The Summer of Last Resort

by J. A. Browning

  Shane had to drive naked, so I sat close and covered him as best as I could. I was way too nervous to drive. We got some strange looks from some people who ended up pulling up next to us. There was this one old lady who was in the right lane, next to me, and she looked over and saw him naked, and me holding him, and then she gave me the slyest wink! I eventually had him stop and I took the old blanket out of the trunk and put it over him.

  Sketch of me by Maria. Naughty girl!

  Keith and Maria hooked up and took off in his car. He must have discovered, finally, that there are other forms of beauty than what is in the magazines. I think it helped that she could ride him like a cowgirl, too. I was glad for her, and I knew that I would still think about Keith and the time we spent together, and even fantasize about his body, but my heart would be with Shane.

  Even though my life was now upside down, I wouldn’t trade anything for a minute of that time I sat beside Shane as we sped off together, his hand holding mine under the blanket. Somehow I knew that this is just how it has to be, that it has been this way for thousands of years. We didn’t know where we were going, or how we were going to make it. We just knew that we were going to make it together.

  SANDY’S EPILOGUE

  It was still night when the long, dark speedboat began to move purposely towards Belize. The boat raced through the gently rolling tropical swell, and Sandy could see the faint glow of phosphorescence in the wake behind the boat. The dark woman was however intent on the gauges of the vessel, making sure that there was enough fuel and staying on course. Soon a faint glow appeared in the eastern sky, and then, off in the distance, Sandy began to notice a white spot on the horizon slowly grow into a white deepwater sports fishing boat. Soon the two boats were upon each other in the pre-dawn light and the dark woman shut down and went forward to prepare a towline.

  As the sportfisher swung by, a black man in a baseball cap chopped the throttles and coasted next to them. “Hey lovely lady!” he yelled as “Jane” stood on the bow with the towline. “Hey, handsome fella!” she yelled back, tossing him the line.

  He caught it and pulled the speedboat closer, but not so close that the two boats would crash together in the gently rolling tropical seas.

  “Have you got that gear I asked for?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Well, Sandy, I hope you know how to scuba dive.”

  “What!? In Santa Fe?”

  “Well, I guess you’ll either drown or learn in a hurry. You

  CAN, swim, right?”

  “Of course I can swim.”

  “Then you’ll be OK.”

  The dark woman began methodically going over each compartment of the boat. When she came to the satphone, she punched some buttons on it and then, frowning, she tossed it over the side.

  “What the hell?”

  “That's definitely traceable. Someone's been trying to call. Look, we can’t come into the country on this boat. It’s way too hot.” She turned and yelled, “Hey, Pierre, we’re gonna swim over,” and then without any warning jumped into the water and was quickly on the swim step on the big white sportsfisher. Sandy followed, and then Pierre motored slowly, with the speedboat in tow while the dark woman gave Sandy a crash course in scuba.

  Like most tropical coastlines, the coast of Belize is protected by offshore reefs, many of which have excellent fishing and diving. Soon they could see a few distant lights of the settlement on Northeast Cay, and then, to the north, a dive boat which had arrived with its load of tourists and anchored at one of the many dive sites on the reef. Pierre climbed the flybridge, throttled back and motioned for them to get their gear on and sit on the swim step. He motored slowly towards the large dive boat, and then waited for the skipper to frantically wave him away from his customers down under the sea. Pierre turned back and nodded at the girls who dropped off into the water. The dark woman pulled Sandy down quickly, not waiting for her to acclimatize, just in time to avoid the razor-sharp tip of the Donzi’s propellers as it glided menacingly over them.

  Sandy panicked for a moment, but then the dark skinned woman held her and looked into her eyes, asking her to trust her the way she had done when their men had taken them together on that crazy night. Slowly, Sandy’s breathing became regular and the dark woman watched gratefully as bubbles streamed in a regular pattern from Sandy’s regulator.

  They swam down, together, in the direction of the dive party and soon were following a group of about two dozen people around the dive leader.

  When the group surfaced, Sandy and the dark woman slipped in with them. When they were challenged the dark woman simply said that they’d gotten separated from their group from a different boat and thought that this was their group. It caused some consternation among the crew, but as long as they had all their original party, they didn’t really care, and besides, these two women weren’t exactly hard on the eyes. The crew even gave them t-shirts, seeing as they wouldn’t have had anything of their own on board. A few of the older men seemed to be not particularly surprised to see the dark woman.

  Sandy listened idly to the dive tourists chatter about all that they’d seen, and realized how tired she was, but there were some very energetic German tourists who wanted to hear all about their adventure, and Sandy had to think on her feet to make up a simple, but believable, story.

  She'd called Jake that night on the yacht, hoping that he would be her night in shining armor, but here she was, rescued by someone she barely knew, yet couldn't have been more intimate with. Sandy thought about Jake, about how she promised herself to make love to him as soon as she saw him, about how he was a good man, the kind of man who cared for her. But in the dark recesses of her soul she knew that there would be a fire still burning for those young, strong men, the wild men, the men who know no bounds, who take all of a woman and hold nothing back.

  “Come mit us,” one of the German women motioned as the boat pulled into the dock. “I know this place where the rum is, well, ausgezeighnet, as we say.” She took Sandy by the arm and the whole group of singing, chanting, slightly drunken Germans wandered down some back alleys and stumbled into a little hole in the wall dive. “Mein freund here,” the German woman began, turning to the bartender, “has had quite an adventure.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Sandy said, “I’m Sandy.”

  “Zach's the name, and fishin's the game,” the bartender replied jovially.

  “And this is my friend,...” Sandy started, but then looked around for the dark woman, but she was no longer at her side. Must have gone to the bathroom, Sandy

  thought to herself.

  “Your friend?”

  “Yes,” Sandy said hesitatingly.

  The bartender made a dismissive wave of the hand. “She’ll be back!” he chuckled. Food and drink was quickly produced and Sandy ate ravenously, but the Coronas quickly went to her head and she found herself getting dizzier and dizzier. Sandy excused herself and went off to find the dark woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. Panic gripped her stomach and suddenly she felt a wave of nausea that was unsurmountable, and she puked in some bushes. Where had the dark woman gone to? Had this all been another lie? Darkness was falling quickly as it does in the tropics and then somehow she found herself being carried along by a somewhat inebriated older German woman and her husband. What they were saying made no sense, and then she passed out.

  Sandy awoke to the sound of someone wretching and the stench of old vomit and alcohol. Her head ached, again, and her heart sank as she watched an old woman puking on the tiled floor of the drunk tank which she now realized was her new home. Another panic struck her and her stomach cramped violently, but there was nothing to produce except sticky mucus as she retched again. She laid herself back down onto the cool floor and closed her eyes and pictured her little apartment in Santa Fe, her parents smiling faces, and then Jake's, and wondered if she'd ever see them again. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it and waited paitently for the panic to flow over her and past h
er, and when she was calmed she simply waited for something to happen. She had given up stories and lies, whatever lay ahead would just simply have to be.

  “Do you know where you are?” her jailer asked her as he unlocked the cell and led her out to a desk covered with several large stacks of carbon copy forms.

  “Belize?” Sandy guessed hesitatingly.

  “Wow, that is some talent you have, woman,” the man joked as he began filling out forms. He explained to her that she had been drunk and disorderly, and they'd put her on a boat and

  driven her over from the Cays a day ago.

  “No one here for you?” the officer asked hopefully.

  Sandy held her head down and silently shook her head.

  “Darling, shame on you for teasing the man!” Sandy heard a man say, an American. It sounded strangely familiar.

  “Look, you've forgotten your medicine again!” the voice continued. “See, she has to take this pree-scription,” the man said in an exaggerated Southern drawl. “Otherwise

  she gets all funny in the head, you know? Sick-like.”

  “Well, she sure was sick, mon,” the officer concurred.

  “Really sick? Ya mean, like pukin' and all?”

  “Reelly sick.”

  “Well, if that don't beat all! Honey? Ya know what that means? We're gonna have us some little un's!” the man was insufferable. Who was that jackass? The jackass lifted Sandy's chin and her eyes cleared and it was Jake, with a smile and a wink, carrying on like some overstuffed Texan.

  “I shore am grateful to you fellers for lookin' after the missus and all,” Jake went on, taking Sandy in one hand and the carbon forms in the other. “I'll get these forms filled out and right back to you, mister! Boy honey, you shore are a sight for sore eyes!”

  “So are you, mister” Sandy agreed, caressing his strong jaw.

  After Jake had bluffed his way out of the police station in Belize City he carfully bundled Sandy into a waiting rental car and they drove off quickly, away from the city. He had thoughtfully picked up a hat and some clothes for her, which she gingerly slipped into as he drove. The road wound back and forth through the jungle and the heat began to build as the day wore on.

  “Jesus, Sandy, you look like shit!”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  Jake gave her a couple Ginger Ales to drink.

  “Jake, I...”

  “Wait - Sandy, you don't have to say anything,” Jake interrupted. “All that matters is that you're OK”

  “I always knew that you'd rescue me,” Sandy said, smiling at him and caressing his face. Jake blushed and then smiled back at her. “Just get me far away from this city.”

  “Where are we going?” Sandy inquired.

  “Um... here,” Jake replied, as a sign pointed towards the ruins at Altun Ha. Jake took the exit and followed the road for a few miles to the parking lot at the end, and wedged the rental car precariously between two tour buses.

  Jake and Sandy got out of the car and slipped in at the back of a tour group going into the site. It was a short trek and then they were on a fine greeen sward, surrounded by ancient temples. Tourists clustered in little knots here and there. Sandy's hand slid down over Jake's and held it tightly as they walked among the ruins.

  “I lost her, Jake,” Sandy confessed.

  “Who?”

  “The dark woman,” Sandy replied. “She called herself Jane.”

  “We'll find her.”

  Sandy stopped and turned to Jake. “I don't think we should.”

  “What? You sure you're OK?”

  “Look, Jake. This thing is a lot bigger than us. It's deep. And it doesn't make a lot of sense.”

  “She probably killed Johnny Dimarino,” Jake noted.

  “I'm not suprised. But she saved my life, Jake. I think she saved those kids, too.”

  “Okay. You know, after Johnny's death, the title for the house mysteriously transferred to an offshore company down here. That was suspicious. And the Shane kid's diary corroborates that the woman was actually running Maximo, and probably a lot of the syndicate that Johnny was supposed to be running.”

  Sandy nodded in agreement. She looked over his shoulder and saw among the group a handsome-looking young couple holding hands and dawdling behind the main group. She watched the girl tease her young man, and then he pulled her aside and kissed her passionately, thinking that no one was looking. Sandy blushed a little and turned away and nudged Jake to move on.

  Jake and Sandy drove off, back towards the sea, but keeping well away from the city. They stopped along the way for some food and Sandy was able to keep it down.

  But she wouldn't let go of Jake's hand. The night was quickly upon them as they finally found a little place with a couple rooms by the sea, but no air conditioning. That night they ran out to the beach in the darkness and Sandy took off her clothes and plunged headlong into the water, and Jake followed. Above them the tropical stars glittered, the palm trees rustled gently in the breeze, and Sandy felt the cool salt water caressing her sore body and washing away the dirt and grime of her ordeal. They swam down the length of the beach and then emerged at a little spit of land which led to a small tropical grove. A half-moon reflected on the sparking, tranquil ocean as Sandy took off the last remaining items of clothes and stood naked in the moonlight before Jake. That night she gave herself to him fully and completely, as she had never done for any man before, not Keith, not even the boys on that mysterious island, and in losing herself within him she found a new beginning.

  Wordsworth’s Ode to Intimations of immortality from

  Recollections of Early Childhood

  Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

  And let the young Lambs bound

  As to the tabor’s sound!

  We in thought will join your throng,

  Ye that pipe and ye that play,

  Ye that through your hearts to-day

  Feel the gladness of the May!

  What though the radiance which was once so bright

  Be now for ever taken from my sight,

  Though nothing can bring back the hour

  Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

  We will grieve not, rather find

  Strength in what remains behind;

  In the primal sympathy

  Which having been must ever be;

  In the soothing thoughts that spring

  Out of human suffering;

  In the faith that looks through death,

  In years that bring the philosophic mind.