“I’m staying right down there.” He gestured to the large cruise ship, which was in plain sight. “I’ll have her back before dinner.” The man placed the bills in front of Delores. She tore her eyes away from the stack to look into the terrified eyes of her daughter. Margot was shaking her head slowly, mouthing, No, but Delores had made up her mind the minute the scent of the bills hit her. Her eyes pleaded with her daughter’s, and also held in them an apology. Please undah-stand. Do it now and you’ll tank me lata, Delores hoped her eyes communicated. She nodded to the man when Margot looked away, defeated. The man took Margot somewhere—Delores didn’t ask where. It was in the direction of the ship that had docked for the day. The girl followed behind him, her steps uncertain. She never looked back to see the tears in Delores’s eyes.
When the man returned Margot later that evening, she refused to speak to Delores. Delores had left the market that day with six hundred dollars plus a tip that the man had added. “She’s a natural, this one,” he said to Delores with a wink. Delores stuffed the money in her brassiere. At home she hid it inside the mattress where she hid all her money. She hid it so well that she never noticed when the money disappeared. It wasn’t until her brother, Winston, who was living with them at the time, announced months later that he got a visa and a one-way ticket to America that Delores wondered where he got the money. Immediately after Winston’s announcement Delores ripped the sheets off the bed and stuck her hand inside the hole underneath the sponge layer. Nothing came up in her desperate fingers. The realization burned her stomach and spread across the width of her belly like the pressure of a child about to be born. For Thandi had just started to kick then. Delores almost collapsed, not with the fury and raging anger she harbored for her brother, but for the loss of her daughter’s innocence, which, she realized too late, was worth more than the money she lost and all the money she would ever gain.
Though she doesn’t know the story, Thandi has captured all of this pian. All Delores is to her is this ugly, dark woman capable of nothing but fits of rage and cruelty. Who knew that both her daughters would come to view her this way? Delores sinks into the chair around the dining table. Thandi, like Margot, hates her. And so does Mama Merle, sitting outside on that rocking chair. The old bat will spend another day wishing her beloved, good-for-nothing son home; while Delores will continue breaking her back to provide for the family, doing what she does best: survive.
18
ALPHONSO HIMSELF ANNOUNCED THE NEWS THAT MISS NOVIA Scott-Henry had decided to step down. But by the time the announcement was made, it had already been emptied of any potential shock. Certainly Margot could have gone to the woman with the pictures and given her an ultimatum: You step down or I leak these to the press. But there was no need, since what took place afterward was more epic in the unraveling. It began with a scream. A howl that startled the entire sixteenth floor when the maids discovered the two naked women in the penthouse suite. The maids’ screaming drew other maids from other floors who had just slipped into their uniforms and comfortable shoes, still humming songs from last night’s church revival.
Sweetness did not handle it well, crippled with guilt. Margot feared that she might come forward with some damning information about what really had taken place, so she decided to set her free, handing her severance pay.
“Yuh firing me?” the girl asked. “But ah did what yuh ask.”
“You did what I asked. Now you can go.”
“But ah thought yuh was g’wan hire me.”
“Not when yuh mope around like yuh mother jus’ dead.”
“Ah was jus’ feeling guilty, like a normal person wid ah heart. Now what g’wan happen to di ’ooman?”
“Nuh worry ’bout dat. It’s done.”
“Ah couldn’t stomach it. Not even fah myself. To be ousted dat way. Why yuh did such a t’ing if you is—”
“Here is yuh money. Tek it or leave it.”
But Sweetness let the padded white envelope fall between them. Margot was the one to pick it up off the floor and brush it off. “So yuh g’wan act like yuh neva earn it?” she asked the girl. “Fine, go back to where yuh come from. I’ll put this money to good use. There are ah hundred more girls out there.” Sweetness looked on as Margot placed the envelope back inside her purse. She swallowed. “I didn’t say ah want to stop working fah you,” she said.
“Well, if yuh want to continue working for me, then stop talking about what happened.” Margot stepped closer. She used one hand to clutch the girl by the chin. “Look at me. It’s done. The woman stepped down. Whateva happen to her aftah-wards is not your business or your concern. She’s going to be all right. Those people don’t suffer. They don’t even know di meaning of dat word. We have biggah fish to fry. So yuh either swim or yuh drown.”
The girl nodded. “Me is a very good swimmer.”
That same day after it was announced that Miss Novia Scott-Henry would step down, Margot attended her first board meeting. As senior clerk she had to help Alphonso with damage control. When she opened the door to the restroom where she’d gone to freshen up before her entrance, Miss Novia Scott-Henry was bent over the sink, both hands spanning the width. Her body was heaving and shuddering. Their eyes met in the mirror. That was when Margot saw her tears; the long streaks down her face. Like scars.
19