Nicole Dennis-Benn - Here Comes the Sun

One by one Verdene takes down her mother’s pictures. Carefully, she lays them on the sofa and wraps them in newspapers and plastic she has kept from the market. She searches for a box to place them in, but when she cannot find one, she puts them inside the small suitcase she brought home. The room appears empty without the pictures, but now there is space for Margot.

ALPHONSO TELLS MARGOT TO MEET HIM FOR LUNCH AT A RESTAURANT far from the hotel. He drives his Mercedes-Benz while she opts to take a taxi, arriving five minutes later. He doesn’t get up when she approaches the table. There’s chatter around them — a few European tourists eating fried fish and bami for lunch, their backs, shoulders, and faces red from sunburn, their tour buses parked out front, where the drivers smoke cigarettes and kick pebbles in the sand. Third World plays on the sound system: “96 Degrees in the Shade” fills the small, open space like the smell of fried escovitch fish and the salt-tinged breeze from the sea. Alphonso appraises Margot with his eyes as she sits across from him. She had applied another layer of red lipstick before leaving the hotel. She also brushed her hair down with more gel so that every strand stays in place.

“You look better every time I see you,” he says, ogling her. She smiles with her lips. She has never been out with him or any of her clients this way. A black woman dining with a white man, though Alphonso is just as Jamaican as her, is viewed with suspicion. It might appear as though she’s propositioning him. Margot crosses her legs and leans back in her chair, creating distance. She’s aware of the people around them, especially the staff. She catches the eyes of the man behind the bar serving drinks and sizing her up.

“Why are we here?” she asks Alphonso.

“Where else would we meet?”

“Your villa?”

“Raquel is there. She and the twins leave later this evening.”

“Oh.” The sound of his wife’s name makes Margot’s eyes twitch, as though Alphonso has just reached over and plucked one of her eyelashes. Ever since his twins were born, Alphonso seems more distant, intent on getting work done in the office. Lately he sends Blacka, his assistant, to visit the hotel while he and his wife spend their vacations somewhere exotic like Greece. Margot thinks of all the time she has spent with him. Not once has his wife ever called to see where he was late at night. With all the money he spends on her, why would she dare complain or question him, even if she knows? Alphonso reaches for Margot’s hand, but Margot pulls away. “Not here.”

It’s Alphonso’s turn to lean back in his chair. He pats his chest for a pack of cigarettes and puts one in his mouth out of habit. Margot watches him let out a pillow of smoke that creates a thin veil between them. She wants to ask him the question that has been on her mind lately. The one he planted inside her head and left to sprout wildly like the creeping stems of Running Marys on a rosebush. She has to be sure. The last time she and Alphonso were together, the L -word had slipped off his tongue and landed in Margot’s hair when he lay on top of her. She needs to know how he feels about her and what this means for her prospects at the hotel.

“I want to ask you something,” she says.

Alphonso takes another long drag of his cigarette. He exhales. “If it’s about the new hire, it’s a done deal.”

Margot frowns. “What new hire?”

“I fired Dwight today. Just hired a more competent person to take his place. Miss Novia Scott-Henry.”

Margot is sick with shock. She wants to hurl something, anything, at Alphonso’s head. “Did she suck your dick?” she blurts out. Alphonso scans the menu in front of them.

“The steamed fish and okra looks delicious,” he says, ignoring her outburst. But Margot cannot bring herself to focus on anything. She was only seventeen and fresh out of school when she met Reginald Senior, a wealthy white Jamaican whose people visited Jamaica once for vacation from Canada, fell in love with the country, and stayed. They bought hundreds of acres of land that his father, Alphonso’s grandfather, turned into an all-inclusive resort. Margot was introduced to the hotelier by one of her clients, a man whose name Margot has long forgotten — a business type who liked to brag about his connections. True to his word, the man took Margot to an invitation-only gathering at Reginald Wellington Senior’s colonial mansion on the hill. The property used to be an old plantation, its beauty rivaling Rose Hall Great House. The whole time she had her eyes on the older Wellington, unable to concentrate on her date. Margot made sure to be seen by the man who ran Jamaica, though he was never officially elected as Prime Minister. Margot stayed back after the party was over and waited. When he finally noticed her, Reginald Senior saw the ambition that burned in her eyes — a flame that other men often mistook for lust. He hired her to work at his hotel and taught her everything she needed to know about running it. Everything she’s done since that day, every bitter compromise, every buried regret, was to lead to this point. That job should be hers.

“Come on, Margot,” Alphonso says, lowering the menu. “Your time will come.”

“When?”

The waiter comes up to their table. A young man with skin as smooth as the blackboard where the lunch special is written in chalk. His eyes scan Margot’s face briefly and she looks down, her hand fluttering to her hair to smooth strands that lifted from the light sea breeze. It’s Alphonso the waiter speaks to, as though he’s the only one at the table. “Can I get you a drink, sah?”

“A Red Stripe for me. What do you want, Margot?” Alphonso asks, bringing her into the conversation.

“A promotion,” Margot replies, too loudly.

Alphonso stares at her with his penny-colored eyes. He then fans away the visibly perplexed young waiter. “That’ll be all for now. Just get the lady a glass of water.” The waiter bows and leaves the table. Alphonso leans in as though he wants to climb over the table and smack Margot across the face. “I said, your time will come.”

Margot laughs. “I’ve been hearing that for years now, Alphonso. I’ve seen other people get promoted. I’ve seen Dwight parade around the place like a jackass, pretending to be in charge. I’m tired of lying in bed with you feeding you ideas that you use without giving me credit. Or listening to you talk about how hard it is to run a hotel that your father still controls from the grave.”

The waiter comes back with Alphonso’s beer. He only takes Alphonso’s lunch order, since Margot has lost her appetite. She folds her arms across her chest, staring out at the deep blue waves in the farthest distance of the ocean. She should’ve known this would happen. She’s the one with the blinders on. Why would Alphonso give her the position to manage his hotel, and not someone else with connections? Isn’t that what this is about? How many connections you have? Your family name? The reality stirs inside her belly, bellowing like the hunger pangs she refuses to assuage. She excuses herself from the table just as the waiter comes back with Alphonso’s food. “I have to leave,” she says.

“Was there something you wanted to ask me?” Alphonso says.

“I forgot.” Margot gets up and pushes her chair under the table.

“Well, I want to see you tonight.”

“Alphonso, you know I—”

“Please. I promise you’ll like the deal I have in store for you.” He winks at her as he puts a forkful of fish into his mouth and chews. Margot stands there for a moment longer, staring at his mouth. Had they been more than they were, she would’ve made a public display of dabbing the oil residues from each side.