The Voice inside My Head (9 page)

I give her a quizzical look but she grimaces. I think maybe she’s wishing she hadn’t started.

“Come on. I told you stuff.” I grin playfully.

She grins back but immediately ducks her head. “I think the kids who come here don’t see us as real people,” she says. “Maybe it’s because they think they’re more educated or because they’ve traveled. Maybe it’s because we’re always picking up after them in one way or another. I can’t explain it, but there’s this divide. They come here with their drugs and their drinking and are rowdy till all hours. And we go to church, look after our families and try to make a living. It’s like, for them, Utila is a break from real life but, for us, this island is our life.”

I look down at her slim brown fingers laced through my own and try to feel the truth of what she’s saying. She’s the first person in a long while I’ve actually wanted to connect to in a way that wasn’t mostly about sex or getting high. And just because she cleans cabins for a living doesn’t mean that’s
who she is. I want to tell her this. I don’t know how to put it into words, though, without sounding preachy or lame.

“I best be getting back to work,” she says abruptly, pulling her hand out of mine.

“You know why I think eagle rays jump?” I say quickly, wanting to hold her back and explain something that’s been brewing in me since Pat left. “I think sometimes they just want to see what other possibilities are out there. Sometimes the ocean is just too small.”

Reesie takes my hand again and looks me right in the eye. “Even if your sister was set on getting away from your family, it doesn’t mean she wanted to leave you.”

“Maybe,” I say, wondering how long her sympathy would last if I told her the whole story of how my sister ended up here. I want to tell her. I think it might feel good to finally get it off my chest, but just as the words are forming, we’re interrupted by the sound of the Shark Center boat pulling up to the dock.

“Catch the line,” Pete shouts, throwing me a rope from the front of the boat.

“I thought you were gone for the day.” I stand up carefully, so as not to dislodge my towel, and catch the rope, hesitating because I’m not an expert on nautical knots.

“Tie it up,” Pete orders, so I do. If the boat drifts away, he has only himself to blame.

He jumps off and ties up the back.

“What are you doing out here?” he demands. “Bonding with Reesie?” I notice for the first time that she’s already off the dock and heading down the footpath, pail in hand.

“Is that a problem?” I ask.

He smirks like it’s a big joke. “It’s none of my business.”

“You got that right.”

Fishboy’s an asshole, but I can’t get on the wrong side of him until I’ve found out what he knows about Pat.

“You need any help?” I ask.

“You a diver?”

“Not exactly.”

“Would you mind hauling some tanks to the boat? That would be great.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be right back.”

I take my clothes to my room, throw on my shorts and a T-shirt and head out to the shed where they keep the dive gear. Pete’s hauling out tanks. He gives me the job of loading weights into the dive belts. Despite the number of years Pat’s been diving, I’ve never looked closely at the equipment before. Each nylon belt has a row of pockets to snugly encase half a dozen solid lead weights.

“You mean people actually leap into the water with these on?” I ask, as I heave a handful of weighted belts over my shoulder to haul down to the dock.

“Have to. The oxygen and the dive suit make you float in the water, but you pile on enough weights and anyone will sink like a stone.”

I shake my head. I will never understand the appeal of this sport. We don’t say much else for the next twenty minutes as we load the boat and Pete drones on about their special air-powered motor that doesn’t disturb the sharks. Apparently, he hasn’t considered that with 332 million cubic miles of ocean, the sharks can just swim away if they’re disturbed.

I fit the last of the tanks into one of the wooden slots that line both sides of the boat and sit down on the hard bench that runs in front of it. The boat is cramped but okay, I guess, for people who are going to spend most of their day in the water. Pete has disappeared into a tiny cabin at the front with an enormous supply of junk food. He appears to be one of those guys who likes to prepare for every emergency, like an overpowering Cheetos craving when they’re out on the high seas.

Finally, he climbs out and stands next to me. “Thanks for your help. You should come out with us today. Jake wouldn’t charge you.”

“Tempting, but I have other plans.”

“What? You got a date with Reesie?” He smirks. Again.

Keep it up, Fishboy, and you’ll be seeing more marine life than you bargained for.

“How well did you know my sister?” I say in an even voice. He flops down next to me and props his feet up on the center bench.

“We didn’t really hang out, if that’s what you’re asking. We got along well at work.”

“Did you see her the night she disappeared?”

He hesitates and scratches an insect bite on his arm.

“I saw her at the Spiny Starfish. We were all pretty hammered. I might have chatted with her a bit, but I didn’t see her leave.” He runs his hand through his hair, tousling it to perfect his surfer look. “I really am sorry for what happened to her.”

“What did happen to her?” I shoot back, hoping to catch him off guard. I’ve got no reason to suspect he’s involved, but the guy rubs me the wrong way.

He jumps to his feet, arches his back and rolls his shoulders in a languorous stretch that somehow looks like he’s doing it for my benefit. “I’d love to continue this conversation, but I’ve really got to get this show on the road.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “We’re supposed to be heading out by ten. I’ve already got divers waiting in the office.”

I get up too. The space between the benches is narrow and we’re squared off, almost touching, chest to chest.

“Do you know what happened to my sister?” I demand, my face inches from his own.

He leans past me and tests the air pressure on one of the tanks. We both listen to the air whoosh out. He straightens.

“No, I don’t,” he says, and for the first time since we started talking, he actually looks me in the eye. “I honestly wish I did.”

He hops up on the bench and, with a second jump, he’s off the boat and striding down the dock with the easy rhythm of an athlete, a jock, the kind of guy who’s always hitting on my sister. What these guys never understand is, she doesn’t care about the rippling muscles, and she downright hates the smug swagger that oozes out of them like stink. If Pete had made any kind of play for my sister, she would have turned him down flat.

I flex my arms, stretching out the muscles that coil every time I’m near this guy. There’s something about him that’s off.

But is he lying?

L
ike every other building I’ve seen in Utila, the Spiny Starfish is constructed of wooden clapboard and, like most, the salt air hasn’t been good to it. I walk up the steps past a padlocked room, presumably the kitchen, onto a veranda that extends way out over the sea. Sharing a wall with the kitchen is a fully stocked open-air bar, with a brick pizza oven at one end; beyond that are wooden picnic tables that look sturdy but uncomfortable. There’s a guy asleep on one of them. Other than him, the place is empty.

I’m debating whether I should wake him when he rolls over and opens one eye.

“Yo,” he calls over to me. “You wanna bring me a coffee?”

I look around, like maybe there was a Starbucks I didn’t notice on the way in.

“The bar.” He waves an arm.

When I walk behind the bar, sure enough, there’s a coffeemaker with a coffee can sitting beside it. As luck would have it, coffee is something I know how to make: the silver lining of having a mother who’s a drunk. I rifle through the fridge for milk. There isn’t any, nor is there sugar, though
I find an impressive array of cream liqueurs. I pull out a coconut cream concoction and examine the label. After a few minutes, the coffee stops gurgling so I pour two cups and consider the liqueur again. There’s something to be said for the hair of the dog. But not much. I decide my new friend has had enough alcohol. I tip some into my cup, though.

He doesn’t stir as I walk over, which doesn’t surprise me since he’s obviously slept right through the shrieks of kids who are swimming off the next dock. I put down both cups, settle at a nearby table and clear my throat.

He turns over. Bulging muscles strain against the fabric of his Hawaiian shirt. If he’s the watchman, he’s in the wrong line of work.

“I got some java juice here, buddy,” I say.

He opens his eyes, rubs them and rolls to a sitting position, resting his feet on the bench. I’m amazed at how easily he wakes up. I usually have to resort to threats with Mom. I hand him a cup and watch him take a slow sip as he passes a hand over his close-cropped ’fro.

“Put something extra in yours, did ya?” He eyes me speculatively over the top of his cup.

I shrug.

“I always wonder about a man who drinks before noon,” he says.

“I always wonder about a man who passes out on a picnic table.”

“You got balls, I’ll give you that. So what you doing in my establishment at this time of day?”

I’m surprised to hear he’s the owner, but I give him a sphinxlike stare.

He chuckles. “What? You think I was the hired help?”

Perhaps not totally sphinxlike.

“I just thought, you know, being passed out drunk and all …”

I swear I’m sounding more like my sister every day.

A roar rips out of him.

I jump. It takes a moment to register that he’s laughing. I smile. Nervously.

“I was serving till 3:00 a.m., didn’t get the place cleared till well past four.” He pauses and looks me up and down. “I could use a strong guy like you. You looking for work?”

“Just information.”

He cocks his head.

“This was the last place my sister was seen, the night she disappeared.”

“You Tricia’s brother?” His gravelly voice is a mixture of shock and concern.

“Yeah,” I say and get straight to the point. “Do you remember anything about her that night?”

“Not much,” he says slowly and turns away to watch the kids cannonballing into the water, competing to make the biggest splash.

I follow his gaze and all at once I’m reminded of the last visit to my grandparents’ cottage before Pat decided we were severing all contact. She was ten.