The Heart of Revenge (14 page)

It was only a rumour though. Micheal Douglas
didn’t need to buy vagina and he wasn’t that type of person. He
basically built the community I was from. He was the backbone; he
had so many businesses there. He never forgot his roots and still
gave charity handouts to many of the youths and unfortunates from
the community and provided employment for many, including Mom. He
took me in as his own when I was fourteen. He was a good man who
could’ve easily became the Member of Parliament (M.P.) for our
community, but he hated politics. In my eyes, Mr. Douglas was a
respectable man, innocent until proven otherwise.

What I caught him doing may’ve been a mistake
or not. I wasn’t the type to stick my face in other people’s
business but this secret I had for him was valuable and worth
protecting. As bad as the rumours were, this was definitely more
terrible than the rumours of him buying green vaginas as
delicacies. It was much worse. Much worse. I swear.

The awkward pause would not end. As a jockey,
riding his horse for victory, with both reigns in hand jerks the
reigns for the horse to giddy-up faster, so was the jerk Qwan gave
my left hand. Sweat beginning to form small crystal balls on his
forehead in the cool church. Persons were tossing in their seats
watching my lips in immaculate silence. I spoke so low the pastor
had to strain his ear to catch what I said.

“I don't know.”

A gawk of disbelief from Qwan. His firm grip
widened and went loose from around my lifeless hand. A surprised
“Huhhh!” escaped from the startled crowd in unison. Their loud gasp
swept across the silent church with a hollow echo ringing through
the tense air of the church. Their frightening shrill made my knees
less strong, they felt like porridge, weak. I tried to keep
standing and keep in my urine.

Dad fidgeted with the sleeve of his oversized
jacket, shoved his hand down his pocket and glanced over at the
bridal party. They all had unblinking eyes and perspiration was
building up on their foreheads.

Pastor Ellis stopped looking through his
glasses, instead he looked over them at me. He pulled his head back
with a short neck movement as he tried to decipher the foreign
language I had just spoken. Mom shouted. It was sharp and piercing
through the pounding silence of the church. It was almost as if I
could hear my ears beating, not like a drum but exactly like a
heart would. Bo-dum! ...silence Bo-dum! Complete silence ...
Bo-dum! Terrifying. Mom’s voice rang in my ears.

“LEEE! Jesus Christ. Mi did dream ’bout this
lastnight enuh!” I knew Mom was obliterated. I knew she was
thinking of Vance. I knew me not saying yes was stabbing her in her
heart with a cutlass. Killing her. I could hear it in the shakiness
of her yell.

Qwan’s neck went soft. He could barely keep
his head up high. Too ashamed to look at the congregation, too
ashamed to look at his family, too ashamed to look anywhere else
but in the gray watery pupil of my eyes. His lips trembled, his
blood too cold to speak. Pastor Ellis adjusted his gold frames on
his nose, trying to clarify what he had heard, he asked,

“What?.. What you mean?”

The shame and embarrassment in Qwan motioned
his anger. He made a powerful swift tug on my hand. Squeezed it
with a hurt-filled and pitiful heart. I felt disgusted at what I
was doing, it was difficult. I could either lie to Qwan and rob him
of his money to save my brother, or tell him the truth, rip his
heart to pieces and watch my brother die. In his eyes were earnest
sincerity and desire to be my husband. His eyes went narrow, half
shut and so intense it seemed as if they were screaming at me. I
felt his confusion, his rage, his hot blood. Munchy snapped a
picture.

My brain pleated in contemplation. Should I
forgive Qwan? But Vance? All these thoughts were flying through my
head in less than two seconds. I couldn’t even process Pastor
Ellis’ question the way I was confused and lost in my own tug
-of-war decision. What the pastor had asked me before? ... I heard
his words, but they just didn't stick to my senses. The flurry of
emotions in my chest rose in a rough tidal wave choking the
windpipe in my neck. If I tried to speak it would sound crackly. I
looked in the crowd. I wasn’t willing to let go my tears; a single
one slipped from the corner of my eye. No yes, no, yes, speeding
through my head. The air started to smell of perfume and old
clothes mixed with perspiration, as if everyone was sweating and I
was certain somebody in the crowd didn't bathe, because there was a
stench of moldy arm, I wasn’t saying that water didn't touch their
skin, but that person definitely didn't bathe, maybe just a quick
wipe up or tidy. The frowsy scent was really close. I think it’s
the pastor. Pastor Ellis didn’t bathe.

The air in the church felt hotter. My neck
sweating. The silence was blank and the congregation was all
staring at me. I made up my mind. What I decided scared me. My
heart’s swirling around in the bottom of my belly. I wanted to use
the toilet.

I breathed out, looked at the time on the
wooden clock. My voice rickety almost clickety clack rather than a
confident tone as I answered louder than I did before.

“I.. I...I” I stuttered, “I don’t know.”

My left hand that Qwan held was like a rattle
snake. I tried my best to keep it steady, tried my best to keep my
eyes out of his. My heart felt the biggest I had ever felt it, as
if it was swollen. My heavy heart crashing in my ribcage with every
heavy thud it made, ‘bo-dum, bo-dum, bo-dum’. Over and over again.
The congregation all together swept another gasp at my answer
sounding like they all sucked in their breaths at once, a big loud
and definitely frightened “Huuhhh!”

But this time they didn't remain silent after
the gasp, instead a sheet of gossiping spread over the stunned
congregation. Everyone was turning their heads around to suss with
whoever they could. I felt embarrassed. The whispering blather from
everyone summed up to a loud scandalous chatter. Shock and
disbelief stood stiff in everyone’s eyes. Mom desperately tried for
me not to screw up everything. She pelted out at the tip of her
voice, almost bursting her lungs,

“LEELIA!”

The tip of Mommy’s Chanel heels must have
been real sturdy how loud it sounded each time her heel hit on the
hard floor running over to me.

She snagged my arm above my elbow with the
brute force of a Pinky. Thoughts racing through her head, she
whispered in my ears, and tears came down my eyes, dripping spots
of water slightly brown from the makeup it rolled over and washed
away. It fell on the breast of my white wedding dress. Mom
asked,

“What about your brother eeh? Vance? You
going make him dead?”

The pink cushion with the ring fell from out
Loriel’s tiny hand. The solid white gold made a soft metallic
dingle when it hit the tile. ‘Bing’...bounced... ‘bing-bing’.
Rolled, fell flat ‘bingy-lingy-ling’. Stopped just by Qwan’s white
shoes. Another loud shout came. From the sound of it, it sounded
like Pinky,

Hey BOM—-!” Yes, it was Pinky.” Hey mad gal
Leelia, stop act like a frigging infidel! You a novice or
what?”

Pastor Ellis’ saltfish breath was urging me
to answer with a roughness “YES or NO ... CHILDDDD!” The tip of his
tongue hit the pink ceiling of his mouth and he held it still as he
prolonged the pronunciation of his last word, “CHILDDDD!”

Munchy snapped a picture.

by: Leelia Lexings

Before I could answer Pastor Ellis, Vance
shot straight up out of his seat. He jumped up so wild and so much
out of control of what he was doing that his hip clashed into the
front row infront of him, bumping it forward and caused the people
in the front row to make some slight commotion. He made a spectacle
as he dug pass everyone sitting in the row to get out. Everyone in
the front row flashed their heads around to see what was the
matter. Why was he so shaken by the whole ordeal? His eyes avoided
eye contact with everyone and he looked over their heads, keeping
his eyes focused on the second door, the same wooden door Ms. Merl
had come through.

He walked brisk, then hurried, ran, then went
into a sprinting dash through the door. The church all wondered
why, but Mom knew. I knew. Mom’s eyes flooded as she watched her
dying son’s back bolted through the door, ran pass the willow tree
and through the church gate.

It was his escape. Too proud to let the
entire church see him crying. He never looked back.

Qwan bent to pick up the ring at the side of
his shoe, but as he did so, he went down slow, as if he was unsure,
his mind telling him let it stay there, thinking, this wedding made
no sense now, already embarrassed, too embarrassed to go on with
the wedding. He stood straight, both hands at the side of his white
pants, none of his hands having the ring. Empty hands. The ring was
there on the tile and we both stared down at it, the entire church
did too. The church was a shuffle when Vance sped through the door
but now, now it’s, it’s silent, so silent. I heard the wind blowing
through the big willow tree, ‘wooeee ... wooeee .... wooeee’ and I
didn't know why, but I took it as an omen, as a sign of warning,
calamity ahead - WOE. I knew worse was yet to come.

In some sort of way Loriel seemed to feel
what was going on, though she was so young. Somehow she could feel
the tension in the entire church, read everyone’s face, no one was
smiling. The skippiness vanished from her face, her little princess
dress was still pretty but her face was not. It wasn’t that her
face wasn’t pretty. No, not that. It was worried, like everyone’s
face in the church was, as if the worry was a contagious disease
and it infected the child. In a hesitant and careful motion, her
small jejune fingers picked up the ring from whence it had fallen
and remained. Mom brutishly snatched the ring from out Loriel’s
hand and stretched her arm at me, the ring in the middle of the
bald hairless portion of hand. The ring had grains of dust clung
around the white gold. It wasn’t glistening much anymore, maybe it
too had a sad-face or a face of worry of what’s to come next. Mom
spoke,

“Here.”

She grabbed my wrist and forced the ring into
my hand. She stared at me stern, penetrated my eyes. Her jaws
tensed and it was as if Mom was sending me a silent message, or
stronger, a silent threat. Of course she was. She had carefully
devised this plan six years ago and today I was on the verge of
wrecking it. Tearing away all her hopes from her chest of saving
her only begotten son.

I looked away from her fiery stare, opened my
hand and looked at the ring. There was no dust on it anymore. It
was glistening, a sign of hope perhaps. More tears came to my eyes
as I realised that my whimpish actions would not only kill Vance,
but I was killing Mom at the same time too. I had to do what I had
to do. Inside, I forgave Qwan for everything he had done. A tear
fell in my hand, and another fell. It made a tiny splash on the
ring. The pastor spoke,

“Ms. Lexings ...” He then paused a beat.

I slowly turned my head up from the ring in
my palm, looked at the pastor, my vision blurry with tears. I
rubbed my wrist across both my eyes, rubbing back and forth as if
dust had blown in my eyes.

A voice broke off the Pastor before he spoke
again,

“Lee, stop behave like mascot nuh!” Everyone
looked at Pinky’s loud mouth, her lips covered in bright red. The
pastor continued his question,

“Will you take him Ms. Lexings?” This time
Pastor Ellis spoke calm and patient, he waited on my reply as he
sensed my battle inside. He saw the bloom of my love for Qwan
conquering all else, waited on my internal turmoil to stop boiling,
simmer, reach to a calm, a solid decision. He stood there
lay-waiting my answer. The entire church did, all waiting in
silence. Munchy tweeted. The yes may have come a long time sooner
if it were Ajrien.

Qwan saw the positive vibe that was returning
to me. His eyes revitalised. Everyone eye’s were staring at me so
intensely that their stares felt like pointed needles sticking all
over and into my skin, even though it was my lips they were all
staring at for my response. As I tried to make my answer come
through my parted lips, my knees felt totally useless and my lungs
were beating like a heart so bad I couldn’t talk. Not speaking, too
anguished to find a voice in my throat, I shook my head, nodding in
approval, yes. I do.

I cleared my choked throat with a “Ahem-em”
and mustered up all the power in my voice to say ‘I do’ aloud this
time, so all the church could hear. I opened by mouth and a
brawling commotion at the church door interrupted. What the hell
was going on?

It was an onslaught of attacking badwords
spleening violently. In a church? At my wedding? The biggest day of
my life? Who the hell was this? I spun to the direction of the
door. The girl had a teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle shape, Donatello.
She was charging into the church, pointing directly at Qwan. A hot
fever took me over as I sensed the cataclysmic mayhem and debacle
that’s about to take place in less than thirty seconds. I grew
cross, angry, miserable, gnashed my teeth. I couldn’t believe the
choice of a scalawag Qwan was cheating with. This definitely didn’t
look good on me. She was nowhere close to my class, not by a long
shot. How could Qwan stoop so low? She was a jezebel.

My body flustered with trepidation and
stirred with discomfiture. And only if Judas was an hypocrite, then
so was I. Because buried inside, I felt a quenching burst of glee,
a cheer, to know Qwan was wrong to have been cheating, it was like
I had recovered from my hesitancy of saying ‘I do’, and now all the
blame was on him. One question was in constant rotation in my mind.
Who is this bitch? Who is this bitch? Who the hell is this
bitch?