Jo no se...

It was raining when I woke up that morning in Kerrie's cozy apartment up in St. Augustine. I should have taken heed of the weather as a sign for what was to come, but I was too nervous and still in a bit of a daze to even notice how dark and dreary the morning had been. A couple of days earlier when I flew into Trinidad, the pilot had welcomed everyone to the lovely Trinidad & Tobago and announced that the weather was currently a whopping ninety-five degrees. And about an hour later when Kerrie and Neil and I were trudging through the parking lot in search of Neil's blue Sunny, I felt as if the bold sun had plummeted to the Earth, down to Trinidad, and was walking right beside me - taunting me. But on that morning, the sun was nowhere to be found and a steady drizzle was showering the land.

Everything had happened so fast..... First came the email, there was a position available and Ren's mom had forwarded my resume to a woman, her friend, who happened to be the President and CEO of the organization. I declined almost immediately. I still had a year left with my current employer and so I emailed this woman and explained to her that I was not at this time interested, but that I hoped she would keep me in mind. I was disgusted with myself as I clicked the send button. For many months, I had been dreading waking up in the morning and going to work. I mean, for the most part, it is typical for someone to hate their job - that is the American way. But I had become downright miserable with work - and my life. I had closed the door to my office and cried on several occations, thinking, I was so good in school! I studied and got a scholarship and got good grades...what had happened? Hadn't all the hard work I put in for all those years meant anything now? Now, I'm no whiner and certainly not a quitter, but something was definitely wrong. I was just too miserable.....

Paola had felt the same way. So about a month ago, she quit. She said, "Fuck this bullshit!" and she upped and quit. And I was so jealous.....

But then along came this opportunity. It was knocking on my door and I had refused to answer. It's funny how we do that. We bitch and complain about something and then when better comes, we take off running in the exact opposite direction. It's like the battered wife syndrome: "I can't leave him. I have to put up with it. This is the way it's supposed to be. It'll pass..." And then it's also like the whole mastuh-slave thing, too. When the slaves were emancipated after the Civil War, they didn't have a clue what to do with themselves. A lot of them stayed on the plantations and kept right on workin for Mistuh Mastuh. They had gotten so used to endurng misery and being unhappy that when freedom came, they were afraid to leave because, ultimately, the fear of the unknown in addition to being so used to the bad stuff had rendered them un-open to any advancement whatsoever.

So, because I had gotten used to the idea that I was supposed to be this miserable and that I would rough it out for another year and then "see the light", I wrote an email to the lady declining my interest in the position. The rest of the workday crawled by, shitty as usual, and when I opened my email later on and saw that my email to this lady had bounced back, I knew it was a sign. Well, that and Ren bitching me out and slapping some common sense into me. Lol!

I deleted my battered wife/mastuh-slave email and composed a new one. A few emails back and forth and next thing you know, I'm flying to Trinidad for the long weekend to meet with this woman who was holding my faith right in palm of her hand.

I didn't put on any make-up that morning. The dreary weather had put me in a dreary mood and my re-orruring "bad" dream from the night before had left me feeling a little sleep deprived and tired as I got dressed. I dabbed some concealer beneath my eyes, put on some lip gloss and called it a day. Then I packed my duffel bag - the only bag I had traveled with - and made sure that my ticket was in the inside pocket. I hoped that my interview would not run too long as I had to head to the aiport right after to fly back home.

Home.

Miami. Born and raised. Never more than an hour up the Turnpike from these crazy, irritating people that I called my family, these crazy, irritating people that I would give my life for. Was I really ready to leave them? Yes, of course I was. People leave their families all the time. My time had come. It's just that I was pretty sure I would cry enough tears to fill an Olympic-sized pool on the day the time would come for me to board the plane with that one-way ticket in my hand. And was I ready to give up my beautiful Miami? I mean, let's keep it real, Miami is THE place to be. So much to do and so much to see with it's impressive landscaping, larger than life skylines and well-paved roads. And Trinidad...just a lot of green, brown and gray...huge potholes in roads that ran through even the finest parts of town...Port of Spain, a dingy concrete jungle with greasy vagrants and out of this world traffic everywhere you turn. The only other thing that came to mind was Movietowne, Zen, 51, Maracas.....and then what? I would miss South Beach. I would miss being able to hop into a car and four hours later, bam!, a theme park. I would miss being able to order anything I well damn pleased online and having it shipped right to my front door, straight from the the shipper. I would miss Jasmine Thai; I would miss Walmart.

I thought of all these things I would miss as I made my way up Edward Street in Port of Spain. I brought my Superpharm-bought portfolio (thanks, Nads!) up to my chest and held onto it for dear life while balancing Kerrie's huge umbrella in my right hand. She had instructed me to keep it pinned beneath my armpit so that my money would not fall out but somewhere along the way I had decided to disobey.

I was over a half hour early to my interview. The receptionist was polite but the prissy smirk on her face made me nervous. I had made up my mind that I hated the office even before the front door had closed behind me. It was gray. A dingy, depressing gray. And every doorframe was painted a bright, manic orange color. Now, I'm not the type to trip on office space interior design - I usually could give two shits. And as I sat in the chair that was right in front of the receptionist's desk, I drummed my fingers on my thigh and wondered why I was letting gray walls and carpeting and orange door frames bother me so much.....

The humidity in the air was, for once, quite refreshing against my air-conditioner-cooled-skin. I felt like a load had been lifted off of my shoulders when I walked out of that office after the interview. I knew I wasn't going to get the job.

It seemed to me that Ms. BossLady found a great deal of trouble with the fact that I had no base - no family, no home, no car - in Trinidad. BossLady's daughter was about to graduate from the University of Waterloo and, although she did not say it with so many words, I could see that she could not quite understand why an American would want to move to Trinidad.

"Why do you want to come work here?" Her eyes peered into mine and I felt as if though she were trying to read my deepest inner thoughts.

"Because I am very interested in obtaining international work experience and I absolutely love Trinidad."

I don't think it was enough for her. And then she was extremely surprised to find out that I had flown to Trinidad just for this interview - despite my emails informing her that I lived in Miami and would be willing to fly down to Trinidad to meet with her. And then when she frowned after I informed her that I had never driven in Trinidad (she asked.....he said I should've lied.....maybe he's not that dumb after all!), I knew it was over; Trinidad doesn't have Mapquest...what's up with that?!

"Well, I still have to interview two locals that an agency is sending to me and then I have to attend my daughter's graduation in Canada so I will get back to you within the next couple of weeks," she tells me. In my mind, I am already wondering if Tourism Development Company will FINALLY! get tired of me emailing them my resume every other second and give in to hiring a blasted American, nah!

I walked all the way back up Edward Street to Kerrie's office.

"How was it?"

I looked into her eager face and giggled. Then I frowned. "I dunno...."

Sitting in back of the lil old Negro man's taxi, headin West to Piarco with a light drizzle outside, checking in at the American Airlines counter thinking to myself how wonderful it was to fly without having to check in any luggage, sitting in the terminal's waiting area cursing myself for not having the will or energy to pick up a couple of Carib six-packs from Duty Free for my Daddy, stretching out on the plane across two seats (because my neighbor moved to go sit in the empty seat next to his wife) and gazing down below out of the window at the tiny brown mass that was all of Trinidad, a faint little smile had decorated the bottom part of my face through it all.

And that same faint little smile had taken over my face after I had told him everything I have just told you. I scooped up the third fox tail roll with my chopsticks and dropped it into my mouth; I looked across the table at his plate and saw that he was already finished with his spicy tuna roll. And I thought to myself, everything happens for a reason. If I do not get this position, it is for a reason. I am fine with that. I will make a move sooner a later, yes. This I know. But for now.....

I am scooping up my next fox tail roll when he speaks again.

"Where de job? Where u wud stay?"

"The job was in Port of Spain. I would stay as close to work as possible. In Port of Spain, I guess."

"Dah too close fuh comfort."

Steups. "Whatever! You're way out east; you're not that close to Port of Spain."

"Nah dah far. Nah far at all, actually. Ah can make it to Port ah Spain in twenny minutes."

He is right; I knew this. The truth of the matter was that, geographically, he would probably be closer to me than any other one of my friends would be. So why had I felt the need to put all the distance in the world between he and I - even when it was just hypothetically! Damn Joanne! What the fuck is your problem?!?!?!

"That's true," was all I could offer.

Then he gazed past my head and his eyes narrowed..... "I wonder if I could get a job in Trinidad..."

And right before I scolded myself for having dared to think what I had thought, right before I began to daydream about this tangible person whom I had grown so very fond of, right before I realized that I had better eat more slowly so that I would be able to spend more time with him, and right before I bowed my head so that he would not see the mischievous sparks that were dancing in my eys, that faint little smile was upon my face again.