wrapped her in my arms, ran my hands all over her body.
She licked one of my earlobes, whispered “I’m still in love with you, you know.”
I kissed her again. A tent unzipped on the other side of the sand dune and we both took a step back, conscious that we shouldn’t ever be too close to one another, not where someone might see us. Carmen’s eyes flickered; the sun made her freckled shoulders glow. Just looking at her hurt me, and I never wanted the hurt to stop. The small forbidden distance between us, so soon after I’d tasted her lips, made me ache in places I didn’t know I had.
“I suppose,” I said slowly, “that since we’re already back here on the island, let’s see if we can think something up. But we should get back. You go first. I’ll come later.”
I USED MY time in the palms to think, balancing probability against probability, trying to predict the moves of an opponent I hardly knew. There were too many moving pieces, too many uncertainties, but I managed to come to one hard and fast decision about what to do next.
I broke the news at breakfast
The five of us ate arrayed around the small fire. Carlos built it, and it had been kept burning here on the beach ever since we arrived at this little notch in the shore line of Maria Cleofas.
When I said what I planned to say, I expected to get some kind of reaction. What exactly, I couldn’t be sure. After pouring a second cup of coffee, I spoke up.
“This charter is over,” I said.
“We planned for longer than this,” Ben said. “We paid for longer than this.”
“It’s not all about the money, Benny.”
He frowned, slicked a stray hair back into place, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “So its about me and Carmen then?”
“Get over yourself.” I felt like smiling as I said it. I wanted to throw sand in his face and trumpet my victory from the nonexistent rooftops. Instead, I carefully crafted my face into a mixture of anger and despair. I embraced the part of the jilted ex—and played it to the hilt.
“No, it’s not that,” I said, my voice cracking slightly.
Carmen gave me a look, and I tried to turn the act down a notch. “Look, it’s nothing personal. We planned for three people. Five people eat more, drink more, go to the bathroom more. And the math is the math. If we don’t leave soon, you’re going to be very thirsty.”
“We’re sorry to cause this kind of trouble,” Rigger said.
“I’ll be happy to restock and come back out, but for now we’ve got to head home.”
I knew the three of them had something planned. I suspected there must be some kind of time table, a time table I had just dismantled in front of them. Whatever they were planning, things had just changed. There’s no arguing with a lack of water. Whatever end they had sketched out for us, I’d rather meet it out on the ocean.
I glanced out past the rocks, over the lagoon, to the sea. My childhood was spent near the sea; I grew up wrestling in the breakers, fishing and swimming and skin diving. And now I’d worked the ocean for years. The situation was three on one. Considering Rigger’s bulk and Carlos’s quickness, and the sly machinations of Ben Hawking, open ocean seemed to be the only thing around resembling home field advantage.
Inside of three hours the tents were packed, the sleeping bags stowed, and everything floated across the cove on our cheap pool rafts.
Even Rigger, his arm still in a sling, helped roll things up and hand them off. At one point he even lifted a pack with his one good arm, veins bulging, and handed it to me. I accepted it with one hand, and it dragged itself down into the sand. It must have weighed nearly eighty pounds. Rigger just smiled, patted my shoulder, walked away toward the water.
With everything aboard, we got Rigger onto one of the pool floats and I dragged him twenty yards to the Purple. Glancing back between strokes, his face seemed white, as though all the blood had drained out it. He was
She licked one of my earlobes, whispered “I’m still in love with you, you know.”
I kissed her again. A tent unzipped on the other side of the sand dune and we both took a step back, conscious that we shouldn’t ever be too close to one another, not where someone might see us. Carmen’s eyes flickered; the sun made her freckled shoulders glow. Just looking at her hurt me, and I never wanted the hurt to stop. The small forbidden distance between us, so soon after I’d tasted her lips, made me ache in places I didn’t know I had.
“I suppose,” I said slowly, “that since we’re already back here on the island, let’s see if we can think something up. But we should get back. You go first. I’ll come later.”
I USED MY time in the palms to think, balancing probability against probability, trying to predict the moves of an opponent I hardly knew. There were too many moving pieces, too many uncertainties, but I managed to come to one hard and fast decision about what to do next.
I broke the news at breakfast
The five of us ate arrayed around the small fire. Carlos built it, and it had been kept burning here on the beach ever since we arrived at this little notch in the shore line of Maria Cleofas.
When I said what I planned to say, I expected to get some kind of reaction. What exactly, I couldn’t be sure. After pouring a second cup of coffee, I spoke up.
“This charter is over,” I said.
“We planned for longer than this,” Ben said. “We paid for longer than this.”
“It’s not all about the money, Benny.”
He frowned, slicked a stray hair back into place, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “So its about me and Carmen then?”
“Get over yourself.” I felt like smiling as I said it. I wanted to throw sand in his face and trumpet my victory from the nonexistent rooftops. Instead, I carefully crafted my face into a mixture of anger and despair. I embraced the part of the jilted ex—and played it to the hilt.
“No, it’s not that,” I said, my voice cracking slightly.
Carmen gave me a look, and I tried to turn the act down a notch. “Look, it’s nothing personal. We planned for three people. Five people eat more, drink more, go to the bathroom more. And the math is the math. If we don’t leave soon, you’re going to be very thirsty.”
“We’re sorry to cause this kind of trouble,” Rigger said.
“I’ll be happy to restock and come back out, but for now we’ve got to head home.”
I knew the three of them had something planned. I suspected there must be some kind of time table, a time table I had just dismantled in front of them. Whatever they were planning, things had just changed. There’s no arguing with a lack of water. Whatever end they had sketched out for us, I’d rather meet it out on the ocean.
I glanced out past the rocks, over the lagoon, to the sea. My childhood was spent near the sea; I grew up wrestling in the breakers, fishing and swimming and skin diving. And now I’d worked the ocean for years. The situation was three on one. Considering Rigger’s bulk and Carlos’s quickness, and the sly machinations of Ben Hawking, open ocean seemed to be the only thing around resembling home field advantage.
Inside of three hours the tents were packed, the sleeping bags stowed, and everything floated across the cove on our cheap pool rafts.
Even Rigger, his arm still in a sling, helped roll things up and hand them off. At one point he even lifted a pack with his one good arm, veins bulging, and handed it to me. I accepted it with one hand, and it dragged itself down into the sand. It must have weighed nearly eighty pounds. Rigger just smiled, patted my shoulder, walked away toward the water.
With everything aboard, we got Rigger onto one of the pool floats and I dragged him twenty yards to the Purple. Glancing back between strokes, his face seemed white, as though all the blood had drained out it. He was
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