Nicole Dennis-Benn - Here Comes the Sun

Margot’s virginity was plucked like a blossoming hibiscus before its time. But this won’t be Thandi’s fate. Margot chants this to herself over and over again under her breath, the only prayer she has ever uttered.

Just then Thandi’s eyelids flutter open as if something tells her she’s being watched. She raises herself on one elbow and rubs her eyes. “Why are you watching me like that?” she asks Margot, her voice gravel-like with sleep, but with that formal diction that irks Margot. Since attending Saint Emmanuel High, her sister speaks as though she comes from money. (Her speech is even more formal, more modulated than the diction Margot uses with Alphonso and the visitors to the hotel.)

“Good evening to you too,” Margot says. She looks away to give her sister privacy as she pulls her dress over her knees.

“What time is it?” Thandi asks.

“Yuh feeling sick?” Margot asks her sister.

Thandi swings her legs off the couch to give Margot space to sit beside her. Thandi rubs her eyes again, suppressing a yawn. “Just tired. All the studying, you know. .” Her voice trails off.

Margot looks down at the papers around them. “Right. The CXC is jus’ around di corner. You’re on yuh way to getting nine ones, ah hope.”

Thandi nods. She glimpses Margot’s overnight bag at her feet. “You sleeping out again?” she asks Margot.

“What’s it to you?”

“Who’s the new man?” Thandi asks with a smirk. “You’ve been staying out a lot lately.”

“No one special. Don’t change the subject, Thandi. I got you out of a demerit fah wearing dat stupid sweatshirt.”

“For a nobody , he’s surely keeping you out the house.” Thandi says this in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way that surprises Margot. She attributes such an innuendo to the older women in River Bank with knowing gleams in their eyes.

“It’s none ah yuh business,” Margot says, suppressing a laugh.

“Is it that Maxi guy? Yuh know he checks for you.”

“It’s not him. He’s jus’ ah taxi drivah. And ah Rasta.”

“What’s wrong with dat?” Thandi asks.

It’s the most they have ever spoken this way. It’s a side of Thandi that Margot rarely sees, if ever. The trees are barren this year because of the drought, but Thandi has blossomed.

“If yuh ever come home saying yuh deh wid a taxi man or a Rasta man, ah g’wan bruk yuh neck,” Margot jokes. This makes Thandi laugh, throwing her head so far back that Margot worries her neck might snap.

When Thandi sobers, she says, “Can people really choose who dey fall in love with? That’s ludicrous.”

“Ludicrous?”

“You know. Like foolish.”

“Yuh calling me foolish?”

“No, no!” Thandi gestures with her hands. “I was jus’ saying that the concept of choosing who yuh love is. .” Her voice trails off. “Forget it.” The razor cuts across Margot’s belly when Thandi says this. Forget it . The way Thandi says it makes Margot more aware that they aren’t on the same level at all. But isn’t that what Margot wanted? At this very moment Margot’s ignorance seems like a fly her sister merely fans away.

“Yuh not thinking about boys, are you?” Margot asks her sister.

Thandi wraps her finger with a loose thread in her dress.

“No.”

“Yuh not lying?”

“Margot!”

“Margot, what?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, if it’s dat yuh asking.”

“Good. Yuh books should come first,” Margot says, sounding like Delores. And Thandi, as though she hears Delores’s voice too, shuts down completely like the mimosa plants in the cove that wilt when touched. The darkness Margot is used to seeing in her sister’s eyes as of late returns.

“Now is not di time for you to be thinking ’bout boys or nuh love. Yuh hear?”

“Yes.”

“Yuh promise me?” Margot asks, softening a bit.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

There is a ditch between them on the two-cushioned couch — the very first thing she ever bought with her salary from the hotel, an asset that Delores, brimming with excitement and the fussiness that comes with big purchases like this one, had Margot wrap in plastic. Between Margot and Thandi are holes in the plastic, and the fading of what used to be beautiful upholstery fabric underneath.

“Apenny for your thoughts?” Verdene says to Margot. They had set the table together. Margot helped with the placement of the mats, plates, and silverware, and Verdene carried the serving bowls. A candle glows at the center of the table.

“Just thinking how I like being here,” Margot says. “With you.”

Verdene lowers her fork and reaches across the table, and Margot lets Verdene’s hand rest on hers. Margot recognizes in Verdene the older girl she fell in love with — the teenager she once knew, with a worldliness that used to make her blush. A girl who, to Margot, was as mysterious as the force that altered the weather. At ten years old she felt her stomach jump the first time Verdene called her pretty. Come to think of it now, Verdene Moore must have been called pretty all her life. She had that good hair that touched her back and that peanut-butter skin — some would call it golden — the shade that could get her a job in those days as a bank clerk or flight attendant, or a crown on her head as Miss Jamaica. Nevertheless, when Margot gave Verdene this compliment, she smiled as though Margot’s comment were a surprise. A generous gift.

If it had been up to Margot, she never would have let Verdene out of her sight. She clung to her like macca bush, which latches onto skin and fabric. When Verdene read books to her, Margot would inhale deeply the sweet air from her mouth. She would ask the older girl to read more stories about a sleeping beauty, children lost in the woods, and cursed princesses, just to buy more time curled up next to her. Margot could not bear being away from her. She rushed through chores on weekends just so she could see Verdene when she came home from university. The day Verdene left for England, a part of Margot left with her. Verdene has brought color back into her life. Before, everything was black-and-white: Make money or die trying. Feel pain or feel nothing at all.

After dinner they clear the table and move the dishes to the sink. Verdene washes the plates and Margot dries them. They settle in each other’s company, pleasantly full and mindful of their tasks. “I’ll get that,” Verdene says when Margot picks up a small Dutch pot — the one that was used to cook the potatoes.

Margot continues to dry the inside of it like she has been doing to the others. Verdene almost grabs the dish towel. “Just leave it. It dries on its own.”

“It’s just a pot,” Margot says.

“Not just any pot. My mother left me that pot. Margot, please. Respect my wishes.”

“Are you choosing her over me?” Margot asks, startled.

“This is not about choosing. This is about accepting certain things about me. If you care about me like I care about you, then you respect my wishes.”

Margot picks up the towel that Verdene had taken from her and begins to dry the utensils. She doesn’t say anything for a while. Verdene senses her resentment and pulls her close. “When I returned to Jamaica, I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t even know why I agreed to come back. All those years that I was in London, I hardly spoke to my mother, fearing the disappointment in her voice. I felt guilty when she passed. I felt I owed it to her to be here. But then I got here, and there you were. The universe was trying to tell me that love lives here.”

Margot rests her weight on Verdene, who leans against the kitchen sink, each soothed by the beating of the other woman’s heart. Suddenly Margot cannot bear to go another night resisting her impulses. She lifts her face and holds Verdene’s gaze, hoping her eyes have a look that confesses that her body is warm and impatient under her dress. They kiss deeply, fervidly, as though it is the one thing they have been denied. Verdene carefully undoes Margot’s dress as if any swift movement might change Margot’s mind and send her running again. But Margot surprises Verdene by gently holding her hands, lowering them, and shaking her head. Without a word, she undresses Verdene, untying the bows on the front of her nightgown. One of the bows knots, and they smile as Margot uses her nails to meticulously unknot it. The nightgown slides to Verdene’s feet in a lilac pool. Margot then peels Verdene’s underwear down her hips and it joins her nightgown around her ankles. When they are both naked, Margot steps out of the circle of her dress and stands back. Verdene — with her hands at her sides, the small risings of her breasts, the faint ripple of flesh on her stomach, and the trimmed triangular crease between her legs — is beautiful and desirable just standing there. In all the years Margot has seduced others, she has never been fully aware, fully invested in savoring every moment of intimacy. Before Verdene looks away, flushed as though anticipating Margot’s refusal, Margot pulls her close. Verdene opens her mouth wider to receive Margot’s tongue. They walk to the bedroom, their mouths together still and hips joined. Margot glances at the window — at the black patch of night, at Miss Ella’s turned picture frame. A flit of panic nearly stops her in her tracks and almost prompts her to reach for the light switch. But with Verdene’s slow, controlled caress, a current of pure pleasure washes over Margot and she collapses onto the bed, on top of Verdene. Margot quickly forgets about the window and Miss Ella and the lights, and shudders when Verdene, rolling her over, one by one takes her breasts into her mouth, which eventually wanders to the meeting of her hips. Margot pulls Verdene between her impatient thighs and arches her back to receive not only the thrill of Verdene’s body, but a deeper understanding of what it means to feel connected to a whole person. She lets out a joyous cry, surprised by this new, alien feeling — one that has surpassed the ripple of pleasure that comes from Verdene’s deliberate, measured strokes; and plunges her into the molten depths of possession.