Miss Ruby gives Thandi the homemade mixture in the jar for her to apply as needed. “Only as needed,” she stresses. “These are very strong chemicals that could kill yuh.” She then reaches for the Saran Wrap and begins to wrap Thandi’s arms and torso. A mummified Thandi sits and listens to Miss Ruby’s instructions:
“If yuh waan come quicker, leave on the plastic. Don’t wash. Don’t go in the sun. If yuh haffi go in the sun fah whateva reason, mek sure seh yuh covah up at all times from head to toe. If yuh start to feel like yuh g’wan faint, jus’ drink wata. It mek yuh sweat more. Whatevah yuh do, nuh tek off the plastic. An’ remembah, stay outta that sun!”
Miss Ruby repeats these words like an ominous warning, her eyes pouring into Thandi’s. Thandi listens and nods, though she wants to rip the Saran Wrap off and jump in the river. She imagines her skin boiling, becoming molten liquid underneath the plastic wrap.
“Do I have to wear this all the time?” Thandi asks.
“Heat an’ sweat is yuh advantage. Jus’ bear it,” Miss Ruby says, stamping her with a look.
Thandi regrets saying anything, sensing her complaint might be interpreted as her wanting less out of life. Less opportunity. Less chance of attracting the type of boys her mother and sister want her to attract (the type who will be at the party for sure). Less chance of acceptance in school. Less chance to flunk school — the only ship on which black girls like her could float, given that their looks will never do it for them. Her mother tells her this too. “Di only thing yuh have going for you is yuh education. Don’t ruin it.” Meanwhile, the unintelligent “brownins” in school end up with modeling contracts, or with boyfriends with money they can spend on them. The less attractive ones get good jobs in their family businesses. What else does she have to fall back on if she fails the exam, besides her drawings? But no one wants those. No one respects an artist. So when Thandi puts her clothes on, she pretends to ignore the crinkling of the plastic under her uniform and the nausea that comes over her.
Miss Ruby examines her skin, her eyes like a sharp razor raking over Thandi’s body as though looking for areas she might have missed — dark patches that need to be rubbed, scrubbed down with the rigor of someone scouring the bottom of a burnt pot. Or the way she used to scale fish. Her dark eyes have in them a subtle hostility that reminds Thandi of the way the girls and nuns at school look at her. Can she tell Thandi doesn’t belong? Can she sniff her deceit? Perhaps in that moment Thandi reminds her of someone who did her wrong. Or of herself — the way she looked before she bleached her skin. How suddenly her mood changes once Thandi pays her the money.
“Remembah to stay outta the sun like ah tell yuh,” Miss Ruby says. “’Cause you and I both know, God nuh like ugly.”
When Thandi exits Miss Ruby’s shack, she exhales. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath all that time to prevent herself from inhaling those chemicals that stank up the place. The pungent ammonia has replaced the fish smell.
On her way back, Thandi takes the shaded path, which happens to go past the pink house — one of the nicest houses in the entire River Bank community. In fact, it’s one of only two houses in River Bank built with real cement and blocks and a shingle roof. It even has shutter windows and indoor plumbing.
The pink house is owned by Verdene Moore, who is watched closely because the whole community knows what she is capable of. There’s no Miss before the woman’s name — like there is for all the other older women Thandi has to address that way — for the same reason there’s no Mrs. Not that the women in River Bank marry. Marriage is for people like the parents of the girls Thandi goes to school with. She thinks about the heavily made-up, well-dressed mothers accompanied by distinguished-looking fathers at school functions where Thandi’s only parent in attendance is Delores. Her father, the last she heard, lives in Westmoreland. There are mostly common-law arrangements in River Bank, where the men live with the women, which is usually enough to seal a relationship. The thing about Verdene Moore that Thandi grew up hearing is that she lures little girls to her house with guineps so she can feel them up. Women have caught her in her yard smiling at them as they pass by with watermelons and icicles between their lips on those hot days when their skirts and dresses cling to their bodies like a second skin. It is known and has been known in River Bank’s history that Verdene Moore is the Antichrist, the snake every mongoose should have hauled off the island and eaten alive; the witch who practices obscene things too ungodly to even think about.
Last August Mr. Joe, a stuttering nomad people hire to cut their weeds, found a dead dog in Verdene Moore’s yard with what looked like teeth marks in the animal’s bloodied side. He hollered and ran down the street, wielding his machete in the air as though slaying the wind. To this day people believe Verdene Moore killed the dog. A dried-up, bony mongrel. The type of animal that people kicked in the head or sides to move out of the way, the type of animal people fed bones and leftover meals and any rubbish they could find. The type of animal that attracted fleas and sniffed and licked its own rump. A detestable animal that became a poor, helpless animal overnight, because Verdene Moore killed it as a sacrifice in one of her rituals. People stay away from the woman, who keeps to herself anyway. No one even knows what really goes on in that pink house. Her mother, Miss Ella, had died and left it for her. Surely it’s a beauty, with its shingle roof, big yard, French doors, and windows with shutters; but the darkness inside can be seen from the road through the open windows, where white curtains billow and fall like ghosts.
Thandi takes extra steps to hurry along, managing not to look at the beautiful garden in Verdene Moore’s yard, with flowers of every color in the rainbow, or sniff the heavy scent of the bougainvilleas that line the fence, where hummingbirds hover, then zip out of sight. They are an anomaly, for the drought has made it hard for the flowers this year. Even the red hibiscuses hang from their stems like the tongues of thirsty dogs.
It’s a big yard, so Thandi runs a little to cover the distance along the fence. She’s sweating profusely in the heat, and her uniform clings to the plastic, macca thorns latching onto the hem of her skirt. She’s aware of the weight of the bag with the rice, cornmeal, and crème of pearl, the only promising thing inside it. The uprooted stones press under her thinning soles, which slap her heels as she runs. She speeds up, pushing away shrubs and hanging limbs, her lungs filling with the fear of being caught.
By the time she gets to Miss Gracie’s house, she’s breathing heavily, holding her sides. She knows she’s safe in front of Miss Gracie’s house because, though Miss Gracie has a few demons of her own — which have to do with her permanent residency at Dino’s Bar — Miss Gracie is a woman of God. She is inclined to have fits of the Holy Ghost in public, preaching in the square at the top of her voice while clutching a Bible.
A group of teenage boys sit on Miss Gracie’s fence, gorging on fresh mangoes from the tree. They pause when they see Thandi, each of them lowering his hand from his mouth. She’s the only girl in the neighborhood whose presence is likened to a figure of authority — a school principal, a teacher, a nun. When Thandi passes them, they are as silent as the caterpillars that rest on the leaves. All but one. Charles. Thandi walks with her head held straight, not because of the others, but because of him.