Read Online The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses - Free Book Online
Authors: Pamela Moses
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regulars—the black island natives as well as the transplants from Europe and America, some with sun-parched wives or girlfriends, most bachelors.
At the hotel, there were few children my age (I was eleven), and those I met stayed only a week or two, on holiday with their parents. During the day, they vanished on boating excursions or hikes through the botanical gardens.
“Make the best of it, Opal,” Mother said when I complained. “As soon as school resumes, you’ll be surrounded by a hundred boys and girls.Promise, promise.” And what freedom I had here. What child wouldn’t envy my carefree hours in the sand or floating on the turquoise sea? she asked. Didn’t I like swinging in the hammock in the courtyard palm grove, breathing the frangipani, watching the tropic birds soar overhead?
Yes, I nodded.
Wasn’t this much prettier than faded blue town houses, the only view from our San Francisco apartment?
“Yes, much prettier.”
We were on a small island in the West Indies, and Mother’s plan was to stay for a year, possibly two. “Working as a realtor in Pacific Heights loses its charm after a time,” she’d explained, stroking her legs distractedly as she flipped through travel brochures during the months before we left. “Life should offer some excitement. Don’t you think?” Through the travel agent, she had heard about the White Heron Hotel with its attached surfside restaurant and bar. As hostess of the restaurant, Mother would be entitled to a three-room suite for a nominal fee. In May, she had found renters for our apartment, and after my school year ended, we would go. When I returned to classes in September, it would be at St. Agnes, one of the island’s two elementary schools.
• • •
O ur first afternoon in the Caribbean, Mother had dumped, from suitcases onto the cotton spread of her bed, an array of colorful outfits I had never seen her wear—boldly printed skirts, bright sundresses, sandals with ribbon-thin straps. In the filmy mirror of our small shared bathroom, she’d shaken the ends of her orange-gold hair, which had waved in the damp heat as soon as we’d stepped from the plane. Wet strands had clung to her neck.
“Oh, it’s a slice of heaven!” she’d said, stripping to her pink lace bra, leaning against the window frame to gaze at the ocean. “Isn’t it paradise?”
During the day, Mother’s responsibilities were few. The lunch crowd was always light—some of the elderly hotel guests, a few islanders breaking for Hairoun beers. She was rarely required to do more than meet briefly with Ezra Dupree, the White Heron’s manager, to go over the details of the evening’s menu and seating plan. The busyness of our routine in San Francisco soon seemed a foggy dream. We spent most of the morning and afternoon hours reading in the shaded yard or sprawled across our fringed towels on the hotel beach, snacking on fried plantains and salted peanuts, sipping lemon sodas. Within a week or two, Mother’s skin darkened from cream-white to nut-brown. As we stretched in the sun, she lathered her arms and legs with milky oil from a green bottle to prevent peeling. Men on the beach twisted their necks, and I suspected, despite their tinted glasses, what their eyes followed.
At one of the boutiques in town, Mother bought a batik bikini with yellow tropical fish and a matching one for me. Though I yanked and fussed with the ties of the suit, the material bagged and puckered at my hips and across the flat of my chest. Pretending to study the other bathers on the beach, I sneaked peeks at the fullness of Mother’s bikini top and the way she bent one leg into a vee, crossing it toward the other.
Mother could bask on the sand for hours, but the heat stung my paler skin, and I ran to the water every few minutes, pinching my nose and plunking beneath the surface. When cruise ships anchored at the mouth of the port, sending small boats of passengers ashore, I had company as I
At the hotel, there were few children my age (I was eleven), and those I met stayed only a week or two, on holiday with their parents. During the day, they vanished on boating excursions or hikes through the botanical gardens.
“Make the best of it, Opal,” Mother said when I complained. “As soon as school resumes, you’ll be surrounded by a hundred boys and girls.Promise, promise.” And what freedom I had here. What child wouldn’t envy my carefree hours in the sand or floating on the turquoise sea? she asked. Didn’t I like swinging in the hammock in the courtyard palm grove, breathing the frangipani, watching the tropic birds soar overhead?
Yes, I nodded.
Wasn’t this much prettier than faded blue town houses, the only view from our San Francisco apartment?
“Yes, much prettier.”
We were on a small island in the West Indies, and Mother’s plan was to stay for a year, possibly two. “Working as a realtor in Pacific Heights loses its charm after a time,” she’d explained, stroking her legs distractedly as she flipped through travel brochures during the months before we left. “Life should offer some excitement. Don’t you think?” Through the travel agent, she had heard about the White Heron Hotel with its attached surfside restaurant and bar. As hostess of the restaurant, Mother would be entitled to a three-room suite for a nominal fee. In May, she had found renters for our apartment, and after my school year ended, we would go. When I returned to classes in September, it would be at St. Agnes, one of the island’s two elementary schools.
• • •
O ur first afternoon in the Caribbean, Mother had dumped, from suitcases onto the cotton spread of her bed, an array of colorful outfits I had never seen her wear—boldly printed skirts, bright sundresses, sandals with ribbon-thin straps. In the filmy mirror of our small shared bathroom, she’d shaken the ends of her orange-gold hair, which had waved in the damp heat as soon as we’d stepped from the plane. Wet strands had clung to her neck.
“Oh, it’s a slice of heaven!” she’d said, stripping to her pink lace bra, leaning against the window frame to gaze at the ocean. “Isn’t it paradise?”
During the day, Mother’s responsibilities were few. The lunch crowd was always light—some of the elderly hotel guests, a few islanders breaking for Hairoun beers. She was rarely required to do more than meet briefly with Ezra Dupree, the White Heron’s manager, to go over the details of the evening’s menu and seating plan. The busyness of our routine in San Francisco soon seemed a foggy dream. We spent most of the morning and afternoon hours reading in the shaded yard or sprawled across our fringed towels on the hotel beach, snacking on fried plantains and salted peanuts, sipping lemon sodas. Within a week or two, Mother’s skin darkened from cream-white to nut-brown. As we stretched in the sun, she lathered her arms and legs with milky oil from a green bottle to prevent peeling. Men on the beach twisted their necks, and I suspected, despite their tinted glasses, what their eyes followed.
At one of the boutiques in town, Mother bought a batik bikini with yellow tropical fish and a matching one for me. Though I yanked and fussed with the ties of the suit, the material bagged and puckered at my hips and across the flat of my chest. Pretending to study the other bathers on the beach, I sneaked peeks at the fullness of Mother’s bikini top and the way she bent one leg into a vee, crossing it toward the other.
Mother could bask on the sand for hours, but the heat stung my paler skin, and I ran to the water every few minutes, pinching my nose and plunking beneath the surface. When cruise ships anchored at the mouth of the port, sending small boats of passengers ashore, I had company as I
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