Caviar Dreams: The Prequel Novella to Champagne Life

Naomi

I took a step off the plane. As soon as I hit the airstairs, the sun’s rays burst through my dark shades, exposing its radiance. I shielded my face with my hand. The warmth felt good against my skin, in contrast to the forty-five degree weather I left behind in Philly.

“Why does it have to be so sunny?” Laeticia, my best friend since fourth grade, reached inside her way-too-much money, oversized designer bag and pulled out her sunglasses.

“That’s because we’re in the Bahamas,” I told her.

She lifted her head to the sun, and in movie star mode, carefully placed the sunglasses on her face. She reached up, tucked a small section of her weave behind her left ear and said, “You ready, Naomi, girl, ‘cause I sure enough am.”

I laughed. “Look out Bahamas. Here comes Laeticia The Superstar. Shall I call the paparazzi and let them know we’ve landed?”

“That’s right,” she said with a smirk. She reached into her bag and pulled out a floppy sun hat. She jammed the hat so far down on her head, she covered up the entire top half of her face. The hat combined with the glasses
really
made her look like a star now. “I do not play when it comes to getting sunburned,” she said slathering on greasy sun block all over her exposed arms. “That’s how Bob Marley died, you know?” She worked the white creamy glop into her hands, in between each finger. “My auntie Gertrude got skin cancer, too. Black may not crack, but it does burn, especially us light-skinded folks.” She looked me up and down and thrust the sunscreen tube in my face. “That’s why you may need this. Sure you don’t want none?”

“I put mine on already. And would you stop talking like that?”

“Like what?”

“Light skin-
ded
,” I said. “All the way over here, you kept talking about what you
seent
and
what you be like
. Why are you talking like that? You’re a grown woman speaking Ebonics. I hate that!”

Laeticia was twenty-eight, a year older than me, but from the way she acted, you wouldn’t know it. She graduated from Texas A & M with a degree in Marketing and was one of the smartest women I knew. She worked for one of the largest medical insurance companies on the east coast and was going to law school in the fall. This was precisely why I couldn’t figure out why she insisted on speaking like she was a day out of the hood.

“Girl, please. I done heard you talk like this all the way down here, so shut up.”

“Oh, no you didn’t.” I grinned. “You done never hurt that mess comin’ from me.”

She laughed and smacked my shoulder.

I was finishing my degree in Finance (one semester left) at Temple University. I planned to apply to Wells Fargo for a Business Analyst position in the fall. I couldn’t wait to finally kiss my crappy customer service job goodbye.

“You got anymore of those cookies you baked?” Ticia asked. “I’m hungry as hell but I wasn’t about to pay extra for that nasty plane food. Did you smell that fried chicken that chick brought on the plane?”

“I think the whole plane smelled it.” I reached into my purse and pulled out a brown paper bag. I went to open up the bag, but before I could, she snatched it from my hand. “I love these things,” she said, taking a huge bite of a chocolate chip cookie. “You can bake your butt off. You should be selling these things. You could make a billion dollars off the chocolate chip alone.”

She shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth, dug her hand inside the bag and grabbed another one.

“If you were that hungry,” I told her. “You should have gotten something on the plane.”

“So I could have the entire plane smelling like chicken too? No thanks.” She popped the last bit of cookie into her mouth.

“Oh, please, Ticia, You know you wanted that wanted.”

“Don’t misunderstand, Mimi. I didn’t say I didn’t want it, but there’s no way you’re gonna ever catch me slobbin’ down some chicken on no plane. Oh hells no.”

I laughed. “You are so stupid.”

“Last chance,” she said, waving the sunscreen tube back and forth. “Sure you don’t want some?”

I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Okay then, let’s go!”

I glanced down at Ticia’s floral, strapless peach and yellow sundress. “If you’re so worried about sunburn, why didn’t you wear sleeves?”

“Sleeves in the Bahamas? “C’mon, now, that look is not cute.”

“And neither is shalacking grease all over your arms and legs. Couldn’t you have done that on the airplane?”

“I could’ve, but didn’t.” She carefully navigated her way down the last step off the plane in her Jimmy Choos. “Now stop your complainin’ and let’s go!” Ticia grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the airport entrance. “Finally, we’re in the Bahamas, baby! Feel that beautiful sun.” She lowered her sunglasses an inch and peered over the top, “And check out all those yummy Bohemian men!”

My eyes followed her gaze. Two dark chocolate men in pristine uniforms, medals included, stood at the gate leading into the airport. One guy was well over six feet with broad, stiff shoulders. The other guy, a little shorter, looked just as physically fit. Even through his starched white shirt I could see his chiseled chest.

“It’s Bahamian,” I said, still checking out the guys. The shorter guy whispered something to the taller one. They both looked over at us.

“Huh?”

“It’s Bahamian, not Bohemian. The men here are not some hippy, retro seventies throwbacks.”

“You are a straight buzz kill,” she said with a toss of her weave, “You’re here for the same thing I am . . . to find a guy.”

“I have a guy,” I reminded. “Did you forget about Kevin?”

I actually missed Kevin a little bit. He and I had been dating for seven months. In fact, he dropped me off at the airport to catch the flight for our Girl’s Weekend in the Bahamas, however, if someone were to ask how our relationship was going, I couldn’t tell ya. Even though we had been exclusively dating for several months, our relationship seemed to be
re
gressing instead of
pro
gressing. He lived in Philly and I lived further out in the suburbs so we decided to see each other only on weekends. I would go down to his spot on Saturday mornings and hang out until Sunday evening. Fridays were another story. Fridays were not happening with Kevin. At first, I believed he only wanted to hang out with his buddies on those nights, but when I told Ticia, her immediate reaction was, “Girl, are you stupid? He’s seeing other chicks!” After the fifth month, we—mostly he—decided to only hang out on Sundays, like when we first started seeing each other. When I told Ticia that, she said “Girl, are you stupid?” That was her mantra. She needed to write a book with that title. I was certain she’d make a million bucks off the title alone.

She so eloquently informed me that Kevin wasn’t interested in “only my black ass.” In Ticia’s words,
he’s pretty much banging the entire northeast
.

Ahhhh yes, tact was so overrated.

“Girl, are you stupid?” she asked with another toss of her hair. She was trying a new style and decided on curly instead of straight this time. “So what he drove you to the airport? He probably couldn’t wait to get you out of town so he could get his dirt in.”

I hated talking about Kevin with Ticia. I hated talking about
any
guy with her. I changed the subject as fast as I could. “Did you see those guys staring at us?” I smirked when I realized the irony of my question.

“Yup, and I plan to get me one of those Bohemian guys too.”

“Bahamian.”

“Whatever!”

We headed into the airport terminal and toward the big red sign titled,
Customs
. “You’d better be careful. These dreadlock-wearing people will lock you up in a minute. They smoke ganja all day long while listening to Bob Marley and Beres Hammond and then want to lock you up for having a coconut in your suitcase.” She looked down at my bag. “You ain’t got a coconut in your case, do you?”

“First off,” I began. “That sentence had at least four derogatory stereotypes in it. Second, how would I have a coconut in my suitcase? We’re coming
from
Philly. Ask me that dumb question when we leave! Wait, on second thought, don’t.”

“Good morning, Ladies.”

Ticia leaned her head back and whispered, “Keep an eye out for these guys too. They are desperate to get a hold of some unsuspecting American chick to wife up so they’ll get a green card.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, incredulously. “Would you stop, please? I don’t know which is worse, insulting them with that green card mess or insulting me by even thinking I’m that stupid.”

“You are the one that is dating Kevin, not me. I’m just sayin’ . . .”

I grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the
American Citizens
sign, the longest line, of course.

After having our bags ransacked—her word, not mine—by Bahamian custom agents, we stepped out once again into the dazzling sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky.

I thought about telling Ticia that Kevin and I decided to take a break right before he dropped me off at the airport, but then rethought that. The night before the trip, he told me he needed “time to himself to get his thoughts together.” He never mentioned another woman.

“With everything that’s going on,” he had said right after coming out of the movies one night. “I need time to concentrate on my job.”

The funny thing was, I never even broached the subject in the first place. You can best believe I called him out on his lie, though. Apparently, he forgot he told me two days prior that he’d been laid off from his job. He quickly retracted his statement. “I meant that I was concentrating on my job
search
.”

Reluctantly, I agreed with the intention of getting back with him when I returned. Desperate, I knew, but what else did I have? But as I stood in the warm tropical breeze, I felt a sense of relief that Kevin and I were on the outs. Call it intuition, but it felt like I was destined to meet someone here. Ticia must’ve felt my fate too, because at that exact moment, she leaned over to me and whispered, “I think I’m gonna get me some here. Watch.”

Close enough!

DeShaun

DeShaun watched her naked body stretched out between the sheets. Shaneille’s light-brown skin was butter smooth and her curves, simply amazing. Her auburn-streaked hair gently rested on her shoulders as she slept. He never had a girlfriend so beautiful before. When he first asked her out, he had no idea she would say yes because he had only approached her as part of a lost bet.

A couple of years back, one bored, drunken evening, DeShaun bet his buddy, Fabian, that he could drink a pint of Jamaican rum faster than him. DeShaun should’ve known he would lose. Fabian was the same guy that drank himself drunk every night to avoid listening to his girlfriend, who he referred to as, “Naggy Maggie.”

“Since you lose,” Fabian had told him, “You have to run down the street buck nekkid!”

“Man, c’mon with all that,” DeShaun said. “That’s some bull right there! I’m twenty-one years old, not some sixteen-year-old spring breaker.”

“Okay then. Call Shaneille and ask her out,” Fabian had dared.

DeShaun had searched his memory rolodex for any excuse. Finally, he came up with one—an obvious one. “I don’t have her phone number.”

“I do.”

“You’re lyin’. How in the hell do you have Shaneille’s number?”

“Don’t worry about it. You gonna call her or not?”

“Hell no, I’m drunk. I’d rather take the run-down-the-street- ass-out, dare.”

“Too late for that. That’s the bet. If you want to back down—”

DeShaun didn’t back down that night.

He called her and made a date to meet up the next evening. On his date, DeShaun took Shaneille to Doc’s Conch House for dinner. Two hours after that, Shaneille was in his bed. Fast forward two years later, and he and Shaneille were still in love.

DeShaun took his finger and ran it down her thick, mocha thigh. She stirred in her sleep, but didn’t wake. When she stretched out her left leg, she shifted the cotton sheet and exposed her bare left shoulder.

DeShaun reached down and caressed her shoulder. Her skin was so silky smooth, it reminded him of butter. Not the fake margarine kind, more like the home churned dairy kind. He bent down and gently kissed her forehead. He had never felt about any girl the way he felt about Shaneille. She was smart too. In another year and a half, she was graduating college in the states and moving back to the Bahamas for good. Being Bahamian himself, DeShaun went back and forth between the states and Grand Bahama. He lived in Homestead, Florida as a kid, Atlanta, Georgia most of his teen years and now found himself back on the island. He stayed with his aunt while trying to decide what move to make next—stay here on the island or move back to the states. The truth was, he was waiting for Shaneille to graduate and then they would make a decision together.

“Oh, hey,” Shaneille said, lazily looking up at DeShaun. “I’m hungry.”

She should be hungry
, DeShaun thought. They spent the last three hours in bed, working each other over. There wasn’t a position they didn’t cover, even one special little position he thought wasn’t humanly possible up until a few hours ago.

“What do you want to eat?” DeShaun asked.

“Conch. I could really go for some greasy fritters right now.”

DeShaun laughed as he hopped out of bed. “I’ll get us some.”

“Get some fries too. I probably won’t get a chance to eat for the rest of the day.”

DeShaun jammed his leg into one pant leg. “I was going to take you out to dinner tonight.” His bulging thigh muscle was a definite indication that the gym was working. “I want to try that new restaurant by the bay, it’s supposed to have the best seafood on the island.” He buttoned up his shirt, leaving the top two buttons undone to display his sleek, hairless chest. Since starting the gym two months ago, he saw good results, good enough to enjoy exposing a little skin here and there.

Shaneille stretched out across the bed, her long legs hanging over the side. “Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“Jay is back on the island and he’s taking me out.”

DeShaun laughed. His girl wasn’t one for jokes, but when she told one, it was funny. He looked at her, but she wasn’t laughing.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Why would I be kidding? I hadn’t seen him in awhile and he called and we’re going out. It’s just to Kaptain Kenny’s, no big deal.”

“You can’t be serious,” DeShaun said. “Please tell me that you’re not planning on going out with your ex and expecting me to be cool with that, please tell me that ain’t what you’re sayin’.”

“It’s not a big deal. I don’t see why you trippin’ over it.”

“It’s your EX! How would you like it if I went out with my ex?”

“First of all,” Shaneille began, “Don’t shout at me and second, you don’t have an ex.”

DeShaun shook his head incredulously. Of all things, she was picking at the fact that she was his first girlfriend.
He knew he shouldn’t have admitted that!
“That’s not my point.”

“Then what is your point?”

He thought for a moment. “My point is, if you go out with him, we’re over!”

Shaneille stared him down. “Are
you
serious?”

DeShaun was silent for a minute, carefully contemplating his next move. There was no backtracking from an ultimatum, so he said the only thing he could say and save face. “Yup!”

“Well then.” Shaneille sat up and threw an ample thigh over the side of the bed. Still naked, she hopped out of bed, marched over to wicker chair and grabbed her shirt and pants, flung over the chair’s back. “I guess I’ll be going then.” She calmly stepped into her jeans.

DeShaun felt a stabbing sensation in his gut. A single tear stung the corner of his eye, threatening to fall, but he fought hard to keep it back. Shaneille stomped past DeShaun, almost knocking him over, and turned the doorknob.

“Peace,” she said, without looking back. “It’s been real.” Shaneille exited, slamming the door behind her.

She was gone.

Confused by what happened, DeShaun walked over to his jacket, lying on the floor beside the bed. He reached down, jammed his hand into the front pocket and pulled out a tiny black box. He opened up the box and took one last look at the diamond ring. He closed the box and chucked it across the room, where it crashed against the wall and landed on the carpeted floor.