All Day, All Night, Marianne By Richard Daybell Smashwords Edition Copyright 2010 Richard Daybell Toussaint conned his small motorboat to the empty spot at the pier, near where Roberto lolled, dangling his big bare feet in the warm water. The boat, like Toussaint's shirt and shorts, had the scars of a life well lived. On each side, the hand-lettered word taxi just above the waterline made it an official vehicle for transporting passengers up, down, and around the island's seven-mile coastline. Toussaint nodded and took up a cross-legged position next to Roberto. Roberto grunted in reply. "What's the matter?" asked Toussaint. "Nothing," answered Roberto in a child's whine, the kind that begs for additional prodding. "Nothing. I was at Pigeon Beach today." Toussaint sighed. "Man, you gotta get over this." "I can't. She's just so beautiful. She was there playing with the children again. And again she didn't even see me. When she looked in my direction, it was like I wasn't even standing there. She just looked through me like I was invisible, a ghost or something. Perhaps if she wasn't so beautiful, she could see me." "Perhaps," said Toussaint, turning it over in his mind. "But if she could see you, maybe she would see you ugly." "I'm not so ugly." "Of course not," said Toussaint with a reassuring grin. "But you're no Jean Paul either." Jean Paul was the young man held up as an example of what young manhood was all about. The other men didn't like him much – he was so knowledgeable and so arrogant – but they had to grudgingly agree that he was the handsomest of them all. And he paraded his handsomeness and pursued all the young women on the island, even many of the tourists. His only notable failure was with Marianne, Roberto's young woman at Pigeon Beach, and this gave Roberto some small satisfaction. But as Toussaint tactfully pointed out, if Jean Paul couldn't win Marianne, what possible chance could Roberto have? "You should say something to her," Toussaint argued. "You can't expect her to pay you no mind, standing there like the ghost of Albert Verra." In island history, Albert Verra had the dubious distinction of being the ultimate coward, selling out his island once to the French and once to the Spanish. "I try, but I am afraid." "Maybe I have an idea for you, Roberto," said Toussaint, lowering his voice even though there was no one within thirty yards of the pier. "You know the fine gentleman from that city I can't remember that's very close to London, the one who takes my water taxi wherever he goes and pays me very generously? Him and me, we're friends now. He talks to me about all sorts of things. He's very educated in literacy – that’s reading important books by dead people and looking at pictures and listening to music, all by dead people. It seems people who write books and paint pictures and make music become important when they die." "What good is being important if you're dead? Doesn't sound all that educated to me." "How would you know educated, man?" said Toussaint, just a little miffed at Roberto's effrontery in questioning him. "His name is Herbert and he's got two last names. Now, do you want me to help you, or do you want to spend your life on the beach staring at her with your mouth open and your brain shut until you both get old and die?" "I want you to help me," said the chastened Roberto. He stared at his feet as he swirled them in the water. "Okay," said Toussaint, once again in command. "Now, Herbert was telling me this very, very famous story by a guy that's been dead for close onto 400 years. Four hundred – now that makes him mighty important. The guy in the story is like you. His name is Romeo; that even sort of sounds like Roberto. This Romeo, he loves a girl whose name I forget. It doesn't sound like Marianne, but I guess that doesn't matter. Julianne, that's it. I guess it sounds a little like Marianne. Now Julianne's family don't like Romeo one little bit." "Why doesn't her family like him?" asked Roberto whose face now showed only confusion. "Because Julianne is very beautiful, just like Marianne, but Romeo has this great big nose. So Romeo sneaks to Julianne's back porch every night and hides in the bushes and says pretty words while her big fat mama sleeps inside. He says things like, 'Julianne, my sweetest sweet, your face is like the moon.' And Julianne says, 'Oh Romeo, I can't see your face; it's behind the bushes. Show me your face.' And Romeo says, 'No, no, fair princess. I cannot. But it's a nice face – with a tiny nose.' And Julianne says, 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore are you, Romeo?' See how they use each other's names a lot? That's very romantic." "Wherefore?" "That's 400-year-old talk. But this is what puts smart dudes like me and Herbert over here and dumb dudes like you over on the beach with your mouth open and bugs flying in and out. When Julianne says wherefore, she isn't wondering where Romeo is." "No?" "Of course not. She knows he's in the bushes. What she's really saying is why. Herbert explained that to me." "Why?" "Because him and me is friends." "No, I mean why is wherefore 'why'? And why would she ask Romeo why he is Romeo?" "Because it's literacy," said Toussaint, trying his best not to patronize poor Roberto. "She wants to know why it has to be Romeo out there instead of someone else." "How come?" "Because he has such a big nose, of course." Roberto thought about this story for a moment, kicking at the water with one foot and then the other. Toussaint studied him, looking for some sign that maybe he understood. "Why doesn't she just tell him to go away?" asked Roberto finally. Toussaint grinned. "Because she loves all the pretty words he says to her. And before long, she loves him, too – nose and all. And all because he talked pretty. As Herbert says, the story don't end until the fat lady sings." "What?" "The fat lady. I guess at the end of all these famous stories a fat lady sings. That's how you know it's over. So all you got to do, Roberto, is hide outside Marianne's porch and say pretty words and hope she falls in love with you before a fat lady sings." "But I don't know any pretty words," Roberto whined. "I'll help you find some pretty words. It's easy the songs on the jukebox at the Crab Hole are just filled with pretty words." Later that morning, Toussaint delivered Herbert Trent-Phillips to a social gathering at the tip of the island, earning in the process the twenty dollars that was to pay for their research at the Crab Hole that afternoon. The Crab Hole was aptly named, except that no self-respecting crab would make a home in this particular hole. Its four rickety tables were generally filled by the water-taxi drivers during the afternoon lull when the French tourists drank wine and insulted each other, the British took tea in the shade, and pasty Americans tried to erase generations of hereditary white skin in an orgiastic bout with the Caribbean sun. The rum was cheap, and the vintage tunes on the Crab Hole's jukebox even cheaper. Toussaint's twenty dollars was split sixty-forty between rum and golden oldies, and the two young men spent the afternoon soaking up both. Roberto mostly sat and sipped his courage, for Toussaint was not about to let another day go by before his literacy brought these two starfish-crossed lovers together whether they liked it or not; Roberto would give his performance that very night at Marianne's back porch. Toussaint himself scribbled on a paper placemat as the seductive words of Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, and the Purple People Eater filled the Crab Hole air. Roberto's declaration of love was completed by 5 o'clock, and from then until dusk, Toussaint put him through a rigorous dress rehearsal. The sun took its evening dip in the placid Caribbean. With a sense of adventure amplified by alcohol and the growing belief that they had entered a new literary realm in which Toussaint, Roberto, and Herbert Trent-Phillips were the only living souls, pledges in the fraternity of immortality, and not unhappy to remain pledges if the price of full membership were death, they pointed Toussaint's aquatic hack toward Palmas Bay, where Marianne and her mother lived, if you can call a life without Toussaint and Roberto in it living. Roberto would find Marianne's dwelling romance-friendly, for it had not just a back porch but an actual balcony in the Shakespearean sense, one that might have been designed for the delivering of soliloquies. And actually it had been designed that way, or at least as a romantic place to stare at the moon and breathe bosomy sighs, for Marianne's mother had been a dramatis persona of sorts in her younger days. But that was three husbands, forty years, and 200 pounds ago. Roberto and his speechwriter crept through the fragrant frangipani up to the back of the house. Toussaint remained at a short distance so he could see everything, but pushed Roberto ahead to where nature in her cooperative way had placed a pretty hibiscus, just the right size and shape for concealing a swain and his cue cards. "Marianne," whispered Roberto in a voice not unlike the wicked witch of the west's. No answer. "Marianne," he said louder, his voice cracking but at least without menace in it. The fact that the earth had not opened up and swallowed him gave Roberto a little lift, and he said more assertively and louder still: "Oh, dear one." When he heard movement on the balcony above, he pointed the little flashlight at Toussaint's script and cleared his throat. Toussaint did not hear the creaking of the balcony, but he saw the appearance of the very large shadowy figure. He tried frantically to signal Roberto, but Roberto was staring at his script and reciting his words of love: "Oh, petite flower, you make the moon stand still, because you're such a thrill, you're my blueberry hill . . ." At the first words, the woman on the balcony started and began to retreat through the door. But then she stopped, returned to the edge of the balcony and looked down, searching the shadows below for a sign of the intruder. "I walk the line over you, baby, baby, because you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, even though right now it's only moonshine . . ." She still watched, but now she was content to listen a bit longer to the words coming to her from out of the darkness. "Hold me close, hold me tight, make me scream all the night. I don't only have eyes for you. I have lips and arms and a nose – but just a little one – for you. With all these things I have, I want to caress you . . ." The woman on the balcony swayed to the sounds below, and the balcony creaked even more, so Roberto was forced to speak even louder. "I want to squeeze you like a snake, pinch you like a crab. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you and want to touch you . . ." Roberto heard heavy breathing from above, and although it sounded very heavy indeed for his diminutive Marianne, he guessed that his words were affecting her deeply, so much so that he skipped ahead a few lines to the good stuff. "I want to touch you all over. Put my lips to your sweet . . ." Toussaint was to him now, shaking him, whispering urgently, "It's not Marianne." "Lips," Roberto continued before fully understanding what Toussaint was saying. Upon understanding the error, Roberto wanted so desperately to sneak away, to try another day, but the little hibiscus that was his concealment had become a prison as well. Now the balcony was quaking in earnest, and a thunderous soprano voiced pierced the tropical night with its melody: "Take my hand, you little stranger in paradise . . ." Roberto knew full well the import of that singing – it was too late for him and Marianne. If only he could escape with what little dignity a wretch such as he could have. Having sung, the fat lady concentrated on coaxing her bashful secret admirer from his sanctuary: "Wherefore art thou, my little cupcake. Come out, come out, whereforever thou art." Toussaint was about to smugly point out the mistaken usage by the siren on the balcony when Roberto turned as white as a 400-year-old poet. Marianne had joined her mother on the balcony and together they were scanning the shrubbery for signs of Mama's plucky paramour. "Oh, don't let her see me," Roberto pleaded. "Make me invisible so she won't see me." "If you don't come out, I'll come find you, naughty boy," said Marianne's mama as Marianne tried unsuccessfully to contain her laughter. In mortal fear of being identified as Mama's Romeo, Roberto seized Toussaint and, with the strength of ten Robertos, hurled him into the open courtyard. "There you are, my speckled bird," cooed Marianne's mama. Toussaint stood and grinned. "Wait right there, sweet boy. Your blueberry hill is coming for you." Roberto watched from the hibiscus, and Marianne from the balcony, as Mama appeared in the courtyard and chased poor Toussaint into the darkness. Roberto stared up at Marianne, as lovely on the balcony a she was on the beach, and suddenly words of his very own creation poured forth as effortlessly as if he were pantomiming to someone else's speech: "All day, all night, Marianne . . ." And he stepped out from behind the hibiscus into full view of the balcony. "Down by the seashore sifting sand." "Aren't you the one from the beach?" asked Marianne. "I've seen you many times, but you seemed not to see me." Let a hundred – no, a thousand – fat ladies sing, thought Roberto, as his words of love for Marianne continued to tumble forth. This story is one of fifteen in Calypso: Stories of the Caribbean http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/32687 Free download until April 30 using coupon no. WA97D : Visit my website http://richarddaybell.wordpress.com