Divine Fantasy (3 page)

This meant I didn’t have to stop talking with this rather strange man so that I could run and have a long hard cry in my cottage. That made me happy.

“Are you my neighbor?” I asked him, not commenting on the death of Amorosa by what they used to call consumption in 1931. Nor did I volunteer any thoughts about my own so-called stains. As a loner, if you lose an arm, a leg, an eye, people notice. Even losing a baby or a boyfriend, someone—if only your doctor or the nosy women down the
hall—will comment. But lose yourself—your spirit, your will, your soul—and there is a good chance that no one will ever know. Maybe not even you. People form an opinion, an impression of what you are, and it becomes hermetically sealed in memory, resisting revision or updating, especially when we refuse to see ourselves for the flawed creatures we actually are. That was convenient. I didn’t need anyone seeing me as vulnerable until I got my psyche sorted out.

“After a fashion,” he said. “I own the island. Or, my corporation does. Once in a while I come to visit. Normally I’d be gone by now, but I saw that you were coming in today and decided to stay on for a bit.”

“That’s nice,” I said sincerely, pulling my thoughts back to the conversation at hand. “I think I’d like to own an island. And be an eccentric millionaire.” Technically, I
was
a millionaire, but nowhere near his league of eccentricity or wealth, assuming he was telling the truth. I think that I might best be described as a pragmatic upper-middle-class loner.

“Yes, it is very nice. Convenient even,” he agreed, though not specifying whether he referred to owning the island or being rich. “You like these olives? They are a new product for us. Most of our produce is grown locally, but we’ve had no luck with olive trees.”

“I like all olives,” I said. “In that, I am not entirely particular. But these are exceptionally good.”

He nodded. “I’ll be sure to see that we get more on the next supply ship. They go well with yellowfin
tuna, which is on the menu tonight. I can tell the kitchen to send some to the table if you like.”

This was a weird but thoughtful gesture. Still, I declined. It was too soon for him to be doing me favors.

“That’s okay. Let’s not upset the chef with special requests on the first day. I also try to limit myself to one jar per diem. Too much sodium in them,” I added. “It’s bad for my blood pressure.”

He nodded again, and then hesitated an instant before speaking. Perhaps he was out of practice making small talk. When he did speak, I had the feeling that he had decided not to share whatever was really on his mind.

“Well, I will leave you to your olives and to the turtles. I want to visit the mangroves this morning and make sure that last storm didn’t do any damage. A lot of endangered species nest over there. You should bring your camera when you come. There’s lots to photograph.”

“Have the turtles finally made it?” I asked, rolling onto my left side out of his shadow and propping myself up on an elbow. I squinted at the Sylph’s Hole. For a moment it seemed that shadows in the water danced away from my view. Were they mostly nocturnal creatures, afraid of observation from the enormous land animal that had staked out their space?

“Yes. They are here.” And he was right. I could finally see some nickel-sized emerald turtles with grayish shells paddling about in the frothy water.

“They’re cute!” I exclaimed, sticking a finger
in the water and waggling it at them. “Not giants at all.”

“We aim to please. Have fun on Cannibal Island, and perhaps I’ll see you at dinner.” There was a hint of smile in his voice.

“Cannibal…,” I began, and then recalled that this was the old name for Fiji. I had read about this on the airplane. Thanks to the onboard magazine, I also knew that the country consisted of three hundred and twenty-two islands, and over one hundred of them were inhabited. Also it is smack-dab in the middle of the ocean, midway between Australia and Tahiti and due north of New Zealand. This is the long way of saying that it’s one hell of distance from anything.

I turned back to look at my companion but he, like the real Ambrose Bierce, had disappeared into thin air, leaving not so much as a track in the sand, unless the deep gouge in the silky white beach some eight feet away could be considered a footprint. He might have been a hallucination for all the sign he left of his visit.

“Weirder and weirder.”

I rolled back to the turtles and picked up my camera, trying to recall how to make the zoom lens work.

I didn’t believe that this stranger was really Ambrose Bierce, I assured myself. Of course not. Nevertheless, he was very plausible and pleasant, and I began to think idly about the commercial possibilities of a supposed biography about Ambrose Bierce in the years after Mexico. They do things like that
now. It’s called speculative fiction. Two years ago there was a biography about Santa Claus released by some millionaire who claimed to be an elf, and it had made quite a stir. I’d write under a suitable pen name, of course, so Harold would never know that I had sold out and produced something popular for the masses. Maybe I would begin with Ambrose’s love affair with Amorosa who put condensed milk in her coffee.…

Dinner that night was in turns wonderful, lonely and then fascinating. Wonder came at what the chef could do with tuna and chutney, loneliness developed at watching the other couples cuddle and talk in intimate whispers, and fascination began with the man who called himself Ambrose Bierce.

Sometimes, if a person is sufficiently interesting at first glance, I like to know things about them—even when it’s none of my business. Especially when it’s none of my business. Ambrose was one of these people. My nascent curiosity would not be thwarted.

Nobody else called him Ambrose. I questioned the staff and one of the guests, a rather vapid if
excellently Botoxed creature called Pamela, who had two impressive piles of strategically placed silicone on her chest and a blank look in her eyes. When they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, I don’t think they mean an absence of expression. Of course, she was also wearing expensive cruise couture and seemed happy in a vague way, so I didn’t know if I should feel pity or envy for her. Pamela seemed to be under the impression that his name was Caleb Harris and that he was a multimillionaire property developer who vacationed frequently on the island. He never brought any women along with him, had never made a pass at her, and she thought he might be gay.

I attempted to subtly question Pamela about Caleb’s other hobbies as she knocked back some pink blended drink, but it didn’t work. My delicately worded questions flew over her head. Or, since this wasn’t a particularly elevated conversation and she had a lot of airspace up there, the observations might have sailed right through. I thought about quizzing her husband—or whatever he was—when he rejoined those gathered for cocktails before dinner, but the man—Greg? Garth? I can’t remember much about him except that he was beef-faced, specifically a medium-rare chateaubriand, which suggested he’d been getting too much sun—seemed intent on nothing except getting his hairy hands inside Pamela’s gold sarong.

The one other eyesore in the otherwise beautiful setting weighed in at about two hundred and forty pounds and talked all the time, even with his
mouth full of prawn cocktail. He wore a sort of poet’s shirt that must have been made of Kevlar and laced with piano wire, as it functioned as a sort of corset. Perhaps he was an opera star. Even braced with this modern marvel of engineering, his growing paunch was evident. I would have forgiven the affectation if I thought he was doing it to please the woman he was with, but I got the feeling that he was more interested in showing off for everyone else. He was also loud. Very loud. He was apparently quite a catch, too, and willing to offer endless anecdotal evidence to support this claim, in case anyone was interested. I had to marvel and even feel a pang of annoyance. Even this boor had a girlfriend who looked at him admiringly. What the hell was wrong with me?

To add injury to insult, he wore some kind of cologne that crept through the room like a chemical fogger. I prayed that no plants or animals had died to produce such an abominable smell.

Feeling emotionally apart from this mini Noah’s ark of lovers, I escaped Pamela and then chose a chair at the end of the bar, half hidden by an elephant-sized ficus, and told myself it was a good thing that I had been inoculated with the loneliness antivirus and no longer envied people who weren’t reserved and distrustful—you know, people whose parents and significant others actually wanted them.

I sipped cautiously at my margarita. It was my concession to paradise-appropriate drinking, but I had it on the rocks and without salt. I had also
eschewed the paper umbrella. The ripe lime was refreshing, but I found myself wishing for a whisky. Smoke and ash were better matches for the bitter taste in my mouth.

The bartender smiled at me and let his eyes flick over my body. This cheered me up. I was pleased with how I looked, even if I was hiding in the shrubbery. As I’d started dressing for the evening I’d suddenly realized that the one thing I really missed since the breakup—and I was fully aware that it wasn’t specific to Max—was getting ready for an evening and picking out something to wear that is attractive. For someone special and not just for myself. I hadn’t dressed for someone else for a long while.

At the time I was fleeing, I’d questioned the wisdom of packing my one teeny, tiny, backless, strapless black dress with the barest excuse of a rhinestone strap that draped over my right shoulder, but now I was glad that I had. I hadn’t told myself that I was zipping into my favorite cocktail frock for Ambrose, but I was. He might be a bit weird, even a lot weird, but I was pretty sure I liked him and wouldn’t mind if he noticed that I was gorgeous.

Also, I look good in black when I am my usual shade of winter pale.

As though guessing where my thoughts trended, Ambrose/Caleb made an appearance. He was dressed casually in linen slacks and a cotton shirt of finest Liberty lawn. The shirt sported palm trees; the slacks had been tailor-made.

The clothes were casual, but some men have a certain male gravitas that overcomes even silly attire. They wear their clothes rather than letting the clothes wear them. Perhaps it was just the role he’d been playing for me since I arrived, but I kept seeing him as a serious man of upright posture in a dark wool suit and white linen shirt that was stiff with too much starch, and I had the feeling that no amount of Jimmy Buffett casual wear was going to change that. The sober wolf had been spotted hiding under his eclectic sheep’s clothing. That he was hiding at all was very interesting.

The wolf had no trouble finding me among the ficus leaves, and pulled up a stool beside me without asking. Again I noticed his eyes, as black as a witch’s cat and every bit as curious.

“I prefer you without a mustache,” I said when he failed to speak. “I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of a walrus. And it’s easy to tell when you’re smiling.”

Ambrose caressed his chin, a gesture Max had often made after he shaved his winter beard, and it made me wonder if Ambrose had been sporting chin fur in the recent past.

“There is a school of thought which holds that after forty a man’s responsible for the face he has.”

“Hm. Your face is completely unlined.” I pointed out gently, “I think the theory must therefore be flawed. If you’re really Ambrose Bierce, of course.”

“I sleep the sleep of the just these days.” He smiled slightly and gestured to the bartender. A moment later a shot glass of whisky came skating
down the polished smoothness of the bar. He intercepted the speeding alcohol and set the glass in front of me without spilling a drop. “Go ahead. Any woman who loves green olives as much as you isn’t going to enjoy sweet drinks. You don’t have to pretend in front of me.”

He gestured again and a second shot glass came skating our way. The bartender was grinning. I think he enjoyed showing off. Ambrose captured this one as well.

“There’s a similar saying about women’s faces,” I remarked, taking a sip of whisky. It wasn’t a brand I recognized but I liked the smoky smoothness as I swallowed.

“Yes?”

“After forty, you’d better give your face to Estée Lauder or you get what you deserve.”

Ambrose nodded. “Will you have dinner with me?” he asked.

“Of course.” He wasn’t being coy, and I decided not to be either. Ambrose was interested in me, but not because of my little black dress. Or not
solely
because of the dress. That left me feeling more pleased than piqued.

He picked up his whisky and stood. I followed suit, though I was more careful getting off the stool, since I had a longer drop, higher heels and a short skirt.

Ambrose led the way out an unnoticed side door and to a small round table set up on a rug laid over a clear patch of sand. There was a definite breeze and the smell of rain in the air, and the shifting
currents made the tiny flames inside their glass bowls dance wildly.

I had thought that the in-room guidebook was perhaps indulging in hyperbole when it called this restaurant a culinary paradise, but for once the praise was insufficient. The food cost about as much as God’s eyeteeth and smelled like something they’d eat at a heavenly barbecue where everything was cooked by cherubim. Guests understood this and spoke in a reverential hush. All except Mr. Loud, who drew a frown from Ambrose as he bellowed an off-color joke and slurped his wine. I saw Ambrose’s right eye twitch, and a moment later there was a pained exclamation and someone said: “David, did you back into a candle?”

Ambrose smiled at this, a not-very-nice grin that held a certain mischief. Suddenly slightly on edge, in a good way, I crossed my legs, enjoying the whisper of silk on silk as my stockings rubbed together. I felt ready to play any game.

Ambrose’s head turned my way and he stared at my legs as though he, too, could hear my hosiery’s murmurs. His smile changed and I thought that there was actually a chance that he might eventually charm me out of my garter belt.

“What do you think of my island?” he asked, raising his eyes before the gaze could go on long enough to be rude. I was a lady and I expected men to treat me that way. Ambrose understood this, or at least understood that I expected to be treated politely. “Lady” would have carried a slightly different definition in his day.

“I think that I should have come years ago.”

It was no idle comment. Everything on the island was green and lush and usually wet. If I don’t mention this in every other paragraph it is because I don’t like to be redundant, but feel free to mentally insert any of these adjectives. The island was beautiful—
is
beautiful. To call it paradise would be understatement. Which only goes to show that even paradise can have its problems if you bring them with you. Still, any shadows hanging over me that night were my own doing and not the fault of the geography.

I touched the linens as I settled into my seat. The damask was heavy and, though I couldn’t be sure, felt old. One can still buy linens with five-hundred-thread count, but they tend to be quite stiff. The tablecloth draped beautifully.

There was a bowl of flowers on the table, a kind of bloom I didn’t recognize. I bent over the blossoms and breathed warily. At first sniff, I recoiled a bit. The scent was a mishmash of dirt, feral moss, marsh gas, and the bittersweet of the crushed peel of pomegranate that reminded me of childhood Christmases. But on second smelling, I noticed that there was also the barest hint of lemon. I wouldn’t wear it as a perfume, but oddly enough, the smell managed to stimulate my appetite.

“The local name for the flower is
The Hunger Plant
.”

I looked at my companion and again marveled at his resemblance to Ambrose Bierce. Except the eyes, I reminded myself. Ambrose Bierce hadn’t
had such dark eyes. No one I knew had eyes like this. They were a bit spooky.

A stray breeze blew a strand of hair across my face. My hair has never been well-mannered and I am always plucking it out of my eyes and mouth. As I pushed the offending lock aside, I caught a whiff of something unpleasant that raised the small hairs on the back of my neck. I can’t describe the smell exactly, but it made me think of a sly winter wind in the hour before dawn, creeping through empty beer gardens near my apartment, licking up the spilled lager in the cracks between the stones and biting at the abandoned picnic tables with sharp, gnawing teeth that could eventually splinter wood. It wasn’t an odor that belonged on the island.

“You smell it?” he asked me, eyes narrowing.

“Yes. What is it?”

“I don’t know. But the wind has shifted around to a new direction. I’ve never seen it blow northeast to southwest at this season.”

“Could it mean a storm?” I asked uneasily, recalling some of the recent weather disasters in the area that had carried high body counts.

“No,” he said slowly. “I would know if there was a storm coming. At least if it were coming tonight.”

“How?” I asked, half expecting him to lick his finger and stick it in the air and then come up with some fey folk wisdom like
red sky at morning, sailor take warning
.

“Satellite hookup,” he said prosaically. For one
moment, I actually thought he was—for reasons I couldn’t even begin to guess—lying. Then he added: “We don’t do TV, phones or Internet in the cottages since it ruins the whole primitive paradise experience, but as a matter of safety we do get regular weather reports and have contact with the big island in case of emergencies.”

“Oh. Good,” I said, feeling a bit stupid for having been so imaginative.

A waiter appeared, bearing a large platter adorned with a number of goodies, including the tuna I had requested on the dining card turned in at the front desk earlier that day. True to his word, Ambrose had also arranged for some olives, but these were gigantic and stuffed with something I couldn’t at first identify.

“Blanched horseradish,” he said, guessing what I was thinking as I chewed my way through the first of the green globes piled in the small teak bowl.

“I’m going to have to go on blood-pressure meds if I keep this up,” I said as I swallowed and then licked the brine from my lips. “These are delicious though.”

“I’m glad that I could so easily please you.”

“Good whisky, good olives—I’m easy.”

“Somehow, I really doubt that.”

“What gave me away?” I asked, just playing at conversation. I liked his voice. Swiveling sideways, I crossed one leg over the other. There is more than one way to flirt.

“Seamed stockings.” Ambrose smiled appreciatively. “I haven’t seen them in half a century. Only a particularly adventuresome kind of woman would wear them.”