The Memory Thief Read online

  Sometimes after sunrise, Hannah would relax in the sand and wait for the others. The old lady that walked her little black dog. The man who liked to jog and treated the rock piles, the ruins of old fishing piers, like enormous hurdles. They knew her, too, as part of their usual scene, and always gave a curious but friendly nod. Their arrival meant the day had begun and the world was awake. Hannah would hop on her bike and pedal furiously, letting the wind shake the sand from her. Then she’d ride down to the fruit market, a collection of little tents where fresh produce was sold. She’d pick up whatever Mother had requested, usually peaches or sweet corn. Sometimes a bag of boiled peanuts for her breakfast.

  James Island taught her how to eat. Showed her what fruit tastes like when it’s still warm from a ripening sun. How fish is meant to be eaten, no more than a few hours from the ocean. Handing somebody a ripe Carolina peach was the same as giving them your best smile. Passing a bowl of shrimp and grits was as clear as any Love you could get. Food was a language there.

  II

  One evening, Hannah was bored after supper. With her parents’ permission she pedaled down to the market, even though she’d already been that morning. She was watching people inspect the fruit, how they thumped the melons and squeezed the peaches, when she saw it. A yellowed paper taped to the market tent pole. OYSTER ROAST! FRIDAY AT SUNSET. FOLLY BEACH. LIVE MUSIC!

  She biked to the beach. In the distance was music. At first, just practice runs on old guitars. A few beats of a drum. Then they started for real, jumpy songs with the moan of a harmonica. There was smoke in the air, and far away the glow of an oyster fire. She pedaled closer, until she felt the good time rippling from them like the waves at high tide. Bronzed bodies were everywhere, and Hannah did not try and blend in. She had lived through too many bad days of school to believe that she could. Besides, she was taught from a very early age that she belonged to a separate and holy people. Compared to holy, separate was always the easy part.

  Past the crowd, toward the shore, people worked furiously. They were icing down beers and sorting buckets of oysters. They weren’t naked like the others, each of them wearing a black T-shirt with the letters CSM stitched on the pocket. And they weren’t listening to the music. Instead they were listening to a woman calling out instructions. “They runnin’ outta beer. C’mon now, ice that down and get it to ’em.”

  Money flew their way—for the buckets of oysters roasted with corn and potatoes, for the Dixie cups filled with sweet tea, for the bottles of beer. The music pulsed louder and stronger, all while the black-shirted CSM team circled the crowd and weaved through them, passing out goodies in exchange for fistfuls of money.

  Hannah kept looking back to the woman. Her black skin glistened by the fire. She controlled everything. From the volume of the band—They need to turn that speaker up—to the amount of seasoning in the oyster buckets: Don’t get too heavy with that Ol’ Bay. It was her money, too. Boys with young muscled arms were slinging buckets for her and handing wads of cash back. But it was what was behind the table, just fifteen feet back, that made Hannah stand up and take a step closer.

  A full moon hung behind her, its glow bouncing off the white tops of each new wave. She saw naked shoulders pushing into the water, cutting through the pull of the waves. They crashed over a boy, and he sank low. She stood, waiting for him to resurface. And waiting some more. Until it was time to return home. She left, uneasy.

  Two weeks later she was pedaling down the road when she passed the pile of oyster shells. There was a sign by the shells that day: Cora’s Steampot Motel. Help wanted.

  Maybe it was the way the fire made that woman’s skin glisten like the inside of an oyster shell. Maybe it was the thought of all those black CSM T-shirts. Or maybe a part of her was still waiting, wondering if that boy had ever surfaced. Whatever the reason was, Hannah pedaled down the drive and stared at the brick rectangle, a neon sign flashing CORA’S STEAMPOT MOTEL in the front window. A smaller one hung on the door. Rent a Room, Get a Bucket!

  The front desk was empty, except for a little bell to ring for service. She tapped it shyly and waited.

  “In the kitchen,” a big voice called from inside.

  “Ma’am,” Hannah called out. “I’m here about the job?”

  “Come on back. Shut the door good ’cause I don’t want no more flies.”

  Hannah stepped past the front office, closed the door but kept her hand on the knob. Inside, she noticed the entire middle of the motel was the kitchen. With each side framed by long skinny halls dotted with four doors each. The kitchen was filled with a freezer, a double stove, and two double refrigerators. In the corner of the room was an enormous sink, filled with metal buckets.

  The woman from the oyster roast stood by the stove. She looked Hannah up and down and started laughing. “Sissy, git in here. Somebody’s here ’bout the job.”

  A younger woman walked in and burst out laughing, too.

  Hannah was used to being everyone’s favorite joke. And there in that kitchen, she knew she was ridiculous. With sweat staining her shirt, her collar thrown open in a desperate search for relief, and beige kool-lots clinging to damp thighs.

  “Keeps the mosquitoes off at least,” she mumbled, looking down at her feet. “Haven’t had one single bite since I’ve been here.”

  “What she talkin’ ’bout? Mosquituhs?” Sissy said, still laughing. The woman at the stove tilted her head to the side, a big grin still on her face.

  “You think we’re laughin’ ’bout your clothes, don’t you? We’re laughin’ ’cause you the most unlikely shrimper we ever seen.”

  “Shrimper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you were hiring a maid or a waitress.”

  “You never eat here, have you?” Sissy asked. “We hand out buckets, but after that everybody serve themselves. We just catch it and cook it. If they need a drink refill, they walk in and git it. They need another bucket? They walk in and git it. We ain’t needin’ any waitress help.”

  “Well now, wait a minute,” the older woman said, as she peeled a potato slowly. “We don’t need a waitress, exactly. But I’m tired of makin’ beds up, ain’t you, Sissy? And at dinner, there’s always somebody that don’t know the rules. Leavin’ their bucket on the table. And the boys run late with their deliveries, too, and one of us has to run down to the dock to get the catch. If we hired her to pick up those loose ends, maybe we could focus on the cookin’ a bit more. Maybe we could finally start servin’ that key lime pie you’ve been wantin’ to make and charge a robbery for.” She looked at Hannah carefully, and didn’t laugh this time. “My name is Cora. And this is my steampot motel.”

  “I can clean tables very well,” Hannah said. “And I’ve been making my own bed since I was four.” She looked them both in the eyes, the way her father had trained her. “It proves you’re trustworthy,” he liked to say.

  “I believe you.” Cora nodded. “Put this apron on, and I’ll show you the buckets we need rinsed.”

  “She’s gonna git hot with that apron on top of all them clothes,” Sissy said.

  The apron was a thick, canvaslike material, hanging well below Hannah’s knees. It was made to help protect from steam burns and hot water splashes, as the buckets were being prepared and served.

  Hannah looked at them. Under their aprons they were nearly naked. Braless under their tank tops, big breasts spreading wide and draping over their stomachs. They wore cutoffs, flip-flops, and long leatherlike gloves reaching up to their elbows.

  “Wanna run home and change?” Cora asked kindly.

  For a moment, Hannah sounded like Bethie. She stared at the ground and stammered about how the heat didn’t bother her. About how her skin was sensitive to the sun. But she could feel them staring at her, and she could nearly see her lies swirling with the hot steam in that room.

  “Stuff like this is all I have,” she finally said, shrugging her shoulders.

  “I gotta T-shirt in the trunk. It’s
an extra-small, too, that’s why I ain’t give it out yet,” Sissy said, and laughed. “We never had no extra-small person work here before.”

  Hannah took that prized T-shirt and held it loosely. An old ache returned, as real to her as the burn of steam as she reached across hot buckets for the soap Cora held out. It was uncertainty, that pain that settled in her chest and tightened her lungs. It was the constant wondering, summed up by the simple question her mind was always whispering: Is it a sin? Would God still want her if she wore a T-shirt, if the rules of modesty were broken and fresh air cooled her steamy arms?

  She thought about Mother, working furiously at home organizing supplies for the children that passed through the downtown shelter. Before they even left home, she had contacted the shelter and asked them what they needed most. Immediately after, she began soliciting corporate donations. And once she settled in and toured the shelter, she started writing letters asking for help from her Yankee friends.

  It was her gift, organizing. And within a few weeks, the living room of the shack had been turned into a closet. With stacks of pajamas donated from department stores. Diapers from local grocery stores. Little baby blankets from her church sewing circle.

  Hannah knew what Mother would say. Standing in the middle of projects to be organized, Mother would give her a memorized, automatic response. She wouldn’t have time to consider—even as she worked in her own polyester sweat-box—the ninety-two-degree heat. There were children in the world forced to live naked. What did it matter if she was a little hot?

  Hannah held the T-shirt up, saw how it would fit her perfectly. The length falling just to the waist of her kool-lots. She felt the smooth, cool cotton. And imagined how well it would breathe, letting air flow through it and over her skin. The heat seemed to burn more than usual. Like hell sat under her skin.

  She thought of Father. As he worked, somewhere downtown, being paid for his genius. She thought of the sermon, about honoring the Sabbath, that they recently attended. Afterward they stopped for gas at a little station where the owner pumped it himself.

  “It’s not a sin,” Father said. “For that man to be pumping gas today. He’s doing it because he needs to feed his family.” Then he reminded her about David, about how he ate the holy showbread meant only for priests. “God doesn’t want his children hungry.”

  That was Father’s gift: mercy. He followed all the rules himself. But not only did he manage to pardon when others around him didn’t—sometimes he found value in it.

  Mother’s way was easier. She never asked questions or raised doubts. Long ago, she had swallowed the rules. They were the bones that held her up. But on that ninety-two-degree day, Hannah chose mercy. From the heat. From the sweat. From the polyester that trapped it all inside.

  It was the first time she had ever worn a T-shirt. She was sixteen years old, and how she longed for a mirror at that moment. Looking down at herself, she saw things she normally only saw in the shower. Like the fact that she had a waist. One that was normally hidden in the boxy drape of a high-collared men’s-style shirt. But in an extra-small T-shirt, the lines of her body were clear. She was narrow at the center. The hourglass God had designed her to be. And there was something else. Something that made her blush and quickly look away. Only to look back down again. She had breasts. Round, full, womanly breasts. They were still covered. But they were no longer hiding.

  She put the long apron on and noticed her skin. The nakedness of her arms, all the way up to her shoulders. They were the color of milk.

  “Gonna wash some buckets or stare at that apron?” Sissy called.

  Hannah headed to the corner, where Sissy showed her how to take a steel-wool pad and a drop of soap, and scrub the tin bucket out.

  “We don’t fry nothin’ here,” she said proudly. “They ain’t a drop of hot grease you gotta worry ’bout. Just scrub it, rinse it good, and set it in the rack to dry. Easiest dishwashin’ job you’ll ever come by.”

  The buckets were practically clean, having already been emptied of leftovers. There were some bits of corn or potato occasionally stuck to the side. But nothing that required any muscle to remove. Hannah washed them quickly.

  “I knew you were good,” Cora said approvingly. “Now come over here and let me teach you ’bout the steampot.”

  On the stove sat two of the largest pots Hannah had ever seen. She watched as Cora filled them with water and seasonings, then laid coils of sausage, little new potatoes, and halved ears of corn inside.

  “I’ll let that get to cookin’,” she said. “Then later I’ll add shrimp, mussels, and oysters. It don’t take but a minute for that stuff to cook. When the shrimp pinks up and the mussels open, it’s time to spoon it out.”

  Cora rang the dinner bell, a rusted old cowbell that hung from the ceiling on a rope. She gave it three sharp bangs, then motioned for Hannah to bring her some buckets. As she filled them, Hannah smelled the ocean.

  “Well, we’re set now,” Cora said, taking two buckets to carry. She motioned for Sissy and Hannah to pick up two as well.

  Five picnic tables, gray with age, sat in a half-moon shape. The tables were interesting enough, with holes cut in the middle of each and trash cans beneath the holes for people to toss shells into. But what really caught Hannah’s eye that evening was the tree.

  Hannah had noticed them in the distance before, but she’d never been so close to an old twisted live oak. Not like the oak trees of her home, with straight trunks and mitten-shaped leaves. Live oaks were different. With thick squatted trunks, and massive branches writhing and coiling out. Like the way a small child would draw a tree with scribbled curly lines. Most were veiled. Draped with sheets of Spanish moss, gray and weeping. Antiquing the trees to match the town, like another dusty Civil War relic.

  “Quit gapin’ at that snake tree and drop them buckets down so you can go get more,” Sissy yelled.

  Hannah jumped, set her buckets down and returned to the kitchen for more. She carried buckets out, two by two, and collected money from everyone that Sissy told her wasn’t staying in the motel. But she kept her eye on the tree. And decided that Sissy was right. It looked like snakes. Dozens of them curling out from a center nest. Except the tree was beautiful, in a way that snakes would never be.

  Once the tables were full, some ate on the hoods of their cars, pulled as close to the shade of the oak as they could get. Cora went from person to person, saying hello and asking about family and friends. The whole service took forty-five minutes. From tossing the raw shrimp in the pot to serving the last table.

  “Only do it once a day, same time every day,” said Cora. “I ain’t never been nobody’s short-order cook. They can eat what I fixed when I fixed it or not. I started it to feed my travelers anyhow. But turned out the locals were hungry, too.”

  “C’mon, Hannah,” Sissy called out. “Number Six checked out a couple hours ago. I’ll show you how to git the room ready.”

  Hannah followed her inside the motel and down the skinny hallway.

  “No maid cart. You gotta carry your own supplies and haul the trash and laundry out. But when folks are stayin’ here, ain’t much to do for the daily cleanin’. Just make their beds and wipe down the sinks and such. It’s when they check out that the room gets a good goin’ over. And we treat for roaches and sand fleas at every checkout. This is a clean motel. But that don’t mean some of our travelers ain’t draggin’ in their own bugs.”

  There was a locked closet in the middle of the hall. Sissy took a key from her pocket and opened it to reveal shelves of bleach, a vacuum, glass cleaner, trash bags, and pesticide spray. She pulled out the bleach and gave it to Hannah with a pair of long gloves.

  “Best git the worst part out of the way,” she said, nodding toward a toilet brush. Hannah pulled her gloves on, trying to look confident.

  “Let me know when you’ve finished that. Shouldn’t be too bad, just a man. Much worse with families. The things kids can do to a bathroom would shock most folks
. And try not to get bleach on your T-shirt. Only extra one we got.”

  Sissy unlocked Number Six. Hannah walked inside, turned on the lamp, and looked around. Brown plaid curtains, various shades of mud squared against one another, hung heavy over the one window. There was one bed, standard size, with more brown plaid covering it. Next to the bed was a brass lamp with an embroidered shade, little purple violets twirling across it. It seemed out of place among all that brown plaid, more like something Mother would enjoy making than a motel lamp. A mirror and dresser stood opposite the bed. There was no TV or phone. Instead a card invited guests to a central lobby, across from the front desk, to watch TV or make local calls. There was another card, this one framed on the wall nearest the bathroom.

  Welcome to Cora’s Steampot Motel, where the rooms are clean and supper is free. This is our home. And for a night or two, it is yours as well. A small scripture was printed at the bottom: I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Matthew 25:35.

  Hannah jerked her head away, like she did when she saw nasty words carved into bathroom stalls. She was used to being around people that didn’t know any scripture at all. But she had never been around someone that used it casually, like in a motel greeting, almost as if the words were their own. Scripture was holy, only spoken in church and whispered in prayer. Hannah was amazed that something holy could ever be placed next to common words like Steampot Motel. She wondered if that could ever be right. She wished she could ask Mother.

  Hannah was overly generous with the bleach, pouring it until she had to use nearly a whole roll of paper towels to dry the floor. She had never cleaned a bathroom before. Never seen Mother clean one, either. That was Inez’s job.

  Inez was the old lady that Mother hired to clean their house every day. It was a woman’s place to clean her home, Mother admitted, and she insisted on that. But with her constant volunteering, and the sewing that always needed to be done for the shelters, she gladly hired daily help. Nobody but Inez had ever cleaned any of the four bathrooms in their beautiful brick home.