By Georgiana White
(This is the first episode of a brand new love drama set mostly on the North Coast with principal characters being two sisters. Now, read on:)
Shawna was so taken up with the romance movie that she didn’t hear the car come through the gate. She was sitting on the carpeted floor, crossed legged, in her tight shorts, with her head back against thesofa. She jumped up immediately, looked around and rushed out of the living room through the kitchen and to her room. She grabbed a skirt pulled it up to her waist and, going through the door, pulled her slippers on.
She heard the car door bang in the garage, that was next to the living room.
On some evenings she would run out to the car and lock the gate after Tanisha drives in. This evening she didn’t . She met her sister at the grille and opened it for her, letting Tanisha into the house proper.
“Good evening,” she said airily to Tanisha, her sister.
“Evening,” Tanisha said. “Go lock the gate, please.”
She brushed pass Shawna who stepped back and then walked the 40 feet or so to the gate, locked it and fastened the lock. The two sisters were as unalike as they looked.
Tanisha was the slimmer of the two, nearly 5 feet 11 inches tall and brown complexion with straight, long hair that she often fussed about. She had small breasts and long arms, and walked with a bounce. Her face was round, and her eyebrows thick. Her mouth was small and her lips thin, over straight teeth that she didn’t show easily.
Her sister, Shawna six years older at 28 was short, about 5 feet 4 inches and bigger in body, with large breasts that had developed early. She was much darker and her teeth were pearly white and even, behind full lips. The curves seen on Tanisha were not so evident on Shawna. She had been putting on too much weight and even at 28 began to look fat like their mother. She had started the gym but her hours at work and perhaps, some laziness or lack of will, kept her away from going regularly.
It was at the gym that Shawna had met Timothy, a six footer who weighed about 180 pounds. It was after more than three months and having gone out on four dates that she invited him to her house. Since then, he was coming to the home regularly and had his own key for the gate although he still had to be let into the house.
“You did anything for dinner,” Shawna called out to her younger sister, Tanisha.
“Macaroni cheese and a big bowl of salad,” Tanisha said, as she locked the grill door to the garage.
Tanisha asked, “You want me to share it out for you?”
“Yes, mostly salad though. Did you eat already?”
“Yes,” Tanisha said.
Tanisha went back into the living room and turned the television set on. She and her sister had several quarrels about how much television she watched and what she watched. Now Tanisha switched the channel to one of the news stations that Shawna preferred to watch.
“By the way, I am starting the classes next week. Two days a week,” she said to Shawna who had re-emerged from her room, having changed into a lighter blouse and her slippers.
“And what you going to do with Dave?” Shawna asked.
“You said you would keep him if you were coming home early…” Tanisha said over the broadcaster’s voice on BBC.
“Yes, I can’t guarantee that though,” said Shawna sitting at the table.
“Well, okay I will have to take him to that place in Ochi they keep kids late,” Tanisha replied.
“And who is paying for that?” Shawna asked, conscious that she still picked up Tanisha’s bills. She had even offered to pay for the lessons her sister was going to be taking.
“Me,” Tanisha said. “Me.”
She hadn’t told her sister that she had got a part time job at a graphic arts shop , helping with design. It was one day a week and after she dropped off Dave on a Tuesday she would go straight to the job and then pick him up on the way home.
It had taken her a long time to decide to continue school after she had Dave when she should have been in fifth form. She didn’t realize even then that it would take so long to be back in a school environment where she could have the academics on her mind every day.
Pregnancy
Everybody knew she was bright and so when she sat two subjects in CSEC at fourth form it was no big thing. English and Biology. She passed them with distinction but the celebrations weren’t what would be expected. By the time the results were out it was clear, at least to her mother, Delores Brighton that she was pregnant and her mother had prevented her from going back to school to start fifth form.
Tanisha refused for more than a year, even after the birth of her son to tell her mother who was the child’s father.
Tanisha was sent away to family in St Elizabeth, where she had the child. Her mother came to look for her at her Aunt Belinda several times, but Shawna came only once. At first, Tanisha was happy that Shawna came to look for her but the visit turned out to be awful as Shawna refused to pick up or hold the baby. What Tanisha remembered most were Shawna’s words “You have ruined your life. Ruined it!”
However, Shawna did give Tanisha money , on that very visit.
And then nearly two years later, when Shawna moved into this new house in Ocho Rios, she invited Tanisha to come live with her. They were now living together for more than three years. The arrangement was quite informal, Tanisha was getting room and board and doing most of the household chores while her sister worked five days and sometimes six days a week.
Shawna had her dinner and had gone back into her room without any more discussions about who would pay for Dave’s day care.
It was about an hour later when Shawna emerged from her bedroom with curlers in her hair. She had on a night dress buttoned half way up her chest. She tugged at the dress while looking past Tanisha to the gate at the front of the yard.
“Come on in,” she said on the phone. “I thought you had your key…Okay then.”
“Tanisha, where are the keys?” Shawna asked.
Her younger sister pointed to them on the dining table, next to a covered glass.
“Can you let in Carl for me?”Shawna asked, and without waiting for an answer, returned to her room to finish preparing herself to greet her man.
Tanisha was reluctant. She preferred to get out of the way when Carl came into the house. Usually, she would escape to her room even though there was no TV there.
She didn’t want to have to talk to him. It was nothing he had done. It was the way he had looked at her one evening when she let him into the living room before her sister came home… and also what he had said at the time made her feel uncomfortable. She remembered his eyes going over her and she felt naked even though she was wearing a high-collar, full cotton blouse that she had pulled together at the front not having had time to button it all the way up.
“Gosh, he said. You have the goods. What a great package! But you know, that don’t you? “
And as she walked away toward her room, he said “Ehh hem and even round there too. What a treat that must be!”
She had felt like saying ‘I’m going to tell my sister’. But then what would she tell Shawna? That she had come out to open the grill without a bra. That she was rushing and forgot that she had been relaxing with some games on the phone, and was wearing that really tight fitting pair of pink shorts, the one that she had to keep pulling down off her thighs, the one without the belt and that even her tattoo was showing. What was she going to say to Shawna? That she saw his eyes go to her tattoo (of the lips) that was half way down her right thigh? Is that what she would tell Shawna, if her sister asked what he said and why?
But didn’t Tanisha really want Carl’s attention?
Continued in the next issue of the North Coast Times
