Felice shakes her head, studying the bouncing, calligraphic flight of a black wasp. “Whatever.”
“That’s not even to mention,” Emerson goes on, “how he’s kept me alive on a number of occasions.”
Felice stares at the wasp, refusing to say anything more about Derek. There’s something drugged about the stillness of the air: she can’t hear any road noise at all, just a white insect whir, a slush of fronds in the breeze. She unfolds, takes his hand, and leads him deeper into the palms, to the rope hammock. She’s so narrow she’s able to slip, eel-like, under his arm, and they swing, cradled in the braided rope, so quiet Felice can almost imagine it’s just the current of their breathing that’s moving them. She closes one hand around the curve of his wrist. For a while, neither of them speaks. She’s wet with sweat, glued to Emerson’s side. Overhead, a shelf of clouds has started to cover the sun.
“You feel like maple syrup,” he says.
Felice hoists herself up in the braid, slips a leg over Emerson’s, her hand swims over his chest. She kisses his shoulder, then his neck, and watches the blood rise beneath the surface of the skin. She kisses the outer rim of his jaw, the edge of his smile. She kisses his mouth, which is wonderfully soft, and her hand travels over the towel before he catches her hand. “Wait, Felice.”
She nuzzles the warm space behind his ear. “Wait for what?”
He puts her hand on his chest; it slides back down to his hip where he stops it. “You don’t have to do this.”
“As if.” She pulls in her chin. “You’re such a freak. Do you think I ever do anything I don’t want to?”
“Still.” He’s so serious it’s annoying.
She kisses him again. She feels his body warming with response. She finds that she’s giving herself over as well — just a bit, but more than ever happened before: in the clubs, on the dance floor, kissing whoever swirled an arm around her neck, and, often, moving into the plush, blurry hours that followed: feeling nothing. Now, hanging in the swing among tendrils of purple orchids, dots of moisture in the air like a sparse, suspended rain, it’s an infinity away from the rest of the world. Her hand roves over the cotton covering Emerson’s thigh and again he stops her. “It’s just sort of soon. Like, I don’t want to wreck it.”
“You’re so stupid. What a stupid movie thing to say.” Something about him is making her chest flutter with suppressed laughter. “You’re such a big fat baby.”
He holds her wrist, captured, up by his shoulder. “How many men have you been with?”
“Since when do you get to ask me that?”
He puts his hands up, lowers his head. “Sorry.”
“And ‘been with’? Been with? What are you now, Mr. Talking Bible?”
“No.”
There’s a low, thin grumbling in the eastern sky and a mass of clouds flash. Something hums past Felice’s ear. It occurs to her that her face is all sweaty. She hasn’t eaten enough and her breath must be tart: maybe she shouldn’t assume that Emerson finds her alluring. She twists away from him grumpily, onto her back, rocking the hammock.
“What? Where you going now?” he asks.
She closes her eyes, mentally toting: Frank, Ronald, Jorge, Raffy… who else? Anyone? Oh, what was his name? Wayne? Oh and that yucky Doyle. “Six,” she says grimly. “How about you, Mr. Bible? How many girls have you had fornication with?”
“Two.”
“Two? Jeez.” She fans at a mosquito. “That’s lame.”
“Not to me it wasn’t.”
“What, were you all in love or something?” She drags out the words, then looks over her shoulder at him.
“Well, a little maybe.” He gives her a subtle smile. “Nothing big.”
“Brother.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Eww!” she erupts. “Oh my God. You are just so queer and gross.” But she doesn’t leave the hammock. She remains, pressed shoulder to shoulder, side by side. It’s like catching a glimpse of something distant, to feel her body spark with attraction, and even better, to not have to act on it. They rock drowsily. The air smells of the ferns and dirt and stone, the before-rain. Her mother used to open the front door and ask, Smell the rain? She’d hold a conch shell to Felice’s ear and say, Hear the ocean? And Felice did, both her hands gripping the base of the whorl.
Without warning, Hannah Joseph comes into her mind. Felice turns her head as if she could brush the thoughts away, but it’s too late. She remembers how Hannah hated everything about Miami — even some of the best things, like the hooked-nosed white ibises roaming around in the grass and the flowers that blew up into winter foliage — a tree or bush opening overnight into flower like perfumed flames. All of it bothered Hannah, who’d walked around with her arms folded against her chest, complaining, “It isn’t like this in Connecticut. The grass is softer there. And the trees are normal and leafy.” At first everyone wanted to be like her. Felice and Bella and Yeni, the most popular girls, replicated even the way Hannah folded her arms.
Felice remembers Hannah saying, This isn’t even like America!
That’s what she’d say, in the cafeteria, at recess, in class. “You guys don’t realize how not-American you are…” she’d begin. Even the teachers would chuckle, a cowed, embarrassed look on their faces.
Pressing the heels of her palms against her closed eyes, Felice waits until the image of Hannah fades into the gray dissolve behind her eyes.
GRADUALLY THE RUMBLING comes closer and the humidity builds until Felice and Emerson are caught in a powdery, confectionery shower. They climb out of the hammock and run through the door to the kitchen. Derek is sitting at the table with a pad covered with columns of numbers. “Where you two been?” Derek mutters, not looking up.
Emerson walks past him into the guest bath, then returns with a big towel. He seats Felice at the table, chair turned out, and begins to run the towel along her arms and legs, rumpling it around her scalp. Felice doesn’t move while he does this, her back straight and head lifted. Even Derek is silent; he puts down his pen, as if a ceremony of some sort is taking place. No one has touched her like this since she was eight or so years old: she feels a fine, prickling heat on her skin as he finishes.
There’s a muffled snort: Derek, his tipped smile. “Nice.”
She turns away, infuriated — just another street kid, wrecking everything; acting as if some sort of performance has been staged for his pleasure. She wants Emerson to smash him, but he hangs back as if abashed. She stands. “I’m getting the fuck out of here. And you two homos can go fuck yourselves.”
“Woo-hoo!” Derek leers. “Nice mouth.” Emerson shoves him so hard his chair scrapes back a few inches. Derek grabs the arms of his chair. “The fuck, man?”
Felice goes to the living room, seizes her deck and her bag as Emerson runs after her. “Felice, what?” He follows her out the front door. “Hey, talk to me.”
It’s still sprinkling; her clothes wither with moisture. She tosses back the damp cables of her hair, ducks a branch of sea grape tree, then opens the iron gate. “You could’ve just told me you were gay.”
“Felice. Jesus. I’m not gay.”
Felice stops and slaps her deck on the street. “Then that just makes it worse, doesn’t it?” She’s yelling. She can’t help it. The feelings seem to come from outside of her body, possessing her, tightening her lungs, her rage like a screw tightening in her temples. So angry she’s crying, the tears nearly springing from the corners of her eyes. It doesn’t make sense; it’s like some feathery thing beating the air around her, all betrayal and humiliation. He puts his big, dumb hand on her, which enrages her more. She trips as she tries to kick away on her board, her vision speeding, unraveling. She trips again and nearly falls. Emerson follows her.