The Bet (Persaud Girl)

by Mott, Teisha

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “You’re welcome, Andie,” Nathan whispered back. “And thank you for coming out with me tonight. I had fun.”

  She smiled.

  “Sleep well,” he continued. He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss on her cheek, his mouth warm and firm. Andie watched Nathan walk back to his car. Then, with a smile on her lips, she went inside, and locked the door. She was sure she had fallen completely in love.

  The house was indeed deserted. She went downstairs and found Theresa still up in the kitchen. She was going through a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

  “Hi Theresa!” Andie greeted her.

  “Hello, my darling!” Theresa responded. “You come back.”

  “Yes,” Andie confirmed. “Just now.”

  “You had a nice time?”

  “I did!” Andie confirmed again. “Where is everybody?”

  “Rosie and Nursey gone home, your parents haven’t come back yet. Samantha went with them, and your grandparents took Christopher for the night,” Theresa informed her. “It’s just me, and I was waiting for you.”

  “Well, I’m here now, so you can go to bed when you’re ready,” Andie told her. “I’m going up now. Goodnight!”

  “Goodnight, dear!”

  Andie hopped up the stairs. She ensured that she replaced Samantha’s shoes in her bedroom, then spent twenty minutes in the bathroom carefully removing her makeup. Grandma Sylvia always said that she should cleanse, tone, and moisturise every night, or she would get wrinkles.

  She put on her pyjamas and got into bed. Pleasantly tired and relaxed on her cotton sheets, she replayed the entire night in her mind. She kept seeing Nathan’s face, and hearing his voice and smelling his cologne. Her cheek tingled where he had kissed it, and she sleepily touched the spot.

  The telephone rang, and she grabbed it mid ring.

  “I’m back on hall,” his deep voice made her skin tingle.

  “So you are.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight,” he confessed. “In my mind I’m still with you, dancing in the garden at Bella Mia.”

  “Just close your eyes and think nice thoughts, and I’m sure you’ll fall asleep right away,” Andie comforted.

  “It’s the nice thoughts that are keeping me up!” Nathan pointed out, chuckling.

  “Can you come up with any bad thoughts?” Andie asked.

  “The only bad thought I can think of is that the evening ended too quickly,” Nathan said. “But then it is followed by a good one – the thought of you and me on our second date.”

  “Well then, you seem to have a very big problem!” She was feeling warm on the inside and happy that Nathan evidently had plans to take her out on a second date.

  Andie could almost hear Nathan smile. “Ah, well, he said. “I will take my leave of you, and sort it out by myself. ’Night, Andie.”

  “Goodnight, Nathan.”

  She put the phone down, snuggled under the sheets, and almost immediately fell into a peaceful sleep.

  131

  The Bet

  chapter six

  Sunday Morning

  Andie woke up at eight o’clock, with a big smile on her face. She knew why. It was all because of Nathan Hansen. Andie had never in her life anticipated that she would have gone out on a fantastic date with a fantastic boy. Whenever she thought of him, her heart did a little somersault.

  She lay in bed for a while thinking about him, and for the millionth time, replaying the entire night in her head. On her nightstand was the book he had bought her: ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. She opened it up, and frowned a little. He had not signed on the inside. She made a mental note to ask him to sign it when she saw him again. Yes, she would see him again. Her frown turned into a smile. There was definitely going to be a second date. That was what Nathan had said last night.

  “So this is what ‘in love’ feels like!” she mused aloud.

  There was a brisk knock on the bathroom door that separated her bedroom from Samantha’s. Samantha came in, looking as though she, too, had just woken up. She was dressed in an oversized nightshirt with a depressed looking Daisy Duck on it, and she had huge pink and blue rollers in her hair, and her reading glasses on. Early Sunday morning was the only time anyone in the world could ever catch Samantha Persaud looking unkempt, Andie realised.

  “Hello, ma’am!” Samantha greeted her. “I can see you survived your date!”

  Andie smiled. “Morning, Sammy!”

  “Look at you smiling from ear to ear!” Samantha commented. “I don’t even have to ask you how it went.”

  “Well then I won’t have to tell you,” Andie decided, pulling up her sheets and legs, allowing her sister to sit.

  “Don’t give me reason to suffocate you in here!” Samantha warned. “I want to know all that happened from you left here last night, until he brought you back.”

  “Sammy…”

  “Sammy, nothing! If you tell me, I will help you edit out the juicy bits for when you tell Mommy and Daddy – and you know they’ll want to know!”

  “There’s nothing really to tell, and certainly no juicy bits,” Andie said. “We went to Bella Mia, and I had a seafood and spaghetti thingy, and he had a chicken thingy, and tiramisu for desert. Then we walked in the garden and talked, then he took me home. The end.”

  “What did you talk about?” Samantha asked.

  “Stuff,” Andie said with a shrug. “I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Did he kiss you?”

  “No!” Andie answered, blushing a little bit.

  “Then why do you look like the cat that swallowed the canary?”

  “Sam…” Andie got out of bed. “I look like the cat that swallowed the canary because I had a good sleep. Unlike you – out kicking up your heels all night. I didn’t even hear when you got in.” She looked for a clean pair of jeans and t-shirt.

  “Hey, I went on a date on a Saturday night with my parents!” Samantha pointed out, pulling the rollers out of her hair. “You are the one who was out with Cutie McCute. It’s a good thing I know I am fabulous, or I would develop a serious complex.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to say you’re fabulous!” Andie said, going into the bathroom. “That’s being vain.”

  “So you and Nathan are officially dating now.” Samantha did not ask a question – she was stating a fact.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Andie looked at her sister, her face covered with cleansing cream. “It was only one date.”

  “Did he ask you out on another?”

  “Not really,” Andie answered carefully. She did not want to lie outright, but she did not want to tell Samantha what Nathan really said.

  Samantha used her fingers to coax her hair out of the rings the rollers had formed. “From where I stand, I can see the beginning of something,” she prophesied. “Boys do not take a girl out to a spot like Bella Mia unless he really likes her, or he wants her to put out.”

  “Samantha, you are far too jaded for a young girl!” Andie commented, drying her face.

  Samantha did a double take. That was not her cynical, constantly depressed sister talking! Who was better able to testify about being young and jaded than Andie? Suddenly, she was Miss Optimistic? She went into the bathroom, and touched Andie’s forehead. “Are you my sister?”

  “Funny, Samantha,” Andie said sarcastically. “Aren’t you going to put some clothes on? It’s time for breakfast.”

  “I would much prefer going back to bed,” Samantha said. “But you’re right, I suppose.”

  She ducked into her bedroom through the bathroom door. Andie followed her.

  “How was the reception last night?” Andie asked.

  “Okay,” Samantha told her. “It was long – continued until minutes to twelve. Daddy
was about to climb the walls from boredom.” She, too, pulled on a pair of jeans.

  “Did you meet anybody?”

  Samantha frowned. “Like who?”

  Andie shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe a twenty-six year old model or photographer, with class and flair, who Daddy may allow you to date.”

  Samantha rolled her eyes and brushed her hair up into a ponytail. “Did I say I wanted to meet someone?” She asked. “Not because you are in love means that I want to be in love.”

  “I’m not in love!” Andie declared, blushing a little.

  “Whatever, Andie! Anyway, most of the guys there were either gay or stupid!” Samantha put on some lip-gloss, and Andie wondered whether her sister realised they were only going downstairs for breakfast. “When I date, he has to be an intellectual.”

  Andie decided to steal some of Samantha’s lip-gloss. It was cherry flavoured. “Maybe you could date Micah!” She suggested.

  Samantha faced her sharply. “What is wrong with you?” She snapped. When did you suddenly become interested in my dating life? And what makes you think I would want to date Micah?”

  “You don’t have to get so defensive, Sammy,” Andie said quickly. “Anyway, I happen to know that Micah is probably the kind of guy you would like – he is an intellectual, he isn’t hard to look at, and he’s not as young as Nathan or the other guys in the house.”

  “He isn’t?” Samantha asked, surprisingly interested.

  “Nathan told me,” Andie confided, “that he did two years of A’Levels, went to teachers’ college for another two, and then taught Principles of Business at St. Theresa’s for one year before he came to UWI. According to my math, that should make him about twenty-three.”

  Samantha was about to comment when she was interrupted by a light knocking on her bedroom door.

  “Come in!” She called.

  It was Christopher. “Mommy and Daddy would like you to come down for breakfast now,” he announced.

  Andie looked at him squarely. “How come you politely knock before coming into Samantha’s room, and you always just barge in on me?”

  Christopher wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brow as though he was really thinking hard for an answer to his sister’s question.

  “Don’t hurt yourself thinking, Christopher,” Samantha advised him. “We’re coming down now.”

  “Did you have fun on your date, Andie?” Christopher asked, as they walked downstairs.

  “Yes, I did,” Andie told him. “Did you have fun at Grandma and Grandpa?”

  “Yes,” Christopher answered. “They gave me ice-cream and allowed me to stay up late and watch a movie in their room. I slept between them, and boy, Grandpa can snore!”

  Samantha and Andie knew about Grandpa’s snoring. They, too had spent numerous weekends nestled between their grandparents, having fallen asleep there after watching a movie, and eating ice cream. Grandma and Grandpa Persaud were the great gurus of spoiling grandchildren. Grandma and Grandpa Moreno were not as accommodating. When they went visiting there, order was expected. It was as though Grandpa James and Grandma Joyce expected them to do something wrong, which might require nothing short of diplomatic immunity to bail them out. If Grandparenthood was a popularity contest, the Persaud Grandparents would have won by a landslide.

  Those same Grandparents were sitting by the pool with Dr and Mrs Persaud as Theresa served breakfast. Grandma Sylvia looked stylish, as usual, in an orange sundress, with her silver hair in an elegant bun. Grandpa Ravi looked equally handsome in golf pants and a white polo shirt.

  “Good morning, parents! Good morning, grandparents!” Andie greeted them. She went over to give her grandmother and grandfather a kiss.

  “Someone is certainly glowing this morning!” Dr Persaud commented. “Let me put my sunglasses on before the glare from your sunny new persona blinds me!”

  “I heard you went on a date last night, sweetheart!” Grandpa said.

  “Grandpa, it wasn’t a big deal,” Andie said, beginning to feel embarrassed. “It was the boy who helped me with my Politics paper. I got an A, so we went out for a celebratory dinner.” She took her seat at the table, and took a sip of her orange juice.

  “At Bella Mia!” Mrs Persaud contributed.

  “Bella Mia!” Grandma was clearly impressed. “How many boys take girls to Bella Mia for a date? I thought it was Burger King, or somewhere equally low bite!”

  “Well Nathan is different,” Andie commented. “I don’t think he’s the Burger King type.”

  “Nathan you say?” Grandpa put in. “What do you know about him?”

  “He majors in Econ and International Relations,” Samantha contributed. “He’s in my Intermediate Micro Economics class. From what I’ve seen, he’s okay.”

  “So why didn’t you date him, Samantha?” Grandma asked.

  “He didn’t ask me out, Gran,” Samantha said sweetly. Then she added, “I think his flavour is red-haired girls, not brown haired ones.” She winked her sister.

  “I also think he’s too young for Sammy,” Andie added. “Nathan is only twenty, and Samantha likes them ‘mature’!”

  “What do his parents do?” Grandma asked again.

  “His mother is a doctor,” Andie said. “She works at Mobay Mercy. And his father died when he was nine.”

  Grandpa looked thoughtful. “I would like to meet this Nathan fellow and see if I approve, if you don’t mind, Andrew.”

  “By all means, Dad,” Dr Persaud said. He pointed at his father with his fork. “The boy got a hundred on one of my tests, so I am a bit biased. Perhaps you could give an unbiased opinion of him.”

  “So how was the date, Andie?” Mrs Persaud asked.

  “It was alright, Mommy,” Andie said. “Bella Mia is very nice. We must go there when Theresa is off.”

  “Did Nathan try any funny business?” Dr Persaud asked.

  Andie blushed a little bit, remembering how he had almost kissed her. “No. None at all.”

  “He had better not!” Christopher interjected. “Or he would have to deal with me.”

  Grandma Sylvia laughed and leaned over to kiss Christopher. “Aren’t you a clever little crimple?” She commented.

  Christopher made a face and wiped his cheek where Grandma had kissed him. He loved his grandmother, but did not appreciate her kissing him at the breakfast table!

  “Did he ask you out again?” Mrs Persaud asked.

  “Not directly,” Andie said. “But he did get me back here before eleven, and he said he had a good time.” She took a bite of the plantain that Theresa had set before her.

  Mrs Persaud smiled. “I see a second date in the future.”

  “Well all I can say is that he certainly has a pair of balls on him!” Dr Persaud commented. “I would never have the temerity to ask out one of my lecturers’ daughters when I was in university!”

  “I agree,” Ravi said nodding. “It would be too awkward. I wonder whether he’s up to something.”

  “What could he be up to?” Andie asked. “He doesn’t need help getting As from Daddy. He’s really bright – on a scholarship and all that. Right, Sammy?”

  Samantha took a sip of her juice, and recalled what Jeremy Malcolm had said about Nathan being the one messing with Andie. Nathan would not be stupid enough to mess with Andie, and risk angering her father! She made a mental note to find out exactly what he meant. Perhaps she would ask Micah when she saw him in class.

  “So what are we doing on this beautiful Sunday morning?” Grandma asked, finishing her juice. Theresa promptly poured her a refill.

  “Andrew, Christopher and I are going fishing,” Grandpa informed his wife. “We are meeting James and Marcus, and taking the yacht over to Lime Key.”

  “I don’t remember being invited to go fishing, Ravi!” Grandma said.

  “That’s because
you weren’t invited, dear. We’re having a men’s Sunday out.”

  “It’s not like you would have wanted to come, Mom,” Dr Persaud added, in an attempt to appease his mother before she went ballistic. “We thought you would have preferred to stay here with Janise and the girls, and Joyce will come over later, and we can all have dinner together.”

  “Thank you for looking out for my feelings, Andrew,” Grandma said sarcastically. “You are a good son.”

  Mrs Persaud hid her smile behind her glass. “Don’t worry, Sylvia. We’ll have a great day here, just us girls. Besides, there are some designs I want to show you for the Miss World wardrobe.”

  “When you go fishing with Uncle Marcus, Grandpa, you can ask him what he thinks of Nathan,” Andie suggested. “He gave him an A in GT11A!”

  “Nathan, Nathan, Nathan!” Grandma commented. “Everything is Nathan. I really cannot believe you are going to be pairing off with your Nathan.” She shook her head sadly. “If I’ve told you children once, I’ve told you a million times, that eighteen is not the age to tie yourself down with one boyfriend.”

  “But Gran, Nathan is not my boyfriend!” Andie pointed out. “We’re just friends.”

  Her grandmother looked at her piteously. “You only look like Janine,” she said. “But you are nothing like her, darling. Your naïveté is scary.”

  “You may not think he’s your boyfriend now, Andie,” Grandpa added, “but I am certain young Nathan has other ideas. A couple more dinners at Bella Mia, and he will have you singing a brand new song.”

  Andie blushed a little bit, and continued eating her breakfast. She wanted her grandparents to be right. She wanted to be Nathan’s girlfriend. She had known him for almost three weeks now, but it was as though they had known each other forever. He would be the most perfect first boyfriend ever. She listened as Grandma told the family about her traipsing around when she was eighteen. She would have never considered having a boyfriend. She would have laughed to scorn anyone who suggested settling down before she was twenty-five – and that was exactly how old she was when Grandpa had swept her off her feet. Samantha was wholeheartedly agreeing with her grandmother. Boyfriends were nice, but once they had grown up. When they had grown up, they would be more interested in conversation than bragging rights, she said, and then they could date comfortably without her having to worry about being a notch on his bedpost, and the topic of his lunchtime conversations.