Chapter 3
THREE
ARIELLA
Lara still doesn’t know that Honey is gay?
Is the first message that comes through as I touch down at Louis Armstrong New Orleans. I love it when Caleb gets gossipy and I’m ready to dive into the juicy details with him until I stop myself and craft a more restrained response.
No. Why?
A message comes straight back.
They’ve been spending A LOT of time together.
Really? Still?
Yup and I think our Lara might have a crush. This is going to be hard to watch.
…and challenging to keep our lips sealed! ??
I chuckle as I finish it with a stressed-looking emoji. As always, Caleb has managed to pull me in. The ‘our’ Lara did it. She belongs to both of us. I really want to share what happened with Maximilian with Caleb, but I know nothing good will come of it.
I know! How is your gigi?
Just getting into arrivals so I haven’t seen her yet. She’ll be great though.
Ok. Have fun. I’ll leave you to it.
I instinctively type ‘I love you’ and catch myself before I send it. I delete it quickly. I do love him still, but it would be unfair to send mixed signals.
When Dominic asked if I could join him to help get through his parents’ anniversary, I was ecstatic to discover that it almost coincided with my gigi’s flight to the UK for Zachary’s wedding. Getting precious alone time with her before the wedding was a gift.
When I see my gigi’s silver hair neatly parted into the two French braids she always wears, my feelings can only be described as joy. Her tiny frame is comically dwarfed by the huge suited gentleman she is standing beside and laughing with – she always makes new friends wherever she goes. I smile to myself as I notice that she is wearing the Converse I sent her for Christmas with high-waisted jeans, a billowy blouse and a sun hat. I quickly deduce that she was in her garden before she came to the airport.
‘Gigi!’ I smile. Her love hits me before she even looks at me.
‘Ariella!’ she calls fondly. I am now much taller than my gigi, but when she wraps her arms round me I feel like a child again. Her warmth envelops me with such an intense shroud that I feel like I could burst into a thousand tiny lights.
My gigi was my very first best friend. For as long as I can remember,weshared just as many hours with me on her lap as we traded secrets andgotup to mischief. I especially loved that she was usually the instigator of enacting vengeful acts against Mommy. She actively encouraged me to keep a list of Mommy’s transgressions and, as soon as she arrived for a visit, I would hand my list over. She’d inspect it carefully, always adding a couple of her own grievances, before we’d spend the whole of her visit hiding one thing or another that belonged to Mommy. It used to drive her crazy. My gigi especially got a kick out of when we were enlisted to help find the missing item we’d hidden. Even at this age, with our thirst for vengeance gone, she is still the only person that I feel that I can trust unreservedly with the contents of my mind.
After our embrace she holds me at arm’s length to appraise me, stopping at my head. I know what she is going to say before she says it.
‘What have you been doing to your hair? A bird is going to make its home there soon if I don’t sort that out! Come on!’
We walk hand in hand out of the airport and make our way into the car park. I spot Grandpa Spence’s Shelby Cobra. It’s going to be a frightening ride back to hers. Grandpa Spence loved cars and treated his Shelby Cobra like a particularly delicate child. After he died, my gigi treated it with a level of disrespect that would make my grandfather consider haunting her. If he isn’t already. Mommy and Daddy insisted on buying my gigi a more practical car a few years ago to keep her from casually cruising around New Orleans in a car worth so much, but she won’t be told.
‘Gigi, why aren’t you in your new car?’ I ask, worried.
‘Your grandpa Spence kept this tin can in the garage and only used it for special occasions. Look where that got him. I’m going to enjoy it,’ she says with a laugh, taking a sharp corner. I know exactly where Mommy gets everything from. Her. My gigi has a heavy foot that she happily uses to speed out of the airport, and we make it to her Garden District home in no time.
‘Meet me in the conservatory, let’s sort out whatever is happening on your head.’
I know the routine, so I drop my bags, and grab a towel and an old T-shirt from the drying cupboard. Then I make my way to the large glass conservatory that overlooks the huge, colourful garden. My gigi is already sitting in her chair, with towels draped everywhere. She has an array of combs and hair products sharing a coffee table with a jug of ice-cold lemonade and glasses. A comfortable cushion waits for my bum in the space between her feet on the floor and I happily find my way over to sit on it. She carefully and lovingly unfurls my hair and starts to section it.
‘Your hair is really dry, Ariella,’ she admonishes softly as she tenderly applies her home-made treatment to a section she has isolated and starts working it through. The familiar smell of the coconut from the treatment fills my memory with warm highlights of all the times we have sat like this, laughing and chatting. I look across to an empty leather recliner and Grandpa Spence’s absence hits me hard. I want him back in his chair, reading bits of the newspaper out to us while my gigi and I debate, gossip and agree over its contents. I try to wipe a tear as subtly as I can.
‘I miss him too, sweetheart,’ she whispers into my ear. ‘So, what are you trying to find on the other side of the world that can’t be found at home?’ She finishes masking and combing the first section of my hair, puts it in a loose twist and lays it over my shoulder carefully before she starts to work on the next.
‘I don’t know, Gigi. I think I am trying to find out if I can stand alone.’
‘Well, I’m glad you got away from that Jasper boy.’
‘Gigi!’ I laugh. ‘I thought you liked Jasper.’
‘I seem to remember telling you to dump him.’
‘Yes, at Grandpa Spence’s funeral. I just thought you were being emotional and slightly racist.’
‘I wasn’t being racist!’
‘You said I should dump that white boy,’ I remind her.
‘Was I wrong? I’ll admit he was a good boy, I just didn’t like the way you followed him around. It held you back. You are meant to destroy barriers and conquer new worlds.’
‘I’m not doing either of those at the moment, Gigi. I’m actually struggling a little in Singapore.’
‘Struggle and hardship is in our DNA. It runs through our blood; but so do perseverance, drive and victory. You don’t need me to remind you that you’re here because the enslaved that make up our bloodline survived capture, crossing the Atlantic, and enduring the dehumanising slave markets and treatment that animals must never be subjected to. We made it because of them. Even when we managed to buy our freedom, it wasn’t over because we had to help those who couldn’t achieve freedom in other ways. And it still isn’t over. I was twenty when that King boy had a dream, and we’re still getting choked and shot in the streets. We were victims of their hate, then we were victims of their violence – and now we’re victims of their guilt.’
I hear the anger rising in her and feel it as she completes the twist of the section she is working on in half the time the other took. Whenever my gigi talks about our ancestors, it always invokes a deep need and responsibility within me to be better, work harder and push further to make my existence worthy and meaningful. She makes me feel like I’m not here just for me, I’m here for them too. I love the part of me that comes from Gigi, but, whenever we have talks like this, it’s hard not to remember that the blood of the perpetrators flows through me too. The challenges Mommy and Daddy faced by choosing each other is no secret in our family.
‘Gigi?’ I call quietly.
‘Yes, baby?’
‘Is that why you’re angry with Daddy?’
I love my gigi but her coolness towards Daddy has always been an obstruction that we all have to navigate around. I’ve wanted to talk to her about it for years but have only now found the courage. She is silent for a few seconds, then she sighs.
‘I’m not angry with your daddy. I’m still angry with Dee Dee though,’ she admits quietly, using my mother’s childhood name.
‘Why? I know they didn’t tell you when they got married…’
‘No, Ariella. That’s not why I’m angry. Your mother knew better than to abandon her family to follow some man across the ocean to a country she had never been before. It was the worst thing she could have done to us.’
‘She said she felt she had no choice.’
‘She was engaged to a very nice boy. We had a date picked out already. Then out of nowhere she brings your daddy home and your grandpa Spence didn’t take it very well.’
‘What happened?’
‘Grandpa Spence pointed a shotgun at his temple. He explained that he had a twitchy finger, acres of land that could use some fertiliser, no neighbours to intervene and the stain of war. He gave him five minutes to get off our property and told him he never wanted to see him again. Dee Dee was pretty upset, but we didn’t expect her to go to college after her break was over and never come back home.’
‘She didn’t tell you she was leaving?’
‘No. Dee Dee was naughty right from when she was born. Cried like she didn’t want to be here. From the minute she could speak, she was always running that little mouth of hers and getting into trouble for talking in church. Questions. Always questions. She would regularly disappear, get into the communion wafers and stuff her little cheeks so full she couldn’t even chew on them. She wasn’t even cute-naughty, she was naughty-naughty, so I knew she was going to be trouble.’ Despite the words, affectionate laughter escapes from my gigi, then she continues. ‘I was just hoping it was trouble she would use to help others – but what she did was heart-wrenching. For a very long time, we didn’t know how to deal with the pain that our daughter was gone.’
I want to bring Gigi back from the memory, so I try to focus on the positive.
‘What brought you back together?’
‘Your daddy wrote, and wrote and wrote. We got a letter about once a week, with news, where they were living, what they were doing. We never wrote back once, but the letters kept coming. Finally, when she became pregnant, he started to phone. The first call was difficult. He admitted what they did was wrong and asked that, even though we may hate him and he may never be forgiven, we find some space to love our grandchild. After that, he phoned us every day, we would have little talks with both of them. It ended with your daddy begging us to come. So when Zachary was born, we did.’
‘Oh, Gigi.’
‘I know it’s been decades and I really should get over it, especially as it has brought you to me, but it’s hard to unsee and unfeel.’
I hear Gigi exhale deeply to let her feelings go before she changes her mood.
‘I’m excited to get on the plane for Zachary’s wedding. I was so pleased to hear that he is marrying a nice West African girl. Are you still messing with white boys?’
‘Gigi…’
‘What’s his name?’ I feel her roll her eyes behind me.
‘Caleb.’
‘How is this one different from the other one?’
I catch myself smiling and a little giggle escapes.
‘Jesus, take the wheel,’ I hear her murmur.
‘Anyway, MrRamon isn’t black.’
My gigi flicks the comb on to my shoulder.
‘Ow!’
‘What do you know about MrRamon?’
‘I know he’s invited to the wedding and he isn’t coming. Why don’t you bring him, Gigi?’
‘He changes my light bulbs and is handy around the house. There’s nothing more to know about MrRamon.’
‘I know he’s been around changing the light bulbs quite regularly, since two years after Grandpa Spence died. I also know that those are LEDs and they don’t need to be changed for a very, very long time— Ow!’
I get another flick of the comb.
‘MrRamon is Puerto Rican, he’s mixed – and besides, he’s just a friend.’
‘Okay, Gigi,’ I chuckle.
‘You want hair left on your head after this?’
I say nothing else as I smile silently to myself. We all know MrRamon is her boyfriend. Gigi is beautiful and deserves someone who makes her feel that way. Over the years, we’ve observed the six foot plus, handsome, distinguished, kind, quiet gentleman support, spoil and be there for Gigi. We are all happy for her, Mommy included; but, for whatever reason, Gigi refuses to admit it. I bet he turns up tomorrow to fix something and say goodbye before we head to the airport.
I decide to focus on romances that do not involve her and MrRamon, and home in on the gossip from her circle of friends.
‘How was the church trip to Vegas?’
‘Great. The girls and I gambled the whole trip and only made it to the brunch at the House of Blues. Oooh! Miss Margot got herself into a situation-ship with Deacon Corrigan from the Baptist church across the way.’
‘No!’
Miss Margot was the sweetest little old lady with iconic church hats and a blond wig that made her look like an older Mary J.Blige. She was quiet and frail and always had candy in her purse at church – not someone you’d readily associate with a ‘situation-ship’.
‘Uh-huh. He apparently just happened to be there. We think they planned it. At least it’s an improvement – she met the last guy at a funeral and had to go on antibiotics.’
I settle down to enjoy the news from the surprisingly promiscuous elderly community my gigi belongs to as she finishes masking my hair. It’s always much more scandalous than I could imagine. When my hair is fully masked, she places a shower cap over my head to steam the products into my hair before we go through her closet together, picking outfits for the wedding. Isszy’s family insisted on having African print couture made for Gigi, so she was asked to send her measurements. We have a lot of fun as she tries the outfits on. Each fits perfectly. The fabrics are heavy and colourful and I feel myself radiating admiration as she exudes regal beauty in them.
Besides gossip, what I love most doing with Gigi is cooking, so, when packing is over, she suggests we head to the kitchen to cook before I wash the products out of my hair. Delighted, I happily skip after her. Frustratingly, she never measures anything, so it’s impossible to record her recipes, but it all ends up tasting consistently and reliably incredible. Like magic, it’s a bit of this and a bit of that, some of this and just a pour a load of that in, and it’s always perfect. I’d never dared to replicate any of her recipes until Dominic came over one evening a couple of weeks ago. It was a ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ and ‘thank you for my island birthday’ dinner when I moved into my new home in his community.
The memory of that night is now tainted by Maximilian’s words. My gigi catches my eyes filling before I get the opportunity to blink the tears away.
‘What’s wrong, baby?’ she asks, concerned.
‘Someone said something terrible to me when I was in Maine and I’m not sure how to process it.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They called me a gold-digging house Negro.’ I let my head drop.
‘Oh, baby.’
Gigi walks round her cooking counter to give me a hug in her warm and love-filled kitchen. I stay in her safe arms for as long as I can and allow myself to break down and cry, letting the hurt release itself freely.
‘The fact that you are here, now, hopping over the world, sharing spaces that were never intended for you, being free in this home right now, holding on to me without fear or restriction, is a victory, sweetheart. We have the privilege of being able to choose what our lives look like without interference from others. You are the manifestation of your ancestors’ brightest dreams. He just sounds like the manifestation of his ancestors’ darkest. There’s only one way to beat a guy like that, and that is to thrive; and that is exactly what you are doing. So, keep doing it.’
It was exactly what I needed to hear, and it makes me hold on tighter to her.
‘Okay. That’s enough now.’ Gigi rubs my back lovingly. ‘If you make that fiery lamb of yours, I’ll teach you my jambalaya. If we don’t eat too late, I’ll put cornrows in your hair and tell you all about when your mother brought her first boyfriend home.’ She finishes with that naughty titter that fills me with excitement.
The rest of the evening goes by in a peaceful blur, and, by the time I wake up the next morning, the wound Maximillian left – while still present – now feels more bearable.
After breakfast, as we make preparations to leave for the airport, the doorbell rings. I open the door to a smiling MrRamon.
‘Ariella, you look more and more like Grace every time I see you.’
‘Lovely to see you, MrRamon. Please come in.’
He takes off his fedora before stepping into the house – he is so elegantly old-school. ‘She says you’ve been running a company all by yourself in Singapore. You’ve grown into such a confident young woman. Grace is very proud.’
His words make me feel warm inside.
‘We’re leaving for the airport soon, so you’ve just caught us.’
‘Yes, I’m taking you. My car is outside.’ He points to the front door with his hat so sweetly, I hope Gigi isn’t playing with his feelings.
‘Can I get you a drink, MrRamon?’
‘No, thank you. Is this your bag?’
‘Yes, it’s a little heavy—’ I start reaching for the handle.
‘I’ve got it. It can’t be any heavier than Grace’s bag when we got back from Vegas.’
I stand there in shock for the entire time it takes for MrRamon to load the first suitcase into his shiny black vintage Chevrolet. I decide to say nothing about MrRamon’s little revelation as we put the rest of the bags in the car, and commit to my silence for the quiet ride to the airport, even when I catch him throwing affectionate glances Gigi’s way. My resolve to say nothing is broken when he has helped us to check in and he gives Gigi a light, tender kiss on her temple to say goodbye. Embarrassed, she shoos him away and walks quickly through the first flight checkpoint. It’s not until we’ve taken off and are settled in, champagne in hand, next to each other, that I tell her what I know.
‘Gigi, you didn’t mention that MrRamon came to Vegas too?’ I ask, cheekily, wiggling my bum in my seat in anticipation.
I see her suppress a smile successfully. It’s very cute.
‘Ariella Hope…’ she starts.
‘Yes, Gigi?’ I ask, leaning towards her, ready for her admission.
‘Keep your little nose out of grown folks’ business.’ She winks at me, before reclining and shutting her eyes. She’s happy. That’s all I need to know.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I reply, grateful for every second that I get to spend with her.