Left on Paradise (28 page)

“You smell nice,” Ryan said. “You look nice.”

“It was supposed to be for your wedding, but I decided to throw it on for the party. It’s been a while since I’ve had an excuse to dress up.”

Ryan offered Maria his flute.

“We’ll have to share,” Ryan said. “The match is at the tent.”

“That’s fine.”

They sat in the sand, well beyond earshot of the party.

Ryan pointed to a flickering light in the dark of the sea. “I can see her campfire,” he observed, “through the brush.”

“Do you miss her?”

“It’ll do us good to have some time away from each other. We’ve done nothing but bicker for weeks. Ever since the decree.”

When Maria asked if he was glad to have come to this place, Ryan blushed and asked where exactly she meant.

“This island,” Maria said.

“It’s been a challenge,” Ryan answered after a pause, “but I’ve learned a lot. About myself, about life, about Kit.”

“So have I,” Maria said. “Thank you so much for bringing us here. For bringing me here. This really is paradise, especially tonight. The sway of the palms and the cool of the breeze are perfect.”

Ryan poured a glass of champagne and took a sip. After Maria finished what remained, he refilled the glass.

“The party’s breaking up early,” Maria observed after she took a sip of the champagne.

“Tomorrow’s a work day,” Ryan said.

Maria sipped a little more champagne and Ryan followed suit. As slow-gliding gulls soared overhead and fast-moving clouds eclipsed a crescent moon, the young woman nodded toward the heavens.

“It’s peaceful here,” Maria said.

“We call it Paradise.”

Maria took a long drink of champagne that drained the glass, so Ryan poured another.

“Cheers,” Ryan said. “To the first day of my month as a bachelor.”

“Cheers.”

The two sat still for several minutes. One last group of neighbors left the party, making noisy farewells that echoed down the shore. As their shouts and laughter faded, the beach fell silent and Maria continued to look at Ryan: her eyes fastened on his. After several seconds, she batted her eyes.

“What?” Ryan said as the young woman stood to her feet.

“Stand up and turn around,” she said.

“Why?”

“Turn around. I’ve brought a gift for your bachelor party.”

“I didn’t see any gift.”

“You will.”

A puzzled look came across Ryan’s face as he did what he was told, taking the champagne flute from Maria’s hand. He heard a little shuffling behind him, but didn’t turn around until told.

“Now what is this sup ...”

Ryan choked on his words when he saw that Maria stood in front of him undressed, her skirt dropped to the sand and her breasts bare and belly uncovered—her unbuttoned blouse slipped behind her shoulders. As the young woman inched forward, he himself took a step back, though his eyes remained fixed on Maria’s breasts.

“You promised me a swim,” Maria whispered.

Ryan turned deep red.

“I never ...”

“Yes,” Maria whispered as she stepped closer, “you did. You promised me a skinny-dip if you were ever single.”

“But I’m not ...”

“But you are,” Maria said as she closed the distance to Ryan, her breasts now pressing his chest. She reached with one hand to pull Ryan’s face toward her lips while taking one of his hands with the other.

Ryan felt the young woman’s breasts warm through his shirt and her hips snuggle against his own. As desire stirred, he dropped the glass and the couple slid to the sand in an unbroken embrace.

Several minutes later they sat up and retrieved their clothing.

“You still owe me a swim,” Maria said.

“Now?”

Maria’s eyes flashed from pleasure. “Maybe another time,” she said, twirling her bra with a forefinger. “I have to work tomorrow.”

After dressing, the couple walked hand in hand until they reached the village, where muffled sounds emanated from several of the village’s tents as Ryan and Maria embraced one last time before separating for the night.

22

Broken Hearts and a Honeymoon

Ryan didn’t sleep. Aflame with passion, he spent the night remembering Maria’s touch, craving more, and fretting over the implications of an affair. At first light, he crept toward an orange tent pitched at the end of a row. It didn’t take long to reach his destination.

“Maria! Maria!” Ryan whispered as he unzipped the door. “Wake up, Maria.”

Maria rolled out of bed and smiled. “Back so soon?”

“We need to talk.”

“Talk is cheap,” Maria said as she sat up and pulled Ryan close.

“Not now,” Ryan whispered as he grabbed the young woman’s hands. “John gets up early—and he’s cooking today.”

“Two cook hotter than one.”

“Be serious. We need to talk while we can.”

The smile left Maria’s face as she fell back to her bed and told Ryan to speak his mind.

“I don’t want Kit to know,” Ryan said. “Not yet.”

“How can we keep it from her?”

“I don’t plan to have an affair.”

“What do you call this?”

“I’m not married, so it’s not an affair.”

“Where does that leave us?” Maria said. “I’m not a one-night stand.”

“You won’t be,” Ryan replied. “Let’s enjoy the whole month.”

“Till you marry her?” Maria said with a scowl.

“If I marry her.”

Maria looked Ryan in the eyes and asked what he meant.

“What I mean,” Ryan said, “is I’m pretty confused right now. I didn’t sleep a wink all night. I love Kit and I ...”

Ryan looked at Maria. “Well,” he said, “I’m rather taken with you and I realized last night I have been for quite a while.”

“Then why marry her?”

“I need to figure out what’s right for you and for Kit. And for me. Give me a few weeks.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said, “but if you and I are meant to be, it’ll at least buy me a little time to let her down gently.”

Maria said nothing.

“She is my wife,” Ryan whispered.

“Was your wife,” Maria replied.

“As a favor,” Ryan said as he looked away, “I’m asking you to let me tell her.”

“Will you?”

“Yes,” Ryan said, “I have to. We’ve had no lies between us. I never cheated on her and I never will.”

“Will she want you when she finds out?”

Ryan shrugged.

“You don’t belong to her any longer,” Maria said, “but I’ll do as you ask. Provided two things.”

“Anything,” Ryan said, his face a little less tense.

“First, you don’t live with her until you decide for sure which of us you want.”

“And second?”

“I sleep with you whenever I want.”

“But privately,” Ryan said.

Maria nodded.

“Fine,” Ryan said, “but if Kit and I stay together, you and I are done. No married men, remember?”

Maria didn’t answer. Already she had slipped from her sleeping shirt and nestled against Ryan. They shared a warm kiss, then a hot bed. When they were finished, Maria signaled the coast was clear as Ryan stole away.

Kit leaned against a coconut tree. The morning sun was shaded by palm fronds as she listened to the flow of wind through a chorus of branches. A bird flitted before her, hopping around a scrap of dropped food while looking about nervously. Kit whistled to it, but the bird took wing and left a day’s meal behind.

“Sorry, little one.”

Now Kit stood, yawning as she rose. Her arms tensed, her back arched, and her ankles extended as she stretched. She wiped the sleep from her dark-ringed eyes and relaxed, then adjusted her cotton blouse—insuring its straps were secured across her shoulders and its flaps tucked into her shorts. She collected her sandals and a bag of food before walking to the beach, where soon the surf splashed her ankles and the sun radiated warmth from every direction.

At the beach, Kit heard the sound of a distant cry and looked to sea where the fin of a small whale flashed across the surface before slipping beneath the water. She watched for its return, but saw nothing and after a long wait returned to the shade of the palms where she knocked a coconut from a low-lying branch and cracked its hull with a machete. She ate, drank, and slept—then napped all morning.

At noon, Kit started a fire in a shallow pit that she dug with a stick and baked flat bread mixed from flour, salt, and yeast. While the bread baked, she took a swim in the nude—though careful to insure no one watched from afar. With the sun beating down, she decided not to risk burning what hadn’t been tanned and retreated into shade to rinse herself with fresh water (brought in plastic jugs) and slip into clean clothes. Soon, she pulled the bread from the fire, brewed some tea, and spent an hour doodling in the sand with a broken stick as she ate. Several times she stroked the unstretched skin of her belly and gave long looks to her own narrow hips. She cried once and laughed twice. Thoughts came to mind of children, neighbors, Ryan ...

Kit remembered her years with Ryan: the promises and compromises, the hopes and disappointments. She remembered girls who’d propositioned him and how he’d always turned from temptation—a few times after a moment’s hesitation. So many of his friends took mistresses, but never Ryan. He was a flirt, but a faithful one who returned to his own bed each night; he even used doubles for love scenes at her request. Kit wondered how their marriage could be made to work.

“We’re tired and torn,” she said out loud, as if to convince herself, “but he’s my husband and we have to keep our love strong. Maybe a month to ourselves will be good. It’ll be like starting over.”

Kit remembered her promise to her grandmother and debated whether it remained obligatory. After all, Ryan was a husband on her grandmother’s terms and remained so under American law. Still, she wasn’t in America and decided she’d have to sleep alone until they could sort the rules out. Though she wondered whether solitude was a good idea, she thought it necessary for her own self-respect and that of Ryan. He’d be patient, she told herself, as he had been before. It was only solitude she asked of him, not celibacy.

Already, Kit sensed her anger dissipating and concern for Ryan returning. She remembered how the same confusion often tried her whenever they’d been stressed on film sets. As always, a day away had softened her heart.

“Another day alone,” Kit said, “and I’ll go home. Then we can work on our marriage. Or whatever it is now.”

Kit lay down on the grass and slept. The sun was hot and she tossed and turned the entire nap, dreaming of Ryan and babies and faithless girls.

On Monday, the villagers rose early and worked hard. When the temperature grew hot and tempers flared, Heather asked everyone to break early since quotas had been exceeded. Linh suggested a picnic and most neighbors agreed that a barbecue sounded nice. By late afternoon, tables were moved to the beach and food brought by the armful: star fruit, kiwi, lemons, mangos, breadfruit, coconuts, bananas, pineapples, rice, bread, cheese, milk, clams, crab, lobster, perch, and even a cask of palm wine. Sean traded the smallest of the neighborhood’s she-goats to southerners for a dozen chickens—which allowed Tiffany to grill four unproductive hens.

While Tiffany and Heather cooked, Linh watched the children play. Two northern boys with big teeth and skinny arms joined them; the boys carrying homemade bows strung with vines and quivers filled with bone-tipped arrows. Linh’s daughters joined the visitors as boy and girl alike practiced shooting into a chalk-marked palm tree. Theodore and Ted spied on them from behind a panandu bush. Occasionally, the girls waved at the twins, sending the little boys face-first into the dust, laughing like fools.

Adults played volleyball. Sean retrieved a net from New Plymouth’s recreation tent and set it up (with Jose’s help) while teams were picked. Ryan, Maria, Jose, Linh, Tiffany, Viet, Olivia, and Ilyana played against Charles, Joan, Deidra, Sean, Brent, Hilary, Lisa, and Heather. John left after a quick dinner while Jason played only a single match before walking north. Ursula tallied score as she sipped tea from a lawn chair.

The first game went to Ryan’s team by a six-point margin and the second game by eight points. But after two games on the hot sand, most players perspired and Charles removed his shirt. Sean and Brent did the same. Lisa soon declared their team the Skins and told her teammates to strip their shirts. Everyone did so except Heather—who held fast to her tee shirt and propriety alike even when Joan tugged at the former and declared her daughter had plenty to show. Ryan and Viet also wanted to play shirtless, but the Skins insisted the Shirts remain clothed. With the changed uniforms, momentum shifted toward the bare-chested team, their opponents worn down by the heat and distracted by the sight of so much flesh. Jose, in particular, played poorly, spending most of the game eyeing anything but the volleyball. The shirted team lost the next two games (by three and six points respectively) and were skunked in the game match.

After volleyball was finished and the party broke into small groups, Linh and Tiffany—with their husbands and children—walked down the beach to enjoy the sunset. Ryan and Maria retired early (walking home just a couple minutes apart) and Charles and Joan joined a circle of pot smokers. Olivia told her Ilyana to insure the northern boys reached home before dark while Heather directed the western children to collect trash. It was just after the children disappeared into the forest to collect litter that Jose tapped Heather’s shoulder.

“Enjoy the game?”

“It was fun,” Heather said. “You?”

“It was interesting, to say the least.”

“Sorry I didn’t entertain you like the others.”

Jose blushed. “You have your standards.”

“So do they,” Heather said, “just not the same ones.”

“To each his own, they say.”

“Who says that?”

“Either Cicero or Hugh Hefner: one of the great philosophers of human friendship.”

Heather forced a smile as Jose dropped his eyes, glancing at her legs before staring into sand.

“I was wondering,” the young man said, “if you’d like to take a walk.”

Heather didn’t take too long to answer. “That’d be nice, I guess.”

“Great.”

“First let me finish here. Can we meet in a few minutes?”

“Fine by me.”

“Half an hour?” Heather asked.

Jose didn’t object and the two soon parted—with Jose hurrying to the stream to wash and Heather marching four children single file toward the west village.

Ilyana had more trouble with the northern boys—who left under protest and only then after stuffing their pockets with dried bread and sun-warmed fruit while complaining that they were being starved by their own village. Ilyana let them take as much as they could carry, then filled a bag with fresh citrus, found an unlit torch, and started north.

An hour after she agreed to take a walk, Heather returned to the beach dressed in a sleeveless summer dress. Her hair was braided and her feet shod with leather sandals.

Jose also wore clean clothes: a cotton shirt and tan shorts.

Heather smiled at him.

“I didn’t know,” Heather said, “we were going so formal.”

“I’m in rags next to you.”

“Where to?”

“What’d you want to do?”

“A movie sounds good. Do you have the listings?”

Jose shook his head.

“Well,” Heather continued, “a walk down the beach would be nice too.”

“That I can do,” Jose said. “Panoramic vision and widescreen. 360-degree sound and 3-D vision.”

Heather walked toward the shore as Jose moved beside her. He kept close enough occasionally to brush her hand, but not so close that he did so often. At the shore, they removed sandals in the shallows and let the tide lap their ankles. At first they talked of the day’s activities, but conversation abruptly ended when Jose made a joke about Heather’s shirtless teammates. Only after several minutes did they again converse. An hour into their date, they found themselves on a somewhat unfamiliar stretch of beach, well past the northern border.

“I don’t remember this place,” Heather said.

“I’ve been here before,” Jose answered, “but the rocks look different under the moon.”

Heather sat on a weatherworn rock and Jose sat beside her. The rock wasn’t more than a yard wide and their hips were only a few inches apart, despite the fact they’d edged as far apart as possible. Both looked to sea for several minutes.

Heather spoke first. “Sometimes,” she said, “I miss New York.”

Jose said he was from Los Angeles.

“New York,” Heather mused, “had so many different things to do.”

“And,” Jose countered, “so many different types of crime and poverty and prejudice. The whole thing was predicated upon oppression and distinction and police brutality.”

Heather shrugged. “Not Central Park.”

“No?” Jose said. “I visited it in junior high. The crackheads sat in their waste and dealers sold drugs in the open. They even offered dope to me, even though I was only twelve.”