It’s her house Thandi heads to.
She walks along the Y-shaped river that cuts into the village. It separates and flows in opposite directions — one side runs into the wide expanse of the sea, while the other side runs in the direction of the hill that hovers over the town from the tail end of the fork. The water settles into a small cove shaded by bamboo and live oaks. The village got its name because if one were to look down from the top of the hill, the shacks would look like interspersed cardboard boxes on the land surrounding the river. A small fleet of fishermen’s boats are anchored on the side where the river meets the sea. They’ve been there, floating on the water like sleeping whales, since last December before the drought. The area has been roped off for the construction workers — men marching up and down the shore with thick hard hats and heavy rubber boots, combing the sand with a sense of purpose as though searching for buried treasure.
When Thandi was a little girl she used to accompany her mother to buy fish from Miss Ruby out this way. She remembers standing in line outside Miss Ruby’s shack, watching Miss Ruby scale the fish, effortlessly slitting them with a sharp knife that revealed the red lining under the belly. But Thandi’s first visit to Miss Ruby by herself came only recently — long after Miss Ruby stopped selling fish. Thandi wanted to show her teachers and classmates how responsible she could be by running for form prefect, but she lost to Shelly McGregor, who, though average and unpopular, was voted favorite among the nuns and students. Thandi felt certain the loss had to do with her darker complexion, which she believes is the reason for the burdens that weigh as heavily as the textbooks she carries for subjects she has no interest in studying. But Thandi has one more chance to shine — Dana Johnson’s sweet sixteen party, which is months from now. It’s Thandi’s first party and the last social event before the final exams in June. She imagines herself wearing the nice fuchsia dress she saw in the window of Tiki Boutique near her school in Montego Bay. Her lighter, brighter skin would look good in a color like that; and it will surely make her feel like she belongs.
Thandi sits naked inside Miss Ruby’s old shack on a bench. The shack is made of zinc and wooden planks, the exposed nails rusted from the open air that enters from the sea. A leaning mango tree rests on the roof from Hurricane Gilbert, giving shade from the sunlight and protection from potential voyeurs. Black mangoes dangle inside, some of them rotting with dried seeds. Every so often the sea breeze whispers something against the zinc roof or the gaping windows, leaving behind a salty breath that Thandi can taste on her lips. It’s mid-February, but the humidity and drought they’ve been experiencing make it feel like the dry, hot months of summer. Thandi’s back is hunched and her shoulders rounded. Tiny ants crawl on the dusty ground, a few making their way up the bench. She crosses and uncrosses her legs, fearing they might crawl into the mouth of her vagina. Across from her, Miss Ruby combines creams together, squeezing them inside a big white jar that used to contain hair-straightening cream. The woman expertly mixes the concoction with the tail of a metal comb, her tongue stuck between her big pink lips as she furrows her eyebrows in deep concentration. She never breaks a sweat in the overbearing heat, though she wears a hooded sweatshirt that covers her forehead and arms to prevent burning from the sun. A pair of loose-fitting pants covers her legs.
“Yuh have the Queen of Pearl?” Miss Ruby asks. Thandi nods and hands it to her. “I don’t want it now. Yuh should use it daily. Not dat it’s any strongah than my concoction. But if yuh use dem together, yuh g’wan frighten fi see how it wuk miracle. Yuh mus’ be careful same way,” Miss Ruby says to Thandi. “How is school?”
“Fine,” Thandi says in a voice as small as the ants crawling on the floor. She puts the Queen of Pearl crème back inside her schoolbag.
“Yuh ready fah the CXC?”
Thandi shrugs. “I guess so.”
Thandi’s entire high school career has been spent preparing for this one exam from the Caribbean Examination Council for nine subjects. All except one was chosen for her.
“You guess?” Miss Ruby puts her hands on her hips. “Yuh betta be. It’s in four months, no? That’s a big, big deal. My cousin in Kingston fail five subjects last year an’ did haffi tek them ovah. Anothah girl end up dropping out an’ going to vocational school fi learn a trade. You is yuh mother’s only hope. Yuh know how hard she wuk fi send you to dat school?” It’s true. Delores cheats tourists out of their money with cheap souvenirs she sells for triple the price in Falmouth Market, and Margot works long hours at the hotel. They do it for her.
Thandi swallows, looking down at her uniform piled on the floor like a rumpled sheet. It used to give her a sense of pride, but at this very moment, as she stares at it, she considers the other uses one could make of the white material that costs more than groceries for a month. Because of the expense, Thandi only owns two sets of uniforms, washing them by hand every evening after school, then ironing them for the next day.
She looks down at her brown thighs. They haven’t changed a bit since her last visit. “Do you think I can get light in four months?” she asks Miss Ruby, thinking of the party and the boys who will be there.
“You took the plastic off,” Miss Ruby says, a tinge of accusation in her voice.
“It was too hot,” Thandi tells her. “I felt like I was going to pass out.”
“I used to be black like you, but now look at me. .” Miss Ruby turns her head from side to side for Thandi to see her salmon-colored skin, delicate with the texture of scalded milk. “See how bright my skin come? If yuh follow instructions yours will get this way quicker. Now dat yuh ’ave di Queen of Pearl, yuh might be lucky. If yuh want faster results, use it twice ah day.”
She rubs the concoction up and down Thandi’s neck, back, arms, and shoulders. She rubs everywhere but her butt crack. Miss Ruby is hardly tender. Thandi wonders if Miss Ruby’s roughness is punishment for not having followed her earlier instructions. She imagines her blackness peeling off, the hydrogen peroxide Miss Ruby pours into the mixture acting like an abrasive, a medicine for her melancholy. She closes her eyes as the warm formula touches her skin. Miss Ruby works her way to Thandi’s chest. The circular motion of a stranger’s hands on her breasts makes Thandi blush. She has never been touched this way. She opens her eyes and searches for something — anything — that can take her mind off the sensation of this strange woman’s fingers. She imagines herself as a fish Miss Ruby rubs down with salt and vinegar before frying. Her eyes find the ceiling. Had she been able to lift her arm, she would trace the things she sees projected from her mind.
“Luckily yuh ’ave good hair already,” Miss Ruby says. “Good, coolie hair. Yuh daddy is a Indian?”
“I don’t know,” Thandi says, still staring up at the planks in the ceiling. “Never met him.”
“Tsk, tsk. Well, God played a cruel joke on you. Because, chile, if yuh skin was as pretty as yuh hair, you’d be one gorgeous woman.”
Miss Ruby isn’t saying anything Thandi hasn’t heard before. Her mother says the same thing, often shaking her head the way she does over burned food that has to go to waste. “It’s a pity yuh neva have skin like yuh daddy.” Thandi is neither the nutmeg-brown that makes Margot an honorable mistress — a rung lower than a bright-skinned wife — nor is she black like Delores, whose skin makes people sympathetic when they see her. “Who want to be black like dat in dis place?” Miss Ruby once said to Thandi about her mother.