Drowning Lessons

by Rachel Neuburger Reynolds

  This gave me ample time to avoid Max’s quizzical stare. She’d smile, and I’d look away immediately, understanding that she knew I might have become a major liability to her. If I had to go to the bathroom, I’d be sure to take a buddy. I hoped that after the speeches I could sneak out and make it to Bocas PD. With any luck they’d have another cot, and I could shack up with Lloyd until my plane took off.

  I had no paper, no pen, and nothing to say. A champagne glass and the microphone were handed to me.

  Champagne was being poured decadently. They had chosen 1995 Charles Heidsieck "Blanc des Millénaires - Rare Millésime." Olivia had learned through her recent proximity to the jetsetters, to never choose Dom Perignon or Crystal as it screamed ‘regular person’. This champagne was rated as the only perfect bubbly in the world, I’d been advised, at a whopping $170 per bottle.

  I did gaze upon her with something that resembled fondness. Like the saying goes, I loved her, but I did not like her.

  “Hi. Okay,” I began, eyes upon me, the group waiting to hear me praise love. “As Fitzgerald once said, or something like this at least, ‘In our twenties we think that love will save us, in our thirties we think our friends will, in our forties we learn that friends won’t save us any more than love did.’” I looked up at the confused crowd, “Kidding. Really.

  “I’ve known Olivia since she was five. I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her wild notion of self-respect. I mean... I love her for believing this is the beginning of everything.

  “I’m sure that Walter felt the same way when he met her. Truly original. Truly alpha, in the best way, but you can all tell that from this delicious wedding. Determined. Though this wedding began with tragedy and disaster, it ends a roaring success, and a celebration of good lives lived. I think.

  “We’ve been through a lot together. She was always so ambitious, so beyond anyone. And people like her deserve a sidekick, which I’ve been for these past thirty-five years. And that’s ok. Really. Alphas pull sidekicks along into strange situations and vicarious living. But sidekicks can be brilliant in their own right; Watson to Sherlock Holmes, Tinkerbelle to Peter Pan, and even Chewbacca to Han Solo. Sidekicks get to be very witty, even Chewbacca—but who knows what he’s saying. We are the women behind the woman. So, Olivia, I thank you for the experience.

  “There’s a saying that you let a man chase you until you catch him. You know what I mean? And in a very movie moment, Walter kept trying to buy her business as a ploy to get to know her. She never sold the gym but she won his heart. Look at how perfect they are! Beautiful, funny, driven. The couple of the year no doubt. A courtship to be envied. They make a splash, you know? They are to be known.

  “Walter, you are a classy caring guy. You proposed to your now wife at Macchu Picchu at sunrise. That’s pretty great. And from what I hear, you did it using a Shakespeare quote, which you know she loves. She does love those quotes. We’ve been quoting and misquoting for decades now. Walter got it right. He always gets it right, and that’s why she loves you. Well, one of the reasons.”

  The drunken guests had been made uncomfortable, yet they kept their gazes fixed on me, wondering if it was going to get worse. I looked around the room and spoke from my adrenaline-filled, palpitating heart.

  “Walter, you will learn this about Olivia. She may not always be around, but she’s first on the scene when you need her. She’s always been there. She’ll be there for you. Despite it all. Forever. Or some sort of forever. You know what I’m saying? Olivia, I love you, but I think I’m done. I am done.”

  I put the microphone down, avoiding the eyes that were still focused on me, except for Josh. He met my intense stare, through which I asked him silently to rise from the table and come with me.

  I walked through the reception towards the torches lighting the way down the beach. I hoped Josh followed for many reasons, including not wanting to seem very conspicuously rejected.

  Maybe I needed to be rejected in front of everyone.

  Who cares if the world knows?

  I ducked into the furthest cabana and waited. Immediately out of view, and shortly out of mind, I heard the distant raucous laughter in response to Walter’s opening line.

  If I learned nothing else from the week, it was that the party would always go on.

  The signal was weak on the cell phone, but it existed. I made it through to LaGuardia twice; I could hear him, screaming amongst chaos, speaking loudly into the phone, “I cannot hear you. Text me!”

  Raindrops sporadically hit the canvas roof. It wouldn’t be long until the skies opened up. I lay on the lounge looking up at the ceiling, waiting for a return text from LaGuardia on what to do.

  Josh cautiously entered. His pants were rolled up and he had left his jacket at the table, tie gone from his white shirt. He sat far across the tent from me.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going to bite you.”

  “Huh?” he asked, grabbing for the bottle of champagne on ice. He took a deep breath and almost smiled. “I just wanted to say, I don’t think you want to bite me. It’s just…this is going to be a little awkward isn’t it?”

  I didn’t need that.

  “Save it, Josh. It’s about the poison, that’s all. This is not about you and me.”

  The phone rang, and as I answered, I continued to Josh, “And why did you even come here if you thought I was trying to seduce you?”

  “That’s not it at all. It would be okay if you… no… weddings depress me. They make me shut down,” Josh continued to mumble as I concentrated on trying to give LaGuardia every detail.

  “Hold on!” LaGuardia yelled, moments into our conversation. “Could you not throw any more chairs across the room please?!”

  He let me know in no uncertain terms that there was no way that anyone could make it down to Red Frog Beach at that moment in time. There was a soon-to-be-legendary bar brawl at the Pickled Parrot, drawing all of the policemen that they could find, including the pseudo undercover cop at Mariposa del Mar.

  BPD was dealing with broken bottles, knives, and a drunken British bachelor party gone out of control. “Don’t go back to your hotel. There is no officer there. No one has been watching Becky’s cabin for at least an hour. It’s mayhem down here. Come to the station. Someone will let you in.” At least that’s what I think he said before thunder boomed above us and the call dropped.

  I was trying to fill Josh in on everything to get him ready to protect me while at the same time I tried to convince myself that Max had no idea about my knowledge of her involvement. Max didn’t know that I knew about the poison, it was very unlikely she overheard me, and she was probably giving me her phone out of her version of a genuine gesture of kindness.

  “I don’t know. She’s pretty savvy. Let’s get out of here,” Josh said. The night before, those last words had a different meaning altogether. He stood up and offered me his hand. “I’m still in this until the end”

  I was thankful, but wondered what the end would be? I stared up at Josh, adding him to the list of things that would be out of my life sooner than you could say Red Frog Beach.

  Enjoy yourself, but don’t lick the frogs.

  Clammy hand in clammy hand, we walked back towards the reception. The crowd had thinned out, and most of the older people had left, along with Edgar, his wife, and Max. After all, the party was over, an unforgettable failure.

  Without expression, Olivia had her head on her step-dad’s shoulder, swaying uncomfortably to and fro, watching Walter walk up the hill. The distance to the bathroom was a good five-minute walk. If I knew Olivia, and I did, she was surely wondering what he might actually be off doing.

  Ryan suddenly sprang from the last group of revelers and grabbed me, apologizing to Josh, “Of course you can spare her for one dance before she goes. I’ll have her back to you before you can say lickety-split.”

  Josh was too polite to say no, and Ryan wouldn’t have cared anyway. He pulled me to the center o
f the dance floor, and I closed my eyes for a moment and went with it. I could be the fourth Mrs. Ryan Lawler.

  “You’re kidding about that guy?” he asked.

  “There’s more than meets the eye… I can’t dance Ryan. I still can’t dance.”

  “Sure you can. You’re dancing now.” He whispered in my ear, “I have to tell you. You’ve always been the yardstick by which I measure all women.”

  I could have shot myself down, but I didn’t. I had danced with him in high school, only once, at our senior prom. He’d already danced with all of Olivia’s other friends, so I was last on the checklist.

  We danced a little too close, and he ran his fingers over the bottom of my hair. ‘Lexie,’ he had whispered. ‘What am I going to do without you?’

  At the time it made no sense, and I pulled away from him, leaving the prom crying, sitting on a bench on Commonwealth Avenue until I regained my composure. I had not seen him since.

  “I have to go now. Tomorrow we can do this, Ryan. Tomorrow…”

  He wouldn’t let go of my hands and Olivia was staring at me with dismissive anger. She was lost. But it was a journey she’d have to go on alone.

  Josh and I didn’t look like a passionate couple leaving a party together, but no one else bothered to watch us walk towards the marina anyway. As the rain started in earnest, thunder clapping above us, Josh hit me with a non sequitur. “Did you know twenty-five percent of fatal lightning strikes happen near water?”

  We could have actually been good together.

  Chapter 39: The Buddy System

  The marina was not well lit, but you could make out two water taxis and their drivers debating whether they were going to take their chance in open seas during a thunderstorm. Still holding hands, we walked past the row of yachts rather silently.

  The taxi that brought us to the party was still lit up marking it as available. We were about to be at the finish line when Josh quickly pulled me out of sight.

  “What?” I said, quite audibly.

  Josh whispered, “Max and Walter are in the boat.”

  I really was one of those people who never saw it coming.

  We stood still, trying desperately to hear their voices. There was a lot of talk about what they’d do when they left the island and plans they were making.

  “I’m still not so sure, Walter,” Max’s voice trembled a bit. “I swear when I brought up Colombia, something flashed across her fat face.”

  “Why would you ever bring up Colombia?” Walter snapped.

  “Because it’s irrelevant. Red frogs. From here. They are poison. That’s all.”

  “Stop being so paranoid. This is all fine. I need to get back to the party.”

  “Lexie knows something.”

  “She thinks she knows something,” Walter replied. “The girl’s an idiot. She can think whatever she wants. I’m going.”

  Our best shot was just to nonchalantly walk towards the taxis, hoping to slink away into the night. We offered the driver a hell of a lot of money, even for US standards, to take us immediately to town. Wobbly getting in, I took Josh’s face in my hands and kissed him, in case anyone was wondering about our intentions. He kissed back just enough, but maybe just a moment longer.

  For no one’s benefit at all.

  It was normally a fifteen-minute voyage from Red Frog Beach to Bocas Town, but the water was choppy and visibility was pea soup. I said, “All this rain. I feel stupid. It seems very obvious.”

  As soon as the water taxi reached the dock, we ran towards the safety of the nearby police station. It was a five-minute walk, which turned into a two-minute run, for us to arrive at a closed station.

  “Impossible.” I pulled on the door handles and shook the locked doors. “Could this fight really have called in the whole Bocas police force?”

  “That’s only eight people.”

  “They said someone would be here. And Lloyd has got to be in there….”

  “He’s in a cell. Who knows?” Josh answered. “By Tuesday, Lloyd might be mayor of this town.”

  I tried LaGuardia’s phone as well as the Emergency 104 number that connected simply to a recording in Spanish that I didn’t understand.

  “Let’s get out of the rain,” Josh grabbed my hand and we ran down the main drag. The open-air restaurants were closed or closing. A small group of drunk tourists ran through the rain, singing some German song I’d never heard. There was more laughter and music, but in what direction?

  I ran into the lobby of an originally named over-the-water hotel called Bonita Vista, which meant very simply in Spanish Nice View. It was small, quiet, and comfortable. There was a bored looking woman sitting behind reception, halfway through a dog-eared copy of Cincuenta Sambras de Grey. I think you know what I mean.

  We took a room with ocean views so we could watch for the return of the police boats, hopefully sooner than later. Annoyed that we had interrupted her reading time, the receptionist quickly gave us a key and pointed to the stairway.

  Though the outside of the hotel was quaint and tropical, the inside resembled the typical American McMansion. Deceptively vast, off-white and devoid of any personality.

  We scurried up to our corner room on the second floor, which was well appointed with crisp white sheets and red blankets. Sterile, yet romantic.

  As soon as he locked the door, Josh turned the lights off. “Better to see the incoming boats with the lights off, and for us not to be seen at all.”

  I was shivering, from fear and wet, and I needed to get out of my rain-soaked clothes. I excused myself to the bathroom and stripped down. Looking at my reflection with only my blood red underwear on was laughable. The plush red robe (I couldn’t escape that damn color) was comforting, and after drying my hair, I returned to the room. I made a vow to myself to retire red from my wardrobe until far into the foreseeable future, however well it might suit me.

  Josh was looking out of the French doors and across the balcony. “Good idea,” he said, and walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

  Only the night before, we confidently stood naked in front of each other. Now we were hiding beneath fluffy bathrobes, locking doors.

  My calls to LaGuardia were never going to get through in this weather, and my phone was desperately low on battery life. I went back to the window, watching the odd water taxi docking now and then.

  “Who was that guy anyway?” he asked, not looking at me. “The guy who wanted you to dance.”

  “A very old friend. Maybe a very old boyfriend. My boyfriend before he was, well... Olivia’s boyfriend years ago. She doesn’t know. Don’t tell her.”

  Josh joined me in his bathrobe by the window. I didn’t look at him as I asked, “Do you think that we should take a taxi over to the Pickled Parrot?”

  “I think we’ll be safer here,” he said. “That fight can’t go on all night.”

  “I’m really cold,” I said and went over to the bed, keeping my bathrobe on as I slipped into the sheets.

  Josh pulled a chair over to the window and silently watched the water. “I should be honest with you. What Lloyd told you about me was true. I did write that book. I feel I should come clean at this point.”

  My eyes were heavy, so heavy, and despite the drive to get out of bed and ask him more, I drifted off to sleep.

  A calloused hand, hard over my mouth, slapped me out of my sleep. I came eye to eye with Walter, who was straddling me, pinning my arms to the bed. My kicking legs did nothing.

  He pulled me out of bed, dragging me towards the French doors and maneuvered himself behind me, hand still over my mouth, restraining my arms behind my back. His years in the gym had served him well. The giant ticking clock told me it was 3:30, so his new wife was fast asleep, with that annoying wheezy snore.

  I whipped my head around looking for Josh, who was nowhere to be seen.

  I had been so wrong about him. Fatally wrong.

  Teeth and pencils, I remembered. A friend of mine who taught
self-defense had told me that to buy a few minutes to try to escape a perilous situation, all one needed were pencils and teeth. I refused to stop struggling and sunk my teeth into the palm of his hand, which allowed us both to get a momentary scream out.

  “Knock her out,” I heard from behind me, in the unmistakably posh British accent which belonged to Max.

  He wrapped his arm around my neck in the traditional sleeper hold and though I was able to get one more squeak of a scream out, I felt the extreme pressure on the back of my neck and knew I was passing out.

  Chapter 40: Swimming Lessons, Part 4

  I had a hard time opening my eyes when I came to, but I knew I was on a boat. My lips tasted like salt water. The rain had let up, but I was still drenched, shivering in my waterlogged bathrobe. My wrists and ankles were tied to the table.

  Coming into focus, I saw for sure that Josh was one of the good guys. He was shackled next to me, in complete terror and disbelief.

  Boy, had he picked the wrong girl tonight.

  Marianna would have been plying him with some ginger massage oil she’d picked up in the Bahamas last summer.

  With the hundred plus boat trips I’d made that week, I had a good idea of where we were going - south from Bocas Town into the canal between Isla Solarte and Isla Bastimentos.

  Once you passed the main town of the smaller island, civilization was sparse. The two islands were essentially national parks and purely desolate. The channel was maybe only a kilometer wide at best but was the definition of the middle of nowhere.

  The motor was cut, so we were just bobbing out there in the dark among the currents. Being somewhat protected between the two islands, the waves were not nearly as bad as they might have been. The surfing beaches were probably raging with ten-foot swells.

  This was part revenge, part fun for Max, who looked like she’d been waiting for years to do something like this.