“Yuh think yuh betta than me?” Jullette asks Thandi, her voice still measured but quieter now. Her eyes reveal something nasty and reptilian. “Well, ah have news for yuh. Look in di damn mirror. No apple nuh fall too far from di tree.”
“What yuh mean by that?” Thandi asks.
“Tell me where yuh get money fah yuh schoolbooks an’ fah yuh school fee. Yuh suh wrapped up in yuh own world dat yuh believe anyt’ing people tell yuh. Yuh probably believe dat di likkle scrap Delores an’ Margot mek can put togethah to sen’ yuh to dat school. Yuh really t’ink likkle chicken-feed money can afford dat deh school, Thandi?”
“I got a scholarship.”
“Ha!” Jullette laughs. “Yuh neva realize dat a scholarship is for a year? Ministry of Education nuh dat generous, m’dear. Is di empire dat fund yuh precious scholarship.”
“What yuh talking about?” Thandi asks.
“Yuh sistah, Margot, eva tell yuh what she do fi mek ends meet?” she asks Thandi instead.
The last person Thandi wants to talk about is Margot. “She works at Palm Star Resort. Has been there for eleven years,” Thandi says, swallowing.
“Jus’ ask har again,” Jullette says, narrowing her eyes. “Ask her where she get extra money from fah yuh school fee, the nice clothes she wear, the money she just put down on the villa in Lagoons.”
“She just got promoted as hotel general manager,” Thandi says through her teeth. Jullette doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
“Next time yuh see Margot, ask her who help her to get dat promotion,” Jullette says, with that nasty reptile look in her eyes. “Bettah yet, ask her how many of those big-money man she sleep wid. Ask ’bout her empire. Ask har about the girls she owns. Yuh sistah, Margot, is more of a whore than I will ever be. She’s the biggest pimp on di North Coast. Yuh sistah sell out River Bank. She’s di one who g’wan manage dat hotel dey destroying River Bank to build.”
Jullette sneers when she sees Thandi slump as though physically wounded. “Ask yuh sista, she’ll tell yuh. An’ yuh know what she tell the girls weh work fah har? Girls like me? Yuh know what she tell anyone who would listen? She tell dem seh it’s all fah her sister, who g’wan be a doctor. Her precious, perfect Thandi, who can do no wrong. Her dainty, stuck-up Thandi, who, in my opinion, will one day kick dirt in har face as soon as she reach somewhere, because she wouldn’t want to associate wid har own color.”
“Enough!” Thandi clamps her hands over her ears. She stoops down, resting on her haunches as though cowering from the sun. She cannot let Jullette see the shame that reddens her face. “What yuh get from telling me this?” Thandi asks Jullette, raising her head to meet her eyes. “How much bettah yuh feel from letting all this off yuh chest?” Jullette seems taken aback by this question. Thandi sees a glint of her former friend — the one who stood up for her on the playground when they were girls in primary school. Jullette is breathing heavily from the exchange, her chest rising and falling under her loose dress, as though she’s struggling to maintain her hardness. Very slowly her shoulders lower as though melting in the sun. In a soft voice she says, “Thandi, some people run. Some people mek up fantasy to deny or forget. While some people stan’ up an’ face di storm, whicheva direction it blow. Ah was hoping dat yuh would come outta yuh fantasy one day. I neva mean to say it like dat.”
“You meant every word.”
“Forget ah said anyt’ing. Jus’ do what’s best, Thandi, an’ leave us alone. Yuh done cost my brother a lot already.”
“I love him.”
Jullette says nothing at first, allowing Thandi’s professed love for Charles to linger like the smell of breadfruit roasting in the yard. The dark soot carries in the breeze and thickens the air. Jullette cocks her head to the side. “Then ah want yuh to do something fah me.”
“Whatever you want.”
“I want you to jus’ let him be. Is fah di bettah. Yuh only going to lead him on an’ destroy him.”
Jullette walks off and heads toward the house. Thandi follows her, but stops when Jullette slams the mesh door in her face.
“Is he here? Charles! Charles!” Thandi calls out.
“He’s not here. Jus’ leave us alone.”
Thandi begins to bang on the door. “Please, I won’t leave until you tell me where he is.” The neighbors are looking at her, but she doesn’t care. She wants Charles to remind her that she has the capacity to love and be loved despite where or what she comes from. They can run away together and make a new life. The familiar ache dissipates and in its place is a violent instinct to throw herself against the door until it breaks. She takes gulps of breath between sobs. She bangs and bangs, feeling as though she’s in a dream where she’s screaming without making a sound, or like she’s moving but is really stuck to the ground. She’s Thandi, the one who would make it. The scholarship girl who would make everything better for her family. As graceful as a skirt tail blowing in the wind. Now here she is, banging down the door of a boarded-up house of a prostitute in search of a street boy.
Thandi thinks of Margot and her secrets and the legacy Thandi’s inherited, how she’ll carry it now like the bucket of goat blood that Miss Gracie and Delores carried under the light of the full moon. They balanced the bucket between them to Verdene Moore’s house. Thandi had caught them one night, afraid and giddy as the women dipped paintbrushes in the animal’s blood and wrote across the pink house: The blood of Jesus is upon you. They said they had seen Verdene kill those dogs. Delores continued to go with Miss Gracie many nights after that, but Thandi grew sickened by it. Especially after witnessing Verdene Moore bent down on all fours one day, scrubbing the blood off her walkway. Thandi looked at the bending woman, her back hunched. Verdene dipped a coconut husk in a bucketful of water and scrubbed. She paused every once in a while to look up at the sky. Her movement was methodic, humble, graceful. Thandi thought of the rumors, stale and old, yet so indelible. She saw sorrow and regret in Verdene Moore’s decorum, and felt her weariness.
She gives up on the door and crouches on the ground, her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around them. She can almost smell him there with her, that ripe pawpaw scent. She inhales it as she folds into herself, tired and defeated. She doesn’t hear the door open or the coming footsteps. Thandi jumps with fright when Charles, as quick as lightning, pulls her inside and into his arms.
Charles and Thandi embrace inside Jullette’s living room. When she raises her face to his, he wipes the tears off her cheeks with his thumb. They remain like this, with Jullette fading in the background. His face is leaner, his eyes alert like an animal used to being hunted. Thandi runs her hand over the hair stubble on his face. When he pulls away, it’s clear Charles is aware of his haunted look too, because he refuses to meet her eyes. When she reaches for him again, he takes one step back. “It’s better to end it,” he says. Choked by all the questions and pleading that rise in her throat, Thandi cannot respond. “We only foolin’ ourselves, Thandi,” Charles says. “Dey g’wan catch me an’ throw me in prison. What good would I be to you in jail?”
“You don’t have to go to jail. We can run, we can hide someplace where they won’t find you.”
“Thandi, where would we hide? Yuh not t’inking ’bout anything right now. Yuh too emotional.”
“You can hide in another parish, grow a beard.”
“Yuh don’t undahstand, I’m a walking jackpot fah di people dem who believe ah can get dem ten thousan’ dollahs. Yuh t’ink that’s a good position to be in? Always looking ovah yuh shouldah. . at yuh own family membahs?” He glances at Jullette, who is silently listening to them with a hand stroking her chin and legs apart like a bodyguard. Charles sits down on the red velvet sofa and Thandi throws herself in front of him.