Heartstrings in B-Flat Minor

by Scott Johnson

  Sheryl and the rookie take it slow, ambling carefully around town through tiny road openings in the third-world bottleneck. Traffic clogs to a halt at a shantytown bend in the road. For Sheryl behind the wheel, time momentarily stands still. The No Worries buses and the rest of the jam inch forward around the bend into a straightaway. Traffic flow opens up as everyone barrels out of the bottleneck and out of town. Pedestrians grittily forge ahead on dirt shoulders, barely flinching—there is an air of “been here, done this before.” My God, Sheryl thinks, observing all sides of the story.

  She slows her bus again, approaching a turnoff for the Port of Ocho Rios. Care is called for as fleeing dockworkers run through traffic seeking higher ground. Riding her brakes, with lulls in forward progress, she steals seaward glances and spots a departing cruise ship. Get a move on, thinks Sheryl; the mega ship suddenly appears fragile in light of the approaching mammoth storm. The only vessel in sight, it aims for a bright speck of light in the distant western horizon through raging seas. To the east, things look much worse—dark, foreboding, threatening to bring inevitable death and destruction. Come on, she mentally tells every person or vehicle in her way.

  Finally reaching the lowlands on roads winding close to the sea, Sheryl maintains a steady pace, all the while keeping an eye on the rookie behind her. He seems up to the task. So is she, Sheryl proudly realizes, though frightened stiff. What a trip!

  As they drive along a suddenly somewhat open road, a somber silence descends over the bus’s interior. Sheryl, still getting her bearings in the driver’s seat, spots a radio system and powers it up. It takes a few moments to find an on-air station. A loud weather update suddenly announces, “Hurricane Victor confounded experts last night, breaking from its northerly track to now threaten nearly all of Jamaica.”

  Her passengers already are too stunned to noticeably react to the announcer’s beautifully accented report. Heavy raindrops pelt the windshield. Sheryl flips on the wipers and concentrates on the narrow, congested road.

  The announcer continues, “Outer bands from this surprise postseason hurricane already have hit the north shore hard, bringing heavy rains to Ocho Rios and eastward to Port Antonio. Forecasters say the category-three storm now raking Hispaniola will regain strength once it crosses back into open waters. Look out!”

  Sheryl clenches the steering wheel as nearby palm trees bend in successive wind gusts that are gaining strength and buffeting her bus. Her eyes dart between jungly mountains on the left and wild seas to her right. Feeling weightless while narrowly dodging a pothole, she can’t fully suppress her anxieties. “Oh boy!” she exclaims over the little rush in her tummy. She checks her overhead mirror; shuttle two still trails closely behind her. “Good there,” she says quietly.

  A two-way radio squawks from a perch on the dash. It’s Rudi, the rookie driver of bus number two, all hopped up. Sheryl stiffens a one-hand grip on the steering wheel and reaches with her other hand for the handset.

  With worry in his voice, Rudi says, “Sheryl, mon, we are running late!”

  “No!” objects Sheryl. “Don’t be talking that way, mon. I need to make my flight.”

  Rudi asks, “How did you get a ticket so late?”

  She answers, “I pulled a favor from a ticket agent and shot to the top of standby.”

  “How can you be standing by? You’re not even there!”

  “I’m there, all right—as long as we arrive on time.”

  Sheryl notices that her riders have stirred from their silence. They’ve broken into scared blathering all over again, with increasingly strong expressions of fear.

  Rudi asks, “What you gonna do if Byron’s a no-show at Sangster?”

  “I’ll be leaving this bus in your care, my friend. No way I’m missing that plane.”

  “You gotta be crazy! What am I gonna do with two buses in all this weather?”

  “Sorry, Rudi, but I’m out of here if my plane’s allowed to go. I’m on it!”

  Drowning out their talk is another hurricane update broadcasting to both buses. “Expect coastal flooding and road washouts all along the north shore.”

  “Wonderful!” moans a fearful passenger on Sheryl’s bus. “That’s us!”

  Sheryl tells Rudi, “Let’s knuckle down on the road, Rudi. Block out whatever craziness might go on with the passengers, and be focused.”

  “Aye-aye, boss,” acknowledges Rudi. “Over and out.”

  “Over.”

  Within moments, a collective hush sets in as Sheryl slows at a gawkers’ traffic snare. The object of interest is the burned-out hulk of a once-pristine tourist shuttle bus just like those from No Worries. The derelict vehicle is shoved off onto a narrow dirt shoulder, its front end crumpled like an accordion from a head-on crash. The entire superstructure, inside and out, is burned to a crisp. Sheryl knows that every shaking tourist must be thinking the same thing: Who could survive such a crash? There, for the grace of God, go any one of us.

  Half-mesmerized by the mournful roadside sight, Sheryl sets up poorly for a roundabout ahead that spins off to Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport. No matter how many times she’s driven British-style on the left, she still gets confused by the clockwise spin to this roundabout’s flow. Horns honk as she gets back with the flow. Rudi remains fine all along, even blocking for her. They circle the intersection cleanly.

  Traffic stacks up as they approach the airport entrance. Overloaded vehicles of all sizes creep along till the buses reach a jammed arrivals curb that’s in total chaos. “We’re here!” a passenger screams from behind Sheryl, and everyone jams the aisle at once.

  Sheryl and Rudi jump out of their respective vehicles to help adrenaline-rushed passengers who are pushing and shoving at the buses’ cargo hatches. People grab their bags, hurrying inside the terminal in a collective frenzy. Sheryl extracts a final suitcase, her own.

  Even with Mother Nature’s wrath closing in, Rudi takes the time to tease her. “Sheryl, mon, how you gonna take all that cold and snow?” He feigns a shiver. “You’ll beat a fast path back here before you know it!”

  “Don’t hold your breath, Rudi. I’ve had enough tropical storms and hurricanes for a while. Seems like there’s always another one in the chutes, even off-season.”

  “It happens, sometimes. This is such a time.”

  The pair of drivers are looking to the ever-worsening sky when a rusty sedan with bad brakes screeches to a stop at the curb. Out from the front passenger seat hops Byron, and the woman behind the wheel—his wife, Sheryl presumes—pulls away immediately. Byron walks straight to Sheryl at her empty bus.

  “Hey, girl,” Byron says, full of nervous energy, “you best appreciate how I give up my one day off to drive this tank of yours in a freakin’ hurricane!”

  Sheryl smiles and nods appreciatively. “I do appreciate it, Byron—you know that.” She adds, “And the boss appreciates it even more. Thanks. I’d have felt bad abandoning it here.”

  Rudi interjects, “Not from what I heard!”

  “Well,” she agrees, “you got that right. Good job, Rudi!” They hug good-bye.

  Sheryl gives Byron the bus keys and a quick hug.

  Byron tells her, “Don’t be forgetting us up there,” and then turns to Rudi. “We gotta go now! There are mudslides on the Queen’s Highway.”

  “Get gone!” insists Sheryl. “Both of you, find cover.”

  “Don’t be worrying,” assures Rudi. “We’re gone!”

  Byron and Rudi climb behind their elevated steering wheels and abruptly inject both buses into already-crazed traffic, like true Jamaican drivers, with Byron in the lead.

  The rain’s intensity picks up, and Sheryl hotfoots it for the terminal with her suitcase. Scanning the scary horizon one last time, she can’t keep herself from mumbling. “Shit, mon.”

  Sheryl’s uniformed and armed connections guide
her to the front of the standby queue at Conch Airways. The grumbling from others quiets to a minimum once her escorts’ glares shut them down. Sheryl skirts through loosey-goosey customs checkpoints, hustling to grab one of the last few planes on the tarmac. Barring a last-minute scratch, they remain scheduled to get off the ground. “It’ll take a miracle from here!” someone shouts.

  Sheryl settles into a seat by the head. Outside, the raging storm closes in on Sangster. Strong gusts stiffen a taxiway wind sock. Her plane moves up in line.

  “Get us out of here!” a voice cries out.

  The sudden roar of jet engines accelerating tells everyone they just might survive this yet. Sheryl, stressed beyond belief, involuntarily thinks of Sterling and how she never wants to see him again. But the plane’s bumpy sprint down a rain-splattered runway quickly takes her mind off personal woes. Everyone aboard goes silent. Numb, Sheryl prays, My God, please help me through all this!

  Once they are airborne, the pilot banks sharply toward western skies. As the plane levels off in flight, Sheryl already feels safer. Thank you, Lord.

  Fading behind them in the sky, the powerful gale still gives chase, but it’s losing ground on the airliner. However, Sheryl knows that back at Sangster International, torrential rains are ripping sideways across deserted runways, and all of Jamaica is battening down hatches, plenty nervous; this act of God threatens anything and everyone in its path.

  Disasters of a different nature storm back into Sheryl’s troubled mind. Let’s see, she ponders, still terrified, I’m pregnant by Sterling, though God knows I can’t believe it! Plus I’ve passed on a career-making offer, also thanks to him. Good going!

  At least she is not fearing imminent death anymore. Sheryl’s thoughts spin off into a seemingly endless loop, alternating between dread and sadness. She knows that, at best, she has two weeks left to decide if she should end this pregnancy safely in America and, in the sad process, cut all ties to Sterling forever. That latter part of the equation seems so desirable, and the nightmarish thought of actually having an abortion starts to seem justified—she thinks. Then again, who knows?

  No worries, mon, she thinks sarcastically before exhaustion puts her asleep.

  Chapter 8

  ROE YOURSELF GENTLY

  Sheryl and Sterling read the dessert menu at their tucked-away corner table of the American Cuisine Grill; it is full winter outside while the Arab Spring blooms back in Cairo. Sheryl’s bloodshot eyes are pools of sorrow as she sips tea, mulling dessert choices. Abortion memories have taken hold, tearing her apart—what’s left of her, anyway. Even after all these years, there’s been no reconciliation between her mixed emotions. She senses she’s losing her grip. “No doubt about it,” she mumbles to herself.

  Sterling breaks her train of thought. “Hello over there. What’s it gonna be?”

  Sheryl is surprised to see that their waiter has returned and is awaiting their selections. “I … uh … guess I’ll go with your all-American apple pie à la mode,” she tells the waiter.

  “Seems appropriate,” concludes Sterling. “Let’s make it two.” As the waiter leaves, Sterling says, “Doesn’t get any more American than apple pie à la mode—a perfect crown to your homecoming dinner.”

  “This is one homecoming I wasn’t taking for granted,” says Sheryl. “But I suppose someday Cairo will be just another close call—like my mad dash from Jamaica.”

  Sterling recalls, “Yeah, mon—that was some storm chasing you off the island, all right.”

  “Storm nothing,” she clarifies. “It was you. The hurricane just gave me the fuel to go.”

  “I see—and you really thought you’d ditched me. I know.”

  “You know what?” Sheryl asks sarcastically in a singsong voice.

  “I know that you really left me hung out to dry with Snake.”

  “Yes,” replies the still-soft but ever-hardening Sheryl. “How well I remember.”

  “Hey, hey, hey, ditching me—never gonna happen, girl, eh? We’re committed for life.”

  “We should be committed, all right. Anyway,” she clarifies, “for sure I should be, because there you were two weeks later at my door—and I let you in!”

  “Of course you did, dear. You were feeling so bad.”

  “I was feeling bad that you’d made a liar out of me with Snake.”

  “Come on now, admit it—you were missing me.”

  Sheryl sadly states, “I’ve spent half my adult life doing just that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Feeling bad and missing you.”

  “Oh, baby, that hurts. Not true. I’ve always been there for you.”

  “It hurts, yes—and it’s all true. And were you there for me because you were already around, having ignited whatever? Like I said, the whole Jamaican thing—who could forget such a mixed bag of memories, all the highs and lows including the wild aftermath?”

  “Yes,” Sterling says, “who could forget, indeed?”

  “And don’t think I ever will!”

  “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  Her edgy tone produces a moment of stony silence, allowing Sheryl to recall how Sterling had tracked her down in Lincoln Park so soon after her white-knuckle escape from Jamaica. Startled by the sight of him at her door, Sheryl couldn’t get her body to react fast enough to keep pace with her brain, which was screaming, “Slam the door! Run!” Today, she silently demands of herself, What was I thinking?

  It’s way too late now, with nothing to be done about any of it; however, she can’t avoid remembering that crisp autumn day—walking with Sterling through Lincoln Park with a cool breeze off the lake, hearing how right after Sheryl had hit the road driving the shuttle, flying storm debris seemingly had killed Snake. After the storm, though, Snake was very much still alive. Apparently, so the story went, that coconut had delivered only a glancing blow.

  Snake was found by Canadian tourists who were hunkering down. They brought him in out of the storm. Snake came out of an apparent coma in Sterling’s own No Worries emergency clinic. Sterling reminisces with a shaking of his head, “If it weren’t for those Canadians dragging me inside, I would’ve gotten away clean.”

  Sheryl listens, disgusted by his concept of clean.

  Sterling rattles on about having been trapped by Ronny Walker. Since there was no way out, there was no way around Snake’s squeezing a healthy cash settlement from Sterling. By then, Snake mostly just wanted Sterling off the island, but with a steep price. “I thought I was a goner,” chuckles Sterling.

  “So did I,” quips Sheryl in a tone that says she had, in fact, hoped he was a goner.

  Blocking out his presence across the table, she recalls how after returning from Jamaica, she’d just reached a decision about having an abortion before his unexpected arrival. It had become clear what to do over two weeks of pondering. His being there changed nothing.

  “I have an appointment with a scalpel tomorrow,” she tells Sterling.

  “You’re kidding!” he quickly replies.

  “What’s the surprise? We’re done. The child would be a painful reminder for me of you. I doubt I could take it. Besides, you don’t want a child anyway.”

  “You’re wrong about me, dear, and I’m sorry to hear you say that. But I understand.”

  Strangely, Sheryl suddenly can’t say she isn’t glad to see Sterling, although she hates to admit it to herself and wouldn’t want him to know. She fantasizes that maybe some responsibility is all it would take to straighten out his act for good. Now that they are back home in familiar surroundings, in the light of day, with no Jamaican sunset to influence anything, who knows what might be possible?

  “Maybe this can work after all,” she abruptly dreams aloud, startled by her own voice.

  He says, “Listen, my dear.”

  She
braces for major bullshit.

  He continues, “Don’t think I wouldn’t be there to help with the kid’s needs. So you don’t have to do this, Sheryl. Just please be sure of your actions. That’s all I ask.”

  She is immediately repulsed by his company again. “That’s it?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “That’s all you’ll ever be to our kid, after-the-fact money as a costly lesson for a fun time with Mommy? Or better yet, you hint, just get rid of it now. We’ll all be better for it. Right?”

  “Come on,” he whines, “we never talked about fathering responsibilities. But if the kid comes around looking for Daddy and knowledge of the world, I’ll be there. No question.”

  Unimpressed, Sheryl frowns. “Wow, how big of you. And how naive of me to think you had something more substantial to say, like ‘we can do this together, honey.’”

  “Wow, there’s a surprise, to hear you want to bring a kid into the world with me as Dad.”

  “How cheap does that make our nights on the beach seem? I thought you were genuine.”

  “Baby, I was genuine. Come on now. You twisted my meaning.”

  “What exactly did I twist?”

  “All I’m saying is it’s a lifelong step, and we never discussed kids. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “You’ve said plenty.”

  “Well, anyway, we should’ve been more careful.”

  “Oh really, like being careful was on your mind at all.”

  “Takes two, dear.”

  “This is meaningless, Sterling. You’re damn nervy. What happened did happen. But it’s done now. Over. Don’t worry, my mind was made up days ago. I’m not wavering. You’re off the hook and mean nothing to me.”

  “I messed up,” he confesses.

  Sheryl’s glazed eyes can’t blink. She feels catatonic as her mind wanders. Who needs him to tell me what to do, anyway?