#i2amru (I, Too, Am Reinhardt) Volume 1 Number 1 | Page 14

Promises

by

F

ine gold ribbons threaded their
way down the back of her dark
crimson dress, and the orange
light of the setting sun streaming
through our glass windows made
them look like rivulets of fire. Aunt
Jeannine wore that dress more times
than the Pope wore his mitre. I
often teased her about it.
“Do you not have any other clothes,
Aunt Jeannine? Are you in uniform,
Aunt Jeannine, and if so whom do
you answer to, Aunt Jeannine?”

She would laugh and respond that
she had not needed to answer to
anybody but ‘Mamzelle’ Erzulie herself since her husband died. After, I
would promise her that when I was
older I would buy her all the clothes
she wanted.
She was busy at the stove, flipping
the beignets. Her huge onyx arms
glistened with little diamonds of
sweat as she gently submerged the
beignets in the teal oil in the pan
before gliding them around and
flipping them anew in a sizzling
danse macabre. I watched her silently, my cheeks puffed up against
my hands with my elbows propped
up on the gingham-covered counter.
“I’m not even hungry,” I said, most
likely adopting the pout that I had
become infamous for whenever
things did not go my way.

14

She scoffed. I glanced at the bowl of
rice and chicken in front of me and
back at the shiny beignet she was
placing on a plate by the stove. Plip!
The sound of the beignet landing
delicately on the plate was akin to a
mating call, like the one from that
silly red bird that my stupid sister
Jemmy was obsessed with. But Jemmy wasn’t here now; like a bird, she
had flown herself, from our home in
Haiti to New York for the summer
vacation and was probably eating all
the beignets she wanted. It isn’t fair.
“I’m not. All I want is a simple
snack.” I pouted further, nearly
doubling over with laughter when
I came to the realization that at
this moment I probably resembled
Jemmy’s black bird, it with the long,
protruding blue beak. I managed to
retain my sour disposition. It will
work.
“Boy, a beignet is not a snack. I’m
not fetching to have your mom
come home and have her say I’ve
been feeding you nothing but
garbage. Now, if you’re not going to
eat your food, why don’t you go to
your room and write?” With that,
she waved her free hand dismissively, her white nail polish like little
lightning bolts at the end of a black
forge.
“I don’t do that anymore,” I said,
frowning, the pout receding back
into my suddenly sullen face.

Teddy Casimir

At that, she turned to look at me. I
drummed my fingers against my cheeks.
“Why not?”
What do I say to that? Come on, Teddy,
think, think .…”Writing is stupid. Why
make up stories when I could be living
one?”

"Boy, you're a big story.

A born liar. You're
both the snake and
the charmer."

Aunt Jeannine narrowed her eyes, the hand
with the spatula akimbo on her wide hips, and
smiled at me. “Boy, you’re a big story. A born
liar. You’re both the snake and the charmer.”

“Well, Jemmy writes all the time. Her last
story was called ‘The Killer’, but I haven’t
even been able to finish any of mine,” I said
at long last, chewing on the corner of my
lips.

“I’m not, though. If I was, I would have gotten
myself a beignet by now.” I shot her an elusive “Not even the one with the talking lemur?”
look with just enough hint of a smile to show
that I was kidding her but was truly adamant “No,” I sighed. “He wouldn’t stop talking.”
about getting my hands on those beignets.
“Well, Papi Edy came into my room and
She smiled at that and turned off the stove,
asked me what I was doing. I told him I was
muttering something under her breath. She
writing again. He asked me why, and I said I
took the plate of beignets and placed them
wanted to be a writer, like Perrault. But….”
on the counter between us.
“But?” She got up, reached into one of the
“You can have a beignet if I can have the
cabinets, and produced the jar of powdered
truth from you. Why did you stop writing?”
sugar.
I bit my lip. What do I say to that? I looked
at her but avoided her sharp, black eyes. I
looked at the fine lines of her black face,
tracing the heart shape of it; at the wild hair
encircling her face in a triumvirate halo
of gray, white and black; and at her strong
hands latched on to the plate. As my eyes
flitted across her chiseled features, she began
to tap a finger against the counter.
“And don’t lie.”

“Well, he told me that writers didn’t make
any money. That it was a career fit for women. And that I was wasting my time.” It isn’t
fair. My eyes were wet with tears, but I held
them back. I was almost eight. And big boys
don’t cry.
Aunt Jeannine looked at me a long time
without saying anything. Then, she grabbed
one of my hands and held it open. Against
her hand, my tiny, teak-colored own looked
like a drop of honey in a sea of black.

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