The Other Hand Read Free Page B

each other, and I was holding my see-through bag and she was holding her see-through bag. There was one black eyebrow pencil and one pair of tweezers and three rings of dried pineapple in hers.
    The first girl saw me looking at her bag and she stopped giggling. What you starin at? she said. I said I did not know. She said, I know what you linking. You linking, now the taxi no come for to pick me up, how far me going to get wid one eyebrow pencil an one tweezer an ihree pineapple slice? So I told her, Maybe you can use ihe eyebrow pencil to write a message that says HELP ME , and then you can give the pineapple slices to the first person who does . The girl looked at me like I was crazy in the head and she said to me: Okay, darlin, one, I got no paper for to write no message on, two, I no know how to write, I only know how to draw on me eyebrows, an tree, me intend to eat that pineapple meself . And she made her eyes wide and stared at me.
    While this was happening, the second girl in the queue, the girl with the lemon yellow sari and the see-through bag full of yellow, she had become the first girl in the queue, because now she held the telephone receiver in her own hand. She was whispering into it in some language that sounded like butterflies drowning in honey. I tapped the girl on her shoulder, and pulled at her sari, and I said to her: Please, you must try to talk to them in English. The sari girl looked at me, and she stopped talking in her butterfly language. Very slowly and carefully, like she was remembering the words from a dream, she said into the telephone receiver: England, Yes please. Yes please thank you, I want go to England .
    So the girl in the purple A-line dress, she put her nose right up to the nose of the girl in the lemon yellow sari, and she tapped her finger on the girl’s forehead and made a sound with her mouth like a broom handle hitting an empty barrel. Bong! Bong! she said to the girl. You already is in England, get it? And she pointed both her index fingers down at the linoleum floor. She said: Dis is England, darlin, ya nub see it? Right here, yeh? Dis where we at all-reddy .
    The girl in the yellow sari went quiet. She just stared back with those green eyes like jelly moons. So the girl in the purple dress, the Jamaican girl, she said, Here, gimme dat , and she grabbed the telephone receiver out of the sari girl’s hand. And she lifted the receiver to her mouth and she said, Listen, wait., one minnit please . But then she went quiet and she passed the telephone receiver to me and I listened, and it was just the dial tone. So I turned to the sari girl. You have to dial a number first , I said. You understand? Dial number first, then tell taxi man where you want to go. Okay?
    But the girl in the sari, she just narrowed her eyes at me, and pulled her see-through bag of lemon yellow a little closer to her, like maybe I was going to take that away from her the way the other girl had taken the telephone receiver. The girl in the purple dress, she sighed and turned to me. It ain’t no good, darlin , she said. De Lord gonna call his chillen home fore dis one calls for a taxi . And she passed the telephone receiver to me. Here , she said. Yu betta try one time .
    I pointed to the third girl in the queue, the one with the bag of documents and the blue T-shirt and the Dunlop Green Flash trainers. What about her? I said. This girl is before me in the queue. Yeh , said the girl in the purple dress, but dis ooman ain’t got no mo-tee-VAY-shun. Ain’t dat right, darlin? And she stared at the girl with the documents, but the girl with the documents just shrugged and looked down at her Dunlop Green Flash shoes. Ain’t dat de truth , said the girl in the purple dress, and she turned back to me. It’s up to yu, darlin. Yu got to talk us out a here, fore dey change dey mind an lock us all back up .
    I looked down at the telephone receiver and it was grey and dirty and I was afraid. I looked back at the girl