After their night at the construction site she forced herself to study the words in her textbook, but all she could think about was Charles. Over dinner she pined for him. Her appetite for her favorite meal, tin mackerel and boiled bananas, vanished. The untouched food agitated Delores, who looked at Thandi as though she had taken sick at the table. Thandi finally fell into bed, exhausted from fantasies and unable to smell his smell in the towel she kept under her pillow.
“Yuh really passionate about dis drawing t’ing,” he says.
“It’s not a thing.”
“Yuh know what ah mean.” Then, after a pause, he says, “When yuh g’wan tell yuh mother an’ sister the truth?”
Thandi shrugs, his question gripping her in a way she didn’t expect. “Margot is going to kill me if I tell her I’m considering art school. She was upset that I didn’t drop art.”
“Give har time,” he says, his teeth parting to reveal the pink flesh of his tongue.
“She already put her foot down,” Thandi says. “Everything for her is about sacrifice.” She rolls her eyes. “I think she enjoys telling me what I should do with my life, as if she’s trying to live it for me. Meanwhile, she’s at the hotel, where all the jobs in this country are. I’m supposed to be the one to go to medical school and come out a distinguished pauper, while she makes all the money from tourism.”
“Is that why yuh rebelling?”
Thandi looks up. “Who says I’m rebelling? I’m not your little sister’s friend anymore. I’m a woman now.” Charles raises his brow.
There is something urgent building inside her. She doesn’t know where it rises from—this occasional burst of fire inside her chest. She goes over to where Charles sits and stoops before him. Charles remains silent as though he knows her mission and has agreed to be her accomplice. To leap into the fire. She brings her face to his and their lips touch.
She unbuttons her shirt for him. One by one the buttons slide from the holes. The bleached turpentine hue of her chest, smooth with the elevated roundness of her breasts, which are small and full, tapering off at nipples the shade of tamarind pods. Charles stares at her breasts wrapped like HTB Easter Buns in the Saran Wrap plastic. He regards them for what seems like a long time, as though trying to convince himself of something. He’s blinking rapidly. She waits for him to do something, anything. To rip the plastic off so that she can finally breathe, to put his mouth to the small opening in her nipples where she hopes milk will flow someday for a child. All she needs is release. But it’s his silence that grows, shaming her. He contemplates her with the compassion of a priest. She feels herself shrinking under his assessment of her.
“Put yuh clothes back on,” he says.
“Why?”
“Jus’ put it back on.”
Charles raises himself up from the bed as though to get away from her as quickly as possible. He’s no longer looking at her. She blinks back tears. She sits on the edge of the mattress, listening to the grunting hogs in the yard and the barking dogs and Old Man Basil selling brooms and cleaning brushes made of dried coconut husks. “Broom! Broom!” Every sound exacerbates the awkward silence inside the shack, where Thandi buttons her blouse, her back to Charles; and the flame glows inside her still.
16
MARGOT FOLLOWS MISS NOVIA SCOTT-HENRY TO ONE OF THE on-site restaurants where the woman often dines alone. She knows this because it’s the fourth time she has trailed Miss Novia Scott-Henry here. Margot pretends to have things to finish up at work so she can be the last one to see the woman leave, the click of her keys sounding in the whole lobby. It’s one of the best restaurants in the hotel—one that requires guests to make reservations days in advance. It’s a fancy place with white tablecloths, sterling silver utensils wrapped in red cloth napkins, and violin music playing “Redemption Song” in the background. But Miss Novia Scott-Henry doesn’t need reservations to dine in the company of visitors, mostly couples. Alphonso has promised to take Margot here, but that promise—like the other promise he has made—has never come to pass.
Here, the waiters are graceful, carrying trays on upturned palms, necks dutifully elongated, chins jutted upward, and smiles pasted to their faces like ivory-colored masking tape. Miss Novia Scott-Henry is led to a booth in the back. Tonight the patrons are dressed down, but still regal—men in nice light-colored shirts and women in long maxi dresses with floral patterns. Miss Novia Scott-Henry is dressed as though she’s going to a business function, in a severely tailored red pantsuit. She is tall, a hibiscus in a weed garden. The waiters fuss over her, and other diners look to see what all the fuss is about. They are excited to see up close for the first time the big hazel eyes that light up the tourism billboard ads, and the golden-honey-toned skin on every moisturizing commercial, including Queen of Pearl crème, which is all the rage. Some of Margot’s girls use the crème, against her advice. Why would anyone want to permanently damage their skin to look like a beauty queen who was born that way?