The Shell Collector (23 page)

“No one disappears like I do,” Ness warns me.

“Challenge accepted,” I say, offering my hand.

Ness takes my hand, but he uses it to pull me into him, nearly spilling my champagne. “Close your eyes,” he commands. And I do. Ness kisses me and tells me I’m beautiful, and then he says, “Close them tighter.”

I squint until not a sliver of light comes in.

“I win,” Ness says.

When we land, I can tell that we’re not back in Maine. The flight didn’t feel long enough, and the temperature and the humidity are too high. I feel both before we get to the front of the plane. I glance back at Ness, who is smiling guiltily.

“Detour,” he says.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“The nearest thing I have to a home.”

Outside, the midday sun has heat waves shimmering up from the tarmac. It’s stuffy, but the faintest of breezes wafts through, bringing relief. I look around for an airport. There are no other planes. A single hangar and a small cluster of structures the size of outhouses, a few silver tanks streaked with rust that I assume hold fuel. Or used to. The pilot hands Ness our two bags, which he throws on the back of a nearby golf cart. There’s another cart nearby. Two islanders help the flight crew with their bags.

“Get in,” Ness says. “You drive.”

I jump behind the wheel of the golf cart. When I hit the accelerator, the silent whine of a strong electric motor rockets us forward. Ness clutches the oh-shit handle and laughs. “I took the governors out,” he tells me.

“Of course you did,” I say.

“Take a right past those bushes.”

We cruise along white sandstone-paved roads, seeing nothing and no one. The golf cart’s windshield is down, and the breeze feels nice. Now and then, we pass twin ruts of sand that jut off into the scrub brush, trails only golf carts and feet have been down. Ness is gripping the cart with one hand, has the other on my thigh, and is watching the world zip by. He doesn’t tell me to turn, and I don’t ask.

Ahead, I see the road bend to the left. Scanning the low island that direction, I spot a structure beyond a stand of palm trees. The palms here remind me of the ones along Ness’s driveway in Maine. He said this place feels like home to him. I wonder if that’s why he has the trees transplanted, if the cost is justified by the longing he feels.

Supporting this theory is the fact that this house looks a lot like the one in Maine. Wood siding, the same bright Caribbean colors, open doors with flowing white linens. Small and cozy. The central part of his Maine estate without all the wings and additions.

“Pull around the back,” Ness says.

I swing around the end of the house, and the view on the other side causes my foot to slip off the accelerator. I find the brake pedal and bring us to a jarring stop. Ahead of us, a tiered patio steps down toward a pristine white powder beach. I barely see the cabanas and the pool and the amenities. It’s the water beyond the titanium sand that draws me in. Not blue, not even the bright green of a clear lagoon, something more like sea foam. A green so bright it has a tint of yellow. The color of clarity. Of shallow water over white sand.

“If you don’t start breathing, I’m going to have to kiss you again,” Ness says.

I tear my eyes away and lean over to kiss him. “Where is this?” I ask.

“The Bahamas. Tara Cay. And yeah, the water here is unbeatable. I’ve been to more beaches than I can count, and when I saw this one, I never wanted to leave.”

“Why
do
you leave? Why would you ever leave?”

“Work,” he says. And I’m reminded that he leaves a lot of beautiful things behind for his work. “Let’s put your stuff away and see if anything’s washed up.”

“There are shells here?”

“Not on this beach. Too shallow. But we’ll take the boat out and hit the ocean side. I haven’t been here in a few weeks, and there’s been a good storm since then, so we might get lucky.”

“I feel lucky just to see this. Is this one of the islands your dad bought for you?”

“No. Those are down in the Caribbean. I gave them back to the countries that owned them, and they put them in a preserve. And yes, the tax benefits were enormous. Make sure you put that in your article.”

I’d forgotten about my article. I’d forgotten that I’m a reporter. I’d forgotten about the fact that the FBI is looking closely into Ness and those shells. Right then, I’m not sure I could find my apartment if I were dropped a block away from it.

The rest of the day is just that sort of discombobulated blur. I try not to dwell on all the nagging doubts and fears, choosing instead to just enjoy where I am. Ness lets me pilot his center console around the back of the island. It’s a big thirty-foot Contender, nicer than the one at his other house, but sun-beaten and salt-worn. Well used. Amid the rocks on the Atlantic side of the island, we find fighting conchs, sozon’s cones, and a horse conch. My life feels complete when I turn up a scotch bonnet in a tidal pool, the shell in very good or excellent condition, and Ness has to assure me ten times that it wasn’t planted there. That it is a real find. I don’t even dare put it in the shelling bag I borrowed from the house. For the rest of our expedition, I carry it with me in my palm. I know even then that it will be the one shell I walk away from this experience treasuring. I have this, even if everything else is taken from me.

Back at the house, we take turns showering. With towels wrapped around us, there’s a feeling of familiar intimacy but danger as well. We haven’t yet been completely naked in front of each other. He must expect it as much as I do, the inevitability, but not knowing when it might come is like holding a grenade with the pin pulled. We both dance around it as we get dressed while the other isn’t looking.

Dinner is on the patio. A fire in a raised metal pit crackles. We watch the sun go down as dinner arrives. I meet Gladys, the chef, and her husband, Nick. Ness introduces them like they’re family. When he tells Gladys that my mother was from Antigua, she shrieks and cups my face in both her hands, like an island hundreds of miles away is somehow next door. For the rest of the night, any time I catch her looking at me she bursts into a wide smile.

“I wish I had my laptop,” I say after dinner, while enjoying a glass of wine.

“Party foul,” Ness proclaims.

“To write,” I say. “I feel inspired to write some fiction. Make something up. Something less impossible than this, so people would buy it.”

Ness sips his wine. “Ever written a novel before?”

“Started a few. Meandered. I vacillated between feeling silly and feeling pretentious. Like some parts weren’t serious enough and other parts I was trying too hard to be profound.”

“Sounds like me learning to play the guitar. I would go back and forth between teaching myself chords and trying to learn complex tunes one contorted note at a time. I think that, with a lot of art, you just have to be bad at it a long time before the magic happens. And I suck at being bad at things.”

I laugh at the play on words. “Me too,” I say. “I mean, I’m really good at being bad at things, but I hate it. So I avoid it.”

“Dangerous habit,” Ness says. “Life is too short. And you’re lucky you don’t have your laptop.”

“Why is that?”

“Because if you pulled it out, I’d toss it into the sea.”

I laugh at him.

“I’m not kidding,” Ness says, even though he laughs with me. “Speaking of the sea,” he continues, “it’s warm enough to go for a dip. You wanna?”

“I would, but someone told me a whole bunch of things
not
to pack, and one was my bathing suit.”

Ness lifts his hands in defense. “I didn’t know you were going to jump me in the sub and that I’d be bringing you here!”

“I totally didn’t jump you. You took advantage of me in a weakened state.”

“Whatever. I’m going for a swim. If you wanna come, it’s dark enough that I won’t see anything. Not that I’d be looking anyway. And not that I haven’t already seen your breasts.”

“The lights were out. You didn’t see anything.”

But Ness is already up and out of his chair. I refuse to move, electing to enjoy my wine, the stars, the sound of the gently lapping water before me, the crack and pop of the fire, and the distant hiss of waves crashing on the other side of the island.

Ness sheds his shirt before he gets to the sand. I study his silhouette as he drops his shorts and then heads out into the water. Gladys appears beside me, gathering the dessert dishes.

“You a mad woman,” she says.

“Oh, we were just playing,” I tell her.

“No, you crazy not being out there with that man. He insane for you.”

“He barely knows me,” I tell her.

“All right then, tell me why he never bring no woman here. I say you mad.”

She laughs on her way back to the house, and I hear her talking with Nick, realize the two of them are probably gossiping about this last-minute arrival and this mysterious woman with half an island in her.

“Fuck it,” I say. I leave my wine and head down the tiered patio. At the sand’s edge, I pull off my shirt, take off my bra, drop my shorts and then my underwear. “No regrets,” I say. And by the time I get to the water, I’m running and laughing. I’m remembering what it feels like to be free again.

The best kisses in the world take place at night, in the ocean, with two naked bodies coiled around one another, only the stars to keep them company. Weight disappears, and our bodies with it. Ness stands on his toes, me clinging to him, my arms wrapped around his neck and my legs around his waist, our lips tasting the salt on each other.

The water is warm enough that I barely feel it, heightening the sense of my loss of self. And when we move, microscopic sea life blooms green and gives off an ethereal glow. Above us, a path of dense light reminds me where the Milky Way got its name. The stars are intense. Like the sky is as alive and excited as every cell in my body.

We stay in the water until I can barely feel anything with my fingers, they’re so pruned. Our bodies hardly ever came apart the entire time, so that when the water flows between us, it chills my breasts and stomach, which have been against Ness for what feels like half an hour. I think I stayed pinned to him to avoid access to other parts of our bodies, and so he couldn’t see me in the bright starlight. As we exit the water, there’s no avoiding it. I can feel his eyes on me. Holding my hand, he leads me down the beach where a blanket has been laid out.

“Did you plan this?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “Gladys did, I guess. I saw her out here arranging something.”

“So you were kissing with your eyes open,” I admonish him.

“Guilty.”

There are towels on the blanket. Ness and I dry off. He wraps his towel around me and rubs my arms. The breeze is soft, but it chills my skin where it’s still wet. We lie down on the blanket, huddle under one of the towels, and Ness runs his hand over my hair as we watch the sea slide toward us and then away, over and over.

“You shouldn’t be shy,” Ness says. “You’re gorgeous. Women half your age must loathe you.”

“Everyone in New York is gorgeous,” I say, deflecting his praise.

“I’m serious. Inside and out, you are intoxicating. And you were right, I was coming on to you that first night. It wasn’t just the wine, either. I was excited that you agreed to come out and talk to me. Made me think you weren’t out to get me, you know? That you were interested in my story, interested in hearing the truth. It makes it easy to open up to you.”

I think about why I really went up to interview Ness, and my heart aches for him. But I bite my lip and don’t say anything.

“A lot of shooting stars tonight.”

I scan the sky. I haven’t seen one yet. We rub our feet together to keep them warm. I see a flash of light overhead and squeeze Ness’s hand. He squeezes back. “Make a wish,” he says.

“That would be greedy,” I tell him. “I’ll let someone else have it.”

And then, maybe because I’m fighting so many dark secrets about why I wrote my articles and why I went to see Ness, and maybe because I’m terrified to share something that will drive him away from me, but I’m terrified that if I don’t say anything he’ll know I’m keeping something from him, I decide to give him a dark secret that I’ve never given anyone before.

“I’ve got to confess something,” I tell Ness. I wiggle away from him and prop myself up on my elbow. He studies me intensely, brushes the hair off my face.

“You used to be a man,” he guesses. “I’m totally cool with that.”

I laugh. “I’m serious,” I say. “I’m about to tell you something I’ve never told another living soul.”

His hand falls still for a moment, and then he seeks out my hand. He waits.

“There was a time when I didn’t care about shells. Not one bit.”

Ness doesn’t laugh at how insignificant this sounds. And it does sound insignificant to me, saying it, but only because I’m not sure how to tell the rest of the story.

“My sister and I had a rough time in school. I guess the things society tolerates come and go, and so we had friends with two moms or two dads, but there weren’t any other mixed-race girls in our elementary school. Parents came in color-coded couplets. Except ours.

“Our parents talked about moving us to another school, but they didn’t. I think we stopped telling them how bad it was because we worried it was all our fault. And you know, looking back, it wasn’t like the school was against us. It was probably five or six kids. Everyone else was nice to us or ignored us. But at that age, you just remember the ones who are after you.”

Ness squeezes my hand.

“So anyway, I hated my skin. When I was six or seven, I would alternate between covering up and staying out of the sun, hoping I’d turn white, or I’d lay out in the back yard with no clothes on trying to get darker. Neither of which worked like I hoped. All I wanted was different skin. I would have killed to have different skin. I even used to have these dreams when I was a kid where I could step into a skin suit and zip it up and no one would know it wasn’t mine.”

I wipe a tear off my cheek. I feel bad for ruining the moment, but what started as an urge to share something, anything, wells up into a desire to really have this off my chest.