Levi’s hazel eyes were genuine and kind, and pooling with tears when he said “I do.” Then it was my turn. With my emotions steady and my eyes dry, I repeated, “I do.”
Dylan’s band played four sets of classic rock that molested the posh walls of the art gallery. My boisterous father, a man of a million talents and the only person guilty of drinking more alcohol than me, auctioned off my “something blue” garter for a couple hundred bucks. I tossed a bouquet of white roses to a slew of tipsy girls, then true to my wild roots, I tipped back another bottle of wine, no glass required.
A few hours in, I was desperate for a moment of solace. I weaved through the remaining swarm of family and friends, exchanged pleasantries, told them I had to pee, and then quickly excused myself. In the full length mirror that was propped against the back wall of my designated dressing room I admired my whimsical gown and skinny silhouette, but was mortified by how much make-up had melted down my forehead and cheeks. I sifted through a mound of jackets, purses, and decorations to retrieve my make-up bag to paint my face back on. On the floor in front of the mirror, I blotted the oily mess on my forehead, wiped the orange looking bronzer from my brows and erased the smudged black eyeliner from beneath my eyes.
“I’m a fucking Zombie bride,” I said to the mirror in a drunken slur.
When I was satisfied that I no longer looked like a rodeo clown in wedding dress I pulled out a tin of Altoids, ate three, smelled my armpits, and plumped my hair. I gathered up a wad of my dress, reached underneath and pulled out the mega wedgie I hadn’t been able to get to with all those eyes on me. I was relieved, and annoyed. I liked wearing my yoga pants and gel sole Asics. I realized the formal wedding theme was not my style after all.
Exhausted, I sat at the large oval table in the center of the room, laid my head on my forearms and closed my eyes. I held in the unexplainable tears that tried to sneak past my lids, not knowing what exactly I was crying over. The room spun like a vinyl record and a shrill ringing from inside my head was painfully sharp in my ears.
That’s when I saw him.
The next thing I remember was waking up on a bed in a motel room, still in my dress. Drunken amnesia shielded me from the extreme embarrassment I should have felt after vomiting in the hallway outside the honeymoon suite. And instead of making love to my new husband, he spent our wedding night sopping up my regurgitated spinach quiche as I lay passed out and drooling. I did regain consciousness for a brief moment, picked up my head and saw Levi and Lissy kneeling outside the hotel room door scrubbing the carpet with bath towels.
Eventually Levi removed my quiche and carrot cake spattered gown. I held in the urge to heave as he moved my limbs and wrangled with the dress. I was already a terrible wife—a dead, lifeless corpse. From day one he deserved better than what I could give him, he deserved someone who could love him wholeheartedly and without any doubt.
I apologized to Lissy later that week, thanked her for assisting on the vomit squad and asked her to keep my shameful secret in her vault. I never knew if Grant showed up or not. I didn’t find out that he did until five years later.
***
Levi and I flew seven hours into the heart of the Caribbean. Despite my previous misgivings and drunken fiasco of a wedding night, I internally renewed my commitment to Levi, to Dani, to my little nuclear family. I felt thrilled to be married, to finally be able to say the word “husband” instead of “boyfriend.” Then, only on this sick and twisted planet, in Bob Marley’s country of one love and where “everything’s gunna be all right,” fate mind-fucked me again.
My excitement and fresh start faded fast when Grant showed up on my honeymoon.
***
I’m sorry it took
me so long.
Chapter 8
“RESPECT WAS INVENTED TO COVER THE EMPTY PLACE WHERE LOVE SHOULD BE.”
—LEO TOLSTOY, ANNA KARENINA
The water was glass-bottle green and I could see the island rising out of the ocean as we approached. A lush, prehistoric rain-forest blanketed the mountains over Montego Bay. Ah…Jamaica, the land of no problems…?
A man in a dirty island shirt and blood shot eyes lurked behind us as we walked through the airport. “You smoke?” he asked.
“No. No, thanks.” I turned and smiled, then kept clunking my luggage across the tile.
“Aw, everybody smoke,” he said, still following me. “How about some nice pineapple? You like pineapple? Everybody like pineapple.” I walked faster. Levi walked slower, trailing behind clumsily like he was wearing socks with his flip flops. “I got the pineapple crush,” the man said holding out his hand. As if I would touch his sweaty palm and get a closer look at his dirty fingernails. I kept walking. “You’ll like the pineapple crush,” he persisted, unscathed from rejection.
“No…No thanks.” I dashed for the tropical air and eventually he gave up, trading us in for another young couple that looked like they too were on their honeymoon.
The unfamiliar heat penetrated my black yoga pants as soon as I stepped outside. It was a welcome feeling on my cold, pale winter skin.
“Damn, it’s hot.” Levi said, in his usual slow-talk style that not only showed up in his speech but in the way he walked and lived. Living slow was his lifestyle, and talking slow was his vernacular. It infuriated me and made me scream out loud get to the point! But also made us an instant targets for dozens of eager pot farmers looking for buyers.
“Hey…waz up?” A tall, black Jamaican man reached out his fist to Levi, then me. Without hesitation, he went right to his pitch.
“I’m a farma’ you see.” He shrugged his shoulders, and pumped his hands like he was jamming to reggae as he talked. “I grow the ganja—I grow the good stuff, not like you got back home. Where you from?” He lowered his voice and raised his eyebrows, “You like the ganja?”
“No.” I said, which meant nothing because rejection was no deterrent.
“Yeah…you like the ganja…” He said to Levi in their shared slow talk then laughed and made gestures with their thumb and fingers as if smoking a joint.
“You like pineapple?” He asked me, unrelenting.
Who the fuck doesn’t like pineapple? And when I say yes, he’ll try to sell me some. Um…
“No. No thanks.”
“Wha?” He said, too lazy to enunciate the “t.” He took a step back, looked me over and dropped one shoulder as if to say Damn girl, why you gotta be like that. “Damn, everybody like the pineapple. You don’t like pineapple?” He said.
I gave him a tight lipped smiled. “Nope.”
He flipped his dreads behind his back, then turned to Levi. “Whaddabout you man, you like the pineapple?”
“Naa, I’m with da lady,” Levi said, in his one-of-a-kind, molasses slow dialect. “She makes the rules you know.” He continued, then he held up his palms and shrugged.
After the third hustle, and the fourth or fifth time being asked if I liked pineapple, I began to understand that pineapple didn’t refer to my favorite golden juicy fruit, but that it was a pseudonym for the islands actual largest exported commodity.
We loitered around in Jamaica for a week. Most days consisting of nothing more than making a deeper imprint of the vinyl beach chair on my ass. We sampled the local fair and sipped the sweet libations of Appleton rum. I spent the week ferociously intoxicated and because it was Jamaica, an indiscernible amount of high.
Levi and I hiked up the slippery, moss covered rocks at Dunn’s River Falls. The falls plunged hundreds of feet from the top of the rain forest into the mouth of the ocean. Mist lingered in the air and droplets of rain trickled down around us as we reached the thick canopy. It was one of the most romantic places on earth, and there, at the top of a spectacular waterfall was a farma, waiting for us like a hungry cannibal, needing what we had and willing to do anything to get it. He was ready for our rejection, so when we didn’t buy any pot, he had something else to offer.
“Pretty lady,” he asked, “What’s
your name?” His seemingly harmless pearly white smile shone even whiter next to his dark skin.
“C.J.”
Then he turned to Levi for a quick fist bump. “What’s your name brother?”
“Levi.”
“Levi,” he repeated, nodding his head, “A name for a king. King Levi and his queen C.J.” He rummaged through a satchel looped around his neck.
“No thanks.” I said preempting, refusing whatever shit he was about to sell us.
In the time it took for me to realize what was going on, it had already happened—he’d carved my name into a hunk of wood. A talisman like thing that resembled a Lincoln Log. I never saw it coming and apparently neither did Levi since his name was also carved into a second hunk of wood. We’d been duped, and the harmless looking man with white teeth and yellow eyes, was now demanding money for his carvings.
“Queen C.J and King Levi,” he said looking at his work, “These are one of a kind, I can’t sell these to nobody else. You pay me, and we both get something good eh?”
Fuck. I thought, next he’s going to pull out a knife, stab Levi, steal my bag, and leave us for dead. I pulled out three twenties from my bag, his asking price, handed it to him, and he handed me the two juju voodoo dolls with our names carved into them. As I examined them closer, I realized there were other names that had been carved on there too, other victims he’d tried to trap, then covered their names with ours.
The tar asphalt burned the bottom of my feet when we reached the parking lot. “Hey, you need taxi? I get chu a taxi. You smoke? I’m a farma.”
“NO!” We both yelled in frustration.
That night, my crimson skin stung as I took a shower. I looked at my bikini lines in the bathroom mirror and wondered how I could be so white all over in the winter. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, towel drying my hair, when the phone rang.
“I’ll get it,” I said. “Hello?”
A familiar larger-than-life voice yelled into the phone, “C.J.! Jamaica-me-crazy mon!”
I acted drab and boring, un-amused at his un-original joke so Levi wouldn’t accuse me of having a better time with Dylan than with him, or accuse me of being nice to everyone else but him. Secretly, I was rolling with laughter.
“Hey Dylan, what’s up?” I said.
Dylan exaggerated every word, “It’s so nice here, seven miles of white sand. You gotta come see this. How is it where you are?”
“It’s fine.” I rubbed my wet hair in the towel, keenly aware that Levi was listening. “We’ve pretty much stayed on the resort, but we did go to Dunn’s River Falls today and got fucking ripped off by some jerk who carved our names into Santeria voodoo dolls then made us buy ‘em for sixty bucks.”
“Same shit here,” Dylan said. “C.J., you guys gotta come here. It’ll be so fun for us all to hang out in Jamaica. We’re going out tonight, come with us!”
“Dylan, it’s my honeymoon.”
“Bring Levi with!” Had I been alone, I would have swam to the other side of the island to be with him.
“Dylan, you’re two hours away,” I pleaded, hoping he would stop asking. “Any other time than my honeymoon…and you know we would, but we’re beat for the day. Have fun, be safe, okay? Love you.”
I loved being with Dylan, and it pained me to say no to him. We were bonded by the blood sausage and cooked brains dad made us eat when we were kids. We understood each other.
“Come on, when will we ever get to do this again?” He persisted.
“Dylan, I can’t believe you booked a trip to Jamaica in the same week of my Honeymoon. What’d you expect? Maybe we’ll come there tomorrow.” I lied.
“You better come tomorrow,” he said, his voice threatening. “Everyone’s asking where you’re at.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Grant,” he said, “and Paul, and Eric. C.J., everyone wants you to come here. I’ll call you tomorrow okay?”
He’s on my fucking honeymoon!
I couldn’t go anywhere near the other side of the island, definitely not now. I listened for Grant’s voice in the background. Catching flecks of his familiar tone filled every cell in my body with a nervous anxiety. My insides shook at the thought of Grant thinking of me or asking about me.
I cleared my face of emotion, hid any feelings that might have accidentally surfaced in my expressions. Levi was listening. “Who else is there?” I asked and Dylan confirmed what I’d wanted to know, it was just a guy’s trip.
I didn’t answer the hotel phone the rest of my trip and my cell plan didn’t cover calls in Jamaica. I was unavailable to further temptation and turmoil. That night, I erased the thought of Grant with copious amounts of rum, and apparently I smoked a blunt too.
By three in the morning my new husband had the entire hotel staff looking for me. In a stupor, I’d walked away without telling anyone. Levi found me just before dawn, sleeping on a plastic beach chair a few hotels away, my head and body wrapped in navy blue pool towels. For the rest of our trip, he tethered me to a beach chair while I continued to drown myself in the all-inclusive drinks.
I thought about Grant, about the times we made up silly games and laughed until our stomachs hurt, and the way his hands felt against my skin. Mostly I pondered why he kept showing up in my life and why I had such an unbreakable attachment to him.
I saw a movie once, where a newlywed couple went on their honeymoon and the bride had sex with their scuba instructor with her flippers still on.
To make my marriage work, I had to avoid Grant.
I didn’t trust myself.
***
We r so great 2gether and
for 1 another. I adore
u so. Goodnight babe.
Chapter 9
“IF I COULD BUT KNOW HIS HEART, EVERYTHING WOULD BECOME EASY.”
―JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
The following summer Grant was still single and all of my well-intentioned attempts to extinguish my attraction to him were epic failures.
I’d yet to see him with a girlfriend. So with Levi chronically absent from the cabin, Dani occupied with my parents each weekend, and Grant always around, our friendship flourished.
I whined as I handed over the air rifle, “Can we please just be done so we can jump in the lake now? I’m hot.” Why don’t you just let me win, isn’t that what guys are supposed to do?”
“But you said not to,” Grant shouted.
“Girls never tell you what they really want. Don’t you know that by now?”
He smiled and swept his foot across the grass, ignoring my comment.
Our game of Horse was at a draw, we both had S’s, and our pop can target was shredded beyond recognition.
“Let’s call it a tie so we can go down to the lake and use those floaties I saw in the front yard,” Grant said.
“Sounds great,” I said. “As long as you know that I know it’s not really a tie. I let you have that shot.”
“Whatever! It hit the can.”
“No, it grazed the can. I gave you that one.”
We sat hip to hip on the cooler arguing about all the times he’d cheated when we played games and how superior he must have thought I was since he felt he had to cheat all the time. We drank our beers halfway down then began our thing. Just after we mixed the bloody in our Coronas, I heard a truck nearing the driveway. Before it registered that I should get off the cooler and move away from Grant, Levi’s pick-up pulled up beside us. He didn’t have to speak, his eyes revealed his fury. I knew it! That’s why I came here, you bitch!
A thunderstorm descended on me, the sky turned an ominous gray, and the temperature dropped to a damp chill when he stepped out. Levi stared through me. I was guilty, and we both knew it.
Like a dog that had destroyed the kitchen cupboards and eaten the couch, I sat waiting for my punishment. Sensing how unwelcome he’d just become, Grant slid away almost undetected, headed for the dock and hopped in the getaway boat.
***
&nb
sp; At the very least we were guilty of having a flirtatious friendship; at the most I was liable for an emotional affair. Beyond that, we hadn’t done anything…yet. Levi made a few more surprise visits that summer to check up on me, but his unannounced drop-ins weren’t enough to deter my forbidden friendship with Grant.
All summer we spent time in the boat and in the water, blowing up water balloons, or decorating the boat for the Independence Day parade. We played silly made-up games like who could balance on one foot on a tree stump or hula hoop while playing ladder ball, hula-ball, we called it. He cheated at scrabble, Uno and Battleship. I won at bocce, Horse, and thumb wars. We shared hours in the sun with friends and family and a few stolen moments when we were able to be alone. No matter where we were we gravitated toward each other; if anyone else had noticed, they didn’t say anything.
Grant told me about his family, let me into his life, introduced me to his mom and her tiny toy poodles—baby gorillas, he called them. It was that summer when I came to know two things for certain:
(1) I wanted to live, really live before I die. I wanted to know what it feels like to be loved by the man of my dreams.
(2) Levi was the man I couldn’t live with, and Grant was the man I couldn’t live without.
***
The sunset was spectacular from the lakeside patio and our friends and family had gathered to look at the shades of tangerine and pastel pink painted like a fresco across the sky.
“Hey…” Grant whispered, tipping his chair back, closer to me and out of earshot from Dani and Dylan. “My cousin Glen is growing weed out on the point.”
My face twisted. “Really?” Is he really going to ask me to smoke weed? Grant…smoke weed?
I was sixteen the first time I smoked pot. When you’re a teenager with no strong convictions about religion and God, smoking pot in the pastor’s yard next door to our cabin was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I tried it a dozen times or so after that, before I decided it that made me stupid, fat, and paranoid.
Affairytale : A Memoir Page 5