Three Little Words (3 page)

All he says now is, “She reads really well.”

Megan looks up from her cookbook. “Really? How can you tell?”

“She reads the washing instructions on the labels when we do the laundry. Never gets it wrong. She kept that yellow silk blouse of yours out of the hot wash a few days ago.”

“That's great, Fariza,” Megan says. “Thank you, sweetie. I love that blouse.”

Fariza and Sid take their places, side by side, at the table. Side by side, they stare out at the cove for a few minutes. Fariza points at the top of the fir tree and then flaps her arms.

“Yup, there's Eric,” Sid says. He points at a green car in the ferry lineup. “It looks like Chloe and her mom are going to town.”

“The party's this weekend,” Megan says. “I'm trying to find a new dessert to make.”

“What—no éclairs?” Sid gasps and puts his hand to his heart. “Megan's éclairs are awesome,” he says to Fariza, who is looking both puzzled and worried. “Whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Mmmmm. Midsummer Madness without éclairs? No way. Next you're gonna tell me that Irena's not making her famous potato salad or Caleb isn't barbecuing salmon.”

“He's such a traditionalist,” Megan says to Fariza, who still looks puzzled.

“Someone who hates change,” Megan explains. “If you want éclairs, you're going to have to make them yourself, Sid. Last year I made three dozen. I'd be happy to pass the torch to you. You up for it?”

Sid nods. “Me and Fariza will do it. Right, Fariza?”

Fariza nods.

“You don't know what you've signed up for.” Megan laughs. “I'll get the groceries today. The party's in three days. Don't leave it till the last minute.”

“No worries,” Sid says. “I've been helping you since I was four. I think I can whip up a few dozen éclairs—no problem.”

He sits down beside Fariza and opens his sketchbook. Every day he tears out a page, divides it into boxes and draws something in the upper half. Every day, Fariza fills in Fred's speech balloon and writes some more of the story in the bottom box. The next day, Sid draws what she has written the previous day. Right now, cartoon Fariza and cartoon Fred are about to embark on a kayak trip. Fred is having a hard time getting into the kayak.
My legs are too long
, it says in his speech balloon.
And
I don't have any arms. You'll have to paddle.
Sid draws the scene and then hands the page back to Fariza, who immediately starts to write in the lower box. Her printing is smaller and neater than it was when they first started working together; she fills the space below the drawing with line after line of words, her fingers clutching the pencil fiercely. She is already developing a bump on her middle finger, just like Sid's.

As she writes, Sid considers Billy's ordeal in the Uncanny Valley. For the first time since he began the story, he wonders whether he wants to continue with it. Nothing good ever happens to Billy; maybe he should just wander into the forest of Titan Arum and be poisoned by the stench. When his body is finally found, his family will realize that he was right all along—the giant plants are indeed toxic—and they will set up a memorial in his memory. End of story. Sid closes the sketchbook. He has never felt this way about one of his creations. Never wanted to kill off a character. He looks over at Fariza, whose tongue is protruding as she fills another line with tiny print.

“I'll be back in a minute,” he says to her. She nods slightly but doesn't raise her eyes from the paper.

Sid goes up to his room and takes a brand-new coil-bound sketchbook from a stack on his bookcase. He goes back to Fariza, and waits for her to finish writing. While he waits, he opens the new sketchbook and writes
The Amazing Adventures of Fariza and Fred
at the top of the first page. Underneath he writes
Written by Fariza
and Illustrated by Sid
. Under that, he draws Fariza and Fred on the couch. Then he takes the half-dozen pages they have already completed and carefully tapes them into the book. When Fariza finally puts down her pencil, he hands her the sketchbook.

“You and Fred need your own book,” he says. “Just like mine.”

Fariza's eyes widen as she opens the book and sees her name on the page.

“Thank you,” she whispers. Her voice is scratchy but sweet. She pats his hand before picking up the book and hugging it to her chest. She slides off the chair and goes over to the couch, where Fred is waiting for her.

Laugh Out Loud

“I
bet you wish Tobin was here,” Chloe says.

Sid shrugs. “Yeah. I guess.” He knows better than to tell Chloe how much he misses Tobin. Chloe had a crush on Tobin, but Tobin wasn't interested. It's not a topic he and Chloe discuss.

“Remember the time you and Tobin took off in Nancy Benton's Porsche?” Chloe says. “Irena was so pissed.”

Sid grins. Two summers ago, at Midsummer Madness, he and Tobin had been doing what he and Chloe are doing today: directing guests to parking spots in the field beside Chloe's house. Irena has thrown an August long-weekend potluck open house for over thirty years—all permanent residents of the island (and their families) are welcome. No summer visitors (triflers, Irena calls them) permitted. Since Irena knows each and every person who lives year-round on the island, it is impossible to crash the party, although many have tried. Nancy Benton's parents still live one cove over, so Nancy's presence is acceptable. More than acceptable—she is a celebrity, an island girl who made good in Hollywood.

“Nancy didn't mind,” Sid says. “In fact, she asked Tobin if he wanted to take it for a spin. Said every boy should have a chance to drive a car like that. He'd just got his Learner's permit. Remember? Irena wasn't the only one who was pissed. I seem to recall you refusing to come out of your room.”

Chloe snorted. “That wasn't because of you, asshole. It was because Irena was treating me like her personal slave.
Chloe, get more chairs. Chloe, the silverware isn't
shiny enough. Chloe, you can't wear that. Chloe, your hair
is a disgrace
. And anyway, Nancy Benton is so full of herself, now that she's finally in a hit series. Mom says everyone's conveniently forgotten what a bitch she was in high school.”

Sid raises an eyebrow at her. “Since when do you care? Anyway, she seems nice enough to me. Maybe she'll turn up again this year—in a Ferrari. You telling me you wouldn't want to go for a spin?”

Chloe swats him on the arm as a perfectly maintained baby-blue Studebaker parks in the circular driveway. An elderly gentleman in a beautiful cream-colored suit and matching fedora emerges slowly from the car and hands Sid the keys.

“Be careful with her,” he says to Sid as Chloe takes his arm and helps him up the front stairs.

“Always, Mr. Goodwyn,” Sid says. “You'll get the primo spot near the front door.”

The guests begin to arrive in a steady stream—on foot, by bicycle, in battered old cars and shiny new trucks. Some even come by kayak or canoe and walk up from the cove. Some bear armloads of flowers; one little girl has a daisy chain she has made for Chloe. Others carry casserole dishes full of hot wings, paper plates piled with Nanaimo Bars, Tupperware containers full of three-bean salad. And then there are the chips—bags and bags of chips in every variety and flavor imaginable. Sid knows how Irena feels about chips—she calls bringing chips and dips to a potluck
the ultimate social sin
—but after he's been on parking duty for an hour, he's ready to rip into the next bag of chips he sees.

Megan appears on the front porch with Fariza, who holds a can of Coke in each hand. Fariza's hair is in neat cornrows, punctuated at the tips by tiny glass beads. Chloe's mission, since Fariza's arrival on the island, has been to tame Fariza's wild hair. She started her campaign slowly, showing Fariza pictures she found online, explaining how she would get the tangles out first, using lots of conditioner so it wouldn't hurt. But it was the seaglass beads—soft blues and greens, milky white—that finally won Fariza over. Chloe's mom had found them at a local craft fair years before and kept them in an old Mason jar on the kitchen windowsill. Chloe loved to play with the beads, running them through her hands like water. Now the beads click whenever Fariza turns her head. When she is anxious or tired, she strokes one particular green bead—the color of her eyes—that dangles near her chin.

“We thought you might need a break,” Megan says. Fariza solemnly hands Sid and Chloe the drinks. “Go inside and get something to eat. Fariza and I will take over out here.”

“Are you sure?” Sid says.

Megan nods. “You don't want to miss Irena's potato salad, do you?”

“Nope,” Sid says. “And I better snag a few éclairs before they're all gone. Did you get one, Fariza?” They had spent the day before in the kitchen—beating the glossy batter, melting the dark chocolate—and this morning cutting open the éclairs and stuffing the cavities with whipped cream.

Fariza nods and rubs her belly.

As usual there are more people than chairs, so Sid helps Caleb drag furniture from the house out onto the lawn—dining-room chairs, footstools, the wicker settee off the front porch, an old office chair, even the coffee table is pressed into service. Blankets are thrown on the lawn; only a narrow path is left down the broad front stairs. People begin to trail out of the house, balancing plastic wineglasses and plates piled precariously high with food. Blankets become tablecloths for impromptu picnics; chairs are pulled into circles around invisible tables. Conversations become more animated as the wine and beer flow and the food and the weather work their usual magic. The mouse-squeaks of plastic cutlery on Styrofoam plates are drowned out by shouts of laughter and the siren wail of a tired baby. Someone has put an old James Taylor
CD
on the stereo.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
Sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again
.

Why are they playing such a sad song? Sid wonders. Every single person here—well, anyone over the age of ten anyway—must have someone they miss, someone they shared endless sunny days with, someone who has disappeared out of their lives. But no one else seems to notice or care. Not Chloe, who has never known her father. Not Irena, whose husband died years ago. Not Megan and Caleb, who may have wanted children of their own, not just other people's damaged cast-offs. They all seem so happy—carefree even. Even Irena, who is often gruff and imperious, loves her island life. Loves chopping wood, growing raspberries, ordering her family around.

Someone turns off the stereo, and now guitars are coming out of cases, bongo drums are clasped between bare knees. Someone has brought a banjo; two little girls tune tiny violins. Small hands reach into a basket full of child-size instruments: tambourines, triangles, maracas. Sid grabs two kazoos and goes to find Fariza. Chloe is with some of her friends from school, shrieking and giggling near where Craig Benton, Nancy's nephew, is lying, shirtless, on a wicker lounger, a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Craig is a douche, in Sid's opinion, a good-looking loser with no ambition and fewer brains. He got his last girlfriend pregnant. She quit school to raise his kid. Sid can't stand to watch Chloe with him.

He finds Fariza curled up with Fred in the window seat that overlooks the front lawn and the sea. It's one of his favorite spots in the house, one he always comes to when he visits Chloe and she starts to get on his nerves. The blue-and-white-striped cushions are worn but clean, and there is a quilt for when it cools down. There's always something to see: a tugboat towing a ridiculously long log boom, the ferry chugging back and forth to the big island, seagulls arguing over dead fish, a luxury yacht flying an American flag, a sailboat with rainbow sails, a pod of killer whales. Today there are eight fish boats heading north. Fariza points and holds up eight fingers and then points to herself.

“Eight, right,” Sid says. “I brought you something.” He hands her a red plastic kazoo.

Fariza takes it and turns it over and over in her hands but doesn't bring it to her lips. It's obvious she has no idea what to do with it.

Sid sits down beside her on the window seat. “You know that song ‘The Wheels on the Bus'?” he asks. He has heard Megan singing the old familiar songs to Fariza in the middle of the night, coaxing her back to sleep after a nightmare.

Fariza nods.

“Can you hum it for me?”

Fariza nods again and starts to hum.

Sid brings a green kazoo to his lips and starts to hum too. Fariza squeals and does the same. After “The Wheels on the Bus,” they hum “Down By the Bay,” “Frère Jacques,” “I'm a Little Teapot,” “Baby Beluga” and “London Bridge.” Fariza doesn't seem to know “Puff the Magic Dragon” or “Rubber Ducky,” but she claps for Sid when he hums them. When they run out of kids' songs, they sit and listen to the music that wafts through the open windows. When Sid hears a song he likes, he hums along on the kazoo—“Hey Jude,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Scarborough Fair”—but when someone starts to sing “Bad Moon Rising,” he puts the kazoo down and listens:
I see a bad moon risin' / I see trouble on the way /
I see earthquakes and lightnin' / I see bad times today
. Fariza watches him, one hand on Fred, the other clutching the kazoo. When her eyelids start to droop, Sid covers her and Fred with the quilt and sits with her as the sun goes down. A solitary guitarist sings, “
Good night, Irene, good night,
Irene / I'll see you in my dreams
” as the guests start to drift away and the moon rises over the sea.

The morning after the party, Fariza and Megan sleep in.