Carla’s here ’bout every day but in the kitchen, ya see? This afternoon I’m smoking me after-school spliff in the yard when Carla comes baby-stepping from Polly’s. Seeing me leaning against the boulder, her face brightens. “Trevor, my love. Long, long time!”
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“You look cris, Carla. Curvy and toothsome. Ya staying with Marvin?”
She shakes her head, “That con-man!” and tugs the long, snug skirt on her ample hips. “Polly made this for me.” Carla twirls around. “See the back?”
“It flatters you, darling.” Nice stitchery onna long bright-colored swatches.
“Too nice for cooking,” Carla says. She takes the spliff from me. “I miss you, Trev. You’re always with Brian. Ya-Ya or Polly.”
“The mania chains me to the ground.”
I want the spliff back but she dips sideways. “Wish I’d never left Brian.”
Stepping onto me deck, Carla settles inna chair. “Marvin. Hailey. No doubt Leon, too. A family of takers.”
“Carla, don’t lie ’bout Hailey. She’s didn’t take Brian. You were busy chasing different men.”
“Oh yeah? Polly says you’re in love with Hailey.”
“Ya nuh see? Polly’s half-right these days. But if you talk screwy to her, she’ll get vexed at me or Hailey or someone. And then red-eye becomes a covetous beast.”
Carla stands up. “Here’s my trouble. My heart’s broken, Trevor. Three men, three times.” She finally hands me the spliff.
“Ya want me to comfort you, sweetheart?”
“Can you?”
“Yah-so,” I tell her, “inside.”
That first time I comforted Carla so, she was already getting fatty—nuh the sweet little biscuit she was when she lived with Brian. By da time that ol’ Marc bun her, she was cute and chubby; but that’s the right shape for her; Carla’s whole nature is gravilious.
Course now she’s fierce and big, bela lady, but if ya see her pure, it’s a massive fresh beauty. That kinda serious voluptuous woman. So I take care to admire her fully. “Carla, darlin’, since when were you so luscious like this?” Closin’ da door, I’m strokin’ her and humming appreciation. “Luscious to touch.”
Later, resting a while—she was always a work-out—I tell her how much I’d love to sing and play the guitar the way I started, just me, at the Eden café. To my surprise, she’s all for it.
“Fridays,” she says. “Your old equipment’s in the store-room.”
Friday’s risky with Awake playing down the street. I’m safer at the bonfire. But Carla’s set on Friday evening. I can take my spot by the fireplace and sing songs of freedom.
It’s nowhere near dark when she leaves and I peek about, hoping Polly doesn’t see. Then I fall back in bed, my eyelids heavy while I choose songs for Friday.
I was asleep for hours in such deep darkness that no light penetrated my dreams. No moon. No stars. Nothing. And then a terrible cascading explosion. Shattering glass, a sheet of it, crashing down. Smashed to bits, the glass walls fall and keep falling…
But when I flick on a light—no broken glass. Some earth-shaking shattering noise plummeting from the mountaintops woke me. Mountaintops: that must be a dream. But I still feel a hammer smashed all the glass walls.
Outside, everything’s fine though. Nothing’s been blasted to smithereens. I gaze around at the intact cabins and sneak back against the woods, checking on Polly. She and Carla are eating popcorn and watching TV.
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