1.
BLAZING SUNLIGHT SCORCHED Tamera’s limbs almost as much as the Trinidad moruga scorpion hot pepper she’d ingested after a dare from her older sister, Mary, charred her insides. She climbed into her father’s car, and waved goodbye to her cousin, Azura. Tamera exhaled loudly, fanning herself with her hand. “It’s really hot out here,” she moaned.
“Like fire.” Earl, Tamera’s father, mopped up the sweat oozing down his forehead with a handkerchief he pulled from his shirt pocket. He swerved onto the street, veering left to escape a pothole. They listened to R&B, hip-hop, and soca music on the radio as he and his daughter headed home.
Earl pulled up at a red light and patted his daughter’s knee. “Your mother’s not doing too well this week,” he said.
Tamera grimaced but didn’t comment. Her mother, Alison, had been so sick so often lately that she was beginning to think her mom would never be back to her old self again. Although Tamera had thoroughly enjoyed spending the previous week at her Uncle Richard’s home, she was more than ready to return to La Cresta, the rural community on the tiny Caribbean island where she was born. She hadn’t seen her boyfriend, Dalton, in two weeks, and she was looking forward to spending time with him at the surprise birthday party his family had planned for his mother. The small gathering was scheduled for the following afternoon. She hoped her mother would be well enough to come as well.
She toyed with the ring Dalton had given her before relocating to San Pedro to work at a company that made fibreglass boats. To most people, the ring would have been considered a worthless piece of junk, but it meant as much to her as if the fake stone set in the middle was a ten-carat diamond. Every two weeks, Dalton made the tedious journey by bus from San Pedro to his parents’ home, a ten-minute walk from her parents’ humble abode.
Tamera lived a stone’s throw from a two-mile stretch of sugary sand that extended offshore into deep, clear water and overlooked a purplish-blue bay littered with brightly-coloured fishing boats. The beach was one of the world’s best-kept secrets. It had never been featured in any international travel magazine, and there weren’t any swanky hotels, condos, or plush resorts in sight. Most villagers frowned at the thought of throngs of North American and European tourists invading their small community and frolicking half naked on the idyllic stretch of perfectly white sand. The villagers wanted their little-known hometown to remain a secluded location where shimmery fish darted about in the unsullied water and palm trees gracefully lined the shore.
Earl switched radio station halfway through a Kanye West song. A high-pitched beep sounded. “It’s exactly one p.m.,” a newscaster announced in a silvery voice. “We’ll be right back with the today’s headlines.”
Tamera unwittingly tapped her left foot to the beat of a peppy soft-drink jingle as they waited to hear the news. The melody stopped, and the reporter announced, “An eighteen-year-old girl from San Pedro is missing.” Tamera’s lips stiffened as the girl’s mother relayed how her daughter had left home to attend a job interview the previous morning and never returned. “Patty and I didn’t have no problems. She didn’t run away. She is a good girl, and I need the police to help me find her,” the woman sobbed.
“What’s going on here?” Earl tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “This is the second person from San Pedro that’s gone missing in the past two weeks.”
“I don’t know, but it’s scary,” Tamara muttered.
Not long afterwards, Earl swerved into his driveway. Tamera got out of the car and walked purposefully toward her home, wincing at the loud music blasting from their neighbour Samuel Thomas’s house. A porch with bright green balustrades encircled Samuel’s home, a cheerful contrast to its bright red roof. Earl stood next to the bumper of his car, observing his son-in-law, Mary’s husband’s Renwick, pack a dingy, plastic bucket with soggy cement. Renwick handed the hefty container to his brother, Clyde, who lugged it up to the top of a wooden ladder. Clyde scooped a trowel full of the thick plaster and slapped it onto the exterior of the brick house that Earl had given Renwick and Mary permission to build on a plot of land next to Earl and Tamera’s home. The land on which Earl’s house was built, and several acres of adjoining farmland, had been passed down from Earl’s grandfather, to his father and then to Earl.
Tamera’s eyes fell upon the yellowish flowers scattered on the rounded canopy of an erect mango tree and the kidney-shaped fruit that hung from its long, string-like stems. Some of the stems had more than a few dangling fruit, others just one. The wind picked up, and the tree’s dark green leaves with their distinct, horizontal veins slapped against the brick fence that separated their house from Uncle Charlie’s. Tamera glanced at her Uncle Charlie’s house on the right to see if anyone was home before she scooted up the staircase of her parents’ home and slipped inside.
“You’re back.” Mary was sitting next to Tamera’s mom, her head bent over a bowl of lentil soup, steam rising out of it as Mary blew gently to cool it down.
“It’s you?” Alison said in a droning tone, lethargically passing her fingers through her full head of wavy hair that was equally silver and black.
“How are you, Ma?” Tamera gently kissed her mother’s left cheek. Alison shrugged but didn’t speak. Mary tried to slip a spoonful of the warm soup between her mother’s lips, but she shook her head and clamped her jaw like an angry pit bull.
“You’ve gotta eat something, Ma,” Mary pleaded, “or you’re going to end up with a bad gas pain in your chest just like before.”
Earl walked in and dropped into the chair next to his wife. He tried to coax her to eat as well, but his efforts didn’t help. Alison’s mouth remained tightly clamped. Tamera gulped down a tumbler of water and then headed to the bathroom for a quick shower. She changed into fresh clothes, and returned to the living room in a pink-and-white sleeveless cotton dress. Moments later, someone knocked on the door.
Earl turned to his younger daughter and said, “See who that is.”
Tamera scurried toward the entryway, shifted the white, floral-patterned curtain to one side, and unlocked the door.
“How are you doing?” Dalton entered the living room with a massive smile.
“Good,” she replied, her smile as bright as his.
He was as tall as a professional basketball player, so even though Tamera was five foot nine, she still had to lift her head to meet her boyfriend’s sparkling light-brown eyes. “Good afternoon,” he said, his eyes directed to Earl. “Pops asked me to return your drill.”
“How’s life in San Pedro?” Earl asked as Dalton handed Tamera the borrowed tool.
“No major complaints.” Dalton’s face fell a little. “You all heard ’bout the missing girl from San Pedro?”
“Yeah,” Earl said. “I heard ’bout it on the radio on the way back from my brother’s house earlier this afternoon.”
“You know that girl lives a couple of streets from where I’m staying now. It’s mind-boggling how she just disappeared.” Earl and Dalton chatted amiably for a few moments before Dalton suddenly spun around, gesturing for everyone to head outside. “I got a surprise,” he announced, a wide grin on his face. Alison remained in her recliner, but everyone else stepped onto the porch. “There.” Dalton pointed to a grey Mazda. “My boss’s son got a new one, so I bought the old one off him. Now I can reach down here in next to no time.”
“Hope you had a mechanic check it out,” Earl said.
“Sure did,” Dalton replied. “My brother’s friend had a good look at the engine, and we took it for a test ride before I signed on the dotted line.”
“Wonderful. You got a good car.” Earl said, before going back inside.
“I’ve gotta run,” Dalton said, his eyes on Tamera, “but I hope to see you all at Mom’s surprise party tomorrow afternoon.”
“Don’t worry,” Tamera answered for everyone. “We’re all going to be there.”
After Mary followed Earl inside, Dalton gingerly touched Tamera’s arm. “You’re going to email me some new photos?” he whispered.
“If you behave,” she smiled.
“I’m always a good boy,” he smiled back and winked. Then he jumped into his car and sped off, a whirl of dust rising up behind him.
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