Nicole Dennis-Benn - Here Comes the Sun

Finally, Verdene presses her palms on the cold concrete and pushes herself up. As she stands, her vision is invaded by black polka dots. She balances herself by holding on to the sink, then the doorframe, then eventually to the walls as she makes her way down the dark corridor toward the kitchen. She moves closer to the table and clutches the mug that holds her tea mixed with rum. She lifts it to her mouth and drinks. When she’s done, she reaches for the bottle of rum and drinks from that. She squints and grimaces as the liquid burns her throat. She slams the bottle down on the table. But how could Margot not call? How could she not call? Had she been religious, this would’ve been a prayer, a litany of pleas and questions.

Verdene tilts her head back and laughs at the notion of Jesus listening to her harp over a woman. Haven’t I learned my lesson? Verdene has always been the one to push women away with her aggressive need for them to fulfill her, to pour their souls into the gaping hole inside her — a cavity with no bottom; she chased them and backed them into corners with her yearnings, her dependency on them to make her feel whole — the way Aunt Gertrude said Jesus is supposed to. On bended knees, a seventeen-year-old Verdene had bowed her head as Aunt Gertrude’s priest anointed her. Aunt Gertrude had told him about the incident with Akua at the university. The priest placed his holy hand on Verdene’s head, his grasp like a skullcap as he prayed away Verdene’s sin. The same priest married her and her husband four years later. A firm squeeze on Verdene’s right shoulder during her wedding reception was the priest’s way of saying he approved of her salvation — that God had intervened and healed her. Made her whole. Those laughs she and her husband shared, the discussions that ebbed and flowed well into the nights, the comfortable silence that breathed with them after dinner when they each settled into their own readings, sailing into disparate worlds. But a woman has other needs too. The need to be connected to something greater — a cause, a passion. Unlike the other women, who offered an escape from the lies Verdene told herself and the people whose opinions once mattered, Margot offers countenance. But then there’s that pain she senses in Margot — the kind of pain that makes other pains seem minute, insignificant in comparison. Even when Margot was a girl, Verdene sensed this pain. Saw it in her eyes. It was stifling enough to choke her if she wasn’t careful to look away.

Verdene makes her way to bed. She haphazardly pulls the sheet back. This much she’s able to do, though her limbs feel heavy like they do in dreams in which she’s trying to execute some kind of a critical task, like tying a shoelace. In bed Verdene closes her eyes and sinks farther underneath the sheets, not wanting to believe it possible that Margot could have someone else. The crickets sound like they’re inside the house, trapped under the wooden floors, or in the corners, behind furniture. Everywhere. A sliver of moonlight slips through the window. If karma is real — a payback, perhaps, for walking out on her husband one foggy Sunday morning, a year before her mother’s death, leaving nothing but a letter confessing her extramarital affairs with women and her need for a divorce — Verdene knows deep down that she has already lost.

MARGOT SITS INSIDE RUPERT’S BOX LUNCH AND VARIETY RESTAURANT, waiting. She glances at her watch and then again at the round clock on the wall that overlooks the small square tables. On top of the tables are a salt-and-pepper rack, a bottle of ketchup, and hot pepper. Flies pitch from one empty table to the other as though playing musical chairs. The restaurant might not remind the tourists who accidentally stumble into it of the nicer restaurants along the hotel chain in Montego Bay or even the ones they’re used to at home, but it suits the habits of the natives: the way the cook prepares the food without worrying about using too much spice; the way the tables are close together because privacy isn’t as important as hunger; the way the dining area is resistant to light, because all you really need is two senses while you eat — smell and taste. Margot has been coming to Rupert’s for years — Rupert serves the best oxtail in Montego Bay. The old toothless man is like a grandfather to Margot, always asking how she is, and giving her extra servings of gravy on her plate.

Just as Margot is about to put a forkful of gravy rice in her mouth, the girl appears at the doorway, leggy and self-confident. She parts the beaded curtains and pauses to look around the dark restaurant as if Margot isn’t the only customer in the place. The girl runs her hands down her dress to smooth the hem that only reaches mid-thigh. Margot doesn’t greet her until she’s standing directly across from her, smelling like camphor balls and something sweet.

“Hello, Margot.”

“It’s ‘boss lady.’”

“Right. Boss lady.”

“You’re late. Have a seat.”

The girl pulls out a chair.

Margot watches her get comfortable in her seat. She fixes the pink flower in her hair that matches her dress, under which smooth, velvety dark skin beckons more attention. Margot licks the gravy off her lips. “How yuh doing?” Margot asks.

“Good, good, cyan complain.”

“Glad to hear.”

“Suh yuh request to see me?”

“You were highly recommended by Bobbett. She said you get the most loyal customers, because, of all di girls, you’re di only one willing to try anything. Is that true?”

“Yes.” The girl smiles sweetly, revealing a gap in her front teeth.

“What name do you go by out here again?”

“Dey call me Sweetness, but since we go way back, yuh can call me whateva yuh want.”

“I’ll call you Sweetness, then. And not a word to anyone about our conversation. Understand?”

The girl nods.

“Now, Sweetness, if you want to work for me, yuh have to show me what yuh can do. Prove to me why you’re the number one girl out here. Ah can’t let any an’ anybody into my camp.”

“How yuh want me to prove it to you?”

“I have an assignment for you. Yuh first.”

“So I’m hired?”

“If you do what I ask.”

“What is dat?”

“I want you to seduce a woman.”

“What?”

“Just for a night. I want you to seduce her. I’ll pay you double what yuh making now.”

The girl laughs. “Dis is a joke?” she asks.

Margot glances at the clock over the girl’s head. She has to be back at work in half an hour. “Can you do it or not?”

“Me nuh go dat way.”

“For two hundred dollars. U.S., not Jamaican.”

“I–I don’t know.”

“Is just one time. Yuh don’t have to think ’bout it aftah yuh do it.”

“Why yuh want me to do this?”

“If yuh g’wan work fah me, then don’t ask questions.”

“Okay, how ’bout t’ree hundred?”

“Don’t bargain wid me either. Take it or leave it.”

“Who is di ’ooman?”

“Is that a yes?”

The girl pauses. She pushes herself away from the table. “Yuh t’ink I need yuh dirty money dat badly? What mek yuh t’ink I’d do such a t’ing? Yuh treating me like me is some kinda hungry mongrel who’d sniff rump fi food. What kinda person yuh t’ink I am?”

“There’re not many girls like you out here. From what I hear, you is di kinkiest of dem all. Like dat story ’bout di two college students on spring break. The couple who yuh mek—”

“How yuh know ’bout dat?”

“Ah do my research before ah do interviews.”

“Suh yuh t’ink if yuh sweet-talk or blackmail me, ah g’wan jus’ agree fi yuh flimsy offer? Me is not no fool, boss lady.”