Chapter 11

Lydia knocked on Sinclair's open door and poked her head (into the room. "Hey, Sinclair. Want to go out?" It was after eleven on a Friday night.

"Sure." Nikki and Xavier laid on the cot already half asleep, hypnotized by the dancing blue lights from the TV. Deeper in the house, Victor sat reading an old copy of the British Financial Times. Sinclair put her book aside. "Let me change and go tell Papa that we're leaving."

Lydia went into the kitchen to greet her father. "Hey, Papa. What are you reading?"

"An old paper." He put it down. "You girls heading off somewhere?"

"A little party up the hill."

He glanced at Lydia's see-through blouse and slim-fitting black slacks. "Take care of yourself, now. People run crazy this time of night."

Sinclair changed into tight low-rider jeans and a thin white blouse.

"Nice," Lydia said once they were in the car. "The girls are going to be nuts over you."

"I'll settle for them just buying me a drink and leaving the nuts at home."

The house was hidden in the wilds of the mountain. As Sinclair got out of the car she could hear the quiet rush of a nearby waterfall.

"The place belongs to Phyllis Chambliss and Sabrina something or other," Lydia explained. "They are some rich, rich women who made a lot of money in real estate in America, then came back to Jamaica to settle down and spend it."

At least two dozen cars lined the long, paved driveway, everything from jaguars to Honda Civics. Sinclair noticed Hunter's blue jeep parked close to the high, marble archway that served as the entrance to the house. Even out here they could hear the sound of women's laughter entwined with music. High double doors parted under Lydia's hands.

"Lydia." A woman in beige slacks and a matching blouse that gaped over her full breasts greeted them as they walked in. "I'm so glad you could come." She kissed Lydia's cheek. "You look marvelous as usual."

"Thank you, Phyl." Lydia reached a hand back for her sister. "This is Sinclair," she said, "my American sister."

"Pleased to meet you." An expensive, powdery perfume lingered on the woman. She left traces of it on Sinclair's skin when she pulled back from the unexpected hug. "Come in. The party is just getting started."

Despite the obvious wealth of the two women who lived there, the house was relatively modest. The walls were done in soft beiges and browns, not unlike Sinclair's own apartment, but while hers lacked sensuality, this house certainly did not. The velvet tapestries in luscious shades of chocolate and cream begged for a naked back to rub against them. The same could be said for the low suede couches and chairs. The rugs were thick and full, inviting bare toes to curl into them. Arabic music played in the main room, bass-heavy and mellow.

Beautifully designed trays of finger food sat on small tables in every corner. The women lounged about in their soft clothes, lightly touching each other, whispering, laughing, and sharing sips from the same cup. It was like a scene from a seraglio, very stylish and decadent. Sinclair immediately noticed a dark couple sitting under a soft golden light with their fingers linked, their mouths moving to shape words meant only for each other. One woman had long black hair that trailed down to her hips like a silken scarf. In her glittering silk pants and cropped top, she perfectly complemented her partner's plain black dress and closely clipped hair. They were exquisite together.

"Come, let me show you the rest of the place."

Sinclair's gaze left the stunning couple as Lydia gently tugged at her hand, pulling her away. They walked through a long hallway decorated with unusual paintings and pottery and books. Lydia obviously wasn't intent on showing Sinclair any of these things. Her sister pulled her through a door at the end of the hallway and into chaos. Loud, hard-driving dancehall reggae poured over them. This was where most of the women were. They surged en masse to the music, swaying hips and tossing hair, flailing arms and shaking breasts. Sinclair could feel the music in her chest, feel it reach into her heart and vibrate the organ to its insistent beat. Her hips twitched to the rhythm.

"This is fabulous," Sinclair said over the music.

"What?"

She raised her voice, "I said, this is great."

Lydia shrugged her shoulders. She still didn't hear. Sinclair shook her head. "Never mind."

Although it was mostly dark in the room, the faces of the women were visible in the flashes of color from the strobe lights and the disco ball that shot tiny darts of light all around the room in time with the music. There was every variety of woman here-jet-skinned, gold, red, long-haired, short-, and everything else in between. Sinclair thought she saw Hunter but wasn't sure. The lights shifted again and what she thought was dark, snaking hair solidified into a long fall of midnight weave. Lydia tapped her hand and signaled toward the door. The quiet of the hallway was deafening in its abruptness.

"I bet you have a lot of places like this in America."

"We do, but I've only been to one. And it wasn't quite like this."

"What do you mean? Better?"

"No, just different. There were white women there, for one thing. And it was a public club so there were more people, more chaos, and it smelled like liquor and sweat." She remembered Regina rushing onto the dance floor to join the other gyrating bodies, ignoring her for the anonymity of a group grope.

"I'd love to see that one day," Lydia said, leading Sinclair down the hallway and up a spiral staircase.

Sinclair trailed her fingers along the cool iron banister as she walked up after her sister. Her nose twitched at the scent of fresh lemons. At the top of the stairs they stepped through a half open door then closed it behind them. The lemon scent disappeared. Inside, women lounged about on the floor on soft pillows, talking softly amongst themselves while low jazz music drifted through the room's smoky haze. Some of the women looked up as Lydia and Sinclair walked in.

"Lydia," a woman greeted in a quiet, dreamy voice.

Her sister knelt in the nest of pillows to hug the woman who spoke. "How's it going, jean?"

"Not bad." The woman ran her thick fingers through Lydia's hair. "Want some ganja?"

"No, thanks. Maybe later on after I finish showing my sister the rest of the house."

Several pairs of eyes touched Sinclair at once. She smiled in greeting.

"You two could be twins," a tiny woman in green said from her bed in another woman's lap. "And what a good time having the two of you would be."

Laughter eddied around the room.

"Don't scare her off," Lydia said. "She's only here for a few more weeks as it is."

"You should come by and see us again."

A chorus of agreement rose up.

"Don't just stand there all stiff, girl," Jean said to Sinclair. "Have a seat." She indicated an empty pillow on the floor nearby.

Sinclair eased down in the silk and suede pillows, willing herself not to shrink back at the predatory looks some of the women gave her, their eyes squinting through the sweet, bluetinged smoke. Lydia looked comfortable, like she could stay cuddled against Jean's large breasts forever, or at least for the rest of the night.

"You seen Hunter tonight?"

Sinclair looked up at Lydia's question. Most of the women had quietly gone back to smoking their blunts, leaning back to discuss some finer details of esoterica or simply to cuddle against each other and laugh at nothing.

"She's downstairs somewhere."

"With Della."

"Of course."

"They're inseparable," Lydia said to Sinclair, rolling her eyes. In the swirling smoke, her face looked ghostly and unfamiliar.

Did that mean that they were still seeing each other? No. Hunter would never deceive Lydia like that.

"I'm sure they're just hanging out as friends," Sinclair said.

"So what if they are just friends? The whole idea of them-"

Jean touched Lydia's shoulder. "Calm down before you say something mean."

Sinclair was getting bored. She at least needed a drink if she was expected to sit around these listless women and pretend interest in what they were doing. She glanced around the room again. Maybe two drinks. Lydia stirred in her cocoon.

"I better get down there and find her." She kissed jean on the cheek. "Call me later on in the week. Come, Sinclair. Let's go find the rest of the party."

"Is there a particular crowd you like?" Sinclair asked, noticing the sudden lines of seriousness that settled in her sister's face.

"Not really. I just drift from room to room until I get bored and go home."

Sinclair wondered idly when that time would come. "This space is nice. It's better than a crowded club. At least you know everybody and feel safe here."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

Hunter sat cross-legged on a chair, laughing. Her white teeth flashed in the faint light, leading the eyes to fall naturally on the white T-shirt that hugged the curves of her breasts. A girl couldn't help but look. Sinclair forced herself to notice the other women in the room.

"There's Hunter," Lydia said.

And not far away was Della. The older woman looked ethereal in a pale dress that skimmed her body from throat to ankle. It wasn't until she got closer that Sinclair noticed that the dress was made from several layers of sheer material that gave teasing glimpses of the body underneath. Della stood among a group of animated women, soaking up their energy and throwing hers back into the mix.

"I'm going to talk to her. I'll be right back." Lydia slipped easily through the crowd of women. From halfway across the room, Hunter noticed her. The laughter faded from the dark woman's eyes and the woman who had been entertaining her-a slim little thing with wavy hair cut close to her headtouched Hunter's hand briefly before turning away to talk with someone else. When Lydia reached Hunter's side, the taller woman stood up and led her out of the room. Della waved Sinclair over.

"Hello again," Sinclair greeted.

"Hey, Ms. America. Where did those two go?"

"Off somewhere talking, I suppose."

"Trouble in paradise?" Della chuckled.

"Who knows? They could be getting married for all I know." She didn't feel right talking to Della about her sister's business.

"Really? That would be different." She turned to her friends. "I'm being rude. Sinclair, this is everyone. Everyone, this is Lydia's sister, Sinclair." No one looked impressed. "She's Beverly's daughter."

The women looked at her with sudden interest, peering closely at the features Sinclair shared with the Beverly Sinclair they had known.

"The cheekbones are the same," the woman standing next to Della said.

"And her mouth too," another chimed.

"How would you remember what her mouth looked like?"

"Believe me," the woman laughed. "I would know."

They all cackled like witches around a particularly steamy cauldron, leaving Sinclair just a little disconcerted. She hadn't thought about her looks one way or another. In pictures that her grandmother left behind in the apartment, three faces Gram's, Mama's, and hers-beamed from behind an old-fashioned glass frame. They were each versions of the other, matron, mother, and baby. That had given her some measure of comfort. Her mother had been beautiful, so was she. Her grandmother was graceful in her winter years, still lovely with her thick white hair and most of her own teeth. And later on, so would Sinclair. Now here were these women suggesting that she had more in common with her mother than just looks.

"Stop it," Della softly chided her friends. "Come on, Sinclair. Let's go find you something to drink around here."

Della showed her where they kept the rum punch. This time Sinclair was determined to have no more than one glass. She wanted to be able to walk out of this house under her own power.

"It looks like you're adjusting just fine to island life," Della said with a smile. "It's not too boring for you, I hope."

"Far from it, actually. Between my family and Hunter and the gorgeous landscape I'm plenty entertained."

"So you've discovered Hunter's charm too."

"It's hard not to. She's a very nice woman."

"That's all she is, huh?"

"You should know better than I would."

"Touché." Della raised her glass of rum to Sinclair.

Sinclair realized then that the older woman still loved Hunter. Or at least still wanted her as more than a friend.

"I hope those two aren't going to be gone long. I don't want to spend all night here."

"There would be worse places to spend the night, I'll tell you that much." Della swept her gaze around the house, at the pleasantly inebriated women and the abundance of liquor and music.

"I agree. Still, I'd like to sleep in my family's house tonight." Sinclair sipped her punch and looked over the crowd of women for the sight of either Hunter or her sister.

"While they're talking, let's go dance," Della said. "Come on."

Sinclair finished the rest of her rum punch before putting her glass down and following Della out the door. They spent a good portion of the night on the dance floor, finally emerging sweaty and laughing close to four thirty in the morning. They collapsed on an oversized scented sofa in the midst of three other equally sweaty women.

"Although I usually don't dance, that was great," Sinclair said breathlessly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Anytime I could do something for Beverly's little girl, it would be my pleasure."

Sinclair fanned herself with a bundle of napkins. "Why?"

"Why would it be a pleasure?" The sweat of the dance seemed to have relaxed Della's inhibitions, made her tongue and body loose. "Because she was a good woman. I respected her. She was my friend."

"Someone said that you might have been lovers."

"We were."

Sinclair stared at her.

"Why are you surprised? You were confident enough to ask me." Della leaned back into the sofa, watching Sinclair with her dark eyes.

"I-I guess I just never thought that my mother-"

"They say that this sort of thing is in the blood. At least my son is in England where he can be himself." At the look on Sinclair's face she laughed. "Of course I have a son. Just like your mother had a daughter."

"But you're nothing like my mother."

"You never knew your mother, little girl. I knew her inside and out." Della's mouth twitched. "Better than anyone she'd been with before or after me."

OK, that was a little too much information. Still, Sinclair wanted more.

"When were you two together?" she asked.

"The right question is when were we not together." Della leaned back in the sofa. "She was my next door neighbor growing up. I was her first lover and her last. Despite the others, she always came back to me. And I to her." Her eyes fell closed as she sighed then became still.

Della didn't speak again. She dropped into a light dose, despite the shifting women on the sofa and the hurricane of conversation coming from every corner of the room. Sinclair watched her, at once frustrated and sympathetic. Did Della hate Victor for being the last person Beverly shared her life with? Sinclair knew that if she had been in Della's place she would have hated both Victor and Beverly for denying her the comfort and happiness of setting up house with the woman she loved.

"There you are." Sinclair turned to see Lydia walking toward her. "I've been looking all over the place for you." Her sister glanced down at the snoozing Della then suddenly seemed wounded, as if she'd gone into battle and lost. "Are you ready?"

"Sure," Sinclair said. "Whenever you are."

Sinclair leaned close to Della and whispered a quick goodbye, then she and Lydia left the party without another word to anyone, cutting through the throng of dancing and meandering women as if they had somewhere to go, urgently. Sinclair didn't bother to ask her sister about Hunter.