New Year Fireworks (The Ones Indoors)

‘Suck-in.’

'I. Am. Sucking. In'. Lemara seethes back at Julia.

'Em, have you put on weight because these clasps ain't budging?'

The commotion brings Joshua, in all but his tux and cufflinks, to the ensuite door. The said cufflinks he’s fixing, he stops, to look at his sister and his girlfriend.

‘Everything ok in here?’

Lemara grits teeth. Doing anything else, breathing, blinking, would cause clasps to detonate. Like shrapnel. So she nods. Joshua satisfied, nods back. Retreats. His double monks, clippety-clipping off the marble floor.

'He walks just like dad.' She says not in particular to anyone. 'Robert Joshua Hart, I do miss you.'

Julia takes a moment, as if she is the one in the corset, then carries on, tugging-and-a-pulling. Lemara simply fights with air.

'Em, are you sure haven't put on weight? Because there's no way, my measurements are this off?

'Honey if anything, I should have lost weight given the rounds your brother put me through today.'

‘Clearly, wasn’t enough.’

Lemara snorts but Julia's yank on the corset one last time, leaves her gasping.

‘Julia, I can’t breathe.'

'You're gonna have to. As there's no way, I'm taking you back out of the dress. Besides, everyone's waiting.'

Metallic gold heels fitted, Julia looks her over, then turns her to the mirror and hearts swell.

'Julia?'

'No. No-no-no.' We're not doing any of that.' Snapping tissues out of the tissue box, 'I just retouched your makeup.'

Lemara straightens, sucks in what little dignity she has left, nods. 'Alright,' she said, breathless. 'But If I die tonight, you can bury me in this dress. You don’t make something this beautiful for it only to be worn once.'

'Honey, there's a hundred and ninety-one ways to die and I know I am not a doctor anymore but on my watch isn't one of them. I love you too much.'

‘Josh.’ Julia calls.

'Wow.' He mouths to Lemara via the mirror as he enters the door.

'Thank you.' She mouths back.

'Well my work here is done.' Straightening her own red-ruched, deep v plunge gown. 'I'll get your mother, shall I? See you both downstairs?'

He gives her that look of 'really?' then turns back to Lemara. Sleeked back hair in a twisted bun to her toes at the end of a thigh high split, he looks her over. Shoulders bare which he now covers with his jacket.

'Stunning.' He says now.

And she takes his elbow.

She'd not be in this silver-flecked bustier gown if she weren’t presenting tonight. Julia engineered it, of course she did. Except Joshua still thought I was presenting his award.

In the hotel lobby smells warm, spicy, of Christmas. Guests (some soon to be recognised for their extraordinary achievements and service) gather for the Cariba New Years Eve Ball. Between the laughter and flashing lights, the canapes and clinking glasses, members of the Caribbean Diaspora greet one another. And harpist plays, smoothing the buzz of conversations.

In the crowd, Joshua finds who they're looking for. his mother and sister. When Julia catches Lemara's eye, tips her head towards her mother, Eleanor. That smile arrived very late and left just as early. Still, they greet each other. Courteous but stiff. How in all of God's named earth, that Eleanor found time for disgust on a night honouring her son was a feat of good project management. Of course, Josh received a far warmer greeting.

Nearer the ballroom, a champagne glass tinkers, quietens the crowd and the ballroom doors open. High heels click across marble before dulling out on carpet.

Eleanor, she adds herself to Joshua's left and Julia, though a step behind, Lemara's right. Together they move with the crowd, find the seating plan and their table.

Already seated is a couple (Faith from the Bahamas and her husband Gordon, he's from Grenada). Monique introduces herself. She, too, is from Grenada where she's championing an ethical tree-to-bar model of chocolate production for the island. There's Jonathan, he's from the Turks and Caicos Islands. Comes across somewhat reserved, works for one of the Big Four and a rarity. Turns out no one has ever met or knows anyone who knows anyone from the TCIs or has visited the TCIs.

Click here to meet Jonathan in his setting

Mid-introduction, three more guests arrive, though only two more seats available. David, who introduces himself, his wife Olivia and his mother-in-law, Shelly-Ann. 'But everyone calls her Aunty Shelly' he adds.

Both lawyers, they share Anguilla and Jamaica as home.

Though Julia and Joshua are no strangers to people doing a double-take on them, it didn't go unnoticed, at least not by Josh, that Aunty Shelly's eyes came back to rest firmly on his. Even smiling. And certainly not by Eleanor. He smiles back. Eleanor's softens too but only to trade her sculpted disgust for newly minted coins of disapproval.

'Shelly-Ann.'

She said it quite brusque. Made both her kids look.

'Oh, Eleanor. I didn't recognise you there.'

Olivia looks at the woman she calls her mother. 'Hang on.'

'You two know each other?' Julia chimes in.

While Eleanor ignores her daughter entirely. Shelly-Ann nods.

'Not quite what I'd call it.' Eleanor clips.

'How's Robert?' Glances around the table again, then back to Joshua.

'Ooh, you mean good ole daddy was a player?' Julia says. Tone hushed

'Ju-ulia?' Joshua cut through.

'If you must know, he passed a few years ago.'

'Then may his soul rest in peace.'

It was not a clapback. You felt every word Aunty Shelly said. And that captures Lemara's attention. She now wants to know who this woman is ruffling Eleanor's feather's.

Come Meet Aunty Shelly in 'Tell Me What You're Not Telling Me'

Though more sparklers than fireworks, David steps in. Excuses them to escort his mother-in-law to her table. Olivia follows.

Flanking either side of Aunty Shelly as if bodyguards, they walk her the perilous two hundred centimetre journey from their table to hers. While you could see the sides of both Olivia and David faces, only the back of Aunty Shelly is visible. But whatever is being said is riveting, judging by Olivia's face.

And for the first time, Lemara spots the podium and briefly catches butterflies.

Now returned to their table, it is Eleanor who momentarily glances at Olivia, seated to Julia's right and David to hers. Conversation falters some. David tries reviving it, asking Joshua where he's from.

'‘Actually, yes. I don't think we ever heard what you do?’ Monique adds.

Barbados gets an 'Ah cool, we'd like to go there one day.' But his 'airline captain' does what it always does, setting off a burst of conversational fireworks.

And Eleanor, her smugness burns straight through Mars.

The first course arrives. The women, minus Eleanor, talk fashion and Julia’s creation. The men move from jet engines to fast cars and Julia switches easily between conversations. The only person at the table who'd driven a Ferrari. She tells them how she once drove off in a boyfriend’s. Left him stranded.

'He called me three hours later,' she continues. 'From a petrol station. In Monaco.'

Even Eleanor smiled. Made Lemara's heart drop.

Part II continues soon

Loved any of the characters you just read?

See more of Joshua, Julia and Lemara in What Happens on A Cruise, Stays On The Cruise Want more of Aunty Shelly, she is in When The Rhythm Changes series.

The Call Me Blair/Wrongdoing series is where you'll find Jonathan