A Ris I Tae for the Chemistry

The first time I laid eyes on Amanda, I was visiting this Church party in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. I met this guy named Peterson Alexandros from the island of Barbados and he invited me to his Church. How Peter and I met is an interesting story. I was grabbing a quick bite inside the Rideau Shopping Center food court, and noticed this well-dressed, thirty-something Black guy with a light-skinned brat, his son Miguel. We ended up talking, and for weeks afterwards, Peter would text me, urging me to visit his Church. Another time, that was my typical answer to him. Until the day I finally showed up.

Peter's Church met at this community center on Sunday mornings around eleven in the morning, and the ceremony was quite informal. The pastor of the Church is this tall, skinny Black guy in his late thirties. He's married to a Chinese lady, if you can believe that. I see a lot of interracial couples but for the most part it's Black guys with White chicks, White chicks with Arab guys, Black women with White guys, White guys with Asian chicks and sometimes Indian guys with Chinese chicks. I seldom see Chinese chicks with Black guys, so this was an interesting couple. At least in my eyes. I was born in the island of Haiti and raised in Plymouth, Massachusetts. As a minority from a mostly White town in New England, I'm almost pathologically programmed to notice color and ethnicity. I try to fight it but old habits are hard to break. There, I said it.

Anyhow, I kind of liked Peter's Church, and showed up when he invited me to an informal gathering at a condo in downtown Ottawa the following Friday. I wasn't too keen on most of the people I met at the Church. They seemed divided into two crowds. A bunch of twenty-something types from the local colleges and universities, and a group of forty-something types from the local government and business sectors. I'm not sure if the Church's membership is incidental or structured that way. I guess I fit into the former category rather than the latter. I'm in my first year in the Sprott MBA program at Carleton University. I couldn't afford the rates at Northeastern University back in Boston. The Canadian school was cheaper and seemed like a better bet, especially since I've got an uncle and aunt who live in Ottawa.

Anyhow, I was buzzed into the condo, and this tall, chubby Black guy named Frank came to greet me. Later I found out he was a friend of Peter's, and was a criminal defense attorney in Windsor, Ontario. Hell of a commute from the town of Windsor to Ottawa every weekend but he and his wife Annabelle must think it's worth it. They're a lovely couple. She's short, light-skinned and very pretty, and I overheard her say she works as an accountant somewhere in Ontario. Probably Windsor since she and her husband live there. The folks gathered at the condo seemed nice enough, and there was food and drink aplenty. More than half of those present were barely over twenty, so at twenty-seven, I didn't feel too out of place. I've often been told that I look much younger than my twenty seven years. I guess good Black doesn't crack, as they say.

I saw Peterson there and he introduced me to his beautiful wife, a lovely petite brunette Portuguese lady named Isabel, the thirty-something mother of his son Miguel. I didn't know what Peterson did for a living but he told me he went to Carleton University back in the day to study computer science. He has the look of an IT guy, nerdy but cool at the same time. The younger folks at the party had their eyes glued on the flat screen TV, and the movie I, Robot was playing. I'm a big fan of Will Smith. I wanted to just grab a seat and eat some food while watching the movie but Peterson had to put me on the spot. He introduced me to the others, and let me say a couple words about myself.

Now, I'm not shy or anything but I don't like to be the center of attention, at least if it's not my idea. I looked my audience in the eyes and introduced myself as Stefan Luther. Born in northern Haiti and raised in the City of Plymouth, Massachusetts, by my immigrant parents, Jacob Luther and Marie Joseph-Luther. I grew up in the environs of Boston and studied at Northeastern University before deciding to come to Carleton University in the City of Ottawa for my Master's degree in business. I told them that I liked Ottawa so far, and that got a few chuckles. Alright, I totally hate the City of Ottawa and have long considered it the town that fun forgot but it's my home for the duration. Like a lot of Americans stuck in cities and countries that are unfamiliar, I've had to set my watch to local time.

All eyes were on me and I was smiling nervously. What's everybody staring at? The party goers were a decent mix of ethnicities. I went around and introduced myself. I met Liam, a red-haired white dude from Oakville, Ontario, and his Vietnamese girlfriend Lynn, whose last name is something I can't pronounce. Starts with an H, that much I remember. They both attend the University of Toronto, which made me wonder what the hell they're doing in boring little Ottawa. They told me they were working for a local company. Cool. The person who captured my attention at the party was Allison, this tall, blonde-haired and brown-eyed Caucasian booty with the nicest, roundest booty I've seen on a White woman since the legendary Coco, actor Ice-T's wife. We played Pictionary together and Allison fought me to a draw, which impressed me. I'm a master at everything from video games to chess, cards, checkers, scrabble, Pictionary, dominoes and pretty much anything competitive with an intellectually stimulating bent to it. That's just me.

Yeah, I had my eye on Allison Thorns, the cute White chick from the City of Kingston, Ontario, who was studying biology at the University of Ottawa. I did notice her tall, gorgeous Black lady friend Amanda Troy, the thick cutie with the Jamaican accent. That night, as the party rolled down, I tried to talk to Allison alone, but there was an annoying short Chinese dude named Lee who kept getting in the way. The dude was forty something so I thought there was no way he could be her boyfriend. Later, I found out how wrong I was. Allison was twenty two, with a forty-two-year-old boyfriend who happened to be a successful real estate agent. Imagine that. See what I mean about assumptions?

After realizing how wrong I was about Allison, I sulked in a corner with a cup of ice tea in hand. I always pick the wrong woman to deal with, seriously. My first year in Ottawa, I was madly in love with a young Somali woman named Farrah Muhammad whom I met at the museum where I worked. She was tall and fine, luscious and curvy, with dark brown skin, wide-set golden brown eyes and the cutest button nose. Farrah had only dated Somali guys and the occasional Arab guy before she met me. I proved to her that Haitian-American guys like myself were more than a match for any man from East Africa or the Middle East. We had a wonderful six months together, but things fell apart after she began pressuring me to convert to Islam. As much as I loved Farrah, my Christian faith mattered to me. I couldn't imagine never celebrating the Christmas season or Easter Sunday anymore. Islam to me seemed grim and extremely serious, not my thing. She left me.

From the ninth-floor condo terrace, I had a spectacular view of the City of Ottawa as I reminisced quietly. Now, I missed the Boston skyline but Ottawa has its charms. I love Parliament Hill, and I could see it from where I was. A noise startled me, and I realized that I wasn't alone. I looked up, and saw who it was. Amanda, the tall Jamaican gal. I smiled at her and said hello. Amanda looked at me and asked me why I left the party. I hesitated, and told her I had a lot on my mind. And I did. I'm twenty-seven years old, I hate my job, I hate the small apartment I dwell in near the Saint Laurent Mall, and I find the folks at Carleton University really racist sometimes, from staff to students. Yeah, I wasn't having the time of my life in Ottawa. Oh, and I didn't click too well with the local ladies. Both Black women and White women in the Canadian capital had walked all over my little heart.

I d

idn't tell any of this to Amanda Troy, of course. I played the role of the cool guy with my Boston accent, and she seemed to see right through it. Amanda saw right through my bullshit, and told me that I wasn't the only one feeling out of place in Ottawa. I looked her in the eyes when she said that. Man, this chick was kind of deep. I guess my shock must have showed on my face, for Amanda smiled and playfully slapped my arm. I smiled when she did that. It was such a Caribbean thing to do. I was born in the island of Haiti, so I remember. Caribbean folks like to touch you while talking to you. Canadians don't do that. All of a sudden, even though she was a bit too perceptive for my liking, I felt really comfortable with Amanda. I sighed, and told her that I missed my home, my family, my friends, my town and my world desperately.

Amanda Troy smiled what I would later recognize as that thoughtful smile of hers, and told me that she knew exactly how I felt. Truth be told, I kind of doubted her, until she shared something with me. She was born and raised in the town of Bluefields, Jamaica, and had been in the town of Ottawa, Ontario, for only a few months. She found Canadians strange with their strange accents, their fondness for the cold weather, and their uniquely odd culture. She came to study business at Algonquin College, and was staying with her uncle and aunt in the west end. I smiled when she said that. My mother's older brother, Mathieu Joseph, lives in Ottawa with his wife Astrid and their daughters Valerie and Jasmine. I stayed with them for a while before I realized I needed my independence and got myself an apartment in Vanier.

When I shared that with her, Amanda Troy smiled and punched my arm, telling me I was lucky to have my own place. I laughed nervously, because lucky isn't how I would describe how I felt about my one-bedroom apartment in Vanier. Sure, it's got its own bathroom, a kitchenette and a tiny living room but I keep bumping into stuff because the place is really small. And at six-foot-one and 240 pounds, I'm kind of a big guy. Amanda appeared to share my frustration when I told her how tough it was finding proper Caribbean food in Ottawa. There were only two Haitian restaurants in town. Amanda rolled her eyes and told me I shouldn't complain, pointing out that there were no known Jamaican restaurants in Ottawa, only Haitian and African spots. I smiled, and told her that Haitian food was just as good as Jamaican food, and I'd be happy to prove it to her any day.

Amanda smiled coyly, and quizzically asked me if I was asking her out. I looked at her, and kind of froze. Um, what? I looked her in the eyes and shrugged, before saying yes. She smiled, nodded, and asked me if I had a cellphone. I tried not to look smug as I pulled out my touchscreen phone, and she told me her number. I punched it and immediately sent her a text. She smiled at me, I smiled at her and we continued talking about Caribbean culture, Ottawa's weirdness, and other things of that nature. Before I knew it, it was midnight and she told me she had to go. Apparently, her aunt had her on a short leash. Caribbean family dynamics, she told me apologetically. I smiled and told her that I understood. When you got to bail, you got to bail.

I told Amanda it was nice meeting her and held out my hand for her to shake, and she surprised me by batting my hand away. She did it kind of forcefully too, which kind of surprised me. Did I do something wrong? Amanda smiled a dangerous smile, and leaned closer to me. We were almost the same height, since she was around five-foot-eleven in the flats she wore, so we were almost eye to eye when she leaned and kissed me on the cheek. That surprised me, to tell you the truth. Amanda winked at me and told me that Jamaicans were aggressive. I smiled and told her that I didn't mind. She smiled at me, wished me goodnight then walked away. I watched her as she walked away. Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda's derriere was even more spectacular than that of her friend Allison. Somebody tell Buffie The Body that she's got some serious competition! I grinned broadly. I can't wait to see her again. As far as Friday nights went, this one was awesome. Wish me luck, eh? I'm taking her to a restaurant and a movie next Tuesday, partly because I'm cheap and it's the one afternoon when we're both free from class.