Thandi makes the sign of the cross and focuses on her polished black shoes. The girls are ushered out of the hall under the direction of the prefects, older girls who have been given duties as disciplinarians. Before each class exits the hall in orderly lines arranged by height, the prefects march down the lines like army generals, holding notepads. They mark down the names of girls who have disobeyed some cardinal rule in attire — girls who aren’t wearing slips underneath their uniform skirts, girls wearing hair clips that aren’t black and inconspicuous, girls with any form of jewelry, girls wearing braids or any ethnic hairstyles outside of the accepted bun or neatly plaited ponytail, girls with ties that aren’t tied properly around the collars of their blouses with the short end of the ties tucked away or pinned down, girls with skirts that are too short or socks that are too long, girls with heels that are over two inches, girls with the waistbands of their skirts not showing.
When Marie Pinta, the assigned prefect for Thandi’s class (whose real name is Marie Wellington of the Wellington family in Jamaica, but who got her nickname because of her height), gets down the middle of the line to Thandi, she pauses. “Are you sick?”
“No.” Thandi replies.
“Well, take that off. It’s not allowed.”
Thandi hesitates. Her homeroom teacher, Sister Atkins, did not complain before devotion. In fact, she marked Thandi present after seeing her wearing the sweatshirt. Marie Pinta’s request is followed by a hushed silence in the corner of the devotion hall where Thandi’s class is lined up. The watchfulness of Thandi’s classmates makes her swallow a verbal plea. Instead she pleads with her eyes, hoping Marie Pinta will reconsider. Marie Pinta, whom Thandi has observed on many occasions during devotion wearily gazing out the window, her eyes focused on some elusive thing.
But Marie Pinta stands firmly next to Thandi. “I said to take it off.”
Thandi’s arms remain at her sides, her eyes trained on Marie Pinta’s mouth. “Are you deaf?”
Thandi tugs at the base of her sweatshirt, aware of her classmates blinking rapidly as though gearing up for something to happen. Though fear pulls at her nerves, her body erupting in tremors she hopes aren’t visible to their eyes, she lets her hands fall back to her sides. “I can’t,” she says, her whisper like a shout in the hushed hall. By this time the other classes have filed out of the hall, leaving only Thandi’s class. They are being held back because of her. She knows that she’s in deep trouble. She has never been singled out after devotion for not adhering to the uniform rules. Delores and Margot make sure that Thandi looks her best each day. They make sure that she doesn’t look like she lives in a shack, worlds away from her classmates.
Marie Pinta glares at Thandi and then writes something down in her notepad. “I’m assigning you a demerit. Go to the principal’s office. Now.” Marie Pinta points directly at the door as though direction is needed. The other girls are giggling, cupping their hands to their mouths. Thandi’s face grows warm. Marie Pinta whips around to face them. “Shut up!” There is a level of terror in Marie Pinta’s voice that Thandi doesn’t understand. She appears distraught, her small body shaking under the martial uniform the prefects wear — double-breasted blazers and pencil skirts.
Thandi gathers her belongings and walks out the door.
“Braeeeeeeee! Hee-haw, he-hawwwww.” The sound starts as a single whisper, then builds into a low resonating force that pushes Thandi out the door faster. She almost runs to get away from the sound. She wishes she could unhear it, or, best, stand up to it. Tell her classmates that she’s not a donkey. That her being from a rural area does not mean she should be associated with farm animals. But her inability to do this only fuels her anger.
3
MARGOT TAKES COMFORT IN HEARING THE CRUNCH OF HER feet on the dirt road, the chirping of birds from the crosshatch of branches, and the buzzing of wasps around the poinciana trees. There’s a silence that seems to hold its breath at the sound of the gravel. Not unlike her coworkers, who seem to cease breathing and stop what they are doing when they see her approaching at work. And certainly not unlike Delores, whose whole body seems to halt at the sound of Margot’s voice. All her life her presence has brought about pauses and silences louder than the white-hot sun and screaming crickets at the height of dusk. Even the sky, an arch of blue, seems to veer away from her with its distance.
It’s strange how people always sense her. Before she approaches them, they look up and over their shoulders. It’s as though she brings a change of weather in her dove-gray suit amid the languorous ease of a dry, hot day. Her gait and hotel uniform seem to reprimand the locals for their displays of idleness. Perhaps she serves as a reminder of their lost livelihoods as farmers and fishermen. Walking down River Bank Road, the heels of her pumps worn by dirt, Margot attracts the looks of men holed up inside Frenchies for a heavy breakfast of boiled yam, banana, ackee, and saltfish before going off to their various handyman jobs in Montego Bay. She also draws the attention of women carrying buckets of water on their heads, their mouths curved with malice and necks stiff with resentment. There are some howdies and nods, but mostly stares. Some of the men holler, “’Ey, beautiful.” But Margot has never slept with any of the men in River Bank. Though in her line of work she fucks anyone who can afford it, being with a man from her area is beneath her. Their fantasies alone have colored their lenses, easing their tension around her just a little. With her they become as unquestioning and generous as children, even protective, her high, swaying backside and firm calves making them forget why they were annoyed that she — whom their women describe as Miss High an’ Mighty—barely says hello to them and refuses to take their job applications with their crab-toe request for menial work at the hotel. She knows that mothers watch to see if she stops to open a palm full of sweeties for their children. And when she doesn’t, they suck their teeth loud enough for her to hear them say, “What a selfish ’ooman. Mean like star apple tree. Not even pickney ’im mek nyam outta ’im hand. No wondah why she barren.” Margot doesn’t have woman friends. She likes to think that maybe it’s for her own sake and theirs. In the beauty parlor some of them greet Margot with reserved shyness, but in their hot heads under the hair dryers she can tell they have already marked her as a threat.
By the time she gets to the square, she has seen enough dropped gazes and begins a purposeful stride to the taxi stand. There too, breaths are drawn, as though the drivers are looking to see who she’ll pick to carry her to the palace today. Mostly, they like to give her their information so that she can recommend their services to tourists who need rides. Some might even use the drive as an opportunity to pick her brain about job prospects as a kitchen boy, chef, server, housekeeper, maintenance man, concierge — anything that can get them through the door of the hotels, beating out the crowd of applicants. But Margot always goes with Maxi — if not for his indifference to working in the hotel, then for his ability to see her as just Margot. She never feels obligated to do him any favors. His smile eases the tension that has stiffened her back.
“How yuh doin’ today, baby girl?” Maxi says, starting his ignition. Buju Banton’s “Wanna Be Loved” plays on the car radio as Maxi backs out into the street. Margot fiddles with the pair of black, green, and gold boxing gloves on the rearview mirror.