Chapter Two: Love to Die For.
Even though she knew she couldn't love me, she still wanted me, and I was going stone-cold out of my cotton-picking mind for wanting her too. Libby was 24. As for me, I was 34 years of age at the time. The forces on either side of this socio-divide were unrelenting. Was this a love to die for? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.
Libby Dahoust is her name, I'm Manley, Manley Jaxtan Woodhardt. I met her there in the study hall... Well, I saw her there for the very first time on the orientation evening.
We were both volunteering our services there, but really, we only did meet and greet strangely at the food counter in the pizzeria across the street at Sherbrooke Street and McGill College. She's a straight-A medical student of Indian descent. Straight shiny black hair and chocolate brown skin. And me? I was just barely skimming my way through a course in computer programming and design. A West Indian-born dark-skinned dreadlock wanna-be at the time.
My dreads were just beginning to take shape, but I sure have got the physique and the good looks to work it well. Well, so they used to say in those days. "He's the quintessential West Indian man," that's what they also said. I had no reason to doubt them.
She's very shy and reserved. Or so it would have seemed at first sight to many, including me. Her head is always in books or papers. Until I caught her eyeing me there that day. Or should I say, we were eyeing each other? I was looking at her over the pizza and coke in front of me on the table. She must have felt the burning, piercing gaze because. She looked up from the paper andflashed a glance and a smile my way, then reverted to the paper before her there, on the table.
The crushed-up paper plate and empty drink container that was also there on the table in front of her, suggested to me that she had already finished her meal and was using the rest of the time there studying. Whether it was to be the papers or something else, she was, yes, studying. Now and then she would sneak other peaks my way, until. She was either done with her studies or she had had her fill with somebody.
She picked up her belongings and shook her wide-open palm in a jolly and gay little wave at me on the way out, "Bye!" She whispered. That's how it was to have gotten started. Think I may have ruined her studies for a brief moment there though. The only thing she seemed to be wanting to study there for a while after I walked in, was me, but...
What a difference a day can make sometimes. From mesmerizing eye deals on day one to just "hi," and not even so much as a goodbye the next day. On day two, she hurriedly finished off what was left of the meal she was having and was gone before my order even came up. I watched her as she crossed the street. Mount up onto the sidewalk and continue through the oval-shaped entry gate that leads into the park and onto the campus grounds. She never even turned to look back. She must have had some sense talked into her last night I thought to myself. Or maybe something even more sinister than that.
"One doesn't have time to look around or mess around just before sitting and passing an exam." She told me later onafter she had learned how to confide in me. I had asked her about the detached persona and the swift escape that afternoon. She said she had to go sit an exam and wasn't in the mood for a distraction.
"Wow, is that what I am, a distraction?"
Her father was a physician in his Asiatic homeland but had to settle to drive a taxicab here in his new country of residence. The family also owns and operates a grocery store in the Cote des Neige area: D&D Tropical Products. The elder Dahoust woman, Luba Dahoust, and Kamal the son is the face of that business. Whenever Kamal is not chauffeuring his sister, Libby. He can be found either in the store there or he would be driving the delivery truck, a cube-shaped white Isuzu truck.
They were nine and ten, her brother and her when he (the father), threatened to kill him (the brother) because. He caught him trying to make out with his sister (Libby) on the basement sofa. He nearly killed the poor boy with licks and then warned him: "If I ever get wind of you even so much as to get close to her again, I swear to God (or Allah,) I will kill you." Then the second round of licks came and did not stop until Kamal lay sprawled out on the floor, seemingly lifeless.
Panicking, Luba, their mother, sprang into action and picked him up. She then went to work nursing him: back to life, back to health, and now? Back to the current reality of the "Libby story," not me. Libby, all the while, while that (the murdering of his brother by his dear father) was happening. She was slumped in a corner in a fetal position, barely daring even so much as to breathe.
...
"We were just experimenting," she told me. "We were nine and ten; he was ten, I was nine. And no," she'd said when I asked her further. "Dad didn't punish me for it, at least not in terms of the flagging. He laid all of the blame on Kamal. Still isn't quite sure why but, for the next four to five years, we were hardly ever seen in the same room together. Or in any proximity to each other, alone." I then took the risk and probed even further. I inquired if she thought that she had any role to play in what had happened.
"At the time not so much," she said. But as the years went by, I became somewhat more and more self-conscious and started to wonder if I might have led him on.
"I was old enough to have known better," she acknowledged. She did admit to me that it felt terrific though and that she must have wanted it. I could have stopped it, she said, but, but I didn't. "Did you, do it?" I further asked, "I mean, how: How far did you manage to get into it?"
"Why am I sitting here pouring out my soul to you though?" she blurted out, "I don't even know you, and?" that was when. She pushed back the chair and got up, took up her bag and paper folder, and walked out. Without evenlooking back. That was the end of that conversation, for the time being at least.
Her brother and she seem to be very tight nowadays though. For want of a better term. He's the one who dropped her off and picked her up from school almost every day. One of the rare exceptions to that routine was to become my greatest ally.
Even though she knew she couldn't love me, she still wanted me, and I was going stone-cold out of my cotton-picking mind for wanting her too. Libby was 24. As for me, I was 34 years of age at the time. The forces on either side of this socio-divide were unrelenting. Was this a love to die for? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.
Libby Dahoust is her name, I'm Manley, Manley Jaxtan Woodhardt. I met her there in the study hall... Well, I saw her there for the very first time on the orientation evening.
We were both volunteering our services there, but really, we only did meet and greet strangely at the food counter in the pizzeria across the street at Sherbrooke Street and McGill College. She's a straight-A medical student of Indian descent. Straight shiny black hair and chocolate brown skin. And me? I was just barely skimming my way through a course in computer programming and design. A West Indian-born dark-skinned dreadlock wanna-be at the time.
My dreads were just beginning to take shape, but I sure have got the physique and the good looks to work it well. Well, so they used to say in those days. "He's the quintessential West Indian man," that's what they also said. I had no reason to doubt them.
She's very shy and reserved. Or so it would have seemed at first sight to many, including me. Her head is always in books or papers. Until I caught her eyeing me there that day. Or should I say, we were eyeing each other? I was looking at her over the pizza and coke in front of me on the table. She must have felt the burning, piercing gaze because. She looked up from the paper andflashed a glance and a smile my way, then reverted to the paper before her there, on the table.
The crushed-up paper plate and empty drink container that was also there on the table in front of her, suggested to me that she had already finished her meal and was using the rest of the time there studying. Whether it was to be the papers or something else, she was, yes, studying. Now and then she would sneak other peaks my way, until. She was either done with her studies or she had had her fill with somebody.
She picked up her belongings and shook her wide-open palm in a jolly and gay little wave at me on the way out, "Bye!" She whispered. That's how it was to have gotten started. Think I may have ruined her studies for a brief moment there though. The only thing she seemed to be wanting to study there for a while after I walked in, was me, but...
What a difference a day can make sometimes. From mesmerizing eye deals on day one to just "hi," and not even so much as a goodbye the next day. On day two, she hurriedly finished off what was left of the meal she was having and was gone before my order even came up. I watched her as she crossed the street. Mount up onto the sidewalk and continue through the oval-shaped entry gate that leads into the park and onto the campus grounds. She never even turned to look back. She must have had some sense talked into her last night I thought to myself. Or maybe something even more sinister than that.
"One doesn't have time to look around or mess around just before sitting and passing an exam." She told me later onafter she had learned how to confide in me. I had asked her about the detached persona and the swift escape that afternoon. She said she had to go sit an exam and wasn't in the mood for a distraction.
"Wow, is that what I am, a distraction?"
Her father was a physician in his Asiatic homeland but had to settle to drive a taxicab here in his new country of residence. The family also owns and operates a grocery store in the Cote des Neige area: D&D Tropical Products. The elder Dahoust woman, Luba Dahoust, and Kamal the son is the face of that business. Whenever Kamal is not chauffeuring his sister, Libby. He can be found either in the store there or he would be driving the delivery truck, a cube-shaped white Isuzu truck.
They were nine and ten, her brother and her when he (the father), threatened to kill him (the brother) because. He caught him trying to make out with his sister (Libby) on the basement sofa. He nearly killed the poor boy with licks and then warned him: "If I ever get wind of you even so much as to get close to her again, I swear to God (or Allah,) I will kill you." Then the second round of licks came and did not stop until Kamal lay sprawled out on the floor, seemingly lifeless.
Panicking, Luba, their mother, sprang into action and picked him up. She then went to work nursing him: back to life, back to health, and now? Back to the current reality of the "Libby story," not me. Libby, all the while, while that (the murdering of his brother by his dear father) was happening. She was slumped in a corner in a fetal position, barely daring even so much as to breathe.
...
"We were just experimenting," she told me. "We were nine and ten; he was ten, I was nine. And no," she'd said when I asked her further. "Dad didn't punish me for it, at least not in terms of the flagging. He laid all of the blame on Kamal. Still isn't quite sure why but, for the next four to five years, we were hardly ever seen in the same room together. Or in any proximity to each other, alone." I then took the risk and probed even further. I inquired if she thought that she had any role to play in what had happened.
"At the time not so much," she said. But as the years went by, I became somewhat more and more self-conscious and started to wonder if I might have led him on.
"I was old enough to have known better," she acknowledged. She did admit to me that it felt terrific though and that she must have wanted it. I could have stopped it, she said, but, but I didn't. "Did you, do it?" I further asked, "I mean, how: How far did you manage to get into it?"
"Why am I sitting here pouring out my soul to you though?" she blurted out, "I don't even know you, and?" that was when. She pushed back the chair and got up, took up her bag and paper folder, and walked out. Without evenlooking back. That was the end of that conversation, for the time being at least.
Her brother and she seem to be very tight nowadays though. For want of a better term. He's the one who dropped her off and picked her up from school almost every day. One of the rare exceptions to that routine was to become my greatest ally.
Support E. Lloyd K (The WritingElk)
