The ocean witnessed us, and as I sat there with Neri, I felt shy. The water blue was loud and welcoming, like a long-lost tantie. She came close to touch us, then receded back into herself, almost as if to get a good look at us, and then she lunged for us again. I laid my head in Neri’s lap and I was surprised when she glided her hand up my back and played in my little Afro. Inside of me started dancing and I felt alive and I faded into her a little.
The water came for our toes, and I told Neri, “This is my real church.” I wondered what she thought. She was quiet but nodded.
Being by Neri felt sweet, and I started to shake a little, as if I scared. I didn’t want to leave her for any reason. “Audre, you lookin’ sad. Just watch at the ocean. Listen to these seawater hymns, nuh?” said Neri, smiling at me and then looking at the water all the while she was making an instrument of me. Stroking my earlobes with she fingertips, twisting little twists in my ’fro and loosening it, sweeping she hand on my face and neck.
When the moment opened up, we both fell into each other. She grabbed my hand and I felt the ocean talking to us real deep inside. Church. My spirit found rhythm with the water and Neri’s breath. I overwhelmed my good sense and kissed Neri’s hand, then tucked myself back into her lap. She lifted my head up and looked into my eyes. Then she leaned down and kissed my mouth. This the first time anybody kiss me. I was trembling. (I am trembling remembering it.) I stopped breathing for a little moment. The ocean kissed our toes. Her lips on mine were a warmth, and my body started to bloom within her arms and melt in her skin. And from then on, love was all we knew how to do.
* * *
• • •
We “study the Bible” by the ocean for three months. My mama was happy thinking I finally accepted Jesus and finally have a church friend—any friend at all since I ain’t really close to anyone in school either. (I is cool with people at school, but I always feel like I is a different type of person and no one there really get me. I have Epi, who is my cousin, but more like my big brother, and Queenie, who is my grandma but also feel like she is my sister-best-friend and even a mom to me.) Neri was different though, she was a girl my age and I felt a closeness with her that was new and special.
And every Sunday, we went to the ocean, explaining to everyone that we wanted to study the sermons deeper. “Apply the gospel to our hearts.” And we did, in our own way—talking about life and our families and our secrets. We worshipped in each other’s arms with our own devotion, sand in her braids and my Afro, our Sunday dresses wrinkled. We peeled down to our underwear and swam in the water and floated on eternity, together. We lay out under the sun and dried, together. She held me in her arms and smiled at me and her eyes made me feel like she really, really saw me. We packed up everything, smoothed our dresses, and headed back to our different worlds. Until that next Sunday.
Between Sundays, I was my usual self but different. I enjoyed everything about life because I was thinking of Neri. As usual, I got good grades in school and was helping around the house, but now I avoided talking back to Rupert even though he ass still a idiot. Now I smile at he and do what I asked to do.
Between Sundays, I hung out at Epi and he girlfriend Sarya’s place only occasionally and not every chance I got. Mainly I went to see what Epi was cooking up new and to hear gossip from he and Sarya.
And even though I was going to church on Sundays, every Saturday don’t change. Since I was nine, after chores at my house, I was doing my lessons by Queenie and learning about herbs and baths and rubs and songs, of the spirituality my grandma created for she self and share with me. One Saturday, my grandma felt a feeling and begin to investigate me.
“So you find Jesus or you fall in love?” Queenie asked me, while we in the backyard bottling her homemade bush-plum wine, doing we usual thing of making and studying and just being together. She caught me off guard, as I was thinking of Neri and singing a song from church.
I was changing the album on her portable record player. Her question was a thing I ain’t know what to do with. It stayed in the air for a second and I acted like I focusing on the Ma Rainey LP in my hand. Queenie felt like hearing some blues that morning, and she was in a Ma Rainey mood. She said, “Dis wine we is making is for drinking slowly, for contemplation and healing emotional weight that is and ain’t yours, like the blues women.”
I decided to play it cool with the question and slowly looked up at her. When I see she face smiling her big gap, I couldn’t help but smile a little, ’cause in my heart I was thinking of Neri and I is so happy.
“I find Jesus,” I said, and look back down in the crate of records.
“Eh-heh, I bet you find he all right.” Queenie stop short and bus’ out a wild laugh while holding she belly at the thought of me being a church girl. She let out a big, loud sigh when she recover from my comedy. She was wearing a maroon-and-turquoise African-print dress with skinny straps and buttons down the front. Her lipstick was glittery purple, and her gray hair was clipped low. Her body was perspiring and strong, and she dabbed her chest and neck with a handkerchief the color of a piece of sky. She topped off the last bottle, corked it, put it in the carton on the ground with eleven others and took it into the house. I put on an Anita Baker record and put the Ma Rainey one back in its sleeve.
“Anita is a good pick for new love,” she said when she come back out. She snuggled me while she giggled.
“Ugh, Queenie, wha’ new love? I tellin’ you I is save. Jesus and me real cool now.” And I started smiling, even though I was trying hard to stay serious. We was looking out at her Queenieland, with its zaboca, mango, guava, plum, plantain, and cherry trees, dasheen bush, bhaji, cassava, sweet potato, and several chickens who she let me name. And out beyond Queenieland was Yemeya, the ocean, the goddess of me and Neri’s C.H.U.R.C.H.
“Mmm-hmm, you used to tell me more ting, but lips tight today. But that is what it feel like to be in love for the first time I guess. You wan’ feel like you did discover a ting, no one else know,” she said pretending she was trying to figure me out, but I knew she already at her conclusion. I could tell.
“Hmmm, I wonder if is someone I know . . . ,” she asked, bumping she bum bum into mine.
“It no one you know,” I bust out, and leaned on to her shoulder, wanting to tell her every little thing about Neri, but not feeling like I could either.
“Oh, so there is a someone. Hmm. Someone from church it seem, then. Well, your mother will like that, maybe . . . I never know with she,” she said, holding back she mouth. Then she find a next thought to share with me. “Good for you, my dahlin’.” She smiled. “You is smart and strong. I ain’t worry about you, but always be safe, yuh understand? You must protect yourself.”
“Queenie, it ain’t even like that, if you think I is going to get pregnant,” I started to say.
“I ain’t just talking pregnancy. Protect your heart and spirit. You is open and that is powerful but also vulnerable. I had to say something ’cause anything can happen in the world of love,” she said. I remember I nodded, but I ain’t really know what she was talking about. I looked around not wanting to look in her eyes and tell her too much. I felt a furry slither around my ankles and looked down to see Bastet, her cat, wound around my ankles. I picked her up and cuddled her, and then as usual, she escaped after a couple moments to hunt lizards in the garden. Queenie came close to me, more soft and less preachy.
“And listen, Audre. I want you to give attention to every second of this moment, this feeling. Enjoy love.” She stroked my head as she said this. “You will lose yourself in it and then find yourself in a new way. That is just how it work and maybe supposed to work. So be strong in who you are, eh? Don’t be a bobolee for nobody, you understand?” she said. She turned to me and looked me in the eye. “Remember you is the granddaughter of Queenie. You is my royalty, okay? You can always talk to me, eh? I was young once, and I know things. All kind a things.” She
smiled, looking mischievous and a little sly. From that smile I knew I ain’t telling she nuttin’. She wise and is good with secrets. But what if she decided to talk to she sisters and then everyone from Laventille to Chaguaramas would know by the evening, including my mother, and that would put shame in she eye. But even though I feel I wanted to keep it for me, I appreciated that she even noticed I’m different. Because I feel I was too.
* * *
• • •
That last Sunday, I woke up early and was ready for church before everyone. I opened my eyes, looking forward to seeing Neri and getting to be with her all by myself. But first, I was sitting with her in the pew all morning amongst her granddaddy’s sermons on the deeds and stories of the Bible and the Lord and Jesus and Mary and the disciples and the wife of this one and the son of this one. I listened and applied his stories to my life in whichever way I could, which is what Queenie said I should do. But I also mostly daydreamed about Neri, who was next to me in a chapel of perspiring aunties with baby powder on they chests, their perfume warm and lingering; a chapel of pious uncles of the church who are hard-backed and in white and pastel colored button-up shirts with their eyes wet and their souls weary for the Lord. Children was there too, memorizing the instructions for their holiness and to become obedient to the Bible and the Lord. No matter how I felt about some of the beliefs of Christianity I ain’t agree with, how I didn’t—and don’t—understand all of the things about church, I loved (and still love) the village feeling when I was there and the music always touched me until I would cry. I was feeling love and current in the space between me and Neri’s shoulders as we prayed and stood and sang and praised in her grandfather’s house of God.
Afterwards, Neri and me went to our private church, where the sky was thick with clouds moving towards us, levitating above our bodies like Goddess herself. The water crawled up and saturated the sand as though she was paying attention to me and Neri’s worship. The sky wasn’t too much expanse for the water and the water wasn’t too much deep for the sky. They were reflections. I slid through the sand closer to Neri. I sat behind her and just held her, smelling her neck before I kissed it right on the place where her thick hair was lifted from her neck.
I waited all week for Sunday, for this sweetness. For when I could be by Neri and feel like myself. Neri was wearing a beige blouse with tiny yellow daisies and a yellow skirt. And I was feeling proud, ’cause she smell like Ocean Love, the perfume I got her last week, when I went by Episode and Sarya’s apartment for a scent for she. They was all in my business trying to understand, why all of a sudden this ragamuffin want to smell sweet.
“For what stchupid, dirty-pantie-boy you wan’ impress? He know I is ya cousin?”
“Epi, no one studying you. And ya tink anyone scare of a skinny-ass Rasta? Yuh wan’ meh business or no?” I asked, able to block his nosiness better than Queenie’s. I was sitting on the couch in the living room connected to their kitchen.
Episode laughed and said he is happy that the church ain’t cure my mouth and continued to cut up chadon beni for the pigeon peas he was making. Sarya floated out of the room, long dreads swinging near she ankles. She got skin that is dark like melongene and just as smooth and shiny; she look like she could be a model from Nigeria or Senegal, but she is Trini 2 the bone, like we is. She returned and laid out oils before me. I read the names as I picked them up and smelled individually, trying to find something just right. Cool Water smell like a man who want to be cool; Kush smell sweet but not the same sweet of Neri; Frankincense remind me of Catholic church, which isn’t quite what I was going for. I sniff Opium, J-Lo, Beyoncé, and they all smell beautiful but still not right for Neri.
I picked up one of the oils, turned it around, and read, “Hot Pum-Pum.” Sarya smiled with pride at me. “That is a good selection! I see ya cousin got taste, Epi! That is a Sarya original, special and limited-edition fine oil! You ain’t gone find that one nowhere, but watch out,” she said, then leaned in to whisper, “it drives all these stchupid men out here crazy.” I put it down quick. I saw one that said Ocean Love. I smelled it and felt something in my heart.
When I gave it to Neri the next Sunday, she gave me a real nice, long kiss.
And that last Sunday on the beach, I should have realized that the clouds was talking. Neri and I feeling sweet and full of love, yet I was feeling something in my spirit. Neri was laughing loud at the sky.
“And, gyal, I get up in de tree and I ain’t realize how high I reach.” Her head was thrown back as if she were looking at herself up in a tree. I couldn’t take my eyes off her beautiful neck. “Yuh see, I scaaared! I looking down and imagine me foot slip, me head bus’, and me granddaddy have to give a sermon for he granddaughter, who dead over mangoes, trying to get this one real up high for you.” Neri leaned in close to me and our eyes almost crossed we focused on each other so tight. “But I ain’t care. I know it was sweet and of course you deserve the sweetest.” She had brought it in one of her yellow scarves. Once Neri and I was out of church, she was herself too—funny and weird and more free and willing to say anything she want.
“Before I kiss anyone,” she told me once, “I used to practice on mangoes. Especially the sweet juicy ones. I would sneak them in my room and pretend it was someone I was liking. If you see the mess I did make,” she told me, and we giggled about it. I asked her if she ever love a girl before, and she looked at me and smiled and nodded and we ain’t say nothing more.
I thought of her kissing practice as I peeled the mango skin with my teeth and lips leaning over the sand to not spill on me self—it was juice, soon as you bite. I took another taste, she took a bite, and then we drinking from the fruit, from our own fingers, and then from each other’s lips. Everything slow with tenderness. If I close my eyes now, I can see it.
Our garments open up. Arms slide out of sleeves and around each other. Neri lays me down, and I look up at her and see the sky beyond her head. She takes off my glasses and places them to the side of us, carefully in my bag, like she always does. She kisses my eyelids and I touch her face. She starts humming a song from church and I start humming with her. Neri get me to feel the beauty in them gospels. My breath catches in anticipation of her movements, how she will touch me and where. I love how her body feels, rocking into mine, blooming into mine.
She starts to kiss me, her lips and mouth warm and tasting of mango, and I exhale out like I was drowning in air until then. She lets her kisses travel to my cheek, linger at my chin and neck. My body is trembling and moaning, by the time I feel her lips on my collarbone, my underarms, licking my nipples, she delighting all places of me soft and cover up to everyone else. I roll into her sweetness, her touch relaxes me into the sound below us and she becomes ocean, kissing my skin, like she always know how to love me. I roll on top of she and I return love to her by gliding my lips along every part of she skin. She feels so soft and I longing to taste she. I move my lips down she neck, shoulders, she chest, waist, and belly button. She places her hand on top of my head, and my lips move slowly across her navel and her hip bones, which make she giggle.
Suddenly, my hair is being pulled and I is being dragged backwards.
“JESUS! GET THE DEVIL OUT! YUH DISGUSTING! YUH IS so SICK, Audre! Why you bring this shame to God? God, why you give me this SICK GIRL?!!!”
With each lash of she hand, I tried to cover myself, my mama like a hurricane around me, pushing me down into the sand. She ain’t care. My face, back, shoulders, breasts, ass. She lashed all the places that Neri just kissed. I was crying and shaking, I ain’t know how I even got moving. In remembering it, I still feel this shame, this torrid feeling.
Neri was crying and screaming, grabbing for my mama, begging her to stop cuffing me down, please, that it was she. My mama screamed for her to put on she clothes and go into the car and stop lying. She yelled she knew I influence this. Neri protected me from my mom’s lashes by standing in front me and
me mother hit her chest once, before she grabbed me from behind. We were all scuffling in the sand. I was thinking if we should run to Queenie’s, but my spirit, my body, everything was paralyzed. My mother screamed and took us both by our arms and command us back down the path, back to she car, commanding Neri to get in. I got in the back seat, crying and feeling her licks on my body and the one on my heart. Neri and I in the back seat, and I couldn’t even look at her.
When we got to the pastor’s house, Neri quick squeezed my hand, like we were in church, but now the gospel is screams and sharp and afraid. My mother seemed to be in the pastor’s house for all of time and no time at all.
When we get home, the yelling and lashes start back, and when she get fed up with me, I was sent to my room. I hear her and Rupert talking in the other room when he get home late from work. He barely seem like he around but you feel his influence nonetheless in this house. I felt alone in my house. I felt like I was her enemy and not she only child.
The next week, after she and Rupert return from church, she told me her decision: That I is to live by my father.
* * *
• • •
Queenie was already waiting outside the house in her vintage white-and-chrome Mercedes-Benz convertible. With the top down. I don’t know if my mama called her or if she just know. I slid myself in the front seat and we roll off. I was numb and felt like myself was all poured out. We drove in silence for a while. Finally, she asked the verdict. I whispered. “She sending me to the States by my Yankee father who I barely know,” I say and my throat thickens with each word. “My mother don’t want me anywhere on the island to shame she with my nasty ways,” I say, sinking further into the red leather of she car.
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them Page 3
