He left us off near the Coral Gardens Hotel. We planted our umbrella and spread out our towels next to the spacious canvas shades and a row of comfortable-looking lounge chairs reserved for guests of the hotel.
The attraction here was swimming around a patch of reef surrounded by rope and evenly-spaced bright orange buoys. But, you weren't allowed to swim inside the buoys. A sign indicated that this site was part of a reef restoration project.
"This mask leaks.” Grace spit water from her mouth. "These aren't the same ones we rented Tuesday.” She slicked back her hair and pressed the mask into her face.
Dexter readjusted his. "Mine leaks, too.”
My mask always leaks,” I said as I slid into the warm water. It wasn't a lie, I kept a bubble in my nose like Wayne taught me and when the mask was annoyingly full, I lifted the corner of the mask and let the water out. I left Grace and Dexter on shore fiddling with their faulty equipment.
Right off the beach, the coral was only a foot below water. It was gray and dead, probably destroyed by the feet and flippers of past snorkelers. Moving around clockwise, the water deepened, but as it did visibility lessened. The silty water reduced the mustard-yellow fire coral to a muted rust or in the deepest spots gray-green. My eyes traveled down each rope I crossed to the bottom where concrete moorings held the orange buoys in their circular pattern.
Underwater plaques were provided to educate snorkelers and point out items of interest. A yellow tail looks like this. Don’t touch fire coral. Brain coral looks like a brain.
Those plaques reminded me of the first time Wayne took me to Florida. We were beach-combing. I walked along behind him, my eyes scanning the sand in hopes of finding something other than glistening rocks and bits of broken shell. I was in search of a perfectly-formed nautilus, conch or periwinkle or a pair of pearly clam or scallop halves still joined. It seemed like Wayne had a knack for picking up a treasure, while I was still finding the dull and broken remains of shells like the ones I toted home from the beach as a child.
Suddenly, I spotted what looked like a “good find” and stooped to pick it up. It was a flamingo tongue, smooth, shiney and flawless. “Look!” I held it out in my open hand
That's a nice one,” Wayne said assuredly, but I noticed he was smirking.
I looked at him puzzled, then followed his eyes to the sand near my feet. When he'd passed this spot before me, he drew arrows in the sand pointing to the place where I would find the shell.
"You jackass," I said laughing.
Now, at Coral Gardens, I read each underwater plaque and finished the circle around the reef, dispirited by the injured coral, and sorry for, but maybe a bit smug, about those whose only snorkeling experience might be this coral garden.
By one, Mom, Grace, Dexter, and I were all squeezed under the little umbrella, each on our allotted quarter of shade. We read our books, swatted at bugs and shifted our towels as the umbrella's shadow elongated and stretched to the east.
At two, we hobbled across small prickly pine cones the size of thimbles. Spiky hitch-hikers lodged in the soles of our feet. We climbed the dune to sit under a Casarina tree. The sun was hot against our red skin as it cut in and out of the waving boughs of the tree. We returned to our books, looking up periodically to check the horizon for the dinghy-at first every fifteen minutes or so, then more frequently. Three o’clock came and went and still no sign of Wayne.
At three thirty, I stood and stretched. "Well, I don't know what happened to Wayne. We can go up to the hotel and call a cab or we can hike down the beach. Maybe, we'll see him coming along the way."
“Bill likes to hike,” Mom said.
The consensus was to walk, and we packed up our belongings and started our march down a long stretch of beach. We passed the hotels, then passed the beaches we'd visited on previous days. Our once energetic pace slowed as we stopped along the way to reposition the beach equipment we toted or remove a pebble from our sandals or wrap our waists in beach towels to not only lighten our loads, but protect our sun-burned skin from the late afternoon sun.
Each time, I saw a boat coming around Smith Point and heading up the channel, I was sure it was Wayne. At first, all we could make out was the frothy white wake and the dark silhouette of the driver. But as each boat drew near, what looked like a grey inflatable would transform into a white skiff.
For some reason, he wasn't coming to get us, but by then it was too late to turn around. I looked to my left for the beach access road that would lead back to the vicinity of the marina.
When we were well past the point where I expected to find the road, we could see masts from the marina above the dune, so I led the group on a narrow, sandy path that meandered around sea grapes and grasses. The path became less-defined. Aware that each step we took away from the beach was a wasted one if we didn't find the short-cut, I forged ahead of my entourage only to come to a stand-still. A thicket lay before me. A quick reconnaissance mission to the left and then to the right revealed no passage. I headed back to meet them on the path.
"We can't get through here."
They looked defeated.
We have to be close,” I added optimistically as they turned back towards the beach. Then, I saw another path, this one more defined. "This looks like it.”
We followed it past the backs of all of the beach houses we’d passed from the front a half an hour before, then to the paved Turtle Cove Road and finally we were trudging down the boardwalk towards the boat. I quickened my pace again and left them well behind me. I wanted to get there first in case I found a thick-tongued Wayne lounging in the Banana Boat Caribbean Cafe hidden behind a pyramid of beer cans. I didn't want to scream at him in front of my family.
I found Wayne relaxing on the deck of the boat reading a book. “Where were you?” I asked.
He looked up. “I tried to start the dinghy for two hours before I gave up. Why didn’t you take a cab?”
At the small convenience store next to the café, I bought fours popsicles. The clock read 5:30. We’d been walking two hours. Purple sugar water was melting down my arms, when everyone else caught up.
"Wanna popsicle?” I said smiling, as if all was well.
"Where was Wayne?" Grace barked.
My mother’s face was ruby-red and splotchy and she was short of breath. I placed a pillow behind her back on the sofa in the air-conditioned cabin, propped her feet on the coffee table and lubricated her with a big glass of ice water and what was left of her grape popsicle.
Saturday, I scheduled nothing. Maybe everyone needed a break from my well-intentioned plans. Wayne rose early and began polishing the boat's stainless rails. I got up next and joined in the fun. Dexter came up from the cabin and started helping too. Then Grace. My mom was the last one to surface, but before long she was polishing the faucets and mirrors inside the boat. We were all working, and we loaded the CD changer with what Grace called cheesy eighties music, and then Credence Clearwater Revival.
By noon, it was so hot, we were driven back into our air-conditioned cabin. If you peeked in Ella McQuaid's windows on that afternoon, you would have seen five bodies draped over sofas and chairs, five noses in books, one cat stretched to his longest on the cool wood floor between us.
“Bill likes to read,” Mom said.
That evening, we decided to go out for a night on the town. Algie recommended a local spot in the settlement of Blue Hills. “Give my regards to the owner. His name is Whitley, but everyone calls him Dick.” Algie grinned broadly.
“We’ll have to get a cab,” I said, thinking out loud.
“No worry. My mate, Hotshot, can give you a lift.”
We looked at the stocky man. Sweat was dripping from his creased black forehead and his clothes were rumpled and splotched with fish blood.
Oh, why not? I thought. Another adventure.
“Hurry up everyone,” I said to my family, “we’re getting a ride with Hotshot."
“Who?” Mom said looking at the mate from the back of the boat. (I wonder now if I get some kind of perverse pleasure from torturing my mother.)
Like me, she was probably wondering what kind of wheels he had, but he reappeared in a shiny red pickup. Mom and I climbed up into the front seat; everyone else settled into the back.
“Fasten your seatbelts,” Hotshot ordered, which seemed strange to me when everyone in the back would be bouncing around like kernels of popcorn, but I locked myself in.
“Hi! I’m Leah and this is my mom, Barbara.”
“My name’s George, but everyone calls me Hotshot.”
“How come?”
“That was my CB handle from the days before we had telephones on Provo.”
Hotshot told us he had to make one stop to pick up bread. We pulled into a gas station and small convenience store.
“I don’t think he’s here for bread,” my mom said suspiciously.
We waited. Then Hotshot came out carrying two loaves of homemade bread.
“Dey always save a couple of loaves for me,” he told us.
Back on the road, Hotshot cranked up the stereo. He loved country ballads, and a twangy barritone and thumping bass emanated from the speakers. “You’re sweeter than honey, and I want to eat you up,” Hotshot sang along.
“Dat's what I sing to my wife when I come home late,” he shouted over the music, “She's pissed and den I sing dis song to her, and she cuddles up next to me and says ‘honey, you’re de best.'"
My mom was laughing now. “Bill likes country music.”
We turned onto Blue Hills Road. It ran along the western shore of Grace Bay. On our left, we passed multi-colored, but faded concrete homes surrounded by coral rock yards and rusty cars. Barefoot children, like tiny bulls, ran in and out of sheets hanging on clothes lines. On our right, big pink conch shells lined winding and sandy paths. They led to huts, each with a sign advertising “Freshest Conch on the Island.” On the beach—six-foot tall mounds of discarded shells.
The truck slowed and we pulled into the parking lot of The Three Queens. Hotshot’s yellow teeth gleamed, and as he drove off, we could hear his laughter. “Say hi to Dick for me.”
“They all seem to think that Dick is a pretty funny name,” I said.
We walked up the wooden steps to a wide L-shaped veranda. There were dark green plastic tables, four chairs neatly tucked under each one. They were all empty. We peered through the door into the darkness of the bar. Music blared and a group of locals slapped dominoes loudly on a plastic table. Each slap sounded like a gunshot and the men shouted and hooted as they slammed down the dominos.
A huge man came from the bar. “Welcome to the Three Queens,” he bellowed showing a mouthful of gold teeth, “Are you dining wid us tonight?”
“Yes,” Wayne said.
“You can sit anywhere you like at da Three Queens.”
We pulled out four green chairs, brought one from another table and settled in on the deck.
“My name's Whitley, but everyone calls me Dick,” he said with a belly-laugh He towered over us like a giant. “What would you like tonight?”
“Could we see a menu?” I asked politely.
“Menu, Menu,” he boomed incredulously. “You can have anyting you want at da Three Queens—fish, conch, steak, pork, lamb, chicken. I’ll send da cook around to take your order.”
Menu? Menu? We dun need no steenkeen menus? I thought.
The cook, a stained apron wrapped around his waist, left his perch at the bar and came to take our order. I ordered New York Strip and the others ordered cracked conch. Wayne wouldn’t eat; he was on a mission to party hardy and refused to order food, in spite of my urgings. “I don’t want to ruin a good buzz.”
“You won’t make it to eight o’clock,” I warned.
When the food arrived, Wayne went into the bar to socialize with the locals. We ate, savoring every mouthful of rare peppery steak smothered in mushrooms and onions and sweet tender conch deep-fried to perfection. Both entrees were the best I ‘d ever tasted. When dinner was over, we ventured into the bar.
“Let’s play pool,” Grace said. She’s a good player and never wants to miss an opportunity to beat me.
While Mom was in the restroom, Wayne racked the balls. Then Grace aimed and pushed the stick into the cue ball. With a loud smack, the balls scattered.
“Thosh guys are ash-holes,” Wayne slurred in my ear pointing towards two young white guys playing at the table next to us.
“Why?”
Grace shot the two ball in the corner pocket.
“I tried to talk to them and they had no time for me.” He snarled. Wayne took his turn at the table and missed. Dexter walked over to the white guys.
“They won’t talk ta you, they’re ash-holes,” Wayne shouted across the room.
They looked up from their game, their eyes wide with surprise. Then their eyes narrowed.
“Wayne,” I said in an embarrassed whisper. Now, whose the asshole? I thought. Time to get Wayne out of here.
“He’s just kidding,” Dexter assured them.
Wayne lost interest in the game and moved back into the darkened bar. We finished without him and joined him. He had a new beer in his hand.
“Can you call us a cab, Dick?” I shouted over the music.
“Sure. My brother has a cab,” he said grinning.
“This is the last one,” I said to Wayne, “We need to go.”
“Why?”
“We want to get closer to home.” That was the truth. I didn’t know what he'd do next and I didn’t want him alienating any more of the patrons. We were miles from the boat and had no means of escape if trouble started.
I looked up to see Mom dancing to Latin music with Dick, her delicate white hand in his big black paw. Wayne took swigs of his beer, his head back, his elbow out. That’s always a bad sign, swigging beer with elbow out. Look at me! I’m a big guy. Like a chihuahua who thinks he’s mean as a pit bull.
“Woo Hoo Hoo!” The domino players howled.
The song was over and another started. Dick pulled me out onto the dance floor. We swayed our hips and pumped our arms. Other patrons turned on their bar stools to watch.
Finally, the cab came and I guided Wayne out the door like two dancers in a rhumba line.
“Bill likes to dance,” Mom said.
Dick’s brother charged us thirty dollars for the cab ride, which I thought was exorbitant, but later I was told that was a deal.
Back at the boat, Wayne went to bed. I was right. He didn't last until eight. The rest of us went to the Banana Boat Grill and listened to bad Karaoke.
“What are we doing today?” Grace asked the next morning.
I looked at Mom; she looked at me. Neither one of us wanted to do anything, but as a mother and grandmother, we could've been swayed. We both looked at Wayne. His face said it all.
“Nothing,” I said, “absolutely nothing."
“But its our last day.”
I shrugged. "We're worn out."
“OK, Ok, you old farts,” she said. Then to Dexter, “Let’s go to the casino.”
“How are you going to get there?” I asked.
“We’ll walk,” she said resolutely as she searched in a overflowing duffel bag for her shoes.
In the afternoon, Mom started gathering her belongings for her flight the next morning. She refolded her shirts and shorts with the care of a cashier at Nordstom’s. She zipped bottles in plastic bags and tucked them in zippered pockets. She unzipped, unpacked, and lifted corners looking for a lost piece of jewelry, or a ticket, or some other item she didn’t remember packing. She always does this and always finds the missing article exactly where she packed it.
So different from Grace, who would start fifteen minutes prior to her departure, cram her wadded up clothes in her knapsack, dirty and clean mixed together, then panic about a lost item and become hysterical right when it was time to leave.
We rented a car to take everyone to the airport the next day. At 3 p.m., a little red car was delivered to the marina, its paint dulled with dust and salt. At 5:30, Wayne and I decided to take a ride and see if we could find Grace and Dexter walking back from the casino. I was starting to worry about them. I sat behind the wheel and turned the key, but instead of the roar of the engine, there was complete silence.
What now? I thought. The car rental facility closed at 5.
About this time Grace and Dexter appeared. They’d walked for miles, but the Casino was not open on Sundays.
“Is there an owner’s manual?” Grace dug in the glove compartment. “Maybe there's some secret button you have to push.”
“Maybe it’s a fuse,” Dexter added.
The manual was written in Japanese. Grace and I laughed, but Mom looked worried. We tried to interpret the pictures and wiggled wires and popped out fuses until Wayne finally got a big wrench and pounded on the corroded battery terminals. The big hammer technique of auto repair worked again. The car started right up.
The next morning, we got mom to the airport by 6, said our almost tearful good byes, then picked up Grace and Dexter for laundry and shopping before taking them to their plane in the afternoon.
In spite of the fact that little went as I planned, I’m sure their vacations were memorable, but I’m equally sure that everyone was looking forward to returning to their normal lives—Dexter to his new job, Grace and Dexter to apartment hunting, and of course, Mom to Bill.
My emotions were mixed--sad, because I didn’t know when I would see them all again, but relieved too, to return to our small quarters in Paradise—just Wayne, Chris the Cat, and me. I was tired of being responsible for the entertainment and happiness of so many and looking forward to getting back in touch with my man.
Whenever, we have company or are visiting others for more than a day or two, I always feel detached from Wayne. You can’t be intimate when you are always within someone else’s earshot. And I am not referring to sexual intimacy, although that too is a factor, but emotional. We need time to ourselves not only to enjoy each other’s company, but to work out our differences.
That night, while in the shower, I heard a cat crying through the small porthole in our head.
“Wayne,” I called over the sound of running water, “I think Chris is meowing.”
I could hear Wayne walking around outside whistling for Chris, and the crying stopped.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” he said coming back into the boat and repositioning himself behind the computer. “He must be out chasing lizards or asleep under the dash.” This was no surprise. Chris had been moving freely on and off the boat for two weeks.
Fifteen minutes later, I gathered my book, reading light, and cocktail and sank into the lounge chair on the deck.
“Merrrrooooow! Merroooooow!” I heard. That was definitely Chris, but where was he and why was he crying?
I stepped off of the boat and whistled and called for him. I walked along the boardwalk, checking out all of his favorite hang outs. I whistled near the porches.
“Meeeerrooow,” he answered.
I whistled behind the trash bins.
“Meeeerrrrow,” he answered again, but further away.
I walked back towards the boat. His cries were becoming panicky, but I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t coming. Then, I realized he was under the boardwalk.
“Wayne!” I wailed running back into the salon and rummaging through a drawer for a flashlight, “Chris is under the dock!”
Wayne grabbed the flashlight. Stooped in the dinghy, he pulled himself under with one hand while shining the light in the water with the other. The yellow light wiggled as it moved slowly across the surface. I bent over the gunwhale and tried to look under the dock expecting to see a little head bobbing in the water.
“It’s OK!” I reassured the cat, “Daddy’s coming!”
The flashlight beam moved up from the water to the rocks where dock met land. High above the ledge on a concrete support, two yellow eyes glowed. Wayne scooped up the sopping wet cat in his arms, then inched his way back to the Ella McQuaid. Chris meowed in complaint, until he jumped from Wayne’s arms into the boat and began licking saltwater from his fur.
“What happened, Chris?” I asked.
He turned his head at the sound of my voice. “Merrrow,” he replied looking ho hum,now. Then he hopped up onto the gunwhale, glanced down at the water, measured the distance and leapt onto the dock. This time, he made it with ease.
Due to Wayne’s finely-tuned sense of time—he never knows what the date is or remembers when an event is scheduled—we found our selves in Provo with a week to spare before our friends, the Nibalis, and our son Aaron arrived. Provo was costing us a fortune. We should've moved out of the marina, but we were far too comfortable and since Mom had generously supplemented our marina fee fund in lieu of paying for hotel accommodations, we stayed on another week.
This was our opportunity to really get to know Provo, to see if we might want to live here someday Our goal was to find an island that we liked more than Key West—a place that was warm year round, offered good fishing and diving, friendly people, and affordable housing (should we grow weary of boat-living). Most important to me was a sense of community. Having always lived in the suburbs of two large cities, Baltimore ten miles to the north and DC twenty-five miles to the south, I craved small town living. In Maryland, I could live two blocks from someone I went to high school with and never see them for twenty-five years. In Key West, after just a few months, I couldn’t walk down Duval Street or go shopping at Albertson’s without running into someone I knew. And there really was a bar there, Captain Runagrounds, where everybody knew my name.
The Bahamas were out of the question, because Americans are prohibited from working there. But in the Turks and Caicos, an American can start a business with some limitations. Opening a restaurant to compete with a local one was not allowed, but if you had a skill or business idea that no native or ex-patriot was capable or willing to do, then you could set up shop.
At five o’clock each night, the parking lots filled up with dusty pickups and SUVs. Construction workers, architects, and civil engineers found their favorite stools around the wooden bars. Later arrivals, jostled for position behind them, as the stool dwellers passed back their drinks. The happy hour crowd was predominantly white. It was our third week here, and our faces were now familiar to them. Some nodded in recognition; other’s engaged us in conversation. There was Paddy, the Irishman. He could tell stories for hours, and he always had one that could top yours. At 5 p.m., I could understand three-quarters of what he had to say—by 6, about half. The Scotsmen were worse, there brogues were thicker than their hairy necks. I laughed when they laughed and frowned when they frowned, and hoped that I didn’t offend them. Every statement made sounded like a question, and only when they paused and looked at me did I know that they were expecting a response. They probably thought I was a half-wit.
One by one the ex-patriots left their stools and swaggered out the door, while the well-dressed locals started to arrive in groups of two or three for that night’s Karaoke or live music. By nine, the crowd was predominantly black.
Friday nights, all of the ex-pats left their favorite roosts at the Banana Boat and Tiki Bars and crowded into Shark Bites for Happy Hour. The girl friends and wives came, too, tourists with their children, and the crews from the big yachts parked at the dock.
The Rotary Club sponsors Bingo on Sunday night’s at the Banana Boat. Algie is the host, and he loves the microphone, greeting the crowd, making announcements, and calling the numbers in his best DJ voice. When the jackpot is high, as many as 600 people crowd into the small open restaurant, spilling out onto the boardwalk. Three weeks ago, someone walked away with $17,500. This night, the pot was only $3500, and the crowd was manageable. We were there early enough to get a seat at the bar. We filled our cards, placing a little cardboard circle on each square, but didn’t win.
When Bingo was over, we stayed to the wee hours talking with Ian, a portly Scotsman. A friar’s fringe of thin brown hair encircled his bald head. His Central American wife looked like a hot tamale with her long black hair and colorful spandex dress, but she was homesick and all she wanted to talk about was children and grandchildren. I listened politely for a while, before turning my attention to Ian. He was well-educated, and lacked the thick brogue of his country-mates. He spouted verses of Eliot, Joyce, and Wordsworth in a booming, theatrical voice like a character from a British film. We shared a love of words, and it was a topic of conversation, then he and Wayne moved to history, politics, and religion, until we could no longer balance our bottoms on our wobbly bar stools. Wayne and I staggered the hundred feet to our boat and fell asleep in our clothes.
Now, it’s Monday. The past week was pleasant and relaxing. We often worked ten to twelve hour days waxing the boat and polishing rust marks from the stainless. Many evenings were like this one. Wayne would play on the computer, while I sat on the deck and read or wrote. There is comfort in working hard together towards a common goal, then separating to our individual activities, not having to talk, just being there. Glancing from my book into the salon, I can see the light of the computer reflecting off Wayne’s face in the darkness. Passing by on my way to the galley for a refill, I plant a kiss on the back of his neck, the gray fuzz tickling my nose. I feel so grateful.
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