“You Ava’s red-haired Katie?” he asked.
“Guilty,” I said.
He sucked his teeth, a sound I’d heard a few times in the last two days. “Chuptzing,” Ava had called it, when I asked her last night. A derisive noise. Hopefully intended for Ava, not me.
I smiled hopefully, and he grinned and said, “That girl a problem. Welcome, Katie.”
We drove to the west end of the island along oceanside roads and then cut up into the hills. The driver parked the shuttle in front of a restored two-story plantation home that was now a museum. Its whitewashed boards stood in stark contrast to the green of the forest surrounding it. A vegetable garden beside the house gave way to a stand of banana trees, the bunches of fruit bowing them over. Rashidi said they were called babyfingers because the bananas were short and stubby.
The group hike started from the parking lot and we crossed the road to pick up the trail into the forest. The scenery was gorgeous. Even the drive yesterday hadn’t done justice to the beauty I experienced once we started walking. On foot, I could hear the macaws calling to each other. I smelled the cloying perfume of the wild orchids. I saw the bright green iguanas that my eyes hadn’t picked out from my vantage point in the driver’s seat.
We hiked up a steep, winding path, and I wished I owned a pair of hiking boots. The trees were tall, their leaves clustered in a canopy over our heads. The bush on the ground was sparse on the cleared path, but thick up to its edge. As best as I could understand it, “bush” referred to whatever grew near the ground: bushes, ferns with giant leaves, weeds, flowers, small trees, and grasses. Rashidi described it all, and I tried to soak it in. Guinea grass and bright red hibiscus. Ginger Thomas flowers and grape-sized gnip fruits. Elephant ears and royal palms. I concentrated on the challenge of breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, and keeping my mind clear of he-who-I-was-not-to-pine-for. I swiped a long brown seedpod off the lower limb of a vibrant orange flamboyant. The pod looked like a sword, and I swished it in the air a few times, then felt kind of silly.
The incline winded me, and I scowled at the memories and effects of my recent debauched lifestyle. What the hell was I doing to myself? I had to stop this. The burning in my lungs began to feel good; it burned out the bush in me. Maybe it could clear a path for me to find my way.
We had hiked for nearly two hours when Rashidi gave us a hydration break and announced that we were nearing the turnaround point, which would be a special treat: a modern ruin. As we leaned on smooth kapok trees and sucked on our Lululemon water bottles, Rashidi explained that a bad man, a thief, had built a beautiful mansion in paradise ten years before, named her Annalise, and then left her forsaken and half-complete. No one had ever finished her and the rainforest had moved fast to claim her. Wild horses roamed her halls, colonies of bats filled her eaves, and who knows what lived below her in the depths of her cisterns. We would eat our lunch there, then turn back for the hike down.
When the forest parted to reveal Annalise, we all drew in a breath. She was amazing: tall, austere, and a bit frightening. Our group tensed with anticipation. It was like the first day of the annual Parade of Homes, where people stood in lines for the chance to tour the crème de la crème of Dallas real estate, except way better. We were visiting a mysterious mansion with a romantic history in a tropical rainforest. Ooh là là.
Graceful flamboyant trees, fragrant white-flowered frangipanis, and grand pillars marked the entrance to her gateless drive. On each side of the overgrown road, Rashidi pointed out papaya stalks, soursop, and mahogany trees. The fragrance was pungent, the air drunk with fermenting mangos and ripening guava, all subtly undercut by the aroma of bay leaves. It was a surreal orchard, its orphaned fruit unpicked, the air heavy and still, bees and insects the only thing stirring besides our band of turistas. Overhead, the branches met in the middle of the road and were covered in the trailing pink flowers I’d admired the day before, which Rashidi called pink trumpet vines. The sun shone through the canopy in narrow beams and lit our dim path.
A young woman in historic slave garb was standing on the front steps, peering at us from under the hand that shaded her eyes, her gingham skirt whipping in the breeze. She looked familiar. As we came closer, she turned and walked back inside. I turned to ask Rashidi if we were going to tour the inside of the house, but he was talking to a skeletally thin New Yorker who wanted details on the mileage and elevation gain of our hike for her Garmin.
We climbed up Annalise’s ten uneven front steps and entered through the opening that should have had imposing double doors. We came first into a great room with thirty-five-foot ceilings, and my skin prickled, each hair standing to salute Annalise. We gazed up in wonder at her intricate tongue-in-groove cypress ceiling and mahogany beams, her stone fireplace that was so improbable here in the tropics.
We explored her three stories, room after room unfolding as we discussed what each was to have been. Balcony floors with no railings jutted from two sides of the house. A giant concrete pool behind the house hovered partway out of the ground, like a crash-landed spaceship. How could someone put in so much work, build something so magnificent, create such hope, and leave her to rot?
Gradually, ughs replaced the oohs as we discovered that we had to step over horse manure and bat guano in every room, and an old mattress with God knows what ground into it in the basement. Dead worms by the thousands crunched under our feet. Rashidi called them gungalos. One woman put her hand on a wall and ended up with dung between her fingers and gunked into her ostentatious diamond ring, which, for some inexplicable reason, she’d worn on a rainforest hike. Annalise was not for the faint of heart, and I longed for a broom. What she could have been was so clear; what she might still be was staggering. I could see it. I could feel it.
And zing—something hit me hard, just coursed through my head and lungs. A cold, hard, lonely place filled with crap. It was like looking in the mirror. No, it was more than that. It was like someone had whispered it in my ear. It felt personal to me that she was abandoned. Even her name resonated inside me: Annalise. Unbelievably, I had a connection on my iPhone, and I Googled the origin of the name—Hebrew for grace, favor. For some reason, reading those words hurt me. Annalise and I could both use some grace. An overpowering urge to make things right by myself and by this house rose up in me. I didn’t see the irrationality of it; I saw the possibility of mutual redemption. Swept along by a powerful urge, I saved the realtor’s name and number from the faded sign by the door into my contacts. It didn’t hurt to type it in, I told myself.
Rashidi’s voice broke through my reverie. “Ms. Katie, are you comin’ with us? It gets dark up here at night, you know.”
I laughed and started after the group that had left without me noticing, excitement bubbling up in me from the inside and spilling over in that forgotten sound of true joy. I had energy now and a spring in my step. The group was chattering as we hiked out, but I didn’t hear a word. My washing-machine mind was churning again, but instead of Nick, this time it was Annalise spinning through it. It was as if she was calling out to me that we were the same, that we could save each other, and my mind was answering with a cautious maybe, a tentative “we’ll see.” I stopped to look back each time she came into view, farther and farther in the distance.
She was defiantly beautiful and strong, soaring over a sea of green treetops, and behind her, the ocean, which looked like the sky. A view of the world turned upside down. I shivered.
Rashidi dropped back a half-dozen paces from the group and spoke softly to me. “So, you like the house? I see you talkin’ to her spirit.”
Did this man take me for a crazy person? Or had my lips moved? If I was talking to her, and I was not sure that I had been, I wasn’t about to confirm my insanity to a stranger. “Talking to her spirit? What, you mean the spirit of the pooping horse?” I quipped.
“You make like I crazy, but what that make you? You the one hear the house talkin’ to you,” he said matter-of-f
actly. “What she say?”
Instead of answering him, I asked, “Why do you say she’s got a spirit? What do you mean, like a ghost?”
Rashidi’s speech became more colloquial, his accent thickened, and his eyes sparkled. “Nah, she ain’t got no ghost, she the spirit. She a beautiful woman, abandoned by a man. How does most beautiful women dem act when they scorned? She lonely, and she full of spite.” He grinned. “She lookin’ for a new lover. But most folk too scared of her to take her on. When she don’t like someone, she a mean one. She been known to drop a bad man when he come for no good, hit him with a rock from nowhere, or send centipedes to bite him. When she do like somebody, well, some people say she talk to them. Like she talk to you, Katie.”
This made sense to me in a way I could not explain. It wasn’t as if I was ever going to have to see Rashidi again, so what the heck, I would tell him what I had heard.
“She said we are soul mates.” I turned and smiled straight on at him. “In so many words.”
He didn’t bat an eye. “Yah, I thought so. Annalise talk to me sometimes, but today I feel her vibrations, and she talkin’ to you. Powerful thing. You gonna go back and talk to her again?”
“Ummmm, maybe,” I said.
“Let me know if you need a hand. Good to have someone with you what knows the way aroun’.”
“I might take you up on that.”
He caught up with the group, exhorting them to “Breathe in the scent of the flowers, ladies, glory in the beauty of the forest, because we almost back to civilization, and you may never come this way again.”
But I knew I would.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, I luxuriated in my 1000-thread-count sheets, savoring the decadence of getting up late and eating a room-service breakfast in bed. Not to mention tucking in early and waking up without a headache begging for an emergency glass of water with Alka-Seltzer Plus. My tummy was getting full, but I didn’t let that stop me. I cut another bite of Eggs Benedict and speared it from the top with my fork, dragging the layers of goodness through creamy hollandaise before I placed it in my mouth and let the flavors sink into my tongue. I chewed slowly, reverently. If I’d been a dog, I would have rolled in it. When I was done with it, my plate looked sparkly clean.
I’d saved the parfait dish of mango and papaya for dessert. It reminded me of the trees I’d seen the day before. As I scooped fruit into my mouth, I took stock of my trip so far. While I’d struck out with the police, I’d hired Walker to look into my parents’ death. I hadn’t had a drink in more than twenty-four hours. I was holding my Nick pining to a minimum. I’d had fun and made friends. Truly, by anyone’s account, I was pulling myself together. Collin would be pleased.
Probably it would be best, then, if I didn’t call and tell him I was bewitched by a big jumbie house named Annalise, right?
I picked up my phone and dialed.
“Island Realtors, Doug speaking, may I help you.” He made a statement rather than asked a question. The fast voice and heavy New Jersey accent surprised me.
I introduced myself, then got right to it. “I saw a property with your company’s For Sale sign. I want to take a look at it,” I explained.
“OK. Which property interests you here on our fair island?”
“It’s one I saw on a rainforest hike. It’s called Estate Annalise.”
“Well, certainly a spectacular place,” he said in the same tone he would have used if I’d just told him that little green men from Mars were taking over St. Marcos. “Will your husband be joining us?”
“It’s just me,” I said. Asshole, I didn’t say.
“Have you considered any other properties? We have some lovely condos on the east end of the island. Very popular with the continentals. It’s a real community out there.”
This man rubbed my fur in the wrong direction. He also was steering me, without saying it directly, to the white end of the island, something I’d learned from Ava’s commentary as we drove across the island to Baptiste’s Bluff. All roads to Annalise went through the listing agent, though, so I tamped down my irritation.
“Annalise is the only property I want to see. When are you available for a showing?”
“I’m rather flexible today,” he said. The hunger of an island realtor in off-season was lurking below the surface of his comment.
“Great, I’d love to go as soon as possible.”
Since I’d “met” Annalise the day before, I couldn’t quit thinking about her. I woke up again and again during the night, my circadian rhythm thrown off tempo by the unforgettable house, the tropical Wuthering Heights. In one of my middle-of-the-night wakeups I had a vivid dream that was more like a memory. It was my own Heathcliff in Annalise. He seemed right at home as he cooked pasta in a finished kitchen that was a far sight from the current dung-filled shell. The woman I had seen on the front steps of Annalise sat on a stool at a breakfast bar, as if waiting for Nick to serve her. I was frustrated. What was Nick doing at Annalise in my dreams? I didn’t want the house tainted with thoughts of him.
But Nick was nowhere in my thoughts today. Just Annalise. I promised myself I was simply going to take another look at her. A harmless excursion. Something to fill my empty vacation day. I was delusional like that sometimes.
Doug the realtor picked me up at the Peacock Flower at one o’clock, greeting me like a long-lost best friend. His brown hair was still wet from a shower, and he had a speck of shaving cream on his cheek. This man lived alone. I climbed into his dented Range Rover, adjusted my floppy straw hat and brand-new Sloop Jones short tank dress, and pulled the shoulder strap across my body, pausing before I buckled. What in the name of God was that noise coming from the stereo speakers? Kenny G? I shuddered delicately and decided it would be too rude to ask him to turn it off. I would soldier on.
Doug pointed us toward the rainforest and started to talk about his relocation to the island from “Jersey.” “Are you considering a permanent move here, Katie?”
“I haven’t decided,” I said.
Doug kept talking. My resistance to him grew. I should have called Rashidi and asked him to meet us out there. I tried to tune Doug’s voice out, but when I did it made me more aware of Kenny G. I knew my aversion to Doug and Kenny was absurd. My mother’s teachings haunted me. I dug deep for my Southern charm and put it on a cheerful autopilot, muttering “uh huh” and “you don’t say” whenever he took a breath. But seriously, this could drive me back to rum punch. No wonder he didn’t have anyone around to tell him to wipe the shaving cream from his face.
We took a different route to Annalise than the ones I’d driven with Ava and in Rashidi’s tour shuttle, and it was eye-opening. At the base of the rainforest, we passed through a low-rent area where families lived in one-room masonry homes, which Doug explained were made of cement-filled cinder blocks covered in stucco. Sometimes stone, in other places, but not here. Curtains hung over the doors and window openings. The houses stood side by side next to run-down bars. I looked at the name above the door on one of the bars as we passed: the Christmas Bar. Were they only open one day a year? It didn’t appear so. Patrons were lounging in the doorway and it was late August. And one o’clock in the afternoon.
Past the neighborhood was a sleepy little cement factory, fully operational, it appeared. As we left it behind us, the road inclined steeply into the mountains. The twists and turns were harrowing. The thick trees crowded in from both sides of the road, their leafy branches reaching for us and pushing us toward the middle. On hairpin turns, I couldn’t see if another vehicle was careening dead-center down as we climbed dead-center up. My heart beat with hummingbird’s wings every time we rounded a blind left-hand curve. I closed my eyes and prayed silently.
We slowed to a near halt as we came upon a dumpy-looking restaurant, a dilapidated shack under a palm-frond-roofed patio. The chairs and tables were flimsy white plastic. Several filthy dogs lounged among them. On the other side of the patio, the roof extend
ed further to the elevated bathrooms, which made them almost a focal point for the diners. Nice.
“That’s the Pig Bar,” Doug explained. “Great food, and they serve a local drink with exotic herbs called Mamawanna. Supposedly, if she drink it, it make mamawanna. You know?” He winked.
Yuck.
“Do you want to stop and check it out?” he asked.
“No, thank you.” I was itchy to get to Annalise. Still, I was curious, and asked, “Do they serve pork, or what?”
“Huh? Oh, the name? No, the owner named the bar after the giant beer-drinking pigs that live next to it. For two bucks, you can put a non-alcoholic beer into the mouth of a smelly, slobbery three-hundred-pound swine. Quite a spectacle.”
“Why non-alcoholic?” I asked.
“They used to give them Budweisers, but the pigs were dying of liver disease.”
Ah. I suspected this was more an economic than an animal rights decision, based on the stories Rashidi had told yesterday of dog- and cock-fighting on-island, recreational events he urged us to avoid. The whole Pig Bar thing was odd, yet curiously appealing. I filed it in my list of places to check out later as we turned onto another road.
“We’re almost there,” Doug said. He dodged, as best he could, potholes the size of the Rover. The craters made it even harder to stay on the correct side of the road.
But the stressful drive was worth it. To our left, Annalise burst into view. She was not quite as isolated as she had appeared yesterday when we hiked to her from the other direction. There were a handful of houses within a mile of her, respectable homes.
Then, just yards before her driveway, we passed a cluster of ramshackle huts. Dogs and kids ran between the dwellings. I saw a few adults, all with long dreadlocks, the women wearing theirs wrapped in low figure eights on the backs of their heads. Oh my.
Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) Page 7
