She sat down, pulled the robe over her knees, and hugged them. Liz dropped the towel onto the deck and nestled the ginger ale against the cushion. “You’ve had more sun than you think. Cover every inch. If you have to toss, aim that way.” Under the jib, deep green water laced with foam sluiced by. “You’ll be less queasy if you focus on something far away that’s not going up and down.” He squinted toward Nevis. “Try Jack’s, that house sitting all by itself in the big patch of green.”
She gazed at the house, intrigued to see it from this vantage point, and imagined its view of the expanse of sea and Iguana, a tiny copper arrow of sail crossing The Narrows.
Footsteps near her head and the anchor chain’s rattle woke her. When she opened her eyes, she was looking into the crown of a baseball cap, its grommets like tiny portholes, which she assumed Liz had placed over her face. She sat up. Her folded clothing was next to her. Jason stood on the foredeck coiling a line, his elbow a jerking wing. He wedged the coil between the halyard and the mast. Iguana rode at anchor in deep water off the Resort.
The nausea lingered, a tension in the back of her throat. She stood up unsteadily, swished tepid ginger ale in her mouth, and spat it over the side.
“Sea sick is the worst kinda sickness,” Jason said. He pronounced it “wust.” His voice was deep; his Jamaican accent strong. “You feelin’ bettah?”
“I can’t wait to get off this tub,” she said.
His sunglasses hid all expression. “May you wish be granted soon,” he said, and went sure-footedly to the cockpit.
When she passed through the saloon to change into her clothes, Salustrio was bellowing into the ship-to-shore about a deal. He muffled the radio against his shoulder. “Cap’ll take you ashore,” he said. “I’ve got a situation here.”
Liz stood with his legs apart, working the tiller behind his back. He steered the dinghy slowly, producing only a ripple of wake, and still Els gripped the gunwales and had to manage her breathing. She stared at a scar that zigzagged through the golden hair of Liz’s left calf.
“Something went sour between you and Mr. S,” he said.
“Your captain radar working overtime again?” she said.
“Servants are wallpaper with ears,” he said. “I want Iguana’s guests to enjoy themselves.”
“Meaning him or me?”
“Shouldn’t be mutually exclusive,” he said. “Most people use what they have to get what they want.”
“What, you think like he does, that I would try to fuck my way into a job?” She turned around on the thwart so she was faced forward and stared at the slowly approaching wharf.
In her first summer at Standard Hebrides Bank, Coxe had insisted she go for burgers with him and some of the other new recruits—younger men, eager ass-kissers all. After paying the tab, he’d asked her to stay behind to discuss something important, to the unvarnished envy of her colleagues. Saying the topic was sensitive enough to require confidentiality, he led her into an empty function room. When he grabbed her breasts, pinned her against the closed door, and stuck his tongue into her mouth, she’d stomped on his instep with her spike heel and fled the restaurant. She’d agonized all weekend about facing the repulsive wanker on Monday, but he’d been unfazed, even jaunty, apart from a slight limp he faked occasionally ever since, always drawing chuckles from the guys. Every time, she seethed about the story he’d surely concocted and the impossibility of a rebuttal.
Salustrio’s arrogance clung to her like a petrol stench. Her chosen career was a testosterone obstacle course, and the prize had begun to seem a meager reward for the relentless rigors of the race.
Liz snugged the dinghy against the wharf and tossed her tote onto the planks. She ignored his hand and sprang up as if out of a pool.
“There’s a dare on the table,” he said. “Have the guts to venture underwater.”
“Pigs will fly first.”
He revved the engine; blue smoke curled around his waist. “Then how about this one,” he said. “Try going a whole hour without saying something bitchy.” He sat on the dinghy’s gunwale and sped back toward Iguana.
CHAPTER 3
Els rounded the planter of ferns and philodendron at the entrance to the dining room and saw, too late, the Salustrio family clustered at the maître d’s podium. Challenge with a hint of apprehension flickered in Salustrio’s eyes before he looked away.
Marlena waved her freshly manicured nails. “Paul said you had a lovely sail.”
“He would,” Els said, and strode out the side door and onto the spongy grass. From the safety of the dark garden, she looked through the French doors to see Marlena finger-wagging at Salustrio, whose shoulders, hands, and eyebrows were all busy shrugging.
Els strode to the beach and, sandals dangling from her fingers, dawdled along the line of chaises. She sat on the last one, out of reach of the lights from Sunshine’s, the beach bar just beyond the Resort’s boundary. Patrons stacked the bar three-deep and filled the picnic tables on the sand. Conversation and laughter mingled with Jimmy Cliff singing “You Can Get It If You Really Want.” In her strappy dress, she felt all dolled up compared to Sunshine’s T-shirted patrons. Though accustomed to eating alone all over the world, she couldn’t brave this boisterous crowd tonight.
Someone near the water picked up the song’s chorus—Liz, playing air guitar and singing in a tuneful falsetto. Behind him, Jason glided along in an erect, loose-hipped stride, sunglasses in place.
Liz saw her and angled toward her chaise. “What an unexpected pleasure, Ms. Gordon,” he said. “Or is it Lady Eleanor?”
“Either beats bitch,” she said.
“It’s a fine line we rental captains walk,” he said. “On the one hand, I take your shit, bite my tongue. On the other, I save you from drowning—you’re welcome, by the way—and worry I might have to save you from Mr. S, who happens to be bankrolling my whole week.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said.
“Then why are you sitting here all alone? Is a crowded bar as scary as the deep, dark sea?”
“Both are full of predators,” she said.
He looked into the throng. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“We live in different food chains.”
Jason, who’d been hanging back near the water, walked up. “Got to eat, mon.”
Liz nodded. “Let us buy you dinner, Lady Eleanor.”
“Els,” she said. “Why should I want any more of your company?”
“Do you always make it so hard for a guy to apologize?” he said. “My parting shot was over the line.”
“Did I miss the ‘I’m sorry’?”
“You did,” he said, and grinned. “I was provoked.” He held out his hand. “We’ll protect you from the denizens of Sunshine’s.” When she didn’t move, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. In the floodlights, his eyes were clear blue, unguarded. “Recovered your land legs yet?”
“I’ve been in a state all afternoon,” she said. “Antsy and disoriented.”
“Gotta let that attack wear off,” he said. “Time for a Killer Bee. Captain’s orders.”
“No bossing,” she said.
He released her hand. “On shore, we’re equal.”
She gave him a quick once-over. “Prove you believe that.”
Led by Jason, they snaked through the restaurant to a picnic table occupied by three men in windjammer logo shirts. Liz shouted a drink order to a waiter who was maneuvering among the tables holding aloft paper plates that buckled under their cargo of food. Els sat at one end of the bench, Jason sat opposite her, and Liz perched on a palm stump at the end of the table. “Els,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows, “this is Jimmy, Craig, and Spot, seamen of the Wind Spirit and reprobates all.” Jimmy and Craig were ruddy preppies, but Spot’s dark skin was splotched with pink, giving him a piebald appearance and making his nickname as apt as it was cruel.
The waiter set down bottles of Carib and a plastic cup. “Kill
a Bee fuh the lady,” he said. “Watch out fuh de sting.”
She lifted the cup and looked at Liz.
“Secret recipe,” he said. “Heavily guarded.”
“Zombie material—every kind of rum in the bar, with a splash of fruit juice?” she asked.
“Close enough.” Liz banged his bottle on the table. “A toast,” he called. The hum dropped a notch and patrons turned to stare. “To Lady Eleanor, who needs a little festivity on her birthday.” He touched his bottle to her cup. “Riffraff such as we will do our humble best.” The sailors and patrons toasted her.
She raised her cup. “Sláinte.”
“Slan what?” Liz asked.
“Any rental captain worth his salt should know every toast in the world,” she said.
“It’s Gaelic,” Craig said.
“Lou wai,” Liz said.
“I got that one often enough in Hong Kong,” she said, “until they learned I could keep up.”
“Mebbe you hold you rum better dan champagne,” Jason said.
“Maybe I’m better on land than on a careening boat,” she said.
Jason looked toward the bar.
Els tasted the rum punch, its fresh nutmeg a pungent sawdust on her tongue. The restaurant’s buzz resumed.
“What tales this time, lads?” Liz said.
“A Belgian scores some mega weed in Montego Bay,” said Craig. “Thinks he’s Spider Man and scrambles up the main rats, then gets the heebie-jeebies and grabs on like glue. Spot goes after him and the bastard freaks out.”
“Imagine that face in the masthead nav,” Liz said. “I’d be scared too.”
“I had to go up there and talk the sumbitch down,” Jimmy said.
“Been up to me, I’d have heaved him from the yard,” Liz said.
Els tuned out and looked around. The bar was constructed of scrap wood and lattice painted in the colors of the Nevis flag fluttering from a nearby palm. Flags and pennants of countries, states, schools, football teams, and rums hung from the rafters. The speakers pumped Bob Marley. The Killer Bee went down as easily as pineapple juice.
The sailors excused themselves and regrouped at the bar. Jason exchanged a glance with Liz and followed them. He stopped their waiter, pulled out a roll of cash, and peeled off bills. As he moved through the crowd, people detached themselves from their companions to have a whispered word with him and shake his hand.
“Doesn’t Jason worry about carrying around so much money?” Els asked.
“He lives in sort of a cash economy,” Liz said. “And he can take care of himself.” He moved to Jason’s spot opposite her and held up his empty beer bottle to summon the waiter. When he came over, Liz asked for the menu.
“Mahi-mahi come in today, chicken, ribs, lobster,” the waiter said, and looked at Els, who lifted her cup. He raised his eyebrows.
“The lobster here’s the best on the island,” Liz said.
“Go ahead, rub it in,” she said, and ordered chicken.
By the time their food arrived, Liz had explained how Iguana split her year between the Caribbean and the Mediterranean and Els had admitted that her work took her all over the world, but never to the Caribbean. She’d also downed her second Killer Bee, switched to beer, and was famished.
Liz dug into his grilled lobster tail, prying the meat out with his fingers, while Els struggled to separate her chicken leg and thigh with her plastic knife.
“Forget your fancy manners, Lady Eleanor,” Liz said. He tilted his head. “What kind of royalty are you, anyway?”
“Salustrio calls me Lady only to bait me,” she said. “My father’s a legitimate Sir. He was knighted for being a power in UK finance.” She picked up her chicken leg, and soon her hands were bronzed with barbecue sauce. “I’m just a lass from the Highlands—at least, I was until I was exiled to a nun’s school in Edinburgh.”
“They teach you to swear?”
She smiled. “Nah, that was the evil influence of schools in London and Cambridge—Massachusetts, that is—and investment banking, first in New York and now back in London.”
“You’ve lived around,” he said. “No wonder you don’t sound like our usual Brits.”
“I’m a Scot, not a Brit.”
“What’s the difference, once you peel away the skirts and bagpipes?”
“Centuries of history,” she said. “What stripe of Yank are you?”
“I come from Iguana.” He drained his beer. His rumpled shirt, a cornflower-blue linen, was missing its top button. When he leaned forward on his elbows, a blue bead on a leather thong dangled from the opening.
“Dropped on board by the stork?”
“Other boats before that,” he said. “Do you have family?”
“A father I adore.”
“That’s all?”
“I was raised by a nanny, a widow who moved in when I was two. She and Father have been shacked up for decades. She tried to mother me, but I wouldn’t let her. She has . . . had . . . a son of her own.”
“Your mom’s dead.”
“Might as well be.” She tidied the mound of rice and pigeon peas on her plate. “Let’s not get into that.”
He cocked that scarred eyebrow, took her beer, and drank from it. The gesture felt challenging, intimate, playful.
She reached for the bottle even though she didn’t want it back. “Get your own beer.”
“You’ve had enough.”
“Says who?”
When she pushed her unfinished dinner aside, a dog padded over, her tail waving figure eights, and Els cupped her chin. “Yir master wouldn’t approve of me feeding ye from the table.”
“She might starve without table scraps,” Liz said. He pulled Els’s remaining chicken off the bones and held a piece out to the dog, who took it delicately and slunk under a nearby table to eat it. “We’re overrun with feral dogs,” he said, “but Trixie’s smart enough to hang out here and hit up the softie tourists.”
“And the softie sailors,” she said. “You’re only encouraging bad behavior.”
“Begging’s a tough way to make a living,” he said. He piled the bones onto his lobster shell and set Els’s plate on the sand. Trixie finished the food and licked the paper plate until she had chased it out of the bar. Liz turned back to Els. “Do you like what you do?”
“Why do you care?”
His eyes darkened as they had on the yacht when she was snappish. She’d discovered his tell; she wondered what it signified. Hurt, reined-in anger? Maybe both.
“I only ask a question if I want to know the answer,” he said.
The tables were emptying. A couple walked tipsily into the darkness, their arms draped around each other’s waists, their hips bumping.
“I’m a scrapper,” she said. “M&A is one scrap after another. Competition on the outside, colleagues itching to savage you on the inside. Addictive, in its own weird way.” She ran her plastic knife blade in and out between the tines of her fork. “I crave some of what it gets me.”
“The money,” he said.
She shook her head. Work had become a place to hide, a reason to drag herself out of bed in the morning, a way to fill the days, the nights. “Belonging,” she said. “The A-team. Work I’m good at. Respect, if grudging, from both sides of the table.” A man at the bar started to sing loudly and off-key to a gaggle of laughing women. “The money is just a way to keep score,” she said. “Everything is about keeping score.”
When the last notes of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” faded out, she heard the surf fizzing onto the sand.
“Why the surprising nickname?” she asked.
“Why do you care?”
Touché, she thought. “Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a macho guy choosing a flimsy name?”
“Nicknames choose you,” he said. He gazed out at the boats. “I once had a pet green iguana named Curly.” The music shifted to Linda Ronstadt’s “Desperado.” He mouthed a line of the lyrics.
“One of my favorite song
s,” she said.
“That voice’ll stab your heart,” he said. He listened for another line. “Curly and I spent a lot of time in bars. I’d challenge tourist guys to a game of darts, and, since I always won, they’d have to either kiss Curly or buy everyone a round of drinks.”
“Did you challenge women?”
“Sure, but they had to kiss me. After Curly bit a guy, I left her on board. By then, people were calling me Lizard Man. When Jason and I took over Iguana—that was already her name—well, Liz just stuck.”
“I thought iguanas were afraid of people.”
“I got her as a hatchling and spent a lot of time with her.”
“A lizard charmer,” she said. Patient, gentle, constant, she thought. “Was she lurking with the grog while we were sailing?”
“Someone stole her.”
“Desperado” ended; James Taylor’s “Mexico” followed. Liz tapped the rhythm on his thigh. When the waiter signaled toward their empty bottles, he shook his head. “Got big plans for the rest of your time here?”
Getting that elusive grip, she thought, but she said, “Exploring.”
“We’re off at dawn for English Harbour, or I’d dare you to try sailing again.”
“You couldn’t get me back on that boat of yours, even on a dare.”
“Your loss,” he said. He rose and extended his hand.
She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
“Not the first or last Killer Bee casualty.” He helped her up and slipped his arm through hers. He smelled of beer, soap, and salt. He navigated her to the water’s edge, where a bright lap of foam gleaming in the Resort’s lights guided them back to the wharf.
“Did you make your birthday wish?” he said.
“If wishes were horses . . . .”
“Never miss a chance to wish.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, pretending. Over her few childhood birthday cakes, she’d wished her mother would come home, and when it hadn’t worked, she’d stopped making birthday wishes. Now, with all her plans upended, even if her current fog dissipated, she didn’t know what future to wish for.
The Moon Always Rising Page 3