Thandi comes home and finds Margot counting money. She’s in her work uniform, hunched over the table where the envelopes are piled and where a small flame burns from the kerosene lamp, though it’s still early. She’s so engrossed in what she’s doing that she doesn’t notice Thandi. Margot’s mouth moves steadily with each bill she counts. The light from the flame caresses her face. By the pale green hue of the bills, Thandi can tell that they are U.S. dollars, not Jamaican. Where does she get so much money? What does she do with it? Margot stashes a few bills away in one pile. She then rolls the second pile, securing it with an elastic band. She doesn’t take it to the old sweat-stained mattress with the exposed spring where she and Delores usually store money to pay bills. Instead, she puts it away inside her purse. When she looks up and sees Thandi, she jumps. “Have mercy pon me, dear God! Thandi, don’t you scare me like dat!” She gets rid of the evidence, dropping her purse onto a nearby chair. “What yuh doing home so early?” Margot asks Thandi. “Yuh don’t have extra lessons?” She’s nervous, her eyes briefly scanning Thandi’s face before returning to the now-empty table.
Thandi sits on the bed and takes out a book, aware of her sister fumbling around. “I don’t have extra lessons today. Remember?” Thandi leafs through a math book, staring down at equations. “Where yuh get so much money from?” she asks her sister. She looks up in time to see Margot crossing her legs.
“Overtime,” Margot explains. Thandi peeks at the purse on the chair, slumped like a black leather pillow.
“Are there any openings for summer?” Thandi asks Margot, who idly removes a clip from her straightened hair to let it fall around her shoulders. She uses both hands to fluff it. Something Thandi is learning how to do with hers, but, because of her hair’s finer texture, she can never achieve.
“Wid your education, you can get bettah work than what I’m doing,” Margot says, leaning back to ease her feet out of her high-heeled shoes. A fresh odor of sweat floats up to Thandi’s nostrils from Margot’s stockinged feet, and Thandi takes comfort in it. “Focus yuh energy on school. People should be working for you. Not the other way around,” Margot says, pointing and flexing her toes—the sanguine nail polish she wears visible through the sheer stockings.
Thandi gets up and joins her at the table. Margot removes the purse from the chair so that Thandi can sit. Once she sits, Margot lifts both legs and rests them on Thandi’s lap. “That hairstyle suits you,” Margot says. It’s the first she has ever commented on a hairstyle that Thandi did herself. All she did was a single French braid, the end secured by a black rubber band. Thandi massages her sister’s feet, watching Margot’s head roll back and eyes close. Margot sighs loudly as Thandi runs her hands up her calves, applying pressure. More than the velvety feel of the stockings, Thandi delights in the sturdiness of Margot’s calves, conjuring up memories of her running track at the small secondary school she attended. Margot made it to girls’ champs and could have gone further in track and field. But for some reason, she stopped training and fell off the path. When Thandi asked her why, Margot responded with a casual shrug. “It wasn’t worth it.”
Margot’s lips part, letting out a low guttural sound that reminds Thandi of a purring cat. “I wish I didn’t have to go back to work so soon,” Margot says, her eyes still closed. “I’d stay here just for this . . . You’re good with your hands.” Thandi decides that this would be a good time to ask for what she wants. “Can I have some money?”
“Money for what?” Margot asks, her eyes fluttering open.
Thandi shrugs, her fingers still working her sister’s calves. “I have things I want to save up for . . .” She thinks about the party coming up and the fuchsia dress she wants to wear. The last time she checked, the price hadn’t gone down. She also has to pay another visit to Miss Ruby.
“Name one t’ing,” Margot says.
“A dress?” This comes out of Thandi’s mouth sounding like a question.
“A dress for what?” Margot sits up.
“There’s a party I was invited to by a classmate. A sweet sixteen party.”
“A party before the exam? Yuh should be studying, trying to pass all nine subjects.” Thandi’s movement slows. Margot relieves her of her task, pulling her legs out of Thandi’s lap. She’s staring at Thandi as though focusing on the small pimple at the center of her forehead. “I just paid money for the subjects you’ll be sitting in CXC. All nine of them wasn’t cheap.”