Katherine beams at me before asking my husband, “Is it okay if I borrow your wife for a few minutes?”
“Please, take her. She’s yours.” He is back to normal, distant and unaffected by anything I do or say. “Just don’t take too long,” he adds. “Your father might arrive at any moment.”
I pucker my lips and blow him a kiss before Katherine, holding my hand, tugs me toward the exit.
The moment has come for me to confide in Katherine Dunham. Four years younger than I am, she is already an acclaimed dancer and choreographer—she founded her own dance company, Ballet Négre—and an anthropologist. A determined woman who prioritizes her ambitions, talents, and desires, she agreed weeks ago to let me (and Tully) join her Caribbean anthropology and African dance expedition. It’s her party. We do as she tells us. Of course, there are things she doesn’t know about my reasons for my trip to Accompong, the Maroon village in the heart of Jamaica’s Cockpit Country—things no one other than Maxi knows. If I am to tell Katherine the truth, the time is now, the place is here. After following her, I wait until we’re a little farther from Tully and everyone else. Then the door to the parlor suddenly bursts open, and just like that, the moment is gone.
My father strides into the room. “Vivi, all grown up at thirty. Finally, right?”
I release Katherine’s hand and whisper, “We’ll talk later.” Then I smile at my father, overlooking the nickname he knows I detest. “Thank you, sir. So glad you could make it.”
“How’s everyone?” He gestures broadly around the room. The response is less than enthusiastic. “Why haven’t you cut the cake yet? There’s no reason to wait for me.”
“Mother said we should wait,” I explain.
“I said wait to open the presents,” my mother defends herself.
“And only one bottle of champagne uncorked?” Major Thomas looks at Tully as if serving champagne is his duty. “Well, I’m here now. Let’s get on with it.”
Maxi strikes a long match to light the candles on the cake stand.
“Hold on there.” My father raises his hand and gives her a tolerant squint, one he often casts her way. “Vivi doesn’t need to blow out the candles. She’s too old for such nonsense. Let’s open the presents.”
I lower my gaze. “Sure, if you say so, sir.”
“Major Thomas.” It’s Katherine’s voice. “How about we toast the birthday girl before she opens her gifts?”
My father grunts, never liking it when a woman contradicts him. Katherine takes a breath, preparing to deliver the toast, but my father won’t have it.
“I’ll give the toast,” he says. “Pass me a glass of champagne.”
Maxi places a glass of champagne in my father’s hand.
“All right, let’s do this then,” he says.
Before my father begins, Maxi barely gets the champagne flutes into everyone else’s hands.
“To my daughter, a young woman who deserves all the kindness that comes her way. Happy birthday.”
My fake smile at his remarks, I trust, isn’t as obvious as it feels. The others in the parlor seem just as uneasy with the brevity of the toast as I am.
“I guess I’ll open my presents now.” I walk over to the round table in the center of the parlor, intent on grabbing the nearest gift, when my father stops me.
“Open this one first,” he orders, placing a small, narrow box in my hand.
I take the box. “Of course, sir.” It isn’t wrapped. All I have to do is open the lid. It’s a pocket watch.
My hands tremble. My grandfather, who was enslaved for most of his life, “inherited” the pocket watch from his father, the master of the plantation where he was born. The significance of the gift leaves me utterly baffled. My father’s usual gifts typically include clothing or candy, a scarf, a sweater, a new coat, or a box of Frango mints from Marshall Field’s.
He takes the pocket watch on the necklace from me and, moving behind me, fastens the clasp around my neck. “I put it on a gold chain so you can wear it as a necklace.”
I lift the pocket watch, grasping it delicately, and finally say, “Thank you. It’s beautiful, Father.” I consider hugging him. An embrace seems right, but I can’t recall the last time we shared more than a handshake. I hold back. I haven’t told him about the trust fund, let alone Jamaica. Perhaps this is the perfect time to share my news. After all, he’s in such a good mood that he might not be upset.
“May I have everyone’s attention?” I do a short spin, and when all eyes are on me, I say, “I have an announcement.”
The parlor fills with a collective gasp and then falls silent. I feel like I’m in a theater as the curtain rises and the audience quiets in anticipation. This is the reaction I expect after I say what I have to say, not beforehand. Even my father looks stunned.
Tully is the exception. The look of what the hell in his eyes helps me realize my mistake. “No. No. No. That’s not the announcement. I’m not with child. I’m so sorry.”
