“I hate the rain.” I kicked at puddles forming on the asphalt. I dragged on my cigarette, holding it in a cupped palm. Monica pulled on hers the same way.


“You’re probably sick of it after that vacation.”


“Yeah.” I pulled my baseball cap down over my ears. My T-shirt stuck in my armpits and kept rolling up over my swollen stomach. I noticed that the bakery’s logo was running red over Monica’s breasts.


“I can’t believe we had to work,” she said. “There is supposed to be a flood.” I squinted in the rain, staring at the dark sky. Although it was almost noon, the day felt like the eerie hours of early morning.


“The owner said that we’re a business and businesses are expected to be open, regardless. Besides, the owner said he’d check on us.” I knew the name of the owner was Steven, but he didn’t want his counter staff to know such things about him. That was an honor reserved for those of us who counted the money, came in early to turn on the lights and ovens, turn off the alarms, check the heart traps for rats, and give him the occasional blow job.


But it wasn’t a secret that I was screwing the owner of the bakery. Everyone knew that we had just been in Ireland, announcing my pregnancy to his mother. They also knew I had been working in the bakery since it opened three years earlier and I was tired of wearing the pink shirt that sported an image of a nubile young woman holding a dripping pastry. The bubble above her head read, “I just dipped my fingers into a honey pot!” And on the back, even larger letters screamed, “And I loved it!” Steven liked tall, meaty blondes. He liked them in an overabundant way probably because he had the kind of look -- short, stocky, and ruddy face that nearly matched his hair -- that kept members of the fairer sex at a distance. He had immigrated to Boston after a failed marriage and a failed bakery in Galway. In America, his soft brogue and dark blue eyes attracted girls in droves.


I chatted him up at the Christmas party in 1989. He told me his name and gave me keys to the store after I spent the night licking champagne mixed with raspberry preserves from his love handles and sagging pecs. The next morning, he insisted he didn’t want a girlfriend. He explained it in an automated type voice, like he thought I was using him.


When I announced my pregnancy to him, I expected him to suggest an abortion. I didn’t think Steven would make a good father and I was scared I’d be an even worse mother. But the abortion frightened me more. My nights were filled with dreams of baby parts. And then Steven decided he wanted to be a father. He thought he was getting old fast, and wouldn’t likely have another chance. In the dark, after we had fumbled around in his bed, I wondered if we could be a family. My pubic bone pushed against his hip. My thighs were still damp. His breathing was shallow. I felt closer, like we weren’t just fucking anymore.


He reached over and ran his fingers through my hair, “You’re so pretty.” He kissed me. His tongue was salty. His fingers traced my nose and cheekbones, following the lines of my face down my neck and over my breast, where he circled my nipple. “You look like one of those old type movie stars. The gorgeous ones with the full figures.” “Really?” I pressed my lips into his curls.


“Just think about how beautiful our baby will be.” He pushed himself up and away from me and lit a cigarette. “Blue eyes, blond hair, almost pedigree, don’t you think?” I wanted to point out that he had dark auburn hair. Instead, I moved away. “I want to be open about all of this.” His arms swung wide. I flinched, watching the burning ember of his cigarette fly by my face.


“About what?”


“Where we stand.”


I felt lead fill my stomach and I bit my lip.


“I won’t lie to you, Gene.” He took a long drag from his smoke. “All I’m saying is there are other girls and they’ll probably always be there.”


I rolled over. He touched my shoulder blade with the tips of his fingers.


“I like openness, frankness. I’m a strong believer in the truth. Do you have any truths to share with me?”


“I'm really tired.” I squeezed my eyes shut. His image burned my lids in an array of slowly fading reds and yellows.


“Of course you are.” He patted me on the shoulder.



Two weeks before the flood, Monica first came into the bakery with her girlfriend. They had just arrived from Panama and were looking for work. She was wearing a navy tube top and baggy jeans. Her long curls were pulled up into a tight ponytail. Her eyes were large. She had sadness. She told me all about it quickly during her interview. I wondered if getting it out to a stranger was the simplest way to release. Monica’s mother fell in love with an American and got pregnant. She wanted to immigrate, but he didn’t want a baby. They waited until Monica’s birth and left her behind. Five years later, they divorced. Sixteen years later, her mother sent for her. It didn’t take them very long to discover that they disliked each other. Monica’s mother had hated her not because she was a lesbian, but because she wouldn’t immediately forgive the woman who had left her in an orphanage. I guess she figured her daughter would feel saved when she received the airline ticket. Monica thought her mother was jealous of her lighter skin. I watched Monica cross the room to her partner. Her long hair rippled down her back. Her hips swayed. She glided. I called Steven.


“We have to hire this girl.” I cupped my hand over the receiver and watched Monica laughing with her girlfriend. I couldn’t understand what they were saying because I didn’t speak Spanish, but it sounded wistful, like simple love making. I quickly imagined myself in her girlfriend’s place.


“What does she look like?” He asked.


“Ah, tall, dark, grand.” I sighed when Monica and her girlfriend did. They didn’t notice me. Monica smoothed a strand of the other’s hair back into place across her forehead, running her fingers slowly down the side of her face.


“Not blond?”


“No, I think we have enough blondes. We’re a bakery not a porn shop for Christ’s sake.”


“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” he said, “She’s not black is she?”


“No,” I muttered.


“She’s your type. I can hear it in your voice, that longing.”


I didn’t say anything.


“You know, free, rebellious, maybe kind of wild?”


“Like you?”


“Yeah.” He laughed. “She probably has a boyfriend. Probably someone who really loves her too.”


“Whatever.” I wanted to hang up then because he was hedging too close. I wanted to concentrate on the two women at the counter, sipping an iced coffee through two pink straws. Monica caught my eyes and her mouth curled up at the corners.


“Hire her if you want,” Steven said, “We could use the extra help when we’re in Galway.” The phone went silent for a beat, and then he was back, his voice soft, “Maybe we could try that threesome thing again.”


“Sure, whatever.” I placed the phone back in its cradle and waved over Monica and her friend. I told them that we only had one opening.



“We should get back inside and help the guys out.” I pulled at the glass door. It was heavy. Rain splashed in with us. I scanned the bakery. The counter made up a straight line dividing the ovens from the customers. A large rectangular mirror took up half of one pink wall, increasing the size of the thin room. The sound of rain was loud in my ears. The bakery stunk like a wet animal, but all mixed up with the scents rising from the bread and pastry baskets.


“They’re stuck, just like us,” Monica flicked the stub of her smoke, but it fell straight down in the water rippling around our calves. I stared after it, then let the door go and watched the cigarette slide around the edge. The glass door slowly followed, but the rain seeped in. The door held fast in the wind, pulsing.


“Who?”


“Them.” She angled her thumb in the direction of the people. “They’re stuck there and can’t get home.”


She shrugged and held out her damp box of cigarettes.


We struggled with my matches to get two lit.


The air smelled like mildew and it seemed to grow stronger, burning my nostrils. The cheap wallpaper was beginning to peel upward from the floor. Red doilies shaped like hearts dissolved into the muddy puddles splashing up our legs. I hoped Steven wouldn’t forget me.


Monica paused in front of one of Steven’s paintings and blew smoke rings at it.
“You would never know a man painted this,” she said to me. “Did you know Brigid is the Celtic version of Athena?”


I nodded even though I hadn’t known.


“They’re so white, and so blond.” Her hand hovered before the canvas as if she was fighting the urge to rest it on the full figured character.


“Which is why the sex of the artist seems obvious,” I pointed out.


“No, not at all.” She tore her eyes away from the swirling browns, greens, and yellows to study me. “Men aren’t the only ones who find this beautiful.”


“But, it’s a stereotype. Where are the Egyptian or Indian, or African Goddesses?”


“You know,” Monica said, “Cleopatra was white.”


“No she wasn’t.” I looked down. Monica’s ankles were pale green beneath the water.


“She was. She was Greek, and back then, the Greeks were mostly blond.”


I must have stared at her like I thought she was stupid because she frowned.


“Maybe you don’t know what beauty is.”


“I know I think you’re beautiful.” I felt that was something her girlfriend would say.


She looked at me. Her eyes were dazed as if explaining the world to me wore her out.



Steven and I left for Ireland on Monica’s first day of work. I had to wait twelve days before I’d see her again. I kind of liked knowing she’d be a skilled employee when I returned. In my mind, she had already surpassed not only my co-workers, but the few friends I had as well. I was relieved I wouldn’t be the one training her because I knew I couldn’t bear seeing her make any mistakes.


In Ireland, Steven’s mother called me her American child. Steven was her only son. She had four daughters, but the three children they’d birthed didn’t count because none of them had the family name. She didn’t care that we weren’t married. When I came down with an ear infection, she shook a vile of holy water over my hair and rubbed it into the sore ear. When that didn’t work, she offered me a warmed Guinness. I tried to politely refuse and she tsked at me, “Guinness is good for you, child.”


Steven agreed, “A Guinness now and again won’t hurt you, or the baby. In fact, Guinness is full of protein. It’ll probably help the little fellow grow.” The ear infection took over my brain and vacation. Steven told me I thought too much.


“That’s your problem.” He raked a brush through my damp hair.


“How can you say that?” I picked at the green and blue plaid blanket that covered me. “Because it’s true. You’re always worrying about something. What you’re going to do next. Who you’re going to love. If anyone will ever love you back. Have you ever spent a night just sleeping?”


“Of course.”


“I bet it wasn’t pure sleep. Passing out from fear isn’t the same thing.”


“Passing out from fear? How dramatic.”


“I’ve watched you sleep.” Steven put down the hair brush and rubbed my shoulders, “and it’s a tense sleep. Your hands are fists, grasping the blanket, me, your own hair. It’s like you’re dreaming about something you’re afraid of losing.”


“Really?”


He pushed his thumbs into my scalp in full moon rotations. “You need to relax. Someone so young should be able to just go with the flow. You were mellow when we first met. Sprawled across the bed in your sleep.”


“I was probably stoned.”


Steven’s fingers molded the flesh of my neck. His kneading spread warmth through my back. His hands worked the area behind my ears and for a moment my earache subsided.


“It’ll work out. Things have a way of doing that.”


“You promise?”


“Yeah, I do.” He kissed the back of my head, “You smell great. Earthy. You always smell so good.”


“Really?” I shivered.


“Really really. Are you gonna be all right with Mam?”


“Huh?”


“Tonight, remember I told you I was going out?. It’s just the old one. I don’t want to, but she always gets batty when I visit if I don’t make time for her.”


I opened my mouth to ask what she looked like, knowing however he answered, the words would cut me. I sucked in air and pressed my lips together.


Will you be all right?” He leaned over my head and kissed me upside down. His lips felt funny joining mine that way.


“I’ll be fine.” I pulled the blanket up to my chin. It smelled old and musty, with a hint of lavender. I tried to inhale the faint scent. Pain swam through my ears.



“It was foolish to go some place so damp.” Monica rubbed my neck. We were curled up together beneath three or four bright red and pink blankets that smelled of sandalwood.


I had shown up unexpected, thinking Monica would save me from myself. Immediately, she had pulled me through her door and ushered me to the twin bed that doubled as her couch. She wrapped her arms around me and for a time suffocated my fears.


Her girlfriend was in Panama. I studied the picture that Monica kept on the floor alongside a lamp and an alarm clock. The other woman was as thin as her girlfriend, but she had well-honed muscles that rippled, sinewy down her arms. Her very dark skin was accentuated by the white tank top she was wearing. Her eyes were squinting in the light and her face was round with no peaks of bone, her lips pulled back in a laugh. Her black hair was short and parted on the side. She had one hand raised to her thick eyebrows as if she was trying to see the photographer better.


“How long have the two of you been together?” I asked.


“Three years.”


“You must really love her,” I said. Monica climbed out from behind me and picked up the picture frame.


“I guess I do.”


“You don’t sound very convinced.” I leaned back into the pillows. My head hurt and my blocked ear was ringing.


“She’s nice, don’t you think?” Monica turned to me, her eyebrows raised.


“She seems to be.” I closed my eyes and pictured Monica and her girlfriend sitting where I was, holding hands, sharing strong coffee, watching TV. I tried to picture Steven and I doing the same thing, but with a little baby at my breast. It kept clouding up, until it was just me and the child.


“Do you think she’s pretty?” Monica asked, pushing the photograph at me.


“She’s okay.”


“She said I didn’t love her anymore.”


My ear began crackling and popping. I rubbed my head against the multi-colored pillow nearest me.


“She said she was too dark for me.”


Warm liquid oozed from my ear, dripping down my cheek. I kept rubbing.


“She said I’m not proud of who I am.” I opened my eyes to find Monica staring intently at me.


“You’re lucky,” I offered up. The sounds in the room were growing louder. I could hear the rice bubbling, the tortillas snapping in the frying pan.


“Why am I lucky?”


“You don’t have to deal with men. You have a girlfriend. What do I have?”


Everything seemed to be screaming at me. The Happy Mondays on the radio, the food, the cat in the litter box, and then Monica was snapping at me:


“Oh, Gene, that’s such a load of shit.”


The next day was hot. Temperatures had been over one hundred degrees for the past week. I had ridden the T from Monica’s apartment to Central Square on the red line, having the trolley car to myself. It was early but the armpits of my pink sundress were already stained with sweat. I walked the deserted streets to the large rent-controlled brownstone that Steven lived in.


I could tell by the frustrated softness of his voice over the intercom that he already had company. I climbed the stairs to his oversized apartment and stood in the living room near his leather couch and coffee table. I was aware of the light pouring in through the giant windows. I felt in the brightness, every pore, every fine white hair on my face and exposed arms glowed. His bone-colored walls were bare, though the floor was littered with paintings he had finished or begun and forgotten about. Behind the couch, near the windows stood his easel. I noticed the canvas held an oil painting of the Virgin Mary with my face. She was nursing the Christ child. Blond hair poured from beneath her white trimmed habit. Tears streaked down her cheeks from her blue eyes and blood ran from wounds on the backs of her hands that cradled her infant. Her gown was blue and the background was many shades of the same color.


Steven was pulling the door to his bedroom closed. His stomach rolled over the top of his scarlet boxer shorts. His red face and chest glistened with sweat. His eyes were swollen and his hair was matted on one side.


“What’s the matter?” He sounded more exasperated than I thought he wanted to. I began to cry. I knew the tears made my face shiny and puffy. I felt thick strands of hair sticking to the corners of my eyes. I wanted to tell him how hopeless it all seemed. I didn’t think I could do it. I knew I was going to end up alone. I had signed up for state and federal assistance the day before and I had spent the night restless in my lonely bed, worried about diapers, furniture, and clothing. I ended up creeping across my room in the dark. I found a notebook and drew a food pyramid for my unborn child.


Steven reached to me without letting go of the doorknob. He spoke in hushed tones, murmuring useless advice. I let him touch my arm, rubbing his fingers into my wrist.


“See, it’ll be okay.” He leaned forward to kiss me. I stepped back, but he didn’t move with me. He just kept hanging onto his door. “Why don’t we get together tonight?”


“I need you now.”


“I’m sort of busy at the moment.” He gestured to the bedroom.


“Oh.” I backed further away from him, the tears running freely. I made it across the living room, but my hand was shaking when I reached for the outside door.


“We agreed from the beginning that we were going to see other people,” he said to my back. “I never deceived you.”


“I know.” I turned to him.


“Then, what’s wrong?”


“I just thought,” I began, but only sighed, opening the door. Everything I wanted to say was knotted in my brain. My pride made it impossible for me to loosen my tongue.


“What did you think?” He spoke in a gentle voice. He smiled, but his eyes pleaded with me to hurry up and be on my way.


“Nothing.” I slipped out into the hall. I went down the stairs and stepped back into the heat.


Later, he called me at the bakery.


“I’m sorry, Gene. I know what you want. I just don’t think I can give it to you. You don’t want me to pretend, do you?”


“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I should’ve called first.” I tried to sound hard.


“You’re going through a lot,” he said. “It’s hard to be pregnant. All those hormones are probably making you nuts.”


“Yeah, look, I’ve got to go, there are a ton of customers here.”


“Do you want to get together tonight?”


“No, Monica asked me out dancing.” I hung up on him before he could respond and handed the regular coffee and biscotti to the customer I was waiting on.


“We’re supposed to get some rain tomorrow,” he said.


“That would be nice,” I handed him his change and noticed that he pocketed it, ignoring the tip jar in front of him.


“We could definitely use it.” He walked away from me and sat at one of the red tables near the air-conditioner. I watched the water from the ancient machine drip down, just missing his back.



Raindrops splattered against the bakery’s windows, creating the illusion that we were underwater. A couple of customers sat on the tops of tables that had been threatening to leave the ground. Everyone clung tightly to a box of pastry, or bags with baguettes and foccacias peeking out.


“Why did I bother to bake so many things?” I said to Monica, who flicked her cigarette ash into the box she was preparing. The muffins had been baked with fresh blueberries, walnuts, and cranberries. That morning they had been steaming and hot; now they were damp and crumbling. I pushed my finger through one. The dough gripped me and a berry felt round and hard against my rough skin. I glanced at the clock. It was eleven. Five hours had gone by and Steven hadn’t even called. I questioned whether or not he’s actions would determine something in me.


“I wish they’d all drown,” Monica said to no one in particular.


“Comfort food,” I muttered. A loaf of French bread nudged my leg. I looked down to see it bloat, then pull apart, disintegrating into doughy bits. I felt nauseous.


I thought of all the alcohol I had consumed the night before. Monica persuaded me to chance spirits by pouting. She was shooting back Grape Crushes and Tequila with lemon and salt. I ticked off a list in my mind the damage drinking would do to my baby. Low birth weight, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, premature birth. It read like the warning label on a bottle of beer. Monica’s girlfriend still hadn’t returned to Boston.


“Let’s dance.” She handed me a Long Island Ice Tea.


“I don’t know if I can drink this.” I reached out to brush at the glitter dusting her eyebrows. She took my hand and kissed it.


“Drink up, I love this song.”


I tilted the glass to my lips, forgoing the straw. Monica ran her tongue over my knuckles as I felt the cold alcohol slip down my throat. She was pulling me out among the other people while the thick glass clattered against my teeth, ice tea sloshing down the front of my dress. I let the cup fall to the floor, waiting for it to shatter, but it merely rolled into the crowd.


Monica danced behind me, her hands traveling up my legs, pushing the maroon fabric higher up my thighs. She slinked around me, arms dashing in and out of my vision, fingers playing at my lips, hips pushing against mine, legs forcing me to follow. I turned to her and wrapped my arms around her neck. I kissed her, trying to slide my tongue between her lips, but she only pushed me away.


“I want to dance.”


“What’s wrong with me?” I shouted over the music.


“You’re not my type.” Her arms flashed back and forth before my eyes.


“What’s wrong with me?” I yelled again just as the music broke up. My voice sounded shrill.


“You’re fat.” She rubbed her hand over my stomach. I felt my flesh ripple beneath her touch.


“I’m pregnant,” I told her.


“So?” Her fingers tapped my five months worth of fetus to the beat of the music, “You’re still fat.”



Monica and I had stumbled through Boston after the lights came on in the nightclub. People poured from Lansdowne Street with us. Some hailed cabs, others stood by the closed sign at the Kenmore T-station, confused. The colors of flesh, neon, and dirt swirled before me. We headed up Boylston Street. Her apartment was there, teetering between Boston and the city of Brookline. She said it made her feel rich to pretend she lived on the other side. I felt my stomach lurching as I climbed the dusty stairs. I scrambled by Monica as she bolted her front door and collapsed onto the small bed. She sat down beside me and rubbed my back. I held my head in my hands, hunched over my knees.


“I’m so sick.”


Monica’s hand traveled up and down my spine, pushing sweaty hair from my skin. “I wish you were the one.”


“I don’t feel good,” I told her.


“You’re not really fat.” she said, “You’re face is really very nice, and your hair...”


My head felt like it was burning and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to lie back in the bed or sink onto the cool floor.


“I always wanted a girlfriend with blond hair,” she said to my back, “Real blond hair, not bleached. I’ve seen that before and it’s not right. You’ve got the coloring for pale hair. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I think I’m just jealous.” She twirled strands of my limp hair around her fingers. The gentle pull on my scalp seemed to irritate my stomach more.


“I wonder if I could pull off hair this light,” she said.


I looked up and caught her reflection in the mirror across from me. Her eyes were closed and she was puckering her lips. Her mouth moved like a fish. I dropped my head back down. For an instant I believed Monica and I shared the same image of her as a blond Aphrodite rising from the ocean. I wanted to say something, but I could only manage a groan. She went silent and still, except for the tugging at my head. I imagined her taking a deep breath, swallowing her disgust, and then I felt heat travel up my spine and the wetness of her mouth on my neck. My stomach rumbled up and through my lips.



“Well, it looks like our shift is over.” Monica untied her apron. I watched through the large front windows as the other workers helped the stranded customers into a small rowboat. The parking lot was dark. It was cold inside and I figured it was worse out there.


“I’m staying,” I said to Monica. Her hair was damp and the ends curled frizzy.


“You’re what?”


“The owner said he’d check on us.”


“Honey, he’s not coming.” She lit a cigarette and handed it to me. “I think we should get in that boat.”


I pushed by her, heading for the back door.


“I didn’t say you had to stay.” I didn’t turn to her and I was certain that I looked silly from her angle. My ass was very large and squeezed brutally into a pair of her orange leggings. It was the only thing she could find that fit me earlier in the morning when Steven called. He needed me to get over to the bakery because he didn’t think he could get into the city.


“I don’t have a car.”


“The subway is safer,” he pointed out. I rolled over and looked at Monica. She had fallen back to sleep after nudging me with the phone. Her long lashes curled up away from her round cheeks and her lips were parted slightly. Lipstick was smudged around her mouth and faded eye shadow had hardened in the creases of her lids. She appeared very young to me, a small child playing dress up. I hung up and kissed Monica. She awoke abruptly, and kissed back. Her mouth tasted sour. I coughed and pulled away. I climbed out of the warm sheets and found my dress. It smelled of cigarettes and alcohol and there was a deep stain covering most of it. Monica threw the leggings and an old bakery T-shirt at me. I had to keep tugging at the shirt to keep my torso covered. None of her shoes fit, so I was forced to wear the strappy velvet platforms from the night before.



I felt too ugly to get in that rowboat, too fat. I pushed the door wide open. Gray water rolled past me into the bakery. I stared down at it, surprised that the rain created so much movement. Monica pressed up against me. For a moment I considered pushing her away, realizing that it wouldn’t be any different if she desired me. I knew I had come to an epiphany the night before after I had made it to her bathroom and threw up again and again. But, when morning arrived, I only remembered feeling at peace, like everything had made sense. Unfortunately I couldn’t remember what it was that had comforted me, unless the key to my happiness was puking until it hurt and then passing out on Monica’s bathroom floor. I didn’t even remember climbing into her bed. I was left with a hazy memory of my attempt to satisfy Monica with my fingers and tongue, while she moaned, “You’re doing it all wrong.”


“I’ll stay.”


“Really?”


“We wouldn’t fit in the boat anyway.” I turned to look, but couldn’t see anything through the rain and the bakery. I leaned against the wall and dragged on my cigarette. I felt so tired.


I thought it could be a long while before the boat came back. I looked out across the parking lot. It was filled with dirty water and floating debris. Water sloshed up my legs and I wondered when the abandoned cars would begin to float away. It seemed to rain harder then, and I turned to the bakery door. I didn’t want to go back.



It was hard to walk through the water. The rain whipped my cheeks and forehead. It sounded like machine guns in a movie theater. Water rolled around my hips, dipping up against my stomach, which I held onto, because of its warmth. I kept my eyes ahead, rubbing the rain from them with my free hand. Monica was the first to let go and slip into the water the way one climbs into a bathtub. I lost her and got scared until she bobbed up in front of me, smiling. I managed to hold her head in my hands, pushing the hair from her face before she sank free from my grasp. I let my feet drift up and I sprawled onto my back. My body swayed up and down. I felt weightless. Monica swam up near me, her lips brushing gently against my ear. I spied the red Honda and made my way to it. My hands cascaded through the grimy water like a child making a snow angel.



I leaned back and watched the dark sky. The car was mostly out of the water. We could have stayed in the murk, since we weren’t any drier lying in the rain. But I liked the way the steel felt beneath me, like it undulated in the currents formed by the swells.


“Well, it’s not Noah’s fucking Ark.” Monica crossed her palms over her stomach and let her head drop down.


“No.” I cocked my head to the side and let my braid dip into the churning water. I pushed my elbows against the roof of the vehicle, feeling the sleekness of the water separating my skin from the paint. I wondered about flesh hydroplaning. I spotted the navy blue rowboat making its way back through the thick and dirty water.


“What will we call it?” Monica reached for my belly. I stared down at her dark fingers tracing the streams that droplets of rain had formed on my white skin.


“I haven’t thought about it.” I studied her chapped knuckles and manicure. I liked the white tips and coffee colored nails. I noticed the slight tremble her hand made when her skin touched mine.


How about Rhiannon?” she asked.


“The goddess?”


“It sounds like rain.”


“Rain, Rhiannon?” I noticed the boat was almost to us. The owner of the bakery crouched in the back, waving. He looked like he was torn between trying to stand but afraid he might topple over the side. I thought of Rhiannon carrying people on her back, Horse Goddess.


“His name is Steven,” I said to Monica.


“You can’t name the baby that, it doesn’t mean anything.” She was staring at the boat and her voice became rapid. The words burst from her throat in short gasps.


“Of course it does.” Rhiannon had been accused by inattentive midwives of killing her own child right after his birth, when in fact the baby had been spirited away while his mother slept.


“His name means nothing to me.” Monica lifted her head from the car and turned onto her side, facing me. “I like the rain name.” She looked hard at me. I popped my elbows up and fell back. My head smacked against the cold metal and it hurt, but not too much. I blinked my eyes to flush them clear. I tried to picture Monica and me in the future, raising my rain baby, together. I envisioned us on a trip to the Boston Aquarium, but after a moment, it was just me pushing the stroller around the giant fish tank, pointing out the sharks and moray eels.


“She’s not coming back,” Monica said and for a moment I was confused, still caught up in my own Celtic myth of despair.


“She’s not?” The boat had stopped, caught on something. Steven was on his knees. His hands were moving near his face. I closed my eyes and listened.


“She’s not

coming back and it’s my fault.”


“Your fault?” I felt like Echo.


“She understands me better than anyone.” She cawed, spewing her thoughts at me.


“Hmmm.”


“I thought if I was with an American, some one who had never suffered anything, then I could move on with my life. But, she knew I didn’t want to be with a big pale gringa.” Monica was punching the roof of the car while she talked. I thought about how everyone’s problems seem so weighty. At least to themselves.


“She knew I wanted to be one. She knew all along, before we came here. I think that’s why she didn’t want to leave Panama. She said all I cared about was being paler than everyone and when I saw how dark my mother was, I had found peace. But, that’s not true, how could it be? If it was, then I’d be... I would be petty.” Monica’s hair was plastered to her head and her ears stuck out. Her mascara ran black over her cheeks. Her round face was swollen - filled with baby fat.


“Do you believe her?” The boat was moving again. Steven had his fingers curled around his mouth, but I only heard water.


“I don’t know. I don’t want to. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve got it so easy. You’re American. You look like, like Marilyn Monroe.” She spat the words at me, hiccupping air.


I laughed but it was swallowed by the rain, “You had someone who really loved you.” I was shaking my head ashamed for Monica.


“But she didn’t look like… well, she wasn’t….”


“She wasn’t what?” I stared at the rain, trying not to blink. Let the rain wash away what I was seeing.


“She was cute. I just didn’t think…” Monica’s voice drifted to me and was followed by the warmth of her mouth talking into my own. I wanted to reach out to her. I longed to wind my hands in her wet hair. I thought of holding onto her tightly, fingernails digging into her back and curls. But, I wasn’t surprised when I pushed her away and her hands were searching. Then the boat was nudging the vehicle we were on and many hands were touching Monica and myself, separating and weaning us, helping us aboard.


I teetered as I stepped into the boat which shifted under my weight. My balance was off. For a moment, I stood suspended, my hands grasping the wet air. The wood rolled beneath my feet and I swayed from front to back. Steven reached for me as I fell. I hit the floor of the boat, scraping my knee. Steven pulled me to him. “It’s okay,” he whispered, “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re both safe now.” His hands found my stomach and hovered there. I pushed my head away from his sweaty skin and found Monica with my eyes. She sat an arm’s length away from me, wrapped in a red blanket. She stared at me coldly for a moment, then turned away. I felt my eyes misting and turned back to Steven, pushing my face into his coarse sweater. He smelled like wet fur and an unfamiliar perfume. The boat moved slowly through the water and I understood soon we’d be sitting in a YWCA somewhere with cups of coffee in white Styrofoam. I saw Steven, Monica, and myself clearly for a moment. Steven pressed his knees against my stomach. His body hardened. One hand grasped a fistful of my hair. His other hand gripped the side of the boat. Monica rocked in her seat. She hugged herself. Her lips moved as if in prayer. The rain beat down on us. I closed my eyes and listened. I heard the sound of rushing water. It roared in my ears, covering all other noise. I was submerged in weightlessness. In my mind, I swam unencumbered.