‘You can just send it. I trust you. You are ... ?’
‘Myra.’
‘Ahhh ... ’ Olinda’s face creased, connecting all of her features. ‘I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess ... ’
I didn’t know what she was talking about.
Olinda made me write down my address and email for her on a brown paper bag. She stood too close. I felt the stink of incense. My cheek started to sting. Then she gave me one of her cards, slid her arm through mine and walked me to the hanging beads. I wondered how she ever locked her store at night because there was no door.
‘You’re a very sensitive person.’ Olinda leaned into me like she was my age. Her lipstick was cracking. She was probably younger than my mother but she had way more wrinkles from being in the sun. She lifted the brim of my hat. Her lips touched my forehead.
‘Key West is a darkly spiritual neighbourhood.’ Her voice was tinny, like it could travel directly into my brain. ‘A lot of souls, like your lover, have landed here.’
I felt tight. He is not my lover, I wanted to scream. He’s a macho creep with a bleeding fucking girlfriend!
‘I think you know what I mean.’ Olinda’s lips were still under the brim of my hat. ‘You’ve got the look that attracts them.’
I dropped the paper bag that she gave me on purpose. I had to crouch down away from her to get it. What fucking look? What look did I have? I stood up a few feet backwards, outside. The alleyway walls were white and scribbled on.
‘And you’re innocent,’ Olinda laughed. ‘Not like these Spring Break sluts. So they like that even better.’
Fuck you fuck you fuck you, bitch! Do you even know what happened to me? That guy Elijah doesn’t like me, he hates me. He didn’t even want to have sex with me! He has a girlfriend and she slapped me so hard.
I ran out of Olinda’s store with the brown paper bag, the headless plant. My cheek burned like it was peeling off. I didn’t want to be innocent. I wanted to be a slut like those girls in that porno! I did. I swear. I wished I wished I wished I was a slut. God, why’d that woman slap my face? Why didn’t he do anything?
I couldn’t believe I had to go home like this, on a plane like this: the ugliest virgin in the world. I was going to have to see Jen and Charlene like this. Maybe this urge to lie to Jen, to be jealous of her, maybe she wasn’t really my friend. Jen, Charlene, all of them. Maybe I shouldn’t have any friends and maybe that’d be easier. Maybe I should just find some guy to fuck, someone who likes an ugly red cheek. I should wear see-through high heels and swap sperm with a girl.
At the airport Jody asked me where I’d gotten the necklace. I told her I’d found it in the sand but she didn’t believe me.
‘You know what those colours mean, right?’
‘Of course I know,’ I snapped. My father looked over, he heard my tone. Jeff had his head in my mother’s lap. Both of my parents were headached and done.
‘Rastafari,’ Jody whispered. ‘You don’t know what a Rastafarian is, do you?’
Jody touched my necklace and I could tell that she liked it. Some guy at school had given her a Bob Marley dvd. Jody said that Rastafarianism was a religion of peace and that it was kind of like Judaism, but from Jamaica. She said that Rastafarians worship Jah. ‘It’s like the name Eli-JAH, right? Or Hallelu-JAH. Get it? It’s their word for God. It comes from Hebrew.’
My stomach felt twisted. Elijah, God. My mother didn’t look like she’d been on vacation. Her face was pale, her mouth downturned. I asked Jody if she knew what a talisman was.
‘Magical protection against evil.’ She knew, of course. ‘It’s an African thing. A talisman is something you have on you like a little arr
owhead or something. It’s supposed to break into pieces, like, if you’re actually in danger.’
My mother got sick on the airplane, drinking coffee after coffee. Jody let me keep her sunglasses on the whole time.
I hoped this tight black Rastafarian necklace was a talisman against violence. Because now I felt monstrous and violent. I could not be mothered at all anymore.
Make-Believe
Hello to the Angel I met on the beach. I have been thinking about Canada. I have never been to Canada. Send me a picture. I miss your sweet face.
My sweet face was still knobbed on one side like a toad’s. The email came from that woman’s store, [email protected] I didn’t write back because I wasn’t sure what to say. The next message came for me six hours later.
The beautiful thing about you, Angel, is that you don’t even know how beautiful you are. Don’t ever take off the necklace I made for you.
He made me the necklace? It occurred to me that he was going to leave that woman to come up here to me. He was thinking about Canada. He made me the necklace. The talisman!
Okay tell me when you want to come, I wrote back. Oh my god, thank you for the necklace!