Mid-Town Lovers by Austin Mitchell - HTML preview

Chapter Three

 

“Grant has been sleeping with me even before I left Miss Lena’s employment. I even got pregnant for him, but lost the baby.”      Avrill felt like bursting into tears at what she was hearing from this girl. She took some more of her drink.

“I don’t know how to believe what you’ve just told me. So why did you continue the relationship when you knew it was going nowhere?”

The girl became serious. She was knitting her brows.

“He promised me things plus he gave me money for my little girl.”

Avrill wanted to ask Gena if she loved Grant but she felt emotionally drained.

“So why are you telling me all these things now? I will ask Grant about everything you’ve told me.”

“If I know him, he’ll deny everything. Listen, I just told you these things as one woman to another. In the final analysis what you do is up to you. I am not telling you what to do.”

“Well, thanks for coming and talking to me,” Avrill said shaking Gena’s hand.

“I should be the one thanking you for even agreeing to listen to what I had to say,” Gena said as they parted.

Immediately she reached home Avrill called Grant.

“Grant, I need to come and see you. The matter is urgent. Can we meet this evening?”

They agreed to meet in the park.

***

“Yeah, she got pregnant for me, but lost the baby. But that was before I started talking to you. I didn’t think it was important to tell you.”

“I think you should go back to Gena. She loves you, Grant. I don’t want to come between the both of you.”

“Don’t you love me, Avrill?”

“Of course I do, Grant. But I just feel like I’m intruding in another woman’s love life.”

“I don’t have a love life with Gena. I know that she told you a lot of things, but some of them aren’t true.”

“You’re helping to maintain her daughter. Isn’t that true?”

“Of course not. If I have money and she asks me for help I give her, but I don’t give her a monthly allowance. Her child’s father is helping her.”

“Your mother and sister are coming into the island next Wednesday. What are you going to tell them because I don’t feel like going through with it again?”

Grant looked at her. It would be a disaster for them to call off the wedding now. He would be a laughing stock all over the village. He could just imagine how Jasper would gloat over the whole thing. Maybe he would even claim that he was the one who advised Avril not to go through with the whole thing.

“I still think we should go through with it. I don’t think you should listen to Gena.”

“It’s you who needs to straighten out yourself. Tell me what you are going to do about Gena. Are you still going to continue seeing her? If so, I can’t marry you. I have to leave now, but we haven’t much time.”

“I’ll set everything right,” he told her as they left the park.

***

The next day Grant called Gena to warn her off.

“Why did you have to go to my fiancee with stories about me and you for?”

“What did you expect me to do? You want to marry her and still want to sleep with me. I could have told her a lot more things.”

She continued.

“Why are you marrying this girl? She doesn’t look better than me? I believe you just want to take her virginity because I heard that she is a Christian.”

Grant wanted to tell her that not all young Christian girls were virgins, but he didn’t go there.

“Go ahead and marry your little virgin, but don’t ever come back to my yard looking to sleep with me.”

Grant was surprised that she had ended the call.

Grant was on the phone to Avrill every day after that. She was still unsure as to what she was going to do. On Sunday he went to church with her.

Monday they met in the park again. But Avrill was still unsure as to what she was going to do.

On Tuesday, Gena called Grant again and cursed him off.

On Wednesday Miss Dina came in and Grant went to the airport to pick her up. She told him that Ariella had missed her flight and would probably come in the next day.

After they reached home, she asked him to make some tea for her. While she was drinking the tea she asked?

“You looked worried, Grant? Is something the matter?”

“Everything’s okay as far as I’m concerned.”

“I hope so. How is Avrill, all happy to be getting married to you.”

“She couldn’t be happier.”

After his mother had gone to bed, Grant sat thinking. He knew that she didn’t trust him as far as women were concerned. He remembered her cursing off Dahlia to leave him alone. She had often told him that he was like his father. They were divorced seven years now. His father lived in the Cayman Islands and had other children, both older and younger than him. Only his brother and sister from out here would be at the wedding. Both were older than him. His younger brother and sister from the Cayman Islands said they couldn’t make it. His father said he couldn’t make it either. His father only had him and his sister with his mother. His other four children were with two different women.

Miss Dina told him that one of the reasons why she had to leave his father was that he loved pursuing young girls and she couldn’t bother competing with them anymore.

He dreaded that she might talk to neighbors. She knew Jasper. He wondered if the man was so low down as to go to her with stories about him and Gena. He was also fearful that Avril would tell her about Gena.

Something else was worrying him and that was the fact that Jasper was now driving. He knew that the man could drive as he had often seen him driving the Sinclairs to church. Rumor had it that he had bought Blake’s car. Did he know where Gena lived? He knew that he had her cell phone number. He remembered an incident between him and Jasper about two years ago. The two of them had arrived at Dawn Eason’s house about the same time but from different directions. But a motor cycle was parked in the yard. It was her boyfriend, Brenton Carey’s motor cycle and he was already in the house with Dawn and didn’t look like coming out anytime soon. They had both laughed at each other and left the scene. The next day when he confronted Dawn she said she had only invited him to sleep with her because Brenton had told her that he was staying at his mother’s house in Lawrence Tavern for the night. She hadn’t invited Jasper to her house and was not in a relationship with him. He didn’t know if he believed her. But he didn’t push the issue as he was just in a casual relationship with her.

Sometimes he would take Gena partying in Kingston. They would also go to several beach parties around town. He would miss those parties. He wondered how long it would be before he started yearning to go partying again.

If Gena had anything to do with Jasper he would leave her. She had told him of how she disliked the man as he had made her lose her job. Finally, Grant decided to go to bed confident that Avril would still marry him.

***

That Thursday morning his mother called. As it was the week of his wedding, he had gotten a few days off. He knew that she had been on the phone and was probably gossiping with one of her friends from the village.

She is a fifty one year old woman and twice married. She and Grant’s father divorced seven years ago. Three years after that she met Bilton White in Miami. He was unmarried but the father of two teenaged children, a boy and a girl. He and their mothers were seperated. They started a relationship and a year after that they were married. Her relatives and close friends had been against her getting married again, but she was tired of the loneliness. She felt that she wanted a man in her life again.

“Grant, are you still fooling around that girl, Gena? If so, why did you ask Avrill to marry you?”

Grant was taken aback by the question.

”Who told you about me and Gena, Jasper?”

”I couldn’t tell when last I’ve spoken to Jasper.”

“I used to deal with her. But we stopped talking before I started dealing with Avrill.”

“That’s not what I heard. Grant, you’re a big man now, it’s time you grow up and get ready to settle down.”      

“I’m ready to settle down, moms.”

”I sincerely hope so. You know me, Grant. I’m going to give Avrill a piece of advice. I won’t tell her to call off the wedding because that would be a disaster. But, after she marries you if you continue seeing that girl, she is to leave you.”

“That won’t be a problem because I’m no longer seeing Gena.”

Miss Dina sighed.

“Men, I can never understand them. They always want to have their cake and eat it.”

Grant didn’t comment.

“Bilton and Ariella are coming in on the same flight at around noon. Are you going for them?”

“Sure, I’ll go and pick them up.”

He looked at his watch and saw that it was just ten thirty. He went outside to clean down his van.

As Grant cleaned his van, he knew that he wasn’t too fond of his mother’s husband, Bilton. He wasn’t sure why she had married a man five years younger than her. As far as he knew most of the times he was hardly working. He came to Jamaica a year ago. Grant had taken him to a house in Mandeville. He claimed that he was staying with his sister. Grant felt that he was lying. That was proven true a month later when the same girl came to the house looking for Bilton. He had asked her who she was and she said that she was a friend of Bilton.

***

Thursday evening, Avrill and Grant met again.

“I’m glad you’ve changed your mind, baby. I can assure you that I’ll be good to you. You don’t have to worry about Gena. I swear I won’t see her again.”

“Grant, I love you. If I didn’t, I would have walked away.”

“I’m so happy that you’ve decided to stick with me. I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.”

“I sincerely hope so, Grant,” she told him as they left the park holding hands.

      Friday morning Avrill’s cell phone rang. She was in her room, it was about six o’clock and she wondered who it could be. Gena was on the line.

“So you’re still going to marry Grant? I might just come to your wedding and mash it up.”

“Why are we going over this again, Gena? Grant proposed to me and I accepted. Have you ever wondered why it wasn’t you he proposed to after sleeping with you so many times?”

“I suppose you believe that he loves you because he’s going to marry you. After he gets what he wants from you, he’ll crawl back to me.”

Avrill started crying.

“You can’t stop me from marrying Grant. I’m going to marry him whatever you say.”

Gena started laughing.

“I only have to snap my fingers for Grant to come running to me. It’s all because he knows what he’s going to get.”

“Maybe he’s gotten too used to what he’s getting. That’s why he’s getting married to me.”

“You’ll only have his ring, but as I said I can have him anytime I want.”

“As I said before, all I know is that Grant didn’t want you or else he wouldn’t be getting married to me.”

“I’ll be here to tell you that I told you so. Go right ahead and marry him,” Gena said and ended the call.

Avrill dried her tears. She remembered that she had to open the shop by seven o’clock. She wasn’t going to let Gena get her down. She had to be strong, she told herself.

***

As Avrill lay in bed that Friday night she wondered if she had made a mistake in agreeing to marry Grant. Her pastor had told her to wait because although she didn’t see any eligible bachelors to her liking in the church, they could come into the fold anytime soon. But there was something about Grant that she wanted. She knew that he loved women. She had slept with only two guys before she became a Christian. She knew that many Jamaican men wanted to have more than one woman.

She was prepared to fight Gena for him. She swore never to talk to that girl again. She just couldn’t understand her. She knew that she was going to marry Grant and yet she was not prepared to let him go. Well, she would see about that.

Once they were married, she would have to lay it down to Grant that she was his only woman and there would be consequences if he strayed from the marriage bed. Finally she fell asleep, her whole thoughts on Grant and her forthcoming marriage to him.

***

Grant’s friend David Lunan drove him to the church along with

his best man and two of his groomsmen. Grant had other friends who drove his other groomsmen to the church. The wedding was to start at one o ‘clock that afternoon. Grant and his party reached the church at twelve thirty that afternoon.

At one thirty there was no sign of Avrill or any of her bridesmaids. Grant began to sweat. Her father and mother were there. Grant had introduced them to Miss Dina and Bilton and they were conversing. At two o’clock there was still no sign of Avrill or her bridal party. Ariella told him that they were on their way to the church. Grant wondered what was taking them so long. At twenty minutes past two o’clock to Grant’s relief the bridal party arrived. Oh God, Avrill’s beauty outshone all the other women there. Grant’s mind was at ease as he took the hands of his beautiful bride.

Avrill sister’s husband had driven her to the church along with his wife who was to be her chief bridesmaid. The other bridesmaids were driven to the church by friends and relatives of Avrill and Grant.

Grant nearly had another fit when the officiating pastor asked for anybody having any objections against the marriage to say so. He saw Jasper smiling broadly and poking a girl, Jacinth Prince in her side. He had a short fling with her about three years ago, but left her when he heard that Jasper was also going to her. He wondered if the man was so low down as to bring Jacinth here to scandalize him. But he felt relieved when nobody said anything and so the pastor continued the ceremony.

So that Saturday afternoon, Avrill and Grant were married. The reception took place at Miss Dina’s house. There were a lot of toasts.

Grant got to dance with Avril for the first time.

He surprised her by announcing that they were going on vacation in Portland that same night. The End.

 

Epilogue

Avrill and Grant’s marriage lasted three and a half years. They had a son. Avrill decided to leave him because to her consternation, he was still sleeping with Gena and a few village girls. She later heard that he had fathered a child by Gena. She also heard that he has moved to Bog Walk to live with her. Avrill moved to Greater Portmore where she got a job in a pharmacy over there.