No Perfect Secret (30 page)

“I’m getting it,” he grumbled. Returning to her side with his luggage in tow he stopped and stared. Her neck somehow got long and elegant, her waist smaller, and there were only these tiny, tiny, straps holding up her blouse, displaying a world-class view of her chest. “Did you change clothes right here in the middle of the airport?”

“Yes,
I did and every man who walked by stared something awful, and there you were—sound asleep against a post.”

They soon stepped into the wicked, white-hot Mexican sun to meet their van driver. Anna dropped her glasses from forehead to eyes.

“Oh, merciful God,” Caburn exclaimed, putting up a hand to shade his eyes. “Are we closer to the sun down here?” Off came his leather jacket. He couldn’t find his sun glasses.

Their travel vouchers were collected as they were ushered into an air-conditioned van with other tourists
, and forty minutes later they were being welcomed into a huge and elegant open-air lobby at Grand Palladium. A breeze full of the smells of wet sand, hot sun, salty sea, and coconut sunscreen perfumed the air. Anna breathed it. Fabulous. The atrium soared more than sixty feet and was constructed of woven palm. A massive replica of a Mayan temple god caught Anna’s eye. She smiled at Caburn as they moved to check-in. “Did you see that sculpture?”

“I can’t see anything yet.”

“Grumble, mumble, toil and trouble,” she muttered.

The concierge ordered them to hold out their left wrists. Plastic bracelets were attached and they were warned not to remove them.

“Do we have to go to our rooms right away?” Anna asked.

“No, ma’am.”

Anna took Caburn by the arm, guiding him across the lobby where she had spied the bar and lounges.

“I’m dying in this heat
,” he complained. “I need a shower.”

“Go ahead and die then, but right there in that chair.” She went to the bar
and returned with an ice-cold beer for him and a frozen pina colada for herself. Caburn had his eyes closed. She placed the cold bottle against his temple. “Do you think one of these might turn you into a human being?”

He drank it down as if he’d spent a week in a desert. He handed her the empty. “Two might. And I’m sorry.”

“Get the second one yourself.” She sipped her pina colada, spread the contents of the welcome packet on her lap, and found a map to a restaurant that fronted a swimming pool.

She knew very well that Frank was watching her out the corner of his eye. She sipped her drink.

“I know,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I’m an ass.”

She smiled sweetly. “I like a man who knows what he’s about.”

“Am I going to be in trouble this entire trip just because I needed a little nap?”

“No, not if I get my way on everything
else. There’s a restaurant down around that walkway. I’m hungry—you ate my breakfast.” Anna’s saucy poise left her when they rounded the corner and the acres of pool spread out before them. Iconic columns growing out of the water sent cooling sprays on young and old alike. Swimsuits edged from not quite modest to minimal on hundreds of shapely bodies in the pool, tanning on lounges, and beneath green and gold striped umbrellas. There was a bar in the pool and another top side in the open-air restaurant. Inside a round of glass windows were buffet tables loaded with foods of every description.

Caburn paid not one whit of attention to the hundreds of skimpily clad bodies. He grabbed Anna’s hand. “We’re not sitting out here. There’s a fr
eaking dragon under that table.”

Anna looked and laughed. “That’s an iguana. They’re not dangerous.”

“I knew you’d have some kind of frivolous answer.”

So they dined in air-conditioned bliss on soups, salads, and fresh fruits of every description. Caburn grazed on hamburgers, pizza, chicken, fresh baked breads, and beer. Anna took a last sip of freshly squeezed orange juice.

“Let’s go to our rooms, change into our swimsuits, lather on the sunblock, and hit the beach. I am so ready.”

“Sounds good.” He was thinking shower, bed, cool sheets, and fluffed pillows.

A tram took them to their room. It wheeled along on narrow asphalt lined with towering palms, bamboo, banana shrubs heavy with fruit, bougainvillea in bloom, and shady mango trees—the unripe fruits hanging heavy as chandeliers. It was a thousand miles and a world away from dreary D.C. Anna savored every inch of it.

The driver led them to their suite and opened the door while a porter carried in their luggage. Caburn stifled a yawn as he passed out tips.

“Frank,” Anna said, standing in the foyer and looking into the suite. “We don’t have separate bedrooms.”

He came out of the bathroom, drying his face on a
towel. He eyed the pair of king-sized beds, and walked through to the sitting room furnished with a sofa, coffee table, a small round table and a set of chairs. Louvered doors led to a patio, its columns richly wound in white cloth. A filmy white surround delivered privacy and turned the patio into a cabana. Stone steps led down to an inland estuary. A canoe was tied to an iron stanchion. Caburn retraced his steps and faced Anna.

“What do you want to do?”
His tone was short, sharp and unhelpful. He knew the travel master had done the best he could on short notice. He didn’t like to think Anna was going to be ungrateful or uppity.

For Anna it was a moment both innocent and charged
—a moment when choices were being made.

“Well
—we’re here,” she said, her eyes like two big holes waiting to be filled with glee or grief—whichever came first. “It’s utterly luxurious, and peaceful. I don’t want to sit around in the lobby waiting for a two bedroom suite to become available. Every minute counts. I’m determined to pull myself together. Anyway—it’s not like we have to share a bed. Only the bathroom.”

Caburn let his breathe out. “I’ll be the absolute soul of propriety. I promise.”

“I hope not,” Anna murmured as she turned away to unpack.

“Anna.”

“Mmmm?”

“I have exceptionally keen hearing.”

The air seemed to have become thinner in the room.

“That’s nice,” she said, as if it didn’t matter one whit that he had overheard her comment. “Give me five minutes in the bathroom to freshen up and change, then it’s all yours.”

She came out of the bathroom barefoot, clad in a lime green bikini, and a knee-length flowered sarong tied about her hips.

“Holy Hannah,” Caburn said
.

Anna offered him an impish smile. “I think that’s a compliment.” She folded her discarded clothes into a neat stack and put them in a drawer. “I’ll wait on the patio.” She sashayed past him as he sat on the foot of the bed,
looking dazed and a wad of clothing dangling from his wonderful hands between his knees. On the patio Anna peeked around the louvers. Frank was still sitting on the foot of the bed.
Oh, I’m bad
, she thought.
And, it feels delicious.

Caburn took a one minute shower, a two minute shave, brushed his teeth, his hair, and emerged clad in
a green and white striped swimsuit and a white tee.

Anna looked up. She was on the sofa packing her beach tote. For a moment she thought she would turn her head away, but she couldn’t help herself.
She looked him up and down. He had very nice legs. Long, ropy and muscled. She watched him dig around in his sport tote for sandals and sunglasses. He slid their room key into a zipper pocket, and, wearing a frown, pointed a thumb at the door.

“Have you lost the power of speech?” asked Anna.

“No. I forgot to do something important.”

“Like what?”

“Make dinner reservations.”

Anna withheld a sigh. “The beach is this way,” she told him, leading him down a gravel path. Overhead was an artfully designed canopy of indigenous shrubs, and towering bamboo.

In less than five minutes it seemed to Anna that she had been transported into another universe by magic carpet. The blue-green waters of the Caribbean stretched as far as the eye could see beneath an entire ceiling of pure blue sky. The breeze off the water caught her sarong, whipping it away to reveal shapely legs and a superbly formed thigh.

This moment, she decided, stepping into the crystal white sun, was the actual beginning of her new life
—whatever it would be, however it went. Hers.

Kevin’s deceit, the dissatisfaction in her marriage, and
Clara-Alice’s galling hatefulness would fade with time. Meanwhile she did not have to carry them around as emotional luggage.

~~~~

Caburn was thankful for his sunglasses. They allowed him to stare unabashedly at Anna. Her creamy skin was flawless; luminous in the blazing sun. Silhouetted against the light, her spine was straight, her head tilted toward the sky, her arms out flung to the fulsome breeze and spray of surf, as if she were welcoming some other kind of life. He hoped she was and he hoped he was a part of it.

She turned to him, smiling. “Can you feel it?”

“Impossible not to,” he said, enjoying her innocence of the moment. If only she knew. If only he had not given his word of honor.

“Oh, look. There’s a group doing Tai Chi on the beach. Let’s walk down there. I love Tai Chi.” They had gone no more than a few yards when the assemblage turned in mass. The women were all topless. Anna stopped in her tracks. “I changed my mind. Let’s go down to the salt-water pool instead.”

Caburn laughed. “Hold up a minute. I like Tai Chi, too.”

She lifted her glasses, skewering him with a look. “No, you don’t.” She took his arm and steered him back toward the salt-water pool.

“Miss Anna, you are one prodigious mass of contradictions. I thought you were open-minded.”

“I am. I just didn’t want you to be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed by naked women. Goodness. There’s
Penthouse, Playboy, National Geographic—”

“Oh, it wasn’t the women. Didn’t you notice? The men were topless, too.”

Caburn stopped on the path while Anna walked on to the cabana bar, and ordered a frozen margarita.
I better learn to laugh at my foibles
, he thought,
since I plan on spending a lot of time with this woman.

He got a bottle of water from the barista and went to join Anna. She was sitting on the foot of a lounge chair beneath a thatched-roof cabana lathering on sunscreen. There were a half-dozen others sunning themselves, or in the pool.

“Will you put some on my back?” asked Anna, holding out the tube of lotion.

He found his hands trembling. He smoothed the lotion on slowly, not to create a sensual mood, but to prolong the delightful sensation of feeling her smooth skin against his palm.

“Now, you,” Anna said after he capped the lotion.

“I’m good.”

“You are not. You’re fairer than I am. Why are you suddenly so...so conservative?” Before he could protest or move, she went behind him and lifted the tee. His left shoulder from spine to clavicle was yellow, fading from purple. She saw where the staples had been removed. That area was still blue-black. Her insides felt suddenly airy. She leaned her forehead against his neck. “God
damn
Clara-Alice—and me, too—for being so focused on myself—on
my
problems...I’m so ashamed, Frank. Why didn’t you
say
something?”

“Hey. Don’t beat up on yourself. It looks worse than it feels. Honest. Anyway, men don’t hold up mirrors to look at their backside. That’s a woman thing.” Then, to make her feel better, he stripped off his tee. “It’s my front side that’s miserable.”

“Oh. That’s not really too bad. The hair is already growing back where you pulled it out.” Anna put her hand palm flat on his chest, lowering it slowly until it reached the tie string at his waist.

Caburn grabbed her hand. “Whoa!”

“You let Lila cop a feel. Why can’t I?”

“We’re in public.”

“No one is paying any attention to us.”

“Wrong. I’m paying attention.”

“So, it’s okay if I do that when we’re not in public.”

“Nope. I’m not falling into those verbal traps.”

“You have a lot of experience with verbal traps?”

He looked at her with a sea of affection. “About a thousand years of it.”

“What about your back? Is that off-limits, too?”

“No. Pour on that stuff and let’s go swimming.”

She took longer than needed to apply the sunscreen. She included his neck, the tops of his ears. Her hand slid down the side of his back and snaked around to his ribs.

Laughing, he caught her hand. “For a librarian, you’re utterly shameless.”

“Shameless is far better than being dull.” She stood, dropped her sarong across his knees, and walked down the steps into the pool.

Caburn stopped laughing and began a m
ental mantra:
I gave my word...I gave my word...

The afternoon tide was at its zenith, the waves curling more than six feet high over the artificial reef to fill the pool. Anna swam its length and back. Caburn joined her on the third lap.