by Dave Daren
The island breeze filtered through the hut from the open door and blew her dark hair. She was Korean, but here, in French Polynesia, she looked like an exotic island woman, all dark hair, dark eyes, and long silky legs glistening with sand and sun.
“Here,” she said.
She climbed on top of my lap, wrapped her legs around me, and stuck a piece of fruit in my mouth.
“Mmm, I like,” I moaned around a juicy bite of fresh coconut.
“Me or the fruit?” Vicki asked in a sultry tone.
“The fruit,” I chuckled. “You’re just a bonus.”
She smacked my arm, and we both laughed and then locked eyes. My heart leapt in my throat. I knew what I had come here to do, and every moment leading up to it felt magical and surreal. Even when we made love, there was something more real and vulnerable about it.
I had never felt like this about anyone, ever.
Later that evening, we laid in bed, with the moonlight coming in through the hut.
“What are we doing here, Henry?” she asked as she traced patterns across my chest with her fingers.
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“Why did you just whisk us off to Tahiti on the fly?” she questioned, and her eyes glinted as she tilted her head up to look at me.
“Jesus, Vic,” I laughed. “I told you on the plane. I have to do some business with Earnie Green. He wants to meet with me about the development with the kombucha plant, and then I thought it would be a good break for both of us.”
“Uh-huh,” she said and narrowed her eyes, “because Earnie Green has never heard of Skype. And nevermind we’ve been here a week and only talked to him once.”
“Vic,” I chuckled, “you were strangling roosters. Come on, just enjoy the break. AJ certainly is.”
“She went to Chicago,” Vicki said, “to kick Stona and Jemma’s asses. What’s not to enjoy?”
I laughed, and she snuggled up next to me with her head leaning against my bare chest.
“See,” I said as I twirled a lock of her hair in my fingers. “Aren’t you glad you don’t have to worry about that with me?”
“Mmm,” she answered softly.
“I’m right here,” I whispered.
“All the time,” she teased, and I laughed.
“All the time,” I echoed.
It was then we heard the music out on the beach, coming in through the hut.
“That’s the beach party,” Vicki said. “Reminds me of the film festival--”
“Oh, God,” I groaned. “Not the film festival. But do you wanna go to the beach party? It might be fun.”
“Sure,” she agreed with a mischievous smile, “as long as you tell me why we’re really here.”
“I’m serious,” I told her with a sigh. “I’m meeting with Earnie next week.”
“Uh-huh,” she muttered, unconvinced. “A work trip? You haven’t touched your laptop since we got here. I even had to remind you to bring it in the first place.”
“Why are you so full of questions?” I asked and tickled her side. “Seriously. And besides, I haven’t been working because I’ve been distracted.”
“Distracted?” She raised an eyebrow. “What ever might distract you, Irving?”
“It’s hard to say,” I mused as I rubbed my chin, “but I’d start with that itty bitty black bikini.”
“What’s wrong with my bikini?” she laughed.
“Nothing,” I said with a straight face. “Absolutely nothing is wrong with that bikini, that’s why it’s currently on the floor.”
She laughed, and we laid in silence for a few minutes and listened to the music.
“Is that a Van Morrison cover band?” she wondered.
“Not bad,” I commented, and then I tapped her bare thigh. “Come on. Let’s go to the party.”
I got up and threw on a t-shirt, beach shorts, and flip flops.
Vicki nixed the itty bitty black bikini for the itty bitty red bikini, which made her look even more exotic. Then she pulled up her hair into a beach bun with a flowered pin we’d bought at a kitschy island shop. But in Vicki’s hair …
God, I was crazy in love.
“Come on,” she teased as she walked out the door. “Let’s go slowpoke.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered and shook my head. “Just give me a second. Let me grab my wallet, I’ll catch up with you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Wallet, huh?”
“Someone’s gotta pay for the frozen drinks,” I snickered.
“Top drawer, bureau,” she said before she left the hut.
As soon as she was gone, I did grab my wallet in the top drawer of the bureau. But I also fished around in the bottom of my suitcase for the hidden compartment. I unzipped it and then pulled out a small black satchel with a drawstring.
When I opened it, I pulled out a black velvet ring box. My great grandmother on my mother’s side had been an honest to God British debutante. She’d gone to the coming out ball and been “presented” to society in front of the Queen. She was the real deal, married an Earl, and been titled as a Lady.
My grandmother was supposed to follow the same path, but got caught up in the cultural revolution of the sixties. This eventually led her to the New York City of John Lennon, Imagine, Studio 69, Andy Warhol, and Jack Keraouc. She married an artist, and they had my mother, who followed the same path, which led her to Sedona and my father.
But, somewhere along the way, Lady Sara, as she was called, mended fences with her wayward now American progeny. I never got the whole story, but I was sure it had a lot to do with the financial realities of following the hippie lifestyle.
By the time I met her, on her occasional visit to the States, she’d lost whatever animosity there might have ever been and was the doting British grandmother. But that woman was … loaded. In her will, she left all of us money for college, and the generous fund even paid my way all through law school. She also left her engagement ring to me or Phoenix, whichever one of us married first.
When I was in L.A., I lived more of the whole David Duchovny Californication mixed with Entourage lifestyle than I would ever admit to my girlfriend or our paralegal. During those years, my family had a running joke that my middle school brother would be the one to marry first and get the ring.
Now, I opened the black velvet box and pulled out the ring. It was a square cut two carat diamond on a white gold band. The insurance policy had it valued at around twenty-four thousand pounds, which more or less worked out to about thirty thousand dollars. I shut the box and put it safely in my pocket.
I knew tonight would be the night.
I couldn’t stand waiting anymore, and since Vicki was clearly on to me, I only had so much time before it turned into a teary mess of disappointment.
I just needed to find the right moment.
I’d spent the last week searching online for proposal ideas. Everything I found was so cliche and contrite, or required way more set up than I knew I could pull off with Vicki on to me. Already, I needed to have my phone browser set on private mode, just in case she snooped through my search history.
I decided the whole five star dinner was too uninspired, and I certainly wasn’t going to bake my grandmother’s ring into a baguette and take it on a picnic lunch. So, I wanted to make it simple, and make it us. I just needed to find the perfect “us” moment sometime tonight.
I left the hut and found Vicki about three yards ahead.
“That was quite a long time to grab a wallet,” she smirked, “especially since I told you where it was.”
“Why all the questions?” I replied with narrowed eyes. “I feel like I’m on trial or something.”
“Maybe you are.” She winked.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she replied with a shrug.
“What’s with you, Vic?” I looked at her quizzically. “Are you on something?”
The smile from her face slowly faded, and she lo
oked away.
“When’s the meeting with Earnie?” she asked, and I could hear her talking around tears in her throat.
Shit. I overplayed my hand.
“Let’s not talk about all that right now,” I said softly.
We reached the party, and then I concluded the Van Morrison cover band did more than just Van Morrison hits. They’d moved on to Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight.
There were about fifty couples gathered on the beach, slow dancing, surrounded by tiki lamps and the beach just in the distance.
I took Vicki’s hand, and she smiled slightly. Then I spun her around, and she laughed.
“You remember when you accused me of shameless plagiarism when I quoted this one at you?” I asked.
She laughed. “Such romance, as we’d been discussing a dead body found in a suitcase at the time.”
“I thought it struck a certain note,” I chuckled.
She laughed, and we slow danced to the bluesy guitar with the South Pacific waves murmuring behind us. I held her close as we listened to the lullaby, and I let the lyrics tell her everything I wanted to say. Unlike apparently the rest of Sedona, I wasn’t much of a writer. I left that to the professionals … and the bloggers. Instead, I whispered the song’s chorus in her ear and let my breath tickle her.
Her eyes brimmed with tears and expectation. Against the backdrop of the black night, the ocean, and flickering tiki lamps, I couldn’t think of a more romantic moment, even if I had been a writer.
This was it. The moment was upon us. A thousand different ways to actually ask the question went through my head. Should I get down on one knee, here on the beach? I spotted some bistro tables in the distance. Should I break the moment, and take her over there?
Finally, I just went for it.
“Vicki,” I whispered as she leaned over my shoulder.
“Mmm,” she murmured.
“I have to ask you something,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” she responded as she lifted her head and met my eyes.
“Yeah,” I said as I discreetly pulled the ring out of my pocket and opened the box.
Then, there on the sand, lit up by firelight, and surrounded by hypnotic love songs, I got down on one knee in front of my girlfriend.
Vicki clasped her hand over her mouth and gasped.
“Will you marry me?” I asked and held out the ring.
Tears of joy freely flowed down her face as she nodded and then blurted out, “Yes, yes!”
My heart nearly leapt from my chest with joy, and a grin of relief spread over my face.
Vicki took the ring, and I rose and watched her put it on her finger.
“Oh my god,” she gasped. “It’s massive!”
“It was my grandmother’s,” I chuckled. “She was a British aristocrat.”
“It’s perfect,” Vicki gushed as she held it up. It fit perfectly.
There was a sudden applause, and the rest of the beach party joined in our celebration.
“Congratulations to the lovebirds,” the band’s frontman announced.
We nodded and smiled at the cheering crowd of onlookers.
“Lock that one down,” some guy yelled and toasted his drink to me.
I laughed and nodded to him as cheers and congratulations came at us from all directions.
“This is for you guys,” the band leader said. Then he played Van Morrison’s These Are The Days. It was the perfect summer love song.
I wrapped my arms around my fianceé, and we slow-danced on the beach, this time with a massive rock on her finger.
“Tell me it will always be like this,” Vicki whispered into my chest.
“It will always be like this,” I promised as I held her close.
And I meant it.
End Book 5
Author’s Notes
Thank you for reading my novel! If you enjoyed it, and you’d like to read another story about Henry in Sedona, please leave a nice review here.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2021 Dave Daren