Tell Me I'm Dreamin'
Read Tell Me I'm Dreamin' Online
Authors: Eboni Snoe
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Historical, #Contemporary Fiction
NADINE HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO HER.
At first she thought she was imagining it; the gamut of emotions she had experienced that day were so far from normal, perhaps she was taking leave of her senses. But when his soft but firm lips touched hers, the sensations that began to smolder within Nadine were real. Like dry tinder that had been waiting to be ignited, her entire being began to respond to his kiss. The feel of his lips was devastating. Just the slightest touch made her knees feel weak and she longed for more. But somewhere in the back of her mind reality muscled its way forward, and when Nadine was fully cognizant of the inappropriateness of her actions, she yanked her head back.
“Just what are you doing?” she exclaimed, totally surprised by him but even more surprised at herself.
“I never pass up invitations like the one you just gave me,” he countered, his voice husky, seductive.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
A knowledgeable gleam entered his eye. “Well, you are in deep trouble if you do not.”
This novel is dedicated to pioneer publisher Leticia Peoples, who had a desire and saw a need for novels like this . . . and filled it.
Eros, a Caribbean island
1971
“Ulysses.” The name crackled from her mouth. Layla's eyes emitted shock and concern in a way only a mother's eyes can. “What happened to you?”
He clamped his seven-year-old mouth together in stubborn determination, making the thick line of blood running down from his nose tumble over his sealed lips. The drops spread like dark ink on his shirt. Aghast, Layla disappeared from the foyer and returned with a damp linen cloth. She dabbed gently at his nose while maneuvering his face so she could get a better look at his rapidly swelling eye. “My little one, who did this?” She trembled, switching from heavily accented English to her native Egyptian tongue. Ulysses removed his face from her hand and looked down at the floor.
“You must tell me, Ulysses,” she insisted softly. “What happened?”
He tried to maintain his cover of stubborn strength, but when his dark, misty eyes locked with hers a tear escaped over the rim. “They called me bad names because of you. Because you look so different from their mothers. Your skin is darker and they say you sound different.” He wiped away a matching tear with the back of his hand. “They said you shouldn't be living at Sovereign, that you should be working here and living in the settlement along with the other Africans because you're not high white or even Bajan. They say, because of you, I'm a mutt. A worthless dog.”
“So you fought for me?” Layla asked, trying to hide the quiver in her voice.
Ulysses nodded. “And I did fine in the beginning, but Michael and Dominique are older than I am, and bigger.”
“Thank you,” she kissed him tenderly on the cheek, “for protecting my honor. It was brave of you. But I don't want you to ever do it again,” Layla told him in measured tones.
Ulysses looked away.
“You must promise me, Ulysses, if the odds are not even, you will not do it again.”
The slight concession on Layla's behalf was rewarded by a hesitant nod.
“Good. Now there is something I want you to always remember.” She took his small, mahogany hands in hers. “Your father and I have much more in common than people realize. Although his immediate ancestors are British, generations before that your father's ancestors were adventurers. They traveled and married in Greece, Portugal, all over the world long before they settled here in the Caribbean. Because of his rich ancestry, his love of knowledge, and his appreciation for different cultures we named you Ulysses, a Greek name. Your father believes the best scholars base much of their knowledge on Greek and Egyptian understandings. He sees important links between my people and the Greeks; even our gods and goddesses are similar in many ways. Your father gave you a name from a culture he loves and whose blood flows in his veins. One that is built on the same foundation as mine, a foundation of legendary proportion.” Ulysses' dark eyes widened as he listened. “This foundation was the original home of the cliff dwellers. It was a continent called Lemuria. So our ancestral taproot, your father's and mine, is the same no matter what they may believe. And you,” she touched his cheek, “are special to all of us.”
Layla kneeled down and hugged Ulysses, holding him close until she forced herself to let him go. “Now,” she looked into his eyes, “go to the kitchen and get one of the fresh codfish balls Catherine just fried. Then find your Aunt Helen. She missed you while you were at school today.” She rose. “I must go out for a little while.”
Layla headed down the path from the estate, Sovereign, images of her child's battered face haunting her. The further she advanced, the faster she went. Finally, she kicked off the shoes that she hated to wear, leaving them carelessly in the dirt as her bare feet reintroduced themselves to the earth. Layla recognized the names of the boys Ulysses had mentioned, and she knew where they lived. She was determined to tell their mothers what they had done. She could not let it go unpunished.
Out of breath, and with sweat trickling down her face from her short, coarse hair, she arrived at the small house. Impatient to have the issue resolved, Layla knocked, but did not wait for an answer as she opened the door. The room smelled of rum and was hazy with smoke. She stared into the faces of three men playing cards. Layla had not expected to find the men at home this time of day. Normally, they were at work on the neighboring estate, Sharpe Hall. Two of them were the boys' fathers.
She watched as three pairs of surprised eyes turned in her direction, exhibiting a growing curiosity. Layla could tell the men had been drinking heavily and felt a spark of fear. But she took control of the emotion, transmuting it into assertiveness. “I need to talk to two of you about something that happened between our children today.”
The men simply stared.
Disconcerted by their lack of response, Layla rushed head on, describing what had taken place between Ulysses and their sons. In the end, despite their aloofness, she sought what she hoped would be common ground between them. “And I believed if I told you this, as adults, you would not go along with this kind of fighting.” She waited for some kind of answer as one man slowly put out his cigarette and another turned up his glass, tapping it on the bottom with his fingers. After an incubating silence the first man spoke.
“What kind of woman are you, coming down here confronting us men?” White smoke flowed from his nose and mouth as he spoke. Then the bottom portion of his face began to quiver. “But I don't need to ask that. You're Peter Deane's black Egyptian whore, who he calls his wife. You think you are something because you live better than most of us here on Eros. It's a crime that white men work harder for the little money we earn than you, a black Egyptian, child of slaves.”
The words dashed over Layla like ice-cold water, and she realized she had lived within the protective confines of Sovereign too long, had forgotten the prejudices that some of the islanders harbored. At first his words made her angry, and her eyes narrowed as she prepared to give him a verbal lashing. But the expressions she saw on the men's faces changed her mind. Layla realized she was in the worst kind of danger.
She turned to rush out of the door, but a hard body slammed into her, stealing her breath away. She recovered in seconds, turning into an animated ball of panic as she was lifted up by a strong pair of arms. A dirty kerchief quickly silenced her screams and she fought with everything she had as two of the men took her outside behind the house. The other man followed.
They were cruel beyond what she thought was humanly possible. They had their way with her, they beat her unnecessarily, and when they were done the men laughed as they dumped Layla on the lonely path that led back to Sovereign.
Her candle of life was almost out when her husband, Peter, found her. His distraught cry seemed to fill the forest around her as well as every cell within her body. Layla would have cried out against what he was preparing to do if she had possessed the strength, for she understood how deeply he loved her, that during their nine years of marriage his love had grown with each passing day, just as hers had. He loved her more than anything or anyone else in this world. But when she saw him raise the knife above his chest, all she could think of was What about our son, what about Ulysses? But Layla was unable to speak and her thoughts went unnoticed. She died when Peter's body slumped over hers, the knife deep in his chest.
At the brink of dusk the child, Ulysses, found his parents. He stood in hardened silence a few feet away from their bodies until his Aunt Helen caught up with him. When she saw the gruesome scene she screamed until her sun-browned skin turned white. She attempted to embrace and protect Ulysses' rigid body from the horrifying sight, but he would not allow it. He struggled against her as if a demon had possessed him, then snatched himself away and ran into the forest.
25 years later
. . .
Nadine Clayton tried to imagine how long the dusty artifacts had lain on the shelves untouched by human hands. Perhaps it had been as long as she had been untouched by a man. A total of twenty-six years. The number of years she had been in this world. Distracted by that haunting fact, she stared off blindly.
She knew plenty of sisters back home who had screwed their brains out, gotten married, had babies, and divorced by the time they were twenty-six. No one had asked Nadine to marry him, not that the thought of being a divorced mother was that appealing. Maybe she should have done like some of the others, slipped around, or made herself desirable enough, open enough despite her Pentecostal upbringing, where some brother may have tried to get with her. At least she would have gotten the basics about sex out of the way, and wouldn't feel like she had some big V tattooed on her chest. Frustrated, Nadine looked down with regret.
She forced her thoughts back inside the cluttered room and took on a protective attitude. I'm not even going there today; I will not down myself like that today. Why, it would be like blasphemy to do it here of all places, here on the island of Eros.
Boy, she was a long way from Ashland, Mississippi. She tried to think of how long she had dreamed of traveling outside of the United States. Nadine had probably wanted to travel from the very beginning of her love affair with literature and art, which felt like forever. Then the unbelievable happened, she was assigned to a consulting project. She had been given a choice of two locations, Athens, Greece, or a small island near Barbados that had become known for its literary and artistic treasures. For Nadine the choice was simple. It had to be the Caribbean. A place that held her ancestral roots. A place she had heard strange, intriguing tales about. A place she felt drawn to. So the job was sheer luck, or safer yetâNadine looked at the cross that hung around her neckâa bountiful blessing from God.