Aunty K likes books about Trinidad, is constantly talking about going back, though why she would ever is beyond me. A more fucked-up country I never even imagined. Thank God for Canada. I mean, we’ve got problems, but not Trinidad-level problems.
Now I know more than what could fill an A-cup sparkly bra with tassels. I’m up to a B-cup, at least. Aunty K’s knowledge matches her actual cup size, which is bordering on an H. Christ.
“Richest country in the Caribbean,” Aunty K says, shaking her head. Her hair has long streaks of grey that she doesn’t bother to dye brown anymore. “Pitch, sugar cane, natural gas. Always drilling offshore. It’s a curse. So much money there and everybody wants some. They don’t care about nobody back home.”
And don’t get the roti-shop Trinis talking about the Venezuelans. The moaning about the effect of Venezuela’s collapse on island life is almost a pastime. As if the Venezuelans did it on purpose!
On the top shelf of her bookcase are the family photo albums. Ma doesn’t keep any at home because Aunty K started hoarding all the photos a long time ago. I take them out at night, one by one, and go through them. They’re filled with images of life in Trinidad. By day I go to the roti shop and am surrounded by the West Indian diaspora and their shit talking, the way they sling acronyms like PNM, UNC, DDP, ILP, et cetera. The only thing I understand from the conversations is that Trinidad is the most dangerous place in the world, but also there is nowhere sweeter. In the minds of these immigrants, both of these things are true. The tabanca is real.
Tabanca, if you don’t know, is a Trini way of saying you love something that doesn’t love you back. The island pushed them out, but they still love it.
Nowhere else in the world you can walk to the corner and get a hot doubles, eat it right there on the road. Wash it down with an Apple J.
Where the women are so thick and beautiful you can’t find the like anywhere else. (Although, trust me, never say that to a Bajan. All you’re gonna get is an earful of Rihanna worship for your troubles.)
Where they are so strong you know they can handle whatever weight you lay on their shoulders.
Where they are so dangerous, you can never turn your back on them, not for a second. (The moment you do, they’ll be flinging something at your head, telling people your business, generally messing up your life any which way they can.)
Aunty K comes into the den, which she uses as a second bedroom when I’m here. I’ve already put the photos away and I’m just trying to go to sleep, but I can’t even have privacy for that. In her hands are those tiny cards you get at the paint store. She’s looking at the brightest colour samples, of course.
She switches on the lamp and announces that she’s renovating the restaurant. “What do you think of these shades?” she asks, running a hand through her sharp new bob. Which is now dyed scarlet. A present that she gave herself yesterday. She ducked out of the shop for three hours and came back with a haircut and colour that I never thought I’d see on her. Gone is the muted chestnut of her past and here she is, with a red crown and the matching lipstick.
Now, I’ve seen what we make at the restaurant. Over the years she’s complained endlessly about how hard it is to survive in New York. But that must have changed, because she’s thinking about a renovation. She looks at me, and smiles a strange little smile, an uncertain one. I think she’s about to tell me something important, there’s just that feeling of quiet that comes before…but the moment passes. She turns back to the sample cards.
“Which one do you like better?” she says instead.
I’m asked to choose between a yellow and an orange that both threaten to burn my retinas. So I go with the orange, because it’s slightly more forgiving.
Ma calls on Christmas Day but I miss it because I’m too busy working at the shop. She doesn’t leave a message. Later, Aunty K and I eat leftover roti for dinner and I unwrap a pair of gold earrings from them both. Dangly ones that are too pretty to even think about wearing. Aunty K gets a warm scarf from me. When she asks me what I got for Ma, I say “Nothing,” because I didn’t have time to get her anything before she packed me off and I’m still mad that I have to be here. Missing the gym Christmas party where we all get together wearing something other than tiny shorts. Not even going to Times Square for New Year’s Eve improves my mood. On the packed train over there, Columbus texts me.
I think your mom is crying. Should I go over?
You can hear her? Is she alone?
Yeah, she’s alone.
I think, good. She wouldn’t want you to see her like that. Where’s your mom?
Out.
Columbus is home alone on New Year’s, and so is Ma. Where the hell is Ravi, though? I guess part of me thought that Ma sent me away not just for talking to Pammy but because she wanted to be with Ravi without me there. But it’s not Ma’s style at all to do something like that, and now I feel bad that she’s alone. Even though it’s her own fault. I try to call her but her phone is off. Every call goes to voicemail.
I can’t get her out of my head.
On the way into Manhattan, I couldn’t care less about the stupid countdown. Aunty K is still talking. Several times I try to tell her about Ma alone, crying, but there’s something new and fragile about Aunty K right now. Like the red in her hair hasn’t settled in on her yet and she’s not really sure about it. She keeps fussing with the strands, pulling them forward and examining them. She seems close to tears, too, like maybe she’s only just discovering she wasn’t meant to be a ginger, so I shut my mouth and pretend to be interested in numbers being counted backward. At the stroke of midnight, she throws her arms around me and kisses me wetly on the cheek.
“Aunty!” I push her away and wipe the lipstick mark off my face.
“Oh, live a little,” she says. Which is rich, coming from her. I don’t need advice from a fifty-year-old spinster on how to live. I think she must have read the thought in my mind, in the witchy new way of hers. She turns quiet on the train ride back. Everyone in our carriage is strangely subdued, too, except for a couple having a hushed fight at the opposite end of the car. It’s like Aunty K’s mood has expanded outward like a force field and has knocked everyone into some kind of examination of their life choices.
Or maybe thinking about a whole new year of the same shit does this to everyone. People talk about the New York magic, but I dunno, it feels dark here. Like everyone thinks it’ll be like something out of a film and it’s never what you expect.
Columbus and Noor text me to say Happy New Year, so I text them back. After two minutes of thinking about it, I text Jason, too. I get a fireworks emoji from him, like right away. I know it’s silly and I shouldn’t think anything about it, but it feels nice.
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