Free The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses

sail under the stars?” a Portuguese banker with a mustache that coiled at the ends like periwinkle shells asked me one evening. “I promise to have her back by daylight!” Mother giggled into her glass.
    “Oh, I
love
to sail,” I said, speaking rapidly, as they did, crossing my arms on the table in my most sophisticated manner. But to my dismay, this only made them laugh harder. The man rattled the ice in his drink and gazed at Mother. “That’s not quite what I had in mind.”
    “Oh, to be eleven and innocent again.” Mother let out an exaggerated sigh, and she and the man smiled as they tapped their glass rims together, making a dull clink.
    I began to pull at a stray thread in the hem of my shorts, sensing that my ignorance was the subject of their toast, hoping the blood I felt rising to my cheeks wasn’t visible in the dimness.
    Some nights Mother sent me up the stairs to bed alone, telling me togo to sleep—she would follow soon. But though I listened for her key in the door for what seemed long hours, she rarely returned before I drifted off. And the next morning, when she breezed into my room, smelling faintly of seawater and cologne, I wondered what excitement I had missed.
    How enticing this adult world was, full of whispered jokes and mysterious secrets. And often, in my nighttime dreams, I imagined I, too, was a part of it, that I had learned the grown-up ways of speaking and acting that allowed my inclusion.
    So I began with the bottled peanuts we kept in our room, experimenting in the mornings before Mother awoke, nibbling with my mouth closed, shutting my eyes dreamily as I chewed. I tried purring softly in enjoyment the way she did. When the local boys with fishing rods slung over their shoulders passed our beach towel, I lay on my side, a hand on my hip, like the ladies on the covers of magazines Mother read, and practiced eating plantain chips in my new alluring fashion.
    “Do I look older than eleven?” I asked Mother.
    She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted at me. “Oh, infinitely. Easily twelve or thirteen.” But a flickering in her smile as she turned again to her latest paperback made me determined to try harder.
    •   •   •
    O n Saturdays, we visited the market in the center of town. For these excursions, Mother laid two or three sundresses on her bed, holding them against her one at a time before choosing. She donned her large-brimmed straw beach hat and round, black sunglasses. Before the mirror, she arranged the hat at various perches until she found the prettiest angle. Then we strolled along the road by the water, following the path lined with palm trees to avoid the swelter of the midday sun.
    “‘Oh, the fisherman’s daughter, she cry, she CRY . . .’” I sang out the words I’d learned from the White Heron’s cooks.
    “Is this performance for the benefit of the whole island?” Mother joked when my voice swelled.
    At rickety stands under the tree branches, local women sat beading coral bracelets. “Lovely ladies! Something pretty for your wrists? Just five U.S. dollars for such lovely ladies.” I waved as we passed, wishing I had a pair of heeled sandals like Mother’s that clicked on the pavement.
    Some Saturdays we browsed through the boutiques. My favorite was called Lusanne’s by the Sea. It was where my mother had bought her straw hat and two sleeveless blouses with frills adorning the chest. Everything in the shop flashed with bright colors—purple shell pendants that hung in the windows, gauzy skirts printed with birds or giant flowers, beach wraps that stirred on their hangers in the breeze from the open door. One morning the boutique bustled with tourists from a Norwegian cruise ship. Pale women fondled the trinkets and garments. In the doorway leaned three boys who looked close to my age. They were laughing with open mouths, taunting each other, pointing to some of the women and teenage girls in bikinis who sauntered up from the beach.