“That… was… my… workout… for… the… day,” I pant, trying to make light of it all.
“Really, Phillip, I cannot believe you,” Gwen mutters. “I am not ready to be a widow. You shouldn’t let Conner goad you into a stunt like that. I am just relieved you made it back.”
I am too tired to mount much of a defense. How could I explain to Gwen that all my life jerks like Conner have mocked and ridiculed me? Conner, Patrick Farber—all the overconfident jackasses who feel I am no competition, simply someone to brush aside while they take what they want. Gwen should realize I am finally standing up for myself.
Part of me wants to tell her all of this, but I do not.
“Let’s get ready for lunch,” I tell her, and we head back to our room.
After lunch, Gwen and I sign up to use one of the hobie cats. The hobie cat, which is the size of a compact car, is basically a miniature catamaran. Lorenzo runs through techniques of successfully piloting the craft.
“If you pull too swiftly on de line de cat will capsize, and you probably won’t be able to flip it back over,” he says.
“Has that happened to the other guests?” Gwen asks.
“Just dis morning,” he shakes his head with a wry smile. “When dat happens one of us has to sail out on another cat to come to de rescue.”
Gwen looks at me warily.
“Maybe it would be better if you came with us,” I suggest. “I don’t trust my sailing coordination.”
Gwen chuckles and pats me on the back. “Don’t feel bad, honey. At least this way we won’t end up floating in the middle of the bay.”
Gwen and I hop onto the tightly stretched canvas as Lorenzo pushes us off from the shore. The moment he raises the sail the ocean breeze propels us at a gentle pace away from land. Lorenzo shifts the sail, leans back on the line and we accelerate. I feel the water slapping against the canvas that we sit on. Within minutes, we are much farther than the buoy I struggled to reach during my swim.
Lorenzo sails near the other resort across the bay. Sunbathers dot the beach. A few shield their eyes from the sun to get a better look at us. Gwen waves to them. A few of them wave back. Lorenzo adjusts the sails to propel us along the craggy, arid coastline. Gwen hands me our camera and poses for a photo, smiling radiantly, long tendrils of hair fluttering in the breeze, the vastness of the open sea as her backdrop.
“What’s that over there?” I point to the rocky isle across the bay that I spotted on our first night at the resort. The red light I saw flashing on the island sits atop a metal tower.
“The light is to warn ships about de island.”
“Does the island have a name?” Gwen asks.
“Not really. Goat Island, I call it. Every once in a while a technician has to go dere to service de warning light. He told me a goat lives on dat island. It must have swum out dere one day—decided it seem like a nice place to call home.”
“Or it couldn’t figure out how to swim back,” I add.
“True, true. Dere is a current dat sweeps towards Goat Island. The goat is probably stuck, unable to swim back against de current. The technician told me he tried to coax it into his boat but no luck.”
“The island is so small. I’m surprised it has enough food to eat,” Gwen muses.
Lorenzo smiles knowingly. “Nothing is tougher den a wild goat. Dey don’t need much to get by.”
Back on the beach, we thank Lorenzo for his expert sailing skills. We shower and dress for dinner. Jonas greets us as we arrive at the empty restaurant. “You have the honor of being our first guests tonight,” he leads us to a small table at the back sheltered by flowering bushes with a prime view of the sea.
Alone with Gwen, I find myself at a loss of anything interesting to say. This was not something I expected. Throughout the day, we got along smoothly, except for the time I swam out to the buoy, but without anyone else around to help spark a conversation, or some physical activity like snorkeling to distract us, we become like two strangers. We deliberate over our dinner menu with the silent intensity of attorneys focused on a contract.
“Do you remember how it was when we first met?” Gwen suddenly asks, breaking the silence.
I pause for a moment, recalling that time. “Yes, of course. Those were the happiest days of my life.”
“You were so funny—the things you used to say. You were so different from the usual dumb jocks I’d dated before. You were clever and silly. When I first met you, I thought ‘What an interesting new friend I’ve made’, and then before I knew it you were so much more to me. Remember that time we went to a picnic and got caught in a downpour?”
I think back wistfully to that day. “The sky turned black. The rain came down in buckets. I was drenched straight through to my underwear.”
“And we ran all the way back to my apartment,” she continues, her face aglow from the memory of that day. “Stomping in the puddles—laughing because there was no point in trying to keep dry anymore. And once home…”
“We tore each other’s clothes off. It was the first time we ever made love—soaking wet and laughing, rolling around on your bed.”
She gazes into her champagne glass as though divining the future in its bubbly depths. “Will it ever be that way again?”
I take a deep breath, choosing my words carefully. “It’s asking a lot to think everything can be just as it was. We had something beautiful—”
“And I ruined it,” she whispers.
“Who knows? Maybe in time it can be good again… not like it was… different—but still good.”
The restaurant is nearly full now. We say no more as we eat our meal and look at the churning sea.
With our melancholy meal out of the way, Gwen rises from her seat and gestures to the calypso band playing a slow song in the lounge. “Come dance with me.”
Other couples are dancing arm in arm, smiling, chattering to each other. The last thing I want to do is join them. Nevertheless, Gwen stands before me, hand outstretched, with such a sad, hopeful expression, that I take her hand and stride to the dance floor. Connor and Alexandra are there. He dips her with dramatic flourish and she squeals with delight. I cannot stand to be near him. I lead Gwen to the other side of the dance floor. Don and Amy dance cheek to cheek, and wave to us as we approach.
The music is familiar to me, a calypso rendition of an American pop love song, and the band plays it expertly. I place my hand around Gwen’s waist and we sway unenthusiastically to the music, neither speaking nor looking at each other. With a jovial nudge, Don advises me how to dance with more zeal. I mumble a response, trying to force a smile. I look at Gwen; tears brim in her eyes. A lump rises in my throat. She breaks away from me, wipes her eyes, and heads towards the beach stairs. The couples dancing around us look on with concern. Embarrassed, I follow Gwen. She halts long enough to take her heels off, and then continues walking away from the bright lights of the restaurant towards the dark beach.
“Gwen, wait,” I call to her. She ignores me. I run after her, grab her arm, and spin her around.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
Weeping, she wraps her arms around herself. Wind off the ocean flings her hair in her face; she brushes it away. “What are we doing here, Phillip? We’ve spent so much money to come here and for what? I’m trying to save our marriage, Phillip. I’m really trying. Each time I feel I’ve made just a little progress with you… the next instant I find I’m right back where I started. We’re doing things together, having fun, and then we sit at a table like two complete strangers.”
“What do you want from me? To be the person I was before—the person I was before you cheated on me? You’re trying… well, I’m trying, too, but it’s not easy to go back to how things were before,” a sob catches in my throat. “Why’d you do it, Gwen? Why’d you throw it all away?”