With James at work, Cee-Cee sat ensconced on the balcony. She was still adjusting to the new quietness of the house. After Oscar, Rachel had dictated the rhythm of the place. In the past weeks prior to her leaving, a slow gentle pulse of grief had crept from under the bedroom door and bounced from the walls of the hallway, tumbling down the stairs, filling each room with the saddest of echoes. Cee-Cee had spent many minutes hovering outside closed doors with an ear pressed to the cool wood, wondering if the mistress of the house slept or was in need. Rachel’s calls of distress, often made in a semi-wakened state, would send a jolt of alarm through Cee-Cee’s body no matter where she was or what chore occupied her. And whilst Cee-Cee wished nothing but peace for her, she realised she missed the noise of her, having found it comforting, occupying. Now she faced not only a familiar loneliness, which she thought she had outrun, but also the deafening quiet. It was a hard thing to describe, but her heart carried a new ache at the fact that James and Rachel Croft were apart. She felt a little like the conduit needed to keep communication flowing where she was able. Her prayers were that they would find a way back to each other, believing that this was where true healing lay.
Cee-Cee looked out over the shoreline and noted the salt-bleached twigs and seaweed washed up on the tide; she thought of Grandma Sally, gently scolding her and Clara, as they trod the path to home.
‘Good Lord above, child, what is this in your hair?’ She reached out with nimble fingers and removed a large sprig of sea grass, dropping it on the floor and wiping her hands down her starched, white pinafore. ‘You two been rolling around in the surf again?’
She smiled at the memory. ‘We were always in that water!’ She chuckled gently and opened her notepad, raising her pen,
Dearest Rachel,
I wonder if you heed my prayers, which I send out to try and help you settle in the darkest of moments. It is still a shock to my soul when I think of all that has happened, particularly now you have gone and I do not have the distraction or joy of your company. It feels like punishment. Seven years old! I don’t think I will ever make sense of it, but as Pastor Daniel says, maybe I am not meant to make sense of it; although I confess that in my saddened state it has been hard to take comfort from that.
The breath stuttered in her throat and she placed a hand on her chest, until the threat of further tears had passed. She did this, cried alone, when James wasn’t present, wary of allowing her grief to become part of the burden of the house.
I will continue to tell my stories to you as a way not only to remember happier times, but also as a way to distract my mind from the pain of grief which seems to have quite taken me over, even more so since you left the island. I would like to tell you all about the big dance. Happy times. Goodness me, there was so much excitement over the dresses we were going to wear! And I remember, as the big day loomed closer, Clara and I were plain crazy with giddiness.
I went outside to wave Clara goodbye one evening after dance practice and Albert Romsey called at me from over the street, ‘Hey, you!’ I wasn’t strictly allowed to talk to boys, but it was only Albert Romsey. I had sat next to him at Sunday school since I was three years of age and his momma knew my momma – in fact they might have been cousins somewhere down the line. I figured he didn’t count. Clara turned her head, ‘What do you want, pea brain?’ She was always fearless! Albert Romsey, who was one of Willard’s cronies, visibly shrank back against the wall. ‘I . . . I need to give you this,’ he stammered, as he stood there holding out a folded piece of white paper in his shaking hand. I took it out of pity for the poor stuttering fool and Clara and I laughed. Seemed our giddiness wasn’t confined to thoughts of the dance.
Albert ran away faster than a monster hog fish off St Catherine’s Beach who has seen the glint of a spear in the water. I unfolded that single, crumpled sheet and read the words, scrawled with the stub of a pencil in a hand that had yet to develop decent penmanship, then shoved it into my dress front pocket. ‘Are you kidding me? What does it say?’ Clara yelled. Well, I tried to keep my reply casual even though my heart beat fit to burst right through my ribs.
‘It’s only Willard goofing around.’
‘Goofing around how? Urgh, Willard Templeton!’ She spat like his name was poison and pulled a face, sticking out her pink tongue in disgust like she had found a rock skink in her stew. I watched, more than a little perplexed, as she made her way up along the road on her way home. Standing at the gate, I heard her disgruntled mutterings float back to me on the sweet, hibiscus-scented breeze, coming up from the scrubland and over the South Road. Truth was, I was glad she had gone.
I kissed Grandma Sally goodnight, washed up and said my prayers, going through my list of wants for everybody I loved, before crawling under the heavy, embroidered Portuguese shawl that was my top blanket. I fingered the piece of paper that lay beneath the flat cushion on which I lay my head. Not that I needed to read it again; the words were etched in my mind:
I very much look forward to seeing you at the dance. Willard.
That was it, nothing more.
I could tell he was trying for polite and formal and that alone tore at my heartstrings. Sweet Willard with patches sewn on his britches and leatherless toes on his brother’s old shoes, which had to be at least two sizes too big.
In truth, it would be hard for me to tell you, and do justice to, just how much that scrawled note containing no more than twelve words meant to me. But it meant a whole lot. Of all the girls in our class and of all the girls at our church, Willard Templeton had picked me. And to my knowledge, I had never been picked for anything before by anyone. I liked the way it felt.
So, there we go, Rachel – that was the start of it. Waiting and thinking about all the possibilities and I marvel that something so small as a greasy ol’ scrap of paper could start a course of events that would change my life in so many ways. But it did. Not that I realised it at the time.
Anyway, not much point in trying to over-figure it.
Not now, anyhow.
What would be the point of that?
The dance became my every waking thought; I went through my lessons and chores in a daze! Now, I had never been that enamoured with clothes, never really given them more thought than was necessary. That was until I stepped into the dress that Grandma Sally had made me. I know I shouldn’t go boasting, but I felt like . . . it’s hard for me to know the words for just how I felt; I felt like . . . I felt like someone else – yes, that was it. I felt like the kind of person who could do just about anything she put her mind to. The kind of person a certain boy might choose to send a note to, over and above all the other girls he knew.
I very much liked the way the long petticoat and overskirt swished around my ankles and I liked running my hand over the little bunches of embroidered cherries that sat proudly on that delicate skirt of white organza. Even my daddy looked up from his seat on the porch and nodded with a smile that split his face and my mom, she said I looked like something out of Paris – not sure how she’d know on account of the fact that she rarely left our parish of Warwick, even moaning if she had to travel all the way up to St George, and she had never, to my knowledge, left the shores of her beloved Bermuda, but I took it for the compliment it was intended anyhow.
Clara, too, looked fine and I noted she had a slick of coral-coloured lipstick.
There was so much I was excited about: the band, the decorations, the dancing, of course, and seeing Willard. Willard who I must confess managed to sneak his face into my other thoughts; Willard who had passed me a greasy note via Albert Romsey. In truth, I felt summoned, expected, and it wasn’t a bad feeling, no sir. I guess it was the beginning of starting to feel desired, and may the Lord strike me down if I am wrong, but I do not believe there is a soul living who does not wish for that.
Clara and I arrived and were mightily impressed by the way the old wooden hall had been transformed into something real snazzy. Lights had been wound around the trunks of trees, paper bunting was strung across the ceiling in ten different colours, and streamers hung at the windows, blowing in the wind. We made straight for the large tureen of fruit cup that was dished out into paper cups with a glass ladle.
It was Clara who got asked first, by Thomas Outerbridge. There was nothing fancy about his asking; his actions, like him, were large, confident and without a hint of self-awareness. He more or less walked over, as if he might be going to ask directions or if we had seen someone, but instead of talking, he reached out and took Clara by the hand, pulling her into the middle of the dance floor.
The band upped the tempo and I can tell you with certainty that you would have thought it was her and Thomas Outerbridge who had been twirling around on Grandma Sally’s floor practising, having shifted that dusty rug and the sofa! They were perfect, in time and in sync, as if they were made for each other. Clara smiled like I hadn’t seen before, a different smile – like she had a secret – and I felt a leap of joy in my gut for her, my best friend who had gone rather quiet if you can believe that! Thomas was a big-boned boy and she slipped in and out of his arms like a waif and I could tell that she liked it very much. I watched how her dress flitted this way and that and thought I must tell Grandma Sally how the fabric moved to the tune of them horns and strings.
And it was while I watched my friend dance, laughing with joy and swept up in the moment, that Willard Templeton appeared by my side. I had been looking for him and even figured he might have changed his mind about attending, so to see him there made my breath stop for a second and I felt a little dizzy because of it. He reached for my hand. Oh, Rachel dear! I feared my heart might leap from my chest or at the very least that folk would hear it beating! Willard had lost some of his bluster and he walked me to the middle of the crowd where we swayed from side to side with our arms locked together. Now, I don’t want to paint you a false picture; Willard was a boy with a reputation. I had heard folks mention him in the same sentence as many a girl from Sandys to St George and every parish in between. I studied him, this boy with the bad name, and looked up at his smooth skin that had yet to feel the scrape of a razor, his hair, cut neat, and the slight fray to the point of his right shirt collar which made my heart wilt. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I moved against him and heard his voice whisper softly in my ear, ‘You look mighty pretty,’ I began to fall in love. Whatever I knew or thought I knew went right out of the window. I was convinced that we were unique and that things would be different for us. He was fascinating to me, every bit of him: his skin, voice and the curve under his chin, a place where I wanted to lay my head and kiss the space above his heart. We danced slow and long, and on my honour, I am convinced even now that I would never have needed another thing if that were how I could have spent my days. Hand in hand with Willard and with the slow music filling my head and the twinkle of lights all around and the bright array of bunting.
I have never forgotten a single detail of it: that special night when my spirits and hope were lifted higher than I knew possible; when it felt like the whole wide world was at my feet and I was anything but ordinary.
It was nearly ten o’clock when the music came to an end, the big overhead strip lights were switched on suddenly and we blinked and leaped apart. Chaperones started clapping in corners for people to leave sharply so that Mr Whittaker could sweep the hall and his team of volunteers could rip down the bunting. That was when Willard looked at me – not in a regular way, but in a way that told me that the night might be coming to an end, but this was just the beginning; like we shared a secret. It was a look full of promise and I won’t ever forget it. That feeling! Oh, Rachel! There was no feeling like it on earth. Cross my heart that it was the best feeling anywhere! Do you know this feeling? I am sure you do.
Clara and I walked home followed by a big, full moon that lit our way, chattering like we hadn’t seen each other for a month.
As we had predicted, Grandma Sally was sitting out on the veranda waiting to hear all about it. We sat on the step and gabbled some more with our beautiful long skirts gathered into our laps, loath to remove them and step into dull old nightclothes. We wanted to prolong the magic. Grandma Sally wanted to know all about the decorations, the music and of course what the other girls were wearing. I could hold my head high and tell her with no word of a lie that we were the best-dressed. ‘We were princesses,’ Clara surmised, and I smiled at her with something like a gut full of hope in my stomach, not only filled with thoughts of Willard Templeton and how he had looked at me, but also because she was right: we were princesses. I didn’t know at the time that this was not enough for Clara. She wanted to be queen . . .