“Ah know yuh in di house.” Thandi plays with the hem of her dress, winding her finger in the thread that has come undone. How can she face him after what he has seen at Miss Ruby’s shack? She hugs herself as though she were still naked and his look could tear down the walls at any moment. “I know yuh can hear me,” he says.
Thandi busies herself. She dusts the furniture, sweeps the floor, fluffs the pillows on the bed that she and Margot share. When she’s overheated from all the movement, she fans herself with a piece of cardboard, grateful that Miss Ruby did not have time to wrap her with the plastic, and relieved to feel just a tingle of cool air. A girlish giggle escapes her as she recalls what Charles called out to her earlier at Miss Ruby’s shack. “Yuh beautiful jus’ the way yuh is! Nuh mek di witch fool yuh!” No one has ever called her beautiful. It is a word she associates with the evening sun when it’s thick and red-orange at the bottom of the sky, the blushing stars at night, the goddesses in the paintings at school. A word that brings to mind a billowing sheer curtain that rests like a fainting damsel on the back of an armchair—serene, graceful, elegant. She turns to the mirror again to look at her half bleached face.
Later in the week Thandi stops at Mr. Levy’s Wholesale to pick up a few things for Delores. She stays by the fan that blows hot air and the smell of cat piss into the store. She itches to wriggle out of the plastic hidden beneath the uniform. But she won’t give up so easily.
“Wh’appen, sweet girl?” Thandi stiffens when she hears his voice. It’s as though electric wires are coursing through her in this moment, her fingers spread wide, mouth agape. She turns around to meet the jaundiced eyes of Clover, Delores’s old handyman. After he hurt her he gradually came around less and less, until he slunk out of town and disappeared for years. By the looks of things he’s a worse drunk than ever, though still a young man. He sneers at Thandi with the only two crooked teeth in his mouth. His skin is an ashen black that makes it look like it has been dried in the sun. With his knuckles he raps on the counter. “Missah Chin, ah wah tek so long? Gimme a pack ah cigarette!” He shoves a dollar under the opening and leers at Thandi. There is no way for her to move away from him in this small space. She hopes he will get the message and let her be if she doesn’t acknowledge that he’s there. But Clover reaches out and touches her on the shoulder. Always, at this very instant of physical contact, she would wake with a scream. But this is not a dream.
“Why yuh acting so?” He tilts his head like they are lovers having a harmless disagreement.
Thandi swallows, hoping her jumbled words will be measured when she utters them, standing there in her Saint Emmanuel High uniform. “Leave. Me. Alone.” She hopes the fire in her eyes is enough to scorch him, burn him up in the flames.
But Clover’s jaundiced eyes become watery as the sneer broadens on his face. “Ah love a ’ooman who got some fight in har.” He grabs himself and moves closer. “Turn me on . . .”
Thandi steps away. This causes Clover to laugh, flinging his head back.
Distracted by a dream, Thandi had wandered off onto a remote path shaded by trees—mahogany, live oaks, wild lime. She was on her way home from school, thinking about sketching the marvelous arches of the trees, the extensive roots of the mahogany, the small green clusters in the lime trees. The stillness of the green water in the cove. Clover cupped her mouth and hauled her off into the bushes. At nine years old she knew what “bombohole” meant because the man kept whispering how much he wanted hers, splaying her legs to take it. When he was done he told her not to tell or else he would break her neck. Thandi wondered then which was worse, dying or lying there hurting between her legs. Thandi kept her ugly secret even as Clover came over—less and less—to help Delores hoist up a fence, string electric wires, hammer exposed nails in their shack; or to play dominoes with the other neighborhood men whose breath always stank with white rum and whose clammy hands were always cupping Delores’s rump.
Clover takes the pack of cigarettes Mr. Levy shoves through the opening of the mesh door with those same blackened hands she remembers. Thandi watches him from the side of her eyes as he opens the pack and puts one cigarette behind his ear. The rest he slips inside his pocket. He leans on the counter with his ankles crossed, watching her as though expecting a comment. When she says nothing, he tells her, “Ran into Delores, she ask me to come by the house on Sat’day. Looking forward to seeing yuh cute face.” Clover touches her chin and she slaps his hand away, stamping out of the store.
13