“Your portfolio is unusual,” she said. “I mean, is good.” Closed it and jangled her hands up, puffed her cleavage up and down above the desk. “But what you have here has nothing to do with what we need. I mean, you talented, I could see that. You’s a artiste!” She puckered her orange lipstick, raised plucked eyebrows, and blinked mascara-heavy lashes at me. She is one of these women who must sleep fully made up, with foundation, blush, and all. Would wear a frilly negligee over her full-body Spanish-woman shape. Be born with long lacquered nails and take her first steps on stilettos. These kinds of women were born to rule. Right away, they run things.
She looked at me trying to sit up straight like her, put on some of the confidence.
“But you know what? I think you could do the graphics we need, even though you never done these kind of things. What we need most is flip cards. They’re easy, you could pick it up quick. I like how you trying something. Different. You have yuh own kind’a style. And I would give anybody trying a chance... Yes, Carla! Yuh still up and down. I said I would give she a chance!” she shouted at the open door.
“You called for me, Angelica?” The tall smiley secretary appeared.
“No, I didn’t call for you. This is Bella. She’ll be joining us soon, part-time.”
The girl smiled welcome. “Another female for the department.”
“Yes, Carla, I wasn’t looking for a man, I had enough’a them and I have a husband now, yuh forget?” Shook her head at me, laughing rich and throaty, patting her piled-up hair vigorously.
I liked this lady, how she so vulgar and full of herself. She liked me too. Looked me square on then said, “And you have a little baby. Well, I giving you a chance.”
When I started thanking her—
“But is only part-time. And then you might get some freelance work cause sometimes clients need their own artwork done.” Still looking me square, hard as a business deal. “You brave, girl. You going to live on your own here? You can’t stay with yuh family? Trinidad rough, you know, it rough. It only looking so.”
“Girl, you born with a gold spoon in yuh ass!” my friend shouted at me, pelting out the gate of my new home. “Come let’s go round by me, I have some things for you. Look just so, you get this wonderful place to live. How long I had me eye on it but the stingy lady always saying she not renting. Now a job too. Yuh blessed, child...”
We swing round the corner into Picton Street, a few doors down to Francisco’s grandmother’s house, where he lived.
“Shh. She might be sleeping.”
I followed him up the red painted steps to the small front porch. A real granny house, crowded with chests, wicker chairs, and plants everywhere. Francisco’s clutter added more bric-a-brac — shells and pebbles collected on the banister, driftwood in a corner. He pried open the skinny front doors and let us into the gingerbread house. Cool dusky air inside and a swirl of bright speckles followed us in. In the tiny antique living room, the bent-wood furniture and radiogram are intact. A light, neat, and soft kitchen, treasured square tins in a row, tea towels folded clean. The snore of an old white fridge breathed gently too. These houses, and their insides, are the hidden pride of Port-of-Spain. Secrets, disappearing. Sometimes plucked out overnight.
“I have a pot here for you, come,” Francisco mumbled, digging in the kitchen safe, a traditional wood and wire-mesh food locker. He pulled out a dinky little aluminium kettle, almost dolly-house size. “It cute, eh? You could have it. And something else... It’s in the bedroom,” whispering, “fabric. Luvely white cheese cloth, mmn.”
When he pushed open his bedroom door, the paint held the top stuck for a second, then it sprang open, shaking the thin wall and fretwork. Piles and heaps, stuffed bags, hats, belts, and wraps filled the small space round the bed, his nest. Grabbing bags, checking, moving them aside, digging, he crinkled a noisy plastic one, a harsh loud sound in the small house.
“Shh, oh shit!”
“Francisco?” came from the sleeping room next door.
“Yes, it’s me, Gran. Is okay.”
We found the fabric, two big loads of it, and bundled back out into the bright. Back round the corner to my home-to-be.
Bursting through the narrow front doors — a scramble shook the house. Shook my heart to the core. The back door.
“Tief!”
A man running, dashing past the windows at the side, flying down the street, gone. With the gas tank. With my courage and bravery. Leaving me shaking, shamed of the fear I carry.
“The gas tank, Bella! He tief it!” And Francisco starts flapping.
We checked to see what else was gone, round the near-empty rooms — nothing else troubled except us. We closed the front door and went back to the tiefing spot, like it could give us a clue. Eyes followed the tief’s smudges on the wall, to where his feet must have sprung and jumped into the little driveway and out to the free road. A little twenty-pound cooking-gas cylinder. Francisco fuming more than me.
“We just turn our back for a minute, wasn’t long we were gone for, eh? And these things hard-hard to get. He gone and sell that for crack, yuh know. Ass! The last time my aunt had to get a gas tank was endless stress — up and down, going and coming, checking Tom, Dick, and Harrilal, cause Texgas and Shell never have any. The ass!”
“At least it was empty,” I said lamely, and started checking the heaps in the rooms again. “What a welcome, eh? It’s a good thing nothing else is gone.”
Francisco stood, glaring his googly eyes all round the house, bristling and fiery as a ruffian terrier.
This couldn’t break my luck though. No. This old house was a piece’a charm come true. From the time I saw it, to when Francisco took me to the owner — agreement and key. Magic. A wooden white fretwork dream. Ramshackle iced cake with a pointy tin roof. Shelter for me and my boy. Right here in town, round the corner from work, from Francisco and the Savannah. Tall narrow doors graced the dusty front steps, banana trees colored the yard. Original cast-iron fence in its concrete base, gate bent but freshly painted black. And as fragile as an antique it looked from the outside, it was elegance inside, to me. Palace. High ceilings and doorways lengthened my spine, white everywhere dressed me regal. Wooden lace partitions, the layers of gloss paint, the care taken to cut each curl and detail so long ago — curved a delicate eggshell womb for us, pinpricked with sunlight patterns. At night, streetlights lit inside-out effects. Silhouettes of lace. Jalousie panels glowing like pleated rice paper.
It didn’t need much more than the few things I had for furnishing. Cushions and a mattress on the floor, worktable, and plants. Some black-and-white clean checkered lino for Oliver’s room so the splinters and dusty cracks wouldn’t bother him. Now Francisco’s gauzy white crepe to drape the front sunroom. I spread old cotton curtains to cover the holes in the floor there. Cozied it into a heavenly nest, weighted with round river stones, scented with vetiver. Haven. Our shelter. Shaken but not crushed.
“The tiefing is the problem though,” my friend reminded me, shaking the louvered door in Oliver’s room. “We have to board this up too.” He checked the tiny window in the bathroom.
“No one can pass through that,” I figured.
“Dat is what you think! Them jumbies round here will pass through a keyhole. They push children through. Is them boys selling they nastiness round the corner. Since they come round, the whole neighborhood change. You know they tief Gran clothes off she line last week? Imagine.” He was still strolling around. Inspecting. “Thank God these windows have proper burglar proofing.” Pushing his foot at a soft corner of the floor, pulling back when it crackled. “Look how rotten, Bella. Wood ants feasting like hell.” Staring all up to the attic. “And you could imagine what going on up there! The other day, right in that office over so, they came in through the roof. And tief out all the computers.”