How to Love a Jamaican

by Alexia Arthurs

  In the beginning, it felt weird and surprising to come home to Jamaica to a house that wasn’t the home she’d known all her life. The large spacious rooms and new furniture felt like an unwelcome stranger pulling her into a hug. Now, Shirley is more comfortable with the fact that most things in her life are new, and in this way absent of the history that comes from being passed down and reused again and again in the way of the poor. But once in a while something will trigger a memory from the time when she was just Shirley from a small place. It happened days ago, when the chicken foot soup burned her tongue and she remembered being a little girl at the house where they used to live. There’d been a time when the soup burned her tongue and her mother put a cup of water in her hand. There was nothing profound about the memory—just a little piece of childhood come back to haunt her. She’d moved her mother out of that house with the old chicken coop in back and the crumbling steps in front, and bought her a home in a wealthy neighborhood. It had been the right thing to do, the safe thing to do.

  But the house had been a lonely place for Diane. The neighbors were lawyers and doctors and foreigners with homes abroad—none of them the kind of country people Diane took a natural liking to, because the truth is that such people, the educated kind, intimidated her. When Diane wasn’t speaking to old friends on the telephone, she was welcoming her sisters and other relatives into her home with its too many rooms. It was the only way she could navigate the wide, white rooms of the house.

  A pool in Jamaica makes little sense to Shirley, as it is a poor comparison to the sea. The sea, that culmination of land and sky, that blue a color living and holy, a color that can be heard and seen, smelled and felt, a color that can also be tasted. For Shirley, pools made more sense in the States, made sense because of those weak excuses Americans called beaches. Now, she decides that she feels like swimming and today the pool will suffice. A strand of thought from somewhere deep, and Shirley decides—and this realization comes to her slowly—to be happy. Yes, she will be happy. She is a famous singer and beautiful to more than a few people—both childhood dreams come true. There are no cockroaches. There is no reason to be anything other than happy. Meanwhile, behind her, through the kitchen window, Diane peels carrots for the cow foot soup and looks at her daughter’s narrow back, the pale pink bikini, the flawless brown skin, watching, admiring and apprehensive, and contemplating what is to become of Shirley in the same way one might listen carefully to hear the note that signals the end of a song.

  FOR JAMAICANS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I believe in the old-time wisdom that a village raises a child, and this is certainly true for a book that rises up from infancy.

  Thank you, Amie Barrodale, for taking it upon yourself to introduce me to Jin Auh—you didn’t have to do that. And thank you, Jin, for believing in my stories and for working on my behalf—two incredible gifts I don’t take for granted. My appreciation to Luke Ingram for representing my writing in the U.K., and to everyone else in my corner at the Wylie agency. Andra Miller, I am forever grateful for your care with my work. I so appreciate you and your editorial genius. Kris Doyle, thank you for your enthusiasm and your vision, and for everything you’ve done to bring this book to the U.K. My gratitude to the teams at Ballantine and Picador for having my back, and for everything they’ve done to bring this book into the world.

  I am indebted for tremendous support from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Thank you to my kind, inspiring writing instructors—Marilynne Robinson, Ayana Mathis, Ethan Canin, Daniel Orozco, Geronimo Johnson, and program visionary, Lan Samantha Chang. Thank you Connie Brothers, Kelly Smith, Deb West, and Jan Zenisek, for all you do to keep Dey House running. Readers and friends, and further evidence that Iowa City is a treasured place for a writer to find herself—Elizabeth Weiss, Brian Booker, Jake Hooker, Clare Jones, Rebekah Frumkin, Yaa Gyasi, Tom Corcoran, Tom Quach, Christa Fraser, Okwiri Oduor, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, Aamina Ahmad and family, and Okezie Nwoka. Riley Johnson, thank you for reading the first draft of this book, and for being one of the best men I know. Nana Nkweti, your kindness and brilliance have been an example to me. Love to Naomi Jackson and Stephen Narain, classmates and Caribbean kinfolk, for welcoming me so lovingly to Iowa City. Jorge Guerra Del Cid, Iowa City feels like a map of our friendship, and you have been a home for me.

  Thank you to the Whited family for support, and Troy Bond at Lucky’s and Jason Paulios at the Iowa City public library for part-time jobs. Stephen Lovely, the director of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, might be the most compassionate person to work for.

  And thank you to the staff at The Paris Review for their editorial wisdom and kindness.

  Friends, readers, and co-workers—Ransom Woodson, Heidi Kuchta, Kia Lindsey, Ruben Lebron Villegas, Meghan Metier, Tyler Tritten, Helen Rubinstein, Kaylia Duncan, Pauline Remy, Aracely Mondragon, and Miguel Torres. Faith Avery and La’Kesha Manning, thank you for the camera and for everything else.

  For everyone who shared words, laughs, and meals while I was working on book edits in Mexico City.

  For everyone who listened, soothed, and inspired, all the days of my life.

  Love to my women friends—Melissa Apedo, Salisa Hudson, Joy Hibbler, Linda Diga, and Itisha Jefferson.

  Donald Arthurs, I haven’t forgotten how you used to tell us stories from your childhood, and that you brought those beautiful picture books from the city.

  Love to my aunts, uncles, cousins, and my sweet nephews, Joshua and Jonathan.

  To my family—my mother, Veronica Arthurs, and my siblings, Amanda Arthurs and Allan Arthurs. I am always thinking of you three.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALEXIA ARTHURS was born and raised in Jamaica and moved with her family to Brooklyn when she was twelve. A graduate of Hunter College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has been published in Granta, The Sewanee Review, Small Axe, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vice, and The Paris Review, which awarded her the Plimpton Prize in 2017.

  Twitter: @AlexiaArthurs

  Instagram: @alexiaarthurs

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