“Yeah, sure,” he said.
The tension had left Allie’s body, but now weakness was replacing it. And she deeply regretted that pineapple drink and the crab cake appetizers by the pool; her stomach was in knots.
“Is there anything . . . worrying you?” he asked after a minute.
She felt her heart speed up again. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“For me, the attacks began when I was under a ton of stress at work, trying to get my company started. They got worse when my parents died,” he said.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t—” Her chest felt tight.
“It’s okay. Hey, look at the sunset.”
Allie could feel Dwight’s chest rise and fall, and she tried to match her breaths to his slow, steady inhalations.
“This may be the prettiest sunset I’ve ever seen,” he was saying. “I like sunsets better than sunrises, I think . . . not that I’m ever up early enough to watch sunrises. Remember back in college when you used to pound on my wall to wake me up during finals?”
He chatted for another few minutes, and Allie knew he was trying to distract her from her fear. This was the sweet, sensitive side of Dwight that the others didn’t know. Her Dwight.
“I’m so tired all of a sudden,” she said.
“You’ve been through a workout,” he said. “Why don’t I call a cab now? You can go to bed when we get home if you feel like it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Okay,” he said. “Whatever you want.”
“Could we just stay here a little longer?” she whispered.
“Sure,” he said.
Allie slowly became aware of the sound of the water crashing against the shore, the grit of the sand between her toes, and the heat draining out of the day as the sun sank lower. She sighed and turned her head slightly, so her cheek was resting against Dwight’s chest.
“You know I was adopted, right? I just found out that my biological father and grandfather both had ALS,” she said. “Lou Gehrig’s disease. It turns out there’s something called familial ALS. I read about it on the Internet. Sometimes it runs in families, Dwight.”
His arm tightened around her, and then his other arm came forward to wrap around her, too.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. She began to shake, but his arms stayed steady around her.
“You don’t have it,” he said.
“I can’t leave my girls, Dwight. I can’t.”
“You won’t,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “I just . . . I can’t help thinking, what if? Ryan can’t raise the kids alone; he works long hours and I don’t even know if our medical insurance is all that good. We’ve never needed it for anything big before, and—”
“Allie.” Dwight’s voice cut her off. He sounded almost stern. “You’re not going to get sick. But I don’t want you to worry. If anything ever happens to you, I’ll take care of everything.”
She tilted her head up to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ll take care of everything for you,” he repeated. “I’d give Ryan enough money so he could stay at home fulltime. I’d—I’d get you the best treatment. I’d pay for your kids’ college . . . anything.”
She stared at him. His eyes told her he was completely serious.
“Why?” was all she could think to say.
By way of an answer, he bent his head and kissed her.
Chapter Seven
* * *
Monday Night
“THERE’S A BIT OF news,” Pauline said.
The others looked up. The waiter had just served a late dinner of burgers and fries—with a twist. Everybody but Allie was given a Kobe burger with sautéed sweet Vidalia onions; Allie’s version was made from grains and portobello mushroom. The fries were hand-cut and crisp, and the chef had set out dishes of homemade ketchup, lemony mayonnaise, and other fixings. It was, Gio had declared after the first bite, the best burger he’d had in his entire life.
“Is everything okay?” Tina asked.
“Of course,” Pauline said. “But it looks like bad weather is heading our way.”
“The tropical storm?” Ryan asked, and Pauline nodded. She hadn’t expected the others not to know, of course—despite how isolated they were out here, everyone had iPhones and BlackBerrys. “They’re expected to issue a tropical storm warning for our area,” she said. “Not for a few days, though.”
“Do you think it might turn into a hurricane?” Tina asked, and Pauline drew in her breath. This was exactly what she didn’t want: for people to worry.
“No, and it’s not expected to come that close,” she said. “But we will get some rain. So, let’s soak up the sun while we can.”
“Fine with me,” Savannah said. “I could nap on the beach all day tomorrow.”
“I saw a badminton set in the games closet,” Allie said. “We could set it up and have a tournament!”
“What part of ‘nap on the beach all day’ don’t you understand?” Savannah asked, but she was smiling.
Pauline sat back and nibbled a salty fry while the others made plans, their voices overlapping as they talked about bringing Frisbees and snorkeling equipment to the beach. The storm had shifted course, just a bit. But it was probably going to come a lot closer to Jamaica than had been originally expected, unless it shifted again. She knew it wasn’t her fault, but a sense of failure tinged the evening for her. She’d hoped the weather would be flawless this week. Who liked a rainy beach vacation?
On a table across the room, a cell phone rang.
“Whose is that?” Tina asked, reflexively checking her pockets. “I hope the kids are okay . . .”
“It’s mine. I’m sorry,” Pauline said. “I should have shut it off during dinner.”
“Why?” Savannah asked. “I never turn mine off. Well, maybe just during sex. But that really depends on the guy.”
Ryan and Gio hooted, and Savannah laughed. That settled it Pauline decided; she officially hated Savannah. But Pauline made sure her voice was soft when she replied, “I don’t want to interrupt our meal.”
Her phone rang a second time, then went to voice mail.
“Are you sure you don’t want to check it?” Dwight asked. He looked at his watch. “It’s after nine o’clock. Who would be calling you?”
“Maybe it’s something I’m planning for your birthday,” Pauline said, smiling at him. Who could be calling? she thought.
“When is the actual day?” Ryan asked.
“Thursday,” Allie and Pauline responded in unison.
Allie quickly bent her head to take another bite of her veggie burger, and her hair swung forward, hiding her face.
“Are you feeling better, Allie?” Pauline asked, turning to look at her. “We missed you and Dwight on the beach earlier.”
Allie reached for her wine. She took a sip, then cleared her throat.
“I’m much better,” she said. “Just a little airsickness. I’m only sorry we couldn’t finish the ride.”
“It wasn’t the same without you two,” Pauline said, smiling at Dwight.
“The helicopter pilot was kind of hot,” Savannah said, biting off the end of a French fry. “Didn’t you think?”
“Which one?” Ryan asked.
“Yours,” Savannah said. “Ours was, like, sixty.”
Which is probably a more appropriate age for you than the crewman you were flirting with today, Pauline refrained from saying.
“I have to confess I didn’t exactly notice,” Gio said with a smirk.
“I have to confess I’m kind of relieved about that,” Tina joked.
“Think a young Harrison Ford,” Savannah said. “Great shoulders, too.”
“In any case, how about a clambake on the beach tomorrow night?” Pauline suggested. “I was going to do it later in the week, but maybe with the weather . . .”
“Yummy!” Tina said. “We’ll just have a lazy day.�
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“So what’s the plan for tonight?” Savannah asked. “Should we start with drinks by the pool?”
“Sounds good to me,” Gio said.
“Shall we have dessert out there, too?” Pauline suggested. “It’s such a lovely night.”
When everyone assented, she stood up. “I’ll let the chef know.”
She scooped up her phone on the way to the kitchen. But before she swung open the door, she could hear someone coughing.
“Chef?” She swung open the door and found him next to the sink. Luckily a handkerchief was pressed to his mouth.
“I’m sorry, madam,” he said when he could speak. “I think I’m coming down with the flu.”
Perfect, Pauline thought. They’d racked up two disasters—the storm and now this—and they were barely two days into the trip.
“You need to stay home tomorrow,” she said, suppressing a shudder. She hoped his germs hadn’t made it into the food. “I’m going to get a replacement.”
He nodded, put his handkerchief into his pocket, and began scrubbing his hands at the sink while Pauline searched her iPhone for the name of the company that had rented the bungalow. Luckily the company was prepared for contingencies like this, as well they should have been, considering what they charged. Moments after Pauline wrote an e-mail outlining the problem and hit Send, a response pinged into her in-box: Our apologies. A replacement chef will be there tomorrow morning.
“Why don’t you go home now?” Pauline suggested to the chef. “The waiter can handle serving dessert and cleanup.”
He nodded. “Thank you, miss.”
Pauline almost felt sorry for him; he looked so miserable, with his sweaty brow and glazed eyes. But a moment later, as she glanced down at her iPhone again, her pity was replaced with a twinge of anxiety: There were three new messages within the past couple of hours, all from her mother. She must’ve missed the first two calls over the noise of the helicopters. Pauline stepped outside, by the pool, so she could speak privately. Her mother answered on the first ring.
“Pauline?”
There was no other word for it; her mother’s voice was shattered.
“What’s wrong?” Pauline’s mind was leaping ahead to make plans even before her mother responded. If it was cancer, they’d get the best doctors. She’d move her mother into the guest suite at the house. She’d—
“It’s Therese.”
Pauline’s mind went blank.
“She caught pneumonia a few days ago. They moved her to a hospital this morning . . . She was so frail anyway; no one even expected her to live this long. They don’t . . . think—”
Her mother’s sentence ended on a sob.
Pauline opened her mouth to speak, but her voice had been erased. Therese had been such a constant in her life, but an intangible one. She hadn’t even known about her sister’s existence until she was six or seven, when her parents had sat her down in the living room to reveal it. Pauline’s first reaction was relief: She’d thought from the expressions on their faces that she was in serious trouble for an unknown offense. They’d explained that Pauline had a sister, older by two years, who was ill. That was the word they’d used, ill, even though Therese wasn’t. She’d been born with a genetic deformity. She was a fully grown adult with an infant’s brain—a grotesque, sad paradox. Pauline hadn’t thought about her much, save for those brief, chilling moments when she wondered how close the genetic mutation had come to touching her own strands of DNA. But sometimes Therese had entered Pauline’s mind at odd moments, like when Pauline got her first period. Did Therese menstruate, too? Pauline knew she could never ask the question; her parents would’ve been bewildered and shocked, and maybe angry, too.
She hadn’t visited her sister much growing up—mostly on holidays, and on Therese’s birthday, when everyone but Therese sang and ate cake—but after college, Pauline had made an effort to go with her mother every couple of months. She never stayed long, though, and usually filled the time by cutting the stems off the flowers she’d brought and arranging them one by one in a vase. Therese was small, just shy of four foot ten, with sparse blond hair and a round face. Her light blue eyes seemed vacant. Visiting her, Pauline felt the exact same way she had when she’d seen her grandfather in the hospital during his losing battle with lung cancer: claustrophobic, nervous, and eager to leave. She didn’t feel any connection to Therese, and once when she was in the room, she smelled something sharp and vaguely antiseptic and realized that Therese had wet her diaper. Pauline was ashamed of it, but she felt more revulsion than pity for her sister.
After Pauline married Dwight and her life became so much busier, her visits grew less frequent—the spaces between them stretching to three months, and sometimes even four. Pauline tried to reassure herself that her sister didn’t even seem to know when she was there. Therese didn’t seem to respond to anyone except her regular nurses, and even then, the most she might do was smile.
Pauline could hear her mother’s shuddery inhalation on the phone, and it spurred her to find her voice: “How long?”
At her mother’s answer—“Any time now”—she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She tried to focus. “Are you at home?”
“I’m at the hospital,” her mother said. “I’m not going to leave, until . . .”
Tension roiled Pauline’s stomach. “Are you alone?”
“Yes,” her mother said.
For one of the few times in her life, Pauline had no idea what to do. She couldn’t leave the vacation, not now. But how could she forsake her mother?
Finally she said: “We’re in Jamaica . . . but do you want me to come home?”
Her mother paused for what seemed like a long time, and Pauline squeezed her eyes shut. “If you can, I would be . . . grateful. Wouldn’t Dwight understand?” her mother asked.
Pauline dropped onto a lounge chair and massaged her forehead with one hand.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “He . . . doesn’t know everything about Therese. How bad off she is.”
“I see.” Silence filled the phone line again, and Pauline suspected her mother was doing the exact same calculation Pauline had, before the wedding: Would her sister’s condition have scared off Dwight, made him think they might have an abnormal child? Maybe he would’ve married her anyway, but Pauline didn’t want to take that chance—to alter the dynamic of their relationship. What she brought to their marriage was a kind of ease and grace; she smoothed problems out of Dwight’s way so that his burdens were lessened and he could focus on business. Maybe it was an outdated model for a relationship—the equivalent of a fifties housewife bringing slippers and a pipe to her husband the moment he arrived home—but she didn’t care. It worked for both of them.
“It’s all right,” her mother finally said. “You should be with your husband.”
But even as those words traveled over the line, Pauline knew: She had to go, that very night.
* * *
“Well, that was weird,” Savannah said as she flicked the switch on the margarita machine and watched the ice and tequila mixture churn into a minicyclone.
“She seemed so upset,” Tina said.
“I know,” Savannah said. “It’s only a broken hip.”
“I bet it’s more than that,” Allie said, and Savannah looked up. She’d had the exact same thought. “When things like this happen to a parent, it’s a symbol of their mortality. I bet Pauline’s realizing that her mother is getting older . . .”
Savannah tuned out the psychobabble as she poured the frothy margaritas into salt-rimmed glasses. Sometimes she thought Allie had missed her true calling; she could’ve given Dr. Phil a run for his money.
“To your health,” Tina said, lifting a glass.
“We need a better toast than that,” Savannah said, leaning back against the big granite island. “How about: ‘One drink is good, two at the most, three I’m under the table, four I’m under the host’?”
“Savannah!” Allie shrieked.
Savannah grinned. “I’m paraphrasing Dorothy Parker. But, you know, give me a few more of these . . .”
“You would not,” Tina said, but her voice was laced with a thrill.
“Oh, I don’t know, Tina. It’s kind of your fault, actually. After hearing you talk about what a great kisser Dwight was, he’s looking awfully tempting,” Savannah said.
At the shock on Allie’s face, she added, “I’m not going to throw myself at Dwight while his wife’s away. But I might have some fun dancing with him again tonight.”
Allie drew in an audible breath. “I think that’s really disrespectful,” she said. “Pauline worked hard to give us this nice trip. And now you’re talking about hitting on her husband while she’s away taking care of her injured mother?”
“Whoa, girl, settle down,” Savannah said. What the hell was wrong with Allie? Her cheeks and ears were turning red, and she was almost shouting. It was one of the few times Savannah could recall seeing Allie mad.
“Allie? What’s going on?” Tina said, putting a hand on Allie’s shoulder. “You know what Savannah’s like. She was just kidding around.”
Allie looked back and forth at the two of them, and then it was as if a switch had been flipped inside of her—all of the anger drained out of her face. “Sorry,” she said. “I just . . . I don’t know what got into me.”
Savannah shrugged. “It’s forgotten.” She meant it; she’d never believed in holding grudges over small infractions. “But Tina’s right, you should know what I’m like by now.” She winked at Tina. “Demure and shy, right? Isn’t that what you meant?”
Tina’s and Allie’s laughter chased the remaining tension out of the room.
“Dwight seems to really love Pauline,” Tina said. “And she’s certainly devoted to him.”
“To each his own,” Savannah said. “I mean, yeah, I appreciate the trip and everything. Don’t get all riled up again, Al. I’m not being bitchy. But she’s kind of . . . stiff. Usually I like things that are stiff, but that’s not a compliment.”
Tina rolled her eyes at Savannah. “I think she must come from a lot of money. I just get that feeling.”
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