After a while, it was either I go to church or we always arguing about it, because she feel I is “acting like I is a woman” since all I do now is hang out with my cousin and his Rasta friends, plus I stopped eating meat and ain’t straightening my hair. She sentence me to weekly services to “put me in my place.” I beg Queenie to ask Mama to let me choose. But Mama got her husband now—a husband that she find in God’s house—and she and Rupert insist, since I is in they house, I must go to they church.
And that is where I find Neri.
I saw her right away on my first visit to church. I liked how she opened the doors for all the grandmas. After some weeks, I saw she was always wearing something yellow—whether it was a yellow suit or a yellow scarf or yellow blouse. I noticed that and brought her some yellow flowers from Queenie’s yard one Sunday, and she hugged me and I was fluttering inside my body. Every Sunday, she sang real pure and close her eyes. Her voice sweet and perfect and angelic from Goddess. And she noticed me too. After we saw each other a couple of Sundays, she would find me and sit next to me.
Neri was my mother’s pastor’s granddaughter, and I loved her on sight.
One day during service, Neri held my hand where no one could see. I was feeling something when she did that, like it a special moment. I thought maybe it a church thing people do, I ain’t know about, and I loved it. The energy in our hands was singing a gospel the whole time, and I felt the sermon through her palm. My mother’s God’s grace in Neri’s hands. I get real religious after that. I ain’t never kissed nobody before. I ain’t even feel I wanted to kiss anyone before. But Neri made me wonder: What would it feel like to kiss her right on her mouth? I ain’t know what to do with the feeling so I pushed the thought back out of my head.
Church became actual church to me. In my head, I renamed it C.H.U.R.C.H., which stood for “Come Here U Rebel, Come Here.” I knew I was a conjurer and feeling weird for being there and finding Spirit. But Queenie had always told me Spirit is everywhere, and that since I was going to church, be open and see what is there to learn about the Spirit of Jesus and the way the Christians try to understand the divine. So when my heart start tingling, I ain’t surprised that I found Spirit in church with Neri.
One day I decided to take Neri to the ocean, by where Queenie live. It is a private spot that emerges from a walk through a thick grove and a narrow path. We convinced all the adults—and ourselves—we was studying the Bible. I was in a Sunday dress, pink and ugly and making me look like a tall five-year-old. My glasses are old-school frames that used to be Queenie’s, but I like them better than the new styles. My mama hates them, but she never get my style anyhow. I thought I looked funky and original. Neri looked more sophisticated in a navy skirt, with a cream blouse and a yellow scarf, and in her braids she’d tucked yellow flowers that we found on our walk to the water. I laid a scarf for us in the sand. I kicked off my shoes and took off Neri’s shoes too. Pretty feet, I thought. I held she foot and sang a song. She giggled and swung herself closer to me. Hip to hip, she leaned her head on my shoulder but then caught herself and sat back up.
The ocean witnessed us, and as I sat there with Neri, I felt shy. The water blue was loud and welcoming, like a long-lost tantie. She came close to touch us, then receded back into herself, almost as if to get a good look at us, and then she lunged for us again. I laid my head in Neri’s lap and I was surprised when she glided her hand up my back and played in my little Afro. Inside of me started dancing and I felt alive and I faded into her a little.
The water came for our toes, and I told Neri, “This is my real church.” I wondered what she thought. She was quiet but nodded.
Being by Neri felt sweet, and I started to shake a little, as if I scared. I didn’t want to leave her for any reason. “Audre, you lookin’ sad. Just watch at the ocean. Listen to these seawater hymns, nuh?” said Neri, smiling at me and then looking at the water all the while she was making an instrument of me. Stroking my earlobes with she fingertips, twisting little twists in my ’fro and loosening it, sweeping she hand on my face and neck.
When the moment opened up, we both fell into each other. She grabbed my hand and I felt the ocean talking to us real deep inside. Church. My spirit found rhythm with the water and Neri’s breath. I overwhelmed my good sense and kissed Neri’s hand, then tucked myself back into her lap. She lifted my head up and looked into my eyes. Then she leaned down and kissed my mouth. This the first time anybody kiss me. I was trembling. (I am trembling remembering it.) I stopped breathing for a little moment. The ocean kissed our toes. Her lips on mine were a warmth, and my body started to bloom within her arms and melt in her skin. And from then on, love was all we knew how to do.
* * *
• • •
We “study the Bible” by the ocean for three months. My mama was happy thinking I finally accepted Jesus and finally have a church friend—any friend at all since I ain’t really close to anyone in school either. (I is cool with people at school, but I always feel like I is a different type of person and no one there really get me. I have Epi, who is my cousin, but more like my big brother, and Queenie, who is my grandma but also feel like she is my sister-best-friend and even a mom to me.) Neri was different though, she was a girl my age and I felt a closeness with her that was new and special.
And every Sunday, we went to the ocean, explaining to everyone that we wanted to study the sermons deeper. “Apply the gospel to our hearts.” And we did, in our own way—talking about life and our families and our secrets. We worshipped in each other’s arms with our own devotion, sand in her braids and my Afro, our Sunday dresses wrinkled. We peeled down to our underwear and swam in the water and floated on eternity, together. We lay out under the sun and dried, together. She held me in her arms and smiled at me and her eyes made me feel like she really, really saw me. We packed up everything, smoothed our dresses, and headed back to our different worlds. Until that next Sunday.
Between Sundays, I was my usual self but different. I enjoyed everything about life because I was thinking of Neri. As usual, I got good grades in school and was helping around the house, but now I avoided talking back to Rupert even though he ass still a idiot. Now I smile at he and do what I asked to do.
Between Sundays, I hung out at Epi and he girlfriend Sarya’s place only occasionally and not every chance I got. Mainly I went to see what Epi was cooking up new and to hear gossip from he and Sarya.
And even though I was going to church on Sundays, every Saturday don’t change. Since I was nine, after chores at my house, I was doing my lessons by Queenie and learning about herbs and baths and rubs and songs, of the spirituality my grandma created for she self and share with me. One Saturday, my grandma felt a feeling and begin to investigate me.
“So you find Jesus or you fall in love?” Queenie asked me, while we in the backyard bottling her homemade bush-plum wine, doing we usual thing of making and studying and just being together. She caught me off guard, as I was thinking of Neri and singing a song from church.