something about it distasteful, if you must know.”

“Probably just for entertainment,” I say, still grumpy.

He shifts around again, grunting. “So. Crusa.”

“Andrew.” Oh, but he’s very serious. I pull my legs above the surface and fold them. I turn to him.

The boy takes my hand with the bracelets and holds it gently. “Crusa. I want to talk to you. About what we’re doing.”

Oh, sweet forefathers. I feel a deep pang of dread. I was hoping we could just skip this sort of talk, since we don’t have much time anyways.

“Ok,” I say, very controlled.

“So. We’re getting married.”

“Yes.”

He sighs.

I fidget. I should be nicer.

“I want you to know, I take marriage very seriously. I want to be devoted to you and our family for as long as I live. I’ll provide for you, I’ll be faithful to you. I swear all this.”

I’m stunned, I think. I definitely don’t breathe, I know that. The squirming that Andrew is doing now seems alien, even though I was just doing the same. It should be impossible now.

“I like you, Crusa.” He pauses, then, “Can you see yourself married to me?”

My voice comes out stringy and high, but I somehow manage to say, “Yes.” It doesn’t feel like enough, though, so I pump my head up and down so forcefully that the boy laughs and holds my cheeks. I’m dizzy and I blush.

Then I scream and cringe into a little ball.

              The stomp ripples through the planks. I curl up all my fingers and toes and count them. They’re sweaty, but they’re all there, which is good. Still, though, I’m afraid to move quite yet. I peek at the leg that’s two centimeters from my face.

             
It belongs to the boy Lium, flatfooted and peering straight down at me. A small smile touches his mouth. He doesn’t move either, stunned by the landing, I’d bet.

             
I’m about to share with him my opinion on it, when I hear a whole herd of stomping coming at us. I proceed to curl up again. What can I say? It seems like the best strategy at this point. And I do execute the move flawlessly, if I do say so myself.

             
The boots and legs calm down after a few seconds and I chance moving again. There, on the spit of walkway that’s no wider than my own two arms, the entire party is gathered.

There’s a bottleneck as they all seem to be trying to get to where Lium and Larissa’s husband are, further down. Lium, ahead of everyone, skirts down the walkway like it’s nothing. He reminds me of one of the guys on the TAG team, actually. One time, this guy, he dropped all his gear at our feet, cracked his neck, which was gross, and leaped up an alleyway. Straight up it. Well, it was more of a zigzag than straight, I guess, but still. I was so happy I was on his team.

              Unfortunately for Lium, there’s no way he’s going up anywhere at the moment, zigzagging or straight.

The moment he realizes this is clear. He double-checks, then checks again, even as he hauls himself to a bouncing stop. On any of the other walkways, he could have taken a sharp right or left and circled around all of us. It’s too bad, really, that he chose this one, because this one just ends. Very bad luck.

There’s a splash, followed by sputtering and laughter. Rivulets seep under my fingers while whoever it is gets hauled up and wrings himself out. I gather my skirt and move into a squat, wrapping my arms around one of the nearby poles. I’m afraid if I stand I’ll get knocked in, too. I don’t even know where Andrew is. Oh, Sweet Mother of Mercy, I hope he wasn’t the one that just fell in.

Larissa’s husband, Jeremy is his given name, shouts. He shakes out his hands and starts stalking towards Lium.

Then he straightens. Because Lium has his head ducked and is charging right at him.

The men around me start grumbling and clear out to the sides, a few of them wobbling over the drop-off. One of my uncle’s looks at me like he’s not quite sure if he really sees someone there, then grunts. He reaches a reddish hand towards me and it smells sour. I dodge it with a small tilt. On my other side, a cousin pats me on the head, never glancing away from the action.

Lium’s burst right past Larissa’s husband and into the gauntlet they’ve created. Too fast, I think, because he’s already at the other end. He lets up on his sprint delicately and checks over his shoulder.

He grins right at me. My eyes widen and I glance back at Larissa’s husband, who is positively marching his way down to us.

“Oh,” says Lium. Which I think is an understatement. In what I really hope is the start of a good plan, he darts back the way he came.

The two isles of my uncles mash together, cutting him off. He skids and ducks through the midst of them. He kind of reminds me of a squirrel. Larissa’s husband chuckles, and I don’t like the sound of it.

“I think you’re done, son,” he calls, pressing aside another man’s bedraggled head.

“No way. This is my favorite part,” Lium calls back, scanning the spaces between the men’s knees. Seeing my head down there, he takes the time to grin again. I wince. He yells and all at once he stumbles forward, my uncles and cousins close in around him.

Larissa’s husband squeezes through just as Lium regains his footing. They lock gazes, and everybody tries not to interrupt, except for the ocean who’s splashing away.

Shrugging like he can’t think of anything else he should do first, Larissa’s husband reels back. He lets out a guttural cry and my nose pinches. It goes on, I know, although all I can see are the backsides of my uncles because my cousin’s hand keeps shoving me down. I elbow him in the calf, which just makes him laugh and shove me down while messing up my hair. I hear the hitting, though, the muffled whaps of flesh on flesh. My stomach clenches like it always does, revolting at the awful incongruity, as the soft sounds brush my own ears.

I hear someone laugh. My cousin forgets about me as everyone shuffles around and finds nowhere to go. They start yelling.

Keeping low, I work my way over just enough to see. Lium, mouth blotched with bright blood, hunches over Larissa’s husband, who lies at his feet. Her husband tries to heft himself up. Lium waits until he takes a knee, then stomps on him.

I flinch. I’d like to leave, actually, but I’m as backed in as everyone else. I could hop in and swim…

“Hoh!” says the cousin next to me. A few men clap their rough hands together. I see Lium on the ground with Larissa’s husband standing, at least functionally. He’s a little droopy. Anyways, Lium slithers to avoid the feet that keep coming at him from above. I look behind me and start judging the distance from here to the beach. There’s actually an empty mooring one over, if I could just get a few steps to the side…

I squeal when both Lium and Larissa’s husband crumple near me, the impact jostling my kneecaps. I rock back on my heels, away from their faces.

“Hi, Crusa,” chokes out Lium from the inside of Larissa’s husband’s elbow. “Enjoying the show?”

“No,” I say, my toes curling over the lip of the walkway.

“No? What do you mean, no?” I’m sorry, is this boy crazy?