Honeymoon

“Look both ways!” He grabs my arm as I step off the curb. The furious whine of a manual transmission shifts, warning, passing close enough that I feel heat radiating from the sweltering automotive metal.  I yank my arm back, a reflex move. His fingers pinch as they lose their grip.

              That’ll leave a bruise.

              I drop down to sit on the curb and bite my lip so I won’t cry. I am miserable.  My legs sizzle against the super-heated Bermuda concrete. Who decided that, on this island, people would drive on the wrong side of the street?

              A puddle of my own sweat begins to pool in the space between my feet. “Come on,” he says, “the light’s green.”

              It is at least one hundred degrees and we are walking around pretending to buy a souvenir. I have to be careful not to say anything. My comments have been ruining our honeymoon, I was just this morning told. I have to cheer up and look like I am having fun. It’s a free trip, after all. A wedding present from his folks. They might have asked me where I wanted to go. That was my only point. But then, there I go. Looking at the gift horse.

              It is hard to have fun when your head feels like it’s boiling on the inside.

              A few minutes earlier we stopped under a shade awning marked Twilight, and looked in the display window. I studied our reflections in the glass:  hollow dark shapes with spikes on our heads instead of hair. Through the tinted glass, I saw colorful figurines and globes all bursting with color and gloss. A gigantic long stem tulip leaned toward the window, graceful, with the gentle curve of a harvest moon. The leaves were the same dark green of frozen spinach, which is my favorite vegetable, even though it sticks to your teeth. I leaned into the glass, staring. I wondered if the stem might buckle under the huge red bloom. The flower was a brilliant red like my mother’s lipstick, red like a new Corvette. Along the ridges, each petal glowed with a line of orange threatening to catch fire any second. A white wick poked out of the very center like a snake’s tongue. “Oh my god,” I had said to Darius. “It’s a candle. I thought it was real.”

              “It’s a candle store,” he said without looking. “What did you expect?”

              “But look at it,” I poked his arm. “Look. Isn’t it pretty?”

              He looked, but not really.

              “I’m going to buy it,” I declared. “Where’s the money? I need two dollars.”

              Now I had his attention. “Two dollars?”

              I put my hand on the door handle but didn’t pull. I would not have a married argument inside the candle store. “Yes, ‘Mr. I’ll be in charge of the money.’ The price tag says, one-fifty. Not including tax. Now. Can I have some of our money please?” I wiped my palm on my shirt and planted my feet.

              “Look again, smarty pants.” He rolled his eyes. “It says one hundred and fifty dollars. One. Five. Zero. No decimal point.”  Sweat had drawn a streaky brown moustache over his lip.  It looked like he’d been eating dirt. “Plus, there is no tax. Or can’t you read?” He points to the hand-written sign above our heads, taped to the glass: “Duty Free.”

              Duty! That’s what I feel like. Doody. As in, shit. But I won’t say shit, even though I’m old enough to use the word.  Mama used to say that when I turned eighteen, I could do whatever I wanted. And I am older than that by a full year. But still, I don’t curse.

              We can’t afford a single thing on this island. Not even a candle.  Especially not a mini-motorcycle called Scooters which everyone who is having fun rides. We are on foot, risking our lives every time we cross a street which is what we are doing at the exact moment when I come face to face with a freezing cold fact: I made a powerful mistake marrying Darius.

              You know how people say that fear makes you sweat? Well, I get just the opposite reaction. Soon as I have the thought, I made a mistake, I feel cold. My skin tries to shrink on my bones. My hair pulls from the scalp. Sweat dries, hard as the coating on a candy apple, making my clothes stiff. The skin under my arms stings.  I try to lick my lips but my tongue gets stuck on my teeth. I can’t breathe.

              I close my eyes as silence creeps over my brain, soft and soothing as hot fudge over ice cream. I sink into the quiet, separating far from the chill of my own flesh.

              Then, I am awake. Before opening my eyes, I conduct a physical inventory: I am alive, breathing, lying down, cool; a breeze tickles my bare feet. I spread my toes. The sandals I bought in the open market on our first day of the honeymoon are off. I hope they aren’t lost. They cost four dollars.

              I open my eyes and look straight into Darius’s gigantic face. I press my head back into the pillow.

              “Hey,” is all he says. His lips look big as balloons. I hear his voice through water, so I swallow a few times to clear it out.

              “She’s thirsty,” Darius says to someone else.

              A woman’s voice lords over. “She’s just fine, honey. She’s getting liquids through that tube there.”

              Darius and I both look. There is a square of white tape on the back of my hand. I make fist and feel the tape resist.  Above my head, a plastic bag hangs from a metal hat rack. I know what that is.

              I try to scream, but only a whisper comes out. “You’re giving me an enema?”

              A cool hand presses on my forehead. I can see a nurse’s cap, a ridiculously small and white triangle of a hat, like what you see on television. “It’s an intravenous line,” her voice whooshes over me like ocean water, but I still don’t see her face.  “You were dehydrated. This bag is full of saline solution. It’s the kind of water your body needs when it is dehydrated. You’ll feel better right away.” Her hand stays on my forehead and I feel that dark quiet come over me again. “That’s it, honey,” the nurse coos. “Go back to sleep.”

              When I wake the next time I am in a cocoon.  Someone has tucked a blanket around me so tight, I cannot move in inch in any direction. Not that I want to.  I am so very comfortable.

              Darius is asleep in a chair near my feet, slumped all the way down with his chin hanging to one side, looking like a boy, not a husband. He is easy to look at when he is asleep. He has the darkest hair, even darker now when it’s matted and damp with sweat. His sideburns reach nearly to his jaw line. I can see his heart beating clear through his skin of his neck. If you stare at the soft flesh under his earlobe, you can see it bulge.  Every other second. I count. One alligator, two alligator, three alligator, four …   It pulses on the three. 

              His arms cross his stomach, bunching the fabric of his shirt. I can see his belly button. Then, the line of dark hair that leads down. His wrists cross to form a little tent over his private parts. My eyes relax in my head. He has that effect on me.             

              “He carried you here.” The nurse appears from nowhere, like a ghost.  “He barged in like a man on fire.” She puts her hand on Darius’s shoulder as if she knows him. She is holding a glass of what might be orange juice in her other hand. I lick my lips. Darius was right. I am thirsty. But the drink is not for me. She sets the cup on a little table next to Darius’s arm.  “He was crying.”

              She watches Darius’s sleeping face. I want to clear my throat, to remind her that I need help too.  She steps over his long legs and comes at me and, without so much as a “here we go,” she lifts my hand and peels off the square of white tape. I try to pull my hand out of her reach, but she has a firm grip. Together, we look.

              The clear plastic tube ends at a tiny hole in my hand.  It doesn’t hurt, in fact it doesn’t feel like my hand at all. I am so confused. There is a hole in my hand that doesn’t hurt. I am tucked in a bed like a little girl in a strange room with a full-grown husband at my feet. I remember being much too hot and now I’m cool.  Am I dreaming? I can’t tell.

              I look at the nurse, scrutinizing her features one by one the way you study puzzle pieces hoping to find two that fit together.  She has very dark skin, the color of strong coffee.  Freckles, or are they moles, dot her cheeks. Her eyes almost glow; I wonder if she’s real. She’s real. She is holding my hand.  Her hand is so soft I have to look down to see if he’s really touching me. Her palm is sidewalk-chalk pink. Her fingernails shine with a tint of orange, like cantaloupe flesh. 

              As I watch, she pulls on the tube and a long silver needle slides out of my skin. I nearly choke on air. 

              She puts a Band-aid over the place where the needle came out and drops my hand. Then turns her back. “He was mighty upset,” she says in a low voice. She wheels the hat rack away and drops the bag of water into a plastic bin. She’s trying not to wake him up. I can tell by the way she walks on the sides of her shoes in a bow-legged tiptoe.

              She sits down and clicks her pen. She looks right at me and says, again, “He was crying.”

              When she swivels around, the chair squeaks. We both look over at Darius. He still has that dirt moustache but now I think it looks manly, like he’s been licking his lips after eating Oreo cookies.

              “You can get up whenever you feel ready,” the nurse is ready to leave. She taps the file folder on the desk, demanding my attention. “Drink lots of water and stay indoors during the heat of the day. I’m sure you can find something to do together?” she catches my eye. “He said you’re on your honeymoon...” 

              I am bright red. I’m sure of it. 

              When she gets to the door, she turns. “You take care of him,” she says and I notice for the first time that she has an accent. I am about to smile at her pronunciation when she clicks her tongue at me. “He’s a good mon, honey. Don’t you go and forget that.” Her look is sharp as a slap.

              When I’m sure she’s all the way gone, I go into the bathroom and close the big wood door. I wash my face with one hand, which is not easy.  I smooth back my hair with some cool water and pull the bangs down in front the way Darius likes.

              He knocks on the door. “You okay in there?” he calls. He sounds so close. I take a stack of paper towels out of the dispenser and wet them under the faucet.

              Then, I open the extra-wide door.

              He looks me over, searching from my hair to my bare feet. He is so much taller than I am.  “Did you need to throw up again?”

              “Nope.”  I can see he’s worried so I smile my best smile, the smile that won him in the first place.

              “I was so scared,” he says, blinking fast. He tilts toward the door jamb as if he might fall over. His shirt hangs like laundry.

              “I know,” I reach way up and press the wet paper towels to his forehead. He stands there, not moving, letting me wash his face. I have to hold his chin so his head does not wobble. The dirt disintegrates, easy as water over watercolor paint.

              “Are you okay now?”

              “Yup.”

              He squints at me. “What happened? I mean, why did you faint?”

              I think about that but I don’t have an answer. I look past him into the empty room. I’d like to see that nurse now, to ask her that very question. But she is not here. I am not sure she was ever here. With my good hand, I pick at the edge of the Band-Aid, confirming the situation in my mind. There was a needle in my hand. I’m sure of that. The rest, well, the rest is hazy. “I was too hot,” I answer. “We stayed out too long and I got overheated.”  I look at Darius to see if this explains anything. He’s waiting. “We’re supposed to stay indoors during the heat of the day.” 

              “The heat of the day, huh?” He mimics me, and I fake a scowl. “What are we supposed to do during the heat of the day?” 

              I punch his chest as I pass into the room and he reaches for my rear-end, but I’m too fast for him.  My new sandals are under the bed, perfectly side by side.  He watches me put them on and then we head outside.

              We stand under a shade awning, adjusting our sunglasses. The heat feels good on my newly washed face.

              Darius waits for me to take the first step.  Then, he follows close behind, both of us hugging the building for shade.

              “You slept through the worse of it,” I hold my Band-Aid over my head, showing him.

“You should have seen the giant needle they pulled out of my hand.”  We come to the crosswalk and I push the button to signal the traffic light.

              “Tell me about it.” He hip-checks me. “I saw that needle going in!”

              We stand on the corner and watch the traffic coming from the wrong way. The light turns green; I take his hand and we step off the curb.