“Desrine?” she calls after her house girl. But then she remembers that Desrine, entering through the back door from her cottage, doesn’t come until eight, which is around the time Margot leaves for work in the black Range Rover parked in the driveway. If Desrine were already here, Margot would have heard the slap-slap sounds of her slippers echoing on the marble tiles. All she hears now is the tap-tap of raindrops on the windowsill and on the upper veranda that her master bedroom door opens on to. It has been raining for days, as if to make up for last year’s drought.
Margot throws off the bedcover, rises up from the sturdy mattress, parts the netting, and moves from the bedroom, padding lightly, as though the marble tiles might crack with her footsteps. She walks from room to room, opening and closing the arched French doors, her long silk robe sweeping the floor behind her, as she searches for . . . what? She doesn’t know. Each of the three guest bedrooms, painted the color of the sky—not the gray that it has been these last few days, but blue—are empty, almost austere, like well-dressed strangers. She wraps herself in her robe and makes her way to the sunroom—the only place in her home where she feels like herself. Whatever that means. Each detail took months to perfect—the exposed wooden beams in the arched ceilings, the dark rattan furniture and white cushions, the brightly colored walls that she painted herself, experimenting with hibiscus-pink, Valencia-orange, and sunset-red, before deciding upon clean, clear white.
If Delores could see me now, she thinks, rubbing her neck where the gashes have turned to welts. Last Margot heard of her mother, Delores moved one parish over to Trelawny with Grandma Merle to be closer to the dock. She heard Delores has lost a lot of weight, her skin sagging on bare bones. It was Maxi who relayed the message. Margot had gone into town to deposit money in the bank—an errand she doesn’t trust Desrine with—when she bumped into him. His eyes examined her new clothes, her Italian-leather pumps, her Chanel handbag, the Range Rover keys dangling from her manicured fingers. He nodded his head slowly, though no one asked him anything. “Tek good care ah yuhself, Margot,” he eventually said. He spoke more formally—no jokes, no sexual innuendos, and no Rasta-man philosophy. And worse, it sounded final. Like a goodbye. When she turned away to go inside the bank, she almost lost her balance.
Margot sits on one of the wicker sofas in the sunroom and gazes at the panoramic view of the sea. It’s a wonder to look at from up here. The view is more beautiful in the sunlight that usually streams in through the glass in enchanted beams. But lately the sky has emptied itself of everything, including stars. Like the ocean, it’s deep and brooding, roaring over the city as if God has played a trick on mankind, the sea and sky switching places. It threatens to swallow Margot.
She pictures Verdene on every surface, their bodies pressed together as they listen to the sound of water hitting the glass exterior. Margot imagines them looking out at the lush green of the landscaped garden surrounded by rosebushes, hibiscus, bougainvillea, and manicured hedges. A garden that Verdene would’ve certainly taken pride in maintaining. Margot had built this room so that they could watch the sunrises and the sunsets together. But she has hired people to populate her property; people whose presence has kept her afloat—Cudjoe, an older man who used to be a farmer but turned yardman after his crops died in the drought, and Desrine. They both show up for work on time in the mornings—Cudjoe tending to the property and Desrine to the house. Though, whenever they are there, the house is still quiet—too quiet: the lull of the ocean, the intermittent billowing of curtains by the breeze. In River Bank she was used to hearing the crowing of roosters. But here, in Lagoons, when she wakes up, there is silence, as though the day has held its breath. Desrine and Cudjoe speak in whispers to each other or make no sound at all after their initial, “Howdy, Miss Margot.” It’s this frozen formality that sparks an occasional burst of fire inside Margot’s chest that makes her snap at them for no reason. “Desrine, didn’t I tell you to stop using that blasted cleaning liquid? It affect my sinus. What yuh want to do? Kill me?” or “Cudjoe, what am I paying you for? To sit under dat tree? Don’t t’ink ah not watching! There’s plenty more people like you in Montego Bay. Half ah dem need a job.”
This, she hopes, would force them into a conversation, or even a protest. But that never happens. They simply nod in agreement and apologize profusely. “Sarry, Miss Margot. Sarry. It won’t ’appen again.”