On Time (Persaud Girl)

by Teisha Mott

  “I forgot to pick up my credit card from my cousin,” she apologised to the annoyed looking cashier, as she dug around her handbag in vain trying to find some loose cash. She needed only $1,136.56 more. That must be lying in the floor of her bag. She found fifty dollars and a pack of gum. Klao looked around in desperation. The express line behind her had grown longer and was snaking almost to a candy display.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t find any money,” Klao whispered, wishing for the first time in her life that she was not a Persaud. Persauds did not need to carry around a million and one credit cards. They all had a charge cards that debited money directly from the current account of their trust funds. As a result, they did not need debit cards or credit cards or check books. If she was a ‘regular person’, Klao thought, at least she would have one of those crappy little lovebird KeyCards with the $40,000 limit that Marlene always maxed out.

  “You can’t pay for the goods ma’am?” The cashier asked, and giving more attitude than Klao thought was called for.

  “If you give me a minute, I can call my cousin or someone…” Klao began rooting through her bag again for her BlackBerry. Maybe Marlene was nearby. She could rescue her with her pretty pink and blue and orange Lovebird credit card, provided it was not maxed out. Of course, her phone was not in her bag. It was in the car, under the cigarette holder, where she had flung it after Bianca had hung up on her.

  “This is totally effed up!” She thought, as she heard hisses of discontentment coming from the throng behind her.

  “Void!” The cashier bellowed. “Ricky, pack out back the things. The woman can’t pay for them.”

  Ricky, the bag boy, gave Klao a look of total pity, as mortification flowed through her veins. Crap like this had never happened to her in all her twenty-six years and three months of existence. Her eyes filled with tears. This was definitely punishment. If she had not coveted Bianca’s engagement, and forgotten to go and see her that evening, she would not now be facing the greatest humiliation of her life. Thank goodness she was not easily recognised as a Persaud. Imagine the horror when the snarky gossip columnist, Tattler got the story that Klao Persaud could not find $1,436.56 to pay for her groceries. Her entire family – from Kingston to Montego Bay to Ocho Rios to New York and Connecticut would be embarrassed…

  “No need for that. Just add her stuff to my bill.”

  Klao looked at her saviour – the one to whom she had been so rude five minutes before. He was offering to pay for her overpriced, too-sweet Häagen-Dazs ice cream and her dog’s treats. Talk about heaping coals of fire on your enemy’s head – one of James Dobson’s favourite topics.

  “That’s fine,” Klao told him, trying to salvage some self-respect. “You don’t have to do that…”

  “But don’t you want your ice cream and pet food?” He asked.

  “I can come back and get them tomorrow…”

  “Nonsense! You can get them now….”

  “I don’t want to be obligated…”

  “You can always pay me back!” The guy pushed his few items – a pack of Ovaltine biscuits, a hand of ripe bananas and his tub of grapenut ice cream – down the checkout conveyer belt.

  “What you doing, Miss?” The cashier asked.

  “She’s adding her stuff to my bill!” The guy responded for her.

  “Wait a minute…” Klao began, as the cashier started swiping his items. “How am I going to pay you back? I don’t even know you.”

  “We’ll just have to fix that once we go outside, now won’t we?” He gave her a cheeky wink.

  Klao just stood there as Ricky packed the guy’s items into a separate bag. She watched him pull a tattered brown wallet from the back pocket of his even more tattered jeans and rifle through it, looking for cash. He did not have enough to pay for everything – perhaps if he did not have to pay for Klao’s too – so he handed the cashier a bright red Scotiabank visa classic card. The cashier swiped the card. It was almost instantly approved and he signed illegibly on the dotted line. Finally, he grabbed his groceries and Klao’s.

  “Thank you, and have a good evening!” He told the cashier. He smiled at Klao. “Come on Yzma. Let’s go.”

  Klao had no choice but to follow him. “What did you just call me?”

  “Yzma,” he repeated, as he allowed the boy at the door to sign his receipt, not forgetting to say ‘thank you’ and ‘good evening’. “From that Disney cartoon? ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’ – scary beyond recognition. You’ve never seen it?”

  “I’ve seen it.” Klao took her bags from him. “But I really do not think I’m scary beyond recognition.”

  “Oh yeah?” The guy asked. “If you ever see how screwed and puffed up your face is!”

  Klao instantly relaxed the muscles in her face, which had indeed been tense. Her mother always told her that she had a sharp, ‘don’t mess with me’ look, and that if she did not stop frowning, she would not be pretty when she got old.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said after a while.

  He shrugged. “No big. I didn’t want to see a miss tough girl like you cry.”

  “I will pay you back,” Klao reminded him.

  He shrugged again. “Only if you insist.”

  “Do you have a card or something, so I can know where to find you?” Klao was impatient to get away from this man in his no named jeans and with his tattered wallet, who had helped her out of a bind. They were standing outside of Megamart, and in the flood light, he was not that bad looking. Maybe he was even kind of attractive. And he was pleasant, but he certainly was not her type.

  “I don’t have a card, but I can give you my information.”

  “Sure!” Klao said. She pulled out her notebook and a pen. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m Matthew St. James,” he told her. “But my friends call me Matt. Let me write down my number.”

  “Do you work anywhere, Mr St. James?” Klao asked primly as he wrote. “That way I can have my bearer drop the cash off to you at your office tomorrow?”

  “I will be on the road all day tomorrow,” Matthew told her, handing back her notebook. “And please, call me Matt.”

  Klao decided in her head that she would not be calling him anything at all, but did not say so, lest he insist on following her home and claiming his $1,436.56 in cash or kind. Minx was great company, and as cute as a button, but he was worth squat as an attack dog.

  “What about Wednesday? Will you be in office on Wednesday?”

  “I should be -- all things being equal,” Matthew said. “But suppose I picked it up at your office tomorrow when I am on the road?”

  Klao thought a bit. She would be in court for a good portion of the day, and if he had plans to stalk her, she would sic the security guard on him. Marco knew how to deal with difficult people.

  “That’s fine,” Klao said. She reached into her purse and fished out one of her Reyes, Green and Associates business cards. She handed it to him. “You can pass by at your convenience.”

  “Reyes, Green and Associates – Attorneys-at-Law and Notary Public,” he read. “Klao M. Persaud – Associate.” He looked at her stunned. “You’re Klao Persaud?”

  “Yes, I am,” Klao responded calmly.

  “Your family is on Forbes 500, you are a Lawyer, and you cannot afford dog food and ice cream?”

  “I can afford them!” Klao clarified. “I just forgot to pick up my charge card from my cousin.” She looked at him. “What? You’re sorry you rescued me, now that you know that my family is ‘richer’ than God?”

  “You’re not quite there yet, Klao,” Matthew pointed out. “God still has ‘a few more’ possessions than your family. And wealth neither impresses nor scares me. I, too, am related to a very wealthy man.”

  “Who? Sushil Baghaloo?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Richer.”

  Klao was puzzled. The only man in Jamaica who was wealthier than Sushil Baghaloo was his best friend, Ravi Persaud, her grandfather, and Klao was sure Ma
tthew was not related to her.

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow,” Matthew tucked Klao’s business card into his pocket.

  “Perhaps,” Klao murmured. “Thanks again!” She resisted the urge to run to her car, but instead walked very briskly.

  When she looked back, Matthew St. James was walking behind her. He’d caught up to her just as she had deposited her bags on to the backseat, and gotten into the driver’s seat.

  “Are you following me?” She asked him.

  “For what?” He asked.

  “Then why are you at my car?”

  “Actually,” Matthew disarmed the white Tiida. “I’m at my car!”

  Klao could not believe it. He was the miscreant who had parked over the line. She was even more annoyed with him now than before. “Typical!” She spat, starting her ignition.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Have a good night, Mr St. James!”

  Klao rolled up her window and sped out of Megamart’s parking lot, leaving a cloud of dust, and a curious Matthew St. James behind her.

  27

  On Time

  chapter three

  “Are you talking to me yet?” Klao nervously arranged her pencils in the pencil holder on her desk and waited for a response.

  “Klao, I cannot do this right now!” Bianca responded.

  “C’mon, Bee!” Klao pleaded. “I tried calling you all night last night, and you weren’t answering me. I told you I was sorry, and I really didn’t mean to forget you last night. And trust me, I’ve been punished in more ways than you can even imagine, so you have to talk to me!”

  “Klao, I really cannot talk right now!” Bianca repeated.

  Klao frowned and adjusted her BlackBerry to her ear. “Bee…” She paused when she heard wailing in the background. “Where are you?”

  “At the hospital,” Bianca told her. “I’m in the nursery, and its total chaos here. I can’t even hear myself think. Let me call you back.”

  “Please do,” Klao told her.

  She hung up from Bianca, glad that she was not a doctor, or worse, a paediatrician. How annoying it must be to be around heaps of bawling, sick babies day after day. Although she wanted children of her own, Klao knew that it would not be more than one. ‘One pregnancy’, Darrin reminded her constantly. Her father and Aunt Phoebe were twins; Dylan and Darrin were twins. It was not unlikely that she would have twins. Klao shuddered at the thought of having twins. In no way did she want two Caitlins running up and down her house, traumatising her and her dog.

  There was a knock on her office door.

  “Come in,” she said, thinking it was probably her secretary with the notes she needed to read over in preparation for court in an hour.

  Her office door opened she almost fell out of her chair when that Matthew fellow from Megamart came into her office.

  “What the f…”

  “Hello, Ms Persaud,” he said, smiling at her.

  “What are you… Why are you…” Klao was struggling to stand. She only had on one shoe and her wide backed leather chair suddenly got very slippery.

  “Your secretary let me in!”

  “My secretary let you in?” Klao asked incredulously.

  Matthew nodded. “Yes. I told her I was here to see you, and she directed me to your office.”

  Klao was beyond shocked. She had hoped he would come when she had gone to court, so she would not have seen him. But this guy had a knack for getting in her way. There he was, standing in her office, again wearing his nondescript, no-name jeans. She did not like him one bit. And why the dickens did her secretary let him in without informing her first?

  Matthew was looking at her. “You did say I could pass by today…”

  “I did, but…”

  “May I sit?”

  “Yes, please!” Klao motioned to one of her clients’ chairs. She was slowly regaining her composure. “Let me get your cash.”

  Matthew sat and looked around her office. She had a nice, cool, eclectic office painted in bright colours, with sharp-edged, new age furniture and abstract prints on the wall. She had photographs of her family on her desk, and her framed degree on the wall. Her courtroom robe was hanging behind the door, and she had a long pencil shaving that she refused to throw out hanging off the side of her sponge-bob square pants pencil cup. From her office window, she could see the Kingston harbour and the airport runway. She could see Matthew taking in the casual funkiness of her office and her phenomenal view. He looked comfortable eased back in her chair, and strangely, his comfort was making her uncomfortable.

  Klao picked up her desk phone and dialled the accountant’s office. “Anella, it's Klao. Can I have the $1,500 I requested this morning? I need it now.”

  Anella promised to take the cash to her office in a minute, and she turned her attention back to Matthew. “Sorry I made you have to drive all the way down here.”

  “I was coming downtown anyway,” Matthew said with a shrug, and Klao could not help but notice how often he did that. “By the way, nice office.” He picked up a stuffed chicken wearing a graduation cap and glasses. “Awesome chicken. Very professional and lawyer-ly…”

  “Thank you!” Klao said, before she realised he was mocking her. She grabbed her ‘chicken’, a graduation token from her father, from him, and returned it to its rightful place on her desk. “And it’s not a chicken; it’s an owl. It is a sign that I am a wise and intelligent lawyer.”

  “Whatever makes you feel better!” He teased, and Klao wished Anella would hurry up and come with the money so Matthew would leave her office.

  She picked up a file and pretended to be reading it and tried to ignore the unwelcomed man in her office. She also made a mental note to talk to her secretary about letting people in unannounced. In the same way she let Matthew St. James in, she could have let in a murderer. Although, she thought diplomatically, Matthew looked too pleasant faced to be a murderer. She wanted to sneak a peek at him, to properly assess what he looked like, and decide once and for all, whether or not he was good-looking, but she dared not look up from her file. He was looking at her, she could tell, and she did not want to be looking at him while he was looking at her.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Anella finally knocked on her office door, and peeped in.

  “Here’s the money, Klao,” she said. “You sure you only want fifteen?”

  “Yes,” Klao said shortly.

  “You should probably take some more,” Matthew suggested. “It is not a good thing to be a single woman on the road without cash.”

  Klao glared at him and wondered who the hell gave him permission to speak, let alone give her advice. And why did he assume she was single? Was she wearing a sign or something?

  “Fifteen is fine, thanks, Anella,” she said pointedly, grabbing the envelope from the accountant’s hands.

  Anella glanced at Matthew, and then gave Klao a queer look before leaving her office. Klao checked the cash in the envelope before handing it over.

  “Thank you again for your assistance, Mr St. James!”

  “Matthew, please!” He corrected. “Or better yet, Matt.” He shoved the envelope into his pocket without even checking it himself. “And again, it was my pleasure.”

  Klao looked at him and he looked at her. An uncomfortable silence prevailed.

  “Please leave, please leave, please leave!” Klao pleaded mentally.

  He read her thoughts and stood. “I should leave you to your work.”

  “I’ll see you out!” She offered.

  “No need!” He smiled at her. “I found my way in. I can make my way out. You should go back to work. Enjoy the rest of your day, Klao.”

  “You too Mr St. James.”

  He did not correct her again. He just gave her a polite salute and was gone.

  Marlene appeared at the door a second after Matthew had left, and even before Klao had managed to exhale.

  “Who was that?” She asked.

  �
�Who was who?” Klao asked, feigning ignorance.

  “Cutie McHandsome who just left your office?” Marlene clarified. “He’s not a client.”

  “He’s just this guy who bailed me out at Megamart last night,” Klao told her. “And he’s neither ‘Cutie’ nor ‘McHandsome’!”

  “He bailed you out at Megamart?” Marlene repeated. “What happened?”

  “It’s a long, sad story – just like my life!” Klao sighed. “I’ll tell you that story another time.”

  “He’s not bad at all!” Marlene noted. “Is he on your radar?”

  “No!” Klao declared. “You know when weird things are happening, they always happen around me. Well, he’s just the latest weird thing to happen to me, but it’s over now.”

  “Whatever you say, Klao!” Marlene said. “Let me know when you’re leaving for court. I have a document that I want you to drop off for me.”

  Marlene left her office, and Klao sank into her chair and buried her head in her hands. Her life could be turned into a book, and the occurrences over the past eighteen hours could be an entire chapter. Drama, drama, drama! Dylan always commented that drama tended to follow her around! Well, this drama was now over. She had paid back Matthew St. James, he had left, she never had to see him again, and she could not have been more relieved.

  ***

  “My baby!” Klao grabbed her PE charge card from Bianca and kissed it all over. “I’ve missed you so bad! Do you know all the crosses that met me the few hours you were out of my life?”

  Bianca had turned up at Klao’s apartment after completing her duty at the hospital. Klao was happy to see her cousin – not only because she had brought her beloved charge card back, and she was no longer poor, but because Bianca coming over meant that she was forgiven for forgetting to visit her the evening before. She had ignored the fact that Bianca, still wearing her hospital scrubs, undoubtedly covered with little pickney germs, had sprawled into her couch, which meant the moment she left, Klao would have to clean the entire apartment with Lysol, so that neither she nor Minx would get sick. Over dinner of sorts – tuna sandwiches and canned soup - Klao had lamented the tale of the awful gym session, the embarrassing Megamart moment, and the horror of seeing Matthew St. James in her office that morning.