“Um, Gilla?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you get off my foot now?”
The laughter that bubbled from her tasted like cherries in the back of her throat. She stepped off poor Foster’s abused toes, leaned her head into his shoulder, giggling. “Oh, Foster. Why didn’t you just say I was hurting you?”
Foster was giggling too, his voice high with embarrassment. “I didn’t know what to say, or what was the right thing to do, or what.”
“You and me both.”
“I haven’t held too many girls like that before. I mean, only when I’m sure they want me to.”
Now Gilla backed up so she could look at him better. “Really? What about Tanya?”
He looked sheepish, and kind of sullen. “Yeah, I bet she’d like that. She’s nice, you know? Only…”
“Only what?” Gilla sat on the rail beside Foster.
“She just kinda sits there, like a sponge. I talk and I talk, and she just soaks it all up. She doesn’t say anything interesting back, she doesn’t tell me about anything she does, she just wants me to entertain her. Saniya was like that too, and Kristen,” he said, naming a couple of his short-lived school romances. “I like girls, you know? A lot. I just want one with a brain in her head. You and Kashy got more going on than that, right? More fun hanging with you guys.”
“So?” said Gilla, wondering what she was going to say.
“So what?”
“So what about Kashy?” She stumbled over her friend’s name, because what she was really thinking was, What about me? Did she even like Foster like that?
“Oh, look,” drawled a way too familiar voice. “It’s the faggot and the fat girl.”
Roger, Karl and Haygood had just come lumbering out of the house. Haygood snickered. Gilla froze.
“Oh, give it up, Roger,” Foster drawled back. He lounged against the railing again. “It’s so freaking tired. Every time you don’t know what to say—which, my friend, is often—you call somebody ‘faggot.’”
Haygood and Karl, their grins uncertain, glanced from Roger to Foster and back again. Foster got an evil smile, put a considering finger to his chin. “You ever hear of the pot calling the kettle black?”
At that, Karl and Haygood started to howl with laughter. Roger growled. That was the only way to describe the sound coming out of his mouth. Karl and Foster touched their fists together. “Good one, man. Good one,” Karl said. Foster grinned at him.
But Roger elbowed past Karl and stood chest to chest with Foster, his arms crossed in front of him, almost like he was afraid to let his body touch Foster’s. Roger glared at Foster, who stayed lounging calmly on the railing with a smirk on his face, looking Roger straight in the face. “And you know both our mothers ugly like duppy too, so you can’t come at me with that one either. You know that’s true, man; you know it.”
Before he had even finished speaking, Haygood and Karl had cracked up laughing. Then, to Gilla’s amazement, Roger’s lips started to twitch. He grinned, slapped Foster on the back, shook his hand. “A’ight man, a’ight,” said Roger. “You got me.” Foster grinned, mock-punched Roger on the shoulder.
“We’re going out back for a smoke,” Haygood said. “You coming, Foster?”
“Yeah man, yeah. Gilla, catch you later, okay?” The four of them slouched off together, Roger trailing a little. Just before they rounded the corner of the house, Roger looked back at Gilla. He pursed his lips together and smooched at her silently. Then they were gone. Gilla stood there, hugging herself, cold again.
She crept back inside. The lights were all off, except for a couple of candles over by the stereo. Someone had moved the dinner table with the food on it over there too, to clear the floor. A knot of people were dancing right in the centre of the living room. There was Clarissa, with Jim. Clarissa was jigging about, trying to look cool. Bet she didn’t even know she wasn’t on the beat. “Rock on,” Gilla whispered.
The television was on, the sound inaudible over the music. A few people huddled on the floor around it, watching a skinny blonde chick drop-kick bad guys. The blue light from the TV flickered over their faces like cold flame.
On the couches all around the room, couples were necking. Gilla tried to make out Kashy’s form, but it was too dark to really see if she was there. Gilla scouted the room out until she spied an empty lone chair. She went and perched on it, bobbed her head to the music and tapped her foot, pretending to have a good time.
She sighed. Sometimes she hated parties. She wanted to go and get a slice of that black rum cake. It was her favourite. But people would see her eating. She slouched protectively over her belly and stared across the room at the television. The programme had changed. Now it was an old-time movie or something, with guys and girls on a beach. Their bathing suits were in this ancient style, and the girls’ hair, my God. One of them wore hers in this weird puffy ’do. To Gilla’s eye, she looked a little chunky, too. How had she gotten a part in this movie? The actors started dancing on the beach, this bizarre kind of shimmy thing. The people watching the television started pointing and laughing. Gilla heard Hussain’s voice say, “No, don’t change the channel! That’s Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello!” Yeah, Hussain would know crap like that.
“Gilla, move your butt over! Make some room!” It was Kashy, shoving her hips onto the same chair that Gilla was on. Gilla giggled and shifted over for her. They each cotched on the chair, not quite fitting. “Guess what?” Kashy said. “Remi just asked me out!”
Remi was fine; he was just Kashy’s height when she was in heels, lean and broad-shouldered with big brown eyes, strong hands, and those smooth East-African looks. The knot that had been in Gilla’s throat all night got harder. She swallowed around it and made her mouth smile. But she never got to mumble insincere congratulations to her friend, because just then…
They came back…
Roger strode in with his posse, all laughing so loudly that Gilla could hear them over the music. Foster shot Gilla a grin that made her toes feel all warm. Kashy looked at her funny, a slight smile on her face. Roger went and stood smirking at the television. On the screen, the chunky chick and the funny-looking guy in the old-fashioned bathing suits and haircuts were playing Postman in a phone booth with their friends. Postman! Stupid kid game.
They came back…
They came back from the ride…
Gilla wondered how she’d gotten herself into this. Roger had grabbed Clarissa, hugged her tight to him, announced that he wanted to play Postman, and in two twos Clarissa and Roger’s servile friends had put the lights on and herded everybody into an old-fashioned game of Postman. Girls in the living room, guys stationed in closets all over the house, and Clarissa and Hussain playing…
“Postman!” yelled Hussain. “I’ve got a message for Kashy!” He was enjoying the hell out of this. That was a neat plan Hussain had come up with to avoid kissing any girls. Gilla had a hunch that females weren’t his type.
“It’s Remi!” Kashy whispered. She sprang to her feet. “I bet it’s Remi!” She glowed at Gilla, and followed Hussain off to find her “message” in some closet or bathroom somewhere and neck with him.
Left sitting hunched over on the hard chair, Gilla glared at their departing backs. She thought about how Roger’s friends fell over themselves to do anything he said, and tried to figure out where she’d learned the word “servile.” The voice no longer seemed like a different voice in her head now, just her own. But it knew words she didn’t know, things she’d never experienced, like how it felt to unfurl your leaves to the bright taste of the sun, and the empty screaming space in the air as a sister died, her bark and pith chopped through to make ships or firewood.