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Sometimes, when the city was quiet, Harper remembered.
It crashed into her like a wave; the summer heat, heavy and glistening, and relentlessly flaring against her skin. The thick scent of food that meshed in the light cotton of her clothes; the taste of hot, melted peanut butter in the back of her tongue. A table surrounded by a dozen heads, smiling and talking fast and loud.
That image of Abidjan, she treasured it for as long as it could last.
It never stayed with her long.
There were other things to think of, other landscapes in her mind now. That old memory, it stuck with her like a faded photograph she couldn’t quite place, in the bottom of a shoebox she never opened.
Long forgotten was the ocean laying bare in front of her five-year-old eyes. Rich turquoise that seemed like it went on forever, but that fell like white brew at her feet. Harper didn’t recall now, how the sand burned her feet until she rushed into the water, salted and warm around her ankles. How her mother laughed, her sunglasses falling from her nose as she was sprung forward, a young not-yet-called Harper tugging on her arm like the world could not wait.
She was only five then, and already had more names than she could count. In Ivory Coast, they spoke French and called her Dida; they had seen the ocean, but not snow. She didn’t know how to talk to them, and especially not to him; this man that was her father, that she had never seen before.
At night, Abidjan transformed around her; orange lights burned quietly against the dark night sky, attracting small clouds of flies; the only reminder of the chaotic life that buzzed in the city by day. Everything turned oddly silent, nothing like the usual urban soundscape that filled their apartment in New York. Yet in the Ivory Coast just like back home when the sun came down, her mother changed from warm smiles to endless tears and not-yet Harper tried to pretend she didn’t notice.
They stayed there two weeks - just enough time for her to learn a few phrases in French, get her first sunburn, and listen to her parents fighting. New York was colder when they returned from Abidjan, a cruel blizzard falling on the skyscrapers. Yet it was nothing compared to the freezing weather that stiffened the whole city when a year later, a stroke took her mom from her.
After that she moved from one house to another. In every place around the table a dozen heads looked at her with curiosity, but they weren’t smiling. Unlike Abidjan’s kids, they weren’t warm. They weren’t family.
The social worker - a bald man whose name and face Harper would never recall - said she was lucky. After six months in the system, he had found her a home that was stable; a woman in her fifties ready to take her in. By then her name had changed twice, and on the adoption papers, she was granted a new one.
Christina.
It ached in her cheeks when she spoke it.
Chris-tee-na. She practiced in front of the mirror. It had to be hers, now, but it didn’t fit. It was too long, too crispy, too shrill. It wouldn’t fit in the dusty streets of Abidjan. It was another girl’s name, the little baby Regine had lost all those years ago, maybe. A cheerful blonde girl that wouldn’t have such complicated hair - it burned her scalp whenever Regine tried to tame it.
She didn’t mind the pain. Regine did her best; that was enough.
But sometimes Christina remembered those old women that called her Dida, and how they cherished her hair. How they spent hours braiding it; how they added beads in the end, and let her pick the colors she wanted. It helped her keep her head up, whenever she felt like looking down. In her mind, she was Dida. Queen of the ocean, Goddess of the desert.
Years later, she would laugh at the thought - the kind of laugh that brings a tear to the corner of the eye. Years later, she wasn’t Christina anymore.
She was Chris.
Chris had a worn off leather jacket, a black scooter and a Dead Kennedys’ t-shirt. Chris listened to The Misfits and the Circle Jerks, shaved her head and tagged anarchy signs on brick walls. Chris had piercings - one in the lip, one in the navel - and wanted tattoos - something dark and edgy, but she hadn’t settled on what she wanted. Chris escaped out the window at night and drove to the city, her walkman at her thigh blaring Wild in the Streets.
Chris ran.
She hung out at an apartment down in Queens, a crummy place where they taught her how to hold herself up in a mosh pit, how to roll a joint, how to shoot a gun.
It wasn't long before Chris made deliveries for them here and there, hiding the money she earned in a shoebox hidden in the bottom of her closet. Week after week she added to that secret fund, thinking of Abidjan. She could barely recall that summer, struggled to remember the names they called her. She slept in hopes of waking up somewhere else, somewhere with a neverending beach and sunlight that hurt her eyes.
Somewhere bright with large landscapes that promised the world, and where she wasn’t asked to be someone else. A blissful haven where she was a queen, and a goddess.
Abidjan. The only family she ever belonged to, apart from her deceased mother.
Before she could ever buy that plane ticket, it was all over the news - granted, not on the ones Regina made her watch during dinner. It was on a newspaper that Chris stole in a bodega, and that she ended up reading on a corner street, tears quietly tracing a single down her cheek. The orange glow of the street lamp caught in the beads of salted water, earned her curious glances that she ignored.
She wasn’t there, not really. In her mind, she was oceans away.
Chris pictured that long table and the smiling kids, but before she could grin back or say something, a bomb exploded in the middle of the dining room. As shards of woods and shattered plates were projected violently Chris found she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but watch and cry as everything around her was destroyed, over and over again.
Abidjan was at war with itself, the newspaper read.
And Chris wasn’t there. She was safe here in New York; she felt guilty, outraged, strangely scared for people who had long forgotten her.
More than anything, she wanted to leave. She took on more deliveries, learned a few tricks. How to empty pockets without anyone noticing. How to trick someone into giving her twice the change they should hand her. How to fake a lottery-winning ticket.
She stacked up her money, refusing to buy herself any new clothes or albums until she could afford to fly out of New York. That was, until that night.
Chris didn’t do it on purpose. Incapable of falling asleep and not daring to drive into the city during a blizzard, she grabbed the phone to call a friend. Only, the line was already busy, and on the other side, Chris heard a voice she didn’t recognise at first.
A stranger that she had met, once, a long time ago.
A deep voice with a thick French accent that travelled over an ocean just to punch Chris in her gut.
Him.
And he was talking with Regine. Agreeing to amounts of money Chris could only dream of.
It didn’t take long for her to realise - he had been giving Regine money. To help pay for his child’s every need, for her education. Money Chris had never heard of before, and no doubt helped pay for Regine’s new car, Regine’s new outfits, Regine’s new everything.
It took a con to know a con.
That night, Harper stopped being Chris. She decided she’d pick a new name for herself - one for her every mood. She could be whoever she wished to be, for however long she wanted. The fact that she didn’t belong anywhere would be her strength. No strings attached; she’d be free to go wherever, whenever.
She didn’t wait long after that; she packed her things and stole Regine’s old engagement ring on the way out - a souvenir, and one last middle finger up.
After that, Harper’s life turned into strangely elated chaos.
From one city to another, from a fraud to a con. Revelling in the thrill of the chase, the excitement of a trick well played.
And slowly, year after year, Harper forgot.
At first, she failed to remember the joyful faces of the old women who braided her hair. Then, the warm food that tasted so differently, sweet and bitter at the same time. The charred meat, its peanut sauce and fried onions. The way the daylight embraced every room in the house, as if that home belonged to the sun itself. After that, it wasn’t long before she forgot her mother’s hand in hers, and the ocean ahead of them.
And yet sometimes, when the city was quiet enough, Harper remembered.