Never Too Late

by Patricia Watters

  But where was Alessandro last night when she needed him? He'd excused himself to make a phone call, assuring her he'd be right back. She remembered feeling apprehensive about him leaving her again, then the room started spinning...

  But she remembered other things about the evening, things that troubled her now...

  ...a place for lovers is wherever two lovers can be together...

  The Pirate's Cove had not been that place. Noisy. Smoky. A place packed with hard-faced men and loose-looking women who stared at her in her Armani outfit, with curiosity and awareness—the woman Alessandro Cavallaro was screwing, was what their faces told her. Not his lover. Lovers didn't stare across the table at each other at the Pirate's Cove. Lovers didn't even go to the Pirate's Cove. Only a woman who wanted to get it on with a man who appeared to be known there, as his own words confirmed...

  ...you are with me, Alessandro Cavallaro. No one will disturb you...

  Why? Because he was known there. And feared? But she didn't fear Alessandro. Not once. Whenever she'd felt apprehensive, he smiled in a way that told her he was there to protect her, and pinned her with eyes that said she was special, and spoke to her in his soft Italian, assuring her things were fine...

  ...the place might look like a pirate's den, but the food is incomparable...

  Another inconsistency. The conch fritters were good, but nothing special.

  Alessandro also said he planned to meet someone, yet he didn't mention it until they got there. But where was Alessandro now? Back on the ship? Finding another woman?

  ...I assure you, querida, what I have in mind for us after we return from the Pirate's Cove tonight will be anything but verbal sparring...

  And she'd stood there, listening to Alessandro practically proposition her in front of Jerry, and said nothing. Said nothing because she wanted Jerry to think she wanted to do the things with Alessandro she'd once done with him. And everything about her dress, and her demeanor, screamed that she was already Alessandro's woman, and they were the lovers Alessandro presented to Jerry they were. But now she had no interest in Alessandro Cavallaro. All she wanted was to prove Jerry wrong about the man, if only to save face.

  Her gaze returned to the Armani outfit and the scanty black lingerie and she had to suppress the almost uncontrollable urge to rip everything hanging there into shreds and leave the clinic in a hospital gown.

  ***

  Two hours later Jerry shrugged his way between the curtains, arms filled with bags and packages, and said, "I picked these up at a batik outlet in one of the resorts. It's all they had."

  For a few moments Andrea said nothing, the sight of Jerry in a batik shirt that hugged a pair of broad shoulders and a muscular chest, and batik pants in a contrasting shade of tropical prints, about took her breath away. This was Jerry, the man who'd fathered her children, and who, until moments before, she'd thought she hated with as much passion as she'd once loved him. For a man in his forties he was kind of a hunk. Funny, she hadn't noticed that in years. Yet, nothing had changed, not really...

  "Like I said, batik’s all they had," Jerry grumbled, presuming she was displeased when he found her staring at him.

  "That's fine," Andrea replied, "Whatever you bought will be better than that." She felt her nostrils flare and her jaws tighten as she pointed to the clothes hanging on the hooks.

  "You've got that right," Jerry said.

  Andrea felt miffed again, her appreciation of Jerry's middle-aged good looks of moments before an anomaly. She took the first bag and dug through the tissue paper, pulling out a pair of batik slacks in shades of yellows and browns, and a matching batik shirt. Searching further she pulled out a batik sundress in a tropical print in shades of greens and blues, with touches of browns. The dress was striking in its simplicity, its patterns and colors reminding her of the coolness of a tropical forest. It was also modest in style—front cut high, cap sleeves—and she wondered if Jerry selected it to make a statement. She could still hear the caustic edge to his voice when she'd worn the green and tan sundress that once drove him to distraction.

  ...now it makes you look like a middle-aged hooker...

  Maybe he was right. Maybe a woman in her forties should dress conservatively. And the batik sundress was truly beautiful. "I love it," she said, and smiled at Jerry.

  A little glint of pleasure came into his eyes. Then he shrugged, and said, "There wasn't much to choose from. Go ahead, look through the other bags."

  Andrea reached for another bag and pulled out a pair of tan flip-flops and a swim suit, also batik, also modest. She looked up and waited for an explanation. Although she swam in her parents pool when she stayed there, the last time she'd gone swimming with Jerry had been years ago at the lake house, after the kids had gone to bed. Skinny dipping to be exact, although it hadn't started that way. But the buoyancy the water provided, and the shallow sandy lake bottom near the boat house, and the moonlit night with the sound of crickets and tree frogs to accompany their underwater dance of love had been close to being in paradise. She could sense Jerry remembering that night, and wondered...

  "I thought we might as well go snorkeling since we're stuck here," Jerry said in a sober tone. "We can rent equipment at the resort."

  "I suppose," Andrea agreed, and stuffed the suit back into the bag. Tucked inside another bag were sets of ladies underwear—soft, cotton, some in hot fiery colors, others in shades of blues, each set as brief as underwear could be, short of being half bras and thongs. Unspoken words and distant memories hovered between them like ghosts from the past, of times when Jerry surprised her with something sexy, something she'd model for him in a way that said to him... You're my man, and I'm your woman, and let's do what God designed us to do... Or she'd be feeling playful and say something like... "I love it, baby, but it covers the places that need attention right now..." Or she'd just put it on and give him a come-hither smile, and he'd chase her around if the kids were gone, and take it off in a great display of laughing and kicking and rolling around like two playful pups before settling into the seriousness of the making love...

  "Like I said, there wasn't much to choose from," Jerry grumbled, and turned to look at her medical chart beside the bed.

  "It's all fine," Andrea replied, tucking the underwear back inside the bag.

  "I booked us at Finnigan's Hideaway," Jerry mused, while scanning the doctor's notes. "It has bungalows on the beach and a lodge with bedroom suites overlooking the water. I reserved two bungalows." His statement underscored the fact that the divorce was still on, and she wasn't to make anything of the fact that he'd bought her several sets of very scanty underwear.

  She felt an odd sense of disappointment that things could not be as they'd once been. Here they were, alone in a tropical paradise, with miles of pristine beaches, almost uninhabited from what she'd seen as the ship cruised along Andros Island before docking in Andros Town... and warm, crystal-clear waters with hundreds of miles of coral reefs for snorkeling and exploring, and little private coves with pink sandy beaches where a couple would be free to make love undisturbed, beneath a warm, Bahamian sun...

  "The bungalows are on the beach," Jerry said. "I figured we might as well stay near the water while we're here."

  "What are they like?" Andrea asked, not really caring. It would only be for a couple of days, so it didn't matter.

  "Adequate," Jerry said, dispassionately. "I rented a car. I'll be in the waiting room while you dress," he added, then left.

  In the past Jerry would have helped her off with the hospital gown, or nuzzled her neck when he draped her batik shirt around her shoulders. And she would have laughed and slipped her arms around his neck and said she loved him and couldn't wait to go somewhere private so he could love her back the way she wanted...

  The doctor came in shortly after Jerry left, told Andrea she was free to do whatever she felt like doing, and warned her to drink only bottled water and make sure the food she ate was well-cooked. He discharged her with his
assurance that the results of the blood test would be forwarded to her primary care physician in Charleston.

  Andrea dressed in the batik sundress and flip-flops and found Jerry standing in the waiting room. The drive to Finnigan's Hideaway was in dead silence, and as Andrea stared out of the window of the rental car, she wondered again how they'd break the news of the divorce to the girls. Nothing worked out the way she wanted. Not even having a little shipboard romance. It was hell being middle-aged, on the verge of a divorce, and exactly what Jerry pointed out...

  ...while you're living in La La Land you might ask yourself if Alessandro Cavallaro would have given you a second glance if he'd passed you in a grocery aisle...

  That pretty much summed it up. Even Jerry didn't want to see her in a bikini or low-cut sundress any more...

  "How do you feel?" he asked, breaking the silence.

  It was the first time he'd inquired about her directly since she'd been brought to the medical facility, and Andrea wasn't sure whether he was talking to cut the awkward silence, or because he was genuinely concerned. "Actually, I feel like going snorkeling," she said, although she hadn't considered it until that moment. But the idea of a warm tropical sea caressing her body was appealing. The idea of anything caressing her body was appealing, she realized, and wondered when it started to matter. Not having sex. Middle-aged women weren't so hung up on that as younger women were. Just something stroking her skin. A soft breeze as she lay on the beach in her swim suit, the warm waters of the Straits of Florida washing over her, Jerry's hands massaging her sore muscles the way he used to, his fingers straying off to tease and stroke private places that were once again beginning to tingle for his touch...

  "I'll drop you off at your bungalow and see about renting the equipment," Jerry said.

  The bungalow was a lovely little building with a tropical motif throughout that included locally-made furniture covered in batik, curtains and bedspread in tropical print patterns, red tile floors with a soft sheen, and an efficiency kitchen with tile countertops. Across the front, a deck looked out onto a panorama of tiny bays and rocky inlets and sand dunes with sea grass, spider lilies and seagrape. And beyond the pink-sand beach stretched an endless turquoise sea. There were other bungalows on the beach, but each was separated by clumps of palm and pine trees laced with mangrove, offering almost complete privacy for those wanting to lay in the sun, away from unwelcome eyes. She had no idea where Jerry's bungalow was. He'd dropped her off at the trail leading to her place and gone on to the lodge to rent the snorkeling equipment. But it made no difference because after they'd return from snorkeling, they'd go their separate ways.

  While waiting for Jerry to come for her, Andrea wiggled into the batik swim suit—a one-piece made from a stretchy material—and tugged it up her body. Wide straps held the front modestly high. Still, the suit clung to her like a batik tattoo. She looked at her legs, long and slender and firm, thanks to liposuction. She hadn't intended to have it done when she called to inquire about it, but after four months of working out at the fitness center in Myrtle Beach, and seeing women in their prime, sleek and firm and flat-bellied, she found herself making an appointment. And while Jerry was away with his crew cleaning up an oil slick, she had it done. She was pleased that her belly was reasonably flat, thanks to a daily regimen of sit-ups, and that the rest of her wasn't too bad for a woman her age. Certainly better than most of her friends. She inhaled and turned sideways to the mirror, satisfied that what she had was adequate without the help of silicone.

  When Jerry arrived, he knocked, which surprised Andrea. After twenty-five years she'd expected him to walk in. He stood on the porch in his batik swim suit, his shirt, which was open down the front, hugging his broad shoulders, and snorkel tubes, face masks and long red swim fins in his hands. She noted that his swim suit was also made from the same stretchy material as hers, and she could not keep from admiring Jerry's flat belly and narrow hips. She shifted her focus to his waxed chest. It bothered her that the matt of hair was gone, and with it, her snuggly huggy bear, as she'd called him...

  "It's growing out." Jerry grumbled. His gaze wandered down the length of her, making her flesh tingle with his close perusal.

  "The suit's fine," she said, trying not to react to his visual inspection. But she couldn't stop her face from flushing. Nor could she stem the desire building inside with his close scrutiny.

  Then his face hardened. "Let's get going," he said in a curt tone. "The best time for snorkeling's just before the tide turns, which is about now." He turned and headed for the beach.

  Andrea walked beside him. "We don't have to do this," she said. "You seem irritated."

  "Yeah, well, it's been a long dry spell," Jerry snapped. "It makes a man irritable."

  Andrea knew at once that, for whatever reason, Val had not had her way with Jerry. Maybe he'd had another failure. Maybe it was like he said, he wasn't interested in a woman half his age. But the thought that he hadn't been with another woman pleased her, even though it didn't change anything. "Maybe snorkeling will take your mind off... well... it," she said.

  "The only thing that'll take my mind off it would be a shark coming along and taking it with him," he groused. He walked toward a drift log in an alcove off the beach and tossed the snorkeling equipment on the sand. "The man at the rental shop said afternoon was a good time to see stingray," he commented. "They'll be on the sandy bottoms in the channels between coral formations."

  Andrea reached for a snorkeling mask, then sat on the drift log and positioned the mask over her eyes. "You realize it's been years since I've snorkeled," she said, peering at Jerry through the wide, round glass.

  "It'll come back," Jerry replied. He crouched in front of her and placed his hands around the mask, and said, "Don't press it hard against your face. There should be no gaps between the skirt and your skin." He adjusted it slightly. "Now, inhale. If the mask stays on, it's the right fit."

  Andrea filled her lungs with air. "It's okay," she said, though she was finding it difficult to breath with Jerry so close. She also noticed Jerry's well-muscled chest was rising and falling. Definitely the chest of a man who'd been working out. For how long, she didn't know, because she hadn't noticed it before the cruise, though there had been little chance. What sex they'd had in the past two years had been regimental.

  Jerry reached for a fin. "I got the ones that cover the foot instead of open-back fins," he said, his eyes on her leg. "Give me your foot."

  Andrea stretched out her leg, and Jerry wrapped his palm around her ankle and slipped the fin onto her foot. "It's supposed to fit comfortably. Not too tight and not too loose." His palm remained on her ankle for a moment before he removed it and closed it around the other ankle to slip on the other fin. Andrea knew there was no logical reason for Jerry to be putting her swim fins on her feet, or to be holding her ankle, but she didn't stop him because she wanted him to do what he was doing, and more, which was both confusing and disconcerting.

  Jerry's thumb glided over her ankle bone and his palm moved up her calf as he said, in a slow, contemplative voice, "The man said if you snorkel over a small hole that seems to have a lot of empty shells around it, look in the hole for an octopus." He stared at her leg for a few moments, then removed his hand and stood.

  Andrea looked up at him, and for the first time in months, perhaps years, the masculine bulge straining at Jerry's swim suit excited her. She thought of what lay beneath that busy batik pattern—his ten-gallon testicles and pile-driver penis, she'd kidded him so long ago. Almost too long ago to remember. It had been eons since they'd bantered with playful sex talk, since they'd lost all the fun of lovemaking. It had been eons since she'd wanted Jerry.

  She eyed the little alcove surrounding them...

  …a place for lovers...

  But nothing had changed. Once back in Myrtle Beach they'd fall into their old pattern of sniping at each other. And the TV would blare, and she'd want to throw the thing out the window, and Jerry would
resent her for going to her writing tower, and in the unspoken words that never surfaced would be Scott's death, always hovering over them, as if Scott were pointing a finger at them, accusing them for giving him a car he couldn't resist racing, and letting him go to a party where Scott knew there'd be drinking...

  But neither the TV, nor the writing tower, nor Scott's ghost were there right now. It was only the sand, and the sea, and the surf, and her and Jerry...

  Surely for one afternoon in the Bahamas, they could put things to rest... Put Scott to rest…

  Jerry shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it across a drift log. Positioning the mask and snorkel over his face, he said, while looking down at her, "Before you dive, hold your nose and blow in order to equalize your ears. Are you ready?"

  "I guess," Andrea said. She stood up on the fins. For a few moments Jerry looked her over, but his eyes were not on the snorkeling equipment, and where his gaze was focused intensified her desire for him. She hated what was happening. She hated that Jerry seemed angry when he looked at her. That wasn't the way it had been. Always, in years past, he looked at her with appreciation. And the expression on his face had been one of pure pleasure...

  Jerry turned and started toward the water, and Andrea clip-clopped across the sandy beach a few steps behind him, eyes focused on his broad shoulders, and muscular back, and trim, firm butt—a body still lean and sinewy, still making her feel things even after all that had come between them. But soon the turquoise water lapping against the bright pink sand beckoned. In one long lunge Jerry hurled himself into the water and floated face down, his brawny back glistening a golden bronze beneath the afternoon sun, like a giant fish that had come up from the depths. Andrea too immersed herself in the water, face down, and slowly kicked her legs.