Here Comes the Sun(23)

Margot returns to her seat at the front desk with Kensington. She can barely concentrate on checking people into the hotel.

“What yuh t’ink dey saying?” Kensington asks her. She’s whispering.

“It’s none of our business,” Margot snaps.

“You an’ him not friend?” Kensington asks.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Margot whips around to face a brazened Kensington. The girl shrugs. “You know . . . him laugh up, laugh up wid yuh sometimes. So I thought oonuh was friends.”

The girl looks down at the surface of the desk in front of her, drawing heart-shaped patterns with her finger. She’s rail-thin with a height on her, always fidgeting with the waistband of her uniform skirt, which is too wide, though it hangs well above her knees. Had it not been for her high color, Kensington wouldn’t be considered beautiful. Or even be considered for the job. The girl was hired as a part-time secretary last summer after graduating from high school, but ended up staying longer. Now she thinks she has a right to make assessments about Margot and Alphonso’s relationship.

“Just continue to do yuh work, Kensington,” Margot says, in the authoritative voice she uses when wielding her seniority.

“How do you do it?” Kensington’s tiny voice pierces the uncomfortable silence that follows Margot’s order.

“How do I do what?” Margot asks.

Behind Kensington’s head the palm trees blow wavelike in a breeze that brings the smell of the sea inside the open lobby. Margot is grateful for this breeze, for it cools her boiling blood as she watches Kensington stringing her words together.

“People are talking. Russ, Gretta, an’ all ah dem.”

Margot cuts her off before she can list every one of the lower staff—the maids, the cooks, the groundsmen—people who begrudge her because she sends Kensington to buy her patty and cocoa-bread at lunchtime from Stitch so that she doesn’t have to pass by them and get into their idle gossip about management.

“Do me a favor, Kensington?” Margot says, her voice as bittersweet as molasses.

“What’s that?” the girl asks, looking at Margot with hopeful eyes that incense Margot even more. She resists the urge to slap the girl. Instead, Margot issues a warning. Or more like a sound piece of advice. “If yuh want to stay here for a long time, then mind yuh own business,” she says.

With that Margot cuts her eyes and turns to the window behind them. Alphonso is unpredictable, so she imagines the executive office watching him closely like a ticking bomb. Suddenly the door flies open and Alphonso marches out.

“Gimme that manila folder over there!” he demands, pointing to the hidden file cabinet where there are over a hundred manila folders—all of which are going to be entered into a secure computer system to keep records of the hotel finances and guest information. Murphy is bringing the computers in tomorrow. All five Gateway computers are being shipped from America. Kensington springs up to find the folder Alphonso is referring to. She hesitates when she sees that all of them are identical. Asking Alphonso to clarify would reveal her incompetence.

He’s drumming his fingers on the counter and glances at his gold Rolex. His platinum wedding band glistens on his cream hand. “Am I going to wait here all day?”

Margot steps in seamlessly, subtly. It’s she who moves to give Alphonso the folder. She has been fingering it all along, knowing he would need it in this meeting. It has all the budget information she helped him compile. As she gives Alphonso the folder, their hands touch. They pause, suspended like two birds holding the ends of the same worm. Margot clears her throat and takes her hand away. She smoothes her skirt over her thighs as though she has been caught with it inched up to her waist. Like the day they got caught in the conference room—the only time Margot has ever been inside it.

“You’re welcome!” she says to Alphonso too loudly, though he says nothing. When he returns to the executive office, Margot rests her chin in her palm. Kensington clears her throat.

“What?” Margot asks.

“Nothing,” Kensington says.

“Ah thought so.”





6


ON HER WAY TO WORK, DELORES NOTICED THE BARREN FRUIT trees, the wilting flowers, and the brown, brittle grass all sucked dry. Dogs were lying on their sides with their tongues out, goats leaned against the sides of buildings and fences, and cows moved about with exposed rib cages, gnawing on sparse land. Children crowded around standpipes to bathe or drink from the little water that trickled out; the younger ones sat inside houses on cardboard boxes, sucking ice and oranges, while some accompanied their mothers to the river with big buckets. Meanwhile, idle men hugged trees for shade, or took up residence at Dino’s, pressing flasks of rum to their faces. God is coming after all, Delores thought.

But while the God-fearing people become intent on staking their claim in heaven, crying, “Jesas ’ave mercy!,” Delores prepares for another day of work. For money has to be made. With the sun comes that heat. They go hand in hand like John Mare and his old donkey, Belle. Delores fans herself with an old Jamaica Observer. Her bright orange blouse is soaked with sweat, like someone threw water and drenched her under the armpits, across the belly, all the way down to her sides. Two other vendors couldn’t take the heat, so they packed up their things and went back home. The rest, including Delores, sucked their teeth: “Dem really aggo give up a day’s work because ah di heat? Ah nuh Jamaica dem born an’ grow? Wah dem expec’?”