On Time (Persaud Girl)

by Teisha Mott

  “No, I can manage.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Thank you Mary.”

  “You’re welcome, Mattie!” Mary refastened her seatbelt as Matt pulled back on to the road. “Hey, Matt?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Am I still censured?”

  ***

  Klao lay on her back and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. She had cried so much that now she was drained. Her eyes hurt and her throat itched and her mouth felt dry. It seemed surreal that just yesterday, she had been with a wonderful man, and less than twenty-four hours later, she was once more single and depressed. She had gone through three emotions – rage, contrition, indifference – since Matt had left. She was angry at him. It was his fault that they had argued. How dare he accuse her of sleeping with Ricard Shalkowski and how dare he call her a liar. Regardless of what he had done, though, she should never have said to him the things that she had. She had been a Persaud snob of the highest order, and she wished with all her heart that she could take back her words. She had tried to apologise, but Matt just walked out on her. Let him go, she thought. Now that he was gone, she could go to the Film Festival with Chad… but she did not want to be with Chad. She wanted to be with Matt. She had tried to call him. She had left messages on his voice mail. She had logged on to Facebook, but Matt was not responding, and her heart was broken in two.

  Klao reached for her BlackBerry one more time and dialled his cell. It rang until it went to voicemail.

  “Matthew St. James. Leave a message!” The recording said simply.

  “Matt… It’s Klao… again…” Klao knew she was beginning to seem like a stalker. “Kinda wondering what you are up to. I guess what you are up to is hating me… although I hope you don’t. Call me…”

  She hung up and resumed staring at the ceiling. Minx was on the floor jumping, trying to get into the bed, but she ignored him. She did not want to cuddle up with Minx. She wanted to cuddle up with Matt. She did not want to stare into Minx’s eyes. She wanted to stare into Matt’s. The minutes ticked by. Ten minutes… twenty minutes… Forty-five minutes later, she grabbed the BlackBerry again.

  “I know you’re not answering, but I am so, so sorry!” She said when the call went to voice mail. Her voice was trembling, and she knew she was going to cry again. “Call me please, Matt. We have to talk about this!”

  She put the phone on the night stand, curled up on her side, pulled her knees up as far as they could go, and clutched her pillow as the tears started once more. How could she have messed up so badly? She wondered. How…

  The vibration of her BlackBerry on the night stand caused her to jump. She grabbed it and quickly pressed the talk button.

  “Matt?”

  “Klao?”

  Her heart fell. It was not Matt. It was Bianca.

  “I called your office to see how you were doing, and if you wanted to have lunch today with Sam and Andie and me, since you missed last week Wednesday, and your secretary told me you were sick!” Bianca said. Her voice sounded worried. “What's wrong with you? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Bee…” Was all Klao could manage, before her voice broke and she dissolved into uncontrollable sobbing.

  “Klao, what’s the matter?” Bianca was more than alarmed.

  “Matt hates me!” Klao sobbed.

  “What do you mean Matt hates you?” Bianca thought her cousin was going crazy. The last time she had seen Matt was at the twins’ birthday party, and he certainly did not look like he hated Klao. In fact, Bianca had noted he looked at Klao as though she was the only girl in the world.

  Klao’s response was incoherent whining in between sobs, and the only words Bianca could make out were ‘fight’, ‘Ricard’ and ‘sixteen’.

  “I'm coming over there! Gimme half hour!”

  Klao replaced the BlackBerry on her night stand and finally pacified Minx by picking him up. She hugged him, and felt his little doggy heart beating. It felt strong and healthy, unlike hers that was broken and hurting. She remembered that Sunday afternoon so many months ago, when she had first gone to the Inn. She had gone to help Bianca and Mary and Sheena with words for the wedding invitations, and Grandma had caught her giggling on the phone with Matt. Grandma had beamed happily.

  “The Preacher and the Princess!” She had declared. "What a pair you will make!”

  “We’re not a pair, Grandma!” Klao had declared, blushing.

  Grandma rolled her eyes. “Oh please! Who do you think you're fooling? Under that façade of indifference beats a heart primed for breaking!"

  Grandma had been right, but now that her heart was indeed breaking, it was not as romantic as it had sounded back then.

  ***

  “People who are in love fight all the time!” Samantha Persaud Malcolm insisted as she poured a ladle full of soup into Klao’s bowl. “Jeremy didn’t talk to me for three months while I was pregnant, and even after that, we’ve had some throw down, below-the-belt rounds, but then we make up!”

  “And the making up part is usually the best!” Andie added. She shooed Minx out of the chair so she could sit. “The more intense the fight, the more intense the make up!”

  Klao looked at her cousins, happy they were there. True to her word, Bianca had come right over, and Klao was surprised to see that she had taken Samantha and Andie along.

  “I thought I needed reinforcements!” Bianca had explained, and she was right.

  Among the three of them, they were able to convince Klao to take off her Mickey Mouse night shirt, have a shower, comb her hair, and brush her teeth. Then, while Samantha fixed a simple lunch of chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, Klao had managed to give the details of her fight with Matt without breaking down into tears.

  Klao tasted the soup. It was pretty good, considering that Samantha had made it from scratch. Perhaps soup-cooking skills came with being a mother! “But you don’t understand! I was horrible to Matt…”

  “But you didn’t mean it!” Bianca said. “Did you?”

  “Of course not! Oh my God! How could I have been so cruel?”

  “Because when you lose your temper, Satan finds it!” Andie told her wisely, channelling Grandma Sylvia. “That's why anger is one of the Seven Deadly Sins!”

  “I am such a bitch!” Klao threw her sandwich back to her plate. “I am a Persaud snob of the highest order!”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself!” Samantha added. “Besides, Matt isn’t exactly innocent in all this either! Look, you both said things you shouldn’t have, and you both hurt each other’s feelings. What the two of you need to do right now is just take some time to calm down, realise you are wrong, and tell each other that you are sorry.”

  “I want to do that!” Klao lamented. “But how can I when he will not even take my calls?”

  Bianca took a bite of her sandwich, thoroughly ‘cooked’, with the cheese running in all directions. “Give him time!” She said. “He may be a man of God, but he is still a man, and he is wounded right now. Men are a bit slower to heal than we are. But you are lucky, because since you have a Preacher Man, it is outside his very calling to hate you for any extended period of time. I bet by Saturday when you see him at church, he will be willing to accept your apology.”

  Klao’s heart jumped a bit. Saturday. She had not remembered that she would see him at church Saturday, and at the Inn Sunday.

  “I’m going to see him on Saturday!” She moaned. “How am I going to face him? Suppose he is still angry then? I cannot go to church and have him ignore me…”

  “I’m not working on Saturday,” Bianca shrugged. “I could come with you. I could even drag Tevin along for good measure.”

  “And I am sure Nathan wouldn’t mind going to St. Andrews this Sabbath,” Andie said. “Especially since it is Music Day.”

  “So by default it looks like Caitie and I are coming too!” Samantha sighed. “But I am not coming at eight o’clock. That is just wrong!”

  “W
ell, since it is Music Day, we are just having one service! We start at 9:30,” Klao recalled Matt saying in his announcements during Pastor’s Time last Sabbath. She looked at her cousins. “Thank you guys! You are really the best.”

  “And to think how you carried on in the beginning that you would never like Matt!” Bianca could not help point out. “And look at you now – so 100% head over heels, ass on backwards in love with him!”

  “Bee…”

  “Bee, nothing!” Bianca interrupted. “I knew it from the day that I saw him in the parking lot at Children’s that he was going to be your one. Didn’t I tell you, Klao? Didn’t I?”

  Klao sighed. She might as well pacify her cousin. “Yes, you did Bianca!”

  “And I was right!”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “And you will not doubt me on matters like this again?”

  Klao smiled wryly. “Hopefully, I won’t have to, if he talks to me ever again in life.”

  “He will!” Andie assured her. “Because I am positive he does not want to be without you either. Just wait until Sabbath. You’ll see. It will all work out ‘by and by’!”

  Klao smiled at her cousins while she continued having her soup. She was glad she had them, because now, things seemed to be looking so much better. She even felt better enough to decide not to bother asking Bianca to write her a sick leave so she could take Friday off as well. Her fight with Matt did not seem like the end of the world after all. Time would fix them. By Sabbath, he would have calmed down and he would have accepted her apology and she would promise to never be so hasty in her speech again. And he would apologise for accusing her of sleeping with Ricard Shalkowski. And they would spend Saturday night cuddling in her couch. Yes. All would be well. She just had to wait until Sabbath.

  ***

  “I cannot understand why there are so many people here!” Tevin Pederson complained as he followed his fiancée into the pew on the balcony at the Seventh Day Adventist Church of St. Andrew.

  “I don’t understand whyI’m here!” Jeremy Malcolm echoed. “I don’t even know this guy!” He had tried to pull his own little surprise act by coming home in the middle of the night one week before Samantha actually expected him home. But his ‘best laid plan’ had backfired, because instead of loaning out their child to her grandparents and spending Saturday in bed with his wife, he was promptly informed that he was going to church!

  “It would not kill you to get some God into your soul!” Samantha told him as she adjusted Caitlin on the cold metal chair.

  “Why are we all the way up here?” Bianca asked. “Why can’t we sit in the main church? Is this where the sinners sit?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Klao told her. “We are up here because inside is full! Music day at St. Andrews is very special.” She did not mention to her cousins that it was her first time sitting on the balcony, because irrespective of how full inside was, she always had a seat with Mary. Today, she didn’t.

  “Oh look! There is Matt!” Andie pointed to the podium.

  Klao followed her gaze to where Matt, Mary, Marvin and Sheena were organising microphones, obviously getting ready to start the praise and worship. Her heart dipped a little. He looked so handsome, in his navy suit and red tie. He had been nicely trimmed and shaved. He and Mary matched that morning – she was wearing a navy dress with red belt and red shoes. Klao was sad again. Not only did she have to win back Matt, but she had to win back Mary, too!

  “So what is the plan of action?” Andie asked.

  “May I remind you, before you start scheming, that this is church and not one of your little TV dramas!” Nathan Hansen hissed. “So kindly keep any scheming to a minimum and concentrate on getting a blessing!”

  “Sure you don’t want to become a preacher, boo?” His wife teased. “Look at you, all pious!” Nathan gave her a dirty look.

  Music day was officially underway, and Klao was happy that her cousins seemed to be enjoying it as much as she was. Even Jeremy was impressed by Mary’s vocal prowess when she led the Youth Choir in “For Every Mountain”. For a moment, she almost forgot that sometime during the course of the day, she had to find Matt and get him to talk to her.

  It was time for the children’s story, and Sheryl Barnett, the court registrar, who was also the children’s ministries director, was inviting the little children to come forward to listen to their story.

  “Want me to carry you up, Munchkin?” Klao asked Caitlin.

  “Why?” Caitlin asked brattily. “I can hear perfectly well from up here!”

  “Caitlin!” Jeremy gave her ‘the look’.

  “Alright! Alright!” Caitlin conceded, climbing out of the chair and taking Klao’s hand. “But it had better be a good story if I have to walk so far, Auntie Klao.”

  Klao stood to the side as Sheryl sang the story of Josiah to the droves of little children who had gone up to listen. She wondered if ever she would take her own little child up for a story. Her little chocolate brown child – boy or girl, or even twins – that she would have with Matt. She realised that she had never thought of names for their children. That was the first thing she usually did when she met a boy she liked. She would start planning what she would name the children. But Matt was no ordinary crush. Matt was her everything. As she had told the girls on Thursday, she could not explain why she loved Matt. She just did, and at that moment she was scared. Not scared so much of ending up alone, but scared that if she did not get Matt back, she would never find someone that she loved as much as she loved him.

  “Was the story worth the walk?” She asked Caitlin as they headed back to the balcony.

  “Absolutely!” Caitlin declared. “That lady sings pretty.”

  “She sings ‘well’!” Klao corrected. “That’s what you should say. Not that she sings pretty.”

  “But she does!” Caitlin argued. “Her voice sounds like cotton candy and flowers! Do you think I can sing pretty one day, Auntie Klao?”

  Based on her current voice at about a month shy of five years old, Klao hardly thought so, but she would not kill a child’s dream. “We’ll see!” She told Caitlin, as she pulled the door that led to the balcony stairs open. “But you will have to…”

  Her advice to Caitlin died in her throat as she walked directly into Matt. She thought she would faint. She wanted to run into him, but not literally, and not like that!

  “Matt!” Caitlin exclaimed, throwing her arms around him.

  Klao blushed. She wanted to do that too.

  “Hey Caitie!” Matt smiled, picking her up. “You came to church today! Did you like the story?”

  “Yes, siree!” Caitlin nodded. “The lady sings pretty.”

  Klao shifted from one foot of her Manolos to the other. It had been fifteen seconds, and Matt had not even looked at her.

  “Matt, when are you coming back to Auntie Klao’s house so we can play guitar and sing again?” Caitlin asked.

  “I don’t know…” Matt finally looked at her, and Klao definitely decided that a faint was going to occur. He set Caitlin back on the ground. “I have to go back inside…”

  “Matt, I want to ask you something!” Caitlin said, holding on to his hand.

  Klao was horrified. She recalled the bedtime conversation she had with Caitlin and knew exactly what was coming next. “Caitie, no…”

  “Will you be Auntie Klao’s daddy?”

  “What?” Matt was confused. He looked at Klao again, and Klao wished the ground would open and take her in.

  “Auntie Klao’s daddy!” Caitlin repeated. “Do you want to marry her and give her a baby and be her daddy?”

  It was Matt’s turn to blush. He knew children said the strangest things, but this was too much. He looked at the little girl holding his hand, and took a deep breath.

  “I don’t think that is possible, Caitlin.”

  “Matt…” Klao began.

  “Why not?” Caitlin asked. Now she was confused.

  Matt did not think he could
explain to a four year old the complexities of status, wealth and money, because he didn’t think she even realised that she was the great-grandchild of Ravi Persaud, and that meant in 20 years’ time, she would decide that a ‘regular’, every day guy who loved her more than he loved his own self, but who was not fortunate enough to be a Baghaloo or a Blades or a Shah or one of the other first families in Jamaica, was not ‘of her ilk’

  “Ask your Auntie Klao!” He said simply.

  Klao’s eyes filled with tears. “Munchkin, can you be a big girl and just go back up to Mommy? It is straight up the stairs and you open the door. I need to talk to Matt alone.”

  “Okie, Auntie Klao.” Caitlin started up the stairs. “Bye Matt.”

  “Matthew…”

  “I cannot have this conversation with you right now, Klao!”

  “Then when, Matt?” Klao asked, as a tear fell from her eyes. “Because we have to talk about it…”

  “You said everything you had to say already. I told you how I felt and you told me how you felt…”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Not fair, Klao? Do you really want to talk about what is not fair?” Matt was getting angry again. “You made me fall in love with you, before you made it abundantly clear that there was never any possibility of being with you, because I am not ‘good enough’. That was not fair!” He needed to get away from Klao. “Look, this is church -- really neither the time nor the place to have this discussion and I really need to go back inside…”

  “No Matt! What you need to do is tell me what I can do to fix this! Cause right now, you are both judge and jury and I’m… I’m totally confused as to what you want from me. You want me to say I am sorry? I have. I said it over and over in all those messages I left for you that you did not bother to return. I have apologised for making a mistake. I said I was sorry for speaking without thinking. I have said I am sorry even though the entire episode was not only my fault.”

  “Klao…”

  “Look…” Klao swiped at her eyes. “Look, I said some really cruel things, and I did not mean any of them. But before you left you told me that you loved me and you said it again just now, and I believe you. And when someone you love makes a mistake, you forgive them… You don’t just abandon them…”