Inside the cabin, Trevor plucked the big, round hat off his head and tossed it onto his duffel bag reinforced with twine and duct tape. Brian peered into the crocheted cap, which contained what looked like rolled-up underwear.
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
Trevor’s dreads were tame—little skinny braids, short of his shoulders. “What? You thought I’d grown furious hair in a few years? Brian, I ain’t even got a mustache. But you can see my bag was busting.”
Carla peered from the kitchen and Trevor skipped toward her, singing, “Long-ong time, l-on-ong time…”
“Dinner in five minutes,” Carla said as Trevor held both her wrists and kissed her cheek. “Black bean tacos. Trevor, do you eat cheese?”
He did. Carla squeezed Brian’s shoulders. “You look wiped, hon.”
Then she turned to Trevor, “Come on.” He picked up his stuff and followed Carla to the extra bedroom.
Brian poured a glass of wine and swallowed it fast, then he poured another to drink normally. He heard Carla’s bright voice, bouncing loudly as she told Trevor how they helped maintain the lodge’s six cabins in exchange for free rent.
Trevor claimed he was a damn good plumber—and no expert at electricity, but trial and error.” Brian stepped outside, into the cool night. A distant, white moon shone between two mountain peaks. Brian had told Trevor he could stay a few weeks. But it went without saying that Trevor was staying indefinitely.
If Brian could quiet the yammering inside his head enough to keep his mouth shut, they’d adjust. During Brian’s college and Trevor’s high-school years, they had managed well until Lauren Lipton had upset the balance.
On the steps outside the kitchen, he felt Carla before she touched him, before she wrapped her arms around him from behind and pressed her cheek along the back of his neck. “Dinner’s ready.”
Trevor no longer drank wine. That was good. He asked if he could get himself water—Carla shouldn’t treat him as a guest. Also good.
Brian couldn’t have redirected the conversation, but while his attention wandered, Carla must have asked Trevor about leaving home at thirteen and going to high school here while Brian was still an undergraduate. Or maybe not.
Given half a chance, Trevor always talked about how their family had fallen apart. Trevor said their mother had fallen ill in September and died on Halloween. That had not happened. Nothing like that. But ever since Trevor had moved from Florida to Asheville because their father said he’d never finish high school otherwise—on this detail the brothers agreed—Trevor would talk about how his mother suddenly couldn’t get out of bed; how Trevor would read “A Tale of Two Cities” to her. How he had spent all day with her instead of going to school. And she had described visions: Soon she’d join the babies she had never had. Trevor would be a “wandering troubadour” with many women and children who never stopped loving him. And Brian, Trevor would say his mother had said, would be a professor of history or science, she wasn’t sure.
Trevor’s recitation was so fanciful and appalling that Brian had never refuted it. He attended, stupefied, to a performance that never varied, not just word for word, but cadence for cadence, same pauses, same stresses.
Trevor shone, reciting this fantastic piece of make-believe. During which, Brian despaired, out of all proportion. Their father had beaten Brian when he was angry with their mother. And if he was angry with Trevor, starting when Trevor was a baby, their father beat Brian relentlessly. Of course, Brian just being in the room, breathing, made their father angry. He broke Brian’s thumb and his arm once. But mostly, he hit Brian’s head; knocked him unconscious a few times. When Brian grew big and strong, he didn’t fight back for some reason. The reality was too ugly already.
Brian never talked about his parents. He didn’t trust his judgment. Still, Trevor’s recitation about their mother was too much. Truth was, their mother had run off with a man whose house she cleaned every Friday. Brian had postcards she wrote from Spain. And further verification—until Trevor had graduated from high school and Brian had earned a B.A. in history, she had sent money every month—enough for rent.
Carla was saying, “That’s a real tragedy.” Brian watched her eyes filling and the tears spilling onto her cheeks. He didn’t dare look at Trevor; he never did during the grim but sentimental rendition.
While Brian stared at his hands, Trevor asked if anyone wanted more to drink. He was getting another glass of water with lemon and ice from the kitchen.
“No thank you,” Brian said, unable now to look at either Trevor and his fairy tale or Carla and her wells of easy sympathy.
“We’ve got a Garden of Eden vanilla gelato and mascerated raspberries if you want. I’m certainly ready for a treat.” Carla said this to Brian at the table but loudly enough for Trevor running the kitchen faucet to hear too. Neither brother cared for dessert. Trevor called “Thanks, anyway,” and Carla knew Brian’s answer.
For a few minutes he listened to the interaction between Trevor and Carla and recognized what was happening, although they didn’t speak. Turning toward the window, he caught sight of them confirming…it wasn’t really an intuition, more like an expectation. Trevor slipped light-footed toward the freezer for ice cubes just when Carla was peering inside for her ice cream. She put it on the counter a minute to thaw and Trevor opened an ice tray on the same counter, adding a few cubs to his glass.
Carla tilted her head, indicating Trevor stand off to the side with her, against and refrigerator. Nobody needed to tell Brian how exciting Carla found Trevor no matter how devoted she might be to Brian. Nobody loved Trevor’s energy, his sparkling blue eyes, and a wry grin more than his older brother. Brian saw clearly what mystified Trevor for years: why females chased him with feminine abandon. Young, old, shy, bold—women without Carla’s long-standing habit of taking the initiative found many ways seduce the boy, who was now a man.
No other conceivable reason Carla would have hired a solo reggae singer to perform during lunch and dinner at the café. She hired him because without knowing he was Brian’s brother, Trevor left her spell bound.
Brian heard a shuffling of feet and Carla’s moist, heavy breath. Without seeing the scene in full, Brian harbored no doubt that Carla had Trevor pinned against the refrigerator.
And yet, he shifted to another chair with the mindless notion of simultaneously shutting the vision out while allowing his eyes to see what was happening. Rising from his chair and turning his head showed him plenty. Carla pressed her breasts against Trevor and kissed him. Further, Brian registered Trevor’s response to Carla’s finger in his mouth and had to admire Trevor’s gentle skill removing it and slipping free. “Ya mi sista…brother an sista, Carla.” Trevor sang the words as if quoting a song. With his glass of water in hand, he stood on the threshold and said out loud for both Carla and Brian’s sake: “Don’t take too long with your ice cream, darling. Or, Brian and I will both be wondering where’s our pretty Carla?”
Well, it did take her awhile. She carried in a large mound of gelato, not too soft and not too hard, and not too hard, smothered in raspberry sauce. Trevor was refilling his cutchie pipe, which Brian declined twice. He offered it to Carla, smiling at her and winking. She nodded, all right. “Peace offering?” “Some tings ya share,” Trevor said. “Others, ya can’t. It’s not right.”
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