Chapter Eighteen

When Alma reach up in she hotel room all she pepper an’ sauce dry out from she. Foof. Just so. Every ounce of bravado that she been fulling up she self with them past weeks…gone.

She collapse on the bed. Crawl up to the top and scrunch up sheself tight, tight into a ball. She start to tremble like a li’l dawg-puppy that get a solid whipping.
“Oh my precious, my precious,” she rock and mumble to sheself like how them mad people on the street does do, and she hug up she pillow like it was she baby. “If I find you again, I’ll never let you go…”

Suddenly she realise. All along she referring to the egg as she precious thing, when all this time she precious thing was she li’l love chile Selwyn.

She mutter even more now. “I have to think, I need a plan…I must find a way to escape with my boy. And the egg. I need the egg, it’s worth a fortune, I need this egg, that egg, any egg, to help me start a life again with my boy. Tomorrow, when I meet Gregory at the port with Selwyn, I must escape with my boy and the egg. But Gregory will follow us. I need a plan, I have to think…”


But everytime she try to think…kkkgghhcrunck…she mind grind like a computer that ketch a bug and can’t work no more.

“This must be a dream, a bad dream,” she mumble. “No woman wide awake would give up everything for a man like Pyre.” She remember clear, clear now what she did thinking before she see that Pyre show.

Could there really be anyone with a draw so strong that she’d abandon her husband and child? Surely nothing could tempt her away from her son, or encourage her to hurt him.

Yes, that is what she did think then. Then, she life did boring. Had no zing, no thing to keep she heart-string tie up to Lonnie own. Then, she been rrrripe like a juicy yellow mango, ready for a man to pluck she. Mm-hm, she been ripe an’ ready for affair with any man.
But...What if she fell in love here tonight, with this actor?

That is what she did thinking on the way to the Pyre show. She did so bored with Lonnie, any hot man woulda do, any man who coulda sex she up good. So bored she been that quick and easy, for any man, for Pyre the crook, she give up everything. Family and family heirloom. Give up the egg that supposed to bring big fortunes.

“Bloody egg!” Alma sit up and glare at the egg as if was the egg fault. She pick it up, cup it. And do something she ain’t do in weeks. Cry long, long, living eye-water.

“How I wish I were back in my old life with Selwyn and Lonnie. Oh, how I wish I had another chance to sort out my problems with Lonnie…wish I’d never met Pyre…” she bawl.

The egg start to tick, tick, tick in she hand. Then it start up one loud humming and vibrating like some small plane ready to take off. The egg get hot, hot, hot.

Woy! Alma drop the egg so fast. Was just like this the egg did tickin’ an’ hummin’ an’ vibratin’ when it transport she and Selwyn here to old-time Russia. At the Faberge Exhibition, when the egg did start to hum and she grab Selwyn hand, for one quick second, for some strange reason, she did wish she could get away to old-time Russia.

She stare at the egg. And start to think for real now.

Suppose she use the egg to transport sheself back to she old life with Selwyn and Lonnie? Suppose she forget this whole affair, and she life was boring as ever, and everything repeat itself? Suppose she go back to she old life, and Pyre return…and Portugal and Brussels and the chase happen all over again?

by Guyana Gyal