"What is so funny now, crazy girl?" She put her hands on her hips and stared me down as if I were one of the young orphans.
"What"s funny is I have no idea what is beautiful here."
She tilted her head.
"I mean it." I tried to think of how to explain. "At home, at least where I live, there"s a "look" everybody wants. I don"t fit the look, so I always feel like I"m ugly."
At this, Modesta looked confused.
"But here," I said, "I don"t know how anyone is "supposed" to look. I don"t know who"s popular. I don"t know anything except who is friendly and who"s not."
I wished I could explain to Modesta that I was friends with her because I wanted to be, even though I had no way of knowing if she was an "acceptable" person to be friends with. Same with Beauty and Ekuba. I talked to them and hung out with them, but it had never occurred to me to take my cue from Modesta about them. Although I spent time with all of them, the three girls never hung out together that I saw. They were friendly to each other, but clearly not close friends. I, however, was friends with all three.
I didn"t know who in the village was rich or poor, considered popular or undesirable, or if their clothes were fashionable or laughable. I didn"t know what anyone"s parents did. I couldn"t even tell who was pretty or not. How strange that such wild, unfamiliar territory made it easier to find myself.
Slowly, I was rebuilding myself-as meticulously as one of my miniature cities.
"So," Modesta said as she looked down, tracing a circle in the red dirt with her toe, "in America, I would be beautiful?"
"Yes," I said. "But you"re beautiful here too."
She waved her hand at me, dismissing this idea.
Then along came Englebert, the very boy she"d been waiting for.
"You are the laziest boy!" she said, smacking him on the side of his head, but only playfully. They both laughed.
"If I had to be bathed," Englebert protested, "I thought I should get dirty first."
He stripped down right there at the pump, as had the other three before him, two girls and one boy. Being nude was no big deal here. Everyone, even adults, could be seen naked, especially here at the pump or bathing on their porches. People just sudsed up with no screens or privacy. It had taken me a while to get used to that. No one, but me, looked twice at a naked person. It was actually kind of cool to see all the different kinds of bodies.
I was still too much of a novelty, with my white, white flesh, to bathe at the pump. I sometimes felt like the Pied Piper, the way the little ones followed me to touch my hair and skin.
When I took a bath, I carried a big bucket of water behind the outhouse-which I had even started visiting after dark-and washed myself there, naked except for my flip-flops. I ignored the giggles I heard from the woods. I knew the children laughed only at my freakish, ghostly skin, not my shape, or even at seeing my private parts. "I hear you," I"d call, shampooing my hair. More giggles, then the rustling of leaves as they ran away.
I hadn"t binged or purged in over two weeks, mostly because it was too difficult there.
I felt good. I had energy. I felt rested. Awake. Curious.
Modesta scrubbed Englebert with a zeal that looked like it hurt. He took it like a trouper, his face stoic but his eyes bright.
At the end of the alley, Aunt Izzy appeared, talking to one of the village elders. She was simply talking, not filming, and the two stood at the intersection of roads in a deep conversation.
When Englebert was rinsed off and dried, he put his clothes back on and scampered away. Once he"d left, Modesta folded her towels and said, not making eye contact, "In America, are you...beautiful?"
All my good feelings ran away with the rivulets of water making pink puddles in the dust.
"Nope." I tried to make my voice light and casual. "In America, they like girls bone thin, like, you know, like Dimple, the Indian woman? The one who does sound for my aunt?" I gestured down the alley where Aunt Izzy stood talking to the elder.
"Huh," Modesta said, mulling this. She watched Izzy a moment. "Your legs and b.u.t.t," she said with a sly grin, "belong to all the women of your family. Your aunt, she has them too."
"No, she doesn"t!" I said. "Aunt Izzy is so thin and fit. Her legs are-"
I broke off and stared. She did. She was thin and fit, and she had big, well-muscled thighs and plenty of booty. How had I never noticed this before? I"d always pictured her body as perfect. I shook my head, angry at myself. Her body was perfect.
"The women of your family pa.s.s it down to you," Modesta said. "Did your mother have such strong legs too?"
The hot, dusty landscape wavered. My mother. My mother was gone. I closed my eyes, trying to picture my mother. "I-I-you know what? I think I have a picture I can show you!"
I scrolled through my photos. I"d never deleted my favorite photo of her from the camera"s memory card, even though I"d downloaded it to my computer over a year ago.
When I found it, I stared at it a moment before I showed it to Modesta. My mother, leaving for an awards ceremony, walking to the limo. She wore a violet backless gown. She held my father"s hand and they walked away from the camera, but I"d called to them and they"d looked over their shoulders at me. The photo offered a perfect view of my mother"s behind.
Her ample, curvy behind.
Modesta leaned next to me to see it. "It is so," she said.
I had my mother"s b.u.t.t. No matter what I did, I couldn"t change this. Why would I want to?
"You look so much like her!" Modesta said.
I bit my tongue before I could say I do not. "Really?" I said instead.
"Oh yes. If you had not told me, I would know at once she was your mother."
Maybe I hadn"t been switched at birth?
"Your father is a handsome man. You favor him as well." Modesta kept looking from the photo to my face, nodding as if to affirm what she said.
I wanted to hug and kiss her!
The photo blurred before me. G.o.d, how I missed my mom. But how much I missed my dad slammed into me too. I pictured him in rehab. How was he doing? Did he think of me?
I felt like an idiot when I realized Modesta must miss her parents too. How self-absorbed I was! "Do you-do you have a picture of your parents?" I asked.
She blinked but otherwise showed no emotion. "Only here." She tapped her head.
"What did they look like?"
She smiled. "Tall and thin," she said, gesturing to herself. "My father, he was strong before..." She stopped a moment, gazing into the distance. "A big, strong man. He used to carry me on his shoulders. My mama was thin. Even when she was growing a baby, she was thin. Stick legs, like me. But she was admired for her eyes and her singing voice."
"I"m so sorry they"re gone," I whispered.
She looked at me, almost irritated or angry, it seemed, then she sighed.
The monkeys rattled the leaves. After a pause, she said, "I will go to school, you know. To university. In Accra perhaps. I will be a doctor. I will stop this plague that stole my parents."
She wore that grim, determined expression again. I knew she would do this, in spite of all the difficulties and obstacles. I saw it in her face and posture that she would find a way no matter what. I saw this was her driving force, her obsession, just as mine had been my DRH.
It struck me how much effort, how much time, planning, and expense I"d invested into something so stupid and absurd.
Modesta closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun again. "How do they like the boys?"
I frowned. "What?"
"You said in America, they like the girls skinny. How do they like the boys?" She was dead serious, interested.
"Um..." I thought of movie stars. I thought of my dad. And, I couldn"t help it, I thought of Kevin. In spite of everything, Kevin was lovely to look at, the big jerk. "Not so skinny, more muscled. Blond is good. Blond and tan."
She tilted her elegant head. "I think you are thinking of a certain boy."
I shrugged but felt a blush bloom in my cheeks.
That smile started on Modesta"s face, the one that totally transformed her face. She seemed to have two expressions: stone-faced or beaming. "Yes, I think I am right. What is the boy"s name?"
"Kevin," I admitted.
"Ah ha!" She sounded as if she"d beat me at some game. "Tell me about Kevin."
I thought a minute. "He"s really nice to look at, but...Kevin"s kind of a jerk. He"s mean. He was rude to me. He wanted...you know, he was all creepy and grabby with my body."
"You like this boy?" She added a new expression to her repertoire: horror.
"No. I mean...well, I did. At least I thought I did. I mean-I felt lucky that he liked me."
"Why?"
What was it about the African sunlight that made it so easy to tell the truth?
"He liked me," I said. "He was beautiful and popular, and I"m...not."
She studied me a moment. "Huh," she finally said.
I"d been mean too, all because Kevin liked me.
Modesta gathered up her folded towels and said, "My mother told me, "Beauty will take you there, but character will bring you back.""
I froze. "My-my mom used to say something like that. She said, "Pretty is as pretty does.""
Modesta thought a moment then nodded. "Exactly."
I took half of the towels from her arms and walked the dusty alley toward the house.
"Is there no boy that you truly like?" Modesta asked. "Someone who does pretty?"
Jasper flooded into my mind.
"Ah, I see from your face that you do. Why did you not tell me about this boy first?"
I smiled. "He"s not popular but he"s very kind. He"s been very nice to me."
"Do you like him?"
I nodded.
"Why?"
Why? I thought about that. "He gets this wonderful look on his face when he"s playing the piano. Like he"s in another world. He"s very smart...and curious. He"s nice to everyone. He"s-he"s brave. And different. Unique. He doesn"t care what anyone else thinks of him; he does what he wants to do. He has this yellow wedge in his eye that I can"t stop looking at when I"m around him. And this very slow smile. And his hair-"
I stopped, realizing Modesta had disappeared from my side. I turned back to see her standing still in the road. Two brown goats trotted past us.
"You do not like this person, Hah-nah. You love this person!"
I almost dropped the towels.
She caught up to me and peered into my face. "You do. Does he know this?"
I shook my head.
"You waste your time on this Bad Kevin when this beautiful boy is there?"
I shrugged. "I"m a chicken, Modesta."
She pushed me in the shoulder. "You must be brave!"
"I-I can"t. I-he knows this thing about me. This ugly awful secret."
Modesta stepped away from me, then eyed me up and down. "What secret?"
"It"s too...It"s gross."
She narrowed her eyes at me then shook herself. "It is not so. Whatever this secret is, your true character cannot be hidden."
I wasn"t so sure. My true character had been stuffed in a drawer so long with my secret stash of food that I wasn"t sure how to bring it back-at least, I didn"t know how to bring it back at home, and I couldn"t live here in Ghana forever.
"You must tell him."
I joked, to make it easier. "Well, I can"t, can I? He"s not here."
"Write it to him."
"I"ll be home before a letter from here reaches him."
She made the same exasperated clucking sound she"d made over Englebert. "Email him!"
I blinked. Modesta knew about email? I looked at the buildings surrounding us, buildings with no plumbing and no electricity.
She shuffled her bundle of towels and soap under one arm and grabbed my hand with the other. "We have email at the school! Come!"