CHAPTER EIGHT
At first there was the cloudy gray sky with its tiny patches of blue. Then a forest appeared, hovering in the distance below the sky. The trees rushed up at Manda, and she seemed to be soaring above it and through it at the same time. In another moment, she could see Sierra standing on the cliff. There was the sound of calling birds coming from the trees behind them. She could hear Sierra’s sobs, and see the edge of her scarf fluttering in the breeze. Sierra suddenly stepped back, and in another moment she was falling backwards, off the edge of the cliff.
“Manda,” Sierra’s voice called out.
Manda yelped. She looked frantically about her. She was sitting on the couch, and Sierra was standing before her, a puzzled look on her face.
“What’s going on?” Sierra asked. “What were you staring at?”
“I…I…”
“You’re practically hyperventilating,” Sierra said.
Manda closed her eyes. The last thing she remembered was staring at “The King of Queens” on the television, and then thinking about Angie’s dream about their grandmother. Exactly when had she slipped into a vision?
“Didn’t you hear me come in?” Sierra asked.
“No, I was…” Manda shook herself. “I’m okay. I just dozed off, that’s all.”
“Well,” Sierra said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small manila envelope. “I got another letter today. Now tell me if it doesn’t sound like Angie.” She dropped the envelope in Manda’s lap.
“Sierra, can we do this later? I’m…tired.” She was still having trouble separating the Sierra who had fallen off the cliff from the Sierra who stood before her, very much alive and well.
“Come on, it’ll only take a moment. The letter is really short.”
Manda looked down at the envelope. She picked it up gingerly and pulled out the letter. There were other things in the envelope as well. She shook them out onto the coffee table. Two black feathers and something small and dried up. It might have been a tongue from some tiny animal, or a liver or heart. Either way, its vinegary smell made Manda queasy. She unfolded the letter and read it.
Miss Britain,
I try to talk to you and you spurn me. I write you letters,
but you pay them no mind. From I was born, I never seen
such a stubborn mule like you. But my patience is running
out. I warn you before, and I’m warning you again. You
better hush up your mouth, if you know what’s good for you.
The letter wasn’t signed. It just ended where it ended. Manda turned it over, but nothing was written on the back.
“See,” Sierra said. “The person said she tried to talk to me. Angie did call me at the station. And she said ‘from I was born’? That’s Angie’s phrase.”
“That’s a Jamaican phrase.” Manda rubbed her forehead.
Sierra flailed her arms, just as she had done in the vision as she was falling backwards. “Let me ask you something,” she said. “If Angie confessed to you that she was doing it, would you tell me?”
“Don’t be silly,” Manda said. “Of course I would…I would…” She sniffled.
“What’s the matter?” Sierra asked. “Are you crying? Did Angie say something?”
Manda got up and stepped before her. She threw her arms around her sister’s neck and held her tight.
“Manda, what’s wrong? Tell me,” Sierra said, her voice filled with panic.
“I…I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Stop what?” Sierra held her at arms length. “Is it Angie? She told you something, didn’t she?”
“No, it’s not Angie. Blimey, you’re driving me mad.” Manda stepped back from her.
“Then why are you so upset? It was the letter, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have forced you to read it.”
“It’s nothing,” Manda said. “I’m just knackered. I’ve had a long day.” She sat back down on the couch. What was the point of telling Sierra? She would never listen.
“Well, I did also have some good news to tell you,” Sierra said. She bounced down on the couch beside Manda, letter temporarily forgotten. “Remember Theresa’s husband, the MTV exec? He had asked me to send him a tape of my show, and so I did. I sent one of the latest shows. Well, I got a call from his secretary today and guess what? He wants me to come and meet with them.”
“That’s fantastic,” Manda said, trying to sound cheerful on her behalf.
Sierra screeched and pummeled Manda’s shoulder. “Do you know what this means?”
“Ouch,” Manda said, leaning out of the way of her fists.
“It means by this time next year, I could have a television show of my own. Can you imagine that?”
“I can.” She wanted to imagine it.
“So can I. Please God, make it happen.” Sierra closed her eyes. “I want this so much, I can taste it.”
Manda looked at Sierra, so filled with anticipation that she was trembling. “Then I hope you get it,” she said. “I really do. I hope you get a chance to achieve everything you want to in life.”
“Thanks, luv.” Sierra went on to describe what she would do if she had her own show. “So you see,” she said. “Angie might think she’s putting a hex on me with those stupid letters, but she’s actually bringing me luck. But that’s Angie after all. Can’t get anything right.”
When she had flounced off to the kitchen to make them celebratory cocktails, Manda picked up the letter and read it again.
Manda waited until Sierra had hung up the phone after her usual night chat with Nik, and then bid her goodnight with her Sistah Britain sign-off. After Sierra had sunk down into the blue satin nest of her bed, Manda picked up the phone. It was still slightly sticky with the lavender-scented night cream Sierra always smoothed on her face before bed. She called Angie, who answered the phone with a whisper.
“Oh, Angie, I woke you. I’m sorry,” Manda said.
“No, mi’ dear, you never wake me,” Angie said. “It’s Tee who’s sleeping. Just a sec.”
She could hear Angie’s footsteps padding from one carpeted room into the next.
“There, now,” Angie said.
After she had asked Angie about her day at the restaurant and listened to some kitchen stories, Manda told her about her latest vision. This time she had seen a little more, and she knew it would happen by a forest.
“Well, that’s at least something,” Angie said hopefully.
“Yes, now all I have to do is keep Sierra away from every forest in the country.” Why did she have the feeling it wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded?
Now Manda paused. She thought about how she would phrase her question to her cousin, without sounding as if she was accusing her of anything.
“Angie, I have to ask you something.”
“Wait. How’s Noah?” Angie asked suddenly.
“Noah? He’s fine, I suppose.” She wasn’t certain. Since their trip out to Queens, she had seen him three times and each time he had behaved stranger than the last. “Angie, I have-.”
“Is he…being a little sweeter?” Her voice was edged in mystery.
“Sweeter? I suppose he is. But Angie-.”
“How so?”
“How?” It looked like Angie wasn’t about to drop the subject too quickly. She decided she might as well indulge her cousin for a little while. “Well, now that you mentioned it, he has been quite sweet these days. Yesterday, he knocked on the door and when I answered it, he handed me a dozen yellow roses. And then he walked away before I could say a word. Then this morning, he knocked again and handed me a sliced pineapple, and he just smiled and walked away again.”
Angie let out such a loud burst of laughter, Manda had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“It worked,” she said. “Whoopee.”
“What worked?” Manda asked her. What was her cousin up to?
“Manda, I have a confession to make,” Angie said, her voice gleeful. “You no’ see me watching the two of you at the restaurant, but I see everything. I see the way Noah keep staring into your eyes like a love-sick cow. And I thought he seem to like you, and all he need is a little push. So I work a little love spell on him. Now, look at that. It worked.” Angie laughed again.
“A love spell? Angie, what’re you talking about?”
Angie stopped long enough to repeat herself. “I put a little love spell on Noah. Just to help him along.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” Manda said.
“Nope, it’s true,” Angie said. “You know that bottle I did give you the other day?”
“Yes…”
“It wasn’t for Sierra, it was for you. I mix up some water and brown sugar, and I write Noah’s name on a piece of paper and your name on another. Then I put the papers in the bottle, and tell you to put it in a corner of your closet. That way, Noah would come to you.”
“What? Angie, I don’t understand.”
“And, lawks, it worked,” Angie continued. “It’s the same way I did catch Tee. After we did first start chatting, he was too slow and shy and I had to do something to help things along.”
“But Angie, I thought you said you don’t practice Obeah?”
Angie caught her breath. “No, Manda, I don’t do the kind of evil things some of them Obeah people do,” she said. “I wouldn’t hurt nobody. I was just trying to help you get on with your life, seeing as how Noah likes you and such, and you don’t know what could happen.”
“But you know I haven’t gotten over Daniel. It’s only been a month since he left, and as I told you before, I believe we would be married now if it weren’t for that curse. I’m not ready to start anything with anybody else, and I would thank you and Sierra to stop trying to push me.”
“I’m sorry, cuz, I didn’t mean to rile you up,” Angie said, quietly.
“No, I’m not angry, I just…I just don’t want to even think about another guy right now. It would feel like I’m betraying Daniel.”
“I understand,” Angie said.
Manda sighed. “Do you know what Sierra gave me and Daniel for our wedding present? She gave us dolls that look exactly like us. Angie, I know it sounds mad, but…I brought Daniel’s doll with me. I hid it in my luggage. And I sleep with it every night, and talk to it all the time. If Sierra knew, she would announce it on her show and have the whole of New York laughing at me.”
Angie suppressed a laugh herself.
“It’s not funny,” Manda said. “I quarrel with this doll sometimes. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Depends. Do you kiss and make up?”
“Well…”
This time Angie let out a howl.
“Goodnight, Angie. Go back to Tee,” Manda said, irritated. She hung up the phone.
It wasn’t until she had sat back in the chair that Manda remembered what she had called to ask Angie in the first place. It was just as well that she had forgotten. Her cousin might have thought she was accusing her of something, and gotten upset. Manda went into her room and pulled the closet door open. A love spell. Angie is a real nutter, she thought. She bent down to the floor and crawled on her hands and knees under the hanging clothes, past the frowsy-smelling box filled with Sierra’s old discarded shoes. She pushed her hand into the farthest corner and felt around for the bottle until she touched the firm plastic.
“Aha,” Manda said, wrapping her fist around the bottle. She backed out of the closet and stood up, gripping it firmly in her hand. She peered at the pieces of soggy paper drifting inside the sugary brown liquid. Did Angie really think this sweet little brew of hers was enough to ignite love between two people who were, in effect, nearly strangers? Did she think it would be enough to make her heart let go of Daniel, whose love it had cradled like an egg for the past year? Then, ha! Angie had to be as mad as Sierra said she was. And she obviously did not know Manda. She didn’t fall in love easily, and once she did, it usually took a very long time to pry someone from her heart. Noah didn’t have a chance.
Manda walked down the hall to the bathroom. She might have believed many things, but this potion…nonsense. She twisted off the bottle’s orange cap and stood over the toilet. Love wasn’t something you could stir up in a bottle. It wasn’t something you could leave in a dark corner to simmer. Was Angie really that naïve?
She took a nail file from the cabinet and used it to retrieve the pieces of paper from the bottle, not wanting to risk clogging up the toilet. She held the bottle over the bowl. Noah had come to the door twice already, hadn’t he? The way he had looked into her eyes…it was clear that something was going on in his head. Or his heart. But he hardly knows me, she thought. Besides, there was Daniel to consider. She was just tipping the bottle over the bowl when the door flew open, startling her. Sierra stood in the doorway, blue-knickered and bare-breasted, blinking against the light.
“Oh, sorry. I thought it was empty,” she said. She squinted at the bottle in Manda’s hand. “What have you got there?”
“It’s nothing,” Manda said, fumbling to put the cap back on the bottle. “It’s just a drink…I didn’t like it. Tasted horrible.”
“Is it like that tea you tried to poison me with?”
“No, it’s just…something Angie made.” Manda held the bottle down by her hip.
“Does it have rum in it? She makes very good rum drinks, I’ll give her that.” Sierra reached a hand out for the bottle.
“No, there’s no rum in it. Go back to sleep.”
“Then why are you acting so suspicious?”
“I’m not.” She closed her eyes for a moment. Sierra could be so aggravating.
“Let me taste it.”
“Fine. Taste it.” Manda handed her the bottle.
Sierra twisted the top off and took a swig. She nearly choked.
“Satisfied?” Manda asked.
“Ugh. This is horrible.” Sierra grimaced. “Why did she put so much sugar in it?” She poured the rest down the sink, then turned on the tap and rinsed out her mouth.
Manda smiled. If Sierra only knew what it was for…
“Who were you talking to on the phone earlier?” Sierra asked.
“Just Angie,” Manda said, for once glad that Sierra had the attention span of a fish.
“Oh, of course.” Sierra made a face. “Well? Did she say it?”
“Say what?”
“From I was born.” She gave Manda an exasperated look.
“As a matter of fact, she didn’t,” Manda said. “And even if she did, it wouldn’t mean she’s guilty, would it?”
“Fine, then if she’s innocent, prove it to me,” Sierra said. “Then I promise I’ll leave her alone.”
“Fine.”
Sierra yawned. “Now, get out of the bathroom,” she said. “I have to pee.”
The next morning, Manda rang her mother while Sierra was in the bath. Myrna had just wrapped up an hour of Bertram-bashing with Aunt Beryl. But Manda hadn’t called to discuss her father. At least not his latest antic.
“Mum, do you know how Dad is always saying that phrase ‘from I was born’? Do you know a lot of other Jamaicans who say it?”
“Did you hear the old bugger’s marrying that woman?” Myrna asked.
“Yes, I did. But Mum, did you hear my question?”
“He might think that’s the end of it, but life isn’t easy, Manda. They will both get what’s coming to them, you watch.”
“Yes, but Mum I only have a few minutes left on my phone card. I had a question for you.” Manda repeated her question.
“Hmmm.” Myrna said. “Well, that’s an old phrase. A lot of Jamaicans use it. Why do you ask?”
“No reason, Mum. I was just curious.”
Myrna was silent for a moment. “How’s Sierra?”
“She’s well.” Considering that her life is in danger, Manda thought. She wished she could talk to her mother about everything, but like Sierra, Myrna always cut off conversations she didn’t want to have. Instead, she told her mother about Sierra’s potentially good news.
“I always thought she would end up on television one day. She was always a little performer,” Myrna said. “Tell her I’ll say a prayer for her.”
“She might be upset that I said anything to you.”
“That’s alright, tell her anyway.”
“She’s just come out of the bath,” Manda whispered. “Mum, why don’t you tell her yourself? Don’t you think it’s time you two ended this silence?”
Myrna paused. “Would she want to talk to me?”
“I don’t know. But you’ve got to at least try. Maybe if she just heard your voice, she might…she might listen.”
“Alright, I’ll try,” Myrna said.
“Sierra,” Manda called out. “Someone wants to say hello to you.”
Manda heard Sierra’s footsteps coming down the hall.
“Who is it?” Sierra said, peering around the corner.
“They want to surprise you.”
Sierra came into the living room wrapped in a blue bath towel. “It’s not Angie, is it?” she asked suspiciously, rubbing her hair with another towel.
“Of course not,” Manda said, feeling a spasm of guilt.
She took the phone from Manda, a tentative look on her face. “Hello, who’s this?” Sierra listened for a moment. “Who…?” Her eyebrows bunched up together. Without another word, she put the phone down in its cradle and glared at Manda.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said, her voice shaky. “That was a dirty, horrible trick.”
“She wanted to talk to you,” Manda said. “She just wanted-.”
“So what?”
“So, isn’t it about time you two ended this ridiculous feud?”
“Ridiculous? You have no idea.”
“But she was ready,” Manda tried to explain to her.
“But I’m not ready.” Sierra threw the hair towel on the sofa. “And I would thank you to mind your own business.”
“Is it so terrible that I want to see my family members getting along?” Manda pleaded with her. “Sierra, you have no idea how painful it’s been for me? Dad went off, and now he’s marrying some other woman, and you and Mum no longer speak – I feel like I’m stuck in the middle just watching my own family crumble around me, and I can’t stop it. You weren’t going to come to my wedding, for cripe’s sake.”
“I told you I was sorry about that,” Sierra said. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Manda. But I have nothing to say to Mum. It’s far more complicated than you think.”
“Fine, then what about Dad?” Manda asked. “What did he do to you? Why did you stop speaking to him?” It had always seemed to Manda that while she had to practically dance a jig for her father’s attention, he had always lavished it freely on Sierra.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“I don’t understand. You and Dad were so close. Now you act as if he doesn’t exist.”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t.”
“You go on your show and tell other people how to fix their problems, but yet you avoid yours. I don’t get it.”
“At least I don’t try to fix it for them,” Sierra said, standing nose to nose with her. “People come to me for advice, and I just tell them what I think. But you always try to swoop in and save the world like flipping Superwoman. Manda, the world can save itself without you.”
Manda shook her head at her. “I only want to save my family, Sierra. Is that so terrible? Dad loves you, and so does Mum. But I’m all they have now.”
“Yes, you are all they have.”
“Ugh, your parents aren’t rubbish, Sierra. You can’t just toss them away like a pair of old shoes.”
“Ha,” Sierra said.
Apparently she could.
“Whatever happened to that brooch?” Manda asked. “Do you remember? Did you toss that away too?”
“What brooch?”
“The angel brooch. Don’t tell me you forgot about it.”
“Manda that was a long time ago,” Sierra said. “We were children. Let it alone.”
“It should’ve been mine,” Manda said. “Or did you forget that too?”
Manda had first discovered the brooch when she was twelve-years-old. She had been rooting through their parents’ closet, trying to see if they had already bought Manda’s birthday presents. She had noticed the old wooden box that belonged to Bertram. It had always been in there, but this was the first time she had seen it without its padlock. She pulled it out and pried it open. The first thing that had caught her eye was the little blue velvet box that lay on top of the other treasures inside. She opened the little box and peered at the brooch, resting on a bed of white cotton batting. It was a gold angel with diamond-studded wings. Manda thought it was the most beautiful brooch she had ever seen. She took it out and pinned it to her jumper.
That was when her father had walked in and caught her with the brooch. He made her take it off, and reminded them not to play in his closet. Unlike their mother, Bertram rarely ever raised his voice at them or punished them for disobeying him.
“Daddy, can I have the brooch?” Manda asked him.
Her father patted her on the head. “You’re too young.”
“I’ll be thirteen in three weeks.”
“Sorry, you’ll lose it. And besides, it’s not just any brooch. This one is special.” He told her that the brooch had once belonged to her grandmother, Lizzie, who had been the best singer in town. It had been given to Lizzie by Bertram’s father, because he thought she had a voice like an angel. Her voice had been the first thing he had fallen in love with, back when they were courting. Since she had no daughters, Lizzie had passed the brooch on to Bertram. He was the only one of her sons who had inherited her voice. Before it came to him, the brooch had been lost three times and had always found its way back to the family. Bertram had put it in his box of treasures to keep from losing it, and had intended to pass it on to one of his own children one day. Hopefully a daughter.
If Bertram had thought the story would make Manda understand why she couldn’t have the brooch, he was mistaken. Just the very idea of owning something that had once belonged to their grandmother, the great singer, only made Manda want it more. She wouldn’t stop pleading with her father for it, until he finally gave in and promised she could have it for her birthday.
And so it had been firmly planted in Manda’s brain that in a few short weeks the beautiful brooch that had once belonged to their grandmother would be hers. It was the main reason why she had looked forward to her birthday. When her birthday came, and it was time to open her presents, everyone gathered around Manda’s armchair. She opened the ones from her family members first, then from her friends. She finally picked up the one her father had handed to her, already knowing what was inside. But when she tore away the red wrapping paper, the smile she had been wearing left her face. Instead of the brooch as she had expected, inside the box was a watch – a grinning, white-gloved Mickey Mouse walking across the face with his big yellow feet. What happened to the brooch?
“And here you go, Sierra,” Bertram said, pulling a small box from his jacket pocket. Ever since Manda could remember, he had never given either of them a birthday gift without tossing in a little consolation gift for the other.
Sierra took the box and shook it. When she tore off the paper and opened the box, she gasped. “Oh, it’s lovely! Thanks, Daddy,” she said.
Manda slapped her hand over her mouth. It was the brooch she had loved so much, the one he had promised to give her for her birthday.
Manda sat and watched her father pin the brooch to Sierra’s dress. Sierra turned around to show it to the room and everyone oohed and aahed for her.
“You’re a liar,” Manda said, jumping out of her seat and storming at her father. She had never been one to suffer quietly. “You said that brooch would be mine. You said it. You’re a liar.”
“Oh, lawks, I forgot about that,” her father said.
Manda hurried out of the living room. As she headed for the stairs, Sierra snatched her by the arm.
“Listen, Manda-,” she started to say.
Manda turned and pushed her, harder than she had meant. Sierra banged into the wall, and the wooden rack with the souvenir spoons her mother had collected, slipped off its hooks and fell down on Sierra’s head. Silver spoons rained over her and went tinkling to the floor. Sierra bent over, holding her head in pain. Manda was just leaning down to her, when she saw Myrna and Bertram hurrying towards them. She turned and dashed up to her bedroom instead. She had stayed there, face down on the bed until her father came in to talk to her. He tried to explain how he had originally planned to give Sierra the brooch since she was older, but had forgotten when Manda asked him for it. Manda turned her face away and stayed silent until he left. It was too late for apologies.
The brooch had been the clearest sign to her that their father loved Sierra more than he loved her, if she ever had doubted it before. Yet for all the love he had showered on Sierra, and the many times he had chosen her over Manda, Sierra had ended up tossing the brooch away, and him with it. And now Manda was the one left trying to scrape up the broken pieces of her family and put them back together, before it was too late.