The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

by Junauda Petrus

  “Yuh tink I woulda hear something and go on about Daph and we ol’ woman ting, like I dotish and ain’t have no sense? It woulda been the first ting hot out my mouth, gyal! I ain’t hearing a ting and you know I always listenin’ for tings . . .” I hear an engine drive up to she house. “Oh, guuushh, hold on, baby, here come Larry to pick up some of my kombucha. I make a real nice sorrel-guava-cinnamon one,” she says, and puts me on hold. I hear a deep and distant voice talking with her. “It on the porch there, Larry. Yes, see she name on it? Uh-huh . . . Oh-ho . . . Eh-eh. Mm-hmm . . . Well, nuh. Tell yuh mummy I call she later, I talking with my grandchile in the States,” then she’s back in conversation with me.

  “I sorry, baby, I wish I had some news.” Then she pause for a second and with excitement she share a next idea. “Maybe is there an app or one of dem tings from the internet to help you find people in y’all age? What about dat bookface thing you put me on for finding people, where I speak to my cousin in Toronto? You think you can find Neri there?” Queenie offers this idea thinking she uncover some hope for me.

  I tell she, “I already looked just in case, but I feel that she wouldn’t be allowed to be on social media. I just want to know if she fine.” I been online searching her name and trying to figure out where she is in Tobago. I ain’t even know if she have an email. Next thing I know tears is coming. “I get scared, ’cause I have no idea how she life is like, Queenie. A-a-a-and as ’fraid as I was to come to the States and live with my dad, it ain’t been bad, but Queenie, I ain’t know how she being treated,” I say, my throat thickening with each word. Queenie is quiet and let me cry and then start to tenderize me.

  “She is okay, baby. Try and not worry, okay? You talk to she anyway, you hear? Just talk to she in the trees, in the breeze, send her love. She will receive it, my baby. And you know I will discover what going on, I always do. Stay strong, my dahlin’.” I almost feel Queenie is there with me, she love shooting from the phone all the way from Trinidad. She says this every time, and yet, my heart still hurtin’ and feelin’ low.

  “What happening with you today? What the weather like?” she asks to be lighthearted, I can tell. I get up and look out the window and it’s a little gray, but I can’t tell if it going to rain or not, I can’t read the sky like home. The window is open and it feels warm and wet in the air.

  “We just registered me for school this morning. Weather is okay. It’s gray but it warm too,” I say, leaning into the window’s opening and tasting the texture of the air on my face.

  “You staying inside, then?”

  I pull back from the window and lay back on my bed. “No, I is hanging with Mabel, my dad’s friend’s daughter. We had dinner at their house yesterday.”

  “They cook better than yuh father, I hope? The way you talk is like he Chef Boy-a-Grief!” My grandma always know how to bust a joke on someone.

  “No, nothing like he, thank Goddess! It real good, actually. It was tasty food all from their garden and no animal, nothing. Roasted beets and sweet potatoes, a Brussel-sprout-and-kale salad with pistachios, I think? And then also some black-eyed-pea fritters with a good spicy and sweet sauce, which remind me of something Epi would make. And the daughter who is my age—Mabel—is cool. We talked about school.”

  “Eh-eh . . . well you sound like you having a good time there, it seem.” Her voice lilts in a way that seem to say she hopeful for me.

  “It better than being inside home all day,” I say, not ready to give up completely on being miserable.

  “Yes, well, that’s good, nuh? You been up in that house like you hiding from the damn law, gyal. I know yuh feelin’ sad, but you must get your bum bum out and see where you is living. My man Prince from there, so it must have some hotness to it.” I roll my eyes since she mentions Prince every time we talk like I forget the Purple One from here. “Go be in nature, ground in Spirit and your purpose and lessons for there. Try to enjoy what you can, okay, my baby?”

  I take off the glasses that were once hers and wipe my eyes with the corner of my shirt. I take a breath and clear my throat.

  “Yes, Queenie, I is. We gonna lime by she house and then I don’t know. What plans you have for your day?” I ask, more to be polite, because it hurts me to think of her life in Trinidad going on without me. Between missing Neri, Epi, my grandma, the ocean, and the island itself, I feel heartbroken and exiled in America. And alone. She say she working in the garden, then she going out to Queen Masani Bay by Las Cuevas to lime with she sisters, Tantie Daphne and Tantie Pearl.

  I feeling tears cup up in my eyes again as I remember all the times I have been to the beach with them as they laughing and gossiping and teasing and fussing and steupsing at each other, all squeezed up in Queenie’s convertible with the top down. Tantie Daphne in the front seat next to Queenie, sweaty and frustrated. The wind messing she hair and she is complaining about how low the car sit and how fast Queenie drive. “QUEENIE! Yuh act like we is late to give birth! Slow down, nuh? Let’s arrive ALIVE, eh? And who de hell decide to get a convertible when ya almost blasted sixty?”

  Tantie Pearl in the back with me and she already buzz, sipping on a big cup with straw with juice and rum. She whisper to me about how she never leave for the beach this late, and yell to Queenie if she can take off this old-time music and play some soca to get the party started.

  “Can I listen to Stevie Wonder for once, Pearl, and you ain’t talkin’ about some soca?” And Queenie starts singing along loud to remind all whose car it is. My tantie Pearl steupse and is still treated like the baby sister by Queenie and Tantie Daphne. She think the best everything come from Trinidad, the best music, food, beaches, fetes, and men (yes, she say that), even though she ain’t got nothing to compare it to.

  I’m thinking of the smell of them all in the car, baby powder, oil, perfume, Florida water, warm skin, and perspiration. A party of wild women and a tagalong teenager. Tantie Pearl always ask if I have a boyfriend yet, since I pretty and my bum bum so big. I be in the back seat, deep in a book in my own world. All I have to reply is, “Books before boys, Tantie,” which satisfies every adult in the car.

  “Well, baby, have fun with ya new Yankee friend,” says Queenie, snapping me out of my daydream. “I will tell yuh tanties to keep you in they heart and spirit.”

  I say goodbye to Queenie on the phone, asking her to tell everyone hi, not specifying my mother. I speak to my mother briefly when my dad was on the phone with her last week. I still ain’t feel to say more.

  My dad drops me off at Mabel’s house at noon and gives me some cash. “In case you both decide you wanna go somewhere. If Uncle Sequan or Auntie Coco can’t drive y’all, call me and I will. I’m home all day working.” My dad smiles at me in that goofy but sweet way that he do. Despite he cooking, I like how he ain’t ever tight up, like he always just got done puffing a spliff.

  “Thank you.” And I slip out his car and head to their house.

  * * *

  • • •

  In truth, I feeling a little excited to be hanging with a friend. Mabel. I mean, I ain’t know if she is really a friend yet. She may be just hanging with me because our fathers are friends and she dad is making she be nice. But she do seem really nice, even if she kind of mellow.

  Mabel opened the door before I even ring the bell.

  “What’s good, Audre?” She lets me onto her porch, which has a big dark-green couch with pillows that are different sizes and shapes and shades of purple and lilac. There are plants and it smells really good. We sit on the couch together and look out the window. Mabel has jeans cut off at the knee and lace-up sneakers, and a T-shirt with no sleeves that say BLK LVRS. She hair was back in a low braid, really simple and pretty. I like she style, very cool, Black and edgy.

  “This a nice porch. Very peaceful,” I note as we step inside she home.

  “This is one of my favorite places. I can always come out here an
d feel chill.” We sit down on the couch and don’t really talk much at first. We just quiet and sitting there for a while, and I feeling the wind move across me and slide the hot feeling from my skin.

  “You hungry? Should we start cooking? I picked some things from our garden this morning,” she says, playing with the fringe of her cutoffs. “Last night I was researching Ital and found some recipes.”

  I smile and say yes, feeling it was nice of her to learn about the way I eat. We walk into her house, and I take off my shoes at the entrance as is the custom in their home. We are standing in the tight hallway leading from the porch to the living room, when Mabel leans in, quietly speaking into my ear.

  “Yo, Audre, so content warning: My mama is wearing booty shorts—or pum-pum shorts, whatever you call it—doing yoga in the backyard. She is very comfortable with herself and her body and all a that, so you been warned, fam.” She giggles and shakes her head.

  I smile at she funny words about she mom.

  “Why you laughing? I’m serious!” She still giggling and walking me into the living room of the house, which has deep orange walls with a large framed painting that is colorful and abstract and other framed black-and-white photographs of beautiful and different-looking Black people. “I’m used to my mama’s booty, but other people’s mama’s booties in the air can throw some people off. And my mama don’t be caring, she an artist so she is real body positive and all a dat . . .” On a side table are pictures of their family. Her parents getting married. Her family dressed in all white in front of a garden. Sahir as a baby dressed as a bumblebee and Mabel as Missy Elliott. School pictures of Mabel, one with her missing teeth and her pigtails looking all crazy and another more recent one of her looking more like she looks now, a slight smile and an Outkast shirt. We walk into the bright yellow kitchen spilling with light.

  “I just laughing ’cause my mother ain’t like that at all,” I say, looking around the space.

  “My mom is different in a lot of ways, dope ways, though, I think. But she a free spirit, that’s fah sho.” Mabel tugs she shorts as they sagged below she waist. Mabel have a style that is boyish. It looks good on she though. I like that she is very laid back and smooth, which makes it easy to be around her. She looks me in the eye and I realize I been kind of staring at she and I look away.

  “My mom definitely wouldn’t even try yoga. If it ain’t got to do with Jesus, she ain’t interested.” I remember how me mother was upset when Queenie first started taking yoga with Sarya, because she say Christ ain’t “believe” in yoga. Sometimes, I really ain’t understand how my mom come from Queenie, at all.

  “Are you looking for a church community up here?” Mabel says, while leaning back on her kitchen counter.

  “Church?” I say, wondering if she was joking.

  “My dad said that I should ask you if you looking for a church, ’cause you was about that life in Trinidad or something,” she say, and then I realize she is serious and trying to be helpful.

  “I is cool for now on church. You does go to church?” I lean on the kitchen doorway as Neri cross past my heart for a second.

  “Uhh . . . to be honest? Not really. Just a lil’ bit, here and there. My parents kinda do a little bit of everything and don’t really do Jesus all like that. I go to church every other year or so. Mainly, when my nana—aka my mama’s mama—come from Chicago and presses my parents for us to learn about ‘the Lordt.’ My mama don’t go, but my dad will take Gramma and us to this church his gardening mentor is a deacon at,” she says. “It can be lit, when the choir sanging, I ain’t gonna lie. Me and my daddy be jammin’ up in there. You want me to get you the hookup?” She sway back and forth a little, pulling down pans and pots from above her head onto the counter. I think of the last day I was at church, the last day I see Neri, and I wonder what stories my mother tell my father about me and church all these months.

  “I giving the church a break for a while.” I barely able to respond because my heart hurting, remembering any of that type of thing.

  “All good . . . SO! We got cabbage and okra. I went to the mercado down the street and got you some plantains and avocados, since they had it in a lot of the recipes,” she say, bending into she fridge and emerging with the veggies.

  “I love all them things—know how to make them real good too.” On their counter is sweet potatoes, thyme, onions, garlic.

  “Cool. Up here is all of the oils and spices and other stuff we may need,” she says, opening a cupboard to the right side of her stove. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’m not the best cook, but I’m a good helper.” She smiles in a way that was both kind and earnest.

  “I’m a good helper too; can I help?” says a little voice. Her little brother, a sweet little dumpling, with short dreads bouncing from his head and sneakers that light up as he walks, emerges from another room.

  “Where your manners, homie?” She is teasing yet gentle to him, not really frustrated at all. “How do we treat guests? Remember Audre from last night? Show her some love, bro.” She turns him toward me and he smile, a beautiful gap where two front teeth are missing.

  “Excuse me. Hi, Audre. How are you? I like your hair.” I give him a high five and he gives me a hug, which is real sweet. All three of us get to work. Mabel and I help Sahir measure the herbs and spices, and he cuts the okra with a butter knife.

  “Oooh, what y’all girls up in here cooking?” says Coco, and she comes in from the garden with a yoga mat under she arm and smells our sautéing herbs and vegetables. “I know this ain’t my daughter who hook all of this up.” She Afro is out and she’s wearing the promised pum-pum shorts on the big bum bum that Mabel spoke of. She comes by the stove to see the fried plantain, curry cabbage, and okra with coconut milk and nods her head in approval. “Audre come through with them Trini cooking skills, boy! Imma have to learn some of your recipes, love. Oooh, and y’all made limeade! So refreshing,” she says, taking a sip from the glass in Mabel’s hand without asking. “All right, sweetie, come by anytime!” Mabel shakes her head and giggles at her mama.

  “Yes, I will.” And I’m truly happy to be welcome. This was the most fun I had in weeks, just getting to be myself and cook food from back home. Also being with Mabel was real cool too.

  “Sahir, come with me and let these big girls have time to themselves, all right, my baby.”

  “I’m big too, Mommy,” says Sahir.

  “I know, honey, but I need someone to hang out with too. I was gonna ride my bike to the lake and wanted a big kid to ride with—” Before she could finish, Sahir zooms out the kitchen to get his bike.

  “All right, girls, have fun and leave me a little sumthin’ sumthin’ to try, okay?” she says, kissing Mabel on the cheek and smiling at us.

  Mabel and I decide to take our steaming bowls back to the porch.

  “I just started liking okra, like last year. Before, I used to think it felt too slimy in my mouth, but now I like it.” Mabel eats each piece of okra slow and pensive.

  I savor each bite, dipping my spoon in the corners of the bowl, meticulously collecting a piece of plantain and the stew from the coconut milk and cabbage in each bite. After a couple of nibbles I notice Mabel sit back in the couch, breathing deep and looking uncomfortable. “You all right??” I ask, wondering if she liked the food really or if she was just being polite. I place my bowl down on the floor and turn toward her.

  “It is really good, actually. I just don’t feel hungry sometimes, but what I don’t eat now, I’ll finish later,” she says and places she bowl down on the floor next to mine. She bowl is nearly full, while mine was almost done.

  “You sure you cool?”

  “Yes, just not that hungry, I guess,” she says, looking still a little uncomfortable. “How is it, living with Uncle Sunny? He seem like he would be real chill.” She eyes and she question make me lose words for a second.

  “Umm, wel
l . . . It’s okay. He is nice and is trying to make me feel comfortable. We is getting to know each other a little, I guess.” And it’s true. I start playing with the tassels on one of the couch pillows.

  “Are you missing Trinidad a lot?” She curls toward me, hugging another pillow.

  I take a deep breath and pause for a second, hoping I can answer she question without tears in my throat or out my eyes. “I miss Trini a lot. Mainly my grandma, Queenie, my cousins and aunties. And the beach.” I think of Neri but don’t name her. I ain’t say my mom, since I don’t even know if I miss she. She ain’t seem to want me no more, especially now that she got Rupert and she new life.

  “So was that stuff that went down with your mother—which you don’t have to talk about—the reason you decided to come and live with your dad?” she asks, like I, a teenager, make decisions for my life, in my mother’s home.

  “It wasn’t my decision. My mother decide for me to live with my dad,” I say quick, and my eyes start to water. I get up off the couch and walk to the window to wipe them. I know I must seem stchupid, but I ain’t know what else to do. How could I tell her my mom sent me away because I shame she? I can’t imagine Ms. Coco beating Mabel like a dog and sending she away. I start feelin’ my familiar sadness spread through my body and anchor in my stomach.

  “Hey, girl, I wasn’t trying to be all up in your business. You don’t have to talk about it. I was just trying to make conversation,” she say, and stand up next to me and put her hand on my shoulder, a little shy, but I ain’t mind it. We looking out the window together and just watching at life. Watching life quietly.

  “You wanna pick some berries with me? I know you like them raspberries and we got so much, fam, and it’s going to get out of season soon anyway. You should totally take some back for you and Uncle Sunny.”

  I nod my head, trying not to cry anymore like something is wrong with me. “Sure, I’ll take some,” I say at the offer of raspberries, and find a genuine smile creep up.