Going Solo (New Song) (9 page)

"What time is it?" Alice groaned. The sun was no longer out. The room was shrouded in darkness.

"Seven o'clock," Carson said beside her. They were in the spoon position.

"You smell like coconut," he said softly, caressing her hand lightly.

He twined his fingers with hers. "Do you want to move in? We have lots of space."

Alice suddenly sat up in the bed with her back to him. "Carson, I think we are moving too fast."

"No, Alice, we are moving too slow. We are ten years behind. You are my wife. Give me one good reason why we should be sneaking around like love struck teenagers."

Alice sighed. "Mia."

"You are still not ready to talk to her?" Carson asked.

"No." Alice shook her head.

"She's just a little girl," Carson said. "What's so terrifying about saying hello?"

"There is hello and then there is me moving in with her and her father," Alice said turning around and looking at him.

"Okay, we'll take it slowly." Carson said. "May I invite you to church this Sabbath then?"

"No," Alice said. "I'll never go back to Cedar Hill Church."

"I thought you are here for healing and reconciliation," Carson said slowly.

"I came here to move on," Alice said, "make a clean break."

She lay back down beside Carson. He raised himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. "How is that going for you?"

Alice giggled. "I am sleeping with my husband."

"Definitely a step in the right direction," Carson said softly. He kissed her shoulder. "You go to church in New York, don't you?"

"Yes." Alice sighed. "If it weren't for God's gracious mercy toward me, I'd be dead now. I have to give him thanks for everything. I love my church family there. They are the real deal."

"What's wrong with us at Cedar Hill?" Carson asked.

"Is... er," Alice asked reluctantly, "is Pastor Keen still there?"

"No," Carson said. "He was in an accident nine years ago and is paralyzed from the waist down. I think he is also brain damaged. Sometimes his mind wanders. I try to see him every couple of months when I can, and he gets me mixed up with everybody; sometimes I am Xavier, sometimes Ian, sometimes, Logan."

Good.
Alice thought coldly. She looked at Carson and gave him a half smile. "Oh well, life happens."

Carson looked at her with a frown. "You never did like him, did you?"

"Nope," Alice said, "I have wished several times that he would rot in a hell somewhere."

"Well, he is definitely doing that now," Carson said ruefully. "He is but a shadow of the man he once was. Seeing him sitting in his wheelchair, helpless and barely functioning, really gets to me."

Alice snorted. "He deserves what he has now."

"What did he ever do to you to make you think such horrible thoughts toward him?" Carson asked curiously.

"He forced you to marry me," Alice said shiftily. "Isn't that enough?"

"I wanted to marry you," Carson said lightly. "I would marry you again, at the drop of a hat. I loved you then. I love you now."

"You had your dreams and your plans," Alice said. "I completely derailed you."

"And you were in those dreams and plans. I can't recall having any plans without you featuring in it. Things just shifted up a bit when you got pregnant."

"And delayed you horribly," Alice said. "That was one of the reasons I left, you know. I felt guilty about the whole thing, about burdening you with my problems."

"Why?" Carson asked. "You had nothing to feel guilty about. Your problems are my problems."

Alice got up and shrugged. "You always wanted to own Petey's."

"I own Petey's," Carson said. "You came by there. It's now called CarBell."

"But it took you so long because of me."

"No. It didn't. You were never a burden."

"You used to work extra shifts and dutifully save all your tips just to take care of me and the baby."

"You are so sweet when you take on that martyred air," Carson said. "I much preferred having you in my life than out of it and I would not give up Mia for all the garages in the world. Her birth may have been less than ideal but I am not sorry that she is here."

Alice stepped into her dress. Carson just watched her. "You know, I have an extra car. The month's rental on that vehicle you are driving will cost a fortune."

"Don't be kind to me," Alice said stiffly, "I am a bad person. I don't deserve it."

"Care to elaborate?" Carson asked with mirth in his eyes.

"No, not tonight," Alice said. "I am going back to my motel."

"Now that you know where I live, when are you coming back to take advantage of me?" Carson asked.

"I don't know," Alice said, pushing her feet in her slippers. She was reluctant to leave and Carson could read it in her body language.

"Stay," he said softly.

Alice shook her head and took up her handbag.

Carson got up and shrugged into a robe.

"You work out, don't you?" Alice looked at him in admiring appraisal.

"Yes," Carson grinned, "the guys and I workout at Aaron's house, well, all the guys except for Jayce."

"He has gotten huge," Alice said. "I saw him the other day at the hip strip."

"He told us," Carson said.

"So the whole band knows I am back?" Alice asked.

"Yes," Carson said, "even Xavier knows, and he is living in the States."

"Maybe I should come by and say hi," Alice said. "They were my friends, especially Aaron."

Carson looked at her sideways. "Say hi to Mia first. She's family."

"She's your family." Alice chewed her lips and then sighed. "Okay, I will say hi to her first."

While she was driving back to the motel, she realized that she felt lighter. It had just sunken in as she wound down her window and the breeze whipped her hair about that her heart was dancing, almost as freely as her hair.

  She felt somehow comforted at the news that Pastor Keen was an invalid. She sat in her car and cried because she felt such deep relief. She had spent the last ten years wondering if there would ever be any justice for her and it finally seemed that God had done his part.

She inhaled. She did not feel as fearful anymore. Maybe it was time to face Mia.

Chapter Ten

May 1997

Alice stepped into her cramped yard, almost brushing her school uniform on the car that was parked directly in front of the zinc gate. It was Pastor Keen's car and she wondered what he was doing at her house again. It was the third time in as many months that he had come visiting. Her mother was ill with a stomach bug and had asked the church for prayer two months ago but she was better now.

Alice stepped into the house. It was just a short distance from the dusty track to the zinc fence of her house. Blue was sitting outside on a dusty pan smoking a cigarette. He ignored her and she did likewise. They had been at odds since Carson had warned him to leave her alone. He barely mumbled anything to her these days and she liked it that way. If they never spoke again, she would be fine.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark interior when she entered the cramped little hall space where she and her siblings slept in sleeping bags in the nights. It was now serving as a living room; the sleeping bags were neatly stacked in a corner. Her mother had taken out the four white plastic chairs that she always stacked on each other in the corner and had arranged them in a circle. She had even shined the red stained floor to a glossy looking sheen. She must have known that the pastor was coming over because the circular white table was covered with a tablecloth that had grape patterns, and a plastic jug with lemonade was sitting on top of it.

The pastor was holding one of their better-looking plastic cups in his hands and Alice looked from him to her mother. "Good evening," she said sullenly. These days she could not look Pastor Keen in the face. Didn't anybody else see the sexual interest that he was showing her? She had told Carson about it but even he did not believe her. In her humble opinion, Pastor Keen was a hypocrite - a creepy, slimy hypocrite that her mother and the other church people held in high regard. On one hand, he was so good with people, and on the other, he had a serious problem.

She looked at his fair skin and his curly black hair that had a little gray sprinkled in it. He had the bearing of someone who was well learned. Some people would assume he was a doctor because he was always wearing one of those bush jackets that the late Michael Manley, a former prime minister of Jamaica, had made popular in the 70s. Come to think of it, he had a Michael Manley Look about him.

He adjusted his glasses and once more, she wondered when she had actually come to loathe him as much as she did now. It was way back from she was fourteen or so. Little by little, he had slowly changed toward her, giving her long leering looks and finding excuses to talk to her whenever he could.

"Have a seat Alice," Emilia said, pointing at the chair nearest to Pastor Keen. She put down her knapsack in the corner and sat in the chair nearest to her mother, pulling it even closer to her and further from Pastor Keen. Her mother looked at her mulish expression and realized that she was blatantly distancing herself from the pastor and sighed.

"Pastor Keen has gotten a job for you already, knowing that you are going to graduate this year." There was a warning in her mother's tone:
be grateful or else.

"A job?" Alice said, heeding the warning tone and trying to look interested.

"Yes," Pastor Keen said, in his gentle, refined, overly controlled, pastoral voice. "I have finally gotten the go ahead from the board to hire a full-time church secretary. I know you did business courses in high school and that you are a great organizer. Remember that time when you arranged the fundraiser because you wanted to go to the Pantomime? I have since then admired your skills. You are a young person who has potential. The job is available at the start of the summer, June 1."

Alice stopped herself from snorting. She just nodded instead. The dutiful, dirt-poor girl should be grateful after all. The respected church pastor had magnanimously thought of her and was offering her a job because she had potential.

"Say something," Emilia hissed, almost pushing Alice's stiff unyielding body from the chair with a poke.

"I don't…" She inhaled and rubbed where her mother had poked her, "know what to say." She smiled at him insincerely, hoping that the cold distrust that she felt for him could be seen shining from her eyes.

"A thank you is all I need," Pastor Keen said helpfully. "I am always on the look out for my younger members. How is Carson by the way? You two still going strong? I have barely seen him since he took the full-time job at Petey's."

"He's great," Alice said defiantly.
I love him
, she wanted to add,
so stop looking at me like a hungry bear, you sicko
!

"That's good to hear," Pastor Keen said smiling at her. "Carson is an exceptional young man. He has always been."

Alice almost growled. Hostility must have been rolling off her in waves because her mother fiercely pinched her again. She was almost regretful that she had placed her chair so close to hers.

"Alice is very grateful for your consideration, Pastor, and so am I. It is truly a blessing."

They chitchatted some more, with Alice sitting there mutinously and wondering why she did not think this particular job offer was a blessing. The pastor's shiny new car had barely pulled away from the gate when her mother turned on her. "Alice, why are you acting like that? Do you know what an opportunity this is? You ungrateful girl! Pastor Keen is a true Christian, and he's always looking out for us."

Blue snorted, he was still sitting in the same place, smoking his marijuana. Little tendrils of smoke escaped his nostrils. He turned blood shot eyes on them. "I don't like him."

For the first time in Alice's life, she actually agreed with Blue. "I don't mean to be ungrateful," she said to her mother.

"Well, don't be. This is your opportunity to get out of here. The pay is not too bad especially for a person who is just leaving high school. I mean you could even still do some courses at the community college and then move on to something else."

"Education is for fools!" Blue puffed out rings of smoke.

"Is that why you are not even trying to send your children to school?" Emilia asked, turning on him. "It's only by the grace of God that they are even performing well at school because most mornings they go to school hungry. I work hard and some days I can barely find a dollar to send them to school, and you are here working and yet you are not supporting them. Friya needs school shoes. I had to paste cardboard on the soles of her last pair so she could wear it to school. She has to come home barefooted if it rains."

Alice slipped back into the house, took her clothes out of a box in the corner, and went to the outside bathroom. She had a sense of foreboding the whole time she was thinking about the job.