elephant with a Zulu warrior shield across its back.
“Cowardly kitty! You need a magical elephant to protect you from a little girl? Come on, Tropic.”
Mariella knelt down and waved Tropic over. Cocking its head curiously, the cat didn’t lift a paw. The girl looked up at Moni and shrugged.
“I know. Tropic is being silly.” She offered a hand and helped Mariella up. “I bet he knows you’re friends with a mouse. Cats are intuitive like that.”
She got over the rejection in a heartbeat. The girl took her drawing papers and colored pencils out of her backpack and stood before the sliding glass door that led to the patio deck out back. Moni understood the unspoken message and let her out. Mariella sat on her knees in her usual plastic yellow chair and laid out a clean piece of paper on the glass table. She grabbed the purple pencil first. She didn’t color. She stared at it.
“Where have you seen purple like that before?” Moni asked with a hint of nervousness as she thought of the tumors and glowing eyes. For once, she felt relieved that Mariella wouldn’t answer her. “Maybe on a pretty flower?”
Mariella drew a purple flower. The petals were precisely even and symmetrical. She sketched a heart underneath it and handed it to Moni.
“Ah, for me? Thank you!” She held the precious paper up and made sure the girl saw her beaming approval. “I’ll hang it in the kitchen with the others.”
Keeping the girl on the patio in the corner of her eye, Moni took her backpack and went into the house. When she pulled out a few other drawings that Mariella had made at school, she came across the gator picture. She couldn’t help but notice it because it didn’t look anything like the others. The lines around its scaly body and stubby claws were rigid. It didn’t have cartoonish features like Mrs. Mint had said. The gator had jagged teeth-meat rendering teeth.
Moni remembered the crime scene photo with the divots of flesh torn out of Robbie Cooper’s arm. That creature had caught him in a death grip and dragged him below water. She felt a little hand on her back and jumped.
“Oh! Hi.” She patted Mariella on the shoulder.
The girl offered her another paper. This one had writing: I am eight years old.
“Very good, baby.” Moni placed the gator drawing face down on the kitchen counter so she could avoid voicing her opinion on that one. Mariella must not have noticed because she smiled proudly.
The doorbell rang and the girl dropped her smile. She curled into her safety position right behind Moni’s leg and clung on for dear life.
“It’s okay, child.” Moni patted her on the head as she dislodged her foot from the floor and hauled the girl with her to the door. “I’m expecting a friendly visitor today. You’ll like this guy.”
After making sure she saw those blond locks through the side window, Moni swung open the door for Aaron and his teddy bear. The surfing stud could have come in a T decked with tribal skulls and sharks. Moni patted herself on the back for figuring that Aaron would know better. His beach bum button-down shirt and jean shorts shouldn’t threaten Mariella at all. And even better; he held a brown furry teddy in front of his face and gave it a voice.
“Hi, little girl,” Aaron said in a voice that sounded more like a chipmunk than a baby bear. “The fleas are getting me out here. May I please come in?”
Mariella ducked behind Moni’s leg so the cotton-stuffed intimidator wouldn’t spot her. Lowering the bear, Aaron uncovered his deflated face. The novice didn’t know that he couldn’t win a strange child’s heart in the first five seconds with a toy. Now candy-that might have a shot.
Still, Moni saw a double meaning in his gesture of bringing a present for the child, but nothing for the full- grown woman. Either he viewed this as a strictly friendly meeting or he made it a point in showing her that he would embrace having a kid around. Moni hadn’t made up her mind which one of those she’d prefer.
“That pickup line so bombed. We’re not that easy,” Moni told Aaron. “Don’t worry. I’ll still invite you in.” She backpedaled with Mariella clinging against her leg. Aaron sauntered on in as if he had been in her house a thousand times. He kept the teddy bear in hand and his black bag slung over his shoulder. Mariella better calm down so he can do her checkup, Moni thought.
“Okay, Mariella. This is my friend Aaron.”
She reached behind her and grabbed the child’s hand, but she resisted a gentle tug toward the visitor. Mariella squirmed away and scampered onto the couch. She sat with her legs shielding everything but her dark hair and piercing brown eyes.
“I’m sorry. It just takes a while with new people,” Moni said. Of course, there were some people Mariella never tolerated. She might have been an innocent, all-trusting child before, but never again after what happened to her parents.
“It’s cool. I guess I’m one creepy dude,” Aaron said. “I knew I should have worn my Chuck E. Cheese cologne.” His eyes brightened as Moni giggled. “Look, I’ll just leave the little princess this teddy bear right on this couch. She can take teddy if she wants… Please don’t leave him sad and alone.”
Aaron tossed the teddy bear on the opposite end of the couch from Mariella. She stretched her leg out and curiously poked it with her toes. The girl snapped her foot back as if the furry toy had been on fire.
“It’s just a toy, baby,” Moni said. “It won’t hurt you. This man has only brought good things for you today.” At least, that’s what she hoped.
Mariella didn’t budge. She curled her head into her knees as if she were an armadillo balling up.
“It’s been a rough week, I know, I know,” Aaron told the girl. “I remember when I was in elementary school like you and the other kids thought I was a total scrub. I was all bird-chested and twig-limbed. One time when they were making us do chin-ups on the big bar and I could barely do one, this kid from a higher grade snuck behind and pantsed me. I’m talking totally down to my ankles in front of the whole class.” Mariella stole a peek at him from behind her knees. She couldn’t hide that smile. Moni couldn’t believe the girl finally looked amused. “Aw man, they brought it up every day. That’s when I took up surfing. Out there, all you hear are the waves. They might dump you on your butt sometimes, but they don’t mean anything personal by it. Just remember to keep your bathing suit tied up tight. I’ve been pantsed by a wave before too, but that was my fault.”
With a big grin curling along the corners of her lips, Mariella snatched up his bear and cradled it in her lap. She finally placed her feet on the floor. Moni gawked at Aaron as if he had just leapt over the Great Wall of China.
With the girl at ease with him, Aaron studied all the tribal African paintings and figurines on Moni’s walls and cabinets. Most were of proud women traced in black chalk with slender yet strong bodies and boisterous Afros. There were no men in any of the artwork besides the male animals: the mighty lion head cast in fiery orange with black obsidian eyes, the stoic giraffe being led by the robed tribal woman, a horse racing a woman who has lightening streaking from her hair.
Moni knew her decorating practically screamed, “This is a black woman’s house!” She didn’t do it for her light-skinned guests. They would say a single drop of chocolate into a cup of white milk looks black. No, Moni made sure her brothers and sisters didn’t confuse her complexion with being light on soul.
“Wicked house, Moni,” said Aaron, who didn’t appear at all concerned about her untamed warrior complex. Maybe he liked that kind of thing.
“I’m keeping the African importers in business,” Moni said. “Mariella likes it too. She’s drawn some of these animals. She especially likes the horses.”
“Oh yeah?” He faced Mariella but smartly kept his distance. “I know a horse ranch. How’d you like to go horseback riding some time?”
After a few seconds processing the offer, Mariella nodded slowly. As Mariella sat on the couch coloring alongside her new teddy bear, the cool breeze seeped in from the screen in the rear of the house and jostled through the girl’s hair. Moni and Aaron sat around the dining table, where they could see her and still talk quietly without the girl overhearing. She liked his surfing and boating stories so much that she nearly asked him for a trip out on the water with him. The problem was Moni didn’t like any body of water she couldn’t see straight through. She imagined there were critters or slimy things in there. With all that bacteria gunk in the lagoon, that applied more than ever.
And Mariella had bathed in that vile water enough.
“Listen, Aaron,” she said during a narrow gap between his stories. The less she countered with stories about
