Rainy Season (2 page)

“Please be safe, Mom. Please be safe,” I whisper. But underneath this fresh worry, memories of the accident are beginning to buckle and shake me. I fight them, hard. “Be-safe be-safe,” I say, louder, to stop my thoughts.

I turn up my radio so that it blares its update of which movies are playing in the theaters across the bases. It doesn’t help, but even through my fears I’m mad at myself, for not going to see the paratroopers, for letting my imagination run away with me for the millionth time. It’s not like I can pretend I don’t know why I get like this. It’s just I don’t know exactly how to stop.

H
ALF AN HOUR LATER
, the doorbell chimes. I’d been lying in bed, but I’m at my window in a flash. There’s no car. If Mom got crushed in a riot downtown, I’d have seen the MP’s black military jeep. Still, I sprint downstairs to the front door, expecting the worst.

“Hey, Lane-brain.” Ted Tie grins from the porch step. “You guys ready?”

“Ted. Hey.”

“Charlie coming, too?” Ted’s holding his large tool kit with
Ted Tie—Touch and Die!
magic-markered in black across the top.

“Charlie’s not here and I can’t leave the house.”

“Where is he?” Ted strolls past me into the living room. “Got any Pepsi? It’s getting crispy hot outside.” He plops into the loveseat, sets his toolbox beside him, and yanks up his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face.

“Ted, you have to move that—no, not on the carpet.” I lift the toolbox off the rug and set it on the floor tile. Maybe it’s because Ted is almost fourteen and thinks he’s as good as any adult, or maybe it’s because he’s always lived on the Panama Canal Zone—a Zonian, like Alexa—but he never puts any effort into being polite.

Zonians are what everyone calls Americans who live in the Panama Canal Zone, a U.S. owned strip of land that runs right through the middle of Panama, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Zonians are non-military Americans who have moved down here over the past hundred years, to work for the Pan-Canal Company. The Zone’s a kind of wild, carefree place and since Zonians have Panamanian as well as U.S. citizenship they don’t much care for U.S. rules and regulations.

“So why aren’t you coming to build the fort? We really need you on the front lines. I hear those kids from the other side have their fort almost totally finished.”

“Listen, have you heard about anything bad happening downtown this morning? Mom and Alexa went shopping earlier and they’re not back.”

“Aw, you know it’s just local kids stealing whatever—
las ruedas,
abandoned car parts—those military radio bulletins always exaggerate. Can you or Marita fix me a Pepsi? I’m parched.”

“Marita’s at the PX and Dad and Charlie went to the jump—and Ted, I’m getting really worried about Mom. It’s almost eleven. She left—I don’t know—maybe around eight or nine, I was still sleeping, but Dad’s gone and so it’s all up to me to wait and see—

“Earth to Lane. This little story’s getting mighty boring, besides emphasizing that you’re a total grapenut. I’m gonna go grab that Pepsi myself. Wanta glass?”

“No, and we only have ginger ale.”

“Fine by me.” Ted is already down the hall. While he’s gone I move his grimy toolbox into the front hall, where the floor is just plain linoleum.

Ted notices as soon as he comes back “You and your fussy family. Jeez,” he sighs, flopping back onto the loveseat, the quart-sized ginger ale bottle cradled in his palm, “I don’t know why the Duchess gets so bent out of shape about a little mess.”

“She just likes everything in its place,” I say.

“And she’s always been a neat freak? That’d drive me crazy.”

I have to think for a minute. “Well, when we lived in Virginia, at Fort Pershing, we didn’t have a dishwasher, so sometimes plates stacked up in the sink. But just sometimes.”

Ted narrows his eyes and runs his tongue over his bottom lip like he’s tasting my answer. “Hey, lemme see a picture of Virginia. Where’s Virginia, anyway? Near Miami?”

“Um, not really.” I lean over and pull the photo album off the coffee table, then set myself next to Ted on the loveseat. The album cover is cranberry-dark leather with the photographs hand-glued to soft charcoal-colored pages on the inside.

“This is so out of touch,” Ted comments, flipping past the fuzzy black and white pictures of old relatives to the modern colored photos. “It’s cracked. Who wants to see like the whole history of your family from the Dark Ages? And has the Duchess ever heard of those plastic picture separators? You know, with the sticky—”

“There, that’s my grandparents’ house in Virginia,” I point.

Ted studies the picture for a while. “Lots o’ trees. My grandparents used to live in a big old house in Germany before they lived here.”

“Why’d they leave Germany?”

Ted shrugs. “Guess they kind of had to, since it was World War II and probably the whole entire country was getting bombed. Next time I go up to Miami, I’ll ask them. Ha—is that the Duchess in the poufy wig?”

“I think that’s just how they wore their hair in those times.” Seeing the picture of Mom reminds me. “Ted, don’t you think we should call the MP’s?”

“What?” Ted looks up at me and frowns. “No way, she’s fine. Stop hyperventilating about it. Why are some of these pictures all cut up and weird looking?”

I peer into the book. “Where?”

He points. “There. And that one.”

“Oh, Mom just does that so if someone looks bad in the picture, like red eyes or blurry or something, she’ll cut that part out and keep the good part of the picture in. So that the whole picture isn’t ruined.”

Ted looks at me skeptically. “See, that’s just what I’m talking about. Fussiness.” He slaps the album shut. “I think I just heard a car door slam.”

I leap to the window and once I see that it’s Mom and Alexa, I can feel my worries squeeze out of me like hot water from a washcloth.

“Why are you being so friendly?” Mom asks with a smile. As soon as she walks inside, I have her in a clutch; it’s babyish and I know Ted and Alexa are watching, but I bury my face in her shoulder. Mom sets down her shopping bags and returns my hug, although her eyes quiz me.

“I thought there was trouble downtown. Dad told me.” I let go of her; Mom crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head.

“Well, it’s sweet of you to be concerned, Lanie, but we both know very well that this is exactly the kind of thing …” Her voice dies away at the sight of Ted, who waves at her from the loveseat.

“Heya, Duchess.”

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Tie!” Mom’s face relaxes back into a smile and she nods to his drink. “No beverages on the furniture.”

“Argghhh.” Ted stands, resting his weight on one leg, then tips back his head and drains the bottle like he’s on a television commercial.

“Theodore, doesn’t Dee have enough bread and water that you don’t have to schlep around here on the dole?” asks Alexa, settling herself carefully into a spindly-legged chair.

“Dee’s an unfit mother,” Ted smirks. “You should know—you trained her.”

Alexa laughs in a giant rumble. Ted’s mom Dee and Alexa used to be something wild growing up on the Zone—I’ve heard lots of crazy stories. She and Dee and their Zonie friends were always up to strange things like water-skiing through the Pedro Miguel locks or racing their jeeps over the Fort Davidson golf course.

“You are so brutal to me, Teddy Tie. Isn’t it Friday today? Why aren’t you in school? Rain didn’t blow down the doors over at
Escuela Balboa
too, did it?”

“It’s called a sick day, Alexa. More interesting things to do than geometry, right?” Ted jams the hands of his crossed arms under his armpits and lifts his shoulders and his eyebrows. “Just don’t tell Dee. I’m thinking you can keep a secret.”

“Well, stop thinking. And why do I have a feeling you’ve put in for a whole sick week?” Alexa shakes a finger at him, but it wouldn’t even cross her mind to tell Dee. Dee doesn’t care whether Ted goes to class or the beach; one thing I’ve learned here is that school isn’t so much taught on the Zone as it’s just tolerated, like the rains.

“So Ted, what’s the lowdown on Jennifer Elwig—or do you have a new flavor of the week?” Alexa is always way too curious about everybody’s love life.

“Believe me, I’m still smitten. She’s old, though—two years too old for me. I might call her if I’m feeling deliriously brave,” Ted jokes. “Since you and the Duchess both are taken.”

“Oh you hush, you bad thing.” Alexa turns her head and flutters her eyes. It’s plain that she likes his flattery, though, which makes me feel kind of sorry for her and kind of amazed.

It’s weird how parents and other grownups love Ted. It’s partly because he’s nice to look at—tall and tan with gold flecks in his hair and eyes. Mostly though, he’s just so comfortable inside himself that he brings out a comfortable feeling in other people. Ted’s a kid you always meet with exclamation points—“Hey! It’s the man! Tie! Whatsup, Ted!”—even if you don’t normally speak that way.

Mom never even minds that he calls her the Duchess. He named her from his poster of David Bowie, who Ted told me sometimes is called the Thin White Duke. I’ve seen that poster in his room, and Ted’s right, Mom looks just like it: she’s long and flat and pale, with prickly yellow hair and a bony face like a greyhound dog, like David Bowie. Mom also wears men’s clothes; always flared jeans and pantsuits and button-down shirts. No makeup, either. The only time I ever saw her wear a really nice dress was in photos from when she and Dad got married. She says pants are her rebellion against her Virginia upbringing, when she had to wear skirts and pantyhose, even on the weekends.

Alexa is Mom’s opposite; she wears sparkly eyeshadow and her long black hair looks like it was carved into its polished knot. Alexa also likes to dress in floor-length swishy things. Today the swishy thing is green and it sticks to her body like Plasti-Rap. The whole effect reminds me of a peeled avocado.

“Where’re the men?” Mom asks.

“At the jump. Marita’s out, shopping.” Now I’m sort of depressed that I didn’t go to the jump when I had the chance.

Alexa looks crabby. “Marita’s not here? Then we’ll have to go out, Abby, like to the Officer’s Club.” She pats her stomach. “I’m famished.”

“Don’t be crazy,” Mom starts heading to the kitchen. “You forget
I’m
from the U.S. of A. I still know how to slap a piece of cheese between two slices of bread.”

Alexa wrinkles her nose and starts to say something, but then stops and turns to Ted. “So is Dee on for the party tonight?”

“There’s a party here tonight?” Ted looks at me.

“I didn’t know,” I say. We both turn to Alexa, who laughs.

“That’s because Abby and I decided on it this morning.”

“Is that enough time to get all the food ready?”

“Oh no, no, no, silly girl—we’re having it catered. It’s someone else’s problem—we just show up, eat, and go home!” Alexa starts really cracking up now, although no one else is joining in. “But I do need to get on the horn and ring up the gang.” She sighs when she recovers.

“Hey, Lane, we should go see the jump,” Ted says. “Dee and Grant took the Toyota to the Atlantic side to go scuba diving, so we’ve got Grant’s truck for the whole day. And we can recruit more builders while we’re over at McKenna.”

“I need to change first. I’m still in my nightgown.”

“Hurry up then. Day’s wasting.”

“Ten minutes.” I sprint to my room to get ready before Ted becomes impatient and takes off without me, which he’s been known to do in true Zonie style.

I
TAKE A COLD
shower to get ready for the heat, then I pull on my bathing suit and a cotton sundress. My sandals, once white, are still pretty damp from when I stomped them through yesterday’s rain puddles. I squish them on anyway.

I sit on my bed and try scraping a comb through my wet hair. Once Emily told me I had thick movie star hair, although all I see is mouse brown to match my mouse gray eyes. Sometimes, right after I’d washed it, she’d wind it into a French braid. When it dried, she’d unravel the braid into bumps and waves.

There’s a picture somewhere; me in a movie star pose with my unbraided hair spread all over my shoulders, and then Emily in the back holding a bottle of hairspray and wearing a cowboy hat, pretending to be the Hairdresser to the Stars. “Dahling, you must stop by my saloon!” she scribbled on the corner of the picture. Sometimes I wonder if she spelled it saloon because of the cowboy hat, or had meant to write salon like a hair salon. Either way, it’s funny.

I’ll have to finish the letter I started writing to her in my journal. It’s been almost a month since I wrote a letter to Emily.

I give up on the comb, wiggling my fingers down through the knots and snags as I rejoin the others in the living room.

“I’m ready.”

Ted jumps up and swipes another half of cheese sandwich from the platter Mom must have prepared. “Let’s motor. Got your pass?”

I pat the side slit pocket of my dress.

“Lane, when you see Dad, will you tell him about tonight but ask him
please
don’t invite anyone yet, since Alexa and I are still making the list?” Mom points a warning finger at me.

“Okay.”

“And drive carefully, Ted,” she adds. She’s still not used to the idea that Zonians don’t think they need to be a certain age to drive. Military kids, like me, all have to follow the laws of the American government. No questions asked. But Ted’s lucky; even though he’s an American citizen, living on the Panama Canal Zone is pretty different from living on an army base.

The whole Zone’s nearly 650 square miles. And while the 14 bases built along the Zone are all very regulated and orderly, the Zone has real neighborhoods, with lawns and garages and barbecue grills. As far as neighborhoods go, they’re pretty average-American looking, except for being built in the middle of the jungle, and most Zonians are more likely to keep boats, trucks and jeeps in their garages, instead of cars.

Almost everyone who lives on the Zone works for the government, mostly for the Pan-Canal Company. Ted’s dad, Grant, is a lock-switch operator. Ted only ever leaves Panama to see his grandparents in Miami. Almost all Zonians, once they retire from the Pan-Canal Company, go live in Miami. Ted thinks the whole United States is like Miami—full of mini-golf ranges and old people.