Here Comes the Sun(80)

Margot fights the urge to ask the girl to retrace her steps so that she can be announced the right way, but stops herself. Sweetness’s eyes are red. Margot hasn’t seen or heard from her since last week. There were clients who refused to be paired with other girls when Margot told them that Sweetness was unavailable. She has become a client favorite. Margot should be furious with this unannounced visit; but she has never been so happy to see the girl. Though Sweetness looks disheveled, like she has not washed in days. Her hair is matted on her head and she wears no makeup to hide the blemishes on her cheeks. Her blouse and skirt are mismatched, as if she got dressed in the dark.

Margot leans back in her chair and clasps her hands in front of her.

“Yuh look like Satan drag yuh through hell,” Margot says to the girl. “Please sit.”

“Is okay, ah won’t be long,” Sweetness says.

“We’ve been losing money because of you,” Margot says. “This meeting won’t be determined by you. Sit.”

“I’m sorry,” Sweetness says, still standing.

“Sorry?” Margot looks up at her. “Yuh know how much money we coulda mek dis week alone if you were here? ’Membah we have more responsibilities now”

“I know.”

“So what’s yuh excuse?”

“Excuse?”

“Why haven’t you been to work?”

“Work?”

“Sweetness, what’s di mattah wid yuh?”

“I can’t do dis anymore.”

“What?”

Margot gets up from her chair.

“I can’t work fah yuh no more, boss lady.”

For the first time since the business started, Margot has never felt so dependent on a girl. Like the men that Sweetness leaves begging for more, Margot is tempted to throw money at the girl. She would throw herself if she has to. What will she do without Sweetness? “What yuh mean, yuh don’t want to work anymore? Why?”

“Ah have to go, boss lady,” Sweetness says, holding her head down and clutching the raggedy leather purse on her shoulder. “Ah not coming back.” She heads toward the door.

“Sweetness!”

The girl stops. Margot hurries around the desk toward her. The girl stands still, trembling. Margot cups her chin. “You know I care about you. You know I’ll do anyt’ing for you.” She draws her face close to Sweetness, who closes her eyes and parts her lips, her sweet, eager breath hot on Margot’s face. She exhales slowly through her mouth, which Margot grazes with her own. “Jus’ stay wid me till the end,” Margot whispers. “You’re my number one girl.”

She strokes Sweetness’s arm. But Sweetness pulls away.

“Yuh only care ’bout dat other hotel. You don’t care ’bout me. If yuh did care, you woulda tell Alphonso to call off di reward or I will—”

“You know di reason why I had to,” Margot says, cutting her off. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

“Unlike you, is blood dat pump through me vein. Not greed.”

“Sweetness!” Margot reaches for her arm again.

“Nuh touch me! Either yuh tell Alphonso to change him mind, or I will mek sure to let him know how yuh scheme fi get dis office.”

Margot folds her arms across her chest. “Yuh t’ink because yuh give good * dat you have a voice? Dat yuh is worthy of an opinion? Yuh is nothing but a tar-black country girl wid not even a high school education. A girl wid nothing going for her but har long legs an’ big behind. Yuh t’ink anyone want to hear what yuh have to say? You’ll never talk to di Alphonsos of dis world without being laughed at. To them, you’re a servant. And will always be a servant.”

“So be it, then,” Sweetness hisses. She walks out of the executive office and slams the door behind her. Margot whips around and with all her might hits the cylindrical pen-and-pencil holder off the desk. It crashes to the floor and rolls out of sight, all the pens and pencils scattered on the immaculate floor.





33


THE BULLDOZERS APPEAR OVERNIGHT. THEY STAND IN PLACE like resting mammoths, their blades like curved tusks. It’s as though they landed from the sky or were washed ashore. One by one they begin to knock down trees in the cove and along the river. They also take a chunk of the hill, cutting down the trees that cradle the limestone, which they chip away. Their big engines grind two-thousand-year-old tree trunks—trees the ancestors once hid behind, crouching in search of freedom. The workmen, imported from overseas, gather the fishing boats and load them on a truck. The men fold the earth in ways Thandi would have thought impossible. Bits and pieces of rock scatter as trees are uprooted. When they collapse, the earth shakes. A huge silence follows. Thandi always knew that the sky would fall. The clouds gather together, and the sun stands still and watches her world crumble. People begin to snatch their things from their shacks, forced into the unknown, leaving just the John-crows that brood like hunchbacked witches sniffing death under their armpits. The men rope off the fishing village, right where you go when heading to Miss Ruby’s or Charles’s shacks. Those shacks are marked to be destroyed. But Thandi has an inkling that her side of the river might be next.

Rumor has it that Miss Ruby, interrupted from rubbing cream on her face one morning, stood outside her shack and cussed the men. “Ovah me dead body! Oonuh tek everyt’ing else, but not me house! This is mine!” The men must have taken one look at Miss Ruby’s white face and decided she was an obeah woman wielding spells with her wild hand gestures and that strange language that she spoke. All of a sudden the earth started to shake. The shaking was harder and longer than the tremble of the falling trees. The men clutched their helmets and searched for safety. They ran for cover, diving behind bushes and under sheets of zinc. After the shaking stopped, they came out slowly, cautiously, and surveyed the damage around them. They then looked at the white-faced black woman, who appeared just as stunned as them. Later it was reported that what they had experienced was an earthquake. They decided to halt the construction until a later date. They left the bulldozers where they were, the engines baring their teeth like a threat, leaving the residents of River Bank to wait for whatever will come next.