Dare to Love (9 page)

An hour and two Hennessey later, my cell ring. It’s Melissa. She want to come over, want to cook for me instead of just cooking for herself. She’ll bring the ingredients. Is the best offer I have all day. I say yes with a delight she might mistake for something else. She’ll be a nice distraction from the chaos going on in my head.

That’s how it start. She come and cook for me and Darron, stay and watched TV, stay in my bed, give me something warm and loving to hold on to, make herself available whenever I want her. She and Darron have a lot in common, talk the same language about movie stars, musicians, celebrities. He grateful that she here. It take some of the heat off him.

A few weeks later her landlords give her notice, they’re selling up and moving away. She say if she move in she can help with the rent and some of the bills. She say it make better sense than her trying to find somewhere else and still be spending so much time with us. She say it will only be till I got back on my feet. She say she love me but that it don’t matter if I don’t love her. She say she happy being with me and Darron.

She answer the phone one day when my sister call. Roxanne flip out. What me playing at? What about our arrangement? Was I going to let her down without even telling her? What me doing with this child? What she have to offer me apart from what’s between her legs? Can’t I stop chasing skirt long enough to think about my future? Don’t I want a better life for my children? She’s phoning to find out if I want her to book the flight. I tell her yes.

When I get off the phone Mel shout from the kitchen, ‘Why she so mad?’ She making macaroni pie. I lean against the fridge and watch her. She look comfortable here. Jeannette would die if she could see her. I cut a piece of cheese and chew it, for something to do.

‘I didn’t tell her you’re living here.’

‘Why would that make her so mad? She think it’s too soon after your wife?’

‘No is not that,’ I say slowly, trying to think of the best way to put it.

‘What is it then?’

‘I promise to go up and do some work with her husband on two of the restaurants that he manage. They don’t want to give the work to anybody else because they’d have to pay them too much. She think if I come over I get the money and they get a good price. What she call a win-win arrangement. She into that kind of management speak.’

‘And she think is me stopping you going?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh. I see why she so mad.’

I watch her sprinkle cheese on the pie and put it in the oven. That story is partly true so is not a bareface lie.

‘Why don’t you go Grant? Is it the money for the fare?’

‘No, they’ll cover that from the fee.’

‘Is it because of me, because I moved in?’ Anything I answer to this could get me in trouble. If I say no she might think she too insignificant, if I say yes she might think she too important. Safer not to answer that one.

‘Is because of Darron. Now that Jeanette not here somebody have to be here while he going to school. I can’t just get up and leave. On top of that, he sliding and I have to keep a watch on him.’

Her back to me as she wash the bowls, grater and spoons. Then she turn round, hand on her little hip. ‘I can look after Darron, make sure he goes to school, help him with his homework at night.’

I don’t know what to say. Its not what I expect.

‘You sure?’ She must hear the doubt.

She lean on the sink and look straight at me.

‘I live here already. Darron used to me. We have a laugh. He tells me things he don’t tell you because he’s frightened of you sometimes. I think he will go to school and do the work.’

‘You would do that?’

‘It’s what families do. They help each other.’

She always talking about family. She born in Antigua but her mother married a Bajan man. They travel around a lot before he come back to settle in Barbados. She say anywhere is home if your family there with you. I feel kinda touched that she claim us as family. Maybe is because her parents split up now, one in Canada, the other in America.

‘Let me think about it.’

It’s a good idea but I have to make sure Darron will do his part. Maybe a break from me will do him good. I bring it up at dinner.

‘Darron, you know your Aunt Roxy want me to go to the States to do that job for her in New York?’

‘Yes.’ He’s nervous, not sure where I’m going.

‘She call again today and want me to come asap.’

He look at me, a fork full of mashed potato halfway between his plate and his mouth. He wait for me to go on before the food find its destination.

‘I couldn’t go because of all the problems you having at school.’ He tense up. ‘Not just that, but since Jeanette leave there’s only one adult in the house at night’. He relax a little. Not all the blame is his. He take another forkful and watch me.

‘Now that Mel live here she say she will make sure she here at night.’ His eyes move to Mel and they share a look that don’t mean anything to me.

‘If I go I will have to be confident that you not going to abuse the situation, that you going to do your work and not slide down anymore on your grades.’

‘Yes Daddy.’

‘Yes daddy what?’

‘I will do what you want.’

‘I’m going to give you a month. If I see improvements in that time I’ll go, if not I’ll have to stay. I can’t have the school thinking I’m leaving a failing student to go and look for money.’

‘But that’s what most people do. A lot of my friends’ parents working abroad. They being looked after by family.’

‘Yeah, that new bunch of no-good failing friends.’

‘No Daddy,’ he persist, ‘a lot of the kids’ parents work abroad.’

‘But that’s not what I want for us.’ We have a bond between us, and although it taking a battering at the moment, it still strong. I still look at him and see a skinnier version of me. He nearly as tall as me. Same open face but nose not quite as wide and lips like his mother, full and fleshy. He walk like me, shave his head when I shave mine.

He’s fourteen. He know my financial situation. He don’t like the downgrade in the house but he understand why. He know why Mel move in, we explain it to him. Then I explain it after she gone. She not my one true love, not here to be his mother, she need a place to live and I could use the help. We have to squeeze her bits of furniture in, make the living room look a little cramp. We get on well. That absent parent thing is not what I want for us.

‘You on a month’s trial Darron. I’m going back to the school in a months time. If I get a good report I book the ticket, if I don’t you have me on your back. Do we have a deal?’

‘Deal,’ he say with a broad grin. We touch on it.

He keep his part of the deal, so I’m sitting on the plane thinking about my life. My fourteen year old son at home with my twenty year old girlfriend and I’m on my way to meet a possible wife. A wife that dragging me into the gutter in the process of becoming ex, an ex who still can’t get over it and punish me by telling my son all kind of lies about me (I see the way Derrick watch me when he come for the holidays, the way he watch me and Darron and I wonder what he taking back home to his mother). All I need is a job, or some means of making some money quick. Them little men hammer happy again. I switch on the in flight entertainment and watch a movie.
Runaway Bride
. Halfway through, I fall asleep.

Grant

No matter how often I do it, I’m never prepared for the difference in the speed of
life in the Caribbean and New York. They have just one gear in New York – top gear, and after a while people don’t notice that their engine always revving, never on idle. Every time I see my sister I notice it more. She talk faster, walk faster, eat faster, sleep faster.

When I finally come through customs at JFK she rush over and hug me, but it’s a little bit shorter than the last time. Although she put on a bit more weight since I last see her, she have to slow down for me when we walk back to her SUV. It’s like her body slow down but her head racing ahead. We shave ten minutes off the drive to her house. My nieces give me long, tight squeezes. They talk fast but they still remember how to hug long.

‘Hi Uncle Grant, did you have a fun trip?’

‘How’s Darron and Derrick and Marcie?’

‘Didn’t they want to come with you?’

‘It’s ages since we saw them, they must be real big now?’

‘Yes, fine, yes but they couldn’t, and yes.’

They look at me puzzled.

‘The answer to all your questions,’ I say, and they laugh.

Roxanne don’t waste time with chitchat, she want to get straight down to business. We have Chinese take out delivered, she send the girls to bed and she and Tyrol explain about the work on the restaurants. They don’t want me to do the physical work, just to oversee it and make sure it finish on time and stay in budget. They building extensions to two of the restaurants. I will have to supervise the two of them. Tomorrow he’ll show me the plans and I’ll tell him what he’ll need and how much it will cost.

He’ll take me to meet the builders the day after. It feel like I hit the ground running, but I’m getting a buzz. Like some wires re-connect and electricity flowing round my body. This is work I like and want to do. For the first time in months I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Roxanne’s away on a business trip all this week so any introduction to my potential bride will have to wait till the weekend. I’m relieved.

They’re small extensions, one contractor doing the two. It feel good to be back with trades people. They’re nice guys, like me – grateful for the work, eager to make a good impression. They start on one building and move between the two for first fix, second fix and finish and fittings. It feel good to wear my hard hat again, to call Darron and Mel. Tell them about my day at work. This part of the trip is a big success. I can’t say the same for the other.

Roxanne invite Sophia round to dinner on Saturday night. We have Chinese take out again. It’s the girls’ favourite, and Sophia’s. I have to admit I’m a little nervous. This isn’t a normal date, more like those arranged marriages Indian people do. Part of me hoping I’ll like her, the other part wondering what the hell I’m doing. Even if I like her, what then? I’ve been in New York a week now and I’m not feeling it as a place to move my kids to. To come and live for two or three or more years. After a week I can’t see what work I can get. The recession is here too. Hardly any buildings going up, and they’re using people they know. There’s even more unemployed site managers here than in the Caribbean.

I’m thinking all this and hoping she’ll be something special, someone that will make me laugh, make me not mind the cold, or the speed of life; someone that will make me want to stay in spite of everything.

The ringing doorbell announce her arrival. Roxanne fly to the door to let her in. I think my sister nervous as hell. She invest a lot of time in this project. She wants us to like each other. The girls watching a TV programme. They think Sophia just coming over for dinner, don’t understand the significance of this meeting. Tyrol keep his eyes on the TV. He don’t know what to say.

‘Come through,’ Roxanne say.

‘Everybody here?’ She mean ‘Is
he
here?’

She walks through the door and our eyes meet. I stand up and go to shake her hand.

‘Sophia, Grant, Grant, Sophia.’

‘Hi Aunt Sophia.’ The girls rush to hug her like a couple of large Alsatian puppies.

‘Girls! Girls!’ Roxanne chides. ‘One at a time please, give Uncle Grant time to say hello.’

They back off and go back to their TV programme.

I’m glad for the interruption. Give me time to take her in. To let it re-register that she not my type to look at. She look nice in black pants, black high heels and a long red, green and blue blouse that stop halfway down her thighs. Her hair piled high on her head – make her look taller. With the heels and the hair, she the same height as me. She make her eyes up to look like slanting cat’s eyes. They look strange but is the most interesting thing about her. She’s about 160 pounds. I’m a good judge of a woman’s weight. I like to carry my women to bed. I might need a few sessions at the gym to carry Sophia.

I take her hand again. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Pleased to meet you too Grant, finally.’

I hold her hand in both of mine, trying to feel some connection, some spark that I can build on. There’s nothing. I smile.

‘The pleasure’s all mine,’ I lie in my smoothest, most seductive voice.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘What you got?’

‘Let’s have a look.’

I take her to the small bar in the corner of this large living room.

‘I can offer you some Mount Gay rum straight from Barbados, still have the sunshine in it.’

‘Oh Roxanne, he has such a sweet tongue,’ she squeal at my sister on the other side of the room.

‘Do you have some coke honey? Can’t have rum without coke.’

‘I’ll get some from the fridge.’

I feel her eyes on my back as I walk to the kitchen.

‘He’s nice hon.’ She has a very loud whisper.