“Here, come join us.”
He leads her to the group of men. She greets them with a slight nod of her head. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she says. They respond in a tenor chorus. “Evening!” They have the accents of moneyed Jamaicans, their English with the right edge of patois to sharpen their innuendos and help them appeal to the common men they exploit. Alphonso leans back on his chair, his leg up, a cigar in his mouth. He converses animatedly with the other men. He openly caresses Margot’s shoulders, rubs her back, and she leans into him without hesitation. The phone rings, and one man teases Alphonso that it’s his wife who is calling. Alphonso runs to take the call, disappearing into one of the five empty bedrooms for privacy. When he returns, the men laugh. “See! Ah tell yuh it was di wife!”
That’s when Margot gets up to pour herself a drink. The men were mid-discussion when she stood up—something about the monkeys in Parliament who are allowing P. J. Patterson to run the country into ruins since his win last year, and making sure Seaga takes the ’97 election in three years. The girls sit around the men like decorative flowers, pretending to listen to the conversation as the men absently stroke their bony thighs. Poor things, Margot thinks, watching them hold glasses of liquor to their mouths, sipping it like medicine. Suddenly Margot feels maternal. The girl who noticed her earlier catches her eye again. She gets up from the sofa and comes over to Margot at the bar.
“Margot?”
“Yes?”
Margot cannot help but try to place her. “Do I know you?” she asks.
“Are you Thandi’s sister?” the girl asks.
Margot mentally wipes clean the purple eye shadow; the red rouge on the girl’s high cheekbones that goes all the way up to her temples; the beige mask that doesn’t quite fit her deep mocha complexion, making her look like a ghost.
“I’m Jullette,” the girl says, not waiting for Margot to piece it together. “Ah used to live in Rivah Bank. Me and Thandi went to primary school together. Ah remembah you.”
Margot isn’t sure how to respond. Jullette. Jullette? Jullette! Jullete from the river fork. Miss Violet’s daughter. Last Margot heard of the girl, she was sent away after the father left the family. No one knew what happened to him, but since he left, his children scattered all over the place and Miss Violet locked herself in the house.
“How is Thandi?” Jullette asks.
Margot takes a sip of her drink. Before she can begin to imagine what she can say to this girl that won’t threaten to reveal too much about her secret life, Alphonso comes up behind Margot. “Thought you went to the sugarcane plantation to make the drinks.” He encircles Margot’s waist with his arms, and wheels her off. Margot gives a surprised chuckle, grateful to be rescued from the conversation with Jullette.
“It was nice meeting you . . .” Margot says.
“Sweetness. They call me Sweetness. Nice meeting you too,” Jullette says in a faraway voice like a pendant lost at sea. How little the splash; how great the effect. Margot leaves the girl standing by the bar.
In Alphonso’s bedroom, Margot cannot stop thinking about Jullette. Had she been doing this all along? Who introduced her to it? She thinks about Thandi again, fear mounting in her throat. She swallows and slips out of her dress. When she turns around to face Alphonso, his head is already lowered to the night table, where he snorts three white lines. He pauses on the second and offers her some. “You seem a little fidgety. You should loosen up a bit.”
She shakes her head. “You’re my only drug,” she says, smiling at him, though her mind is still on Thandi.
“Ah, you came ready,” Alphonso says.
“Always.”
“Then what are you waiting for, standing there like a statue?”
“I want to ask you something first.”
“Why not after?”
“I want to know now, before—”
“Margot, for godsakes, I waited all day for this.”
“Do you—”
“What? What!”
“Do you love me?”
Alphonso sits up in the bed. “Do I what?” He looks down at himself, then back at her. “You see this? If this doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what will.”
“But you said—”
“Margot, you know you make a grown man say shit when yuh do what yuh do in bed.”
“So yuh didn’t mean it, then.”
“I love your company. I love how you make me feel when we fuck . . . That’s probably what ah meant.”
“And me?”
He scratches his head, the dark hair falling into his face to cover his eyes.
“Where is all this coming from, Margot?” He gives a nervous chuckle. “Are you catching feelings? You know I’m a married man. And you open yuh legs every which way for a handout. Because of you my hotel is in good business.”