Free The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses Page A

I smiled at the tallest boy and gave a quick flutter of my eyelids. But he didn’t seem to notice, and I suddenly longed to be wearing something other than my baggy shorts and flat shoes. At the back of Lusanne’s was a small selection of sandals, all with cloth straps and thick, angled heels like Mother’s. I slipped my feet into one of the sample pairs and studied my reflection in the full-length dressing mirror, then strode across the room toward the boys, swinging my hips from side to side with each step.
    “Sexy girl,” hissed one of the boys in his Nordic accent, bobbing his chin at me. His eyes trailed from my waist to my feet, and I sucked at my cheeks to keep from grinning.
    To my delight, Mother agreed to buy me the shoes as well as a checkered halter top with gathered pleats in front, which gave me, for the first time, the illusion of a tiny bust. That evening, I allowed extra time in readying myself for dinner, adjusting my halter top until its folds fell in the most flattering places, winding the straps of my sandals high abovemy ankles. When Mother disappeared into the bathroom, lathering her legs with scented lotion, I asked if I could try applying her lipstick on my own.
    “Ooh, quite the little lady tonight, aren’t we?” she said, but though I waited, she added nothing further, only shook the contents of her lotion bottle.
    So I fished through her cosmetic bag until I found the tube, then, with careful strokes, coated my top and bottom lips with a thicker layer than I had worn before.
    Downstairs, while Mother attended to the dinner guests, I leaned against one of the wooden pillars dividing the dining area from the bar. A family with two boys my age or slightly older sat at a table to my right. I spun the ice in my ginger soda, checking my halter top now and then to make certain the pleats had not shifted. With each lull in the family’s conversation, I gently kicked one of my sandaled feet into the air, flexing my calf, the bare skin of my neck and shoulders prickling as I imagined their eyes on me. But it was one of the men at the bar who noticed me first, a Carib Indian whom I had seen at the Passionflower once or twice before.
    “Enjoying your drink, missy?” He cocked his head to one side, staring, so that I felt he absorbed every bit of me from the silver barrette in my hair to the wedge heels of my new shoes. Like other Carib Indians on the island, he had high cheekbones, dark eyes, and such a smooth, brown complexion that it was impossible to tell his age.
    I nodded and sipped from the thin straw in my soda, trying to remember Mother’s dainty way of swallowing.
    “What do you have there? A Coca-Cola with rum?” He motioned with two fingers for me to take a step closer.
    I smiled as I did so, pleased with his assumption. “No, just a soda,” I said, as though it were simply my choice for this particular evening.
    He grinned so that I could see the pink crescents of his gums and lifted his Hairoun beer to his lips. “Do you have a name, miss?”
    “Opal,” I told him, lowering my voice to a half-whisper as my mother did when introducing herself to men.
    “Ah, a pretty name for a pretty girl.” His mouth glistened wet from his beer. I flushed from the flattery, not knowing what to say.
    He told me that his name was Donavan and asked what he could buy me from the bar, pointing to my nearly empty glass.
    “Another soda, please,” I said, swinging my leg so that the overhead lantern light caught my sandals.
    As he handed me the glass, his fingers grazed mine for an instant, just as I had watched men do who offered drinks to Mother.
    That night, under the cool of my sheets, I silently recited Donavan’s compliments. He liked my shirt, he’d said, the way it didn’t quite meet my shorts. He liked the strand of coral beads around my neck, which, he’d declared between swallows of beer, looked very grown-up. For hours I watched the wind twisting my curtains and the honey-yellow moon