Margot moves toward the music—a bluesy, jazzy woman’s voice, singing something she has never heard. Four men are seated on the patio, smoking cigars and looking out at the pool that shimmers before them with floating tea lights. The sinuous smoke from the men’s cigars forms a translucent veil. Each man has a girl or two—local brown girls wearing talcum powder on their necks, large gold earrings, and tight-fitting clothes that look to Margot like they found them in the arcade deep inside the secondhand barrels. Their coifed hairstyles are caked in place with gel Margot sees smeared at their temples. Margot feels she could stand there by the doorway and listen to the singer’s voice for hours with her eyes closed, but one of the girls spots her, her face transforming with surprise. She regards Margot closely, perhaps trying to place her, perhaps hoping she doesn’t know a relative. She looks familiar, though Margot could have seen her anywhere. She could have been one of the hundreds of faces Margot passes by daily in Sam Sharpe Square on her way to work. A girl like that might be one of the young vendors in the arcade, selling cosmetics or clothes.
“Margot!”
Alphonso floats toward her and kisses her on both cheeks before pausing at her lips. “I knew you wouldn’t stay mad at me for long.” She pulls back when she sees he’s high, his pupils large. He rests one hand on the small of her back. “You look stunning . . .” he whispers.
“Thank you.”
“Here, come join us.”
He leads her to the group of men. She greets them with a slight nod of her head. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she says. They respond in a tenor chorus. “Evening!” They have the accents of moneyed Jamaicans, their English with the right edge of patois to sharpen their innuendos and help them appeal to the common men they exploit. Alphonso leans back on his chair, his leg up, a cigar in his mouth. He converses animatedly with the other men. He openly caresses Margot’s shoulders, rubs her back, and she leans into him without hesitation. The phone rings, and one man teases Alphonso that it’s his wife who is calling. Alphonso runs to take the call, disappearing into one of the five empty bedrooms for privacy. When he returns, the men laugh. “See! Ah tell yuh it was di wife!”
That’s when Margot gets up to pour herself a drink. The men were mid-discussion when she stood up—something about the monkeys in Parliament who are allowing P. J. Patterson to run the country into ruins since his win last year, and making sure Seaga takes the ’97 election in three years. The girls sit around the men like decorative flowers, pretending to listen to the conversation as the men absently stroke their bony thighs. Poor things, Margot thinks, watching them hold glasses of liquor to their mouths, sipping it like medicine. Suddenly Margot feels maternal. The girl who noticed her earlier catches her eye again. She gets up from the sofa and comes over to Margot at the bar.
“Margot?”
“Yes?”
Margot cannot help but try to place her. “Do I know you?” she asks.
“Are you Thandi’s sister?” the girl asks.
Margot mentally wipes clean the purple eye shadow; the red rouge on the girl’s high cheekbones that goes all the way up to her temples; the beige mask that doesn’t quite fit her deep mocha complexion, making her look like a ghost.
“I’m Jullette,” the girl says, not waiting for Margot to piece it together. “Ah used to live in Rivah Bank. Me and Thandi went to primary school together. Ah remembah you.”
Margot isn’t sure how to respond. Jullette. Jullette? Jullette! Jullete from the river fork. Miss Violet’s daughter. Last Margot heard of the girl, she was sent away after the father left the family. No one knew what happened to him, but since he left, his children scattered all over the place and Miss Violet locked herself in the house.
“How is Thandi?” Jullette asks.
Margot takes a sip of her drink. Before she can begin to imagine what she can say to this girl that won’t threaten to reveal too much about her secret life, Alphonso comes up behind Margot. “Thought you went to the sugarcane plantation to make the drinks.” He encircles Margot’s waist with his arms, and wheels her off. Margot gives a surprised chuckle, grateful to be rescued from the conversation with Jullette.
“It was nice meeting you . . .” Margot says.
“Sweetness. They call me Sweetness. Nice meeting you too,” Jullette says in a faraway voice like a pendant lost at sea. How little the splash; how great the effect. Margot leaves the girl standing by the bar.
In Alphonso’s bedroom, Margot cannot stop thinking about Jullette. Had she been doing this all along? Who introduced her to it? She thinks about Thandi again, fear mounting in her throat. She swallows and slips out of her dress. When she turns around to face Alphonso, his head is already lowered to the night table, where he snorts three white lines. He pauses on the second and offers her some. “You seem a little fidgety. You should loosen up a bit.”
She shakes her head. “You’re my only drug,” she says, smiling at him, though her mind is still on Thandi.
“Ah, you came ready,” Alphonso says.
“Always.”
“Then what are you waiting for, standing there like a statue?”
“I want to ask you something first.”
“Why not after?”
“I want to know now, before—”
“Margot, for godsakes, I waited all day for this.”
“Do you—”
“What? What!”
“Do you love me?”
Alphonso sits up in the bed. “Do I what?” He looks down at himself, then back at her. “You see this? If this doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what will.”
“But you said—”
“Margot, you know you make a grown man say shit when yuh do what yuh do in bed.”
“So yuh didn’t mean it, then.”
“I love your company. I love how you make me feel when we fuck . . . That’s probably what ah meant.”
“And me?”
He scratches his head, the dark hair falling into his face to cover his eyes.
“Where is all this coming from, Margot?” He gives a nervous chuckle. “Are you catching feelings? You know I’m a married man. And you open yuh legs every which way for a handout. Because of you my hotel is in good business.”
Margot cocks her head to the side. And before she can say anything, Alphonso laughs. “Don’t worry about who told me. I have my sources. Do I mind? No. Ah think yuh can do something for me.”
Margot hugs herself in the middle of the master bedroom like an adulteress about to be stoned in Babylon. Who told him? Was it Paul? She knew that prick was an informer. Or was it Blacka? The way that midget looks at her is as if he wants Alphonso for himself. Or could it be Kensington? But the girl always leaves at four o’clock in the afternoon, two hours before Margot does her rounds. Margot could either leave, defeated; or she could stay and secure what she came for.
“What do you want?”
“Must I spell it out?” He reclines on the bed. Margot slowly climbs beside him. “Good girl. The two of us can profit from this. You give me fifty percent of your profit and I make you into a wealthy woman.”
“How exactly will that make me rich?”
“Simple. You know how some hotels sell weed on their property?” Margot nods. “It’s good business. More foreign money. We’ll sell sex. Lots of it. We can make enough to supply millions to the new resort, the one I’ll put you in charge of.” There’s a big grin on his face. “Our clients would be big investors.”
“And I’ll screw them all?” Margot is surprised by the sarcasm in her voice. Alphonso is serious.
“You will recruit and train girls you see fit for the business. You’ll be the boss lady in charge.”
She almost says no. What if Verdene finally takes her up on her offer to build a new life together? What would she say if she found out what Margot did when they were apart? But the money. “I’ll do it,” is what she says. Alphonso reaches for her and brings her ear close to his lips. “Now let’s fuck.” That night Margot f
ucks Alphonso with renewed drive. She marvels at the way he throws his head back, exposing his jugular vein, vulnerable and pulsating. He grits his teeth, clutches the sheet, and swallows hard—his Adam’s apple slides up and down his neck like a ping-pong ball. For only then, while looking down on him from the height where she sits, rocking like a queen being carried on a bamboo raft across a river, can she feel her power over him. And she’s sure he feels it too.
Maxi pulls into the driveway, his old white Toyota taxi shabby amid the manicured hedges and high, sturdy gates flanked by bushes of bougainvillea and red hibiscus. She told him earlier to pick her up by midnight. “Yuh went to a party up here?” Maxi asks as soon as Margot gets inside his car, smelling of cigars and whiskey. She ignores Maxi’s eyes clocking the thigh-high slit in her dress and her exposed cleavage. She winds the window down on her side. “Jus’ drive,” she tells him.
Maxi drives them to River Bank, the sound of the breeze comforting Margot. Maxi must sense her need for silence, because he says nothing. She knows well how he feels about her breaking her back for foreign money, what it takes from her.
“Remembah when yuh asked me what my dream is?” she asks.
He nods, his eyes on the road as though he’s trying not to look at her.
“I gave it more thought,” she says, toying with her seat belt.
“Yuh did?” he asks with one eyebrow arched.
“I want to own my own hotel. Bettah yet, ah want to be in charge of tourism. And it g’wan happen sooner than ah think.” The words seem to fill out her cheeks, and she surprises herself with a light chuckle. She hopes he can’t see the uncertainty in her eyes. The guilt.
Maxi laughs. His laughter is like a faint cough.
11
MARGOT WANTS MORE. THERE’S NOTHING SATISFYING ABOUT leading cattle—a herd of fifteen girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. Even as she watches them graze, she’s still hungry. She takes the girls under her wing, feeds them, dresses them, teaches them how to carry themselves among moneyed men. Men who have invested a lot of money in the hotel business. Men who come to the country for the sex and weed; and the sex, like the weed, has to be “high-grade.” Which is why Margot spent four weeks scouting the girls. Some came highly recommended. Others she had to go out and find. She patrolled the Hip Strip at nights, skirted her way inside the dark, dingy hallways of brothels. Observed how the girls carried themselves, how they hustled. She followed the ones who struck her fancy—ones with sharp tongues and sharper minds, not afraid to tell the men they’re short a dollar or two, pretty ones capable of fulfilling fantasies, the darker the better. She eavesdropped on their conversations, even in bathrooms at local clubs, their laughter penetrating Margot’s stall like the baby-scented talcum powder they reapplied to their necks and cleavages. She knows who has been on the streets for years as well as who just started two days ago, who has a man and who shares one. Who has the John who can’t get it up and who has had to fight one off. The one who sells herself for the love of her children as well as for the love of sex. The girls’ conversations were unfiltered in these stalls, their confessionals.
When Margot approached the ones she wanted—the ones she knew the men would want—they gave her queer looks. She handed them cards with her number. “I want you to work for me.”
And they would inch away a little, folding arms across bare chests as though just realizing that they were scantily dressed. “Me nuh inna di sodomite t’ing.” Margot then assured them that her only interest in them was what they could do for her new business.
They called. Their voices quavered with uncertainty, unsure about the strange woman who had cornered them in the restroom. Margot brought them to Alphonso’s villa for an orientation. They wore regular clothes since it was daytime, and Margot was able to see their faces without makeup, how they lit up like little girls when they admired portraits of the cream-at-the-top-of-Horlicks faces of the Wellington dynasty. Alphonso made sure Margot had the villa to herself that weekend, sending home the housekeeper. Margot was grateful for this, since the woman was too nosy anyway. She handed the girls contracts she drafted.
“Dis is a contract of secrecy.”
“Secrecy?”
“Yes. Dis is not something yuh tell yuh friends. Under dis contract yuh must not, and I repeat, must not let anyone know about dis. Not even yuh mother. If you know a girl that might be eligible, mek me screen her first before yuh invite her.”
“How much yuh g’wan pay us?”
“I will get to dat in a moment.”
“More than we already getting by we-self, ah hope.”
“Mek me finish, please.”
“Me cyan sekkle fi chump change, boss lady. Me too hungry. Ah have meself an’ me pickney fi feed.”
“Shush, nuh! Let har finish!”
“The clients pay me and I pay you. Understood?”
“Wait, so how we know what we getting?”
“Yuh get what yuh put out. There’s a set rate. And if di customer is pleased, him can add twenty percent tip, which you keep.”
“Wha kin’a answer dat? We want to know how much we getting.”
“Yuh want to know what yuh getting? More than yuh will evah get working by yuhself, patrolling fah men who can barely afford a trip from Mobay to Portland, much less a fifty-dollah fuck. Yuh getting the big-man dem. Moneyman. Man who can at least feed yuh while yuh at it. Yuh getting wined and dined at expensive restaurants dat none ah yuh put together could afford. Yuh getting nice clothes, ah makeovah, an’ a place fi sleep. An’ is not just anywhere you’ll sleep, Palm Star Resort is yuh bedroom. Every sexual favor haffi tek place in rooms dat we reserve for yuh clients. Yuh getting exposure—an opportunity dat yuh can’t get from di run-down holes yuh crawl from. Dat answer yuh question?”
There was silence as each girl contemplated her fate, their minds trying to reconcile the uncertainty of what was being offered to them. They looked at each other because, of course, there was no real reason to back away. Margot waited for thirty long seconds. In the arrested silence, the howling wind rattled the French doors of the villa, flung them open to reveal a glimpse of the Blue Mountains and the sea twinkling in the sunlight. Gradually the girls began to chat and bicker, thickening the balmy atmosphere: Mama can use ah stove. The boys need school shoes—lawd, dem cyan guh barefoot nuh longah. Nuh food nuh deh inna cupboard. The landlord aggo kick we out if we nuh pay next month rent. Margot heard each thought, saw them etched on the young dark faces before her. She knew they wouldn’t turn this offer down, for there was nothing left in their exhausted lungs, which heaved and sighed.
“It answer mine.”
“Mine too.”
“Ah thought so. Now I’ll go on,” Margot said. “Do not accept clients without me knowing about it. I call the shots. If ah don’t think you’re the right girl for the job, then I won’t use you. Because these aren’t just tourists we dealing wid. Like ah said, they are also the men we want to invest in our hotel. Our clients will be able to request their favorites on a regular basis. But it’s mostly my discretion. Lastly, yuh duty is to serve. So yuh have to be willing to do anything that the client asks. Anything. Even if is to lick di dirt off him shoes. I don’t want to hear any complaints from them about stubborn girls. Remembah you’re disposable. One slipup an’ yuh gone. Yuh must be able to satisfy di clients an’ walk away in good standing.”
All fifteen recruits signed the contract, and it was this cohort that Margot introduced to Alphonso and the potential investors of his hotel empire. On the night of this private gathering, she paraded the girls like virgins through Babylon, having them walk out in veils and long cloaks with nothing underneath. Margot turned to Alphonso and his guests. “Gentlemen, I present to you our queens of the night.” One by one the girls dropped their cloaks and lifted their veils. The men were visibly pleased. Privately, Margot admired them, content. She told them what Alphonso told her: “Mek me proud.”
And just like that Margot became a b
oss lady. A boss lady can be counted on. Does the dirty work. The men dig into their wallets for pleasures pure and deep. Margot’s girls can’t be rivaled. Their customers exit the hotel with long, conquering strides, whistling softly through the lobby. Days later they might return for another round, another hour with an island girl who has them biting their pillows, curling their toes, and swallowing moans that rise from their throats. They’re baffled by their own helplessness when Margot tells them that a particular girl they requested isn’t available. No one has ever made them feel so dependent—not barmaids, not servants, not assistants or secretaries, not tailors of fine suits, not expensive bottles of scotch, not their wives’ silences, not even God.
But even with all the money coming in, Margot isn’t satisfied. Something about her new role feels fake. Though she has been selling herself since high school, there is something dirty about selling other broken women, especially girls as young as her sister. She hardens her heart again. If she can succeed with this—between the money it brings and the secrets she’ll know—Alphonso will have to give her the manager job at last. She’s lived with regret before. Delores once made her break a chicken’s neck so that she could cook it for dinner. She will never forget the screaming bird, the drops of blood on dirt, the dangling tendon. Yet, they were all satisfied that night.
Margot watches Miss Novia Scott-Henry, the new general manager, closely: The way she floats around the property, barging into people’s conversations and telling them to work: “Leave idle chatter for later . . . we have a hotel to run, people to attend to. Chop, chop!” Even the way she unpacks her salads at lunch (who eats only salad as a meal?), wielding a silver fork and chewing contemplatively, her eyes trained on a document before her. Once in a while a piece of leaf or a bit of salad dressing would fall on the way to her mouth and she would pick it up with a napkin or brush it away. She’s not a clean eater, this woman. Sometimes she hands Margot documents with coffee stains on them.
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