PART 1: The Meeting
Out of the thousands of gyrating bodies packed into the Catherine Hall Entertainment Complex, hers was the only one on the verge of collapsing.
She had raised her arms up to the cloudless night sky, consumed by the reggae sounds when suddenly she felt the sensation of a tornado swirling inside her head, reaching into the pit of her stomach.
Beads of sweat popped onto her protruding forehead, moisture gathered in the creases of her thin neck and the pits of her arms which was unusual considering there was a cool draft blowing through the spacious venue.
With no warning, the earth under her feet began to slant sideways. She shuffled backwards and flopped down into a fold-up chair. She begged the tornado rising inside her to be still but the wooziness persisted, threatening to capsize the young lady from her seat. She glanced to her left and then her right, examining the faces of those in the concert crowd to verify if they too felt the impending disaster.
But they remained hypnotized by the musical melee. The steady pulse of the drum beat now felt like a hammer knocking against her brain. She held onto her flame-shaded, ankle-length dress, now about two sizes too big from the weight she had lost over the last few months, as the tornado inside her swelled, drowning out the activity on the stage.
When she felt as if the contents of her stomach would make an appearance right there in the VIP section of the annual Summer Reggae Festival, she knew it was time to leave. She gathered up her belongings but just as she was about to turn on her heels, she heard a calm voice speak her name.
That is not possible, she thought to herself.
This was the first time she had visited Jamaica; she was a stranger in Montego Bay, a Barbadian who had travelled solo for a vacation planned at the eleventh hour. She knew no one here and no one knew her. That was precisely the reason why she had chosen this destination.
She took a few steps and there it was again, someone, somewhere in the crowd had spoken clearly the four syllables of her name. She pricked her ears trying to locate the origin of the name-caller but the thousand-strong chorus of people supporting the performer on the stage overpowered the unidentified voice.
She swung her head around and around and around once more, all but ready to self-diagnose a mental illness when she felt the sensation of the sun pressing itself onto her cocoa-dusted skin. The rising heat made her very aware that someone in the crowd was watching her. Feeling exposed under the stranger’s gaze, she rubbed her free hand over her low haircut and circled the outline of the gold hoops dangling from her ears.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other not sure what her next move should be.
That is when she saw him: the one she assumed was the name caller. She had never seen this man before but the look he gave her, even from the distance between them, told her there must be a bleak air of familiarity. He stood a few feet away from her, resting on the chain link fence used to separate the concert sections. His hands were tucked behind his back, he wore a plain white tee shirt, dark jeans and ankle-high boots. A bright purple tag hung from around his neck on a black string. She was too far away to make out the words written on it but she assumed he was working at the concert.
On his face housed a wealth of beard, he wore locs that were braided straight back and rested on his shoulders. He was slim and his legs carried a slight bow at the shins. Even from where she stood she could see his frame towered above hers. Before she could properly study the features of his face, he turned away, realizing that he had been caught staring at her. She allowed her eyes to remain fixed on him, compelling the stranger to turn around so she could commit his face into her long-term memory. He did, and when their eyes met again she rose on the tips of her toes determined to keep him in her line of sight. She failed when a congregation of patrons swarmed around the space he stood.
When she lost sight of the stranger, she felt the earth tremble under her. The swelling tornado inside her head had returned with a fury and disoriented her further. Her restless stomach stirred as the partially digested food made its way up to the back of her throat. She eyed the exit and hurried towards it, clearing the venue just in time to spill her guts in the bushes outside the main gate.
“Miss yuh sick? You need a taxi?” She gave the heckling taxi driver inaudible confirmation with a slight nod of her head.
As she drove back to the hotel, two things weighed heavy on her mind: the stranger in the crowd and the excruciating pain in her head.
....
Her first act of rebellion, when she touched down in the land of wood water in the second week of July, was to stash the thick, black case containing the plethora of pills and medicine bottles in the corner of the closet in the hotel room. She figured out of sight, out of mind but now, a week later on the morning after the stage show, she still felt suffocated under the presence of this pharmaceutical intervention.
Driven by a determination to be more than just a collection of medical terms scribbled on white-lined paper, she retrieved the case out of the closet and unzipped it with trepidation, half-expecting a wild animal to leap out from behind the zipper. She uncapped each bottle with shaky hands and poured the kaleidoscope of pills onto the bed. There were tiny green ones, plump red and white ones that reminded her of the candy her grandmother gave her at Christmas time, flat white ones, fat orange ones and thin blue ones. There were the yellow pills for pain which, in her opinion, were ineffective, because the ache in her head had never eased any. There were a few more, though she had forgotten what they had been prescribed for. She gathered in her hands as many pills as she could hold and dumped them in the toilet bowl; the tablets transformed the water into a tie dye of colours. She smiled, dumped the empty black case into the waste receptacle, threw on a yellow striped swimsuit and sought out the nearest beach.
She had awoken on Doctor Cave’s beach, later that evening alarmed by a dream where she was drowning in a tsunami of pills. She tried to settle back into the beach chair but once again the tornado feeling began to form in her head.
The thought of being sick in public again made her hastily retreat from the beach and head onto Gloucester Avenue to flag down a taxi. When the car came to a stop meters ahead, she walked briskly to meet it. Glancing into the vehicle from the back passenger window she saw a young man seated behind the driver. He had locs plaited straight down the back of his head with red-rimmed spectacles sitting on his face. Her stomach did a back flip.
“Come, come miss. Get 'en. Me can’t hol’ up here 'hole day!” The exasperated tone of the taxi driver refocused her attention and she pulled the back passenger door of the five-seater vehicle, climbed in and spoke a breathless greeting.
"Good evening."
She felt a familiar heat bearing down on her shoulders and her neck. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, she stole a glance at the male passenger seated to her right. By the third glance, she was convinced it was him- the stranger from the stage show. Despite only seeing him for a handful of seconds, she was absolutely sure.
The ride into downtown Montego Bay passed without a word from the occupants of the vehicle- the only sounds were the incessant chatter from the radio. She had long since passed her destination but her nerves would not allow her to vocalize her intention to disembark the vehicle.
“Do you know my name?” Her question was as abrupt as her stare was intense.
“Sorry?” The stranger from the stage show had finally made eye contact with her.
“Do you know me? Do you know my name?" she asked again.
He looked across at her beyond puzzled.
“Miss ah me yuh ah talk ta?” the taxi driver questioned while looking at her through the rearview mirror.
Before she could the reply to the driver, the stranger from the stage show spoke up, “No. I don’t know you.”
His manner of speaking was a distinct contrast to the madness of downtown Montego Bay- drivers slammed fists into their horns and only removed it to dispense expletives to any neighbouring cars, roadside vendors announced their selection of goods and music blasted from out-of-site speakers- yet his tone was serene.
“I am supposed to know who you are?” His accent was thick even as the patois was absent from his speech.
“I think we saw each other at the concert over the weekend.”
He looked at her again, this time with squinting eyes and a scrunched forehead as if trying to place her face. All of a sudden his eyes threw out fireworks and his thick lips parted into a grin to reveal his spacey teeth.
“Yes, yes I remember you. You were in the VIP section in a yellow dress.”
“Yes I was. Yellow is my favourite colour,” she added playfully.
“I can see that,” he motioned his head toward her yellow one-piece swimsuit partially concealed by a pale-yellow skirt. The fact that she had lost weight and was now down to 120 pounds made her self-conscious under his gaze. Her collarbone was now more pronounced, as were her cheek bones and her chin. She touched the back of her head and shifted her legs to cross each other.
“Yellow suits your beautiful dark skin. You would give the sun competition for the most beautiful thing this side of Jamaica.” When he delivered the compliment his eyes remained fixed on her, giving rise to that familiar heat on her skin. It seemed as if the taxi was now uncomfortably hot.
“You know that I saw you? Staring at me?”
“You did?” his voice dropped a few decibels, as if embarrassed.
“That is why I asked if you knew me cause I heard you say my na… I mean, you were staring like if you knew who I was.”
He grinned again, this time broader, “Let’s make it official then. Nice to meet you. My name is Jeffery.”
When no reply came from her, Jeffery questioned,“So you not going to tell me your name?”
She returned his smile but said nothing.
To be continued ....
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