My short story “Pinky”
published in Jamaica Observer 10.11.24
Pinky
Cloudy shrouds suppressed the rising sun. Lightning, stretching its fingers across the sky, tore through the grey mass. Pinky sat on a bench on her daughter, Darling’s veranda. She realized her full bosom and underwear were visible through her rain-drenched nightgown. And she was gripping the knife used for gutting fish.
She groaned. How I get here? She rose, stumbled to Darling’s
door, raised her hand to pound on it, and then stopped. Darling mustn’t see me like
this. She slumped back onto the bench, trembling. As the sun pushed
through the thick rain clouds, yesterday’s events began to rewind.
Ahead of her, Melody, Pinky’s bridesmaid, and best friend, stuffed into
a tangerine silk gown, waddled down the aisle, her buxom breasts protruding.
Ha! I beat Melody in the race to get Ruben hitched. Pinky smiled at the thought then glanced at her daughter, Darling, seated in a pew. Darling never smile.
She and Melody
had almost finished their slow walk to the altar during which time her wide
train had been dragged over the wet floor.
Reaching the altar, Pinky gazed at Ruben Peterson, her husband-to-be.
White-haired, and moustached, he was slim,
straight-backed, and seventy-five, with an
ebony-hued face as smooth as cream. His shirt hugged his damp skin.
Sweat ran down Ruben’s face. His
suit sewn by Pinky, donkey years ago, had smelled of mothballs when Pinky had
unpacked it earlier. It fitted like skin. He fidgeted with his tie and adjusted
his suit.
If he sneeze de buttons on he shirt goin’ snap, Pinky mused.
Pinky was tall, plump, and pale, and
did not look a day over sixty. Her cheeks swelled with joy. All eyes were on
her. Her wedding dress had been Melody’s best creation; the beige-laced gown
clung to her full frame. The garment, drenched when she dashed from the car to
the church door, felt heavy on her shoulders.
The organ’s drone competed with the
drumming rain. Hymns sung and rings exchanged, the wedding party hustled out of
the aisles. Branches lashed about as
guests without transport huddled in the church’s vestibule. Pinky and her small
wedding party soon disappeared into rented cars waiting to take them away. Then the cars snailed across town to Pinky’s
house on Garden Street, their horns blaring, wipers battling pelting rain.
Outside Pinky’s house water rushed through open gutters, and trees waved angrily as the wind stripped upturned umbrellas to their naked frames. Ruben dashed to open the front door and Pinky, Melody, and Darling rushed in, the door slamming shut after them. The hired vehicles vanished into sheets of rain.
The wedded couple changed into dry clothes in Pinky’s bedroom.
Then, Ruben headed to the kitchen while Pinky sat on her bed tracing the
intricately patterned lace on her wedding dress. A smile blossomed as she
thought of Ruben. Unlike previous lovers, he hadn’t abandoned her and Darling. Her son had
escaped her grasp by fleeing the island at sixteen.
Pinky recalled the day Ruben first entered the dress shop where she and Melody had worked, sewed, and flirted forty years ago. He had come in to be measured for a shirt. They were not attracted to Ruben at first and ignored his advances.
He had accused them of being “high-yella ”women
who didn’t want him ’cause he was too black. Too poor. But times had changed
over the decades. He had become the go-to shoe repair man, owning the only shop
in town.
In the guest room, Darling and Melody
slipped out of their wet clothing, splashed themselves head to toe with Bay Rum
to ward off fever from the dowsing rain, then
put on one of the many dresses hanging in the closet. Pinky, being a
seamstress, had assembled quite a collection over the years.
“Darling,” Melody whispered, as they dried
their hair, “Ruben know everything ‘bout you’ mudda?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Mama
happy.”
“You’ mudda wasn’t easy, you know,” said
Melody, ignoring Darling’s comments. “Man-man, a Carib, was she first love,” she
continued. “You mudda was eighteen when she set her sight on him. We had wuk
for he mudda. He was stocky and you didn’t cross him. One head butt floor’ you.
Das how he get he name, Man-man. When
she get pregnant, he say he had to marry he own kind. She burn down he mudda’s shop. When people
accuse her, she tell them, The Lord move in mysterious ways. Pinky spen’ few days in
jail ‘cause a man claim he see she in the vicinity. Was his word ‘gainst hers
and the police let her go. Man-man get a
job on a sailboat and never come back.
“Why you telling me all this now?” butted in Darling.
“Cause yo haf to know,” Melody said, barely pausing.
“She left she boy-child with her Mudda, sail to Cuba and find work as a
maid. She just lucky. Not long after, she fall for a handsome policeman, Alfredo. He buy her
a sewing machine and cloth. That catch she heart. On days off she stay with
him. They used to go dancing at a school house near Havana at weekends. She quit work when she get pregnant with you,
Darling. And when Alfredo went dancing without he, it was a stab to her heart.
First Man-Man, then Alfredo. Months later she pour acid in he ear one night
while he sleeping.
“Enough of that,” Darling muttered, “leave
sleeping dog alone.”
Both left the room faces rumpled, memories
reeling with Pinky’s misdeeds, They joined Ruben
who had been warming the food in the kitchen, and poured themselves a tumbler of
rum.
“
Why you faces look so sour?” Ruben asked.
They sucked their teeth
loudly and began to fill plates with fried chicken, meatballs, fish balls, and
hefty portions of potato salad which they carried
to the dining room. Ruben followed.
“Darling, wha’s keeping you mother?”
“I know?”
“Pinky, you coming?” Ruben shouted out the door.
“Say Grace. Go ahead and eat, I
coming,” Pinky yelled from her bedroom.
Ruben squeezed himself between Darling and
Melody. “God bless what we are about to receive.” He winked at Melody.
“For Chris’ sake.” Darling rolled her eyes.
“Amen,” he grunted and
grabbed a chicken thigh from his plate. “The best part of any creature, ain’t
so Melody?”
“You’ thighs in the bedroom,” Melody
chortled. Her plump body shook.
“You looking sweet,
woman, I could eat you,” whispered Ruben.
“Rum talking, Ruben,” chortled Melody.
He sneaked his hand
behind her and pinched her bum.
Melody stamped on his
foot under the table and frowned at him.
“Damn, if looks could
kill. Melody, is me wedding day. Treat me nice, no?”
“Behave you’self, no
Ruben,” Darling elbowed him.
“Mama, you better come. Ruben drunk
and he claws all over Melody.”
An infectious calypso invaded the
bedroom. “Party, party, party, put on
your dancing shoes.”
While tracing the
intricate lace of her wedding gown a deluge of thoughts about the future had
swamped Pinky. She quickly slid off the bed smiling and hastened to the dining
room.
“
Is our dance, sweetheart,” she shouted to Ruben as she yanked
him up and swung him around to the swift rhythm of the calypso. “Hope you
keeping you hand to you’self.”
Ruben smirked as he shouted, “Darling, put on something slow.”
“O.K. Here’s something for lovebirds,” Darling replied. “You’re one in a million....”
Pinky hugged Ruben, closed her eyes, and inhaled his Old Spice
aftershave.
“Old Spice. Me old spice. You ain’t
going leave me, no?”
“No, Sugar.”
She clung to him as they shuffled around the
floor.
An hour later,
clothes sticking to their skin, they stopped dancing and dropped onto a sofa. Ruben reached for the Johnny Walker on
the center table and filled two glasses in front of him with ice and whisky, then
handed one to Pinky.
Darling refilled her glass and
raised it. “To you’ happiness. Mama.”
They stood up, clinked their
glasses, then plopped back onto the sofa.
Pinky rose sometime later and looked
around. Melody had already gone to the guest room and Darling and Ruben were
dead to the world. Too tired to rouse Rueben, she propped him up with cushions
and tottered to her bedroom.
Past midnight the
howling wind and cracking thunder woke Darling. Ruben was snoring on the sofa. She
tiptoed to Pinky’s bedroom, and satisfied that her mother was sleeping, left the house and drove off in her car which she
had parked outside earlier in the day, rain thick on her windshield.
Pinky’s house shook when
thunder cannoned. Lightning ripped the
sky and snatched the lights away. Startled by the racket, Ruben fell off the
sofa, bruising his forehead. He leaned against the center table and raised
himself up to grope his way to a bedroom. Nursing the growing lump, he eased
onto the bed and began to fumble the softness of the woman beside him. He sluggishly unbuttoned his shirt, then
struggled out of his trousers.
“Dumplin?” He snuggled up
against Melody, and fondled her mountainous breasts.
Melody pushed his hand
away and slapped him. “Ruben, what you
doing here? You looking for you death?”
“Come dumpling,” he slurred.
“Give me sugar, no?”
Melody flogged Ruben with her pillow. “Ruben,” she hissed. “Wrong
room.”
He stroked her breasts
again. Heat surged through her body. She
grabbed his head, and pulled him to her.
A loud snore rose from
Ruben’s mouth.
“Chuuups,” she uttered as she pushed his dead
weight off her. “Damn useless. Well, Pinky ain’t gettin’ none tonight.”
Pinky woke when thunder
shattered her sleep. A sheet of lightning slashed the pitch-black night. Ruben
wasn’t at her side. She went in search of him. Irregular slithers of light
guided her to the empty dining room. Then she fumbled her way to the kitchen,
bathroom, and living room. No Ruben. But when she opened the guest room door,
Ruben’s snore assailed her. She felt her
way to the bed. Patting about, her hands touched enormous breasts.
Pinky stumbled back to the kitchen.
A hoarse cry escaped her mouth as she collapsed onto the floor. Her body quaked
as rage surged through her and blazed in her eyes. Past lovers sneered and her thoughts raced with fistfights, fires, and acid. Then she rose, grabbed a knife from the sink, and stormed into the guest
room.
Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and
writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught
in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia (West Africa), England and
Switzerland since 1991.
Althea Romeo Mark is the winner of the Vincent Cooper
Literary Prize.
The Vincent Cooper Literary Prize to a Caribbean author
for exemplary writing in a Caribbean Nation Language (a term used by celebrated
post-colonial Caribbean author Kamau Brathwaite to describe vernacular language
born in the Caribbean). The 2023 recipient is a prize-winning poet and fiction
writer, educator Althea Romeo Mark for her short story,” Saving
Papa Rojas from the Deathbed Flirt.” Romeo-Mark is an Antiguan-born
educator and internationally published writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US
Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in the Virgin Islands, USA,
Liberia, England, and Switzerland since 1991. She writes short stories and
personal essays in addition to poetry and has been published. in the Virgin
Islands, Puerto Rico, Antigua, and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, USA,
England, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Colombia, India, the U.K., Kenya, Liberia,
Romania, and Switzerland. Her last poetry collection, The Nakedness of New, was
published in 2018.
Althea was nominated for
the Eric Hoffer Book Award in 2024 It is one of the most prestigious contests
in poetry. As Kelsay Books publishers stated,” We are happy
to submit your book representing Kelsay Books poetry
collections published in 2023. https://www.hofferaward.com/
She was awarded the Arts and Science Poetry Prize for
poems published in POEZY 21:Antologia Festivaluluiinternational Noptile De
Poezie De Curtea De Arges, Curtea De Arges, Romania, 2017. She was awarded the Marguerite Cobb McKay Prize by the Editorial Board of The
Caribbean Writer in June 2009 for publication (short story “Bitterleaf,”)
in Volume 22, 2009. Short story prize for “Easter Sunday,” Stauffacher
English Short Story Competition/Switzerland 1995; Poetry Award for the poem “Ole No-Teeth Mama,” Cuyahoga
Community Writers Conference. 1974, Scholarship Award. Breadloaf Writers’
Conference. Middlebury College, Vermont, USA. 1971.
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