in the bathroom they shared, and when he returned she was already wearing a floppy T-shirt. He climbed the short ladder to his top bunk and said goodnight.
I’m not going to sleep yet, she said. I’m studying for a Spanish test, y yo estoy nada.
Falk heard Leesha turning the pages of her Spanish book below him and could smell her scent of soap and girl’s perfume.
I am nothing? he asked.
Oops. I meant, yo sé nada. I know nothing.
I know that.
Oh, great. Now I got a Spanish critic hovering above me.
I’ll be quiet, he said.
When she sneezed, he added, Bless you.
After a while she said, This is hopeless. I’m going to blow this, big time. And you know what? No es importante. She turned off the light and turned in her bunk below him, wiggling the bed.
They were both quiet. He could tell from her breathing that she was awake. Sleep tight, she said faintly.
You too.
After a while she said, What are you thinking up there? You’re still as a corpse.
Nothing.
I bet.
I’m trying not to bother you.
I can barely see your feet, she said. Your heels look like globs. They’re so big! You’re freaky.
Don’t look, he said.
Do you miss her?
The darkened room was a purple color, as of a deep plush velvet curtain, a fold into which they had stumbled. Who?
Aunt Cynthia. Your mother.
He took a long time to respond. The wait for his reply was as if he were walking around the shore of a pond. Finally he said, Yes. His voice was faint and brittle. Leesha heard him and her eyes swelled, staring open-lashed at the metal grid of wires and springs above her, atop which lay her orphaned cousin.
You should pray for her soul, she said.
I do.
You do?
Yes.
Show me.
Leesha heard the bedsprings squeak, the frame creak as Falk moved above her, until his face hung upside down in the purple darkness of the room, staring at her, his straight hair hanging down like fringe. He said, You don’t show something like that. It’s private.
She looked him right in the eyes like she had nothing to hide or fear. His hair was funny, hanging down like that. She said, I don’t believe you.
That’s your problem.
Prove it, then. Get down on your knees and pray for your mother’s soul.
She knew she shouldn’t be saying that but she didn’t care. She wanted to talk to him in the dark and it was the only thing that came to her mind. She always said what was on her mind.
His head disappeared, the bed creaked, settled. Finally he said, You can trust me.
I can.
You can.
Okay then. Sleep tight.
Later he let her see him pray. His hands together and everything. She loved him for that. She didn’t know any other boy in Goodnight who prayed with feeling. Plus she liked the way he carried his camera everywhere he went, his odd photos of people and the abandoned buildings around Goodnight.
For a cousin, she could do worse.
. . .
Now, a year later, on the night that Falk and Leon pulled the enormous zebrafish from the bay, he prayed for his mother’s soul, and that some good would come of the discovery of the fish. He told Leesha about the giant thing, about taking photographs of it, how Leon said they’d be worth something, maybe the Associated Press wire service would buy them. They were in the bunk bed, the lights off, talking as they had grown accustomed to do each night.
She said she’d bet money he was going to become a big-time photographer for National Geographic or Time magazine. I can tell, she said. I just know it.
Wishful thinking, he said.
You wait, she said. I just hope you’ll remember me when you’re rich and famous.
He laughed. After a minute he said, I doubt I’ll ever be forgetting you. But just in case, you should let me take your picture.
Now?
No. Sometime.
Why would you want to do that?
Because I want to. Because you have an interesting face.
She was silent below him. Finally she said, in almost a whisper, What a nice thing to say.
It’s true.
Okay then. But I might cross my eyes. Stick out my tongue.
I’ll do it sometime when you’re not looking.
You better not take one when I look stupid.
Don’t worry. You’ll be natural. You never look stupid.
I don’t know about that. Make me look like Uma Thurman or Nicole Kidman. Someone glamorous and elegant.
You’ll look like you, he said. Only natural. No poses.
She was silent. Falk’s brain was buzzing. He lay wide awake, staring into the purpled darkness. After a while he could tell she had fallen asleep from the sound of her breathing. He could smell her soap, her musky teenaged-girl perfume. Into the dark he said, I’ll take a picture of you. And you’ll be beautiful in it. When you’re not looking, he whispered. You won’t even notice.
AT THE CANOE CLUB on Cuerna Larga Road, the sign above the door read, A Nice Place for Nice People. Still you watched your purse or your wallet. Also painted on the outside was the legend: Beer. Wine. Set-Ups. In better days the rough-hewn building had been a barn for a herd of Santa Gertrudis cattle nervous from rattlesnakes nipping their hooves.
Now the floor was mottled gray concrete, cracked and treacherous, spotty with bloodstains at the end of a spirited evening. The ceiling was lofty and black with fruit bats. From the exposed rafters dangled fishing nets and tackle, Clorox bottles used as crabtrap markers. The club’s name came from an entire canoe poised above the crowd, athwart the rafter beams, beside it a jumbled collection of wooden oars.
When Una and Gabriel first arrived they waited at the door for the bouncer to check their IDs. Gabriel said, Come on, dude. We’re getting to be practically regulars here.
The bouncer was wide as an ice machine and had a crumpled, dome-shaped shaved head. Rimples of fat creased his neck. He nodded them in, saying, We don’t technically have regulars. All our patrons here are what you might call irregulars.
Hours later the air was blue with smoke and you couldn’t hear yourself think. It had reached the time of night when all the good people were home in bed and those left standing in line at the bar wondered what mistakes had led them to this point in their lives. When and if they wondered at all.
Una sat in a booth and arranged before herself, on the sticky tabletop, a zoo of colored plastic animals. Across from her Gabriel ranted. It wasn’t fair he’d lost his job. The world was going to shit. All the white assholes were ruining everything, the money grubbers. You be a cracker tourist you might as well be a vampire, he said. We should call them las blancas vampiras.
He leaned over the table. His face melted. His cheeks drizzled down as if he were a wax figurine in a museum on fire. Turista, vampira, he said. Same difference. Lo mismo. You suck the lifeblood out of other healthy people and turn them greedy and lifeless, except what they need instead of blood is money. Something to sell. A beach towel or an inflatable raft or a kite or a bottle