Four Times Blessed (6 page)

“What do you think, miss Eleni? Are you ready to get married like our Crusa?”

“I’m not getting married until I’m old.”

Our aunt gawks. I start eating one of my curls.

I can hear Eleni’s breathing, like she’s got clogged sinuses. I decide to distract our aunt because I don’t feel like listening to her and Leni argue all night.

I laugh again. It’s short but it’s all I can manage.

“So, was he nice?” I say. It’s the only question I can think of. Stupid, yes, but hey. Maybe a stupid question will dry up the conversation that much faster. Sweet ancestors, let us hope.

“What? Oh, no. He was
too
nice. He offered me some bait for free, and so I said to him, why are you giving me this? You’re being too nice. You want something. What is it you want, huh?”

“That must have been…awkward.”

My aunt sighs, gives an eye roll that goes up to heaven and somehow lands on me.

“Then, your Uncle Groton came in and was like, leave my niece alone, boy. You work for me and she’s married. I showed the man my ring and told him that I was taken.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Yes, and then I told him not to worry because I had lots of pretty young nieces that weren’t married yet, and would he like me to introduce him and his brother to them.”

Eleni makes a sound that I totally agree with.

“But then it was very strange. Your Uncle Groton sort of pushed me out the door and gave me the cord I needed for free. Can you believe that? He’s so good to me. Anyways, he started whispering to me when we were outside so nobody else could hear. He said,” and my aunt drops to a whisper, or at least as close to one as she is able.

I have to lean in to catch her quick words though the suppertime din. “He said that the boys were good for work, but that we don’t want them marrying any of our girls.”

“Maybe they carry diseases,” I say.

“No. Honestly, Crusa. But there is something wrong with them. I was talking to Angela later and she said one of Angie’s devils found out that those boys had escaped from someplace.” Oh, my aunt. She knows I can’t pretend that’s not interesting.

“What place?”

“It was a prison.”

I lean back because she’s baring so many teeth I’m afraid she’ll eat me. “You’re saying they escaped from some jail?”

“Yes.”

“What jail?”

“Probably a government one.”

“Huh.”

“What else could it be. Plus, that boy was
too
nice. Nobody is that nice unless they’re trying to be. Tomorrow I’m going to warn everybody that there are escaped prisoners on the island.”

“Auntie Larissa, you can’t do that. You have absolutely zero evidence.” Honestly, sometimes I feel like everybody could use a good semester or two at a government academy.

“What? What’s not true about that?”

“Probably everything. You can’t just go around blurting things out, Auntie.”

“Yes, I can, I have to, sweetheart. People deserve to know. How would you feel if one of your cousins married one of them and he turned out to be some kind of killer?”

I close my eyes so they don’t roll. I feel really weird lecturing my aunt. I wish she’d let me stop.

“I really doubt that would happen.”

“They’re convicts, Crusa. Did you not hear me? Maybe they came here to hide, but standing around plain as day in the bait shop, they’re just asking for people to notice. They’re obviously not too bright, but then prisoners usually aren’t. It’s how they get stuck in jails in the first place.”

I’ve lost my appetite.

“You don’t have to do it, Aunt Larissa. You should just keep your mouth shut.”

There’s a little trip in the homey cloud of noises around us. It settles back, but I get suspicious that was me and I flush in embarrassment.

“Grandmothers, dear. Don’t get fussy.”

I can’t stand to arguing with her any more, so I stand up and take my plate.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk,” I gather up my things and take an empty pitcher, too.

“Relax, honey. It’s fine, don’t worry about those boys. Everyone will make sure they don’t come near you. You’re just very sensitive, is all.”

“I guess so.” And I walk away.

Eleni better be following me.

That last line of mine wasn’t too brilliant, but I have to get out of here. I wash my plate and utensils, kiss my zizi, and march up the stairs so loudly that several adults look up, then away. I hear Leni explaining to our zizi through the bathroom floorboards.

Good, because I’m all talked out for tonight. I have to study. And make seasickness wristbands. I have a base-specific certification oceanography lab to do tomorrow and I don’t have any of the pills left. I used them all so I could sleep through the stupid racket of the stupid frogs in the stupid swamp.

I throw up twice on the boat the next day. The first time it happens, I’m in the middle of measuring a feisty little lobster so I try to will my breakfast not to come up. Doesn’t work. I end up on my knees with a frantic crustacean skittering around me while I shudder uncontrollably. From the throwing up, not the possessed lobster.

Luckily, my Uncle Avery, one of my Grandpa Bluff’s sons, is the lab’s boat captain for today, so he left the wheel and lugged me up off the deck to aim my head over the railing before the second onslaught. I’m now hanging over the rail all on my own while he sloshes a bucket of water over the deck.

“All clean,” he pats me on the head.

I catch a glimpse of blue. “Catch him!” I flail a limp arm towards the psychotic creature.

“Where?”

“There! Under the thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing. Get him! He’s getting away, Uncle Avery.”

“Hey, if it’s a he, why are we not eating him?”

“Because I need to measure him. While he’s uncooked.”

“You need him after that?”

“No, I guess not.”

“I’ll take him then.”

“Ok, just help me catch him first! Dah, there!”

I crawl across the deck with my uncle on my heels. I reach under a big plastic box full of icky water, get pinched on the hand, stop myself halfway through a swear word, and pull out the evil beast. I thank Jesus Christ for the protective gloves I checked out this morning, but remark to Him it does still sting a bit, not that I’m not grateful to still have all my fingers. I wonder if this is thanks to my zizi’s prayer last weekend.

I can’t decide if being pinched makes me want to throw up more or less than before.

Once we get back on land, it’s clear that it’s more. The hike up the island is so miserable that I stop and hug a tree. Then I bang my head against it. My little cousin Gino walks by on his way down to the docks and asks if I’m alright. I smile and say I’m fine. He looks at me like he’s not sure if I’m lying, or, more likely, just crazy, so I get a move on before he thinks he has to go tell someone.

By the time I reach the airfield, the walk has cleared my head a bit. Still, I stop by an unoccupied chemistry lab, hang over a sink and squirt deionized water all over my face until the sick droning goes away and I can see straight.

With a bucket between my knees just in case, I type up my lab results and make a lovely data table. I stick in a photo of me measuring my special blue friend in the methods section because visual aids are always worth an extra point or two, and send it on in to the central grading service.

Then I seal the sound booth and start the music. A traditional European orchestra today. Telling me all about pantry number five’s inventory. The flutes sound like we’re running low on wheat flour, so I measure the amplitude and send an email on to the galley.

              The week goes by, and once Friday night comes I can’t fall asleep. Plus side, I get to watch the sun come up. Down side, the sight isn’t as pleasant while one’s dread increases linearly right along with every millimeter of rise, so I’m glad once it finally gets up there because now everyone else will have to wake up too.

             
This turns out to be less pleasant than I imagined.

             
My zizi bursts into my bedroom singing. She starts digging through my closet, pulling out every dress I own and throwing them onto my bed. With me still in it.

             
“Crusa, which one do you want to wear today?”

             
“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to wear this one?”

              “Sure.”

             
“Or how about this one?”

             
“Fine.”

             
“Really? I don’t think this one is as pretty as the other one.”

             
“Then I’ll wear the first one.”

             
“No, wear the one you want. It’s your day.”

             
“I want the first one.”

             
“Alright. Hey, what about that one?”

             
We repeat this conversation over and over again with every aspect of my appearance until it’s decided that I will wear Eleni’s white dress that it’s so lucky, her just having walked in with it, that has the pretty back cut. My hair will be down and pinned back, and I’ll wear the sandals that have the beading on them, and Andrew’s family promise bracelet, of course.

             
“Do you want to take off that necklace?”

             
“Huh?” I reach up to my throat, feel the thin chain. “No, I’m good.”

             
“Are you sure? I think it would look nicer without it. I could give you one of mine. The gold would be so pretty with that dress, and it’ll be yours when I’m dead so there you go. You might as well use it now when it counts.”

             
“Zizi. Great grandmothers, please don’t talk like that. I just want to keep my own one on.”

             
“Well, fine, if that’s what you want. I think the silver looks very nice.”

             
“You sure?” I check my reflection in the bathroom’s window.

             
“Yes, honey, it looks fine.” She kisses me and then asks me what I want for breakfast.

             
“I don’t know! Stop asking me stuff, would you?” She clucks and massages my hands with strawberry pulp, smearing some on my lips as well. She asks if I want a lick off her finger and I break into a fit of giggles.

She ends up ordering me out of the house, then making me wait forever for her on the front stoop. I hop up and down the steps about ten times.

“Zizi, come on! Please, we’re already late.”

“You need to relax, dear,” she says, primly stepping out the door and stuffing a piece of bread into my hand as she passes.

She takes a moment to secure the gossamer shawl that she told my uncle not to trade last month over her bare arms. Then we’re off. With Camillo, who ran up to the meetinghouse not a second before my zizi came out, and Eleni, who I found out there yawning. Both dressed in this year’s Easter outfits, minus the coats.

My zizi eyes me every five seconds as we go down to the docks to make sure I’m eating. I take a few bites but they stick in my throat. I end up tossing bits into the underbrush for the rabbits and the deer and the squirrels. It’s helpful that people join us as we pass their houses, kissing my cheeks and giving my zizi big hugs. I chuck the rest of my bread behind a couple of fat oaks. It blends right in with their bark while it’s airborne, which is why I chose them. Camillo looks at me. I look back. If he’s got something to say, he can go right on ahead.

He doesn’t.

             
“Good, baby, did you finish your breakfast?” my zizi says.