Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn Page B

t’ings fi do? Like count out di ten cents yuh get fi yuh cheap t’ings dem? Yuh son sen’ yuh money from America, an’ yet yuh stuck inna dis place?”
    Mavis whips around to face him like a player caught in the middle of a dandy-shandy game. “A an’ B having ah convahsation. Guh suck yuh mumma, yuh ole crusty, mop-head b’woy!”
    But John-John puts down his boxes of birds, a grin on his face as though he’s enjoying this exchange. “Every Tom, Joe, an’ Mary know dat yuh don’t get no barrel from America. A lie yuh ah tell. When people get barrel from America dem come moggle in dem new clothes.” He struts in the little space between them to mimic models on a runway. “But yuh still dress like a mad’ooman, an’ yuh look like one too wid dat mask ’pon yuh face!”
    The other vendors in the arcade erupt in boisterous laughter, their hands cupped over their mouths, shoulders shuddering, and eyes damp with tears. Mavis adjusts her hat, and touches her screwed-up face with the bleaching cream lathered all over it like the white masks obeah women wear. “A true yuh nuh know me,” she says, her mouth long and bottom lip trembling. “My son send me barrel from foreign all di time. Ah bad-mind oonuh bad-mind!”
    â€œNobody nah grudge yuh, Mavis,” Delores says. “John-John jus’ saying dat it nuh mek sense if di clothes dat yuh son sen’ from America look like di ugly, wash-out clothes yuh sell. American clothes not suppose to look suh cheap. There’s a discrepancy in what’s what!” The other vendors’ laughter soars above the stalls, flooding through the narrow aisles where the sun marches like a soldier during a curfew. Delores continues, “Is not like yuh t’ings sell either. Usually di tourist dem tek one look, see di cheap, wash-out, threadbare shirt dem then move on. Not even yuh bleach-out skin coulda hol’ dem!”
    â€œG’weh!” Mavis says. “Yuh only picking on me because yuh pickney dem don’t like yuh!” Satisfied after delivering the final blow, Mavis retreats into her stall with a smirk Delores wishes she could slap away. But she can’t move fast enough; John-John is already holding her back. Her hands are frantically moving over John-John’s shoulder, wanting to catch the woman’s face and rip it to shreds. That smirk holds the weight of scorn, of judgment. She should never have told Mavis that morning that her birthday came and went without a card from either Thandi or Margot. Well, she didn’t expect a card from Margot, but Thandi should’ve remembered. Every year Thandi gives her something—last year it was a necklace made of small cowrie shells; the previous year were petals from dried flowers used to decorate the inside of a card; the year before that was a bracelet with coral beads strung by yarn. And this year, nothing. Setting up her items took longer than usual at the beginning of the week. She’s always the first to have everything presented well enough for the tourists to come by, but this week she struggled with the simplest task of covering the wooden table with the green and yellow cloth. One of the figurines had fallen, breaking in half during setup. Delores felt off. The thought of spending the entire day selling made her feel like she was carrying an empty glass and pretending to have liquid in it. She confided this to Mavis, because she wanted someone to talk to at the time. How she has been selling for years and has never felt this way. How Margot, and most recently Thandi, couldn’t care less if she dies in this heat a pauper. And in the heat of this very moment, Mavis has called her out. Mavis—with her crazy, lying, bleaching self—knows that Delores’s children hate her. Mavis—the woman with nothing good to sell and who can never get one customer to give her the time of day—knows