Miracle Man (31 page)

“And why’s that— Bobby Nitsua?” She was clearly busting his chops and it made it all the worse because she looked so stunning in her little bikini—her tanned oiled skin glistening in the sun.

“You’re not making this easy on me are you?” he said.

“No one ever said I was easy.”

“I really enjoyed our meeting the other day and I wanted to see you again. I was hoping you felt the same. Evidently I was wrong.”

“Do you reach conclusions that precipitously in the lab also, doctor?”

Bobby smiled. “Well, I do owe you an apology. My name isn’t Nitsua.”

“You’re not Japanese?”

“I’m so used to protecting my anonymity—it comes as second nature to me.”

“And anagrams are your chosen method?” Bobby blushed. Christina laughed and broke into a broad smile. Bobby couldn’t get over how naturally beautiful she looked.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Austin.” She laughed again. “You’re different from what people expect. Everyone thinks you’re some fat bald nerdy myopic ogre who lives in a laboratory cave and eats small children.”

“I hope I didn’t disappoint you,” he said.

Christina smiled again. “You
look flushed—have a drink of water.” She handed him her bottle, which he interpreted as an initial gesture of intimacy. “I hope that’s a swimsuit you’re wearing”, she said.

“It just became one.”

“Good, let’s go in.”

Christina sprang up from her lounge chair with the grace and energy of a professional dancer. Pulling up on her bikini top, she said, “Damn, the sand’s hot,” and began to run to the water. Bobby took the cue and started to run beside her. The two dove into the crystal clear aqua elixir at the same time.

“You can swim right? I don’t want to drown you and become the most hated woman on the planet.”

She began heading out to the deeper cooler water and Bobby did his best to keep up. Now alone, well past any other swimmers, they both flipped over on their backs and floated effortlessly in the buoyant water. They just floated and said nothing. The sun warmed their faces and the top sides of their bodies, while they were kept cool from below. Finally, Bobby said, “It’s so incredibly beautiful out here I almost can’t bear it.”

“Afraid it will end?”

“I’m always afraid good things in my life will end. They always do.”

“You have to believe in the future or there is no future,” she replied.

48

B
obby prepped Susan and Anna for Christina’s visit to Azur Reve. “Ladies, I need you to promise me you’ll be on good behavior with Christina.”

“What does that mean?” asked Susan.

“It mainly means that you shouldn’t say or even intimate anything negative about me that might turn her off.”

“Like what?” asked Susan, who was enjoying every moment of Bobby’s nervousness.

“Like no comments about me being an obsessive workaholic, having nightmares, falling into trances, not having any social life, only going out with bimbos, drinking too much, being a slob or a recluse.”

“So we shouldn’t give her any insight into what you’re really like?” Susan grinned.

“Let me clarify it for you honey,” Anna said to Susan, “Bobby wants us to help perpetuate the illusion he’s trying to create.”

Bobby shook his head. “I knew I could count on your support. But seriously, I don’t want to scare Christina away.”

Susan smiled at Bobby. She realized that he was bringing this woman to meet the only family that he had. “Bobby, don’t worry—we’ll be perfectly charming. Your secrets are safe with us.” Anna let out a hearty belly laugh.

Bobby picked Christina up at Bolongo Beach. Radiant in white shorts and a tight aqua T-shirt that made her eyes almost look blue, she wore no make-up other than pink lip gloss and some light mascara. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail that gave her the appearance of a college freshman. Her simple outfit highlighted her lithe but voluptuous figure. Bobby was enthralled.

“You look amazing,” he said.

“I’m just dressed for a day at the beach. My bathing suit is under these clothes.”

“Really— I don’t see any lines—that must be one small bathing suit.”

“You have a problem with that, Doctor?”

Bobby had asked George to have some rum punches served as soon as he and Christina arrived at the house, but George did one better. He and a server were waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Bobby’s car pulled up. Extending his hand to Christina, George said, “Welcome to Villa Azur Reve.”

Susan and Anna were discretely absent as Bobby showed Christina around the estate, and then they headed down to the beach where two lounges, a sun umbrella and an assortment of beach towels were awaiting them. Already wearing a swim suit, Bobby took off his shirt. Christina began to remove her shorts and T-shirt while Bobby tried to act like he wasn’t watching her undress. “I’ll put some sun screen on your back, if you’ll do me,” she said. Bobby’s face lit up as she handed him the bottle. Placing his lotion drenched hands on her lean toned back, her skin was satiny smooth and supple. As he ran his fingers down the full length of the arced indentation of her spine, and around to her sides, and over the two perfectly placed dimples right above her bathing suit line, he marveled at just how sexy a woman’s back can be.

“You alright there?” she asked, laughing. “You didn’t get lost, did you?”

“I think I zoned out for a moment.”

“Thinking about an equation?”

“Sort of.” He laughed.

As they walked along the beach, she said, “So you said you came down here with your assistant and her girlfriend?”

“Susan, my assistant, and Anna. Susan’s much more than my assistant. She’s really my surrogate mother at this point, for better or worse.”

“And your real mother?”

“I don’t know who my birth mother was. I was raised by foster parents from the time I was a few weeks old. They died in a car crash when I was 11. I’ve been on my own since then.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

Bobby stopped walking and turned toward Christina and gently took hold of each of her hands. “Christina, I need to know that everything I tell you will remain absolutely confidential between us. That’s the only way I can be open with you.” Christina looked into Bobby’s eyes and nodded.

The remainder of the day was spent swimming, body surfing and sunbathing, followed by a late lunch and drinks served to them on the beach by the Azur Reve staff who set-up a white linen covered dining table and chairs not far from the water’s edge. Gazpacho, lobster salad, assorted cheeses and berries, and an ice-cold Pinot Grigio made for the perfect repast. Afterwards, Bobby said to Christina, “That was spectacular, but I think the sun is getting to me. I’m going to get some rest in the shade. Care to join me?”

Christina blushed. “Sounds like a good idea.”

They retired into the estate’s beach side cabana, which was a simple but elegant looking structure comprised of rustic beams supporting a thatched roof, and enclosed on all sides by sheer white flowing drapes. As Bobby and Christina lay facing each other on the large sectional sofa, he said, “Do you know that you have very unusual eyes?”

“And why’s that?”

“Well, they have the color and clarity of emeralds, and they’re large and almond shaped, but they curve upwards at their outer ends. Very exotic.”

“So you studied this in some detail, I see,” said Christina.

“I try to be observant.” Bobby’s arm reached around Christina’s waist as he moved his head toward hers. The smell of sea salt on her warm skin intoxicated him. Her eyes closed and her lips parted. As they kissed, she placed the palm of one of her hands gently against the side of Bobby’s face and pressed her bikini clad body against him. As excited as Bobby was, he realized he felt something else also. He felt comfortable. He felt like he was where he should be.

49

T
he next morning, Bobby called Christina at her hotel to say he couldn’t get together that day because he had some personal business to take care of. He asked Steven to give him a ride to the docks of Red Hook where he boarded the ferry from St. Thomas to St. John, a distance of
eight miles. As Bobby sat on the ferry staring at the island of St. John as it came closer into view, his mind took him back to that magical seventeenth birthday trip with Joe on
Dreamweaver
. Stepping onto the weathered wooden boards of St. John pier, he was lost in memories, alive and vivid, his powers of recall being photographic to the extreme. The Asolare restaurant was still there. He went into the bar and sat down. How much had happened in Bobby’s life since he last was here. It seemed like an eternity ago.

“Do you have McCallan 18 scotch,” he asked the bartender.
“I need two doubles. Please put each in a separate glass, with rocks.”

As Bobby sipped the scotch, he looked around. The décor hadn’t changed.
Kate’s mom and Joe were standing there. Kate right over here. Me, next to her.
He remembered it all—even every word of his conversation with Kate—a conversation that as far as he was concerned, had changed his life. Bobby finished his drink and then told the bartender he was taking the other glass down to the beach. “No problem—just bring it back when you’re finished.”

Bobby walked down to the water’s edge and looked out at the bay.
Dreamweaver was anchored right there. We pulled our dinghy up over here when Joe and I had dinner that night and met them.
Bobby remembered how excited he had been that night, barely able to sleep in anticipation of the next day, and how his heart literally was skipping beats as the dinghy approached the beach with Kate and Kim standing in the shadow of the sea grape trees, waiting for them. Bobby sat down on the sand and closed his eyes. He let the memories completely overtake him, his inner eyelids becoming the movie screen on which they played in cinematic detail. After awhile, he became self conscious as he felt he was being watched, so he got up and walked toward the deserted end of the crescent beach.

Standing by the water’s edge, he held the glass of scotch up high. The sun’s golden threads refracted on its edge, making a rainbow. “I hope you can hear me. It’s been a long time since we were here together. Do you remember, Joe?” Bobby sipped
the drink and looked up to the sky, his eyes squinting from the brightness, but he struggled to keep them open. He wanted to keep them open and feel the strength and purity of the light. The tiny waves of the incoming tide lapped at Bobby’s feet as the most delicate of undertows undermined his steadfastness, pulling the smooth lava sand through his toes in an oddly comforting way. After a time, Bobby felt a different kind of wave. It was a wave of overwhelming contentment washing through him. “You’re here,” he murmured. “My Captain is here.” Bobby’s face instantly looked years younger as his smile became that of a seventeen year old on the best adventure of his life. “I’m trying to make you proud, Joe. I really am. It’s not easy, but I’m doing the best I can. I miss you every day. Every single day, I miss you.” Bobby stood there for a few more minutes with his eyes shut tight. He felt so peaceful. So protected. So loved. When the warmth of the sun became obscured by a dark cloud that had moved across the sky, Bobby opened his eyes. He took another sip of the drink, and then crouched down low to the ground. He slowly poured the rest of it into the ocean water, right where the sea breaks on the shoreline.

At breakfast the next morning with Susan and Anna, Bobby seemed unusually serene.

“Are you okay, Bobby?—you seem almost zen -like today,” said Susan.

“I just was thinking about yesterday when I went to St. John.”

“Fond memories?”

“More than that,” replied Bobby. His cell phone rang.

Christina’s voice surged through him like an electric current instantly reminding him of their closeness in the beach cabana. “Good morning, doctor. It’s time for me to reciprocate so I’m inviting you to the official Bolongo Bay Resort beach party tonight. Care to be my date?”

“Now that’s a rhetorical question,” said Bobby.

“Good. Be here at seven and don’t tell me you don’t know how to dance. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”