Here Comes the Sun Read online

  At the school, Margot had flashed the Wellington name like a badge, her association with Alphonso her best asset. If she’s good enough to sleep with, then why not exercise the little bit of clout it gives her? The nun didn’t have to know that she’s only his mistress and hotel employee. “Either you erase it from her record or else,” Margot said. This or else carried a lot of weight. The Wellington family donates a lot of money to the school. It’s their wealth that built the hall in which the students worship, the new gymnasium—the only one on the island to have an indoor pool—and even the vocational block that houses all the typewriters, an art studio, and Singer ovens for baking classes. When Thandi got into the school and couldn’t afford to pay, Margot got Alphonso to write a check for her tuition under the guise of a scholarship. This carefully cultivated relationship pays her tuition each year, and Margot will never let this opportunity slip away for Thandi.

  The innocence of her sister’s face holds Margot in place. Margot wonders what she’s dreaming. Maybe she’s running through a field of marigolds, the sky arched above her like a billowing blue sheet hanging from a clothesline—stretching from the beginning to the end of time. Margot knows she should cover her up with a sheet, but instead she sits and watches. Her sister is turning into a woman. Her breasts have swollen as though pumped with air from her breathing. And her hips have formed, filling out the dress. She’s even getting lighter, the mild discoloration evident around her nose and mouth. Maybe she’ll be the same café au lait shade as her father—a coolie Indian with nice hair and just enough pocket change for Delores to bring him to the house one day and introduce him to Margot. People called him Jacques. Margot was fourteen when Delores met him. He liked to give Margot sweets—gizzadas, tamarind balls, coconut drops, plantain tarts, icy-mints. As an adult, Margot gags at the smell of those sweets.

  Margot’s virginity was plucked like a blossoming hibiscus before its time. But this won’t be Thandi’s fate. Margot chants this to herself over and over again under her breath, the only prayer she has ever uttered.

  Just then Thandi’s eyelids flutter open as if something tells her she’s being watched. She raises herself on one elbow and rubs her eyes. “Why are you watching me like that?” she asks Margot, her voice gravel-like with sleep, but with that formal diction that irks Margot. Since attending Saint Emmanuel High, her sister speaks as though she comes from money. (Her speech is even more formal, more modulated than the diction Margot uses with Alphonso and the visitors to the hotel.)

  “Good evening to you too,” Margot says. She looks away to give her sister privacy as she pulls her dress over her knees.

  “What time is it?” Thandi asks.

  “Yuh feeling sick?” Margot asks her sister.

  Thandi swings her legs off the couch to give Margot space to sit beside her. Thandi rubs her eyes again, suppressing a yawn. “Just tired. All the studying, you know . . .” Her voice trails off.

  Margot looks down at the papers around them. “Right. The CXC is jus’ around di corner. You’re on yuh way to getting nine ones, ah hope.”

  Thandi nods. She glimpses Margot’s overnight bag at her feet. “You sleeping out again?” she asks Margot.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Who’s the new man?” Thandi asks with a smirk. “You’ve been staying out a lot lately.”

  “No one special. Don’t change the subject, Thandi. I got you out of a demerit fah wearing dat stupid sweatshirt.”

  “For a nobody, he’s surely keeping you out the house.” Thandi says this in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way that surprises Margot. She attributes such an innuendo to the older women in River Bank with knowing gleams in their eyes.

  “It’s none ah yuh business,” Margot says, suppressing a laugh.

  “Is it that Maxi guy? Yuh know he checks for you.”

  “It’s not him. He’s jus’ ah taxi drivah. And ah Rasta.”

  “What’s wrong with dat?” Thandi asks.

  It’s the most they have ever spoken this way. It’s a side of Thandi that Margot rarely sees, if ever. The trees are barren this year because of the drought, but Thandi has blossomed.

  “If yuh ever come home saying yuh deh wid a taxi man or a Rasta man, ah g’wan bruk yuh neck,” Margot jokes. This makes Thandi laugh, throwing her head so far back that Margot worries her neck might snap.

  When Thandi sobers, she says, “Can people really choose who dey fall in love with? That’s ludicrous.”

  “Ludicrous?”

  “You know. Like foolish.”

  “Yuh calling me foolish?”

  “No, no!” Thandi gestures with her hands. “I was jus’ saying that the concept of choosing who yuh love is . . .” Her voice trails off. “Forget it.” The razor cuts across Margot’s belly when Thandi says this. Forget it. The way Thandi says it makes Margot more aware that they aren’t on the same level at all. But isn’t that what Margot wanted? At this very moment Margot’s ignorance seems like a fly her sister merely fans away.

  “Yuh not thinking about boys, are you?” Margot asks her sister.

  Thandi wraps her finger with a loose thread in her dress.

  “No.”

  “Yuh not lying?”

  “Margot!”

  “Margot, what?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, if it’s dat yuh asking.”

  “Good. Yuh books should come first,” Margot says, sounding like Delores. And Thandi, as though she hears Delores’s voice too, shuts down completely like the mimosa plants in the cove that wilt when touched. The darkness Margot is used to seeing in her sister’s eyes as of late returns.

  “Now is not di time for you to be thinking ’bout boys or nuh love. Yuh hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yuh promise me?” Margot asks, softening a bit.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  There is a ditch between them on the two-cushioned couch—the very first thing she ever bought with her salary from the hotel, an asset that Delores, brimming with excitement and the fussiness that comes with big purchases like this one, had Margot wrap in plastic. Between Margot and Thandi are holes in the plastic, and the fading of what used to be beautiful upholstery fabric underneath.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Verdene says to Margot. They had set the table together. Margot helped with the placement of the mats, plates, and silverware, and Verdene carried the serving bowls. A candle glows at the center of the table.

  “Just thinking how I like being here,” Margot says. “With you.”

  Verdene lowers her fork and reaches across the table, and Margot lets Verdene’s hand rest on hers. Margot recognizes in Verdene the older girl she fell in love with—the teenager she once knew, with a worldliness that used to make her blush. A girl who, to Margot, was as mysterious as the force that altered the weather. At ten years old she felt her stomach jump the first time Verdene called her pretty. Come to think of it now, Verdene Moore must have been called pretty all her life. She had that good hair that touched her back and that peanut-butter skin—some would call it golden—the shade that could get her a job in those days as a bank clerk or flight attendant, or a crown on her head as Miss Jamaica. Nevertheless, when Margot gave Verdene this compliment, she smiled as though Margot’s comment were a surprise. A generous gift.

  If it had been up to Margot, she never would have let Verdene out of her sight. She clung to her like macca bush, which latches onto skin and fabric. When Verdene read books to her, Margot would inhale deeply the sweet air from her mouth. She would ask the older girl to read more stories about a sleeping beauty, children lost in the woods, and cursed princesses, just to buy more time curled up next to her. Margot could not bear being away from her. She rushed through chores on weekends just so she could see Verdene when she came home from university. The day Verdene left for England, a part of Margot left with her. Verdene has brought color back into her life. Before, everything was black-and-white: Make money or die trying. Feel pain or feel nothing
at all.

  After dinner they clear the table and move the dishes to the sink. Verdene washes the plates and Margot dries them. They settle in each other’s company, pleasantly full and mindful of their tasks. “I’ll get that,” Verdene says when Margot picks up a small Dutch pot—the one that was used to cook the potatoes.

  Margot continues to dry the inside of it like she has been doing to the others. Verdene almost grabs the dish towel. “Just leave it. It dries on its own.”

  “It’s just a pot,” Margot says.

  “Not just any pot. My mother left me that pot. Margot, please. Respect my wishes.”

  “Are you choosing her over me?” Margot asks, startled.

  “This is not about choosing. This is about accepting certain things about me. If you care about me like I care about you, then you respect my wishes.”

  Margot picks up the towel that Verdene had taken from her and begins to dry the utensils. She doesn’t say anything for a while. Verdene senses her resentment and pulls her close. “When I returned to Jamaica, I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t even know why I agreed to come back. All those years that I was in London, I hardly spoke to my mother, fearing the disappointment in her voice. I felt guilty when she passed. I felt I owed it to her to be here. But then I got here, and there you were. The universe was trying to tell me that love lives here.”

  Margot rests her weight on Verdene, who leans against the kitchen sink, each soothed by the beating of the other woman’s heart. Suddenly Margot cannot bear to go another night resisting her impulses. She lifts her face and holds Verdene’s gaze, hoping her eyes have a look that confesses that her body is warm and impatient under her dress. They kiss deeply, fervidly, as though it is the one thing they have been denied. Verdene carefully undoes Margot’s dress as if any swift movement might change Margot’s mind and send her running again. But Margot surprises Verdene by gently holding her hands, lowering them, and shaking her head. Without a word, she undresses Verdene, untying the bows on the front of her nightgown. One of the bows knots, and they smile as Margot uses her nails to meticulously unknot it. The nightgown slides to Verdene’s feet in a lilac pool. Margot then peels Verdene’s underwear down her hips and it joins her nightgown around her ankles. When they are both naked, Margot steps out of the circle of her dress and stands back. Verdene—with her hands at her sides, the small risings of her breasts, the faint ripple of flesh on her stomach, and the trimmed triangular crease between her legs—is beautiful and desirable just standing there. In all the years Margot has seduced others, she has never been fully aware, fully invested in savoring every moment of intimacy. Before Verdene looks away, flushed as though anticipating Margot’s refusal, Margot pulls her close. Verdene opens her mouth wider to receive Margot’s tongue. They walk to the bedroom, their mouths together still and hips joined. Margot glances at the window—at the black patch of night, at Miss Ella’s turned picture frame. A flit of panic nearly stops her in her tracks and almost prompts her to reach for the light switch. But with Verdene’s slow, controlled caress, a current of pure pleasure washes over Margot and she collapses onto the bed, on top of Verdene. Margot quickly forgets about the window and Miss Ella and the lights, and shudders when Verdene, rolling her over, one by one takes her breasts into her mouth, which eventually wanders to the meeting of her hips. Margot pulls Verdene between her impatient thighs and arches her back to receive not only the thrill of Verdene’s body, but a deeper understanding of what it means to feel connected to a whole person. She lets out a joyous cry, surprised by this new, alien feeling—one that has surpassed the ripple of pleasure that comes from Verdene’s deliberate, measured strokes; and plunges her into the molten depths of possession.

  Verdene is lying on her back next to Margot, her head turned to the window, where she can see the shadows of the waving branches of the mango tree. She thinks of other firsts—the first time she ever flew a kite, the first time she dove into the river, headfirst; the first time she’d ever been free and open, reveling in her girlfriend’s ecstatic moans in their dorm room when Verdene made love to her. Not since Akua has Verdene felt so optimistic, so invested in new beginnings. At the university in Kingston on a chemistry scholarship Verdene had been free from her nitpicking mother, who was far more concerned with how well she could balance a book on her head, iron a pleat or a collar, chew with her mouth closed, and speak without raising her voice. On campus she was encouraged to have an opinion and form relationships outside her family’s claustrophobic circle. The girls on the university’s campus were highly affectionate. They walked around holding hands. In the dorms they combed each other’s hair, lay in each other’s beds, hugged up on each other during lunchtime and between classes, and sat in each other’s laps. More than schoolmates, they were sisters. Verdene was closest to Akua, her roommate. Akua had a wide face, though her features were too small for it, and slow-moving eyes that could make people cry; all she had to do was blink those heavy eyelids once and they would remember how she suffered. Her almost bald head—with a reddish tint to her hair, most of which had fallen off with the chemo—was there to remind them too. The cooks gave her extra servings of meat and mashed potatoes, and the janitor, Mr. Irving, let her walk on recently mopped floors. “Dat poor chile!” She wore a headband to accessorize; but it was her smile—a dizzying white—that stole all the attention. An ember that glowed from within. Whenever Verdene felt sad or angry, Akua’s positive attitude and constant jokes were there to remind her that all battles can be won.

  “You’re only four hours away. You always used to have time for me. I need you here too,” Ella would say, begging Verdene to visit more. And Verdene would feel guilty about how much she preferred to be at school.

  Akua would bolster Verdene’s resolve. “Listen, she’s yuh mother. She’ll understand if yuh can’t go home this weekend.”

  “But she needs me.”

  “What she needs is to get used to the fact that you have yuh own life now.”

  Verdene wanted to be around Akua more and more. As an only child, Verdene had no reference for true sisterhood, but she had observed her aunt and her mother. They were close like the girls at school, cackling about this and that over the phone, sharing everything with each other, down to the intonations in their voices and the expressions on their faces. But Verdene learned that there was a thin line between sisterhood and something else she had no name for. She and Akua ended up crossing the line numerous times, taking things further than the other girls. Their hugs became kisses, and their gentle brushes became direct touches. Not to mention the fights. They were messy, each girl’s tongue sharply edged, capable of puncturing the ego. They knew which buttons to push. Likewise, they knew which string to tug to reel the other back.

  To Verdene, their act was natural, a physical expression of how they felt about each other: the scorching love and cooling hate, the abysmal highs and outrageous lows. But to the university, and to the residence hall director Miss Raynor, who discovered them one late afternoon in the dorm, they were no different from witches warranting public execution. Seeing them in their loving embrace, Miss Raynor’s face caved in as though a sinkhole were embedded at its center.

  Verdene was disgraced, her poor mother shamed. The news spread like a cane-field fire and made its way to River Bank. It hovered like dark soot for days, months, years. Ella never again left the house after she found out. Verdene thinks to this day that her mother’s cancer started then. It was a slow, painful death brought on by heartbreak. More than the heartbreak and shame was Ella’s guilt and loss. After Verdene’s explusion, Ella had to send away her only child. She did it to save her life. Back in River Bank, Verdene could’ve been raped or killed. If she were a man caught with another man, she would’ve been arrested, maimed, mutilated, and buried. So she was sent to live with her aunt Gertrude in London, where she finished school. Verdene had boarded the plane with only her two long hands. No luggage. She wore a deep purple wool dress, the only clothing Ella thought ap
propriate for England’s brisk winter. In her hand, Verdene held on to the smooth black river stone Little Margot had given her. “To remembah me by,” the little girl had said. She had snuck out of her house and run up to Verdene as Verdene got into the taxi to the airport. Verdene took the stone and thanked her, and for years she kept it. She never told Margot this, but once in a while she would pick it up and sit with it until it warmed in her palm. Other times she would resist the urge to go to a nearby lake in London and fling the stone as far out in the water as possible; for it held inside it the memory of the bitterness that settled inside her, and solidified.

  When Akua went home to Forrester, a town five miles from the university, she was beaten and gang-raped. Her body was found in the bushes, mauled and naked. She was barely breathing, but because of the shame she endured, she begged the Good Samaritan to leave her there and let her die. He refused and rushed her to the hospital. In a letter to Verdene many years later, Akua included photographs of her four beautiful children and the policeman she married in the same church where she was an honorable member on the usher board and the women’s ministry. She ended the letter with: “May God be with you, always. He works miracles.” Verdene crushed it inside her fist. For many years, she could not bring herself to return to Jamaica to visit, too ashamed to show her face until she had to. When Verdene came back to River Bank with a lifetime of regrets and a small suitcase, Margot was the first person at her doorstep.

  Verdene resists the temptation to kiss Margot, settling for just listening to her breathing next to her. Carefully, Verdene leaves the bed. Standing in the living room where she usually goes to meditate, Verdene realizes why Margot would think she’s choosing Ella. Everywhere Verdene looks, there is a picture of Ella. The walls of the room are covered; so is the wooden whatnot that holds figurines of the Virgin Mary rested atop crocheted doilies, and a small television, which Verdene never watches. Ella smiles without parting her lips in each photo: a demure bride posing next to a Volkswagen Beetle; a new mother cradling a small baby, sitting stiffly before the dark, serious man behind her; a carefree sibling laughing with her sister—the only time Ella shows flashes of teeth—both women identical with Audrey Hepburn updos and light skin that glows almost white in these black-and-white photos; and finally, a picture of a modest, older woman whose face shows hints of the former blushing bride, but rounder and devoid of life—a vacant, colorless room.