Here Comes the Sun (37 page)

Thandi thinks of Margot and her secrets and the legacy Thandi's inherited, how she'll carry it now like the bucket of goat blood that Miss Gracie and Delores carried under the light of the full moon. They balanced the bucket between them to Verdene Moore's house. Thandi had caught them one night, afraid and giddy as the women dipped paintbrushes in the animal's blood and wrote across the pink house:
The blood of Jesus is upon you.
They said they had seen Verdene kill those dogs. Delores continued to go with Miss Gracie many nights after that, but Thandi grew sickened by it. Especially after witnessing Verdene Moore bent down on all fours one day, scrubbing the blood off her walkway. Thandi looked at the bending woman, her back hunched. Verdene dipped a coconut husk in a bucketful of water and scrubbed. She paused every once in a while to look up at the sky. Her movement was methodic, humble, graceful. Thandi thought of the rumors, stale and old, yet so indelible. She saw sorrow and regret in Verdene Moore's decorum, and felt her weariness.

She gives up on the door and crouches on the ground, her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around them. She can almost smell him there with her, that ripe pawpaw scent. She inhales it as she folds into herself, tired and defeated. She doesn't hear the door open or the coming footsteps. Thandi jumps with fright when Charles, as quick as lightning, pulls her inside and into his arms.

C
harles and Thandi embrace inside Jullette's living room. When she raises her face to his, he wipes the tears off her cheeks with his thumb. They remain like this, with Jullette fading in the background. His face is leaner, his eyes alert like an animal used to being hunted. Thandi runs her hand over the hair stubble on his face. When he pulls away, it's clear Charles is aware of his haunted look too, because he refuses to meet her eyes. When she reaches for him again, he takes one step back. “It's better to end it,” he says. Choked by all the questions and pleading that rise in her throat, Thandi cannot respond. “We only foolin' ourselves, Thandi,” Charles says. “Dey g'wan catch me an' throw me in prison. What good would I be to you in jail?”

“You don't have to go to jail. We can run, we can hide someplace where they won't find you.”

“Thandi, where would we hide? Yuh not t'inking 'bout anything right now. Yuh too emotional.”

“You can hide in another parish, grow a beard.”

“Yuh don't undahstand, I'm a walking jackpot fah di people dem who believe ah can get dem ten thousan' dollahs. Yuh t'ink that's a good position to be in? Always looking ovah yuh shouldah . . . at yuh own family membahs?” He glances at Jullette, who is silently listening to them with a hand stroking her chin and legs apart like a bodyguard. Charles sits down on the red velvet sofa and Thandi throws herself in front of him.

“I can talk to Margot. Jullette told me everything. Charles, yuh listening to me?” She's tugging his shirt, but he only holds his head in his hands. Thandi stands up and looks down on him. From this vantage point Charles appears shrunken, hopeless. Like a fisherman with an empty net. Thandi exchanges glances with Jullette. “Yuh not going to just let him give up hope like this, are you?” she asks Jullette.

“We might have more options. Right now I need to get dressed. I have to be somewhere. Mama already staying here wid we. You can't stay.” She doesn't look at Thandi.

“Please,” Thandi says, standing up. “I have nowhere else to go.”

“I don't think you can be trusted,” Jullette says.

Charles raises his head. “Jus' cool it, Jullette. She's my girl.” Thandi looks into his face. She takes his hand in hers and turns to Jullette. Jullette is regarding her with the same meanness Thandi saw earlier. “Okay. I'll be back soon,” Jullette says.

When she returns two hours later, she's carrying two shopping bags full of clothing items. She throws a dress at Thandi and tells her to get dressed. “If you love Chucky as much as you say, then this should be easy.”

39

T
HE TAXI PULLS UP TO THE VILLA, ITS LARGE BLACK AND GOLD
gate, the manicured hedges and the waving palm trees in the front yard poised like hula dancers welcoming them. The place sits like a castle overlooking Montego Bay and seemingly the entire island. Thandi turns to Jullette. “What is this place?”

“The headquarters.” Jullette pays the taxi driver.

Once they set foot on the property, the lights come on in the yard. Jullette knocks on the oak door, lightly at first. Then harder. A woman finally opens the door and peers at them. “Can I help you?”

“We here fah Alphonso,” Jullette says to the woman, whose brown neck and chest are covered with talcum powder. She has on a long denim skirt and a red top. A simple black leather bag is slung over one shoulder. In one hand she carries a maid's uniform on a hanger, covered by a garment bag. In her other hand is a black plastic bag that she holds delicately at her side. The smell of some kind of a stew—maybe oxtail or red pea soup with pig's feet—follows her. Her shift must be over. Her face contorts with a smugness that communicates to Thandi the fact that they are unlikely guests. She lays eyes on Thandi. Thandi tries to straighten herself, since she's propped up like a rag doll with her right arm around Jullette's neck, unable to walk in heels. “Don't I know you?” the woman asks Thandi. Thandi is surprised. She has never seen this woman before. She might be younger than she looks. Maybe not a day older than Delores. But she appears tired. Not so much in a physical sense; it's a fatigue Thandi knows too well, for she herself has felt it. The woman's blackened lips don't curve upward into a smile to match Thandi's uncertain one. Thandi can't tell if the woman is wearing black lipstick or if that's her real lip color. A pair of large hoop earrings soften an otherwise hard, chiseled face.

“I don't think we ever met,” Thandi responds.

“Hm.” The woman regards Thandi. “I'm good wid faces. That is one t'ing me pride me self on. I remembah t'ings you'd normally forget. Like di clothes ah person was wearing, dem shoes, di color ah dem socks, whether dem slip was showing, what dem request di first time me serve dem. But ah remembah mostly faces. Me mind tek pitcha like camera an' store dem,” she says to Thandi.

But Thandi cannot remember her. She turns to Jullette, who says to the woman, “You've seen har sistah.”

Though Thandi knows why she's here, the thought of Margot makes her want to turn back. Jullette kept telling her to wait and see. That Margot has no idea about their plan. Thandi imagines a string being pulled from her, unspooling every ounce of life left in her. She feels sick all of a sudden, the imaginary thread that reels from inside her taut.

“So di both ah oonuh is nothin' but misguided girls like all di res',” the woman says to them. “These girls who would do anyt'ing fah money. Yuh mother know yuh out here in di street, doing dese t'ings?”

“If she knew, she would ask for her cut,” Thandi says.

“It's sad and disrespectful to speak of yuh own mother that way.”

“Clearly, yuh never met mine.”

Thandi thinks she sees a veil of sadness descend over the woman's face. She fidgets with the black plastic bag containing the food, adjusting it, then readjusting it. Finally, as though finding the right words, she says, “Go home. Di both ah you. If oonuh know what's good fah oonuh self, go home.”

Jullette holds the door, her movement swift. “Not before we see Alphonso. Him expecting we.”

Just then a shiny silver Mercedes pulls up, crunching stones under its wheels on the driveway. The woman closes the door behind her and walks toward the car. She lowers her things onto the paved walkway, her handbag, uniform, and plastic bag with food abandoned. Thandi watches her bend to the driver's side, furiously knocking on the window with her knuckles. The driver rolls down his window as she gesticulates widely with her hands, pointing at Jullette and Thandi. “Dey claim dey looking fah you, sah!”

There is something magnificent in her movement. Thandi could watch her all night. The light from the car has become a stage light. In different circumstances she would have tried to capture the wild strokes of this woman's arms in her sketchpad, the impassioned annoyance and disbelief that shake her body like a mighty wind shakes a tree. “Look at har,” Jullette says next to Thandi, staring straight ahead with a stricken look on her face. “Actin' like she own di place. Is like she nuh know seh she'll pass through dis godfahsaken life without a donkey hair to har name. She spen' har whole life cooking, cleaning, an' protecting dese people, t'inking what belongs to dem is hers too. But is bare crumbs she scrape from dem dinnah table fi build di pride wah she 'ave. A pride weh hide di truth dat she will always deh pon har black knee, scraping.”

Two white men get out of the car. One is wearing shades even though it's night. The silver-haired one is dressed in an army-green general's uniform, complete with epaulets.

“You're sure that Margot won't be involved in this?” Thandi says to Jullette in a whisper between clenched teeth while observing the people in the driveway.

“She's not,” Jullette says with a smirk. “Dis is your show.”

“No need to worry, I'll handle it, Peaches,” the man wearing the shades is saying to the maid. “You can go home now.” The woman gives Thandi and Jullette a final glance before picking up her things and hobbling toward the front gate like a bird, her neck long as if to match her annoyance. Thandi could have sworn that she was looking up into the woman's flared nostrils earlier at the door; but her fading, small, off-kilter frame makes her seem less intimidating. Once she steps through the gate, Thandi lets out a breath. The two men make their way from the driveway toward the front door. The man wearing the shades jingles his keys in his pocket. Right behind him, the general takes stiff, measured steps.

“You're early,” the man wearing shades says to Jullette, his tone as casual as his gait. “And I see you've brought a friend.”

“Yes.” Jullette gives the man a toothy grin. Here she doesn't seem like Thandi's friend at all, but someone who came to do business. Her demureness is a tool. “My friend is new. I'm here wid har to mek har feel comfortable,” Jullette says. Thandi cringes at Jullette's inability to switch from backward patois to standard English in the presence of these men. Its cadence clashes with the beauty and elegance of the setting. Like two Dutch pots banging into one another. Thandi imagines the smirks on their faces when they turn away. But Jullette doesn't seem to care about the way she sounds. She seems confident, like she owns some part of them. They laugh with her, not at her. Thandi doesn't get the joke.

“What is your friend's name?” the man wearing the shades asks Jullette. Thandi senses him looking at her, though he doesn't address her directly.

“Thandi,” Jullette answers.

The man lifts his hand to shake hers. A gesture that surprises Thandi, since she has never shaken anyone's hand before in greeting.

“Alphonso,” he says.

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

“Sir?” The man guffaws. “Just call me Alphonso.”

Embarrassed, she apologizes. She cannot see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, though she feels him studying her, the revelation denting a comma at the sides of his mouth. It forces her to pull her hand away. But he holds on to it.

“You're quite stunning,” he says. “Are you a model?” He's still holding on to Thandi's hand.

“No, I'm—”

He puts a finger to Thandi's lips. This catches her off guard. His touch is gentle, like a soft kiss. The same intrusion by someone else would have annoyed her, made her slap the finger away. But she does nothing. “You should learn to take a compliment,” he says, removing his finger.

Thandi feels perspiration trickling down her sides. God forbid if it soaks the skintight dress. “Uhm, where is the bathroom?” she asks.

“Come. I'll gladly show you.” Alphonso gently pushes the front door with his shoulder. As soon as it opens into the well-lit living space, Thandi notices the paintings. “Follow me.” He bends slightly like a portly butler, one hand behind his back, the other gesturing for her to step farther inside. There are paintings and sculptures everywhere. Thandi resists the urge to turn and turn like the bamboo ceiling fan spinning above their heads. Alphonso must have noticed her noticing everything, because he slows to her pace.

“You like?”

“It's like a museum,” she says.

“I'm a collector.”

“You live here?”

“Sometimes.”

“I really like your place.”

“I'm glad. My goal is to make everyone who walks through those doors feel like they belong here. You can stay as long as you want.” He says it so quietly that it feels like an intimate confession. He stops short when he gets to the guest bathroom door and holds it open for her. For a second Thandi wonders if he'll move to let her pass. “How old are you, Thandi?” he asks.

“Fifteen. I'll be sixteen at the end of this month.”

“Hmm. Fifteen.”

His tilts his glasses on the bridge of his nose, his pale eyes appraising her.

“You have a nice figure for fifteen. A body like yours could make men do anything.”

She walks quickly past him, aware of the tension in her neck and the rodlike sensation in her back. She locks the door. Instead of sitting on the toilet, she bends over it. She feels sick again. She can hear Alphonso and the general talking to Jullette in the living room.

Before they left the house, Charles had sulked on the sofa as Jullette gushed over how much Thandi was transformed with makeup and skintight clothes. Thandi noticed him staring as though seeing her for the first time. It made her uncomfortable, yet aware of what she possessed—a power she once thought only her sister had. Charles pulled back when Thandi came close. Something came over his face like a five o'clock shadow. “
Yuh can't go, looking like dat,
” he spat, a renewed fervor in his eyes that Thandi recognized as contempt. Or fear. Charles turned to his sister. “
This is not a good idea.
”