The Jumbee (23 page)

When they got back to the park, Rafe’s mom was pulling sandwiches from a cooler.

Esti stopped at the edge of the table, Rafe spinning her around in an expert move to the music. She grabbed his shoulders in surprise, just as she recognized a familiar curry smell. As she saw the wrapped roti chicken, she jerked away, tension churning inside of her.

“Babe, are you okay?” Rafe asked.

She nodded toward a group of moko jumbees passing by. “I’m not hungry yet. I’d rather watch them.”

Rafe grabbed a sandwich, grinning at the others. “Hey,” he yelled over the music. “She wants to dance with the moko jumbees!”

“Good,” she heard Ma Harris say.

With a chaotic surge of emotion, Esti pulled Rafe away and continued toward the street, ignoring the light mist of rain that had started again. She didn’t want to dance; she wanted to find the blue-eyed dancer and demand to know his name. What did his voice sound like?

The stilt walkers in front of them were some of the most graceful she’d seen, kicking their long, colorful legs high in the air and leaning back in impossible shimmies to the steel pan drums. On the ground, jumbee dancers darted between their stilts, somehow avoiding danger.

Esti walked past the pounding speakers, her eyes searching the shifting black dancers as she lead Rafe away from Ma Harris’s intense gaze, away from Aurora and everyone else. She wasn’t going to dance; she was going to ask Rafe about the guy who had helped him. Had the dancer said anything when he yanked Rafe out of the way?

Rafe followed without protest until she finally stopped. When he held up his food, she nodded. She would try to calm down while he finished eating. She pressed her hands against her temples as Rafe looked up at the high stilts, her skin twitching with anxiety.

Suddenly a breath of air brushed her neck, like a long, slow sigh. The scent of frangipani enveloped her, just as a white blossom dropped to the ground at her feet.

“I miss you.” Goose bumps crawled down her spine at the familiar deep voice in her ear. “I could teach you how to choose right, but then I am forsworn. So will I never be.”

She slowly turned her head. Rafe was eating his roti chicken, fully absorbed by the amazing stilt walkers beside them. The jumbee dancer had stopped on Esti’s other side, so close that she could see the turquoise shimmer in his blue eyes.

“So may you miss me,” he continued, his words more beautiful than music. “But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin: that I had been forsworn.”

She almost couldn’t hear him over the pounding beat, but she knew the quote so well that he seemed to speak directly to her mind. His eyes blazed into her, burning themselves into her consciousness. Fifty years from now she knew she would remember every detail of those sea-colored eyes. Without thinking, she reached out with her free hand, her heart racing. As her fingers closed around his black-gloved fist, she almost grew light-headed.

She was not insane.

He seemed to stagger at her touch, and she tightened her fingers, terrified that he would disappear. “Beshrew your eyes,” he forced out. “They have overlooked me and divided me. One half of me is yours, the other half”—his expression softened, the look he gave her helpless—“yours. Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours. And so all yours.”

“Alan . . .”

“You talking to me, babe?”

She glanced up as Rafe turned to her, his eyes lingering on the stilt dancers. Although it took only a second, it was long enough for Alan to pull away before Rafe saw him. When she looked back, Alan was gone, lost in a swirl of black.

“No!” She shook off Rafe’s grasp and darted among the dancers, catching hold of the first black-garbed man she came to. Startled brown eyes looked at her, and she flung him away. She seized another man, barely avoiding the stilts beside her.

“She possess, for true,” someone yelled.

“Esti, come here.” Strong hands grabbed her, dragging her away from the dancers.

“No.” She yanked herself away from Rafe. “Alan’s here. I saw him.”

Rafe grabbed her again, then picked her up and walked back toward the curb. His arms tightened around her as she struggled to get away from him.

Although she felt the growing fear and suspicion from the people nearby, she couldn’t help herself. “Let me go! I have to find him.”

Rafe put her down, firmly holding her shoulders. “You’re gonna get hurt.”

“She hornin’ you, Rafe,” someone taunted. “She chase a jumbee dancer, mon.”

Rafe spun around. “Who said that?”

Esti looked frantically at the blur of motion beside them. “He was there.”

“His name is Alan?” Rafe demanded, forcing Esti to look up at him.

“Yes.” She tried to hide her exploding joy, but Rafe’s growing anger made it clear that she still wasn’t any good at lying.

“He doesn’t even have the guts to face me,” Rafe snapped.

Esti recoiled at Rafe’s fury. “He did! He kept you from getting in a fight.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He’s been following us ever since we got here.” As people edged closer, Esti tried to stay calm. “Didn’t you see him? He tripped that drunk guy, and then he—”

“That
crappo
has been hanging around you all morning?” Rafe stared at her like she was crazy. “And you didn’t bother telling me?”

“I didn’t know it was him until after he helped you.” She felt herself panicking at the anger in Rafe’s eyes, searching for words. “Look, he’s known about you from the beginning. He told me I should go to you, because he couldn’t—”

Rafe grew rigid in disbelief. “
That’s
the reason you’re dating me? Because Alan gave you permission?”

“No!”

“What does he look like?”

Through a brief pause in the music, she heard growing mutters from the crowd. “He was wearing a mask,” she said.

Rafe leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what your boyfriend looked like.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Stop lying to me!” Rafe grabbed her shoulders so tightly, she winced.

“I am not lying,” she said through clenched teeth. “And you’re hurting me.”

As he flung her away, he seemed to become aware of the restless mob around them. He instantly drew her back, but for once, the embrace wasn’t a loving gesture. “If you talk to him,” he snapped, “I’m going with you. I’ll make him apologize.”

“He already did,” Esti said stiffly, fear pulsing at the edges of her mind along with the crowd closing in.

Rafe glared at her. “When?”

“Just now. He quoted Shakespeare.”

“That’s a bunch of bull.” Rafe’s fingers tightened again, bruising her arms. “Why didn’t I see him?”

“Rafe, stop!”

His grip relaxed, but he didn’t let go of her. “What did he say?”

As his face came closer, she really began to struggle. She had never realized how intimidating Rafe could be. “Portia’s words, from
The Merchant of Venice,
” she whispered fearfully.

Hostility swirled through the air like a growing fog. “Tell me.”

“He said, ‘I could teach you how to choose right . . .’” She trailed off.

“He tells you who to choose,” Rafe said bitterly. “You went out with me because he told you to, and now you’re running back when he calls.”

“That’s not true.”

As Esti tried again to pull away from him, Lucia’s low voice cut in. “Leave she be, Rafe.”

Esti almost fell when Rafe instantly let go of her. Lucia stood in front of them, her arms folded sternly across her chest. Given that she was only a skinny fourteen-year-old, Esti thought in a daze, Lucia was easily the most imposing girl Esti had ever met. Behind her, Quintin hovered silently, his cold eyes on Rafe.

“She hornin’ me.” Rafe glared at Quintin, as if he thought Lucia’s boyfriend might somehow understand.

“You should be shame,” Lucia snapped. “Crawl home now, an’ leave we be.”

Slamming his fist into a nearby booth piled with tourist gifts, Rafe flung the table on its side, scattering cheap, colorful masks everywhere. He strode away without looking at Esti or anyone else. His departure was followed by a few gleeful expressions, but mostly uneasy faces turned back to look at Esti.

“Esti, come.” The crowd left them alone as Lucia calmly pulled Esti into the street, Quintin close on her other side.

She never could have guessed that Lucia—of all people—would end up rescuing her from Rafe. Matching her footsteps to the incessant percussion, Esti felt herself hovering on the edge of hysteria once again.
Bazadee, for true;
flung by the catapult out of Rafe’s life as quickly as they’d been thrown together.

Act Two. Scene Eight.

Esti lived through the eternity of a day and a half, before she was finally able to sneak back to the theater building.
Yes Aurora, Rafe and I had a fight. No, he didn’t try to take advantage of me. Yes, he got jealous of a jumbee dancer who flirted with me. No, I don’t know if we’ll get back together. Yes, I’m just fine. Perfectly fine.

Esti had no idea how to explain Lucia’s involvement, but Aurora had eventually stopped pushing for details. When Esti said she was going to Carmen’s after dinner, her mom quickly retreated into a bottle of wine. Esti watched helplessly, aware that she’d become a truly impossible daughter. By the time she slipped into the familiar darkness of the theater, she was ready to scream from the effort of once again pretending to everyone that she was in control.

She turned on a single stage light with a determined flick of her fingers. She was done with the dark, and done with hiding in the basement. A trickle of sweat crawled from the back of her knee to her ankle as she walked calmly down the aisle, her flip-flops slapping quietly against the carpet. She sat on the edge of the stage beside the bright floor light.

“And so,” she said, continuing Portia’s quote as though Alan had spoken a mere moment ago, “though yours, not yours. Prove it so.”

“I thought you would never talk to me again.” Alan sounded nervous. “You’re not wearing my necklace.”

“I lost it. I’m sorry.” Esti closed her eyes, trying to forget the details of Christmas night. “I’ve wanted to talk to you every minute of every day since you told me to get out of your life.”

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

“Who are you? What are you?” She opened her eyes again and looked around the empty stage. “
Where
are you?”

Her question was followed by a deep silence.

“You have no reason to fear me,” Alan said quietly. “I would never hurt you.”

“That wasn’t my question.” She tightened her jaw, thinking about the suspicion she encountered everywhere she went. “Why is everyone on Cariba afraid of you?”

When he didn’t answer, she swung her feet off the edge of the stage. “I’m leaving.”

“Don’t go.” Tension filled his words. “Please. I want you to stay.”

“Prove it so.” She stretched her cold fingers over the warm halogen bulb beside her, throwing eerie shadows across the stage. “Don’t hide from me anymore.”

“Esti . . .”

“Maybe you’re running from the law.” Focusing all her effort on keeping her voice steady, she resorted to the speech she’d prepared last night. This time she was ready for his evasions. “I’ve heard that criminals sometimes come to the islands to hide. Do you live in the theater basement because you have nowhere else to go? I wouldn’t have come back here if I didn’t trust you, but you have to tell me the truth.”

“I’m not running from the law,” Alan said softly. “And, as much as I enjoy this theater for the escape it provides me, I don’t live in the basement.”

“Where do you live, then?” She studied the glow of light around her fingers.

“Manchineel Cay.”

A chill crept down Esti’s spine. “No one lives on Manchineel Cay. Anyone setting foot on the island is never seen again.”

He snorted. “Who has seen me?”

“I saw you.”

“Did you? What do I look like?”

“Your eyes are as blue as the sea.” Esti would never forget how deeply they had burned into her. Her breathing grew more rapid. “I held your hand.”

“You’re the only one who ever has.” She heard his answering breath, deep and uneven.

The chill in her spine grew, spreading goose bumps along her arms and legs. “So, you’re telling me you
are
a jumbee.”

“I’m telling you what you demand to hear.”

“I need the truth. Show me your face.” After another long silence, she rose to her feet. “Good-bye, Alan.”

“Don’t!” The desperation in his voice stopped her. “Please don’t, Esti. Ask me for anything else.”

“No.” She shook with growing anger. “I won’t share the stage with empty shadows anymore. I want you to hold my hand again. And if you really live on Manchineel Cay, show me your house, too. Prove to me that I’m not obsessed by a figment of my own imagination.”

When a long, predictable silence followed her words, she kicked her foot against the stage light in sudden fury.

“I am so sick of—
ouch!”
Darkness blanketed the stage as the halogen lamp burned out with a soft pop. “Ow, ow, ow. That really hurt.”

“Esti,” Alan said in a panicked voice, “are you okay? Did you break the glass?”

“No.” With a painful groan, she sank back down to the dark stage, gingerly cradling her foot. “I hit the inside of my foot on the light box.”

“Is it bad?”

“I can’t tell.” With a disgusted grimace, she pulled off her flip-flop and touched the cut. “I think I’m bleeding. You don’t happen to have a Band-Aid,” she added sarcastically.

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, a firm hand gently pulled her fingers away from her foot, lightly tracing the painful bare skin of her instep. She couldn’t move, paralyzed by the shock of the unexpected, sensual touch in the darkness. A soft cloth brushed the sole of her foot, quickly wrapping up and over her arch to bind the wound. Before she could reach out to him, he grasped both of her hands. He pressed her fingers down and tight around the bandage, his hands solidly on top of hers.