“My stop is next!” she says, to Patsy’s relief. “Good luck with your job search. It was nice chatting withchya.”
“Thank you,” Patsy replies with a slight wave. Though DJ talked her to death, Patsy is proud of herself. She cannot help but ponder the radical thing that just happened: a comfortable exchange with an American—a white American. For a moment, it feels like her only accomplishment.
FULTON MALL, LIKE FLATBUSH AVENUE, MAKES PATSY FEEL LIKE she’s in downtown Kingston. Men with sheets on their heads recite Bible verses to passersby; Indian ladies wearing petticoats shove eyebrow grooming flyers into Patsy’s hands; African vendors solicit her to check out the latest bootleg movies; a Muslim man selling incense and oils tells her that she’ll smell much better with his concoction, if she can just come a little closer; and black American men call her sister and hold up books with library tags on them about Egypt, Africa, and the autobiography of a handsome, stern, bespectacled black man on the cover, staring straight at Patsy with a hand against his chin and a finger near his eye. Malcolm X is written in bold letters. People are huddled over tables displaying knitted hats and scarves, sunglasses, jewelry, and watches.
As Patsy walks, she becomes more and more aware of the shortcomings of her jacket. She digs her hands inside her pockets, hoping that will keep her warm. Every store on the strip seems like they’re on a mission to compete with each other in who has the best bargain: BIG DEAL. LAST DAY OF SALE. SEE INSIDE STORE. EVERYTHING FOR $5. YOU DON’T HAVE TO WAIT TILL BLACK FRIDAY. There are African men standing outside in heavy coats, ushering pedestrians inside, beckoning them to seasonal displays of shirts and dresses and shoes and hats and jewelry. Headless mannequins stand upright in storefronts, shrouded with fur and leather coats. NEW is written in bold red on bright orange cartridge paper stuck to the jackets with hefty price tags. Patsy decides she might have to freeze until her first paycheck.
“Come try on!” says a man with long dreadlocks wrapped on top of his head like a Russian military hat. She stops. For a second she thinks it’s Ras Norbert, bundled in a jacket and scarf, frost curling from his black lips. A sudden warmth wraps itself around her at the glimpse of the familiar face. Her subtle smile almost turns into a laugh-cry that mists her eyes at the sight of home.
“I have perfect fur coat for you,” the man says.
Patsy blinks. The mist clears. He’s not Ras Norbert.
THE MACY’S IS QUIET RELATIVE TO THE COMMOTION OUTSIDE. There’s heavy foot traffic here too, but not as much—especially not when the hustlers’ bargains seem a lot better. Classical music plays inside the bright, adorned store. It’s already decorated with a Christmas tree and dangling snowflakes sprinkled with silver and gold glitter, though it’s October. The store smells of newness. She surveys the dignified looks of the store workers, who pay her no mind when she walks into the store. They seem to stand six feet tall above everyone else in their black suits and gold badges. She swallows her nerves and goes up to a well-scrubbed man standing by a glass containing jewelry. The man is dressed in a tailored suit at a cash register. Patsy assumes he must be the manager.
“Excuse me,” she says, afraid to speak higher than the faint music in the background. When the man raises his bald head, which matches the tone of his burnt-caramel face, she says, “I’m looking fah work.”
The man blinks, his long eyelashes seeming to flutter like a winged insect as if struggling to focus. “Excuse me?”
Patsy repeats herself. “I’m looking fah work.”
“If you’re looking for HR, ma’am, that’s downstairs,” the man says. He holds up his right arm like he’s directing traffic. “Elevator to the right!”
Patsy wants to tell him that she’s not deaf or slow. But there’s no use proving this to him. She thanks him and makes her way to the elevator. When she gets there, a middle-aged black woman who would’ve made a good church usher greets her. She hands Patsy a clipboard and tells her not to leave anything blank. However, when Patsy gets to the section requesting her Social Security number, perspiration pricks her skin. She hands the form to the woman without meeting her gaze and leaves, slipping back out into the cold, spiteful air. It seems to reprimand her, its frigid palms pressed firmly against her back as if to push her out of the country.
15
DAYS PASS AND NO ONE HAS CALLED. EVEN AFTER SHE WENT TO store after store, restaurant after restaurant, five of which were part of the Golden Krust restaurant chain in Brooklyn, where Jamaican women, wearing hairnets, and with closed, bashful looks, take orders from customers behind glass counters, scooping up rice and peas, cabbage and shredded carrots, oxtail stew, curry goat, curry chicken, brown stew chicken, and soups of the day with big spoons. There must be millions of women like Patsy waiting nearby for such jobs, because the managers at the Golden Krusts tell Patsy to come back next week, and when she returns, the positions are already filled.
“Ah can wash dishes, sah,” Patsy said to one of the managers, who chewed on a toothpick as she begged him for a job. “Ah can even clean di floors . . . anyt’ing.”
“Positions full,” he boomed.
At a busy intersection, Patsy spots a mother and a daughter waiting for the light to change. The mother is mouthing words of caution to the little girl clad in pink, who is holding her hand. It’s hard to look away from them. The air thins and time stands still—a capsule with all the sounds trapped on the outside. Tru. Patsy exhales. But the flat-out coldness around her turns her breath to a vapor that curls from her lips, then vanishes. Long after the mother and daughter cross the street toward a row of houses, Patsy remains at the intersection, lost.
SHE IS DOWN TO TWENTY DOLLARS, WHICH SHE PINCHES. SOMETIMES she goes without food so that she can have bus fare. Other times, when Beverly and her grown son aren’t at the house, she pilfers from the refrigerator—slices of cheese, a handful of grapes, an orange, a dash of milk for a cup of Cheerios. Her rent is due, with no prospects of a job anywhere. She’s tempted to call Cicely, but decides against it, her pride getting the best of her. She thinks too of Ducky. She had marveled at those photographs Ducky sent his mother, Miss Henrietta, who paraded them at church. She showed everyone—even Pastor Kirby—the pictures of her son posing in front of the Bank of America in a suit, his fattened face cheesing, arms folded across a well-fed belly; another photograph was of Ducky posing in front of a Mercedes-Benz; and another in front of a two-story house with a nice green lawn. Mama G had sucked her teeth, “Dat Henrietta t’ink she bettah than everybody else. Why don’t she throw what she claim she got from dat tar-black ugly son of hers in di donation basket?” Patsy knew it was jealousy deepening her mother’s scowl. And she felt she could prove to her mother that she too can go to America and achieve something—finish school, get a job at a bank where she would be in charge of monitoring spreadsheets on computers. But had she known then what she knows now about America and its hurdles in place for people without proper visas, she would have done something different. Or would she? There’s got to be a way out of this rut.
Patsy puts on every sweater she owns underneath the flimsy jacket and goes back out, determined to find something today.
“I’m looking fah work,” she says to the rotund man with a dark, thick unibrow at a furniture store. He’s one of those black Indians who Patsy used to see around Kingston, squatted over fruits and vegetables at the market. Her first thought when she saw them was what a waste of good coolie hair, with skin as dark as that. The furniture store is deserted, though it’s located on a busy avenue.
“Work?” the black Indian man asks. Patsy notices that his eyes are on her chest and begins to feel uncomfortable asking him. But what if he’s the only one who will give her a job?
“Yes, sah. Anything,” she says.
“What can you do?”
She pauses. “Sell furniture.”
The man laughs, revealing yellow teeth. “No. No. I mean, what are your skills?” He raises his unibrow in a suggestive way. Patsy pretends
to ignore it and says, “I can prove it.”
The man hesitates for a second. Then he says, “Let’s give it a try. You stand outside and get people to buy furniture. For every customer you get to come in, I give you ten dollars. Deal?” He’s smirking as if he doesn’t believe this will work. But Patsy is so happy that she takes the offer. She agrees to stand in the cold with a sign that reads ROMAN FURNITURE STORE—BEST DEALS ON EARTH. Pride aside, she holds the sign high enough for people to see. If only they knew that her next meal depends on their interest.
“Ma’am, sir, good deal inside!” she says to each passerby. If her coworkers at the Ministry or anyone she knows from home could ever see her now, parading a sign in the street for money, they would laugh. A mix of shame, anger, and sorrow washes over Patsy, but she bites it back, determined.
“Good deal inside! Good deal inside!” she shouts above the street noise.
A Spanish woman with three children smiles politely and walks away. A black man with a cane slows down and then continues walking. The owner watches her from inside the store, his elbows rested on the counter.
“Good deal inside! Good deal inside!”
Every time someone walks away she feels a sting of desperation in her eyes. She blinks away the wet veil, almost uttering the word Please at the young couple holding hands. “Perfect fah yuh new home,” she says to them, hoping they will agree. A wave of relief hits her when they look at each other, shrug their shoulders, and walk inside the store. Twenty dollars, Patsy tallies inside her head. As if the couple breaks an invisible barrier, two more people walk inside. Forty dollars. The cold seems to clamp down on her bladder, making her want to pee. But she forces herself not to think about it, fearing that if she takes a restroom break she might lose potential customers. A woman pushing a stroller passes by Patsy.
“Good deal inside! We even have furniture fah baby room!”
The woman pauses. “Y’all sell cribs?”
When Patsy tells her yes, she enters the store too. Fifty dollars. When a man in a business suit and tie walks by, Patsy adds, “Office furniture fah cheap, cheap!” She counts sixty dollars when he enters the store.
Four hours later, Patsy tallies a hundred dollars.
“You’re a pro,” the owner says, counting the money at the end of the day. Patsy counts sixty dollars. She furrows her brows. “Ah thought you said each customer was ten dollars. I made more.”
He flashes his stained teeth at her. “I like a smart woman. You should be glad I kept my word and paid you.” He’s giving her that sly grin again. He puts a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and when she goes to pick it up, his hand lands on hers. “There’s more where that came from. You can work for the other twenty and a bonus.” He winks. Patsy withdraws her hand with the money. She walks away knowing that she’ll never be back.
DAYS LATER WHEN THE MONEY RUNS OUT AND STILL NO PHONE calls, she begins to regret not taking the man up on his offer. Brushing her teeth for bed, she finds herself wondering how much the bonus would be. She considers his unibrow and his fat round belly, shivering at the thought of fucking him or sucking him off. She spits into the sink and rinses her mouth. Curled in bed, she imagines her soul slipping down around her ankles in the back room of the store, his grimy hands clamped around her hips. But when a bolt of hunger rushes through her, it spreads between her legs, softening the muscles there, and she thinks, Why not? She has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Just then Patsy hears a knock on her door. When she opens it, Beverly is standing there, looking pale, with rollers in her hair. Every time Patsy sees her she looks paler, her lips darker.
“Someone called an’ left dis message fah you today,” Beverly says. With chestnut-brown hands four shades darker than her salmon-colored face, Beverly gives Patsy a folded piece of paper. Patsy’s heart races when she takes the paper, the thought of Cicely flooding her with warmth. Beverly lingers at the door, folding her arms across her chest. “I told you dis place isn’t a hotel. I’m nobody’s doorman, secretary, or caretaker. I already do dat fah a living, cleaning up aftah old people in Coney Island. But at least it pay me mortgage. Ah didn’t expec’ to be renting to someone who tek my kindness fah granted, giving out me numbah an’ have di nerve not to pay me rent.”
Unfolding her arms and putting her hands on her hips, Beverly says, “Where’s di rent?”
“Ah promise I’ll have it by di end ah di week,” Patsy replies, trying her best to sound apologetic.
“I rent fah money, not promises.”
“I undah-stand. I’ll get it to you by di end of dis week. Please . . . trus’ me on dis one.”
Beverly looks Patsy up and down and cuts her eyes before she turns and leaves. She doesn’t close the door. Patsy closes the door gently and leans on it for a moment, taking a deep breath. She lets out a sigh. Then, slowly, she moves to the bed. She sits with the paper for a while and fingers it. She hopes with all her might that it’s Cicely. That she has forgiven her, that she wants to meet somewhere so that they can talk. Slowly, she opens it. Peta-Gaye is scribbled above a telephone number. Patsy furrows her brows. Peta-Gaye? Who is Peta-Gaye? Then she remembers weeks ago, when she first arrived at Beverly’s house, she had seen an ad in the newspaper left on Beverly’s front porch. The ad was for a bathroom assistant for a restaurant named Peta-Gaye’s in a place called Tribeca. Her eyes had stumbled upon the word Jamaican—seeing in it the blue mountains and lush hills; smelling the rum-tinged breath of men playing dominoes in front of Pete’s Bar; and hearing again their laughter and banter, which could be as volatile as the ecstatic moans of the sea at night rising and plunging beneath the full moon, and as uproarious as Mr. Belnavis’s rooster at dawn, and Ras Norbert chanting, “Believe me! Believe me not!” about gold buried in their backyard.
16
THE RESTAURANT, SHE LEARNS, IS OWNED BY A FRENCH-Canadian white man, Bernie, who thought it a wonderful idea to open a Jamaican restaurant inspired by his one and only trip to the island. With both arms raised behind his head—a matted mass of honey-colored dreadlocks—and an ankle on his knee above the table where Patsy catches a glimpse of his tattered white sneakers, he discloses to Patsy that the restaurant is named after the woman who cooked for him at the villa where he stayed on the north coast. Patsy can’t tell his age. He doesn’t look like a restaurant owner, but someone belonging on the street, strumming a guitar with his washed-out jeans and black faded V-neck that has lightning striking in the middle of the letters ACDC.
It’s lunchtime. The restaurant is not crowded. The bamboo tables are donned with burgundy mats, crystal glasses, silverware placed on the sides, and a candle at the center of each table. Bamboo chairs line the bar that is made to look like a hut on the beach. Reggae music plays in the background. Three waiters rotate from table to table—young college types with forced portly mannerisms, all Americans. Patsy can tell by the casual, friendly cadence of their speech. The bartender, who looks to be the only Jamaican, busies himself wiping glasses and positioning liquor. The two hostesses, who look as if they could be African supermodels—one of whom winks and waves at Bernie—welcome the mostly white patrons, who must have read the newspaper clipping with bold headline “Chef Bernard Newton Makes Jamaican Cuisine Mainstream and Oh So Delicious.” Bernie’s picture is next to it—him posing in a chef’s hat and white tunic, arms folded like Mr. T. Bernie has framed it all and hung it on the front door next to a photo of Bob Marley. Patsy stares at the newspaper clipping. “Don’t you just love him?” Bernie asks. He must have thought she was staring at the photo of Bob Marley, with his long dreadlocks that look like dreadlocks and not the wet puss tails on Bernie’s head.
“He took reggae where I’m taking Jamaican food,” Bernie continues.
Patsy doesn’t answer immediately. She doesn’t have the heart to question Bernie about what he knows about Jamaican cuisine, much less how he plans to influence it. Neither does she have the heart to disappoint him by telling him that she’s not into B
ob Marley; that Bob Marley was forbidden in her household; that she’d rather listen to Peter Tosh, since Uncle Curtis told her he wrote most of Bob’s lyrics anyway. She still thinks it’s unfair that Peter is the lesser known of the two. Maybe that’s how it is—maybe life favors certain people and relegates the rest to living in their shadows.
Patsy adjusts her face into a smile and nods. They are seated at the back of the restaurant next to the kitchen, where Patsy can see the Mexican cooks. Bernie must have thought it brilliant to hire Mexican cooks to re-create Peta-Gaye’s recipes. (None of which was written down, Patsy is sure, since most Jamaicans don’t measure ingredients. Who needs to measure when you can taste the food in your hand-middle to see how much more salt, pepper, flour, or what have you it needs to taste right?)
She listens as he describes the job of a bathroom lady.
“Your job is to treat patrons the way Peta-Gaye treated me and my family when we were at that villa—with great care, attentiveness, and always with a smile. You make sure that the place is tidy and welcoming. People say food and service make a good restaurant, but I say the bathroom is the dealmaker—customers like a good bathroom. If they think they can eat off the floor inside a stall, then they’ll trust our hygiene in the kitchen.”
Patsy nods and nods, though she cringes internally at the visuals of eating off a bathroom floor—tidy or not.
“This is one of the best Jamaican restaurants you’ll find in the tri-state area,” Bernie says, flashing unusually white teeth and tucking a stray puss-tail behind his ear; his two platinum bracelets catch the natural light coming between the bamboo plants. His hazel eyes shine with pride when he says, “We’ve been open for two years. The mayor and his wife come here a lot. When you have customers like that, you make sure to give them top-notch luxury.”
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