Black Cake(10)

Uncle Leonard let go of the girl’s arm and gave her a slight shove toward the instructor. Just concentrate, Bunny, he said, then walked away as Bunny took a few awkward steps forward. Covey had never seen her before, they went to different primary schools, but she had seen Uncle Leonard pull up to the house in his white van to pick up Pa. Back then, Mummy was still around and she’d heard Mummy kiss her teeth and mumble under her breath every time he and Pa drove off to the cockfights.

At the pool, Bunny did everything the instructor said with a worried look on her moon-shaped face. She didn’t have any of the basics but she caught on fast. Then one day, Bunny’s mother came to watch and she smiled. Covey and the other kids looked over at one another in surprise. Bunny had the brightest smile that any of them had ever seen on a girl. Not even Covey’s mother had teeth like that. As time went by, Covey saw that, apart from the smile, Bunny had something else. Once she started swimming, she never seemed to get tired.

Bunny started walking back with Covey to Covey’s house after swim club. The two of them would sit side by side at the table in the kitchen, legs swinging, tummies growling, as they waited for Pearl to slip them a piece of fried breadfruit or a hot, chewy dumpling while preparing the evening’s supper. If there was still some daylight left, they would run into the backyard to catch lizards and climb the enormous old almond tree, until Mummy called to them to come down.

Then Covey told Bunny she wanted to start training in the bay.

“But why?” Bunny said. “We have the pool.”

“You’ll see,” Covey said, and looked in the direction of the coast.

“But is it safe?”

Covey hesitated, but she could tell, from the gleam in Bunny’s eyes, that she didn’t really need to answer.

Their longest swims took place when their fathers were gone to the cockfights. Covey and Bunny would beg rides from the neighbor boys and head farther down the coast. While their fathers were wiping flecks of blood from their dollar bills, the girls were already on the sand, kicking off their shoes and stepping out of their dresses and plunging headfirst into the sapphire waves.

With Bunny, Covey no longer felt like an only child. She felt as though she’d found a sister on land and in the water. Covey was the faster swimmer of the two girls but Bunny could go forever, and she could navigate the straightest line in open water of all the swimmers Covey knew. If Covey moved like a dolphin, then Bunny was like one of those giant turtles you heard about that were capable of crossing the world without losing their way.

People liked to tease Covey about the swimming. She was like lightning, some of them said. But with Bunny, they often grew quiet. Word had gotten around town. Bunny was the stuff of reverence. Bunny was a duppy conqueror. But then they turned sixteen and things began to change. People started calling them young ladies. Covey knew what some people thought about young ladies. That they ought to have more respect for the sea and what it could do. That they ought to stop courting danger by going out into the bay.

“It’s not natural,” her pa said. When Covey was still small, Covey’s father placed a couple of fortunate bets and told her he would use the money to enroll her in the swim club. Pa kept paying the fees even when he said there was nothing left for other expenses and, over the years, Covey made good on his investment by lining her bedroom shelf with swimming medals. Then Covey decided it wasn’t enough.

Because her pa was wrong, there was nothing more natural for Covey than swimming in the sea. And as long as she had Bunny, Covey felt that she could keep doing what she loved best.

“The harbor race,” Covey said to Bunny. “Let’s do it. Let’s see if we can get sponsorship to go to the capital.”

“The harbor race?” Bunny said. “You know I don’t like to race.”

“But we could win.”

“No, you could win, Covey.”

“But you could finish in the top three, I’m sure of it. It’s a good, long swim, the kind you like. Plus, some of those big-time racers from the other islands wouldn’t have the courage to come here.”

Their island was one of the smaller countries on Earth, but it had one of the world’s largest natural harbors. There were always rumors going around of what might be lurking in its waters.

Everyone on the island had a shark story. Sharks that left nothing but a man’s torso to wash ashore. Sharks that lunged when someone threw a dead dog off a cliff. Sharks seen circling a sandbar off the southern coast. But in her entire life, Covey had never seen so much as a shark fin in the water. Barracudas, yes. But she wondered if shark sightings weren’t like ghost stories, tales that you didn’t quite believe, but that left you feeling afraid all the same.

Covey would convince Bunny to enter that harbor race, she was sure of it.

“They would have boats tracking us, right?” Bunny asked.

“Right,” Covey said. “Listen, I’ll admit I get a little nervous, thinking about it. But we swim out here, so why can’t we swim there? Are you thinking you might not want to go?”

Bunny shook her head.

“Then don’t think about it, just come with me.”

Covey couldn’t imagine not going. Couldn’t imagine not feeling the froth bubble away from her skin as her arm came out of the water, the blue-green world below growing black with depth, the bright sky above, and even the salt burning her mouth. She dreamed of being invited to compete abroad. She knew it was unlikely, but it could be her ticket away from this island. Because, yes, Covey intended to leave this town someday, even if her mother never came back to get her.