AncilChapter 16: The Negotiation
Waking up felt weird and I didn’t mean that in a figurative way. It literally felt weird. My back, my neck and my shoulders felt as though they were pummeled by an angry gorilla overnight. I rose up at around 9am and I was instantly welcomed by Kate’s absence and the annoying, squeaking noises of the springs which could have been likened to the screeching of a car. I made my way to the washroom area, brushed my teeth with an encased toothbrush that I had found then headed out into the living room area which was surprisingly empty. There was a little boy sitting watching television but that was it. I did hear talking though so I followed the sounds to the galvanized area where we first met Juliet. I began scanning the area and I saw a couple children playing but the place was still rather empty in comparison to the other night. My scanning of the area instantly stopped when I noticed Kate and Juliet sitting on the floor scratching away at a coloring book. Kate wore the same jeans overall but Juliet seemed to be in some form of uniform: a blue overall skirt with a white shirt below. And to top it all off she had a white ribbon in her hair.
I walked up to them and joked, “aren’t you too old for coloring books?”.
“You’re never too old for a Scooby Doo coloring book,” Kate said.
“Sounds about right,” I said, making my home on the floor between Kate and Juliet. I raised my hand for a high five and said, “what’s up Juliet?”
Juliet looked up at my hand then at Kate as though she was waiting for some sort of confirmation. I must admit, I felt slightly insulted. She completely ignored my high five and went back to the coloring book.
Kate shrugged with a smile then said, “Julie got a day off from school today. Tanty Mavis allowed her to stay home to hang with me. Isn’t that awesome?”
“Yeah, awesome,” I said. “Well, I’ll just leave you two ladies here to have fun.” I got up.
“Where are you going?” Kate asked.
“I’m going to grab something to eat then head over to the Hyatt to get my stuff back. I really hope they let me in without a keycard.”
“Good luck.”
I went to the kitchen and Tanty Mavis instantly offered me food. It was bread and fried egg, again. While she was scraping up the fried egg from the pot she marveled over Kate’s ability to make Juliet smile. She seemed almost too happy about the whole thing and who can blame her.
After eating, I asked Tanty Mavis for directions to the Hyatt and then headed out the road in the hot morning Caribbean sun to the hotel. Halfway through the gate Jenna came running up behind me and said, “Tanty Mavis tell me to go with you to show you where the taxi stand is.”
“She told me that it was walking distance,” I said.
“Yeah, it is but I don’t think you want to endure a twenty-minute walk in the Trinidad sun. Trust me, I’m a professional.” Jenna spoke a bit more proper but her Trinidadian accent was still plainly heard.
“Lead the way,” I said, gesturing her to start walking.
She started walking, leading me down a hill and there was a bit of a pep in her step as she skipped down. My eyes naturally gravitated to her butt which, to be honest, looked pretty good in the short baggy boy shorts she wore. But the last time I looked at a woman’s butt I ended up almost killing her with alcohol induced hypothermia so I quickly turned away in order to spare Jenna the not-so-pending tragedy and started looking out at the houses about which all looked pretty old. While observing the houses my mind naturally strayed to Sam and her current state. I was trying to leave the thought of her behind but she was my best friend and I just couldn’t help but feel as if it was all my fault.
On the side of the road, there were a few people just sitting on the pavement for no particular reason and they jolted me out of my thoughts of Samantha. They weren’t talking, or at least when I got there. They just sat there staring at me with angry and grimy looking faces that made me a bit uneasy. I quickly turned back my attention to Jenna’s butt because it was definitely more pleasant than the faces of the goons. Jenna was unfazed by the men. We passed them and we walked in silence for a while till Jenna turned around to face me and began walking backwards. “That girl, what’s her name again?”
“Kate,” I said.
“Yeah. I really amazed by her,” Jenna said. “On her very first day she was able to make Juliet smile. We was trying for years to do that and she just come and do it in one day.” Jenna stopped walking backwards and walked besides me. “I remember it had a point in time where Tanty Mavis used to actually delegate time to everybody with she to try and get she to smile but everybody fail. Not one soul in the shelter coulda get she to smile. It sad.”
“Whatever happened to her?” I asked.
“You mean besides the abuse?”
I pondered for a while then said, “yeah.”
“I don’t know. Everybody in the shelter have problems but we could still smile at the end of the day. The thing about Juliet is that she went from one extreme to the other. I remember the first day she come to the shelter. Her mom come rushing through the door crying with she five year old daughter and bawling ‘Oh gawd!! Oh gawd!! My baby going an’ dead’. Juliet was the five year old and she eye was bleeding. Like REL BLEEDING! Tanty Mavis take she and was telling she mother to take her to the hospital but she keep saying ‘I can’t I can’t’.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Something to do with she man. I think she was afraid that the doctors start asking questions and call the police. She was trying to defend she man. The same man who gouge out Juliet eye. I don’t mean to be rude but I think the mother is the real jackass here. I could blame the father but the mother real foolish for letting it happen and not reporting it to the police.”
“And where’s Juliet’s mother now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She leave the same night saying that she woulda come back but she never did. Juliet was crying for days, weeks for she mother. When I say cry, I mean REL CRY!! We couldn’t even sleep at night fuss she cry so much. She eventually stop crying but the pain still remain you know. She went from being loud to barely saying a word. She just used to stay by she self all quiet and no matter what we do we couldn’t get she to smile.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. So I sure you could understand why I’m so amazed by Kate. She was able to do what none of us could do.”
“I don’t know how she does it. I guess she just has a way with words,” I said.
“She’s your girlfriend?” Jenna asked.
“You can say that.”
“You sounding like you not sure.”
“I am sure. It’s just that sometimes I feel like a waffle,” I said.
