Bliss

by Fiona Zedde

  "I'd love to see that one day," Lydia said, leading Sinclair down the hallway and up a spiral staircase.

  Sinclair trailed her fingers along the cool iron banister as she walked up after her sister. Her nose twitched at the scent of fresh lemons. At the top of the stairs they stepped through a half open door then closed it behind them. The lemon scent disappeared. Inside, women lounged about on the floor on soft pillows, talking softly amongst themselves while low jazz music drifted through the room's smoky haze. Some of the women looked up as Lydia and Sinclair walked in.

  "Lydia," a woman greeted in a quiet, dreamy voice.

  Her sister knelt in the nest of pillows to hug the woman who spoke. "How's it going, jean?"

  "Not bad." The woman ran her thick fingers through Lydia's hair. "Want some ganja?"

  "No, thanks. Maybe later on after I finish showing my sister the rest of the house."

  Several pairs of eyes touched Sinclair at once. She smiled in greeting.

  "You two could be twins," a tiny woman in green said from her bed in another woman's lap. "And what a good time having the two of you would be."

  Laughter eddied around the room.

  "Don't scare her off," Lydia said. "She's only here for a few more weeks as it is."

  "You should come by and see us again."

  A chorus of agreement rose up.

  "Don't just stand there all stiff, girl," Jean said to Sinclair. "Have a seat." She indicated an empty pillow on the floor nearby.

  Sinclair eased down in the silk and suede pillows, willing herself not to shrink back at the predatory looks some of the women gave her, their eyes squinting through the sweet, bluetinged smoke. Lydia looked comfortable, like she could stay cuddled against Jean's large breasts forever, or at least for the rest of the night.

  "You seen Hunter tonight?"

  Sinclair looked up at Lydia's question. Most of the women had quietly gone back to smoking their blunts, leaning back to discuss some finer details of esoterica or simply to cuddle against each other and laugh at nothing.

  "She's downstairs somewhere."

  "With Della."

  "Of course."

  "They're inseparable," Lydia said to Sinclair, rolling her eyes. In the swirling smoke, her face looked ghostly and unfamiliar.

  Did that mean that they were still seeing each other? No. Hunter would never deceive Lydia like that.

  "I'm sure they're just hanging out as friends," Sinclair said.

  "So what if they are just friends? The whole idea of them-"

  Jean touched Lydia's shoulder. "Calm down before you say something mean."

  Sinclair was getting bored. She at least needed a drink if she was expected to sit around these listless women and pretend interest in what they were doing. She glanced around the room again. Maybe two drinks. Lydia stirred in her cocoon.

  "I better get down there and find her." She kissed jean on the cheek. "Call me later on in the week. Come, Sinclair. Let's go find the rest of the party."

  "Is there a particular crowd you like?" Sinclair asked, noticing the sudden lines of seriousness that settled in her sister's face.

  "Not really. I just drift from room to room until I get bored and go home."

  Sinclair wondered idly when that time would come. "This space is nice. It's better than a crowded club. At least you know everybody and feel safe here."

  "You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

  Hunter sat cross-legged on a chair, laughing. Her white teeth flashed in the faint light, leading the eyes to fall naturally on the white T-shirt that hugged the curves of her breasts. A girl couldn't help but look. Sinclair forced herself to notice the other women in the room.

  "There's Hunter," Lydia said.

  And not far away was Della. The older woman looked ethereal in a pale dress that skimmed her body from throat to ankle. It wasn't until she got closer that Sinclair noticed that the dress was made from several layers of sheer material that gave teasing glimpses of the body underneath. Della stood among a group of animated women, soaking up their energy and throwing hers back into the mix.

  "I'm going to talk to her. I'll be right back." Lydia slipped easily through the crowd of women. From halfway across the room, Hunter noticed her. The laughter faded from the dark woman's eyes and the woman who had been entertaining her-a slim little thing with wavy hair cut close to her headtouched Hunter's hand briefly before turning away to talk with someone else. When Lydia reached Hunter's side, the taller woman stood up and led her out of the room. Della waved Sinclair over.

  "Hello again," Sinclair greeted.

  "Hey, Ms. America. Where did those two go?"

  "Off somewhere talking, I suppose."

  "Trouble in paradise?" Della chuckled.

  "Who knows? They could be getting married for all I know." She didn't feel right talking to Della about her sister's business.

  "Really? That would be different." She turned to her friends. "I'm being rude. Sinclair, this is everyone. Everyone, this is Lydia's sister, Sinclair." No one looked impressed. "She's Beverly's daughter."

  The women looked at her with sudden interest, peering closely at the features Sinclair shared with the Beverly Sinclair they had known.

  "The cheekbones are the same," the woman standing next to Della said.

  "And her mouth too," another chimed.

  "How would you remember what her mouth looked like?"

  "Believe me," the woman laughed. "I would know."

  They all cackled like witches around a particularly steamy cauldron, leaving Sinclair just a little disconcerted. She hadn't thought about her looks one way or another. In pictures that her grandmother left behind in the apartment, three facesGram's, Mama's, and hers-beamed from behind an oldfashioned glass frame. They were each versions of the other, matron, mother, and baby. That had given her some measure of comfort. Her mother had been beautiful, so was she. Her grandmother was graceful in her winter years, still lovely with her thick white hair and most of her own teeth. And later on, so would Sinclair. Now here were these women suggesting that she had more in common with her mother than just looks.

  "Stop it," Della softly chided her friends. "Come on, Sinclair. Let's go find you something to drink around here."

  Della showed her where they kept the rum punch. This time Sinclair was determined to have no more than one glass. She wanted to be able to walk out of this house under her own power.

  "It looks like you're adjusting just fine to island life," Della said with a smile. "It's not too boring for you, I hope."

  "Far from it, actually. Between my family and Hunter and the gorgeous landscape I'm plenty entertained."

  "So you've discovered Hunter's charm too."

  "It's hard not to. She's a very nice woman."

  "That's all she is, huh?"

  "You should know better than I would."

  "Touche." Della raised her glass of rum to Sinclair.

  Sinclair realized then that the older woman still loved Hunter. Or at least still wanted her as more than a friend.

  "I hope those two aren't going to be gone long. I don't want to spend all night here."

  "There would be worse places to spend the night, I'll tell you that much." Della swept her gaze around the house, at the pleasantly inebriated women and the abundance of liquor and music.

  "I agree. Still, I'd like to sleep in my family's house tonight." Sinclair sipped her punch and looked over the crowd of women for the sight of either Hunter or her sister.

  "While they're talking, let's go dance," Della said. "Come on."

  Sinclair finished the rest of her rum punch before putting her glass down and following Della out the door. They spent a good portion of the night on the dance floor, finally emerging sweaty and laughing close to four thirty in the morning. They collapsed on an oversized scented sofa in the midst of three other equally sweaty women.

  "Although I usually don't dance, that was great," Sinclair said breathlessly. "Thank you."

  "You're welcom
e. Anytime I could do something for Beverly's little girl, it would be my pleasure."

  Sinclair fanned herself with a bundle of napkins. "Why?"

  "Why would it be a pleasure?" The sweat of the dance seemed to have relaxed Della's inhibitions, made her tongue and body loose. "Because she was a good woman. I respected her. She was my friend."

  "Someone said that you might have been lovers."

  "We were."

  Sinclair stared at her.

  "Why are you surprised? You were confident enough to ask me." Della leaned back into the sofa, watching Sinclair with her dark eyes.

  "I-I guess I just never thought that my mother-"

  "They say that this sort of thing is in the blood. At least my son is in England where he can be himself." At the look on Sinclair's face she laughed. "Of course I have a son. Just like your mother had a daughter."

  "But you're nothing like my mother."

  "You never knew your mother, little girl. I knew her inside and out." Della's mouth twitched. "Better than anyone she'd been with before or after me."

  OK, that was a little too much information. Still, Sinclair wanted more.

  "When were you two together?" she asked.

  "The right question is when were we not together." Della leaned back in the sofa. "She was my next door neighbor growing up. I was her first lover and her last. Despite the others, she always came back to me. And I to her." Her eyes fell closed as she sighed then became still.

  Della didn't speak again. She dropped into a light dose, despite the shifting women on the sofa and the hurricane of conversation coming from every corner of the room. Sinclair watched her, at once frustrated and sympathetic. Did Della hate Victor for being the last person Beverly shared her life with? Sinclair knew that if she had been in Della's place she would have hated both Victor and Beverly for denying her the comfort and happiness of setting up house with the woman she loved.

  "There you are." Sinclair turned to see Lydia walking toward her. "I've been looking all over the place for you." Her sister glanced down at the snoozing Della then suddenly seemed wounded, as if she'd gone into battle and lost. "Are you ready?"

  "Sure," Sinclair said. "Whenever you are."

  Sinclair leaned close to Della and whispered a quick goodbye, then she and Lydia left the party without another word to anyone, cutting through the throng of dancing and meandering women as if they had somewhere to go, urgently. Sinclair didn't bother to ask her sister about Hunter.

  Chapter 12

  l ake up, sleepy," Nikki's voice trilled from just beyond the bedroom door. Sinclair rolled over and opened her eyes very slowly. Though she hadn't had nearly as much rum punch as she'd wanted to, the little she'd had made her sluggish. And her body ached. The muscles of her belly, thighs, and legs hurt. Even the bottoms of her feet were sore.

  "I'm up," she croaked.

  "We're all heading to the beach today. Come in for breakfast, then get ready to go."

  "Now?"

  "In a couple of hours."

  "Umm ... I'll skip breakfast. Just wake me right before it's time to go."

  "All right." Nikki's laughing voice drifted away from the door.

  No more rum punch, Sinclair vowed as she burrowed back into the sheets and promptly fell back asleep.

  High noon found Sinclair still half-conscious but spread out on a beach towel next to her father's coconut-branch lean-to. After a soak in the warm seawater and a surprisingly skillful massage from Nikki, her body wasn't nearly as sore as it had been in the morning. From under her beach um brella, she watched Xavier and Nikki running and playing on the long stretch of sand. Her stepmother looked barely older than a child herself in the cutoff overalls and baggy T-shirt that hid the curves of her body. Nikki's hair, pulled up into two Afro puffs above her ears, fluttered in the breeze as she ran after her son.

  "Hey, everybody!" Sinclair looked up to see her sister walking toward the lean-to where Victor sat.

  "We were worried that you wouldn't come," their father said. "After I saw the condition that you left Sinclair in last night we were sure that you looked just as bad."

  "What are you talking about?" She dropped to her knees in the sand and kissed Victor on the cheek. "Sinclair looks great and I feel even better."

  Lydia was lying about how she felt. Did that mean Sinclair looked liked hell, too? "Don't do me any favors, Lydia," Sinclair muttered from her blanket.

  "Hey, Xavie and Nik." Lydia waved at the two shapes dashing over the sand like seagulls, flapping their arms and carrying on like theirs was the only family on the beach. Others were far enough away that, hopefully, they could only hear faint echoes of the two's birdlike shrieks.

  Lydia kicked off her shoes and spread out her own blanket near Victor's. With a quick, graceful movement, she slid off her white shorts, leaving her dark amber body covered in a tiny bikini. Lydia stuck her tongue out at Sinclair then lay back on the blanket.

  "Are you doing all right over there?" Sinclair asked.

  "I'm OK. When I got home last night I fell straight to sleep. I barely had time to take my clothes off and brush my teeth."

  "Lucky you."

  Sinclair wished that she'd had that easy a time of it. After getting back home a little after five, she'd been too keyed up to rest. Between her aching body and her hyperactive brain, she hadn't been able to fall asleep until the sun was full in the sky, and that was barely an hour before Nikki knocked at the door telling her it was time to get up. After packing up her beach gear, struggling to the bright yellow Honda that her father had once again borrowed for their outing, then struggling back out of the car to set up the lean-to and supplies once they got to the beach, Sinclair was exhausted.

  "Do you need any help, Papa?" Lydia asked.

  "No, not yet. If you want, you can help Nikki and Xavier get the wood for the fire." He looked down the beach. It was obvious his wife and son were doing more playing than gathering, but he settled back in his chair with a laugh. "By dinnertime we should have a fire going." His eyes settled on Sinclair for a moment, on her bleary eyes and sluggish movements.

  "What can I do to help?" she asked, hoping he'd say "nothing."

  "Can you gut and clean fish?"

  Later on Sinclair found out that her father was joking, but she did have to wrap several cold, fishy bodies in foil to get them ready for the fire. Xavier laughed at her as he carried his unwrapped fish, held close to his chest like a baby, toward the large blaze that their father had started.

  "Don't do that, Xavier," Nikki cautioned. "You're getting your fish dirty." He pouted but brought the fish back so that his mother could season it with lime juice, salt, butter, and pepper, then wrap it in foil. She put it on the fire for him.

  Sinclair stood up. As she walked to the water's edge to wash the stink of raw fish from her hands, the sound of her family's conversation and laughter faded into the background. Her eyes narrowed on the horizon to see the sun falling slowly behind a sprinkling of clouds. Brilliant shades of burnt orange, red, and gold colored the beach and the water tumbling up to the sand in a joyous symphony of gurgles and whispers. She crouched and washed her hands in the playful waves.

  "Wipe your hands with this." Nikki came up from behind to offer her a towel, damp with lime juice and water.

  "Thanks." Sinclair wiped her hands then gave the folded towel back to her. They walked back to join the rest of the family.

  "How are things going with the picture Hunter is doing of you?" Nikki asked.

  "It's going well. At least, I think so." They shared the oversized blanket near the lean-to, sinking into the soft cotton with twin sighs. Nearby Victor hovered closer to the fire, checking on the food and talking with Lydia. Xavier stood beside them, poking the flames with a long stick. "I haven't seen it yet, but she says that she'll have it done long before I leave."

  "That's good because I want to see it." Nikki stretched out on the blanket, pillowing her head on folded arms. "Nobody ever did a picture of me."


  "If you want her to paint you I'm sure she wouldn't have a problem. Just ask."

  "You didn't have to ask."

  Sinclair smiled thinking of the day Hunter had asked to paint her. "True."

  "She must like you a lot."

  Does she? "Sometimes I wonder if it's just for my resemblance to Lydia that makes her interested in me." Sinclair's mouth twisted at the thought.

  "No, no." Nikki rolled over and touched her arm. "I'm sure that's not it."

  "It's OK if that's the reason. After all, she and I are just friends. We get along fine and she's a nice woman. I traded some good wine for her painting my boring picture."

  "Boring?" She released a snort of laughter. "I don't think so."

  "We'll see."

  They sat in silence listening to the soft voices of Lydia and Victor a few feet away. The evening was quieter now, with only the call of seabirds, the whisper of seawater spilling on the sand, and the occasional shout of laughter, to disturb its peace.

  "Do you live alone in America?" Nikki asked suddenly.

  Sinclair sighed at the remembered sense of peace that being in the apartment alone gave her. "Yes."

  "You weren't scared about being alone like that?"

  Sinclair shook her head. "I like being alone. The quiet is nice."

  "Victor says that, too, about the way it was before I came to live with him, but it's hard to believe that people actually like to be alone." She glanced quickly at her husband, then away. "When you're alone it's too easy to be lonely."

  "Not really. It's easier than being alone in a group of people. I enjoy my alone time, especially now that I'm here."

  "But what about America?" She propped her chin up on a fist and fixed her rapt gaze on Sinclair.

  "It's OK. I have a lot of advantages being there, but I wouldn't say that it's better than being on the island." Sinclair didn't want to tell her how it had really been, especially after Gram died-the sense of isolation, of not belonging, and always feeling like she'd been missing something. "It's beautiful here. The sort of place where I could be happy living. "

  "I thought you'd be bored here. No theaters, no sushi."