I recognize that ring tone. That old calypso. It’s “Bassman.”
I slip the ringing phone into my own bag and leave as quickly as I can. I run all the way to the bus stop. When the bus comes and I get on, I can’t help but look back to see if anyone else is springing down the street after me.
Then I pull out the phone. It’s Dad’s.
I don’t recognize the number that called right when I turned it on, but that doesn’t really matter so much because what I do know is that somehow, Ravi had my dad’s phone.
* * *
The next day I look for the little vials, but they’re not under the sink anymore. I want to ask Ma where they are, but she’s already gone and there’s no way I’m going to initiate a conversation with Ravi. Besides, I don’t want to let him know what I found, because then he might wonder if I know about the pills in his bag, which I do. According to Ricky, TEC is how you identify bootleg painkillers on the streets. I know he got hurt at his warehouse job, so maybe that’s why he’s got to take pills?
Speaking of painkillers, there’s still no Advil, so I go to school on an ankle that feels like it’s on fire.
After class, I’m walking home from the bus stop when a car pulls up beside me. The window rolls down. I start walking faster, but then I hear Columbus’s voice. “Get in!” he shouts, a huge smile on his pimply face. He’s leaning out the window of a silver Honda Civic from about a decade ago.
“When did you get a car?” I say.
“Mom bought it for me this afternoon. Paid for the whole thing in cash, like a boss.” The potential sexiness he maybe had for a second disappears. I think about poor Pammy, having to buy his car for him.
“How much was it?”
“She wouldn’t let me see. A few Gs, I think. But I’ve got to pay the insurance, she says, so I’m thinking delivery. If you want to chip in, I’ll add you on the policy,” he offers.
I sense a trap. Besides, how much does insurance cost on an old car like this? But I tell him I’ll think about it as I get in.
When Ma comes home later, she’s tired but starts to put dinner on anyway, even though I told her I already ate. I’m shocked that she’s cooking. It’s like Dad isn’t even gone. She comes home dead tired and there’s a man to be taken care of. The good thing about Dad was that he was only here for a couple months at a time.
But Ravi doesn’t go anywhere.
I disappear upstairs, saying I’ve got too much homework to sit around the table, but in reality I just don’t want to look at Ravi’s smug face a second longer than I have to.
When they go to bed, I go downstairs for a glass of water and on the way back to my room, pause outside Ma’s bedroom. I can’t think of it as theirs yet. I hear Ravi’s voice. He’s saying something about St. James, the place in Trinidad where Ma grew up. I only hear snatches from him—his voice is too low for anything else—but from what I can make of it he’s talking about an old man’s parrot. The day the old man died in his grocery store, the parrot shouted “Eliza is a whore!” over and over until someone came in and discovered the body. No one knew who Eliza was, but it fuelled the village gossip mill for years.
Ma, when she speaks, I can hear better. Even the exhaustion in her voice. “Yes, Ravi, I remember. I was with you when we got the news. How could I forget?”
There are shuffling sounds, like someone’s getting out of bed. I’m safely back in my room by the time Ma’s door opens. I’ve heard that parrot story before, and I can’t get over Ma saying she was with Ravi when it happened.
The only person I can ask about the story is Aunty K. She’s probably asleep now, though. I’ll just have to call her tomorrow.
sixteen
Kru is proud of his female fighters. Even me, with my matchstick wrists and my losing streak. The fighters camp is his elite group and there are only a handful of girls in it. He takes me, Noor and Amanda aside today, real serious, and tells us about the tournament in Florida for girls only. We’re too excited to pretend we’re not.
“Florida?”
“Where all the old people are?”
“Is there prize money?”
“I thought Florida was under water? I mean, not the whole thing, but climate change—”
“What are the fees?”
“Don’t people wrestle alligators down there? I hear the Florida dudes are whack.”
“But, seriously, is there prize money?”
He puts his hand up and we fall silent. “Florida, in May. You have to sign up now and we start training. There is no prize money. Are you in?”
We look at each other, at Kru, and then, one by one, nod. He’s asking us if we’re serious. We’ve never been more serious about anything in our lives. The guy fighters at the gym look on, overrun with jealousy. The Montreal tournament got cancelled last minute when one of the organizers absconded with everyone’s fee money. It hurt to lose that much cash but even more to be training for nothing.
And now, Kru and the female fighters, we have something that’s just ours.
So hell yeah. I’m going to Florida, where all the whack dudes and old people are.
Florida is on my mind so much it takes me a couple days to call Aunty K. Her surprise at getting my call doesn’t stop her from talking non-stop for about three minutes before she finally says “Trisha, girl, I was just thinking about you. Want to come up for a week and help out at the store for March Break?”
Do I want to work for minimum wage during my break, infusing my skin and hair with the smell of curry, or do I want to spend it with Ma and freaking Ravi?
“Yeah, I can come,” I say, after zero thought.
After that, she’s in a good mood. So am I, actually. I hadn’t thought about what I was going to do for that week, but at least it’s been sorted. “I’m reading this book on Trinidad and it got me thinking,” I say. “There was a story you told me once about an old man who died and a parrot kept shouting some stuff so that people would open the door and find the body.”
“Eliza and the parrot? That’s your mom’s story, not mine,” Aunty K replies.
“Oh, yeah? I couldn’t remember. How long ago did it happen?”
“Twenty years now? Something like that. Your mommy must have been around sixteen, I think. So listen, give me the dates of your break and I’ll book the ticket for you.”
“Okay, Aunty,” I say, before letting her continue chatting for another few minutes. She’d decided to ignore my advice on the paint and went with the yellow instead. “Brighter,” she says.