Bliss (13 page)

Sinclair thought that was something she'd packed up years
ago and left buried in a closet somewhere, but from the urgent noises coming from her tummy, that was obviously not
the case. Still it was satisfying just to watch Della make her
way down the long table, sampling from everything that
looked good to her. Sinclair's gaze fell to her trim backside
again. Where did all that food go?

A tall woman with her hair hidden by a brilliant orange
head wrap approached Della, who looked at her with recognition and put her plate aside to hug her. Sinclair hung back.
The tall stranger said something that made Della laugh, then
she plucked a slice of pineapple from the older woman's plate
and ate it. She leaned her mouth, still wet with pineapple juice, closer to Della's ear then whispered something that
made her friend almost drop her plate. Della used her free
hand to tap the woman lightly on the arm in reprimand then
turned away to pay more attention to her food. But she was
smiling.

Sinclair looked away from them to gaze around the rest of
the room. Most of the furniture had obviously been cleared
away to make room for the party. The peach-colored walls
were hung with paintings of local scenes, women with baskets of fruit perched on their heads, long stretches of beach
with nary a soul to spoil the view, vivid watercolors of jungle
scenes, complete with waterfalls and exotic birds. Sinclair
hoped that she'd get to see some of these things for herself
while she was here, with or without the aid of her father's
motorcycle. She smiled at the thought of Xavier and Nikki
being her guides around the island. That wouldn't be a bad
way to spend the month at all.

She looked away from the painting of dense mangroves
and wilting hothouse orchids to see what looked like a familiar back and spill of hair.

It was the woman from the jeep. Up close she was even
more impressive. White chinos and a sleeveless blouse, also
white, showed off her perfect ebony skin and sleek body. Her
dreadlocked hair was loose around a face that looked almost
Ethiopian with its narrow cheekbones, nose, and full flower
of a mouth.

Sinclair waited until the person that the woman was talking to wandered off before approaching. "Hello," she said
before she could lose her nerve.

The woman turned around. "Hullo and happy birthday."
She made a noise as if something suddenly occurred to her.
"By the way, I hope you don't mind me being here since I am
a stranger and all."

Her English was very precise, each word perfectly enunciated, yet made more interesting by a faint Jamaican accent. As if that wasn't enough, her voice was low and deep, reminding Sinclair of a tropical rain forest, or the version of
one that she'd seen at an I-Max theater when she was younger.
The woman's every word was infused with a low-grade heat
that seemed to brush over Sinclair's skin, unexpected but
pleasant.

"Not a problem. If Papa had only invited the people I
knew it would have just been him, Nikki, and my little
brother, Xavier." Sinclair unconsciously rocked back on her
heels and linked her hands behind her back.

"You've got a point there. By the way, I'm Hunter. Hunter
Willoughby."

"A pleasure. And now we're not strangers anymore."

"True." Hunter nodded, then looked behind her, briefly,
into the crowd. "How long are you going to be down here
for?"

"About a month. Or until Papa and Nikki get tired of me,
whichever comes first."

The other woman's eyes settled on her with more than casual interest, moving over her braided hair, slight body, and
the loose terra-cotta-colored sundress. They were the same
height, Sinclair noted as she met Hunter's eyes again.

"Della was right," Hunter said. "You do look a lot like
Lydia, more so a few features than the whole package." Her
eyes flickered down Sinclair's body again, as if responding
automatically to some stimuli. She ate from her saucer of carrot sticks as she spoke, dipping the stalks of vegetable into
the herb-flecked ranch dressing. Sinclair felt her face heat up,
as if Hunter's mouth was nibbling at every feature, tasting
her, comparing her flavor to the mysterious Lydia's.

She cleared her throat. "I haven't met this Lydia person yet
so I don't know."

"Really?" Hunter looked surprised. "She should be around
here somewhere. It seems a little strange that you haven't met
your own sister yet."

Sister?

"Hey, there you are." A low voice came from behind
Sinclair. She turned around.

"Hey." Hunter greeted the woman with a soft kiss on the
cheek, but the woman pulled slightly away. Still, Hunter's
hand rested lightly on the woman's waist. "I heard that you
haven't met your sister yet."

"No, I haven't." The woman smiled and extended her
hand. "I'm Lydia."

She really does look like me, Sinclair thought, staring at
the narrow face and full, heart shaped mouth with amazement.
Her hair, though, was very different. She wore it straightened
and parted down the middle to frame her vulpine face and
brush her shoulders in a perfect silken fall. Lydia was shorter
and her body was fuller, more voluptuously rounded than Sinclair's. Her skin, too, was lighter, a light-through-amber color
compared to Sinclair's red oak. An impressive wealth of cleavage lay in the scooped neckline of her yellow dress.

"Sinclair." Her sister's hand was soft. Up close she smelled
like rosewater and couldn't have been any younger than
twenty-five.

She felt an acute sense of disappointment. Not only that
Hunter was obviously involved with her, but even worse, that
their father had cheated on Sinclair's mother.

"Do you live around here?" Sinclair asked.

"This is my house."

"Ah." Sinclair's eyebrow twitched in surprise. "You have
wonderful taste. I especially love the paintings in this room."

"Hunter did some of them, actually. The ones you saw
when you first came into the house. She's a computer scientist
with a soul." She turned to the woman at her side. "Unfortunately the only way you can see it is through her paintings."

Hunter chuckled. "Thanks, Lydia. Good to know how
you feel about me."

"Are you two dating?"

They looked at her as if surprised that she could see the
level of their intimacy.

"Not at all." Lydia said. "We're good friends who sometimes get together for nocturnal activities." Her grin was
devilish.

"Stop it." Hunter shook her head, though her own lips
twitched as if fighting a smile. "Don't let her tease you. We
are seeing each other."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. I just thought that-"
she gestured to Hunter's hand still draped across Lydia's hip.
"This meant you were together. Sorry."

Hunter moved her hand away with a guilty start. "No
need for you to apologize, though," her voice lowered to a
mocking whisper, "perhaps I should because Lydia's not really
out to her family."

"I don't hide it either." She grabbed Hunter's hand and
forced it back on her hip.

The dark woman sighed and took her hand back. "Did I
mention that your sister was temperamental?"

Sinclair glanced from one woman to the other, curious to
see how their little game was going to play out.

"Hey, Sinclair." Her father appeared suddenly at her side.
"Having a good time?"

"Yes, thank you. I just met Lydia."

He spared his other daughter an affectionate glance.
"Good. She was nice enough to lend her house for this party.
I hope you two get to know each other well. She's a good person." No explanation about why she had a twenty-five-yearold sister when he and her own mother were still together
that exact amount of years ago. Maybe it just didn't matter.
Maybe that was the way men and women dealt with each
other here. What's a lover or two in a marriage?

"Thanks, Papa. All that because I lent you my house for
the afternoon?" Her teasing smile gave Sinclair a hint to the
sort of relationship they had.

He shared an affectionate look with his middle child before turning to the woman beside her. "Hunter."

"Mr. Daniels." They shook hands, but that was the extent
of their interaction. Sinclair made a mental note to ask him
about that later on.

"Come dance with your old man, Sinclair. All this good
music is playing for you and I haven't seen you dance one
step yet."

"I was taking my time. You know, warming up." Truth
was, she wasn't much of a dancer. Being out there in front of
all those people made her self-conscious. She'd never even
danced for herself in the privacy of her own apartment.

"You've had enough time. Let's go." He dragged her out
to the middle of the room where two couples and three children danced to an old Beres Hammond song.

Over her father's shoulder, she watched Lydia and Hunter
talking. The ebony-skinned woman caught her eye and
toasted her with a glass of clear liquid. Sinclair smiled, then
turned her attention back to her father.

"Thank you again for doing this for me. This whole thing
was very unexpected."

"That was the idea." He chuckled. "I'm glad you like it.
Now maybe you can go out with some of these people while
you're here. They can show you some real island sights.

"What are you going to be doing in the meantime?"

"Working mostly. But not all the time. In the middle of all
your new socializing just remember that I'm going to want
some of your attention, too."

"No problem. I'll always have a space on my dance card
for you."

They twirled around the floor, surprising each other with
their fancy footwork.

"Can 1 ask you something?" Sinclair asked.

"Yes, yes. Anything."

"Who is Lydia's mother?"

He didn't seem surprised by the question. "A bush woman
I knew for a while."

"Did she know Mama?"

"Yes. But not very well. She used to come down from the
hills to sell her fruit and things. I think that was how they
met."

"Should I be upset that you had an affair with her?"

"Why? Your mother knew about her. I'm sure that she had
herself an outside man too."

"You're sure about that?" Or does the thought of it just
make you feel better?

"I'm sure. She was happy at times when I didn't give her
any reason to be. She had somebody else. I'm very sure of it."

Just like she had been Regina's somebody else, Sinclair
thought suddenly and tripped over her feet.

"You all right?"

"Fine. Just a stray thought."

He swept her into an intricate turn and shimmy that didn't
quite work. They both laughed and threw themselves back
into the dance. Two songs later, they walked away from the
dance floor and headed for the bar.

"Have some rum punch," he said. "It's the best on the
island."

"What's in it besides rum?"

"There's something in it besides rum?" he asked innocently. At the look on her face, he laughed. "Just try it. The
thing won't bite."

A tall pitcher of punch landed on the bar in front of them.
Her father poured two tall glasses. He hoisted his glass.

"To my daughter. Happy birthday and welcome home."

Their glasses touched with a sound like music.

Four hours and four glasses of rum punch later, most of
the party had already gone home. Lydia and their father sat
in the sunroom laughing about familiar things and, drunk from one Heineken and a shot of white rum, Nikki had already curled up for a nap in the guest bedroom with her son.
Sinclair walked out to the back patio with her fourth glass of
rum punch in hand and sat down at a small table to feel the
night breeze on her face.

"Having fun?"

Sinclair would have known Hunter's voice anywhere.
She peered into the dark to see the other woman rocking in
a hammock a few feet away. "Yes, I am. Thanks for asking."

Sinclair drank the last of her rum punch and put the glass
very carefully in the middle of the table.

"Is everything here what you thought it would be?"
Hunter asked.

"Not quite." She still wondered if her mother really had
taken lovers like Victor obviously had. "I certainly never expected to find Lydia."

Hunter chuckled. "I can imagine. Jamaican men think
nothing of having more than one woman at a time; the more
pussy around the better." Her teeth flashed in the dark.

Sinclair realized then that Hunter was more than a little
drunk. The British precision in her voice had mostly disappeared, leaving it softer and more mellow.

"What about you? Do you believe the same thing applies
to you?"

"The more pussy the better?"

Sinclair nodded. Then, realizing that Hunter probably
couldn't see her in the dark, voiced her answer.

"Nah. I've always been the one-woman kind. My father
and I had that in common. It was my mother who fucked
around and got caught." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "I guess
that just proves that some people want more while others
just want the best."

"Hmm." That sounded nice. The best. "Is that what you
have with Lydia? The best?" Sinclair looked over at the other woman in the dark, more imagining her shape than seeing it.
Did Hunter mind her asking these intimate questions?

"Don't have us engaged already. She and I just recently got
together. We're trying this dating thing to see how far it takes
us. So far she's a nice woman. A very nice woman." Hunter
sounded faintly amused. "What's your story, then? You looking for the perfect vacation fuck or what?"

"I'm not looking for anything here." Except maybe a temporary rest from my life. "I had a bad experience a few weeks
ago and I'm just trying to take my mind off it."

"Somebody in the States broke your heart?"

"She broke it in a million pieces."

A scented night breeze drifted over them, ruffling the tiny
hairs at Sinclair's temples and the cloth over her breasts. She
closed her eyes as a voluptuous sigh eased from her throat.
Her head felt pleasantly weightless, like it was a balloon
floating into the night sky.