Her car was waiting in the driveway. The driver dropped them in front of the restaurant and then pulled around the circle to find a parking space. The maitre d'hotel would call him when Marcella and Ray were ready to leave. Ray avoided the driver's gaze, which wasn't difficult, because the driver did not so much as glance at him.
Ray was uncomfortable from the moment they walked into the restaurant. They were seated at a “good” table right in the middle of the room. Ray preferred the quieter tables off to the side. This table was visible from virtually every other table in the restaurant. Everybody who was anybody in Sarasota would know he and Marcella had dined at the Columbia that evening. He didn't like feeling so exposed. He wondered how Marcella felt, being exposed and pursued almost constantly. He didn't like it, and he didn't have anything to hide. He couldn't imagine how awful it must feel to someone with so many secrets.
Then why are we here? He did not have time to think about it. Marcella had drawn him into describing the events of his day, and he lost himself in the telling of his stories about some of the amazing and wonderful residents of Sarasota. She leaned forward and locked eyes with him, fascinated. That only encouraged him to elaborate.
He didn't really want to spend the night at Marcella's again, but she appeared to expect him to and he didn't argue. After her driver left, Ray retrieved his backpack from the trunk of his car. Marcella commented on the fact that he had not brought a change of work clothes. He said he would probably want to go home first before going to work in any case. He had toothbrush and shaving gear, the two most important things. He also had running clothes for impromptu after work runs. For some reason Ray could not understand, that seemed to irritate her.
From Ray's perspective, the only good thing to come out of the evening was the plan for Christmas. Marcella invited him to spend the holiday with her in the Bahamas. They would be alone on an island: no parties, no commotion. That struck him as the most wonderful Christmas imaginable. Marcella suggested they fly to the Bahamas on Christmas Eve, and return on New Year's Day.
Ray turned in enough filler pieces to fulfill his quota for the week he would be gone. His editor bitched, but there was nothing she could do about it. Ray had so much unused vacation time built up he had lost dozens of hours of vacation because the new company had a “use it or lose it” policy for vacation. He was determined to start using his accrued vacation, and there wasn't much his editor could do to stop him.
There were many things he loved about the idea of spending Christmas in the Bahamas, the best of which was the fact that Marcella had told him her house was on a private island. (Ray chose to ignore the fact that the island was owned by Aurelio Collonia.) That was reason enough to look forward to going there. Another reason was that he simply loved the Island lifestyle. He was excited about the holidays for the first time in years. He tried not to be too thrilled by the fact that Marcella had invited him to her private retreat, but he was nonetheless. In some way he felt it was a kind of breakthrough for them as a couple.
Chapter 20
During the flight from Sarasota to Nassau, Marcella told him that the only way to the island was by boat. They would have to take a yacht from Paradise Island to Collonia's private island. He chuckled. It occurred to him that he could possibly get into this “lifestyles of the rich and famous” business to the extent it included private yachts and isolated Bahamian islands.
When the plane landed in Nassau, a car was waiting for them on the tarmac. They walked down the stairs and climbed into the back seat while porters unloaded their luggage. The chauffeur was waiting to load it into the trunk. Ray wondered for a moment if the porters could tell that his suitcase was purchased on sale from Target instead of custom made by Louis Vuitton in Paris like Marcella's. Ray noticed the expression on the chauffeur's face when he picked up Ray's suitcase and was pretty sure it was the first time the chauffeur had ever touched a suitcase from Target. He had the feeling the chauffeur hoped it was the last time. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing. Marcella did not seem to notice.
The car took them to a marina on Paradise Island where the yacht was docked. He had expected it to be a nice boat. The reality of it blew him away. The captain and the staff waited at the top of the gangplank to meet them. The yacht was an 80' monster carrying a crew of five: a captain, mate, mechanic, cook, and a chambermaid (who doubled as a waitress). Ray and Marcella went directly to the aft deck where snacks and drinks were laid out for them. The captain went to the bridge and prepared the vessel for departure.
Ray said, “You didn't tell me you owned a cruise ship.”
She shrugged, “Actually, this is not mine. It belongs to Aurelio. I sold Roland's yacht and turned over the proceeds to the Techtron receiver. I plan to buy a boat for myself, but haven't gotten around to it. Aurelio's family is spending the holidays in the south of France, so he didn't need the boat.”
“What kind of boat are you going to buy?”
“I haven't decided as to the type, but I know I want a boat I can use for fishing and for cruising. Something in the 30-40' range, probably.” She smiled at him, “Perhaps we can while away some hours over the winter looking at boats on the Internet.”
They munched on cheese and crackers and sipped lemonade while the boat cut through the glassy seas. The day was so clear, beautiful and still it was hard to tell the sky from the water. It was as though they were somehow suspended in a netherworld that was not-liquid and not-air. Ray felt that experience mirrored how he felt about his life at that point. He hung sort of suspended between two worlds, not feeling very much at home in either of them.
Sooner than Ray expected, the yacht slowed and approached a small island. It entered a lagoon through a pass that was perhaps 30 yards wide. The island was in the shape of a horseshoe, with a large lagoon in the middle. The boat pulled up to a dock jutting far out into the lagoon from a white-sand beach which ran along the entire inside perimeter of the island. Beyond the beach was a thicket of banyan and mangrove trees. Near the end of the dock was a structure Ray initially took for a boathouse. When the yacht pulled alongside the dock and he got a closer look, he realized the structure was actually the house. The mate unloaded their luggage and placed it on the dock. Then the yacht pulled away and headed out to sea.
Marcella picked up her suitcase and said, by way of explanation, “We rough it here. Aurelio has a caretaker who minds the house when no one is here, but there are no servants present when anyone is using the house. I have always liked that: I can come here an be totally by myself, if I want.”
Ray picked up his suitcase and followed her inside. It was a relatively simple house. One large room made up the kitchen, dining and living area. She led him to the master bedroom where they stowed their gear. Then she showed him the combination exercise room and “media center” which was a combination high tech office and entertainment center boasting the latest technology for Internet, satellite telephone and TV access and a killer big-screen TV, which Marcella said he could use if he could figure out how to turn it on. She made a face and said, “When I am here I never turn on the TV and I only check my email and phone messages once a day.”
Ray knew he wouldn't be spending too much time watching football on that big-screen TV that season. He smiled to himself at the thought of such a waste of a perfectly marvelous TV.
She read his mind and laughed, “You can watch football on it if you want!”
There were also two very small guest bedrooms, with a shared bathroom. It was small but well laid out so it did not feel cramped. All in all, Ray thought it was the most perfect place he had ever seen in his life...... and that was even before he saw the coolest thing about it.
They unpacked, which did not take long, since each of them had brought only a couple of changes of clothes and several bathing suits. After that, they went for a swim. Ray was enchanted by the fact that the dock and the house were built over a coral reef. The place teemed with life. Swimming from the dock was an expe
rience in close-up encounters with marine life.
They swam for a while, until the sun began to hang low over the island. Marcella suggested they get out of the water because the sharks tended to move in over the reef late in the day. She said that she was not particularly fond of swimming with sharks. Ray seconded that without a moment's hesitation. They rinsed off first in the outside shower and then took turns with the fresh-water shower in the bathroom.
By the time they had dressed, it was dark. Ray came into the main room after his shower and was greeted by the wonderful smell of blackened fish and a cold bottle of Kalik waiting for him on the counter. They ate fish sandwiches for dinner and then cleaned up the kitchen together.
When they finished the dishes, Marcella dug out a bottle of the finest Jamaican rum and poured them each a glass. She took his hand and beckoned him to follow her. The “sitting area” was recessed, three steps down from the rest of the structure. Ray realized that put the floor of that area of the room right at or below the water level, depending on the tide. He sat next to her on the couch and waited to see what she had up her sleeve, never imagining the amazing thing that was about to happen. She flipped a switch which caused the floor to open up. Ray instinctively lifted his feet. Then he realized that a screen of some sort underneath a plexiglass floor had been rolled back.
They had a bird's eye view from directly on top of the reef. Soft lights illuminated the reef with its rainbow of colors, teeming with fish and other marine critters. Marcella snuggled up beside him and said, “Is that cool, or what?”
His only response was to put his arm around her and concentrate even more intently on the activity below.
They sipped their drinks in silence. Way too soon for Ray, she turned off the lights, “We're not supposed to leave the lights on very long at night.” She flipped the switch to close the sub-floor. “Too much light at night interferes with the natural activity of the reef. We can watch as much as we want in the daytime. Sometimes I sit here for hours and hours doing nothing but watching the fish. At night, we have to give them a break, .... hard as that is, I know.”
Ray wanted to beg her to turn the lights back on, but he knew she was right. Far be it from him to disrupt the life of a coral reef, there were so few remaining.
Since the curtain had fallen on the main stage and Marcella had put the kibosh on the idea of watching TV, they went to bed early. Just before he drifted off to sleep, Ray realized it was the first time he and Marcella had spent the night together when he didn't have to leave early for work. He wondered if that would prove awkward.
He needn't have worried about that. When he got up the next morning, coffee was ready in the kitchen and croissants and fruit were on the counter. He wandered outside and found Marcella preparing a small runabout for a day on the water. The boat was a 23' open bough outboard filled with fishing gear. He laughed, “If I had to guess, I'd say the yacht and the house may belong to Aurelio Collonia, but that boat has your name all over it.”
She laughed, “Yes, this was a present I bought for myself when I turned 50. My world was crashing around me. My husband was about to go to prison. I needed to fish – a lot – so I bought this boat and asked Aurelio to let me keep it here. He and his kids use it for a ski boat.”
She looked at the coffee cup in his hand, “Let's make another pot of coffee to take with us and then when you're all set we'll go.”
He dressed while she finished readying the boat. He brought a thermos of coffee with him when he came back outside. She sat at the bow, dangling her feet over the edge, resting her chin on the railing. Her fishing hat hid her face, but he knew she was studying the horizon for any signs of weather they might need to be concerned about before venturing out into the ocean. Just before she started the engine, she pulled out her Blackberry and checked the weather radar. She looked up and grinned, “What on earth did people do before Weather.com?”
He laughed, “Too many of them got caught in a lot of storms they didn't know were out there.”
“Yup, and wrecked ships and dead sailors litter bottom of the ocean all along these islands. I'm determined not to join them.”
They fished and then talked while they drifted, then they fished some more. There being no limits on fish in those waters, she pulled in an amazing haul of every kind of fish imaginable. If it was edible, she kept it. If it was not, she threw it back. By early afternoon, he said, “What on earth are you going to do with all that fish?”
She smiled, “You'll see. Bag up what you want for dinner and maybe breakfast tomorrow.”
He bagged some grouper and a very nice sea bass. The rest he left loose in the cooler. She nodded her approval and said, “We can get some shellfish to go with that in the lagoon.”
She changed course and soon pulled the boat up to a dock on a small island. He did not see a town, but there were lots of boats, both commercial fishing vessels and recreational boats. A large black man greeted Marcella by name. She motioned toward the cooler. He boarded the boat and muscled the brimming cooler onto the dock. He smiled, “Mrs. Wilson, you haven't lost your touch, I see.”
She smiled, “It's a gift, for sure.”
He carried the cooler (by himself) to the end of the dock and dumped the fish into an even larger receptacle. He rinsed the cooler and then returned it to its place at the back of Marcella's boat. He said cheerfully, “Babies will be eatin' fine tonight. How long are you here for, Mrs. Wilson?”
“Only a few days, but I plan to fish a lot.”
“Excellent! We'll see you tomorrow.”
She laughed and raised her hat, “Lord, I hope so.”
As she pulled away from the dock, Ray asked her what that was about. She said that was a sort of drop off point for people who had caught more fish than they needed; the local fishermen collected it and distributed the fish among poor families in the nearby islands who might have gone hungry otherwise. He thought that was a wonderful idea. Ray was impressed that Marcella would know about such a place.
When they got back to the lagoon, they dove for lobsters, and came up with a couple of nice ones. They threw one back when they realized there was no way they could eat two lobsters plus all the fish Ray had kept. Then they returned to the house for lunch. The grouper made great sandwiches for lunch. They saved the sea bass and lobster for dinner.
Ray grilled the fish. Marcella made daiquiris. They ate on the dock. After lunch, they lazed in the shade, alternately dozing and talking. She filled in some details to her life's story which were totally consistent with what she had previously told him but which also explained some of the confusing parts of the story Karen had pieced together.
Marcella was relaxed and peaceful as he had never seen her before. It was as though in the Bahamas she were able to shed some of the rich society lady persona she assumed in the United States. In this house on the water she seemed more at peace and content than he had seen her anywhere else. He couldn't figure it out. She was so natural and at-home here, and she clearly loved it. Why didn't she just move to the Islands, or even the Keys? What was she doing in Sarasota, where she obviously did not fit in or have any connections at all?
She brought him another drink, laughing, “I think we forgot something.”
She leaned over and kissed the top of his head, “Merry Christmas.”
“Oh, my gosh, I totally forgot today is Christmas. I have a present for you.” He hurried into the house and came back with a package he had obviously wrapped himself. He made a sheepish face and said, “It's been a long, long time since I wrapped a present for anybody. It looks like hell on the outside and it's not much on the inside, but the minute I saw it and I had to get it for you.”
She looked up at him and smiled, “Thank you. I am sorry but I didn't buy you a gift.”
He waved his arms and turned around, beaming, “This is gift enough. A few days in paradise! I will treasure this gift forever.”
He saw tears in her eyes, but she looked away. When she turned back towa
rd him, her eyes were dry.
She said, “Ok, let's see what this is.” As soon as she glimpsed the contents of the package, she threw back her head and laughed out loud. She put on the hat, which was just a tiny bit too big. Fortunately it had a chin strap to keep it from blowing off. It had all the usual feathers and fishhooks you usually see on a floppy fishing hat, but it was pink and it had embroidered letters on the front that read: Women Anglers Rock!
“I hereby retire my old hat....”
He said, “Not so fast. Don't retire it just yet. Try this one out first and make sure that it doesn't have any negative effect on your fishing mojo. Then and only the should you consider retiring the old one.”
She made a face. “Actually, I found that old hat; I fell in love with it because it was so hideous. This one is even uglier, and it is special because you picked it out. This will be my new fishing hat. Thank you so much!” She stood up and kissed him.
They went for a swim, then they went for a walk on the beach. She explained that the island was not high enough for a permanent house. “The island is not under water during a normal high tide, but it is usually inundated during tropical storms. That's why Aurelio got it so cheap. The prior owner essentially thought he was unloading it on some stupid Yankee who didn't know what he was getting. In reality, Aurelio knew exactly what he was buying. The island is close to Nassau, so it's an easy weekend retreat for someone from Miami.”
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