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He only want to be with he son like this. Pete been living with his mother and Mr. Kenny all this time because Mr. Kenny could drop him to school while his father went fishing first thing in the morning. But Pete was still his son and Tony love-love he son. More than fishing even. More than life.
    “Jesus. Pops, look.” Pete was staring past he father shoulder. “Pops, she’s frigging jumping.” And sure nough. A woman standing on the railing of the bridge with her arms spread wide.
    She tip forward and Pete scream—like he mother’s own son. A high-pitch thing. And the woman above them spread her black wings and begin to fly like a crow diving to the ocean. But Tony ain even see she cause he busy going blind from a light bright like a saint. It was just then that the bridge begin to collapse. And the water around their little boat begin to swell. And their boat itself begin to shake. And boulders of the bridge crash into the sea causing waves that lift highhigh. And then the sound like hell opening its dirty doors—loud like it coming from inside the chest somehow. The boat rip apart before it could capsize. Son holding on to the one half and spinning off into a whirlwind. Father grabbing on the next half rushing toward ragged land.
    Tony Magrass knock on Mr. Kenny door that very morning. The easel hard and heavy under he one arm. The palate of paints dainty in he other. Salli open the door and look at her husband of seventeen years. The father of she dead son. She don’ know for sure yet that she son gone, but she know this man ain come cause he hungry. Mr. Kenny not home as yet, so she watch the art ting hard. She look again at she husband and they lock eyes even harder. Despite their distance, there never been a thing but love between them. “Set it up in the corner, Tony.”
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The Lament of the Queen: as told by a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl in patent leather shoes
    Guadeloupe did it for love. Obviously. As they say in all the movies, nothing else is enough. Of course she wanted to kill herself. Attempted suicide is, like, so in vogue now. Though she did more than die, of course. Juan Diego was a real man who knew not to ask about her past. About how she really won (well, almost won) all those teen pageants. He knew not to question anything that had happened before him, not even to question what was happening while she was with him. If it did not stop her from loving him, if it did not rack her with guilt, if it did not make her different, then how could it matter to him? Yes, girl. Guadeloupe was a little whore.
    When she said she was a virgin, he agreed. He accepted her with the illusions she presented. Loved her and didn’t care about the lies. You know the type. He was a real college guy, mature about that kind of stuff. Dark skin and tall. Those sweet ones are hard to find, and then the wrongest girls are the ones who find them, yes.
    Anyway, she wasn’t like him. She wasn’t mature bout those things. Still in high school and one of those stupid girlie girls. I would have known better. Anyhow, she found a love note, dated like three years before she’d even met him. And she just crumbled from the thought that he’d loved someone besides her. Stupid, hey? Crumbled from the realization that he too had a past, that maybe she was not his greatest love in the whole wide world—I mean he had saved the note for three years and she would have been like a freshman in high school then. And like all girls who don’t know how to forgive themselves—she could not forgive him. So she decided to win the crown, a tiara really, without the usual aids of her body and obeah-magic.
    But it would be hard. Because she was Puerto Rican and light skinned and straight haired, though at least her hair was brown. Miss Emancipation, the biggest title in St. Croix, was supposed to be a woman who celebrated the freedom of slaves. Guadeloupe decided to win the crown for the few slave-descended ancestors she had. To show Juan