Here Comes the Sun(42)
“Shush, nuh! Let har finish!”
“The clients pay me and I pay you. Understood?”
“Wait, so how we know what we getting?”
“Yuh get what yuh put out. There’s a set rate. And if di customer is pleased, him can add twenty percent tip, which you keep.”
“Wha kin’a answer dat? We want to know how much we getting.”
“Yuh want to know what yuh getting? More than yuh will evah get working by yuhself, patrolling fah men who can barely afford a trip from Mobay to Portland, much less a fifty-dollah f*ck. Yuh getting the big-man dem. Moneyman. Man who can at least feed yuh while yuh at it. Yuh getting wined and dined at expensive restaurants dat none ah yuh put together could afford. Yuh getting nice clothes, ah makeovah, an’ a place fi sleep. An’ is not just anywhere you’ll sleep, Palm Star Resort is yuh bedroom. Every sexual favor haffi tek place in rooms dat we reserve for yuh clients. Yuh getting exposure—an opportunity dat yuh can’t get from di run-down holes yuh crawl from. Dat answer yuh question?”
There was silence as each girl contemplated her fate, their minds trying to reconcile the uncertainty of what was being offered to them. They looked at each other because, of course, there was no real reason to back away. Margot waited for thirty long seconds. In the arrested silence, the howling wind rattled the French doors of the villa, flung them open to reveal a glimpse of the Blue Mountains and the sea twinkling in the sunlight. Gradually the girls began to chat and bicker, thickening the balmy atmosphere: Mama can use ah stove. The boys need school shoes—lawd, dem cyan guh barefoot nuh longah. Nuh food nuh deh inna cupboard. The landlord aggo kick we out if we nuh pay next month rent. Margot heard each thought, saw them etched on the young dark faces before her. She knew they wouldn’t turn this offer down, for there was nothing left in their exhausted lungs, which heaved and sighed.
“It answer mine.”
“Mine too.”
“Ah thought so. Now I’ll go on,” Margot said. “Do not accept clients without me knowing about it. I call the shots. If ah don’t think you’re the right girl for the job, then I won’t use you. Because these aren’t just tourists we dealing wid. Like ah said, they are also the men we want to invest in our hotel. Our clients will be able to request their favorites on a regular basis. But it’s mostly my discretion. Lastly, yuh duty is to serve. So yuh have to be willing to do anything that the client asks. Anything. Even if is to lick di dirt off him shoes. I don’t want to hear any complaints from them about stubborn girls. Remembah you’re disposable. One slipup an’ yuh gone. Yuh must be able to satisfy di clients an’ walk away in good standing.”
All fifteen recruits signed the contract, and it was this cohort that Margot introduced to Alphonso and the potential investors of his hotel empire. On the night of this private gathering, she paraded the girls like virgins through Babylon, having them walk out in veils and long cloaks with nothing underneath. Margot turned to Alphonso and his guests. “Gentlemen, I present to you our queens of the night.” One by one the girls dropped their cloaks and lifted their veils. The men were visibly pleased. Privately, Margot admired them, content. She told them what Alphonso told her: “Mek me proud.”
And just like that Margot became a boss lady. A boss lady can be counted on. Does the dirty work. The men dig into their wallets for pleasures pure and deep. Margot’s girls can’t be rivaled. Their customers exit the hotel with long, conquering strides, whistling softly through the lobby. Days later they might return for another round, another hour with an island girl who has them biting their pillows, curling their toes, and swallowing moans that rise from their throats. They’re baffled by their own helplessness when Margot tells them that a particular girl they requested isn’t available. No one has ever made them feel so dependent—not barmaids, not servants, not assistants or secretaries, not tailors of fine suits, not expensive bottles of scotch, not their wives’ silences, not even God.
But even with all the money coming in, Margot isn’t satisfied. Something about her new role feels fake. Though she has been selling herself since high school, there is something dirty about selling other broken women, especially girls as young as her sister. She hardens her heart again. If she can succeed with this—between the money it brings and the secrets she’ll know—Alphonso will have to give her the manager job at last. She’s lived with regret before. Delores once made her break a chicken’s neck so that she could cook it for dinner. She will never forget the screaming bird, the drops of blood on dirt, the dangling tendon. Yet, they were all satisfied that night.
Margot watches Miss Novia Scott-Henry, the new general manager, closely: The way she floats around the property, barging into people’s conversations and telling them to work: “Leave idle chatter for later . . . we have a hotel to run, people to attend to. Chop, chop!” Even the way she unpacks her salads at lunch (who eats only salad as a meal?), wielding a silver fork and chewing contemplatively, her eyes trained on a document before her. Once in a while a piece of leaf or a bit of salad dressing would fall on the way to her mouth and she would pick it up with a napkin or brush it away. She’s not a clean eater, this woman. Sometimes she hands Margot documents with coffee stains on them.
Miss Scott-Henry leaves her office door open at all times. Margot knows the woman takes frequent bathroom breaks because of all the water she drinks. She also sucks her teeth when in deep concentration and likes to take the bottom of a pen to her mouth and chew. Margot even listens in on the woman’s phone calls; hears her friendly chatter to a business associate or someone from the Jamaica Gleaner or Observer calling to interview her as the former Miss Jamaica Universe winner, “the new face of the tourism industry.” Margot rolls her eyes at this, because she believes Alphonso hired the woman for that very reason, to bring publicity to his hotel. Just put a high-profile beauty queen in charge—one who shaved her head of beautiful locks to donate all her hair to cancer patients and who left the modeling industry to pursue a business degree—and people will flock to the property, though Margot believes foreigners couldn’t care less about that.