Escape

by M. K. Elliott

  The water was cooler here and she plunged beneath it for a moment before bobbing back to the surface. As soon as she was in the water, the awkwardness of the heavy tanks disappeared, and she pulled off her mask, spitting onto the plastic lens self-consciously and then rinsing the mask out. Spitting in front of good-looking men was not something she wanted to get into the habit of doing, but in this case—if she wanted to stop her mask fogging up and be able see something—it was unavoidable.

  Rudy didn’t seem to mind. He leaned over the side and handed her the fins and she reached down into the water, and slipped them onto her feet. She still didn’t like the feeling of bobbing around in the deep ocean like this, the thoughts of things swimming only inches beneath her feet haunting her, but then Rudy jumped in beside her and her worries vanished.

  He bobbed back to the surface. Water droplets hung from his eyelashes, his hair darker and sleeker, wet. She wondered for the millionth time what he was doing out here with her. His type didn’t like girls like her—she wasn’t flirty or sexy. She took things seriously and had never rebelled in her life.

  Except for now.

  Rudy took his regulator out of his mouth. “We’re going to use the anchor rope to go down on. If you’ve got any problems, signal me. We’re going a bit deeper than last time so you might feel a bit more pressure and pain in your ears, but remember to keep equalizing, okay?”

  Lucy took a couple of steady breaths and used the rope to slowly pull herself under. The underwater world enveloped her; the light fractured by the surface, sound traveling more quickly in its tightly knit molecules.

  Rudy, with his vast experience, went down with her, not needing the rope to pull himself under. He just held on loosely with one hand. He kept eye contact with her, using his free hand to form the hand signals to ask if she was okay.

  At fifty feet down, he signaled her to stop.

  Together they swam away from the line toward the coral wall. The wall looked like a cliff face in front of them. The precipice dropped into the depths, its height somehow dizzying, even beneath the water.

  The wall teemed with life.

  A cloud of bright blue and yellow fish swirled like a fast moving, colorful fog in front of her eyes. Pink and orange sea anemones clung to the surface of the rock, their fat tentacles swirling in the current like fingers. A huge spindly crab walked across the coral, unsteady on its stick thin, multi-jointed legs.

  They swam up the wall, toward the coral reef. The light penetrated further now that they were in shallower water, and the colors of the fish and coral seemed even brighter. The coral ranged in all shapes and sizes, from elegant branching fingers, to delicate fans, to even strange looking brain corals. Butterfly fish, black and yellow with a huge swirl of a dorsal fin, darted between rocks. A shoal of squid moved so quickly, they reminded Lucy of a flock of sparrows circling at sunset, swarming in front of her.

  Rudy grabbed her arm, dragging her attention away from the fish. He pointed below them, toward a crevasse, and she looked down to see a turtle, huge and ancient, sleeping under a rock. The turtle opened its eyes as though sensing their presence, and blinked at them lazily.

  Leaving the turtle to its nap, they continued to swim. In the distance, a long dark shape slowly undulated toward them. Within moments, the shape was close enough to recognize and Lucy’s heart jumped into her throat. It was a grey reef shark. The shark glided elegantly through the water, paying them little attention. Lucy could feel herself breathing too fast, but then Rudy reached out and took her hand. He squeezed it in reassurance and her breathing slowed.

  They floated there, suspended, watching the shark swim by, as though they were the only people in the world.

  Chapter Seven

  Lucy pulled her hair into a ponytail and twisted it between her hands, wringing out the salt water. Her experience left her exhilarated; she understood how people got addicted to diving.

  She glanced over at Rudy, packing the equipment away. He felt her watching and looked up. She smiled at him and without hesitation, he smiled back.

  She hugged the excitement closer to herself. Did life get much better than this?

  The midday sun took no time to dry her off, leaving tracks of white salt on her rapidly bronzing skin. She had grown chilled after spending so much time submerged, but now that she was back in the sun, she quickly warmed up again.

  “Hey!” Rudy called out to her.

  She looked up in time to see Rudy throwing her a bottle of suntan lotion. She reached out and caught the bottle, just stopping it from going overboard.

  “Wouldn’t want you to get burned,” he grinned.

  She held up the lotion. “You were nearly going back over board for this.”

  “Na, I knew you had good reflexes.”

  She thought back to the previous dive experience and her apparently ‘good reflexes’, but decided she wasn’t going to bring that one up again. She didn’t want to ruin the mood.

  The sun beamed down, hot and bright. A light breeze rippled across the water.

  “Are you hungry?” Rudy asked her.

  “You bet.”

  They headed back to the little cove and Rudy docked the boat back on the pier. He pulled a large, blue cooler out of the wheel house, and then helped Lucy climb onto the dock.

  They walked across the deserted stretch of beach, the sand hot beneath their feet, to a shaded spot beneath some palm trees.

  Rudy threw a couple of towels down on the sand and she sat down on them. He opened the cooler and pulled out a bottle of cold white wine and a couple of glasses. She couldn’t hide her surprise.

  “I know it’s only lunch time,” he said, apologetically, “but I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Hey, I’m on holiday.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling, but the smile seemed restrained. “Great.”

  He poured her a glass and one for himself. He held his flute up and clinked the glass against her own.

  “To new friends,” he said.

  “To new friends.”

  She peered into the ice box, hoping to see what they were having for lunch, but the box was empty. She wondered what he’d done with the food. All that swimming and excitement had made her hungry.

  About ten feet away from where they sat, a pile of sand had been disturbed and a spade was propped up beneath one of the palm trees.

  “I suppose you’re wondering what’s for lunch,” he said.

  “Well I did wonder if you just had a liquid one in mind,” she said, holding up her glass.

  He jumped up and picked up the shovel. As Lucy had suspected, the pile of sand did have something to do with him and she watched with pleasure as he started to dig. He hadn’t put his shirt back on after the dive and she took in the lean muscles of his back bending and flexing beneath his tanned skin.

  He shoveled up the sand, digging a three foot deep hole. Her curiosity roused, Lucy stood up and peered into the hole.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve buried our lunch?” she asked.

  He laughed, “Actually, that’s exactly what I’ve done. It’s an earth oven.”

  “Wow.” She had heard of earth ovens before, but she had never seen one in person and certainly had never eaten food from one. “How did you make it?”

  “Dig a hole – obviously – then build a decent sized fire at the bottom. You need to get lots of big stones, about thirty or forty of them, and put the stones on the fire. Then you wrap everything up in banana leaves, bury the food again and when you come back the food is—hopefully—cooked.”

  Rudy got on his hands and knees, and reached down into the hole, pulling out banana leaf wrapped parcels.

  He swore and dropped one of the parcels on the sand. He laughed and shook his hand, blowing on his fingers. “Careful,” he said, “they’re hot.”

  More carefully, he pulled out the rest of the parcels and then started to unwrap them. He handed her sweet potato—soft and moist— and steamed banana, whole fish surrounded by
hot lime and sprinkled with chillies. The food was all still on the banana leaf and she realized the leaf was to be her plate. Steam rose from the food, sweet and hot.

  Rudy never failed to amaze her.

  “You eat with your hand,” he told her. “Imagine you are in China.”

  She picked up the food, burning her fingers.

  “Try blowing on it first,” he said.

  So she did and when she put it in her mouth, it was delicious.

  “How did you learn to do this?” she asked. “It’s amazing.”

  “I spent a bit of time on the North Island in New Zealand and made friends with a Maori family. They used to eat this way all the time and I managed to persuade one of them to show me how it’s done.”

  The fresh, citrus taste of the wine combined with the salty tang of the flesh of the fish was probably one of the best meals she had ever eaten. Sitting in the shade beneath the palm tree with a gorgeous man at her side, made her feel as if she was imagining this whole thing. In front of them, the waves broke on the shore, churning white foam, leaving bubbles to dissipate into the white sands.

  The wine made her head pleasantly fuzzy, softening her gaze. He topped her glass up more than he did her own, as he still had to drive the bike back.

  “I’m taking out a group this afternoon,” he told her. “It’s not very professional—or safe—of me to turn up inebriated.”

  Lucy’s heart dipped in disappointment. If he took a dive out, their day together would end soon.

  Every minute suddenly seemed precious. Her holiday was only booked for two weeks and she had been gone, for what, almost a week already? The flight had been twelve hours and she’d spent a day in Bangkok before getting the overnight train down to the island. She’d been here... she thought back, calculating the time in her head... four days. She had to leave two days before her flight, so even more time was lost. She really only had a matter of days left, and of course Rudy still had to work.

  “We could meet up tonight though,” he offered. “As long as you wanted to, of course? I should be done by about six so we could meet in the bar at seven?”

  “That would be great,” she said with a shy smile and a lift in her heart. He wanted to see her again! “I’d like that.”

  I should tell him about Max, she thought. It was wrong that he’d gone to all this effort and him not know that she, albeit technically, still had a boyfriend back home. Because after all, Max was more than just a boyfriend, he wasn’t someone she only saw on weekends; they lived and worked together and before this week, spent all their free time together. By her sitting here with Rudy, she was being unfair to both him and Max.

  When had she turned into such a bitch?

  Tears threatened, but she didn’t know if they were because she felt bad about Max or because she hated the thought that after a few more days she would never see Rudy again.

  “What’s the matter?” Rudy asked, noticing she had fallen quiet.

  I’ve got a boyfriend.

  She looked into his face, willing herself to say the words. But they refused to come. Whatever her brain shouted, her mouth refused to comply. She simply couldn’t imagine giving Rudy a reason to not want to spend time with her.

  But Rudy didn’t allow her the time to talk herself into telling him the truth. Instead, he leaned in toward her. He paused for a moment, searching her eyes.

  Lucy’s body seemed to have a mind of its own and she found herself leaning toward him, just a fraction of an inch, but enough to tell Rudy he was what she wanted, and he moved closer and kissed her.

  His mouth pressed soft and tentative, against hers. She tasted salt on his lips and the faint hint of wine. His hand slipped around the back of her head, twining his fingers in the base of her hair, pulling her toward him. She melted into the kiss, loosened by the wine, and all thoughts of Max left her head.

  Rudy lowered her down into the sand. His hand moved from her hair and slid down her waist, coming to rest on her hip. His naked chest pressed against her breasts, and her nipples hardened in response. His kiss grew deeper, his tongue gently teasing open her lips, finding her own, moist and warm.

  Lucy moaned and sunk deeper down into the sand, and he crushed himself against her. His hand crept back up her body and he lifted himself slightly, his fingertips lightly trailing across her body, finding the swell of her breast and the sensitive nub of her nipple. He tweaked it lightly and heat spread down between her thighs.

  The sensations suddenly filled her with panic. Realizing where she was and what she was doing, she sat up quickly and pushed him away, her palms pressing against his broad chest.

  “No, I can’t,” she said, her cheeks burning. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. I wasn’t trying to push you. I just couldn’t help myself. You’re so gorgeous.”

  She laughed but the sound had a cold edge to it. “Yeah, sure, that’s me.”

  His eyes widened in surprised at her sarcasm. “What? Don’t you think you’re gorgeous?”

  “Oh, please. I’m still the same skinny, lanky girl I was at school. I don’t know how you can possibly believe that.”

  “You’re crazy! Look at you. You have the most amazing long legs, beautiful eyes and your hair feels like silk.”

  She wanted to believe him, but it wasn’t that easy. Her self-perception had not been created in a day and it wasn’t going to be changed in one either.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I can’t do this.”

  She got to her feet and Rudy jumped up beside her.

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to push you. I’ll take you back. Just give me a minute to clear up.”

  She remembered herself, “I’ll help.”

  They set about picking up the glasses and towels and left-over food. Thanks to Rudy’s ingenious cooking, there was little else to clear up. But tension simmered between them now, a whole conversation of unspoken words.

  Lucy climbed back on the bike behind him. Once again, she’d ruined the day. She wanted to slide right up close behind him, rest her head against his shoulder, but despite the intimacy they had shared only minutes before, she didn’t feel comfortable.

  How did she always manage to ruin things? Did she deliberately sabotage herself?

  “I’m sorry,” she shouted over the roar of the bike. “We’re okay, aren’t we?”

  He turned back to her. “It’s me who should feel bad. I was too...” he sought for the word. “Presumptuous.”

  By the time they got back to the resort, his afternoon dive was already waiting for him.

  “I’ll see you tonight then,” he said, accepting his helmet from her as she climbed from the back of the bike.

  “Sure.”

  He hesitated beside her, as if he couldn’t decide whether to kiss her goodbye or not. Like turning up drunk, kissing the residents probably wouldn’t be viewed as being overly professional.

  People stood outside the dive office, waiting for him. A mixture of men and women made up the group, but seemed to be predominantly women. A couple of younger girls didn’t appear to have any men in tow and Lucy clocked the appreciative looks they gave Rudy.

  He raised his arm to wave to them and headed over. Jealousy stabbed her as, much to her alarm, he kissed both girls on the cheek. She had no right to be jealous; he was allowed to make other friends, even if they were young and gorgeous, with none of her early mid-life crisis going on.

  She waited for a moment, hoping he would turn around and wave to her, something to acknowledge her presence amid all these younger, prettier women. When he didn’t, she turned away, filled with a sickly combination of jealousy and embarrassment.

  He didn’t invite me on the dive, she realized as she walked away, her head still blurry from the afternoon wine (she never had been very good at afternoon drinking). Why didn’t he invite her along?

  The dive was probably full. Also, she realized she was a little drunk.

  Why did she always have
to over-analyze everything? He’d chosen to spend most of the day with her. Still, she couldn’t help the niggle of doubt worrying her, the certainty that this was all too good to be true.

  Lucy woke from her afternoon nap to find the weather had taken a turn for the worse. She left her room wearing one of her sleeveless summer dresses and her skin quickly puckered in gooseflesh. Absentmindedly, she rubbed at her arms, trying to warm her skin. The wind picked up, ruffling her clothes, and there was a distinct chill to the air.

  Standing on her small veranda, she looked out to sea. A bank of dark and ominous clouds sat on the horizon, so solid, as if mountains had erupted from the sea. The turquoise blue of the ocean was now a sullen grey.

  Lucy did an abrupt turn and went back into her room for a cardigan. She nearly hadn’t brought one, thinking she would be in a tropical climate, but now she was glad she did.

  She checked her watch; nearly half-past six. Only thirty minutes before she met Rudy again and the thought made her heart race with nerves and excitement.

  Taking a deep breath, she headed down the steps, toward the small room used as an Internet cafe, only without the cafe. She had rehearsed the words she planned to write to Max over and over again in her head, but nothing sat right with her. How could it ever be right to end a relationship by email? It was cold and heartless, but if she had to choose between snatching these few days with Rudy and hurting Max, she chose Rudy.

  Still, the thought of Max’s face when he opened the email made her cringe inside. They had shared some good times together, but the person he’d known, the person he’d shared those times with, just didn’t exist anymore.

  She had to wonder; was she writing this email for him, or was she just doing it to ease her own guilt?

  Lucy pushed away the answer, not wanting to admit the truth to herself.

  She opened the door to the Internet room. Most of the computers were already taken and a few people looked up at her as she walked in. She didn’t recognize any of them and she stood awkwardly, seeking out a spare console. She spotted one at the back of the room and crossed over and sat down. The computers were coin operated, so she emptied out her purse and starting feeding the machine.