Southernmost by Silas House

Author:Silas House [House, Silas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781616208295
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2018-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

5

As they turn onto Olivia Street, Justin sounds it out slow, aloud, as if learning to pronounce a foreign word: “O-liv-eeee-uh,” like exhaling four little breaths.

There’s a white fence with tall palm trees and the eaves of three roofs behind it. Pink and purple flowers drip over the fence. Asher finds the gate and there’s a cardboard sign taped there—help wanted—so they know for sure this is the right place.

Asher pushes the gate open, easing his way into a courtyard. They are swallowed up in trees and flowers and birdcall. “Bougainvillea,” he says, putting his finger to a small purple flower. He had read about these when researching the island. There’s a bubbling fountain and a still pool. A glass patio table is loaded with all kinds of breakfast food: muffins, a glass pitcher of orange juice, a coffee machine and bowls heaped with fruit—bananas, oranges, apples, grapefruits, grapes. Asher’s mouth waters at the sight of the pink grapefruit.

In front of them there’s a big old house, painted a pale orange, with the windows outlined in dark green and bright white banisters around the porch. There’s a green swing and a few rocking chairs painted a finger-paint-bright yellow.

A little metal sign decorated with bright painted crabs—office this way—hangs from the limbs of a gigantic plant, so they make their way down a gravel path where they push tree limbs and pink or purple blossoms aside as if they are walking through a jungle. They come upon what looks like a little tool shed with a hand-painted board hanging over the open doorway: office.

Inside the shed an enormous woman about the age of Zelda is spread out at a desk stacked with towers of papers and books and receipts. The whole inside of the shed looks like it belongs to one of those hoarders Asher has seen on television. She’s wearing a muumuu that is the color of red Kool-Aid and he thinks of Zelda because they are her favorite things. The woman’s black hair is heaped on top of her head and it is threatening to topple over if she moves her head too quick. She has placed little purple flowers into the clump.

She scribbles out a list on a scrap of paper before she notices them.

“Whatta you say, boys?” she says, glancing up. Back home only men say hello this way. She snatches off her glasses, pulls the muumuu out to wipe the lenses. Asher likes the way she moves, like a queen. “Needing a room?”

“No, ma’am,” Asher says.

“What can I help you with, then?”

“I could use work.”

“You ever done any cleaning work before?”

“I’ve been cleaning my own house my entire life.”

Asher doesn’t know any other men back home who clean the house, but he always has. He likes for things to be very, very neat. In fact, the tumult of this office is making him nervous. Back home if Asher had said he cleaned his own house, women would have laughed at him and patted his back as if he didn’t really understand what cleaning meant.

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