Adrift on St. John (13 page)

“Akk, Eye’m glad to bey gettin’ off on tyme tu-day.”

A younger maid standing nearby broke into a grin, as if she’d just heard the punch line of an oft-repeated joke.

“Come on, Glenna, you know you like to work late,” she said with a wink. “Then you get a
special
ride home.”

Glenna shook her head violently back and forth.
“Ohhhh, no. Noooo, no. Nut me, Eye doon’t. Eye doon nut lyke thuh what-ter taxi.”

All the women giggled, offering encouragement. “Tell us, Glenna. Tell us. Why don’t you like the water taxi?”

Glenna’s eyes widened with an exaggerated terror; the sharp corners of her face hardened into a dramatic expression.

“Eye doon nut lyke thuh what-ter taxi,”
she repeated vehemently.
“Ack, what-ter taxi, what-ter taxi…oh, no.”

Manto shook his head with a rueful grin as the women doubled over with laughter. Hamilton, despite having seen the performance several times before, stood spellbound, his gaze fixed on Glenna’s charismatic face.

Glenna hunched over and began to circle the room, all the while wagging a crooked finger at the other women.

“Eye doon nut lyke thuh what-ter taxi…Beeg sheep go down slowe…Small sheep go down fest…Eye wurk und Eye wurk, but steel Eye’ve gut to tek thuh what-ter taxi…”

By the time she reached the end of the chant, her hoarse voice had been drowned out by the women’s loud cackles.

“Bah,”
Glenna said, straightening her shoulders as she approached her locker.
“Eye doon’t know why you-all mek may do that a-very day.”

Still letting out a stray guffaw or two, the group dispersed to their individual metal lockers to collect their belongings.

Someone switched on a portable radio, and its broadcast added to the room’s overall background noise. A man’s deep voice intoned through the speakers, but he could barely be heard due to the ruckus near the lockers.

“We welcome you to the proceedings of the Fifth Constitutional Convention. Today’s session is being held at the Starlight Hotel here on St. Thomas…”

A young waitress walked up to Hamilton, holding her hands behind her back.

“Tell the truth, Ham,” she ordered with mock sternness, a twinkle in her eye. “Were you a good boy at school today?”

Hamilton’s round face contorted into a serious expression. He looked up at her and nodded affirmatively.

“Well, then,” she said with a wide grin as she swung her arms out in front of her waist, revealing a small plastic-wrapped plate. “You deserve some cookies.”

Manto threw his hands up as the little boy broke into a toothy grin. Hamilton quickly removed the plastic wrap and crammed a cookie into his mouth. The women all turned to coo at him, leaving the radio to take over the room’s primary audio.

Through the speaker, the murmuring rumble of a distant crowd fell to a hush as the leader of the event tapped a microphone and began his opening remarks.

“As most of you know, this is our fifth attempt to draft a constitution for the U.S. Virgin Islands. If approved by Congress and ratified by the voters, this document will supersede the current governing document, the Organic Act, which was put into place in 1954.”

The break room’s cheerful atmosphere dimmed as a cloud moved across the occupants’ faces—all except for Hamilton, who was still munching blissfully away on his cookies.

The waitress who had prepared the cookie plate tugged the worn belt of her shirtdress. Her smile disappeared as she returned to her locker.

On the far side of the room, near the shelf holding the radio, Beulah Shah sat on a bench watching the group’s reaction to the broadcast. She crossed her right leg over the left and began kicking it up and down, causing the toe of her loose rubber sandal to
thunk
against her foot.

“Speaker, speaker,” a female voice cut through the room’s growing silence. “I would like to make a motion.”

Manto cleared his throat uncomfortably and leaned over to brush crumbs from Hamilton’s mouth as the voice continued.

“I move to amend the draft to introduce the following language defining a Native Virgin Islander…”

One of the housemaids sighed out a volume of pent-up breath. “It’s a very ticklish business, this.”

Glenna slapped her hand against one of the lockers.
“Eye doon’t lyke it. Nut wone bit.”
She pointed accusingly at the radio.
“Eye doon’t trust thuh people who are on it.”
Then, she made a curdling sound with her mouth.
“They should jus’ leave things thuh way they are.”

She was seconded by a sharp-eyed cook with dark pitted skin. “Special privileges,” the woman said venomously. “They are trying to set themselves up with special privileges. They are going to take over the island. They are going to lord it over the rest of us.”

A gavel pounded in the radio static as the leader of the meeting asked for order, but the heated discussion in the break room had now overwhelmed the convention proceedings.

A third woman, this one with round hips and a heavy chest, stepped forward, shaking her head in fervent disagreement.

“My grandfather was here at the time of the transfer. He didn’t have any say in the matter. That twenty-five million, the U.S. didn’t pay any of it to him. It’s time. We have to stand up and protect what is rightfully ours.”

The cook spun around to face the dissenter. “And what about the rest of us? What happens to us? Are we second-class citizens?”

The door to the break room suddenly burst open and Vivian stormed through. The women all stopped, some of them midsentence, and gaped as she strode forcefully across to the radio and flicked off the switch. Then she grabbed Hamilton by the wrist and herded him brusquely out the door.

Manto quickly followed, fretfully stroking his balding skull. The rest of the workers silently filtered out, leaving only Beulah, who had watched the entire episode from her bench at the far side of the room.

The old woman reached over and thoughtfully stroked the side of the now silent radio, her frail fingers twiddling aimlessly with the dial.

“A tick-leesh situation,”
she said softly.
“In-deed.”

13

Hannah and I arrived at the reception area to find Manto’s truck taxi parked out front of the resort. It was already half full with women from the restaurant and cleaning crews who had finished their shifts and were headed into Cruz Bay to get on the four o’clock ferry.

The women were abnormally quiet for that time of day. The afternoon ride into town was typically filled with their energetic chatter, playful joshing, and colorful recountings of the latest salacious gossip, of which, it seemed, there was never any shortage.

The strained silence in the truck taxi deepened as Hannah and I climbed into a row of empty seats near the front of the bed. Something had clearly disrupted the group unity.

Boyfriend troubles, perhaps? A petty jealousy that had blown up into a quarrel?

I recognized most of the women’s faces, but I didn’t know their names. Vivian handled all of the hiring at this level. I glanced curiously over the back of my bench at the nearest stony-faced housemaid, but she merely swung her head sideways, so that her eyes stared blindly at a flower bed next to the curb.

Thankfully, Manto scurried out of the reception area and slid into the truck’s front cab. The roar of the engine, with its loud disruptive rumble, broke the tension, and a moment later we were bumping down the resort’s front drive.

I turned toward the still smiling Hannah, searching for some topic upon which to build a common ground through conversation. After studying her flowery sundress, youthful physique, and doe-eyed expression, I sighed and asked, “So, how do you like the weather down here?”

The tip end of Hannah’s perky nose began to twitch as we hopped off the truck taxi and crossed the street for the Dumpster table.

There was an extra pungent stench coming from the south side of the Crunchy Carrot that afternoon. The fumes from the trash bin were in fierce competition with the rank aroma of the two sweaty men collapsed in the white plastic lawn chairs. Even my Dumpster-hardened senses picked up on the unusually strong odor floating in the air.

I cast a sideways glance at my new employee as we approached, wondering how well her perky enthusiasm would hold up against this crowd.

Clearing my throat, I waved a brief hello. “Hey guys, meet one of the resort’s new employees.” With effort, I managed to force the name out casually. “Hannah Sheridan.”

I grabbed two empty chairs and positioned them on the opposite side of the table, motioning for Hannah to take the one to my right. I’d given her the seat of honor, farthest upwind from the stench, but her face took on a pale greenish shade as she stared at me with an expression of marked surprise and confusion. Her mouth guppied open and shut without making a sound, as if she were unable to find a suitable comment to express her thoughts.

The two men looked up, their reddened faces showing a faint, wearied interest as I slid comfortably into my chair and Hannah perched gingerly on hers.

“Jeff, César,” I said, making the introductions, “this is…Hannah.”

Hannah smiled nervously across the table. Her green eyes passed slowly over the growing collection of half-empty beer bottles and paper boats that littered the surface, coming to rest on the rooster who was perched discreetly near the table’s edge.

Richard’s sharp yellow claws gripped the table’s curved plastic rim as he stretched his scrawny black neck toward a few discarded French fries that had fallen out of their plastic basket container.

César, a short balding Puerto Rican, was finishing off a blackened fish sandwich. My stomach rumbled at the sight of it—the Carrot’s fish sandwich was renowned throughout the island, by far and away the best item on their menu.

César stuffed the last bite into his mouth and chomped uncomfortably for a moment, his chubby cheeks bulging from the pressure of the contents he had just crammed inside. After a stiff swallow, he tilted his head back and drained the last half of a bottle of Jamaican beer down his throat. Smacking his lips, he wiped the back of his hand across his grease-smeared face. Then, he reached across the table and offered Hannah a shake.

“Welcome to the Dumpster table,” César said heartily in his pinched, slightly nasal voice. He nodded at the wrappings and debris that Richard was now nosing his way through and winked. “Finest dining in town.”

César was the head sous chef at Pesce, an Italian restaurant on a bluff overlooking Cruz Bay. Pesce was one of the nicest restaurants on the island, but César took most of his meals at the Crunchy Carrot. Despite the culinary wonders of the Carrot’s fish sandwich, I suspected his frequent appearances at the Dumpster table had a lot more to do with escaping the pressures of Pesce’s stress-filled kitchen than the quality of the bar’s food.

César had spent the bulk of his eight-hour day shift on prep work for the evening meal. A splatter of fish guts and tomato juice decorated his gray sweat-stained T-shirt. His already thick fingers were bloated and blistered from the lengthy chopping and peeling session.

As a Puerto Rican, César wasn’t exactly an expat—at least, not in the way we all thought of the term—but he had been given honorary membership to the Dumpster table gang due to his hyper energy and offbeat sense of humor. He was a nonstop source of entertainment. With a stomach full of food digesting in his plump belly, I expected that, at any moment, he would launch into his latest shtick.

My gaze shifted to his dining companion—the human one, not the rooster.

Jeff was an entirely different type of character. A young man of few words, he wore the quiet subdued air of his native New England like a mask that concealed all expression of emotion. In response to Hannah’s introduction, he had simply shrugged his shoulders and grunted a greeting. That was his rendition of a warm welcome.

A full head of frizzy brown hair towered over Jeff’s freckled face. The tangled matting suggested his head had gone several months without the application of shampoo. I often teased him to steer clear of the bananaquits for fear they would build a nest in it.