‘Yes you can. I insist.’
Alice stared at me, lips pressed together, as she came to a decision. Her hand shot out to claim the earrings, and she grinned like a six-year-old on her birthday. ‘I’ll pay you back some time, I promise.’
I watched as she unhooked the hoops she was wearing and replaced them with the pair of earrings I’d just bought her. She turned to face me and tilted her head from side to side. ‘How do I look?’
‘Beautiful,’ I said. ‘The blue glass perfectly matches your eyes.’
How was I to know that the next time I saw Alice Madonna Mueller, her eyes would be anything but blue?
We caught the last ferry home. Just. We’d lost complete track of time at the art show, overstaying so long that we had to hustle, blowing five dollars on a cab that dropped us at Crossing Beach with no seconds to spare. Paul pounded down the dock shouting, ‘Wait! Wait!’ after the departing ferry, but fortunately the driver had seen us coming, turned his side thrusters on, and eased the boat back to the dock.
We jumped aboard, and called out our thanks, barely getting into our seats before the ferry took off again, with us on it this time.
Close call. A night at a Marsh Harbour hotel, even the modest Lofty Fig, could set you back a couple of hundred bucks.
For that time of day, the Man-O-War ferry was surprisingly full. From the bags everyone carried, I deduced that half the population had been to Price Right for groceries and the other half had attended the art show, like we had.
The ferry had just nosed into Sugar Loaf channel when Paul said, ‘There’s somebody I’d like you to meet, Hannah.’ He dragged me to the opposite side of the ferry where we sat down on the bench next to a rugged, suntanned fellow who’d spent so much time in the out-of-doors that his sandy hair, eyebrows and even his watery-blue eyes looked bleached. ‘Hannah, this is Gator Crockett. He runs the dive shop on Hawksbill Cay.’
I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, so I could talk to the fellow face to face. ‘Paul tells me you’re taking us snorkeling on Monday.’
‘Yup. Over to Fowl Cay.’
‘They say Fowl Cay’s spectacular.’
Gator nodded wisely. ‘Only place better is Snake Cay down Little Harbour way, but the wind’s rarely in the right direction down there. Kicks things up.’
A potcake lay at Gator’s feet, his wheat-gold head resting on his paws, liquid-brown eyes considering me soberly. ‘Hey, pal.’ I reached down and scratched the dog’s ears.
‘Name’s Justice.’
I smiled. ‘Good dog, good Justice.’
Justice rolled over and offered his stomach for some quality scratching. I obliged, and Justice’s tail thumped happily until the ferry pulled in to Man-O-War and some of the passengers prepared to disembark.
Gator picked up his backpack and collected his dog. Holding Justice’s leash, he stepped to the stern, put one foot up on the steps, then turned around and stuck his head back inside the cabin. ‘Best not to get too chummy with Alice.’
I blinked. ‘Why?’
Gator slung his backpack over his shoulder. ‘Just saying.’
And he was gone.
FOUR
SO THEY PAVED PARADISE AND PUT UP A PARKING LOTWITH A PINK HOTEL, A BOUTIQUE AND A SWINGING NIGHTSPOT.DON’T IT ALWAYS SEEM TO GOTHAT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU GOT ’TIL IT’S GONETHEY PAVED PARADISE, PUT UP A PARKING LOT.Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell
How to recycle an ashtray.
In an uncharacteristic exhibition of do-it-yourself know-how, Paul had drilled three holes into the rim of a 1950-style melamine ashtray, threaded shoestrings through the holes, and suspended the ashtray from a hook just outside our kitchen window.
Voila! A bird feeder.
I’d filled the feeder with sugar water, and the bananaquits were frisking around, squabbling over a foothold on the wildly swinging perch. The yellow and black wren-sized birds were so tame that they’d sit on your hand if there’s something in it for them. Try granulated sugar.
A dark shape passed over the sun, distracting me for a moment from the cheerful little birds who were squeek-squeek-squeeking like wobbly wheels on a grocery cart. I craned my neck to see a frigate bird soaring effortlessly overhead, riding the thermals, his silhouette jet black against the blue sky. ‘They’ve got eight-foot wingspans,’ Paul informed me lazily from his spot in the hammock. ‘Soar for days without flapping their wings, snatching food out of other birds’ mouths.’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said, admiring the bird’s forked tail, like a swallow, only twenty times bigger.
‘That’s how Man-O-War got its name, you know.’ Paul swung his legs out of the hammock, stretched and shook out the kinks.
‘I thought the island was named after a racehorse, or vice versa.’
Paul winced. ‘A frigate is a warship, my dear, sometimes called a man-of-war.’
‘Ah ha,’ I said. ‘Always useful to be married to someone with Navy connections.’ I watched as he wandered into the back garden, picked up the business end of the hose and twisted the tap.
From the depths of my pocket, my iPhone began vibrating. ‘Speaking of connections, darling, my phone demands attention.’ When I pulled it out, I saw from the display that the caller was my daughter, Emily, but in spite of repeated hello-hello-hellos on my end, the signal was too weak, so I lost the connection.
Paul was conscientiously watering the banana tree, once weekly, per our landlord’s instructions. Holding the phone loosely in my hand, I let him know that I was heading out to the point to see if I could get a decent signal.
I set out on the sandy path that circled behind the bunk house and led into the woods. Daniel and his trusty machete kept the path itself clear, but bushes grew tall and lush on both sides, forming a natural canopy over my head. The foliage was so dense in places that the sun could barely penetrate to the forest floor, but where it did, the delicate shafts of sunlight reflecting through the steam that rose from the rain-wet leaves made me feel like I’d wandered into an episode of Lost.
The path tunneled through the trees for another hundred yards or so, then opened into a clearing. Shielding my eyes from the blazing sun, I stepped out on to a jagged limestone cliff. Twenty feet below my feet the Sea of Abaco surged and foamed benignly against the rocks. I sat down on a primitive bench – two cinder blocks and a two-by-six – and punched in my daughter’s number.
My granddaughter, as usual, picked up. ‘Shemansky residence. Chloe Elizabeth Shemansky speaking.’
‘Hey, pumpkin. It’s your grandmother.’
‘I know that!’
Of course she did. How many people called her ‘pumpkin?’
‘Did you get my postcards, Chloe?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Does that mean yes?’ I teased.
‘The horse pictures were cool, Grandma. I like Bellatrix the best.’
At the ripe old age of eight, Chloe had two passions in life: ballet and horses. The wild horses of Abaco in particular, a critically endangered breed of Spanish barbs that had been reduced over the last century, by human intervention and habitat reduction, from a herd of several hundred to just eight – four stallions and four mares. Like the horses made famous by Marguerite Henry in her children’s book, Misty of Chincoteague, the wild horses of Abaco had been shipwrecked on the island during the time of Christopher Columbus. But unlike Misty and her foals, DNA tests had proved that the Abaco barbs had been so isolated, their pedigree so pure, that they were unique in all the world.
‘I’m looking forward to your visit, Chloe.’
‘Can I see the horses?’
‘Of course you can. I’ll call the woman who takes care of them and arrange a trip out to the preserve.’