by Nicki Chen
A minute later they were entering Port Vila, past the Rossi Hotel, Fung Kuei’s, Goodies, Proud’s Duty Free. From the look of it—the simple mostly one- or two-story buildings with glimpses of ocean between them, the sidewalk café with its white tables and red-and-white awning, the casually dressed people, and slow-moving pedestrians—it was a charming little town.
“What do you think?” Jay whispered over Clarita’s head.
Diana opened her mouth to answer. Was she ready to say? A jeep pulled out in front of them and then slowed in mid-turn so the driver could wave at a lanky young man ambling down the sidewalk with a boom box on his shoulder. What did she think? They rolled past a bank and a travel bureau. Was there anything she could conclude from a glimpse of downtown Port Vila, anything that would tell her whether this place would provide the peace and quiet she needed so she could relax enough to conceive a child?
“It’s charming,” she whispered back. Cute and charming. And, at the same time, well, chilling. When you get exactly what you asked for, who’s left to guarantee that it will actually make you happy?
D-TAP had made reservations for them at Le Lagon Resort Hotel. The rooms there were scattered across the grounds in small groupings. Theirs was on the bottom floor of a four-room unit.
Before leaving, Carole Anne handed Diana a sack of “essentials”: cold cereal, juice, bananas, and milk. “For your first morning,” she said. She gave Siole a meaningful look, and he pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket and handed them to Jay. One of the officers, Tom Appleby, was letting them use his car while he was on home leave.
“It’s the dull gray Toyota at the edge of the parking lot,” Siole said.
Carole Anne winced, wrinkling her nose. “Appleby smokes. You’ll have to drive with the windows open.”
Carole Anne and Siole hadn’t been gone more than five or ten minutes when Diana caught sight of a red-haired woman prancing across the grass toward their bungalow. “You found us,” she cried as she and Abby crashed together in a big bear hug. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“Sorry.” Abby stepped back, a pained look on her face. “I wanted to pick you up at the airport. I’m so bummed out that I couldn’t. But Carole Anne would have had a conniption fit. She thinks the airport hospitality run is her duty. Her privilege really. And . . . she is the boss’s wife. Hey, Jay.” She gave him a big smile and a quick hug. “Welcome to Vanuatu.”
Behind him, Clarita and Lourdes stood at the edge of the small patio, hands clasped in front of them, shy, expectant looks on their faces.
“Ladies,” Abby said, breaking away from Jay and Diana and hurrying over to the two maids. “I’ll bet you’re glad to see me.” She gestured toward the queen-size bed inside the room. “Unless you were hoping to sleep four to a bed.”
“No ma’am,” they giggled in chorus, blushing like school girls.
“Lourdes’s room has two beds.” Abby turned back to Diana and Jay. “Clarita can stay there until you find a house. If Lourdes doesn’t mind.”
“No, ma’am.” Lourdes grinned and wrapped her arm around Clarita’s waist.
“In the meantime, I think we can find something to keep her busy.”
Clarita straightened her shoulders. “I like to work, ma’am.”
No matter how glad Diana was to see her friend, she was tired after their flight. “I saw that yawn,” Abby teased. “I reckon you need a day to settle in. See you on Friday? Lunch?”
Before Abby left with Lourdes, Clarita, and their bags, she reached under her front seat, pulled a bottle of wine out by its neck, and handed it to Diana. Then she leaned over and fished under the seat again until she found two big Cadbury’s chocolate bars. “Here. I don’t imagine there was any wine or chocolate in Carole Anne’s hospitality bag.”
Diana shook her head.
“Cheerios, right?”
“Cheerios, bananas, milk, tea, and plastic bowls.”
Abby gave a knowing nod and turned to the maids. “Pile in, ladies. See you on Friday, Diana,” she said, leaning out the window and waving as she backed up.
27
This is the life, Diana thought as she looked out on the thatch-roofed bungalows and emerald lagoon. This was what morning in the South Pacific should look like. She cracked open a banana and looked over her shoulder. Jay was inside running water and clanging hangers. She peeled the banana, sliced it over her Cheerios with a plastic knife, and poured milk over it all. “Honey,” she called, “the juice and cereal are outside on the patio. It’s lovely out here. Why don’t you come and join me?”
On the lagoon, a man was paddling toward shore in a dugout canoe with a single outrigger. Watching him, Diana found herself crunching her cereal in rhythm with the dip of his paddle. Dr. Feliciano would be pleased. Here she was on her first morning in Vanuatu, sitting outside, serenaded by birds in a banyan tree, watching a canoe glide toward the shore while she ate sweet, toasted O’s, and just relaxing her heart out.
The man tucked his paddle away and coasted onto the sandy bottom. He stepped in the water, dragged his canoe up on the beach and tied it to a log. Then he picked a hibiscus—red, to match his shorts—stuck it behind his ear, and walked down the beach to the boathouse where another man in red shorts was pulling a Jet Ski out of the water and lining it up with a row of small sailboats.
“Hey, look at you,” Jay said from the doorway. “Don’t you look comfy?”
She looked down at the shorts and tank top she’d slept in and smiled. “Cheerios?”
“I’ve gotta run.”
“It’s only eight o’clock.” She had to smile at his shiny-clean face and neat schoolboy look—black leather shoes, slacks, a white short-sleeved shirt.
“I’ve gotta be there by eight thirty.” His eyes flitted across the landscape—the lawn sloping down to the lagoon, the bungalows and trees.
“And . . .” She shook the cereal box. “We’re only five minutes from town.”
“Oh, my god!” Jay shouted. “Look at that sailboat.”
Several hundred feet from shore, a small boat with a pink-and-blue-striped sail rested in mid-fall, one leg of the fiberglass catamaran poised at forty-five degrees. When it fell, it was like a slow-motion scene from a TV commercial, one that Diana could see ending with the tourists playfully hanging over one side to tip it back up. The sail would lift skyward and shudder to a stop, and the man and woman would clamber back on board, laughing at their small holiday mishap.
She was still imagining the sight when Jay leapt over the row of coleus at the edge of their patio and ran down the hill, sliding on the wet grass even as one of the boatmen, whose job it was to rescue tourists and account for the hotel’s boats, pulled the Jet Ski into the water and started the engine. Throwing it into gear, he roared away from shore, only to make a quick loop in the lagoon, cut the engine and jump back out. The tourists had already righted their boat, just as Diana had suspected they would. Now they were throwing their shimmering pink limbs over the side. The woman tugged at her bikini. The man flipped water off his strawberry blond hair.
“I hope you weren’t going to save them in your work clothes,” Diana teased when Jay reached the top of the hill and stepped back over the coleus.
“Course not.” He winked. “I was going to strip naked. I hope I kept that little shoeshine kit from Philippines Airlines,” he added, frowning at his shoes.
“It’s probably in your hand-carry bag.” Diana shook her head. Why would Jay have even considered trying to swim out to that sailboat? He was a lousy swimmer—skilled at tennis and soccer, but a lousy swimmer.
She ate a few more spoonfuls of Cheerios and took a gulp of orange juice. Then she carried the breakfast tray back inside. “You’ll be hungry,” she said. “How about a banana?”
He tilted his knee inward so he could buff the outside of his shoe. “Okay. I’ll eat it in the car.”
A moment later, he was out the door, crunching up the gravel path with his attaché case and banana. She
stood at the back door and waved. Don’t worry, she wanted to shout after him. You’ll like it. It was a hope more than a prediction.
Leaning against the doorframe, her toes curled over the threshold, she watched his back until all she could see was his dark head and white shirt above the hibiscus. He turned toward the tennis courts and disappeared, and she went inside.
The air conditioner’s rattle reverberated between the block walls of the empty room. It clicked off, and the little sticking noises her bare feet made as she padded across the tile floor filled up the emptiness. She stopped beside the bed, and the room was silent again. She switched on the clock radio, and it responded with a song from her childhood. “Tiny bubbles in the wine . . .” She laughed, picking up the shoe polish and cloth and tucking them in Jay’s bag. “. . . make me feel happy,” she sang along with the radio, “make me feel fine.” She rinsed out her juice glass and the plastic bowl from Carole Anne’s hospitality package. It had been a thoughtful gesture, she had to admit, even if Cheerios and bananas weren’t exactly what she would have imagined eating on her first morning in Vanuatu.
She looked around the bare room. Time to start the day—whatever that meant in this new life of hers. She stared at the clothes she’d hung in the closet last night. What does one wear on a day when you haven’t even decided what you’re going to do? No, she corrected herself: Today she was going to wander and explore. She settled on a cotton dress in swirling ocean colors, one she’d had for a year or two but seldom worn. Sandals, some lipstick, the room key, and she was ready to go.
The obvious place to begin was the seaward end of Erakor Lagoon. She locked the door, dropped the key into the nearly empty little bag she wore over her shoulder, and started across the still-damp grass.
At the edge of the hotel property, she found a sign for the free ferry that carried tourists and locals to and from Erakor Island. A family, complete with beach bags and mats, was waiting at the far end of the dock: the man with his arm around his wife, the woman tilting her floppy hat to adjust the neck flap on her son’s billed cap. Diana leaned on the dock’s wooden rail and watched small pale fish swim in twos and threes through the transparent water below her. Jay would be at work by now in the gaudy lime-green building they’d passed yesterday. She’d known the regional office would be small, but actually seeing it yesterday made her want to cry for him. It didn’t even have a sign. Back in Manila, he’d gone to work in a landmark building, the flags of fifty-some nations flying out front, officers and staff bustling in and out. He wasn’t one to care about appearances, but still . . . Oh, well. She wasn’t going to feel guilty about Jay’s office. After all, he’d agreed to come.
She heard an engine shift into neutral and looked up to see their ferry—an oversized metal lasagna pan with a blue canopy and an outboard motor. It glided up to the dock and stopped.
Once on board, Diana kicked off her sandals and put her feet up on the bench. Soon they were passing over clumps of coral that looked close enough to touch—cream and white and yellow ochre, round like heads of cauliflower. She leaned over, dipped her forearm into the water and reached toward them. Their boat crossed over a stretch of white sand, the water as clear as an undisturbed swimming pool, the pebbles like spots where the pool’s paint had peeled away. Beyond the sand was a forest of thin, brittle coral branches, white with neon blue tips. It was all so beautiful. And, unlike her failed experiment with goldfish back in Manila, this viewing experience didn’t require an ounce of effort on her part.
A handful of people were lounging on the island’s small beach, and below the water dozens of plump orangey-red starfish with dark brown bumps rested on the sand. At this moment, on this lovely little beach, she felt that all this serenity that surrounded her was bound to rub off. She and Jay would find a house, and, after they’d arranged the furniture and unpacked all the boxes, she would sit on the porch—as peaceful as a starfish—and wait for Vanuatu to change her.
28
They’d probably never use this Jacuzzi at the foot of their queen-sized bed—not together anyway, not if Jay wanted to keep his sperm count up. And the tub was way too big for just one person. She frowned and thought about it again. Oh, what the heck! She might just fill it up to the top tomorrow while Jay was at work and have herself a delicious, relaxing soak.
Sitting on the edge of the tub now, she dangled her feet into the empty Jacuzzi, took a deep breath, and let the air out in what sounded very much like a sigh. It couldn’t have been a sigh, though, since she’d had such a nice relaxing day. No doubt about it. Walking around Erakor Island, swimming in the hotel pool, writing letters to Mom and Andrew, making quick sketches of people, trees, and flowers. Her first day in Vanuatu had definitely been pleasant. Of course, she’d spent the day in and around the hotel like a tourist. Tomorrow after lunch with Abby, she’d explore the town and get a better idea what her life would be like here in Vanuatu.
She straightened her knees and pointed her toes. Hurry, sweetheart, she whispered, arching her feet harder before letting them fall back and bump against the wall of the tub. Sweet anticipation.
Waiting for Jay reminded her of all those late afternoons waiting for her father under the maple tree, swinging and twirling. She’d always started out swinging as high as she could, pushing back on the packed dirt with the soles of her sneakers and then stretching her legs up, up toward the branches, challenging herself to swing so high that the rope would suddenly slacken. Only then, when she was afraid she was about to go over the top, would she allow herself to coast to a stop and twirl. She’d tilt her head back and watch the spinning maple leaves and listen for her dad’s car. When he was late, Mom would bring her a sweater, and they’d wait for him together. Diana frowned, remembering how her mom would scold him. “You work too hard,” she’d say with a worried look on her face, as though working late were the thing that would kill him, not his cigarettes.
She hugged her knees. Outside, the birds were chirping like a mob of politicians in a parliamentary dispute. Fighting for a perch in the banyan tree, she supposed.
And still no Jay.
Moments later she heard his footsteps crunching up the gravel path from the parking lot. “It’s unlocked,” she shouted, jumping down from the Jacuzzi.
The door opened, framing him against a pale, streaked sky, a familiar strand of dark, wavy hair across his forehead.
“Sweetheart, hi.” She hugged him, kissed his cheek. “How was your first day in the South Pacific office?”
He rolled his eyes. “Strange.”
“Oh?” She took his attaché case and set it down beside the bed.
“A real small-town vibe. And then there was my meeting with Marshall.” He sat down on the bed and leaned over to untie his shoe. “I went in expecting him to discuss the work or his philosophy of development in the South Pacific. Office procedures even.”
“So, what did he talk about?”
“Said we should enjoy our three nights in the hotel since that was all D-TAP would reimburse us for.” He shook his head. “That’s Marshall’s brand of humor for you. He likes to needle people. I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that he teased me about ‘the little woman getting her way.’”
“What?” She frowned, arms akimbo. “He called me ‘the little woman’?”
“The only surprise was that he didn’t razz me about Hoffmann’s promotion. He must not have heard about it yet.” Jay pulled his sock off and gave it a shake. “Then he wanted to talk about golf.” Jay pulled his other sock off and dropped it—a little black heap on the white tile floor. “Would you believe it? Port Vila has four golf courses.”
Diana sat down beside him on the bed. When he finished talking, she’d tell him about the little ferry and about Erakor Island—although she wasn’t sure how she’d phrase it. Her island walk, like everything else today, was just a set of impressions—colors and scents and feelings.
“I told Marshall I didn’t play golf, but he insisted that all officers play
ed. The green fees are only a thousand vatu he said, as though that clinched it.”
She ran her toes over his bare foot. “That’s only about eight dollars.”
“Huh?” He raised one eyebrow.
“I’m not saying you need to play golf because it’s cheap.” Outside, the sky was nearly drained of color except for a rosy hue cast on the bulge of land on the other side of the lagoon. The water had a mother-of-pearl texture interrupted by mottled streaks of ripples and currents.
Enough talk about the office. “Look,” she said, jumping up. “The sun’s setting over the lagoon.”
“Ah,” he said, giving her a squeeze. “With the setting of the sun, a man’s fancy turns to food.”
They’d barely left the hotel when they saw a huge sign with a big yellow arrow pointing the way to the Golden Dragon Restaurant. They turned off and drove down a narrow road with untended fields on either side.
“I guess this is it,” Jay said of the two-story house at the end of the road.
Diana wasn’t so sure, but she climbed out anyway. In the twilight, the cleared area around their car was shrouded in shadows. The jungle at its edge vibrated with the one-note trill of a thousand excited cicadas. “Shouldn’t there be another sign?” she asked as they walked past a dimly lit ping-pong table in a covered patio.
“Come on. It must be up these stairs.”
When they reached the landing, they found a door around the corner that was propped open with a chair. An older Chinese woman who might have been the owner’s wife greeted them with a smile. “Lucky you come today,” she said. “Monday, Wednesday night we have guchin musician. A beautiful lady.” She picked up a couple of menus and led them across the spacious open-air dining area to a small round table covered with a white cloth.
Authentic Chinese food from the mainland, the menu proclaimed. The specialties of the house were coconut crab, eight ingredients duck, and crispy fish. “You order, honey,” Diana said, turning her chair toward the guchin player. “Something with seafood and vegetables.”
