The Lighter Side of Large (10 page)

“Stop it, Mika,” I say without compulsion. I turn off the kettle and throw in a tea bag, trying to focus on something practical and unromantic.

Mika grabs my shoulders, turns me around and kisses my neck. “No,” I push him away but he clutches me. “Mika, I mean it. You’ve got some nerve.”

“You know you want this, Bella,” and he sucks my neck hard. It’s been so long since he - anyone - has touched me that I can’t make him stop. I don’t want him to stop.

“The kids . . .” I protest.

“They’ll stay outside. Come on, you want this, don’t you? When’s the last time?” His hand wanders down my body.

It flitters through my foggy mind that his words aren’t much different from Wesley’s, and yet instead of feeling angry and insulted, I’m yielding to him.

“Come on, Bella, you know I can give you what you need,” Mika groans. He pulls up the hem of my dress and plunges his hand into my panties, rubbing gently. I gasp and yield to his touch, leaning toward him as strong sexual need overwhelms me. I can’t think, can’t remember why this is a bad idea. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me to my bedroom.

I wonder if this is how it started between him and Tiresa, the persistence, the questions. And suddenly I realise that now I am in Tiresa’s place. I’m the sister Mika’s cheating with and she’s the one being betrayed.

After a day of being insulted and laughed at by friend, acquaintance and stranger, and of being betrayed by Tiresa again by her inaction, an iron enters my soul. It’s my turn to come out on top. It’s my turn to be the winner. It’s time to take charge of my life.

I shut the bedroom door behind us.

Revenge is sweet.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Do you want to live life to its fullest with the people you love, doing the things you love to do, without the stigma of being a burden or anathema to society?”

FROM BELLA’S BLOG
http://www.thelightersideoflarge.com/ch8

Mama Rose fixes me with that omniscient glare of hers the minute we walk in the door. I look everywhere else to avoid her knowing gaze. It’s Fi’s birthday and Mama Rose insists on throwing her a birthday party at her house on Friday evening.

“Mama Rose, where’s my presents?” Fi squeals when she sees the pink streamers and balloons which decorate the dining room. In the center of the table sits a pink princess doll cake complete with piped ruffles and a jewel candy-studded skirt. Mama Rose went overboard again but catering for her family has always been a favorite

pastime of hers - next to eating. I like to think a voracious appetite runs in the family, but Tiresa’s slender physique nulls that particular defence of my fluffy thighs.

“No presents until after dinner and you blow out your candles,” Mama Rose replies. Fi and Abe race to the

backyard where their Samoan cousins are already playing. The adults sit on the patio, sipping drinks and talking.

Mama Rose shakes her head. “Isabella, what have you done?”

“What do you mean what have I done?” I feign innocence while blushing.

Mama Rose crosses her arms and
tsk-tsks
. “I always know when you do something wrong. You can’t hide it. Now come on, ‘fess up. Get it all out in the open and you’ll feel a lot better.”

I have no choice. It’s either tell her or she’ll never drop the subject. When I say never, I mean never. She’ll be on her deathbed demanding an explanation instead of saying her goodbyes. The longest anyone ever held out on telling her the truth was Aunt Flo. She lasted a month, during which time Mama Rose wouldn’t speak to her. Instead, she’d fix her with that look until Aunt Flo finally cracked and confessed to kissing the neighbor boy. Meanwhile, she couldn’t eat or sleep and lost weight and all colour in her complexion from the pressure. Mama Rose is persistent if nothing else.

We walk into the kitchen and I set down my purse on the table. I glance out the window to see that everyone is outside. Mama Rose pulls out a chair and sits, pointing at the one nearest her for me to sit in.

“Out with it,” she taps her index finger on the table. “Just say it and be done with it.” I hesitate. “Isabella, I’m your grandma. There’s nothing you can say that’s going to shock me.”

“I had sex with Mika.”

“Merciful Heavens!
Aumai lou mo se mulielo Mum ai polo lou tina!”

“Mama Rose!” I exclaim, horrified to hear such vile language come out of my grandmother’s mouth.

She says a few other choice phrases. So much for being shock-proof. “
Oute le malamalama,
” she finishes.

“I don’t understand how it happened, either,” I pout.

“You were
there
when it happened. Don’t give me ‘I don’t understand’ for an excuse,” Mama Rose’s voice raises a few decibels.

“Hush! I don’t want them to hear,” I plead with her, glancing out the window again.

Mama Rose gets up and paces the room. “What am I going to do with you girls? Is Mika really worth all this fuss? I don’t think so. He’s never treated either of you with the respect you two deserve. Oh, he may provide for his children, I’ll grant him that. But cheating on you first, and now he’s cheating on Tiresa: when is it going to end? Is he going to try to seduce me next?”

“Mama Rose, stop, please stop,” I plead. “I was lonely, okay? He dropped off the kids and one thing led to another and…”

“And that’s all I need to know,” Mama Rose finishes. “What business does he have getting in your bed? He wants something, doesn’t he? Mika doesn’t do anything without an ulterior motive. What did he want from you?”

I shrug. “He said he misses me. He doesn’t feel like a complete parent when I’m not around. He criticised Tiresa. And obviously he still desires me.”

Even as I said the words, I knew they were a lie. Mika wanted sex, not me. He never kissed me on the mouth. He didn’t bother to undress or take off any of my clothes except my underwear. When I was on top of him, he complained that he couldn’t move. When he finished, he immediately got up and said he was late for a meeting. No more kissing, no thank you, no endearments to show it meant anything.

Mama Rose snorts. “That’s a load of
ga’o.
”

“Mama Rose, what’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into
me
?” she hoots. “Isabella, have you taken leave of your senses? That man don’t care about you. Hell, I don’t think he really cares about Tiresa. He just uses people. But you girls are going to do what you want to do. So go right ahead, let yourselves get hurt by that
susu poki
. I’ll support whatever decisions you two make, but I don’t have to like them.”

And it hits me: I made the same decision as Tiresa had made and became the betrayer. I have become the very person I hate. I just wanted revenge and to be the winner in this insane competition for Mika’s affection, but deep down, I knew all along it was wrong to stab my sister in the back, even though she had stabbed me in the back.

The tears well up as I finally admit to myself how low I’ve sunk. Just as Sands prophesied, I opened up my legs for a hug. And Mama Rose is right; she’s always right. It is just hard to admit I’m wrong, especially about Mika, my first love, my only love thus far.

Mama Rose sighs and walks over to give me a hug from behind. I begin to sob. “Baby, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right,” Mama Rose says. “We all make dumb mistakes. The important thing is to get back up, dust yourself off and leave those mistakes behind. You can do it, Isabella.”

I cry for another minute before I calm down. Mama Rose hands me a tissue. “I blame myself,” she says, sitting down again.”For what?” I ask, dabbing my eyes.

Mama Rose folds her hands. “For separating you girls. I thought I was doing the right thing and it made me so mad that your father wouldn’t let you go. But I couldn’t see reason. I assumed it was better for Tiresa to be among her own people and not in the white world. It’s what your mother would have wanted, I told myself. Tiresa’s father is Samoan, too, so it only stood to reason that she be raised as a Samoan. Lordy, it used to make me so angry when you’d come to visit on holidays, all dressed like you were having tea with the queen instead of a feast with islanders and you couldn’t understand our language.”

She looked into the distance, lost in thought. “But tearing you girls apart was wrong. And now you’re still being torn apart. Maybe if I let her stay with your dad, things would be different.”

I placed my hand on hers. “We can’t know what might have been.”

Mama Rose breaks out of her reverie, looks at me and smiles. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But I’m still sorry for what I’ve done, and I ask for your forgiveness.”

“Oh, Mama Rose, don’t say that. There’s nothing to forgive.”

Mama Rose shakes her head. “You’re a good girl, Isabella, and I love you more than words can say.” Now it’s her turn to squeeze me hand. “Leave your mistakes behind you so you don’t have to apologise to anyone when you’re an old lady.”

I laugh, a full, belly-shaking laugh like I haven’t laughed since I met Jae. “Let’s hope I won’t have to apologise to anyone for cussing like a Samoan when I’m an old lady!”

Mama Rose keeps glancing out the window. “Perhaps you shouldn’t start practicing. There’s a young man I’d like you to meet. He’s one of us and he knows Samoan.”

I glance out the window. “Meet? Here? Now? Mama Rose, what have you done?”

Mama Rose moves into the kitchen and begins organising the paper plates and cups. “I haven’t ‘done’ anything. It’s just a neighbour friend who I invited to the party. He’s very nice. Works with computers or something. I told him about you and he expressed an interest in meeting you.”

Mama Rose’s idea of eligible young gentlemen was far removed from my idea. “What’s wrong with him?” I grimace.

“Wrong with him? Why must there be something wrong with him? Isabella, you assume the ridiculous.”

I open my mouth to reply when I hear the familiar sound of a car’s engine. “You didn’t invite them,” I moan, my stomach sinking.

Mama Rose shrugs. “They are her father and aunt.”

The front door opens and I cringe, reluctant to turn around and greet Mika and Tiresa.

Mama Rose looks over my shoulder. “Tiresa, dear! Where’s Mika?”

I keep my back to her. “Something came up at the last minute at the office,” Tiresa replies.

A guilty conscience, perhaps?
I wonder.

Mama Rose smiles and glance at me with a silent say hello to your sister look. “Oh, that’s too bad.”

Not for me, it isn’t,
I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Well, it can’t be helped. Everyone’s out back. We’ll start dinner soon. Help me get everything on the table, girls.”

Without acknowledging one another’s existence, Tiresa and I unload the refrigerator and pile enough food to feed an army on the table. Even when Mama Rose leaves the room to call everyone inside, we avoid looking at or speaking to one another. I do it out of guilt: I might as well have a scarlet letter pinned to my shirt.

While everyone piles food on paper plates, Mama Rose approaches me with an extremely tall, chubby young man in tow. “Isabella, I want you to meet Harrison. He lives just across the street. Harrison, my granddaughter, Isabella.”

“Howdy,” Harrison grins and thrusts out a meaty hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Harrison may work with computers - his wire-rimmed glasses and pocket protector were a dead giveaway - but he dresses like a cowboy, complete with shiny new boots, stiff cowboy hat and a cowboy twang to his New Zealand accent.

“How do you do?” I reply, leaning back to look up at him. I’m surprised his name isn’t Stretch. He pumps my hand like he’s drilling for oil.

“I’ll leave you two alone to get acquainted,” Mama Rose says and slips away. I love her but I could kill her.

Harrison pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Your grandma sure is a swell lady,” he smiles again, revealing deep dimples in both chubby cheeks.

“She certainly is,” I sigh.

“She’s told me all about you,” he says and looks me up and down. I’m startled by his audacity but he likes what he sees because he nods and licks his lips. “I see she hasn’t exaggerated. I like a woman with a bit of meat on her bones. There’s more for me to get my lasso around.”

“Oh, that’s, uh, nice,” I murmur, unsure how to respond to being favourably compared to a cow.

“She says you have a computer.”

I nod. “Yes. But most people do nowadays, don’t they?”

“Oh yeah, but not like mine.” He leans toward me conspiratorially. “I have my own server. I do web hosting on the side.”

Cow porn, no doubt.
“On the side of what?” I ask to be polite.

Harrison hoists up his pants and sticks out his chest. “I’m a game designer at a major corporation.”

“How interesting,” I feign interest in a bowl of sliced fruit.

“Sure is. I’m working on a top secret game which is going to be bigger than World of Warcraft. It’s going to make all other online role playing games go out of business for sure.”