Almost Paradise
Page 13
* * *
Two days later, the Sea Spirit II lay in the sand, awaiting its first voyage, its twin outriggers lashed tightly to either side of the bulky hull, (which Meredith said looked like a “big, nasty cigar,”) and two bamboo oars at the ready. She was an unlikely-looking vessel, and no one, including her designer, would have vouched for her sea-worthiness. Still, she deserved a chance, and the two mighty sailing men, known locally as “The Skipper” and “The Professor” were getting ready to launch her when Robin came running down the beach, waving something over her head. “Wait!” she cried. “You can’t go on a maiden voyage without this!” She was out of breath when she handed Jack the small oar marked Sea Spirit.
Jack smiled he took the small oar from her. “I forgot.”
Robin flushed. “Uh, there’s this, too,” she murmured, slipping something from behind her back. “I thought you could attach it somewhere.” She handed him the small section of wood from the original Sea Spirit’s lost skiff. Only the Spirit remained on the piece of hardwood planking that Jack had used so efficiently as a paddle, their first night on the island.
“You sure you can part with this?” he asked solemnly.
“Well, I was hoping we wouldn’t need it, any longer,” she murmured. “Besides, you’ve found a lot of other things to use … for the same purpose. Maybe this will bring you good luck.” She paused for a moment. “It did me.”
“Why is everyone behaving as though this were the Titanic?” Andrew laughed. “We’re simply going fishing, as we men of the sea have done for generations. We’ll be back in no longer than three or four hours.”
Emma slipped her hand in his. “I’m not that crazy about fish, you know. Why don’t you just stay, and we’ll keep eating seaweed and coconuts? We won’t starve.”
“The hell we won’t!” cried Meredith. “Would you just let them go? The sooner they go, the sooner they’ll get back—with food, maybe!”
Andrew nodded. “That’s very wise advice, Meredith. I think you’re showing definite promise.” And then, he leaned down and kissed Emma, hard.
Jack looked at Robin and winked. Meredith rolled her eyes, thinking there was no accounting for taste.
They all helped to push the Sea Spirit II the last few feet into the shallows, and then, the three women stood in the knee deep water and watched as Jack and Andrew pushed the boat as far out as they could before they pulling themselves into the hull, and paddling as hard as they could toward the line of breaking surf.
As the women watched nervously from the beach, the boat struggled up the side of an enormous wave, poised for one dizzying second on the wave’s swollen crest, then rocketed down the other side—exactly as it had been designed to do. The three women cheered with joy and relief, jumped up and down in the waves, and threw water at one another. The Sea Sprit II was at sea!
For a long while, they could see the boat, riding the waves beyond the reef. The fishermen had carried with them bamboo rods strung with fishing line from the footlocker in the Orchid Princess’s lifeboat. The lines were baited with bits of the unlucky rat they had caught yesterday. In addition, they carried several spears, and the small net, fitted to a bamboo pole.
“If we can’t catch a damned fish with all this crap,” Jack sighed. “I’m turning in my Skipper’s bars.”
Two hours after the launch, the boat was so far out that it was nothing but a tiny black dot on the horizon.
“Why don’t they just catch some of these damned local fish?” Robin wailed, her fear mounting.
Emma was biting her nails, and shading eyes against the sun. “If they don’t get back pretty soon, it’ll be getting dark. Oh, God! Why did we ever start this?”
Meredith stuck her toes deep in the warm sand, and yawned. “I told you so.”
Robin and Emma fell upon her at the same moment, shoving Meredith face down in the sand, and holding her there long enough to scrub sand in her hair, and in her mouth.
The sun began to sink below the horizon, but there was still no sign of the returning Sea Spirit II. Emma stood on the tallest rock she could find along the beach, and looked seaward until the stars came out. The Sea Spirit II had simply vanished.
* * *
They built a giant bonfire, and stayed all night on the beach, jumping up at the sight of every whitecap that gleamed for a brief moment in the moonlight, only to disappear, again. Meredith slept fitfully, but Emma and Robin were awake all night, and at dawn, they swam out as far as they could, to crawl onto the rocks along the reef, hoping for a better view. It was a mild, clear day, and beyond the reef, the ocean was calm, and deeply green. They could see for miles, and they saw nothing at all.
Neither of them wanted to be the first to cry, or to panic, or worst of all, to give up hope. Jack and Andrew had taken plenty of water with them. And some food. The sea was calm. There was time. Even if they had drifted too far out to sea, there was still time. The wind could change, and bring them safely back. All they had to do was wait.
The sun beat mercilessly on the beach, and on the sea, and before midmorning, the three women had to rig a lean-to of bamboo branches to prevent sunstroke. Out on the water, with its endless glare, the men would have no shade at all. It was meant to be, as the “Gilligan” song went, a “three hour tour.”
During the night, Robin had clenched her fists so tightly that her ragged nails cut into her palms and made them bleed, and Emma had slipped into a state of numbness, where she had stopped talking, at all. And then, Meredith glanced seaward, and said she saw something. She had said the same thing at least twenty times since dawn, and for several minutes, neither Robin nor Emma listened to her. Then, wearily, Robin stood up to look in the direction Meredith was pointing. She sank to the beach, weeping.
Emma leaped up, and shook her arm. “Robin, what…?”
“It’s a ship,” Robin sobbed. “Now! When it’s too late! When Jack and Andrew are… Now, a goddamned ship shows up. The three of us are about to be rescued, damn it!”
Emma looked seaward, her eyes bleary with wind and lack of sleep. A long white cruise ship was floating like a mirage, just beyond the reef. And on its deck, she could see several men, swarming to drop a small launch into the water. The long awaited rescue was happening—too late.
* * *
Emma and Robin had stopped crying by the time the launch fought its way through the surf, and then wallowed in the shallows for a few moments, while the men on board prepared to come ashore. The two friends were holding hands, quietly, and Meredith was standing behind them, sobbing softly. The three women walked forward to meet their rescuers. Once aboard, they would beg the cruise ship’s captain to undertake a search, to call the Coast Guard, to do whatever could be done to find a tiny, hand-made boat on a vast ocean, but now, they all knew that it was important to remain calm. The searchers would need details, and descriptions, and–
Robin was the first to spot Andrew, wading ashore with the uniformed crew, and behind him, Jack, waving frantically as he slipped and fell into the water, got up with a grin, and waved again. Emma saw them a moment later, and dropped to her knees in the sand, weeping hysterically.
Only Meredith remained calm—calm enough to remember to push her gorgeous cloud of blonde hair away from her face. There were six burly sailors reaching out to help her onto the launch, and in the distance, still aboard the ship, she could make out at least a dozen more, all of them waving cheerfully and calling something—in what sounded to her like Greek—or maybe Portuguese? Whatever.
THE END
April Hill
April Hill is a best-selling author of women’s romance, known for her wry humor, sensitive character development and of course, the love.
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