The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir Read online

  Uncle Hartley rouses the girls and ushers us off to do homework. I marvel that everybody in the house has a bedroom. After homework I watch CNN with Uncle Hartley while the girls shower. I like being at Natalia’s house. I like watching the American news in a large clean living room with an easy chair and remote controls for turning up the volume. I wish I could live here forever. I wish I never had to go back home.

  “Stacey, what is wrong with you? Why are you crying?”

  I don’t realize that my eyes are filled with tears. I stuff a piece of pork into my mouth and quickly mutter something about the food being extra spicy. I take my tray to the kitchen. Then I get my things and tell everyone that it is time for me to go home. When Natalia presses me to call Auntie to ask if I can spend the night, my heart expands and contracts at the same time. But I shake my head no and say very loudly and firmly, “Thank you, but we don’t have a phone. Plus, I really like to sleep in my own room at night. I really want to just go home now.”

  I hoist my backpack onto my shoulders and wave good-bye. My legs feel like lead as I make my way down the asphalt path to the gate. I try my best not to look behind me. But I can’t help thinking that the long, beautiful driveway is even longer when you are walking.

  I hate waking up on the weekend in Paradise Crescent. At night, I can close my eyes and pretend that I am in Montreal. In my dreams I speak fluent French. My mother takes us to restaurants. I have Cheerios for breakfast and we have coats on because it is so cold. In the morning, it is hard to dream with the dirty wooden walls staring back at me.

  Aunt June’s house in Bethel Town had wooden louvers: brown cedar slats separated by thin white strips of light with manners enough to creep quietly and slowly into the room. Not so in Paradise, where, as soon as the sun comes up, the harsh light of morning is immediately in my eyes.

  On Saturdays, Auntie wakes us early. The whole day is filled with cleaning the living room floor, dusting the furniture, and washing all my clothes and my big smelly white sheet. When the washing is done, I pick up garbage and sweep the yard. Then I burn the garbage in the dump behind the house. If it is my turn, I have to cook dinner. By nightfall I am so tired I don’t feel like bathing. I only have time to drag the sheet from the line, wrap myself in it, and fall into bed.

  But Sunday mornings are the hardest.

  Sunday is a day that begs the body to stay asleep. And I am already tired from the day before. The music on the radio is soft and slow. The shops are all closed and people speak in quieter tones. At dawn, the coolest hours of the day, all I want to do is snuggle down under the covers. But no, I have to get up to catch Sunday school. At twelve years old, I know I am too old for things like Sunday school. On Sundays I wake up already annoyed with the day ahead.

  “Stacey! Get up, is time for you to go to church. Stacey, is time for you to wake up! Gal, get up out that bed before I throw cold water ’pon you!” It is not even seven o’clock yet, and Auntie is already shouting from the veranda. I lie there, covered from head to toe, pretending I am asleep. Before long she is in the room pulling the sheet off me. She stands there until I sit up. She drops the sheet on the floor. “I don’t know who in them right mind would put that thing over themself at night. You really come from that nasty China breed that don’t give a damn about soap and water.”

  I am not in the mood to listen this morning. I pick up the sheet and roll it into a bundle. “Please excuse me, Auntie. I think it is time for me to go to the bathroom now.”

  “Put that thing down.” When I don’t drop it immediately, she grabs it and tosses it back on the floor. “I said to leave it there. I want everybody to step over it when them go to bathe. Maybe shame will make you keep your things clean. Only God knows how one little girl can smell so stink!”

  I wish she would just shut up and leave me alone. I drop the rolled-up sheet by the bedside.

  “And make sure this evening when you come home from church you wash that sheet and every piece of your clothes clean, clean, clean.”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  The toilet is broken again. I peel off my T-shirt and shorts. Auntie is right. My clothes do smell like wet dog. I pee in the tub, because I am too lazy to fill the basin and flush. The water is cold, so I just wash the “necessaries” and quickly drag on clean panties. I wish it were Monday and I was going to school instead of church. I have to figure out a way to go to Natalia’s every evening.

  Auntie’s voice pulls me back to reality. “Stacey, is what you waiting on to leave the house? Is almost eight o’clock already!”

  I pull my yellow dress over my head and slip into my white heels. I hate going to Sunday school. I hate heels. And the leather is chipped and peeling from walking the rocky path leading away from the house. Auntie is outside humming one of the Sunday school songs.

  I have a great big wonderful God

  I have a great big wonderful God

  A God that’s always victorious, always watching over us

  A great big wonderful God

  The songs are all so stupid. And the miraculous stories are even worse. Everything about church is beginning to feel very strange. Most of the stories we read in Sunday school are about telling the truth. First we read Bible passages aloud. Then we answer questions about them. The person who gets the most right answers is seen as having a deep understanding of God as truth. The winner also gets to take home a New Testament Bible or a bookmark with a Bible verse printed on it. I usually answer the most questions correctly. But I always want to tell them that the winner of their truth-telling championship is the biggest liar in Montego Bay. And that, often, I lie about what I think the real answers are so I can get the prize that I don’t really want. I am really beginning to loathe coming to this church.

  And I don’t like the way Pastor Gentles keeps looking at me.

  It is the first Sunday of the month, so I have to wait for Auntie while she takes Communion. Glen stays inside with her. I am not baptized yet, so I cannot take Communion. I tell her I am going to wait outside and she looks at me like she wants to hit me, but she just grabs Glen’s hand and moves closer to the front. I make my way to the wall outside, but the sun is too hot. So I steal into the vestry. I hear the droning voice of the congregation singing. They sound like a thousand bees. Pastor Gentles delivers the benediction and the whole church says, “Amen!”

  I know it will take Auntie a while to get out. She has to ask everybody how is the knee and did the pressure go down before she is ready to go home. I lie down on the table and pull my knees up to my chest. My dress falls away from my legs and my bottom. I am enjoying the freedom of my almost nakedness in God’s holy vestry so much I do not hear the door open. I look up to see Pastor Gentles watching me from the doorway. He motions for me to be quiet as he closes the door behind him. He slides the lock closed. I force myself to sit up slowly. Inside my head I am humming “Rock of Ages.” He walks right up to me and tells me he has been waiting to tell me something for quite a while now. I fiddle with my Bible and hymnal and straighten my dress.

  I hold my breath and wait for him to continue.

  His palm on my head is very gentle. “Stacey, the Lord has laid it upon my heart to tell you that he sees promise in you. He has blessed you with a pleasing countenance so you can serve him well. Your body is the body of the Lord! You must learn to surrender it to him. That is why you are not baptized yet. You do not know how to surrender. Let me show you how…” He puts his hands on my head and slides them down my back. Then he grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me to him. His breath smells like sour milk. The scent turns my stomach. He pushes me back and places his hands on my breasts. “Praise be to God, little sister! You have the most glorious breasts I have ever seen on a girl your size!”

  Suddenly something about him seems small and weak. I use all my strength to push him away from me. My heart is pounding, but I am not afraid of him. I pick up the hymnal and point it at him. “Pastor Gentles, if you ever come near me again, I will tell ever
ybody what you just do! And I will even tell them things that you never do! I will say all kind of other things! You should be ashamed of yourself. You are a pastor. You should be different, but instead you just want to do the same things like every other man in the world. You just want to touch people how you want to touch them, and that is not right. I hope you repent before God strike you and send you straight to hell!”

  He backs away and straightens his jacket before he unlocks the door and leaves the room.

  When I get home that evening, I tell Auntie I don’t want to go to church anymore, but she says as long as I live under her roof, I have to do as she says. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, Stacey. It is there in the Bible. If you read it more often you would know that the church is the best place for the young and wayward. It is the only place that going to keep you safe from the dark desires of that young flesh.” I want to tell her about what happened in the vestry, but I already know she would find some way to make it my fault.

  The next morning no one has to wake me for school. As soon as the sun rises I roll out of bed and head to the shower. I can’t move fast enough to get to school so I can hear about Natalia’s weekend. I wish I could tell her about Pastor Gentles’s sour-milk breath, but I wouldn’t know how to say something like that. And since nothing actually happened to me in there, there’s actually nothing for me to tell.

  Let Him Kiss Me…

  Miss Hall, my history teacher, asks when Columbus discovered the West Indies. My hand shoots up. When no one else volunteers, Miss Hall sighs and points to me. I am confident in my answer. “Miss Hall, Columbus did not discover Jamaica. When he landed here, people were living here already. The only reason they not right here in the class is that the Spaniards killed them.”

  “Staceyann Chin, I did not ask for an essay, only a date. Whatever your opinions are about what happened, the first order of history is about dates. So do you know when he landed here or not?”

  “In 1494, miss.”

  “Thank you very much, ma’am.”

  “You are welcome, miss.”

  Miss Hall walks to my desk, puts her hand on my shoulder, and says, “You know, Staceyann, you would be the perfect student if you were not such a performer. It is a good thing you are bright and focused, otherwise you would be a sore on the backside of this school.”

  Her voice is firm, but her hands are kind on my shoulder. I like Miss Hall. She says what she thinks and lets me know that she is not being mean to me. She uses her ruler to gently tap me on the head before she smiles and gets back to the lesson.

  After school I try my best not to go straight home. Sometimes I stop at my father’s store to see April. One evening I actually go home with her for dinner. I chew a mouthful of rice and peas and wonder what my father is having for dinner upstairs. My little brother, Ruel, dashes in and out. I want to talk to him, but I don’t think he would talk me, so I just sit there and chew while he gets his juice and leaves.

  Most evenings I end up at Natalia’s. After dinner and homework, Uncle Hartley gives us permission to swim. I don’t have a bathing suit, so I have to wear my PE clothes in the pool. I think I look stupid swimming in shorts, but Natalia says not to worry, I look fine. I spend a good part of the evening holding up my shorts because whenever I move too quickly they slip down. And the water makes the white T-shirt transparent and causes it to stick to my chest. I ask Natalia if she thinks I am too naked. But she says I should relax and enjoy being in the water.

  Natalia’s brother, Mark, jumps in. It feels a little funny to be so close to a boy with my shorts in danger of falling down, but I remind myself that he is not Andy or Shappy. I am having so much fun splashing and ducking underwater that I stop pulling at the shirt sticking to my breasts. Suddenly Mark points to my chest, laughing and shouting, “Stacey, you don’t see your breasts making a public announcement?”

  I am so shocked I grab my towel and run to the bathroom. I know that Mark did not mean anything by it, but I want to die from embarrassment. I cover my head with the towel and lie on the floor crying. Natalia knocks softly before she pushes the door open. She asks if she can sit on the floor next to me. When I nod, she squats and squeezes into the space between the bath and the toilet with me. My T-shirt is suddenly cold and heavy against my skin. I remember Mark’s laughter and bury my face into the towel again, sobbing.

  “Cho, man, Stacey, Mark was only making a stupid little joke.” Natalia’s voice is soft and cajoling.

  I wish I could tell her about Shappy and Andy. But Natalia’s life is perfect and there is nobody in her house trying to have sex with her. She would never understand anything about my life. I wish she would just shut up and leave me alone. She strokes my hair and tells me that Mark feels bad for embarrassing me.

  I am not crying anymore, but I am still very sore. “Well, Natalia, you should tell your brother that he shouldn’t make jokes about things that him don’t know about.”

  “I know, I know, Stace, but you know boys. Them just stupid sometimes.”

  She is sitting so close to me the hairs on her legs brush my thighs. I hug my knees to my chest and rock back and forth on my haunches. “Natalia, I know you don’t understand, but I just wish I had a real bathing suit. That way your stupid brother don’t have to see my nipples when I am in the pool.”

  Her hand is warm on my knee. “I know, Stacey, I know.”

  “Natalia.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You ever feel like you don’t like boys very much?”

  “Yeah, man. Especially when them being stupid and them thinking that them sooo cool.”

  “Yeah. Like when them think them being slick by touching you and pretending it was a mistake!”

  Natalia bursts out laughing. “Exactly! Exactly!”

  “Talia, sometimes I wish I could just forget about boys altogether and just get married to a woman when I get big!”

  Natalia is laughing hard and holding her stomach. I don’t think it is that funny, but I laugh out loud too. “Can you imagine, Tal? You and me and the priest saying, ‘I now pronounce you woman and wife!’”

  “Stacey, stop! Stop! You going to make me laugh until me dead in here!”

  Natalia gets up from the floor and, still laughing, limps away.

  Days later I hear her laughing and telling the joke on the phone: “That girl is so weird sometimes. She says the most hilarious things.”

  I can tell who is on the other line by how loudly she talks. When it is a boy she likes, she whispers. I listen to her lowered voice and I draw hearts in my notebook. I wonder why she lets me come over so much. I close the book when she hangs up.

  “Stace, guess who I just talked to! Carl Kingsley!”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s his claim to fame now?”

  She falls back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. “He says that he likes my eyes. And my hair. And my eyebrows.”

  “Your eyebrows? That is so stupid! So anyway, what that mean? That him want to love you and marry you and give you two little white children with perfect eyebrows?”

  “I’m serious, Stacey. He just asked me to be his girlfriend.”

  “Sorry, Tal. I was only joking. So how many boys like you now? Seven?”

  “I think it’s eight or nine now, but”—she clutches her chest and sighs—“it really doesn’t matter in light of the way I feel about Carl Kingsley. You know what I mean, Stacey? I think I want to be his wife! You think I should say yes?”

  I suck my teeth and roll off the bed. Natalia pokes me with her toe. “What happen to you now, Miss Miserable?”

  “Nutten. I guess I don’t know nutten about no boys. None of them ever like me because I am ugly.”

  “Staceyann Chin, you are not ugly! And what happen to you all of a sudden? You never care if no boys like you before!”

  “Yes, I do. I want somebody to like me too. But nobody ever will! Because my face is shaped funny and my forehead is big and flat at the same time. And I have pimples—l
ots and lots of pimples. My teeth stick out of my head like scissors. And my feet are like duck feet and my legs are too skinny. And look at my breasts! They are much too big for my body!”

  Natalia gets down on the floor beside me. She is so close I can smell her strawberry-scented body lotion. “Stacey, I have no idea what you are talking about! I mean, you’re not like Miss Jamaica or anything, but you are a nice-looking girl. You have a nice body and you are very bright. And you know more big words than anybody I know.”

  “So you think that I am pretty, then?”

  “I don’t see a thing wrong with how you look.”

  A warmth creeps into my belly. Still, it worries me that I am twelve years old and not one boy has told me that he likes me.

  I tell Nellie, who is my only friend at church, that I think I should get a boyfriend. Nellie already has a very cute boyfriend, Garry, who loves her very much and has told her that he wants to marry her. I worry that I will die without ever experiencing true love. Nellie says I have nothing to worry about, but I know that it isn’t easy to make anyone fall in love with you when you have acne. She suggests we ask Garry’s younger brother, Troy, who is not as good-looking, if he wants to be my boyfriend. I am too afraid he will say no. But she goes ahead and asks him if he likes me anyway. When she comes back, she is all giggles and good news. Troy likes me very much and has asked Nellie to ask me if I want to be his girlfriend. She says I have to give her an answer to take back to him by the end of the service.

  During the reading of the first psalm I ask myself if I could marry somebody with such skinny legs. I stare hard at him and wonder how I would kiss him with that long nose in the way. Just before the benediction he turns and smiles at me. He’s not as handsome as his brother, but he does have a nice smile. I could do worse than Troy for a boyfriend. Plus no one else has expressed any interest in me. I tell Nellie to tell him yes.