Adrift on St. John (20 page)

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Skimming along the well-traveled channel between St. John and Tortola, the boat didn’t take long to reach Mary’s outer tip. As the vessel circled the heavily forested bulge of land, the sun made its first full glowing appearance, its blinding ball playing hide-and-seek among the mounded humps of the eastern BVIs.

The captain cut the engine to a purr as they neared the first snorkeling site. The area known as Waterlemon Cay was popular for its own happy band of turtles, a colony of starfish sucking on the ocean floor, and the occasional deer swimming across the bay on a watery shortcut to the opposite side.

The women pulled their bleach-lightened hair back into ponytails and stripped down to their suits, preparing for their swim. Meanwhile, the husbands leaned over the side, puffing on cigars as they searched the water for fish.

One of the wives stood up and took a seat on the bench next to Rick.

“Oh boy,” Jeff muttered to himself as the woman placed a manicured, heavily bejeweled hand on Rick’s knee and smiled seductively.

Grunting an interruption, Jeff stepped across the deck and handed the woman a snorkel mask.

A few minutes later, the wives climbed down the boat’s ladder and into the water. Jeff watched them float away from the vessel, internally contemplating the chances that one of the long narrow barracudas trailing beneath the boat’s shadow might take an interest in the sparkling diamonds weighing down the women’s fingers.

From behind his left ear, Jeff heard one of the husbands call out to the captain’s tower.

“Hey, Cap—ya’ got any music?”

Jeff felt his shoulders stiffen with resistance. Oh no, please don’t, he pleaded inside his head.

The boat was equipped with a large collection of CDs as well as an MP3 player packed with a wide variety of tunes, but the tourists only ever wanted to hear one album.

“How ’bout that Kenny guy? Doesn’t he have a house down here?”

Jeff cringed as he heard the captain push the button on the CD player. The disc that—in the eighteen months he had been working for the dive shop—had never once been ejected from its slot began spinning its music. Out of the boat’s speakers came the opening strum of a guitar and the soft sound of lapping waves.

There was nothing wrong with the tune, per se. Jeff had even enjoyed it—the first one hundred and fifty times he’d heard it.

But now, the country crooner’s song about his favorite blue rocking chair on a St. John beach grated in Jeff’s ears like fingernails down a chalkboard. He had heard the lyrics so many times, the mere thought of a blue rocker made him physically ill.

Jeff had often dreamt of confronting the singer whose popular song had become his daily torture. The man occasionally showed up at the Crunchy Carrot and was frequently spotted walking the streets of Cruz Bay. He had a private estate, right on the water, that they had passed during their route earlier that morning.

One of these days, I’m going to jump off the side of this boat, swim up to that guy’s house, and cram that blue rocking chair up his—

Jeff broke off his silent rant as he caught sight of a movement on the east side of Mary’s Point.

Wait a minute, he thought with a musing grunt. What’s that?

The rising sun illuminated the figure of a woman perched on the crest of a ridge. She was dressed in a beaded bodice and knee-length sarong. The light morning breeze lifted a thick mass of dark curly hair from her forehead as she looked down on the water.

The woman’s gaze suddenly lifted, as if she sensed she’d
been spotted. She raised a conch shell to her lips and blew out a haunting, mournful call.

From the opposite side of the boat, Rick released a puff of smoke from a cigar given to him by one of the husbands and commented, “Hey, I bet that’s the Slave Princess…”

22

The governor stood on the balcony outside the second floor of the Government House, looking down on the harbor as a cruise ship pulled into Charlotte Amalie.

Behind him, the door to his office stood open. Inside, a portable television set had been tuned to a local channel broadcasting the day’s proceedings of the Fifth Constitutional Convention. The delegates were receiving a report from the attorneys appointed to advise the convention on their currently proposed Native Rights terminology.

An aide wearing a suit, tie, and shiny leather shoes paced nervously back and forth on the office’s plush red carpet, his hands tucked into the small of his back, his face fixed with a tense expression. The governor and his staff had been apprised of the results of the report prior to today’s disclosure. The legal counsel had been unable to identify language that would meet the delegates’ demands without coming into conflict with the overriding U.S. Constitution.

The aide listened anxiously as the information was explained to the delegates. As predicted, those pushing the Native Rights issue were not backing down.

A woman’s commanding voice squawked out of the television’s
speakers. “I cannot vote in favor of this constitution unless it contains a provision for Native Rights.”

The remark immediately brought a mixed chorus of cheers and grumbling.

“We can’t keep coming back to this,” another woman replied with exasperation. “The lawyers have just told us it will violate the U.S. Constitution. If we put in a Native Rights clause, it will sink the whole thing.”

She was immediately overwhelmed by dissenters. The crowd became more and more unruly; angry voices poured out of the television set. The gavel pounded, ineffectually, against the speaker’s wooden platform.

“Order, order,” a man’s stern but ignored voice demanded. “I call this meeting to order!”

The aide scampered out onto the balcony, wringing his hands nervously.

“Sir,” he said with a gulp, “things are getting out of hand down there at the convention. You’re going to have to weigh in on this.”

The governor inhaled a deep breath of humid ocean air. He stared out across the harbor for a long moment, his face a dark canvas of serious contemplation. Finally, he rested his hands on the edge of the balcony and metered out an even reply.

“Not yet.”

23

Friday afternoon, Vivian sat me down in front of the bathroom mirror in my condo at the resort and began tugging a comb, not at all tenderly, through my tangled wet hair. Freshly showered, I was ready to be glamorized, or at least made presentable, for that evening’s dinner with the nebulous Hank Sheridan.

To avoid any awkward questions about my whereabouts that evening, we had kept with the script laid out in the invitation. Vivian had spread the word that I was meeting with an executive from the resort’s home office who had been sent to St. John to conduct an appraisal of the Maho Bay property. Neither of us had any idea where he was actually staying, but according to Vivian’s well-concocted story, Hank Sheridan had snubbed the rooms at our resort for more glamorous digs on St. Thomas—the man’s luxurious tastes had subsequently been derided at both the Dumpster table and in the break room behind the reception desk.

Neither Vivian nor I had discussed the Sheridan meeting with Hannah. For her part, she hadn’t offered any other rationale for her uncle’s visit.

What would transpire next was still a mystery. Had my
time on the island run out? Was the large man from Miami coming to remove me from my post?

I would find out soon enough, I told myself. Hank Sheridan’s car would be picking me up in less than an hour.

Vivian continued to torture me with her savage beautician skills, while Hamilton played on the tile floor near the bed, happily assembling a new set of Legos.

The little paper box had held just over a hundred colorful plastic brick pieces that were designed to fit together into the shape of a boat. It was one of several toy kits I had stashed away on a top shelf in my closet. There were few contingencies that I took the time and effort to prepare for—a bribe for Vivian’s hairstyling expertise was one of them.

As for the rest of me, I’d picked out a mail-order dress I’d kept aside for those rare occasions where a sundress and sandals were too casual. It had left my closet only twice since my move down to the island.

Vivian twitched her mouth critically at the matching pair of open-toe pumps, which had seen a similarly limited amount of use. She pointed skeptically at the two-inch heel.

“You really think you can walk in those?” she asked dubiously.

I shrugged my response. They would have to do. They’d come with the dress—it had been four years since my feet had seen a mainland shoe store. These were the only shoes I owned that hadn’t spent a deteriorating amount of time at the beach.

Muttering under her breath, Vivian gathered the back sections of my hair and began twisting them into a bun. I tried not to wince as she wound up the strands and fastened the clip. Then she spun me around and began working on my face and bangs. An army of beautifying tools lay spread out on the counter, each pencil, brush, and lipstick container diligently awaiting her next command.

“Pucker your lips,” she ordered briskly.

I held my mouth as still as possible until Vivian finished with the lip liner and leaned back to check her work.

“Smile,” she demanded curtly.

I posed a stiff grin while Vivian stared critically at my face. Finally, she seemed satisfied and dropped the applicator on the counter.

Ham held up his newly constructed boat. “Look what
I
made,” he called out sweetly.

The faint shadow of a proud smile crossed Vivian’s serious face.

Ham pushed the little boat in a circle around the upended shoe box, adding his own motorboat noises to the scraping sound of the plastic against the tile.

“My boat is sailing around the island,” he explained with a loud “
vroom
.”

“A sailboat is much quieter than that,” Vivian replied with a sternly cocked eyebrow.

Ham revised his toy scenario. “My
motor
boat is
motoring
around the island,” he proclaimed loudly with an impish look at his mother. His little lips vibrated, spitting wildly as his boat made faster and faster turns around the shoe box.

“Here, my boat is going past Chocolate Hole,” he said excitedly, pausing his motoring noise long enough to give us an update on his location.