The Sea Grape Tree (12 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I
'm being lazy tonight,” Sonja declared as the party of four pulled out chairs. “Our helper is off and I don't feel like cooking.”

“Glad to have you,” Eric said, smiling at the two attractive women, pleased that he'd slicked his hair back in a neat ponytail and had on a new cotton shirt. He raised his arm to signal Shad, but the barman was already on his way to the table.

Roper gave his drink order in a monotone, unusual for him, and complained of his tiring drive from Kingston that day. Their guest, the Englishwoman, looked pretty tonight in a blue dress with straps, her face and arms pinker than Eric remembered. On the group's last visit to the bar, she'd been silent and sad looking, despite the fiery hair, her eyes constantly circling, observing. Beside her sat the tall African-­American man, the trumpeter, who'd been with them the last time. A couple, maybe?

“What's on the menu tonight?” Sonja asked.

“I think jerk chicken,” Eric said. “Shad will tell you.” He slapped at a mosquito on his arm and walked back to the refrigerator. Shad returned to the bar after taking the order and tuned the radio to a soca song, something with a fast beat and a man shouting,
Jump, jump
.

“Do you have to play that?” Eric complained, pulling the top off a ginger ale bottle.

“It make the crowd happy.”

“You don't look too happy.”

The younger man stroked his chin. “Boss, I have something to ask you.”

Eric took a sip of his ginger ale. “Go on.” And while Shad poured Merlot into a wineglass and three Red Stripes into beer glasses, he told him about Beth's threat to leave.

“I wouldn't take her seriously,” Eric said, and rounded the counter. “Women have a way of saying things to. . . . Bet it blows over in a couple days.”

“No, Beth don't blow over. She want to get married, and she going to move mountain and river to do it. Her father was a preacher and her parents married, you know. You would think that, like how they dead now, she would forget about it. But no, we living in sin, and the older she get, the worse she get. All she thinking about is marriage.”

“Marriage!” Eric blew out of the side of his mouth. “You know my opinion on that subject. So what d'you want to ask me?”

Shad placed the drinks on a round wooden tray and folded four napkins. “I asking you, boss, about your mother and father. You say they was married a long time. You think they had a good marriage?”

Eric sat down on a bar stool. “And you want to know this because . . .”

“I was just thinking—hold on, I coming back.” Shad rushed off with the drinks to Roper's table, but he was back in five minutes, after handing in their food orders to the kitchen. “As I was saying—maybe, if your parents was miserable, that is why you so against marriage. Maybe if they had a good marriage, you would more favor it, you know. I notice that people from families with happy parents, those people want to get married, like Beth. I was wondering if it go the other way—when the parents miserable, the children don't like marriage.”

It was an awkward moment for Eric, who knew that, as a white foreigner, he occupied a rare status in Largo. Although he was gossiped about and sometimes laughed at (even to his face), he was also considered a man of the world with an American passport, on par with the preacher and the obeah man. Advice from him was taken seriously and he was careful about giving it.

Eric shifted his buttocks on the stool, trying to get comfortable. “Well, no marriage is a hundred percent happy.”

“I hear you, boss, but were your parents
irie,
you know, cool? They like one another?”

“Why you asking me this now?”

“Miss Mac was saying that sometimes a person have an opinion that form from when they was growing up, and it influence everything they do when they big. She said her mother used to tell her all the time that a woman is better off living alone, and that make her live without a man. So I was thinking, maybe the reason you don't like marriage was because of your parents' marriage, you know.” He looked over his shoulder toward the partition. “Stick a pin.”

While Shad was in the kitchen checking on his orders, Eric looked out at the black vastness beyond the cliff. It was a moonless night, the waves beneath breaking the darkness. The memory of the brown belt—once his immigrant grandfather's—was so etched in his mind he could even remember the dent on the silver buckle, remember his father's hand reaching under his brother's bed to haul him out, remember every lash the old man had given him. And if he closed his eyes, he could hear the man slamming through the house in the middle of the night, drunk as a skunk, calling for his dinner, and hear his mother's complaining footsteps as she rolled down the corridor to the kitchen, hear it like it happened yesterday.

When Shad returned, Eric put his elbows on the counter. “My mother only stayed because she'd been a housewife all her life and didn't have a choice. I never knew how she stuck it out, though. They quarreled all the time, about everything. Why you think I left home so early and moved to New York?”

After draining his glass, Eric walked to Roper's table. “Enjoying the stew?”

“Delicious,” the Englishwoman said with a nod.

“Have a seat,” Roper said, and the bar owner sat down, enjoying the delighted moans from the table about Solomon's dishes.

“I'm glad you joined us,” the trumpeter said, his voice like Brooklyn and the South mixed up.

Sonja put down her fork. “Ford wants to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Eric said. A night of questions, it seemed.

“Would you like some music in the place?” Ford asked. “I notice you have a radio, but I was wondering if you'd be interested in some live music.”

“I couldn't pay anybody,” Eric said quickly.

Ford's nostrils flared, the diamond sparkling in his nose. “I wouldn't charge you anything, man. I just thought if you wanted to have a party or something, I could blow my horn, you know.”

“You're serious?”

“That I am.”

Roper leaned toward Eric. “He's terrific, I'm telling you. You can hardly get into his gigs in Manhattan.”

“Why do you want to play here?” Eric asked. His bar was a dive; no decent musician would want to play in a place with a thatch roof and concrete floor. And chances were that Largoites might not appreciate a foreign musician playing foreign music. All they wanted was reggae and calypso. It could be a quiet night like tonight, no breeze, just mosquitoes buzzing around and only a few customers. It could be embarrassing.

“I'm getting anxious to play again, I guess, but I'm not ready to go back home,” Ford replied. “It would be my way of giving something back.”

“You can't pass this up, Eric,” Sonja urged. “It would cost you thousands if you were in the States.”

“Just a minute,” Eric said, holding up his hand, signaling toward the bar. When Shad approached the table, he recounted the offer.

“What you going to need?” Shad queried Ford.

“I'm going to need somebody to play drums.”

“And guitar? My cousin play guitar in Ocho Rios. He'll know a drummer.” And before the dinner was digested, it had been arranged that Ford and a pickup band would perform in Eric's humble venue, date and time to be decided.

While they were all beaming with the new plan (Eric already calculating money out, money in), two customers entered the bar. The large man looked serious and calm, his date jubilant and wearing a dress with a waist so tight she looked ready to explode out of both ends.

“Danny!” Roper called.

The couple turned toward them. Danny's face clouded over for a second before he smiled. He seemed uncertain about whether to join them until the woman tugged at his arm. There was no doubt in Eric's mind about the reason for the man's hesitation. He was still unhappy about the trip to Simone Island that afternoon.

From his arrival, Danny had been curious about the island. He wasn't the only one. Almost every visitor who passed through the village wondered what the moldy buildings had been, wondered who would have taken a boat a quarter mile out to sea to occupy those buildings. Many asked at the bar while sipping a beer and Shad or Eric would recount the tale of the broken peninsula and marooned hotel.

When Danny's curiosity had reached its peak, he'd told Eric he wanted to examine the future campsite and, rowing an old canoe rented from Minion, a retired fisherman, Eric had taken Danny over before lunch, his first visit since Simone had left. That midday, the water had been as choppy as usual and the trip unremarkable. When they got to the island's small beach, Danny had leaped over the side of the canoe and hauled the boat onto the beach. Then he'd looked up at the fifteen-foot cliff in front of them.

“Is that how you usually get up, by climbing that steep path?”

Eric had nodded; Danny had frowned. He said nothing more until they'd ascended the path, their bare feet slipping back every few steps. At the top, they walked between the lemongrass to the almond tree in the center of the island. There they had stood examining the two long, roofless buildings. The southern one, Eric pointed out, had housed the registration area, the bar, and the guest rooms, and the northern one—at a right angle to the other—had served as dining room, housekeeping, and maintenance offices.

“We had a great view of the open sea from the dining room,” Eric added. “Everyone loved it.” The remnants of Jennifer's ravaged mural mocked his words.

“The lobby was great, too, high ceiling, and it had a giant mobile of fish swirling around. I had some guy in the village make it. Took him forever, then we had to get a crane to hoist the darn thing up and get it balanced right.”

“And everything came apart in a few hours during the hurricane?”

“That's right.” Eric recounted how he'd crouched on top of the registration desk while the waves washed through the lobby, remembered halfway through the story that he'd already told it to the investor, and rushed through the rest.

While Eric was memorializing the old hotel, his companion had been looking around. “About the campsite,” he said after Eric had paused, “we need to bring Horace over to discuss what they're going to need, from day-to-day needs to emergency hurricane evacuation.”

“I thought we'd just rent it to him,” Eric said, scratching the side of his nose, “as is.”

“We have to make an agreement with them, and we need it in writing. We don't want to be liable for any accidents. And there's a lot of stuff missing
as is
: no landing dock for boats, no steps leading up from the beach, no cooking facilities, no toilets. We might not even be allowed to rent it to them in this—” Danny broke off, the thought clearly alarming him. “If I were Horace, I'd want at least those things.”

“We could just put up some wooden stairs—”

“Shit, Eric,” Danny had said, turning with suddenly hard eyes, “you don't understand. If anything happens, we could lose our shirts, man.”

The ride back in the canoe had been quiet other than the slapping and dripping of the oars. Overhead, seagulls circled around the boat looking for a fisherman's catch and, disappointed, drifted off.

“Let's get Horace out there,” was all Danny had said before leaving, and a miffed Eric had sat on his verandah for a full hour to recover.

“Come and join us,” Roper was saying now, waving Danny and Janet toward the table. Eric moved his chair over a few inches and looked at Sarah beside him to see if she would do the same, but the woman seemed frozen. She was staring at the two people approaching, her face paler than usual.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

S
arah's chest tightened as soon as she saw them walk in. Danny's stance remained proud when he noticed her, but his eyes flickered around, uncertain about where to land, the cause of which she knew. He'd said he had to rush down from the mountains that morning for an appointment with Eric, nothing about being with Janet. She'd half expected him to be there since the bar was the only place to go in Largo, but she'd thought that this time he'd come alone.

“Let's join two tables,” Shad said, and he and Danny moved a nearby table to accommodate the expanded party. The new arrivals settled down, their faces turned to Roper, who was offering wine.

“I'm going to pass,” Danny said and, over his shoulder to Shad, “Two rum and Cokes, please.”

Sarah looked down at a tie-dyed circle on her dress. Sonja had encouraged her to buy it with the matching earrings in Ocho Rios that afternoon.

“Try this on,” her hostess had called across the tourist shop. “It'll look great on you, like how you're long and slim.” Sarah had tried on the dress with its splotches of bright blue and purple, colors she never wore, and she'd bought it, aware that a dress with spaghetti straps would get little wear in chilly London, aware that she was using up half her remaining funds to buy it. But the lavender outfit wasn't turning any heads, and she'd wanted to turn Danny's head, especially after their last outing.

The drive to Strawberry Hill the day before was over an hour from their mountainside painting spot, the time passing quickly as they veered around one sharp bend and then another, the air getting cooler as they climbed.

“This is more like England,” Sarah had commented, feeling light-headed. The vegetation had changed to lily-like plants and mossy banks beside the road. More substantial wooden houses with gingerbread trim—vacation homes, they both agreed—began to appear, followed by a park with pine trees. They got out of the car to look at the view, both of them surprised by the large city on the southern side of the mountain that filled the entire plain below and ended at a harbor.

“Hey,” she'd said with a mock pummel to his arm, “you never told me you were taking me to Kingston!”

“We're just going with the flow.” Danny had chuckled. “Let's see where it take us.” He seemed unperturbed that Largo was far behind.

Looking down at the sprawling city, Sarah wondered how she'd gotten here with a man she didn't know from Adam, who was driving her to a place where no one could find her. There seemed to have been some shift within her. They painted together and they'd become friends, but it was more than that. Just being with him made her feel more alive than she had in years, and she liked how it felt. And she'd decided, standing there looking at the tiny houses and streets below, hearing the distant hum of the city at rush hour, that she wasn't going to shut down this time. She would open to her fate—against her better judgment, perhaps—and see where it led her. To go with Danny's flow.

Sarah had gotten back in the car and exchanged a tight smile with her companion. They kept driving, searching for Strawberry Hill. Rewarded with a sign, they entered a winding road up to the main building. It turned out to be not only a restaurant but an elegant guesthouse, and they spent the first fifteen minutes exploring the old plantation and its very modern infinity pool. Danny got into a conversation with a gardener, who showed them a century-old palm tree, a coffee bush, and a variegated hibiscus flower.

In the restaurant they ordered cucumber sandwiches, with Sarah explaining that they were the queen's favorite, and two glasses of sherry. When the sandwiches came, Danny declared Jamaica a British colony after all, based on the crustless sandwiches, to which she'd slapped him on the arm again. By the time they finished, the sun had disappeared behind the western mountain range.

“You know it's too dark to drive back,” she'd said.

“Come on, where's your sense of adventure?” he'd chided her.

“I saw you swerve into the right lane when we came out of the park. My confidence in your ability to drive down the mountain in the dark has drastically diminished.”

He'd eased smoothly into talking about spending the night and she began to have a sinking feeling. “No, we have to go back,” she'd urged. “I don't have the money for a place like this, not even one night—”

“Separate rooms, my treat,” he'd said, grasping her fluttering hand. “Call Roper and tell him you're not coming home tonight. Tell him exactly where you are, if it will make you feel better.”

He wouldn't listen to her protests. “You given me free art classes and I want to thank you. The least I can do is repay you with one night in a nice hotel, right?”

She'd eventually called Sonja to say she'd be home in the morning while Danny booked them into two rooms a building apart. They stopped at her room first and admired its white hammock on the balcony overlooking what was now a black valley. Danny called room service when they got to his room, and while he was speaking softly and firmly, asking for menus, Sarah began to see him as a man who might not speak perfect English but who knew his way around the world, expecting a positive response to everything he wanted. They'd sat at the table on his verandah to have dinner and, when it came to the wine, he admitted his ignorance to the waiter and left it to him to decide. When the waiter left, he'd breathed a deep sigh and stretched his legs out in front of him.

“I needed to leave Largo and get away from—from everything, to tell you the truth. I been thinking about the new hotel too much and I need to clear my head.”

“Probably a good thing, then.”

“This is the biggest project that I've gotten into and it's more of a headache than I thought. It could end up costing me everything if it pulls down my other businesses. I'll either go ahead with it or get out early. I don't like to waste my time.”

Dinner was a well-done steak for him and crispy duck for her, washed down with a wine they agreed was miraculous. He'd walked her back to her room along the path connecting the buildings, aromatic bushes lining the walkway, the trip made shorter by the wine and the brushing of elbows.

“Is this what you thought Jamaica would be like?” he'd asked her.

“I thought it would be just sand and sea, really.”

“I thought it would be edgy,” Danny had said. “In-your-face, kind of, the way Jamaicans talk, you know? I didn't expect it to be—I don't know—
civilized
like this.”

“You said it yourself, they
were
a British colony.” He'd ruffled her hair, and she'd laughed with him and had a sudden desire to kiss him.

When they got to her room, she'd opened the door with the old-fashioned key and stood with her hand on the knob. She wasn't going to ask him to come in. Half turned to leave, suddenly quiet, he'd stood still while she floundered through a thank-you. He started to walk away—and returned, like he'd made a decision, and, when she started to say something, he'd placed one finger on her lips to silence her and she'd looked up at him, unable to see his eyes in the dark. He'd moved his finger from her lips down to her chin, raised it a few inches, and lowered his face until his lips brushed hers. Then he'd wrapped his arms around her, surprising her, and kissed her, his tongue playing with hers, and she hadn't resisted, asking herself why. And just when she'd started relaxing into the kiss and the embrace, he'd pulled away, and there was a startled silence before he left.

Afterward, she'd sat contemplating the fact that Danny had kissed her, a kiss that hadn't been unwelcome. She'd felt strangely protected being close to him, his large, brown presence enfolding her. After she'd climbed into the four-poster bed in her underwear, the mosquito net pulled tight around the posters, she'd fallen asleep feeling his finger beneath her chin.

They'd arranged to leave early the next morning so he could keep an appointment with Eric. Danny had knocked on her door soon after the sun was up and they'd greeted each other as if nothing unusual had happened. Munching on leftovers from the day before, they'd driven over the mountain and arrived back to Largo in time for his meeting. Everything seemed normal on the surface, except that Sarah had been left off at Roper's door feeling abandoned, wanting more. No word had been said about getting together again, and she hadn't been in the least mood to paint. When Sonja offered to take her into
Ochy,
she'd immediately agreed.

“You don't need to tell me about last night,” Sonja had said when they got on the road, but the way the writer had opened her eyes, wide with mischief, had encouraged Sarah to describe the overnight trip.

“And nothing happened?” the writer had exclaimed when she finished.

“A perfect gentleman.”

“Sweet,” her friend had declared.

A bright blue dress and a few hours later, Sonja was again opening her eyes wide, this time at Janet. “And what have you two been up to?” she asked.

“We just out on the town,” the woman replied. She seemed pleased to be included in the conversation this time, her voice and the makeup on her eyelids sparkling.

“I know you need it,” Roper said to Danny. “Starting a business in Jamaica is hard work.”

“You can say that again,” Danny agreed, showing only his profile to those at the other end. “There are so many details—”

“But he have time to paint,” Janet interjected with a little laugh.

“You're
painting
?” Roper said.

Danny turned to Sarah, his body turning before his eyes. “I've been getting some tips.”

“You're painting with Sarah?” Roper responded. He was playing the innocent as much as Sonja, Danny's painting on the beach having been the topic of discussion a couple evenings before.

“We had a few sessions together. She's a good teacher.” Sarah bobbed her head to acknowledge the praise.

Janet took her drink from Shad and sucked her teeth. “I don't know how you have time to paint and is business you come to do.”

“It take my mind off business, I told you,” Danny answered.

The dressmaker took a sip of her rum. “You can't make no money doing no painting.”

“Some artists actually make money, madam,” Roper said in a British accent that delivered the sting of reproach.

“Yes, but you painting long time,” the woman countered with a wave of her chubby hand. “He don't know how to paint, just wasting his time.”

“Art,” Sarah said in a low voice, “is not about making money. It's an act of creation that comes from the soul. If one makes money from it, so be it.”

Sonja lifted her glass. “Well said, even if the form of art is a book on sexual harassment.” Everyone laughed, except for Janet, who looked confused, and there was a sudden drop in temperature around the table.

Smoothing back his ponytail, Eric turned to Danny. “Guess what? Ford is going to be playing here one night.” An enthusiastic discussion started and Sarah got up and walked to the bar.

“The lavatory?” Shad responded to her question.

“The ladies',” Sarah said with only a slight quiver in her voice.

He pointed to a door beyond the kitchen. “We only have one bathroom. I tell the boss we should have two, one for men and one for women, but we only have one.”

“No problem, it'll do,” she said, and opened the flimsy door. The restroom was lit by a bulb above the sink, revealing the uncovered toilet tank and its innards. After latching the door, Sarah leaned into the low mirror over the sink, which cut her off above the nose, showing only her high cheekbones and the blue shell earrings like a magazine advertisement.

She needed to put space between herself and Danny, needed to slow her heart down. Last night's kiss, she reasoned with the earrings, had been the result of good wine and being on holiday. She was the guest of two people who'd befriended her and whom she liked, Roper having shown himself as a pompous but likable character after all, and she'd developed a friendship with Ford, a gentle man in pain, and become his confidante. She was expanding here, although not to the point of having Danny as her lover.

She was attracted to him, without a doubt. When he was with her, the unevenness of her breathing sometimes disturbed her painting. When he wasn't, he dominated her thoughts. But not every infatuation had to be acted on. She'd experienced that already with a waiter in Kent, a married man named Richard. The vibe between them had been almost unbearable, his jokes making her blush, until she asked about his wife one day and the feelings had fizzled. She should do that with Danny, talk about Janet and let the beastly thing fizzle out.

She used the toilet since she was there, felt the vibration from the waves below traveling up through the toilet seat to her legs. After washing and drying her hands, she bent to check her hair in the mirror, noting that the red dye was growing out. She opened the door—only to take a step back.

Janet was standing a few inches in front of the door, one hand on her hip and the metallic eye shadow glowering.

“I coming to join you,” she said. She pushed Sarah back into the bathroom and closed the door. The toilet was still noisily refilling, going about its business. “Keep me company, nuh?”

“I'm sorry—I was just leaving.”

The dressmaker squeezed past Sarah to the toilet. She placed her purse on the ledge of the closed window. “You don't come from a family where plenty people use one bathroom, eh?”

She pulled her dress up and sat on the toilet, the high heels splaying out on either side. “Too much rum make you want to pee.” She giggled as she started urinating.

“Do you mind—”

“Like how you new to Jamaica,” Janet said, her face suddenly going cold, “I just figure you and me should understand each other.”