The Heart of Revenge (5 page)

All that pain, times two, wasn’t hurting me
half as much as what I felt when I caught Qwan doing the worst
thing ever earlier that night. I could just die. Just fucking
die.

Maybe if I don’t answer Pinky she won’t come
inside the bathroom, or maybe if I shout
‘I will be out in a
minute’
she’d return to the living room where the rest of the
family was. Fat chance! Pinky had not even a crumb of respect for
privacy. No matter what, she’ll be barging through this door any
second. I glanced around at Nathan, pain still firing in my shin,
whispering,

“Quick! ... Go inside the shower, quick.”

Nathan hastened, pulling his pants up,
stuffing down the tail of his white shirt down his pants in a
panicky rush. Pulled up his zipper.

“Make haste Nathan, Make haste. Quick.” I
urged him.

The brisk steps of Pinky’s heel thudding down
the hallway sounded louder and louder as she came closer to
bursting through the bathroom door. The sound ‘clum... Clum
...CLUM!” got more terrifying, I could almost feel the door
swinging open. Me getting caught. The beat of my heart was mighty.
What the hell would I say? Caught by Pinky made it twelve times
worse. Pinky hated my guts for getting the chance to live with Qwan
Douglas in luxury, Stony Hills, uptown, while she starved in the
ghetto, Tivoli, downtown. My heart was skipping beats like a
scratch record, I knew how nasty this was going to be. No, I didn't
hated Pinky, but she definitely hated me.

The calling was right at the bathroom
door,

“Leeeee! You inside the bathroom?” Pinky was
right infront the bathroom door, she raucously continued ontop of
her big-mouth “You nervous till you can’t stop pee-pee eeh gal.”
She burst out in a big mampy-sized laugh, “Or is constipated you
constipated in there? ... PEPTO-BISMOLLL!!”

Pinky tested the lock, it was open. I saw the
handle turning.

Fuck! My heart galloped. I pushed Nathan
towards the shower,

“Quick Nathan.” Poor Nathan got confused,
heading towards the face-basin. I pushed him the right way towards
the shower. He tried to speak but stumbled over his words,

“But...bu-but -bu...” As he disappeared
behind the shower curtain, from the help of me pushing. I dragged
the shower curtain, hiding him.

‘Boow!’

The bathroom’s door blasted open, no knock,
no finesse, no respect for privacy, the typical Pinky, what if I
were on the toilet seat?

“Puss eye gal, what you inside here doing so?
You never hear mi calling you?” I ignored her and tried to look
calm. “How you look so nervous, like you belly taking you, you have
running belly?”

My dress was a little twisted; I twisted it
in place casually, not looking at Pinky, as if I weren’t tormented
by her barging intrusion, but obviously she was seeing some fluster
on my face, at least that was what my guilty heart was pounding in
my ears.

“Is you mi a talk to enuh Lee, you never hear
mi a call you, you think a dog calling you?” She took one step
closer to me, "You couldn’t answer mi?” She was towering over me
with her Eiffel-tower height. Her colourful tattooed hand akimboed
waiting on a reply. I looked up, but not at her, to the mirror,
examining my makeup,

“Yeah, but I was—-”

“But what?” she asked sharply, without even
waiting for me to finish, her long black false-eyelashes not even
blinking.

“Was just wondering about this marriage, I
don’t know if I —-”

“Listen mi little ... spoil gal, a fifteen
grand mi pay Ms. Merl to make mi dress and is not mi getting
married ... You need to cut out you fuckery. You hear mi?”

What was she bickering about? Fifteen grand?
My original ivory satin Chanel wedding dress costed two thousand
five hundred US that’s almost two hundred and fifteen thousand in
Jamaican money. She continued to bicker

“You think money grow on tree?”

“But Pink ... I ...” As the pain stirred in
my shin I could not speak straight, my face grimaced.

“Shut up enuh gal, you a get marri—-” She
stopped talking and popped her eyes open at an object on the
face-basin.

“But wait! ... Is what this? ... Is the
cameraman camera that?” her stare now piercing, eyelashes
unblinking. I tried to hide my guilt, made a limp-ish turn facing
her, looking into her questioning eyes,

“Yeah.” I didn’t realise that Nathan was
trying to pick up his camera when I was shoving him to hide behind
the curtain.

“What you doing with the camera?”

“I borrowed it.”

“For what?”

“What you mean sis? What else? To take
pictures?”

Pictures were there on the camera alright,
but definitely not for my big mouth sister to see, no way, not
Pinky at all.

“Show mi them.”

I didn't move. She looked at me intensely,
grabbed the camera off the basin, started pressing every button. My
heart skipped ten beats with every button she pressed. She kept on
pressing, determined to see the pictures.

“How mi turn on this?” She asked while her
fingers busily experimented with pressing things on the camera that
couldn’t even be pressed. They not even buttons. Immediately I
said,

“The batteries died on me ... That’s why I
stopped.” She looked up from the screen of the camera, looked at me
in concentration then as she seemed to find what she was looking
for in my eyes she began pressing more buttons faster than a BB
texter, and said,

“Is lie you telling, mi don't believe you.”
My heart raced up to my neck as I saw a green light blinked twice
at the side of the camera. I yelled.

“Put it down! Because it more expensive than
your dress, you can pay for it if you mash it up?”

She knew me well. She could sense I was
lying, something I was hiding. The money bothered her, she put down
the camera from whence it came.

“Mi hope you never fuck the picture man on
your wedding day enuh gal.”

“What you take mi for Pinky? Seriously. Mi
can’t believe you said that.”

Even though she was right, I wanted her to
feel guilty for jumping to a dirty presumption like that. I raised
my voice to seem really hurt about it.

She looked back at the camera, grabbed it up.
I yelled,

“Put down the frigging camera nuh!”

"Mi see one button that mi never try
yet.”

“Put it down!”

"How you getting so vex?”

She pressed the button. Nothing happened,
pressed again, a red light blinked. Pressed again, nothing,
continued, pressed again.

“Pinky put down the camera nuh! My God you
persistent. Mash it up, mash it up, ’cause is that you want
do.”

She put back the camera down once more. I
shook my head in disgust and vented,

“Sometimes I wonder if you really are my
sister.”

“If me and you a sister? You trying to say
that you better than mi Lee? You think you better than people
through you go College and live on hillside?”

Something turned inside me. Although I was
sick and tired of this same argument, I was used to it because no
matter what we talked about it always ended up here. Nothing
new.

“No Pinky, why you always bring uptown into
everything? Why you would even think that sluttish thing about your
OWN sister?”

She didn't seem a bit perturbed about her
presumptions. She answered with no emotions towards my
feelings,

“’Cause that is how uptown gal stay... Think
any of you easy?”

“Hug and kiss my ass Pinky! Just get the hell
out the bathroom and don’t let the damn door knob hit you on your
way out. Hsst. You getting mi seriously upset with your stereotype
thinking. The typical botoo behaviour, I can’t expect anything
better from you.” I was pointing her to the door. “Not because I am
getting married and you have two different baby father and none of
them stayed, you jealous like ...”

“You don't hurt up your head ’bout mi an my
babyfather, we is quite alright, ooh. What you must worry ’bout is
your nasty dirty life you living. You and Aubrea is the same
thing.” It was as if Pinky was unloading some bad feelings from off
her chest. “Mi can jealous of you? After you not better than me.”
She stepped closer as if she could just fist me right in my mouth
and said,

“You only marrying Qwan for his money, sell
you selling yourself, at least any man mi sleep with mi did love
them ... not their MONEY.”

I wasn’t pissed. Pinky knew there was much
more to the story, but her mind was bent one way and it made no
sense even trying to teach her anything if Mom couldn’t. Pinky
thought I had a choice not to do it. I, on the other hand, knew I
had to do it, Mommy knew and told me I had to do it and my brother
life literally depended on it. I must marry today.

“So why you have a man if him can’t help you
in life? I prefer do what I have to than breed and suffer for some
careless man that can’t even find food for themself much less buy a
pack of Huggies for the baby.”

Since Pinky wasn’t leaving, I stormed out the
bathroom with a slight limp in my step trying not to let Pinky
notice my bruised shin. Flashes of sex with Nathan brought back
sensations in my belly, I wore a small smile, no one will know what
had happened behind that bathroom door that swung to a close as
Pinky trailed behind me like a chaperon. I pretended to be angry at
her, you know, making it seem real, as if I cared what she
said,

“It’s my wedding day, can you at least be
happy for me, at least once in your life?”

I marched briskly down the narrow baby blue
corridor, the bedroom doors painted in white with gold doorknobs,
then it flashed in my head, Oh Shit! I didn't take Nathan’s BB
pin.

Pinky’s shout from behind frightened me out
of my thoughts, “Sis! Sis! Stop! Wait, wait!” She had a shock
sprawled out in her voice.

I turned a deaf ear to her. Kept bolting down
towards the living-room where the rest of the family was chatting
up an excitement over the wedding. I could barely feel the pain in
my shin as I strode hurriedly. Pinky hastened her steps behind me,
trying to catch up, caught up, she snatched my arm and tugged me to
stop. I had no choice, she was bigger and stronger. I stopped in
the corridor almost reaching the crowded living-room. It was so
surprising, Pinky was whispering, very unlike her,

“Sis, what’s that on your dress?” she was
looking at the tail of my dress.

“I don’t know. What you see?” I was worried
for some strange reason but what the hell could she have seen?
Pinky was trying to figure out what she saw, she spoke in a low
tone,

“How that look like cum so much sis?”

Shit! I didn't wipe Nathan’s cum off my gown.
I baffled for the appropriate lie to tell,

“Huh? ... Nooo. What you talking ’bout?”

“Come here, make mi show you.”

Pinky’s strong hands pulled me closer, I
pushed her hard, she grabbed me, I pushed her harder, she grabbed
me tight, I could not move, she lifted the tail of my gown, I
grabbed my gown out her hands and cursed at her,

“Why you don't just leave mi alone Pinky?”
While I flashed my body in temper. I slightly slipped from her
hand. She snatched high up on my arm, just below my arm-pit, got a
more steady grip of me, rough and powerful, hauled me closer,
squeezing my arm so tight it hurts, “It’s none of your business,
leave mi alone!”

“Leave mi bloodclawt.”

"Is mi nose naught.” That was the best lie I
could come up with on the spot. She wasn’t buying it.

Determined, she stuck her index finger in the
substance, and with a swoop of her finger wiped some of the creamy
substance on the pad of her finger tip. She rubbed the sticky
substance between her index finger and her thumb, testing to find
out if it’s the real thing. She sniffed it, pulled it away from her
face, wrinkled her nose, questioning, smelled her fingers again.
Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as if trying to swallow a
football whole,

“Bloodclawt!...” I yanked the tail of my
dress out of her hand, “Is cum this! ... How you say you never fuck
the cameraman?” She gave a mix-up smile and burst out,

“Mi have to go call Raga ’bout this one here
to rass!”

by: Leelia Lexings

I remained silent, still looking at the
ground, pulling my gown out Pinky’s hand. Mad at her, ashamed of
myself, I wanted to bury myself under the earth out of shame. My
tears about to mess up my makeup. My lips were trembling, hands
were shaking, I was about to have a breakdown on my wedding day. Oh
God please, don't let this happen to me, please. I was wrong and
stupid, please, please forgive me. I know I was stupid, but I was
so angry too, it just got the best of me. I really wanted to hurt
back Qwan and I know how jealous he was. I know jealousy was the
deepest hurt I could cause him and that’s what I wanted, revenge.
To hurt him back the worst way I knew how. But God, what I did was
so stupid. So stupid. The tears trickled out my eyes and unto my
face. I stood there silent, crying, wishing I hadn’t. I could not
answer sis, nor could I look at her. She will desecrate me with her
vandalising mouth, cast an unending spectacle and shame.

Pinky whispered,

“Come sis, make we go clean it off before
nobody see it.”

Not what I expected from her. I budged, then
stopped, stood still in my tracks. I didn't want to go back into
the bathroom where Nathan was. I didn't want to make situations
more uncomfortable with the three of us in the bathroom, and
there’s no telling what Pinky might do in there to Nathan. She’s so
unpredictable. But I had nowhere else to go. Everywhere else was
too lively with family. We hurried back to the bathroom, she held
my hand, we reached the door.

“Leelia! Leelia! Lee!” Mommy’s voice strained
from the livingroom and echoed down the corridor to us. I stopped,
turned towards the livingroom.