The Believers by Zoë Heller Page A

railings, one of her charges was standing alone, practicing dance moves. "You gotta shake it, shake it," she was singing in an off-key playground voice as she leaned back, limbo-style, and pumped her pelvis back and forth.
    "Chianti!" Rosa called.
    The girl did not respond.
    Chianti concerned Rosa. Over the last few months she had leaped from sweet, saucer-eyed childhood into scowling preadolescence. The braids and knee socks had vanished, replaced by jiggling breasts and cigarette breath. She no longer wanted to make fridge magnets and pipe-cleaner flowers; she wanted to show off her grimy lime green push-up bra and perform slutty dances and hang around outside the GirlPower Center with unsuitable older boys. The other girls, disguising their envy in moral alarm, reported that she gave blow jobs.
    A slim, beige-skinned man in dreadlocks came out on deck now. "You don't want to know what those bathrooms are like," he muttered as he sat down next to Rosa.
    "Look at that," Rosa said, pointing. Chianti had assumed a squatting position with her palms planted on her thighs and her buttocks thrust outward. "Don't ever fake it, fake it," she was singing. "Be sure and make it, make it--ahuh, ahuh-- goo-ood. "
    "Oh, my Lord," Raphael said, "it's Lil' Kim."
    Rosa scowled. "It's not funny, Raphael. She's out of control.... Chianti! Stop that now!"
    Chianti looked around. The wind had given her round face the misty, purplish sheen of a plum. "What?"
    "You don't look cool when you dance like that, you know," Rosa said. "You look dumb."
    "No, I don't."
    "Yes, you do."
    Chianti looked at Raphael. "Yo, Raph, how come you don't say nothing when she starts pickin' on me like that?"
    "Uh-uh," Raphael said, laughing. "Don't be trying that. I ain't getting involved. This is between you girls."
    Rosa turned away to pick off some strands of hair that the wind had whipped across her face. It always irritated her when Raphael lapsed into his "homie" persona with the girls. Given that he had been educated with Rosa at the Little Red Schoolhouse and that his Kenyan father held a tenured professorship at Rutgers, the attempt to pass himself off as "street" was in decidedly bad taste, she thought. But then, Raphael had always had a distressing tendency to adapt his style to suit his audience. On the few occasions that Rosa had accompanied him to gay bars, she had been mortified to observe how his behavior changed in the presence of other gay men: how he rolled his eyes like Al Jolson and addressed everyone as "child." ("Child, that shirt is beyond "; "Child, lemme tell you, that movie is genius .") Once or twice, she had challenged him on his opportunistic posturing, but he had never shown the slightest compunction or embarrassment. "Rosa, honey," he would drawl, "I contain multitudes."
    Rosa returned to delving in her bag and presently produced her phone. There were five messages waiting for her: two from her mother; three from her sister, Karla. The tinny urgency of their voices ascended with each successive call, like a scale.
    "Rosa, just to let you know, something's up with Dad."
    "Rosa, please, you must call."
    "Where are you, Rosa? Call me."
    "Rosa, hello?"
    "For Christ's sake, Rosa. It's about your father. Why are you not answering?"
    "Rosa!" one of the girls cried. "Chanel's spitting again."
    "Stop it, Chanel," Rosa said. She turned to Raphael. "Watch them, will you? I have to call my mom."
    "Where the fuck have you been?" Audrey demanded when she answered. Her voice was bright with anger.
    "I've been out with the girls. I didn't check my phone. What's going on?"
    "What's that noise ?"
    Rosa stood up from the bench and walked into the cabin. The roar of engine and wind gave way immediately to an almost sepulchral hush.
    Tourist couples in windbreakers sat gazing placidly out of the smudged windows at the khaki water. A smell of old cooking oil drifted down from a snack bar in the rear.
    "I'm on the Staten Island Ferry. Is something up with