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pretend as though she didn’t know—that would be more proper. She must be on Owen’s side, as the women in this household always would be. Antoinette leaned up on her elbow. And what was in this tea? Likely something to make this baby strong. Antoinette stopped drinking the tea. The bread was malleable. She ate and dreamed.
    She daydreamed of her and her husband walking around the milk-and- honey streets of New York City in bright green iguana-skin shoes. But slowly it came to Antoinette that she had not heard Owen Arthur come in last night. Perhaps he had been with his tart. The witch, that obeah woman, Rebekah. Rebekah who could have baby after baby after baby and still play that piano and still sell lime and mesple in the market. A low-class market woman who had simply married well and whose husband had left her. But not Antoinette. She might have entrepreneurial dreams but she would not lower Bradshaw as Rebekah had lowered the McKenzie name. True, the McKenzie name was not as high as Bradshaw to begin with. The McKenzie men married well, but there wasn’t a ship captain among them. Either way, Antoinette’s endeavors would cause her family to rise, not recede.
    Antoinette sat up and went to her writing table. She wrote a note telling Liva Lovernkrandt that she was coming straightaway to pay a visit to discuss private business matters. She called for Miss Lady to deliver it. Sheila Ladyinga could read; Antoinette would not have had a maid who could not. So Miss Lady could be trusted to knife open the note and believe that indeed Madame Bradshaw was going to Mrs. Lovernkrandt’s just now. And Miss Lady could be trusted to relay this false information to Owen if questioned. Madame Bradshaw was not going to the Lovernkrandts’ immediately. She was going to that very Rebekah McKenzie. Owen’s witch woman.

9.
    In the market Antoinette Bradshaw took her time through the sugar apples and the hot peppers. When a lady of a fancy house, even a fancy house in not fancy Frenchtown, came to the market, she was usually accompanied by her maid or daughter. But here was Madame Bradshaw, mistress of Villa by the Sea, wife of Captain Owen Arthur Bradshaw, wandering calmly through the open-air bungalow by herself. Carrying only a little basket. One that might hold some lime, some guava—not much more. The St. Thomas market was not the sprawling thing one could find on the big islands of the Caribbean. Here there might be two dozen women selling produce. Half a dozen men selling cane. Here the walking market women, their baskets on their heads, called out to Antoinette by name. “Best plantains, Mada Bradshaw. Ready for frying. You don’t want fry, I have ones for boil.”
    As she eased through the market, Antoinette was aware of where Rebekah was and Rebekah was aware of her. Women who have a man between them always are. Even in the crowded market, filled with the aggressive selling of provisions and the passive selling of sugar, Rebekah and Antoinette had already seen each other and kept each other firm in the corner of an eye. But Antoinette took her time. It was a hot day. She refused to break out in a sweat.
    Many of the market women sat beside their produce, a linen cloth spread beneath them and their wares. The buyers looked down on these women, and when they turned away, the market women had to witness the retreating backsides. But not Rebekah McKenzie. Rebekah had a table. One that sat in her little yard at night and that her sons hauled out to the market every morning. Rebekah sat behind her table in an actual chair, more like a privileged bank clerk than a market woman. When Antoinettereached Rebekah’s table, Rebekah said to her what she had been saying to everyone else: “You must buy some lime if you want mesple. Today, lime marry to mesple.”
    “I know quite well who is married to whom.”
    Rebekah smiled. “Of course, Madame Bradshaw. Is me does forget sometimes.”
    “Do your best to remember, Miss