Here Comes the Sun (2 page)

Maxi nudges Margot on the elbow. “How yuh push up yuh mouth suh? Relax, man.” He smirks and she looks away, trying to resist.

“Yuh so dedicated to yuh duties as big sistah,” Maxi says. “Ah find it very honorable. Jah know.” He reaches over and touches her knee with his hand. He leaves it there. She takes his hand and moves it. Fifteen years ago, when she briefly dated him in high school, this would've sent waves throughout her anatomy. Now it doesn't feel the same. No other touch feels the same.

When Maxi approaches the foot of the hill, Margot tells him to stop the car. “Ah can walk from here,” she says. Maxi squints through the dark as though trying to see what's out there. “Yuh sure? Why yuh always mek me stop here? Me know weh yuh live. Why not just mek me drop yuh there?”

“Maxi, I'll be fine from here.” She takes out the money and gives it to him. He reluctantly takes it from her, glancing once more at the pitch-black in front of them. Margot waits until his car drives off and his headlights disappear. The darkness claims her, encircles her with black walls that eventually open up into a path for her to walk through. She takes a few steps, aware of one foot in front of the other; of the strangeness creeping up her spine, wrapping itself around her belly, shooting up into her chest. The scent of the bougainvilleas that line the fence is like a sweet embrace. The darkness becomes a friendly accomplice. Yet, the familiar apprehension ambushes her:
Can she be seen?
She looks over her shoulder and contemplates the distance it would take for her to walk to her house from here. A good mile. She stands in front of the bright pink house that emerges from the shadows. It seems to glow in the dark. As though on cue, a woman appears on the veranda, wearing a white nightgown. The nightgown blows gently in the light breeze that rustles the leaves of the plants and trees in the yard, and carries a faint scent of patchouli toward Margot. From where she stands, the woman appears to be sailing toward her like an angel, the nightgown hugging her womanly curves. And Margot sails toward her, no longer cognizant of the steps taken over the cobblestone path or the fears hammering inside her chest. When she arrives at the foot of the steps, she looks up into the face of the woman; into those eyes that hold her gaze steady. She can never get them out of her mind, for they're the only ones that see her. Really
see
her—not her figure or the nakedness she so willingly offers to strangers, but something else—something fragile, raw, defenseless. The kind of bareness that makes her shiver under the woman's observation. Margot swallows the urge to tell her this. But not here. Not now. No words are exchanged between them. No words are needed. Verdene Moore lets her inside.

A
t Old Fort Craft Park, Delores links arms with the flush-faced men in floral shirts who are too polite to decline and the women in broad straw hats whose thin lips freeze in frightened smiles. Before the tourists pass Delores's stall, she listens to the prices the other hagglers quote them—prices that make the tourists politely decline and walk away. So by the time they get to Delores—the last stall in the market—she's ready to pounce, just like she does at Falmouth Market on Tuesdays as soon as the ship docks. The tourists hesitate, as they always do, probably startled by the big black woman with bulging eyes and flared nostrils. Her current victims are a middle-age couple.

“Me have nuff nuff nice t'ings fah you an' yuh husband. Come dis way, sweetie pie.”

Delores pulls the woman's hand gently. The man follows behind his wife, both hands clutching the big camera around his neck as if he's afraid someone will snatch it.

To set them at ease, Delores confides in them: “Oh, lawd ah mercy,” she says, fanning herself with an old
Jamaica Observer
. “Dis rhaatid heat is no joke. Yuh know I been standin' in it all day? Bwoy, t'ings haa'd.”

She wipes the sweat that pours down her face, one eye on them. It's more nervousness than the heat, because things are slow and Delores needs the money. She observes the woman scrutinizing the jewelry—the drop earrings made of wood, the beaded necklaces, anklets, and bracelets—the only things in the stall that Delores makes. “Dat one would be nice wid yuh dress,” Delores says when the woman picks up a necklace. But the woman only responds with a grimace, gently putting down the item, then moving on to the next. Delores continues to fan. Normally the Americans are chatty, gullible. Delores never usually has to work so hard with them, for their politeness makes them benevolent, apologetic to a fault. But this couple must be a different breed. Maybe Delores is wrong, maybe they're from somewhere else. But only the American tourists dress like they're going on a safari, especially the men, with their clogs, khaki apparel, and binocular-looking cameras.

“Hot flash and dis ungodly heat nuh 'gree a'tall,” Delores says when the woman moves to the woven baskets. At this the woman smiles—a genuine smile that indicates her understanding—the recognition of a universal feminine condition. Only then does she finger her foreign bills as though unwilling to part with them. “How much are the necklaces?” she asks Delores in an American accent. She's pointing at one of the red, green, and yellow pendants made from glass beads. Delores had taken her time to string them.

“Twenty-five,” Delores says.

“Sorry, that's too much,” the woman says. She glances at her husband. “Isn't twenty-five a bit much for this, Harry?” She holds up the necklace like it's a piece of string and dangles it in front of her husband. The man touches the necklace like he's some kind of expert. “We're not paying more than five for this,” he says in a voice of authority that reminds Delores of Reverend Cleve Grant, whose booming voice can be heard every noon offering a prayer for the nation on Radio Jamaica.

“It tek time fi mek, sah,” Delores says. “Ah can guh down to twenty.”

“Fifteen.”

“All right, mi will geet to yuh for fifteen!” Delores says, suppressing her disappointment. As she counts the change to give back to the woman, she catches her eyeing the miniature Jamaican dolls. Delores imagines that those dolls, however exaggerated, might be the only images the woman sees of Jamaican people on a short one-day cruise stop. Her husband, who snaps pictures nonstop, surveys the table of the Rastas with their long, oversized penises, the smiling women with tar-black faces and basket of fruits on their heads, the grinning farmer carrying green bananas in his hands, the T-shirts with weed plants and a smoking Bob Marley with IRIE written in bold letters, the rag dolls wearing festival dresses that look like picnic tablecloths.

“If yuh buy three items yuh get a discounted price, all these t'ings are quality,” Delores says, seizing the opportunity. “Yuh wouldn't get dem anyweh else but right yah so.”

The man takes out his wallet and Delores's heart leaps in her throat. “Give me two of those in a large, the tank in a small.” He points at the T-shirts. Once he makes his purchase, his wife, as though given permission to grab as many local souvenirs as possible, purchases a woven basket—“For your mom”—more bracelets with Rasta colors—“For Alan and Miranda”—and a couple of the rag dolls decked in festival dresses—“For the girls.”

By the time they're done, they have bought half of what Delores had. Only Delores can sell this many souvenirs in a day, because, unlike the other hagglers, she knows she has a gold mine at home—a daughter she has to support—one who is going to be a doctor. She does it for Thandi. As she stuffs the foreign dollars, which will be saved inside the old mattress on the bed that she shares with her mother, inside her brassiere, Delores is convinced that someday all her sacrifices will be paid back. Tenfold.

T
handi wants more. She searches for it in Mr. Levy's Wholesale Shop, which is right across the street from Dino's Bar on River Bank Road—the only road that takes people in and out of River Bank, a former fishing village on the outskirts of Montego Bay where Thandi has lived all her life. Mr. Levy's Wholesale and Dino's are the only two businesses left since the seafood shacks closed down. The construction and the drought have not only driven the fishermen out of work, but out of River Bank, leaving behind a community with not much to live off besides the highly taxed groceries each month at Mr. Levy's.

Mr. Levy's Wholesale has been around since the beginning of time, it seems. The shop has fed generations of River Bank residents. Like the evolving population it serves, Mr. Levy's Wholesale has changed owners many times—the business being passed down from father to son to grandson to great-grandson to great-great-grandson. The current Mr. Levy looks just like his predecessors, squinting into the black faces that yell their orders—“
Missah Chin, Gimme a quarter poun' ah rice. Gimme a pound ah flour. Beg yuh a bag a sugah nuh, missah Chin? Me will pay yuh lata. Gimme a cake soap wid baby oil.
” Though Mr. Levy's name is written on the outside of the store in bright red paint, people still refer to the owner as Mr. Chin by virtue of him being Chinese. Mr. Levy's wife is a stone-faced woman who silently fetches the orders in the back. His two sons sometimes work the register when he slips out with his wife to eat lunch or dinner behind the mesh door, where customers can see them devouring spoonfuls of steamed rice or noodles. The shop carries a small quantity of staple goods like rice, milk, cornmeal, Panadol for colds or flu, Foska Oats, tin mackerel, spices, bread, and butter. Once or twice Thandi has spotted something exotic. Like last month when she discovered a chocolate bar that she had never seen before—the purple wrapper emblazoned with gold letters.
Chocolat De L'amour
. She tried it. Savored the richness of it on her tongue, on the roof of her mouth. The shop is always hot and stuffy, the warm air constantly being blown by a large fan in a corner. People go in and out. There's nothing else they can do; if they lingered for too long they would faint from heat exhaustion or the smell of cat piss, courtesy of the big brown and white cat that sits by the counter and licks its paws. Thandi musters up the courage to raise her voice when Mr. Levy squints in her direction. “May I have a pound of rice and a bag of cornmeal, please?” She says this in perfect English, which attracts the stares of some people in the store. But the old “
Chiney
” man is unimpressed. He absently reaches for the items and shouts, “Five dolla!” without so much as a glance at her. His short fingers leaf through the
Observer
before him. Thandi wonders if he has ever seen her face. She wonders if he thinks she's like all the others. With his eyes half closed, all black faces probably look the same to him. Behind the counter, Thandi identifies the Queen of Pearl crème that Miss Ruby told her to get. Another exotic thing Mr. Levy carries.

She clears her throat. “Gimme Pearl too,” she says, the patois sounding strange coming out of her mouth given that she's dressed in her Saint Emmanuel High school uniform, the pleated white skirt falling well below her knees, her white socks folded neatly at her ankles, her shoes polished to a shine. She gestures toward the crème with her chin, an action that she has seen the women in the shop do when they place their orders, their confidence evident in the way they stand, leaning with all their weight on the counter, one leg cotched on the back of the other. Thandi purchases the crème from Mr. Levy with the extra change from the groceries. She can tell her sister, Margot, that she bought a pack of pencils and an exercise book. Thandi has seen the effects of the crème on the women who use it, the lightness coming into their skin, and the darkness receding like a sinister shadow around their hairline. Take Miss Ruby, for instance. A woman who lives in one of the shacks not too far from the fishing boats. All over River Bank, people know about Miss Ruby and her new business. Because of her, women and girls who were nothing before have become something, their newly lightened faces rendering them less invisible and more beautiful, worthy of jobs as front desk clerks, bank tellers, models, head sales associates, and in some cases flight attendants.

It's her house Thandi heads to.

She walks along the Y-shaped river that cuts into the village. It separates and flows in opposite directions—one side runs into the wide expanse of the sea, while the other side runs in the direction of the hill that hovers over the town from the tail end of the fork. The water settles into a small cove shaded by bamboo and live oaks. The village got its name because if one were to look down from the top of the hill, the shacks would look like interspersed cardboard boxes on the land surrounding the river. A small fleet of fishermen's boats are anchored on the side where the river meets the sea. They've been there, floating on the water like sleeping whales, since last December before the drought. The area has been roped off for the construction workers—men marching up and down the shore with thick hard hats and heavy rubber boots, combing the sand with a sense of purpose as though searching for buried treasure.

When Thandi was a little girl she used to accompany her mother to buy fish from Miss Ruby out this way. She remembers standing in line outside Miss Ruby's shack, watching Miss Ruby scale the fish, effortlessly slitting them with a sharp knife that revealed the red lining under the belly. But Thandi's first visit to Miss Ruby by herself came only recently—long after Miss Ruby stopped selling fish. Thandi wanted to show her teachers and classmates how responsible she could be by running for form prefect, but she lost to Shelly McGregor, who, though average and unpopular, was voted favorite among the nuns and students. Thandi felt certain the loss had to do with her darker complexion, which she believes is the reason for the burdens that weigh as heavily as the textbooks she carries for subjects she has no interest in studying. But Thandi has one more chance to shine—Dana Johnson's sweet sixteen party, which is months from now. It's Thandi's first party and the last social event before the final exams in June. She imagines herself wearing the nice fuchsia dress she saw in the window of Tiki Boutique near her school in Montego Bay. Her lighter, brighter skin would look good in a color like that; and it will surely make her feel like she belongs.