Nicole Dennis-Benn - Here Comes the Sun

“Tek it easy. Yuh don’t want to be completely drunk fah dis.”

Sweetness takes a deep breath to calm herself and grips the edge of the counter. “Me nuh sure me can do dis,” she says. “Me nuh ready yet.” This Margot hears loud and clear above the mento band. The molecules from Sweetness’s rum breath sail toward her, assaulting her. Margot reaches for the girl’s hand. But Sweetness is too fast. She grabs her purse and gets up from the bar.

“Where yuh t’ink yuh going?” Margot calls after her.

But Sweetness doesn’t stop. As she nears the door, a wave of vertigo hits Margot as though she’s the one who has been drugged. The buzzing inside the restaurant gets louder — the clinking of utensils on plates, the Wailers’ words via the mento band reminding her “ an’ when him deh near / yuh mus’ beware ”—the warning clashing with the joyous collision of conversations filled with foreign accents. She blindly hurries toward the door, narrowly avoiding bumping into guests.

“Sweetness!”

But the girl doesn’t turn around.

“Sweetness!”

Margot walks quickly outside. Paul is standing by the door to let people in and out, but Sweetness doesn’t slow her pace for him to open the door. She pushes it open herself. That’s when Margot decides to use her last bit of ammunition:

“Miss Violet can surely use some help wid everyt’ing going on wid her head!”

Sweetness stops, or rather halts by the rosebushes like a racehorse that has approached an insurmountable hurdle. Her back is still turned and head bent. When Margot approaches her, she sees that the girl is crying. “What’s the matter with you?” She takes the girl by the hand and leads her behind the rosebushes, where she begins to massage her shoulders. “Why yuh want to ruin dis now? If yuh didn’t want to do it yuh shoulda say something before. Why fight it? I’m giving you permission now to act on it. It not g’wan jus’ go away if yuh ignore it.”

Sweetness sniffles but says nothing as Margot massages this into her shoulder; the girl’s muscles relax under the pressure of Margot’s fingertips, her head lolling. “You’re ready. .” Margot says to the girl’s upturned face. She kisses her gently on the lips. Sweetness’s eyes are still closed. Margot kisses her again, this time cradling Sweetness’s face with both hands. The girl tilts her head to receive her tongue. Just then Margot hears footsteps and whispering voices. A woman’s high heels. A man telling her to call a taxi. Margot pulls away from Sweetness and peers above the bushes. Paul is steadying Miss Novia Scott-Henry, who appears light-headed and filled with lively chatter.

“I can go home on my own, Paul. No need, no need at all. Oops, was that thunder?”

“No, that’s jus’ di band setting up.”

“Oh, my, I need my keys. What have I done with my car keys? You took my keys!”

Margot turns to Sweetness. “Follow me.”

She walks toward Paul and Miss Novia Scott-Henry, Sweetness trailing a few steps behind.

“Margot? Margot, is that you?” Miss Novia Scott-Henry says, steadying herself. “Did you hear the thunder? It’s going to pour!”

“I wish,” Margot says.

“What are you doing here so late?”

“I should ask you the same question,” Margot replies, scanning the woman’s face. Her eyes are wide like a drunken person determined to display cognition. But she fails miserably, tripping over some invisible thing on the ground. Paul has to hold her up again. “I’m on my way home,” she says. “I want to beat the storm.”

“I don’t think you should drive like this,” Margot says.

“No, no. I feel great. Just need to get to my caaa. .”

Miss Novia Scott-Henry stumbles again and Margot springs into action, breaking the woman’s fall. She shoos Paul away. “I got this.”

One week of lying awake at night, sweating through her pillow as the plan grows, white-knuckling the chair in the office every time she sat and watched the woman. So this act of kindness has become a part of the masquerade; so much so that it’s hard to distinguish what’s rehearsed from what’s authentic. She instructs Sweetness to help her carry Miss Novia Scott-Henry to the penthouse suite upstairs. Margot fidgets with her clutch, not knowing at first where to put it. She lifts the woman’s free arm over her neck and carries her to the room. Sweetness balances her weight on the other side.

“Where yuh taking me?” Miss Novia Scott-Henry asks.

“To a room upstairs,” Margot says. “You’re in no position to drive.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll stay here for the night. I promise, Sweetness will take good care of you.”

Upstairs, Margot opens the door to the suite and switches on the light. The burgundy drapes are drawn, and there, inside the closet next to the bathroom, is the recorder. They put the woman on the bed, lowering her gently. She’s half awake and half asleep. Margot backs away to pour the woman a glass of water. She slips the rest of the drug into the glass and stirs in case the previous dose wears off too early. “Just make yourself comfortable,” Margot says to Miss Novia Scott-Henry when she watches her take a sip of the water. She watches her lips pucker and the soft rise and fall of her throat as she drinks.

“Thanks a lot, Margot,” the woman says, lying back down on the bed, her arms spread.

Margot instructs Sweetness to undress and climb onto the bed next to Miss Novia Scott-Henry. For a moment the girl hesitates. Margot dares her with her eyes. The girl obeys, slipping out of her dress like a child. Margot retreats into the closet to hide and fishes for the disposable camera she carried. She watches as Sweetness leans forward and undoes the woman’s buttons. The woman stirs, but only a little. Sweetness rises to the challenge. She takes charge, looking like a lioness perched on all fours, her back arched, her magnificent rear swooping up from her spine, and her hands like paws. Miss Novia Scott-Henry inches closer to Sweetness once the coolness from the air conditioner tickles her nakedness. She scoots closer to the warmth Sweetness’s body offers, and matches her pulse. But that illusion is the drug’s secret drive — the control it tricks her into believing is hers, the excitement, the promise, the rubbed-down edge of fear. Her mind is no longer able to outsmart her body, for her body knows by instinct what it ought to do. Every single muscle of her body seems to be trembling, quivering, twitching. They are magnificent, the both of them, moving like silkworms. Margot misses Verdene this way, lowering the camera after capturing enough pictures of Miss Novia Scott-Henry and Sweetness. She is forced to turn away from the sight of them, her own hunger — her own primal want — begging to be assuaged. Margot takes her things, the recorder, and, for good measure, Sweetness’s clothes, shoes, and handbag too. She tiptoes out the door, leaving it open for this private dream to become public.

DELORES COMES HOME FROM THE MARKET AND IMMEDIATELY begins to cook dinner, her stocky frame pouring over the small stove. She wipes her face with the collar of her blouse and stirs the cowfoot soup, mindlessly dashing into it salt and pepper and pimento seeds, talking to herself about the day’s sales.

“Ah told di man twenty dollah. Jus’ twenty dollah. Him so cheap that him pull out a ten. Say him want me to go down in price. But see here, now, massah. What can ten dollah do?” She laughs and leans over to taste the soup, her face scrunching as always as she reaches for more salt. “Eh, eh!”

“Mama, I have something to show yuh,” Thandi says, taking small steps toward Delores, clutching the sketchpad filled with her drawings. The fire is high under the pot, and the house smells of all the spices. “What is it now?” her mother says. “Have you seen yuh sistah since mawnin’?”