8
Adrian
My coming out party, as Nina called it, was a success. Nina and Melanie, under the directing will of my mother, produced an extravagant evening. The gold-and-black theme had been carried through the house at the various stations set up for the guests. The drinks. The cakes. The chocolates. The personalized gift favors.
The best Watkins and Williams’s money could buy. I didn’t enjoy the evening, what with my mother hovering over me pointing out the virtue of every female in attendance. And the matchmaker taking me into the library to meet her carefully curated candidates.
The art of subtlety got thrown out with the bathwater that night.
In the end, I had rejected every overture, every candidate sent my way.
My eyes had sought and stayed with Nina as she replenished the various food and dessert stations with her textured delicacies. All night I fought against my desire to pull her out of the room and make a run for the beach to sit under the stars. So many topics I wanted to bring up for more insightful input from her. I never had to search for things to say to her. She pulled the words out of me without effort.
Instead, I had to fight off models and princesses and Kara Ruggs. Kara Ruggs. My last entanglement. She’d destroyed my BMW M8 competition convertible. She’d had no business being here. I have no idea what my mother’s game plan was.
The evening following the party, I was making my way along the lighted stone pathway to Nina’s apartment. I breathed in the air perfumed from the flowers. I braced my body against the steady, chilled night wind blowing in from the ocean.
Intent on getting to Nina’s door, I hurried through the elegant landscape and ignored the soft romantic lights, and strategically placed ball lights. Watkins and Williams money gets only the best garden features.
I took another deep breath and released it. I’d been holding my breath all day waiting for everyone to get into the cars to the airport. Even my sister, and Jacob—my cousin and best friend, I wanted gone.
Jacob had decided to take me to task for not choosing one of the selected beauties. It’s like he’d forgotten all our conversations over the years. And my sister—she just fell into line with our parent’s decree.
I wasn’t having any of it. As a result, I am mad at my family. And my family is mad at me.
I knocked on Nina’s door plagued by these thoughts.
She opened the door. Dressed in a flowy white dress, gold platform shoes, long gold feather earrings. My heart skipped several beats like a DJ scratching a record. My palms turned sweaty and I had to grip my iPhone to keep it from slipping. My throat felt like a logger had lodged a heavy log down my throat.
“A speechless Adrian,” she said in a throaty, husky voice I hadn’t heard from her before. I stood glued to the doorstep admiring the perfectly styled Nina. Her almond-shaped eyes were dramatized to high effect with shades of gold. With her plump golden bronze lips, and smooth bronzed skin, she’d morphed from baker to a glowing gold goddess.
“Adrian, you can’t stand there all night without saying a word,” she said with a loud flirtatious laugh.
Finally, the log in my throat got dislodged. I took my third breath for the night. “You are so beautiful. After seeing you only in swimsuits and chef uniforms, I am indeed rendered speechless. Forgive my slow recovery,” I said with mock severity.
“You’re forgiven. I am heading out to my twin cousins’ birthday lime.”
“Birthday lime?”
“You who have been to every Caribbean island should have heard and been on limes.”
“Of course. I know what liming is.”
“Ah, liming. Let’s go liming. Yes, I too had to pick up the lingo. The limes in Dominica, and Trinidad and St. Lucia would go on till the sun came up.”
“Sounds Caribbean all right.”
“You did carnival in Trinidad,” she called over her shoulder from the table where she went to pick up her gold clutch.
“I did, with Jacob, my cousin. It was an out-of-body experience. The locals didn’t sleep for seven days straight. For two days after we didn’t leave our hotel room. The bottoms of my feet got raw. My tan turned to its darkest ever. Jacob got burnt beyond recognition. He had to find a dermatologist when we emerged from our hotel tomb,” I recounted, my tone upbeat and playful.
She laughed, head rolling back and forth, finger pointed at me. “What an image. Two white men,” she said still laughing, swiping a finger under her left eye, “in a carnival.”
“We were not the only ones,” I said in protest.
“Sure, defend,” she said with more laughter, covering her mouth and nose.
Her laughing spell over, but still smiling, she said “Are you ready for life outside Skyford Cay?” Her Bahamian accent was stronger with her humor.
After last night, I was ready for anything that had nothing to do with my match-making family.
An hour later, after a detour to the supermarket, we arrived at the twins’ apartment on Cable Beach. It’s a new construction building, modern lines, with views of the ocean. We took the three flights of stairs to the top-floor apartment.
The door opened before Nina knocked. “Look, who’s here—Nina and Adrian. Come straight through. Hi, Adrian. I’m Nicole,” she said, drawing me in for a wide hug.
Before I could compose my response, I was being hugged by another version of the first hostess. “Welcome, Adrian, we’ve heard so much about you. I am Nellie.”
“Come on Nellie, when did you hear so much about him,” Nicole bantered.
I raised one eyebrow at Nina and turned on my smile on the twins, intending to wow them with my charm.
“Aren’t you gorgeous. And your smile is as smooth as velvet chocolate,” Nellie screeched.
“You two sound uncool right now,” Nina said. “Come, Adrian. Come meet the more important people at this party.”
In the next few minutes, I met the twin’s father, Noah, and their mother, Shonia. Even with his bald head, Noah had about two inches on my six feet, one inch. He gripped my hand with both his. I swear my arm was dislocated temporarily. Was he sending me a message with that handshake? His wife, Shonia, held her arms open and welcomed me with a warm smile. Her hair flowed down her back in cascading waves, her make-up was perfect, and her nails were extra-long French manicured with Swarovski crystals set in. They made a striking couple. And the twins had a combination of their best features.
I also met Nina’s aunt, Naomi, and her husband, Kevin. Naomi and Noah had a strong family resemblance. She had long flowing hair similar to Shonia’s, and her nails were done in bronze with red curlicues. Kevin was equally dashing. Tall with bulging muscles. I learned they had triplets, but they were away at school.
During all the introductions, the front door opened and, without anyone telling me, I knew the man who entered was Bishop Rolle, Nina’s grandfather.
He walked in with confidence. A man accustomed to leading, of being seen, of always talking in public. Tall, with salt and pepper hair, he commanded the room, his voice projecting into the room ahead of him as he called out in greeting. Close on his heels was his beautiful wife. She was equally poised and confident; resplendent in a white dress. It struck me then that all the women in the room were dressed in white.
“What’s the significance of the white dresses,” I asked.
“The white is for picture taking since it’s our birthday family lime—emphasis on family. Later we will be out liming for real,” Nicole said, her inflection dropping on the words lime and liming. “But we are also celebrating our cousin’s new job, out at your place.”
“His place?” Nina’s grandfather’s booming preacher voice filled the room with its powerful resonance.
“Yes, Granddaddy. Meet Adrian Watkins-Williams the fourth.”
“There are four of you . . . alive, boy?” he asked, playful.
“No, sir, only three of us left,” I replied, my tone equal to his with banter.
“Will there be a fifth one?” he said and came to stand before me. “How did you arrive here?”
“Granddaddy, stop being intimidating,” Nellie pleaded. “He is Nina’s guest.”
“My Nina’s guest, from behind the walls of Skyford Cay? Didn’t know people left behind there to come out to Cable Beach.”
“Granddaddy, stop,” both Nicole and Nellie said in unison, their voices cajoling.
“Come on, Dad, it’s a party. Let’s extend true Bahamian hospitality to the young man,” Naomi said.
“Sir, it’s an honor to meet you,” I said, extending my hand to his, determined to show confidence and maturity. I pulled myself to my full height to meet the three inches he had over me.
“Drop the sir. My name is Nicodemus,” he said, deliberate and friendly.
“Bishop Nicodemus,” Nina’s uncle said with a laugh.
“He doesn’t have to call me Bishop unless he comes to visit my church,” he said, his tone sincere.
“And none of my grandchildren were in church today. The bishop has no control over his household. According to the Apostle Paul, I am not fit to be a bishop,” he lamented to the room.
“Nina, I see what you meant. He is a true disciple of Paul of Tarsus,” I said to Nina, who had miraculously appeared next to my side offering me a cup of pink fruit punch. I looked at it skeptically. “The other stuff we brought is for later,” she said and pleaded with me with her eyes. I took the drink and decided it would occupy my hands. I couldn’t drink the pink fruit punch.
But I wasn’t about to escape from the Bishop. “You know Paul of Tarsus, Adrian? He would drink the fruit punch without delay,” he said and laughed with a roar which filled the room with mirth. I joined in with the laughter.
“How do you know Paul?” he asked me.
“He is one of my favorite philosophers,” I replied.
“It’s a party, Nicodemus. Can we leave the arguments for another time,” Beatrice, his wife, said, coming to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed the back of his neck. I realized then that Beatrice’s poise and carriage was magnified by her height. She carried herself like a beauty queen.
“He melts every time grandma does this,” Nina said to me.
“Take notes, son. Find you a woman who will do this to you every day. The hug without distraction—just the two of you wrapped around each other for more than a minute. Five minutes is our standard.” His quiet bass was full of sober notes. I didn’t miss the serious teaching moment he’d blessed us with.
“And passionate kisses,” Nicole said, interrupting him.
“The wise old man shall teach the young,” Bishop Nicodemus said, and everyone in the room laughed.
The gathering was vastly different from my coming-out party and my heated argument with my parents earlier in the day. I basked in the love and humor flowing through the room. The bishop and I did get around to our Paul arguments after the cake had been cut and eaten. We started with Paul’s treatise on liberty in 1 Corinthians 9. Beatrice broke us up again and we promised to do a full sit-down argument on the finer points of Paul’s concept of liberty for believers.
By the time we left. I felt renewed in my spirit. For a few hours, I completely forgot I had to choose a wife within the next twelve months, to inherit my trust fund and to take my place in line to be the next head of the giant law firm Watkins and Williams.
For a few hours today, I got to be just Adrian. Adrian falling for another beautiful soul outside of his socio-economic class, outside of his race and nationality. Then I remembered the last one is not true—Nina is an American citizen.
Nina—so calm, so cool, so collected. But she’s so much more. She’s sentimental, due in part to losing her parents. She’s mature and independent with a strong sense of identity. She’s Bahamian and American and Irish. She claims and expresses all parts of her identity without restraint. It’s those traits drawing me in to know her.
I stole furtive glances at her in the car. The driver was taking us back to Skyford Cay. I’d had to convince her to let us use the driver. I did it for selfish reasons, of course. I wanted to sit close to her. Side by side. I convinced the driver to take the long route back.
On the drive back past the flashy new hotels, past the pastel-colored British colonial buildings, I convinced myself there’d be many more trips. I’d feel her smooth leg against mine, our heat comingling. I’d smell whatever scent she would be wearing. Berries, or coconut, or flowers.
It was almost midnight when we got to the front door of Nina’s apartment. The lights were still on in Chef Dominique’s. All the other staff lived off-site and came in daily or when required.
My eyelids drooped with exhaustion while Nina fumbled to open the door. Maybe Paul of Tarsus would have been disappointed with us tonight. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with Nina. I wanted to talk to her until the sun came up. I didn’t want to miss the energy hit I got from talking for hours on end with someone who got me. Someone who asked me intelligent, provocative, challenging questions. Someone with vast knowledge of the world through diverse literature. I’d discover these things in Nina. I ignored the sleepiness and decided to forego returning to my cold room—with the king-size bed under the best mosquito net in the world—to spend more time with Nina. I had a lifetime of stories to share with her.
We both collapsed onto the ugly flowered love seat, looked at each other and laughed with ecstatic joy. I pulled her in close to me and began to tell her of my adventures across the African continent.