Chapter 1 – The Rum Shop
Now hear nah, and listen good. Lemme tell allyuh a story ’bout a woman name Onika Baptiste—the kinda woman who could walk into a rum shop and make the ice in yuh glass stop clinking just to watch she pass. She was thick, yes, built like she was made for sweet, heavy sorrel and Sunday curry, with skin that glistened under the sun like she was polished with coconut oil and pure, unadulterated confidence… or at least, a masterclass in what confidence *look* like. From she was a little girl, people would stop she mother in the market to say, “But this one here special, eh?” She had a presence, a light that demanded you pay attention.
You see, Onika learn from a young age that in this world, a pretty face and a bold lip could open doors that degrees and dignity sometimes couldn’t budge. She watch her own mother, a nurse who worked double shifts, come home with her feet swollen and her spirit tired, while women with less substance but more shine glided through life on the arm of a man with connections. Beauty sell quicker than truth, and it pay a hell of a lot better. So she take what God give she and she build a brand off it—“Onika B: Big, Bold, and Beautiful.” She was the influencer who does teach women how to “own yuh spotlight and shape yuh own story.” But in the quiet hours, long after the last story post done expire, when the makeup melt away and the last trace of filter vanish, she does sit in the dim light and wonder who the hell Onika really is when nobody watching and the spotlight finally cool down. The “Onika B” brand was a fortress, and sometimes she felt like the lonely prisoner locked inside of it.
It was on one such evening—the breeze lazy as a Monday morning, licking through the jalousies, the crickets singing backup vocals to the distant soca from somebody’s radio—when the phone ring and change everything. The ringtone was a shrill, unfamiliar sound, a UK number flashing on the screen.
> “Ms. Baptiste, on behalf of the producers, we are thrilled to inform you that you’ve been selected to join the next season of *Love on the Isles* — the Caribbean’s hottest reality dating show!”
The phone nearly jump out of she hand. She? Outta all the glossy, picture-perfect influencers in Trinidad, and Tobago, and all the islands in between, they pick *she*? Her mind starts to race faster than a maxi taxi on the Priority Bus Route. She could already picture it: the sun-soaked villa in Tobago, the water bluer than a WASA pipe dream, the flashing cameras, the perfect, golden opportunity to launch she brand straight into the international stratosphere. Onika Baptiste—no longer just a micro-influencer for local hair grease and clothing boutiques, but a bona fide, household name. She saw the headlines in her mind’s eye, the partnerships with international brands, the talk show circuits. This was the big break, the one she had been hustling for.
Still, she let out a soft, low chuckle that held more doubt than amusement. “Lawd, have mercy,” she whisper to the empty room, the walls seeming to lean in to listen. “Imagine me, Onika from the bay, looking for love on TV like some kind of modern-day Cinderella story, oui? But then again…” She trailed off, her eyes drifting to the shadows in the corner of the room, where the ghost of her past relationship still lingered. “Maybe… maybe daise exactly what the doctor order.”
The heart, you see, does play the strangest games after it break. Is like it forget the rules and just throwing cards all over the place. It had been two years since Terrence, two years of trying to patch up she spirit with new wigs, brand deals, and affirmations she recite in the mirror. But he had been the one to tell her, in his smooth, convincing way, that her natural hair was “unprofessional” for the corporate events he needed to bring her to. He was the one who suggested the sleek, straight wigs, the “more sophisticated” look. She had contorted herself to fit his idea of a partner, and in the end, he had left anyway for a woman whose ambition was quieter, whose presence was less demanding. The wound was a deep one, hidden under layers of foundation and fierce captions. No highlighter could illuminate the emptiness he left behind, and no brand deal could fill the quiet space in she chest. So when opportunity knock—or rather, ring with a foreign area code—she tell herself it might be time to answer. This could be the door, swinging wide open into a fresh, thriving world, a world where she could finally be the one in control.
She took a long, slow sip from her glass of sorrel, the rum at the bottom giving it a warm, fiery kick. She stared out her window at the set she know like she own heartbeat—the beach across the road, where the waves glittered under the moonlight like a thousand tiny secrets trying to escape to the shore.
> “Maybe this show go bring back the spark,” she murmur to the night, the words tasting like hope and ambition all mixed up. “And if not love… well, at least more followers and better opportunities.”
From across the road, the familiar sounds of Mr. Hector’s rum shop floated up to her, a symphony of real life. The place was alive, buzzing with the evening’s business. She could hear the sharp *slap!* of dominoes on plywood, old men arguing with conviction about who catch the biggest kingfish in 1998, and the steady, thumping bass of a Bunji Garlin track humming from a radio that refuse to give up the ghost. It was the soundtrack of her life, a familiar noise that grounded her. These were her people. This was her community. These were the sounds she wanted to remember when she was in that fancy villa, the sounds she wanted to represent. And, if she was being honest with herself, she needed their views, their approval, in some form or the other. She laughed inward at the last thought, a wry, knowing smile playing on her lips. All the international fame in the world wouldn’t matter if the people in this very rum shop thought she had sold out.
Just this afternoon, when she was buying a cold Solo from the shop, old Miss Cordy from two houses down had fixed her with a gaze that could see through concrete. “Onika, child,” she had said, her voice raspy from years of smoking and wisdom. “Yuh sure yuh ready for all dat camera and ting? Dem television people,” she’d sucked her teeth, a sound of profound skepticism. “They doh want story, child, they want *story-story*. They go have yuh smiling till yuh forget what yuh own real face feel like. Yuh remember who yuh is, before yuh step into all that madness.”
Onika had given her the smile she reserved for brand deals and skeptical uncles—bright, polished, and utterly impenetrable. “Aunty Cordy,” she’d said, her voice smooth as velvet, “don’t worry yuhself. I *am* the story.” And with a toss of her hips and a flick of her latest Brazilian install, she had strutted all her curves away from the life she knew, ready to step into a whole new world of lights, camera, and some director shouting “Action!”
But now, standing alone on her little balcony, watching the sea curl up and kiss the sand like a familiar lover, she felt something else whisper in her chest—a quiet, nagging doubt she couldn’t quite name or silence. It was the ghost of Terrence’s criticism, the weight of Miss Cordy’s warning, and the unsettling question of what would be left of her when the cameras stopped rolling.
Because while she was an expert at selling a beautiful, well-lit dream to the masses, she wasn’t sure she still believed in it herself. The dream felt thin, like cheap cloth that would tear at the slightest pull of reality.
Turning from the window, she walked back inside her small, neat bedroom. Her eyes fell on the dresser, where her collection of wigs stood on their stands, lined up like loyal soldiers awaiting inspection. The honey-blonde for when she needed to feel bold and untouchable; the deep auburn for a vibe of fiery adventure; the jet-black for when she needed absolute control. Each one was a version of Onika, meticulously crafted and presented to an audience hungry for a flawless, packaged perfection. They were her armor, her disguises, the keys to the kingdom she was trying to build.
And behind them, tucked away on the top shelf like a secret she wasn’t ready to share with the world, was the truth of her—her own hair, her own crown of soft, tight coils, proud and untamed, longing to feel the sun and taste the salt from the very sea she gazed upon every day. It was the part of her that Terrence had asked her to hide, the part that felt too wild, too real, too *much* for the polished world she was trying to conquer.
> “Not yet,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror, her fingers gently adjusting the lace front of the blonde wig she’d been trying on. The woman in the reflection looked powerful, glamorous, and a little bit unfamiliar. “The world eh ready for that Onika just yet.”
With those words, a silent bargain was struck. She mentally took her place as contestant #5, a vessel filled with equal parts hope, ambition, and a deep, unspoken yearning for a validation that all the wigs and brand deals in the world had failed to provide.
She picked up her phone, scrolling through her social feed, her fingers tapping in a rhythm of calculated excitement. Already, she could see the headlines materializing in her mind, written in the digital ink of future tweets and Instagram posts:
“Body-Positive Queen Onika B Joins Love on the Isles!”
“From Trini Bay to International Airwaves: Onika Set to Turn Up Caribbean Romance!”
Her PR mind was working faster than her heart could beat—potential partnerships, sponsorships, maybe even her own haircare line after the show. She could almost taste the success on her tongue, sweet and dangerous, like black cake soaked in too much rum. The anticipation of that flavoured, brandy-infused deliciousness was a delicacy and an inhibition all at once. She knew her fame would be revered, her platform would grow, as long as she played the game, said the right things, and wore the right face. It was a simple equation, or so it seemed.
Still, deep inside, beneath the layers of ambition and strategy, a smaller voice—one that sounded a lot like the girl she used to be, before the wigs and the filters, before Terrence, before the brand—whispered back: *And what if they don’t love the real you, Onika? The one without the armour? The one with the tired eyes and the lonely heart and the hair that reaches for the sky? What if all this is just another way of hiding?*
Just then, outside, the wind shifted. It carried the strong, salty scent of the sea through the jalousies, a scent that knew no filter, that couldn’t be airbrushed or edited. And somewhere between the rhythmic crash of the waves and the fading laughter from the rum shop, an old voice seemed to drift across the night air—the kind of voice that belonged to her Gran, and every Caribbean granny who ever knew too much for their own good.
> “Remember, child,” the memory-voice whispered, ancient as the tide. “De sea doh keep secret long. Not hair, not heart, not truth.”
Onika shivered—a quick, involuntary tremor that ran from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck. But then, she smiled too. A real smile, small and uncertain, but real. It was a smile that acknowledged the fear and the hope all at once.
Because maybe, just maybe, that was the real reason she said yes to the show.
Not just to find love, or fame, or followers.
But to see what happens when the tide finally, finally, washes her truth ashore. To see if, after all the pretending, there was still a woman there worth loving.
