Making Waves (2 page)

“It’s not pink,” Jake Grinshaw muttered beside him, holding an identical piece of yellow paper as the bar lights glinted off his bald spot. “That asshole in Human Resources pointed out the color at least three times. He said yellow is more soothing.”

Alex crumpled his own yellow pink slip and took another sip of beer. “I feel soothed.”

Over the top of his mug, he watched as Jake wadded his own yellow pink slip and stuffed it in his pocket. Alex tried not to notice the way his friend’s hand shook as he hoisted his beer. Jake had been doughy and awkward even twenty years ago when the two of them had started work the same day at Kranston Shipping Enterprises. Over the years, Jake had risen to the top of the accounting department, while Alex had become one of the chief executives for what was now the largest shipping firm in the world.

For all the good it had done them.

On the other side of Jake, Phyllis Prescott sat looking like a startled albino rabbit with great biceps. Catching Alex’s eye, she held up an envelope. “Did everyone else get the gift certificate to Sir Loins Steakhouse?”

Alex nodded and took another sip of beer. “I think twenty-five dollars in bad steak is fair compensation for nineteen years with the company.”

Phyllis frowned down at her amber ale, her silver-blonde hair falling over one eye. A former Olympic record holder in the steeplechase, Phyllis’s fifty-something physique had never surrendered to the squishy curves and motherly bosom of most women her age. Hard-edged and steely, Phyllis looked like she could tear off a grown man’s leg with her bare hands if the need arose.

Her perpetual scowl suggested the thought had crossed her mind more than once.

“Sir Loins makes their own croutons,” offered Cody Wilkins from the other side of Alex. “They’re really good.”

Cody’s expression was so earnest, Alex’s spleen hurt. He patted Cody’s massive shoulder. It felt like slapping a ham.

“You’re right, Cody, they are,” Alex said as he watched Cody dip a cherry in and out of his Roy Rogers.

Looking pleased, Cody lifted his drink. At six foot five and 275 pounds, he looked exactly like an NFL tight end. Not surprising, since he’d been one for three years before a shoulder injury forced him to leave the Seahawks for a safe desk job managing accounts for Kranston Shipping. The irony of it wasn’t lost on Alex.

Cody would have been safer getting his head stepped on by linebackers.

“So what are we going to do, Alex?” Jake asked, his voice wilted with desperation. “Did you talk to your lawyer about our pensions?”

Alex nodded and tried to wash down the lump in his throat with a swallow of beer.

“We all signed the same clause saying we’d take the stock options for the bulk of our retirement funds,” Alex said. “And we aren’t fully vested in the remainder of our pensions until we’ve worked at Kranston for twenty years.”

“Convenient,” Jake muttered. “Since we’re two months from the twenty-year mark, and those stock options went belly-up last week.”

“But Alex, that can’t be right,” Phyllis protested. “I mean, surely it’s obvious to anyone that we signed those forms when we were too young to know better. It was almost twenty years ago! And they were supposed to be rewritten during that reorganization in ’03, but then—”

“We still signed the forms, Phyllis,” Alex said. “That’s binding. And besides, they cut a wide swath so it wasn’t obvious they were gunning for people closing in on retirement. They took out younger employees too, like Jim in Sales, Sarah in Marketing, and Cody here.”

“But there has to be something we can do,” Phyllis said, sounding as close to tears as she had since she’d dropped a Buick on her foot during a power-lifting competition. “Without our retirement savings, what are we supposed to do?”

No one said anything for a minute. Alex returned his attention to his beer, wondering if it had been a wise idea to invite the others to join him. Maybe he’d be better off alone drinking whiskey in his underwear in the kitchen of his air-conditioned condo. Certainly he’d feel better staring out the window at the ocean instead of at a broken neon bar sign advertising cold, refreshing
Bu Ligh
.

He wished like hell he could do something to fix this. Not the sign, his life.
His colleagues’ lives
. These guys had been more than just his co-workers. They’d been friends. Good ones.

“I just can’t believe it,” Jake said, shaking his head as he sipped his beer and wobbled a little on his barstool. Alex put a hand out, ready to catch his chubby pal if he had to. Phyllis patted Jake on the arm, the first time in nineteen years Alex had seen her display any sort of maternal gesture besides slapping a Hershey bar out of Jake’s hand and yelling that it would give him zits.

“I’m real sorry about this, guys,” Cody said at last, dropping his cherry into his soda.

Alex turned and looked at the hulking figure on his left.

“Why are you sorry?”

“I dunno. I feel like it’s my fault. I was walking in from the parking lot this morning, and I saw a penny on the asphalt. I just left it there.”

Alex stared at him, waiting for the rest of the story. When none was forthcoming, he tried gentle prompting.

“What does that have to do with the layoff, Cody?”

“You know the saying.
See a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck. See a penny, leave it lay, bad luck you’ll have all day.
Only I was in a hurry this morning, so I didn’t pick up the penny. It’s all my fault.”

Alex felt the lump welling in his throat again. “It’s not your fault, Cody,” he told him. “It’s not anyone’s fault except fucking Tom Portelli.”

“You think the owner of the company ordered the layoffs?” Phyllis asked.

“Of course he did,” Alex said. “Portelli’s always bitching about the bottom line. This time, we were it.”

They all sat in silence for another minute, listening to Jimmy Buffett on the jukebox. Someone had picked “A Pirate Looks at 40,” and Alex listened to Jimmy croon about being drunk for over two weeks. Alex could see the appeal. He was forty-two years old, unemployed, unmarried, and without the pension he’d counted on to keep him in sailboats and cheap beer in his old age.

Between the money he’d just sunk into his boat and the recent market crash, he was pretty much wiped out.

Alone and broke.

Isn’t that what his ex-fiancée had said twenty years ago?
You’re going to die alone and broke if you don’t learn some goddamn provider instinct!
That’s exactly what Jenny had yelled as she’d walked out the door and into the arms of her dentist. Apparently
that guy
had provider instinct. As Alex had learned later, the dentist had been providing a lot more than root canals long before Jenny had actually walked out.

Not that he was still bitter. And not that he had trust issues, despite what his last three girlfriends had suggested.

The sound of Jake clearing his throat brought Alex back to the present. “Can you guys keep a secret?” Jake asked.

“No,” Alex said and took another sip of beer.

“Don’t listen to him, Jake,” Phyllis said, turning toward Jake. “You say whatever you need to get off your chest.”

Jake eyed Alex dubiously. Alex stared back.

“What?” Alex asked finally. “You going to tell us you knew this was coming all along?”

“No, no,” Jake said, shaking his head so furiously Alex thought his double-chin might catch fire rubbing the starched collar of his shirt. “It’s just—I know something about a little side project Tom Portelli has going on. A personal one.”

Alex raised an eyebrow and took another swig of beer. “You’re privy to a lot of the company owner’s private business?”

“This one’s not exactly on the books,” Jake said, grabbing a fistful of peanuts from a dish on the bar. “This one’s not even entirely legal.”

Phyllis leaned closer, her interest piqued by the prospect of hearing gossip about the man who’d just bitch-slapped the whole lot of them.

“We’re listening,” she said. “Go on.”

“Well, besides all the legitimate shipping operations at Kranston, Tom Portelli has a few side jobs he likes to keep on the down-low.”

“Down-low?” Alex snorted. “You make him sound like a gangster instead of an aging executive with bad taste in ties.”

“He is!” Jake insisted, almost knocking his beer over as he flung his hands up. Alex made a grab for the beer, setting it safely in front of Cody, who would sooner drink turpentine than Budweiser.

Jake kept going with his story. “Once a year, Tom Portelli sends a cargo ship out of Monaco loaded down with Krugerrand. They head across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, and over to the Galapagos Islands where they rendezvous with some guys who illegally export exotic animals. They swap the Krugerrand for the animals—”

“What’s Krugerrand?” asked Cody, looking confused.

“Gold coins,” Alex answered. “South African, but they’re valuable worldwide since they’re made of actual gold.”

“Anyway,” Jake continued, “they swap the Krugerrand for the animals and then head over to Japan, where they trade the animals for a whole lot more Krugerrand than they started out with. Then they proceed to South Africa and swap the Krugerrand for diamonds—tons of them, about forty-eight million dollars in all.”

Alex stared at him. “That’s the most fucked up money laundering scheme I’ve ever heard. No one bothers to say, ‘Hey, fellas, where’d you get the crates of gold coins?’”

“Or the Komodo dragons?” Phyllis added.

Jake shrugged. “You can pay off a lot of people with a boatload of gold coins. People are willing not to notice things. Besides, they fill the ship with legitimate cargo and they have the paperwork for that. It’s a pretty smooth operation, really.”

They all sat digesting the information. Phyllis looked distressed. Jake looked drunk. Cody looked blank. Alex ordered another beer.

“Do you think we should call the police?” Phyllis asked.

“And say what?” Jake asked. “Hi, I’m a disgruntled employee who got laid off this afternoon. Just wanted to let you know that the owner of our company is running gold coins and diamonds and illegal tortoises all over the globe.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Phyllis argued.

“Who the hell is going to believe it?” Jake shot back.

Jake and Phyllis continued bickering, but Alex had stopped listening. An idea had begun to form in the back of his mind. A crazy, juvenile, dangerous idea.

The idea of a desperate man.

Alex leaned back on his barstool and surveyed his former co-workers. One by one, they looked up at him, their eyes unfocused and a little shell-shocked. Alex took a sip of beer.

“You guys know anything about boating?”

Phyllis rolled her eyes. “Until two hours ago, we were all employees of the world’s largest shipping company. I think we know about boats.”

Alex shook his head. “Maybe not like this.”

Juli stood at the counter in the St. John charter boat office. Gulls squawked outside, but Juli could barely hear them over the rattle of an ancient air conditioner. The noise drowned out everything but the Bob Marley tune blasting through the sound system.

Drowned
, Juli thought as she glanced out the window.

Over the clerk’s shoulder she could see the ocean glittering in the sunlight. Like a pile of smashed glass. Like ambulance lights at a car wreck on Interstate 5. Juli looked away and wondered if the mango salad she’d had at lunch would look as festive and fruity the second time she saw it.

She stared at the colorful brochure in her hand and considered for the hundredth time that day what the hell she was doing. Most women would kill to be standing on a Caribbean island gazing out at the turquoise sea. Most women would love to go swishing out into the ocean, their flowered sarongs fluttering as the salty wind tousled their perfect sun-streaked hair.

Juli was not most women.

Her bikini was an unfortunate pink plaid that had been the only thing on the rack when she’d made a dash through Macy’s the night before. The rest of the clothing in her pack was tossed in with such haste, she wasn’t certain she’d brought any underwear. After deliberating for several weeks about how best to fulfill Uncle Frank’s last wish, she had picked up the phone one afternoon and booked a flight out the following morning. She’d packed with the frenzied energy of a bank robber.

Or a woman who knew that if she gave herself any time to think about it, she’d never get on the plane.

So here she was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, standing in a seaside shop in St. John, trying to summon the courage to book herself on a charter boat trip the following morning.

“So which boat moves the least?” she asked hopefully.

Frank had been specific about wanting his ashes spread near a remote coral cay pretty far offshore. From the research she’d done in advance, Juli had discovered there was only one tour company that got near the spot. A tour company specializing in overnight trips. That meant twenty-four hours in a lurching, tipping, watery death machine.

Juli gripped the edge of the counter.

The clerk gave her a wary look. “Our two-day, one-night adventure on an Ocean 57 leaves tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and gets pretty close to the spot you’re talking about. All meals and drinks are included, and this price on the brochure here includes fuel costs and all the other fees. Bring sunscreen, extra clothes, camera—”

“Will I get a life jacket?” she asked, glancing out at the ocean again.

“Of course. We can even find you those little inflatable water-wings if you want.”

“Really?”

The clerk stared at her. “We only have three spots left on tomorrow’s trip, so if you want to do this, you’d better act fast. I assume it’s you and a boyfriend or husband or something?”

Juli gritted her teeth. “No. Just me. All alone. All by myself on a Caribbean island.”

“Okay,” the man said. He stepped back a little from the counter. “So just the one spot.”

Juli nodded, feeling her stomach flip over again. “Do you have anything for seasickness?”

He reached beneath the counter and handed her a little white box. “That’s $12.95. Take it an hour before you get on the boat, and you should be just fine.”

Okay. No reason left to stall, was there?

“You take Visa?”

Fifteen minutes later, Juli was out on the pier again, looking for the boat that would, in all likelihood, be dragging her to her death the next morning.

“
Spank Me
,” she muttered, glaring at the receipt in her hand. “That’s a stupid name for a boat.”

It was a big, white boat with a blue stripe. It looked harmless enough. And the clerk had kindly offered a private berth at the front of the boat where he assured her the bedding would be clean and she’d have a bathroom close by.

So that was done. She glanced at her watch, wondering if it was time for dinner yet. Six p.m. was a little early, but maybe a pre-dinner drink at that cute place she’d seen earlier with big flowery umbrellas and barstools planted in the sand. Juli set off down the boardwalk, Uncle Frank’s urn tucked snugly in her knapsack for safekeeping. She patted the side of her bag, relieved to discover it was still upright with the top latched tight.

Juli heard the pulse of calypso music before she even reached the quaint seaside bar. Moony-eyed couples, cotton-haired retirees, and scantily clad singles had already packed the place, and a small stage near the bar suggested a rowdy evening to come. She picked the only unoccupied table. It happened to be close to the water, but that was okay. If she was going to go plunging out into the ocean like a maniac, she may as well get used to the sight of it. She set her knapsack on one chair and lowered herself into the other, scanning the turquoise waves for any ships that might be going down.

“Can I get you something to drink, miss?”

Juli looked up at the waiter, then down at the little drink menu tucked inside a coconut shell. “I’ll have a mai tai, please,” she said. “Make it a double, actually.”

The waiter nodded and ambled off, his flip-flops throwing sand up behind him. Juli looked back out over the water. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe this was exactly what she needed.

Dr. Gordon had sighed loudly when she’d told him. “So you just quit another job?”

“I didn’t
quit
, exactly. I just voluntarily accepted the severance package they were offering.”

“Three weeks’ salary and a scone-of-the-month club membership?”

“They’re excellent scones.”

“Juli, we talked last week about your career choices. About the fact that someone of your particular IQ, with an attention span that has prompted”—he consulted the notepad in his hands—“forty-two job changes in the last ten years, could perhaps benefit from something more stable. Something representative of a more mature career decision that isn’t such a waste of your intellect and your—”

“I kind of liked that job I had where I washed dogs for that pet groomer.”

“Juli—”

“Or the month I sold fireworks at that roadside stand.”

“Juli—”

Her ears had begun to burn, so she’d given him a meek nod. “Okay, I’ve got it. I’ll think about it.”

“You can belong somewhere, you know. You really can fit in if you try hard enough.”

“I know,” Juli had murmured, not knowing any such thing.

Yes, this trip to St. John would give her the time and space she needed to think things through. To decide what her next career move should be. Maybe stick with one job for more than a year. Maybe she could be a mechanic. Or a librarian. Or a shepherd.

And maybe if she was really lucky, she could find a way to feel
normal
for a change. To meet
normal
people, to do
normal
things, to maybe feel like she
belonged
. Was that so much to want?

The waiter came back with her drink and she thanked him, twirling the little umbrella between her thumb and forefinger before tucking it behind her ear. She took a sip of her drink, enjoying the way the rum and coconut did a happy little dance on the back of her tongue. She felt tropical and warm, sipping her drink, wiggling her toes in the sand, tapping her fingers to a calypso tune. Then she hit the bottom of the glass, bringing her party to a halt.

Juli signaled the waiter for another, trying not to think about the cost. So what if she was unemployed? She was on vacation. A vacation that involved a dead relative traveling in her knapsack, but still. Juli looked out at the ocean. Not so bad, really. It was kind of pretty in a menacing sort of way.

The waiter brought her second drink and Juli plunged the straw to the bottom, giving it an enthusiastic slurp. She closed her eyes, feeling the rum sliding down the back of her throat as she listened to the sound of the waves. Maybe she wouldn’t die. Maybe she could even get used to the ocean. And Uncle Frank deserved to have his dying wish fulfilled.

“Is someone sitting here?”

Juli opened her eyes and looked up to see a broad-shouldered man who had apparently stepped right off the pages of the sailing brochure in her knapsack. Dark, wind-tousled hair with a little gray sprinkled at the temples. A web of tiny lines at the corner of eyes that seemed almost incandescent green in contrast to his tan. Biceps that a girl could really sink her teeth into if a girl had a mind to do such a thing.

Juli blinked up at him, forgetting whatever it was he’d just asked her.

He smiled, seemingly unperturbed by her complete lack of social grace. “I was just wondering if I could join you. Is someone sitting here?”

“Just my Uncle Frank,” Juli said, grabbing her knapsack. “I’ll move him out of the way.”

She set the knapsack in the sand and looked back to see sailor boy with his hands on the back of the chair, clearly hesitating.

“It’s okay, I’m not crazy,” Juli offered. “I just have my uncle’s cremated remains in my backpack.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t you?” He sat down. “I’m Alex.”

She extended her hand and felt a surge of pleasant heat as he grasped and shook it.
Warm hands
. When was the last time she’d had warm hands—or any hands, for that matter—on her body?

She shook off the thought and smiled at him. “Juli,” she said. “Pleasure to meet you.”

He looked around the bar and Juli tried not to fixate on how very green his eyes were. “This place is totally packed,” he said. “Figured it was smarter to sit down next to someone with reasonably good hygiene than to take a chance on sharing a table with a greasy sailor who hasn’t showered for a week.”

“Are you always such a flatterer?”

“I try,” Alex said with a slow smile.

Juli felt her stomach flip, and she looked down at her drink, trying to get her bearings. “So what brings you to St. John?”

Alex took a swig from a beer he’d brought to the table with him. Something dark that looked more like maple syrup than beer. “Just here with some business associates to take care of a little, uh—”

“Business?”

“Right.”

“I’m scattering my dead uncle’s ashes at sea.”

“I hear that’s what all the travel brochures suggest this year.”

She smiled and started to ask him another question when a man with greased-back hair and a red silk shirt trotted out on stage. His microphone squealed in protest, then popped loudly as the man waved his hands to the crowd.

“Hey, hey, hey! Welcome to the CoCo Bar, boys and girls. How many happily married couples do we have with us tonight?”

There were a few whoops and shrieks from the crowd, along with some steely looks from people clearly not pleased with the interruption. Undeterred, the emcee plunged onward.

“You know the drill, kids! It’s time for the CoCo Bar’s weekly Newlywed Game. A thousand dollars to our top couple tonight, so someone’s walking out of here with some nice pocket change. If you want to play, throw your hands in the air and our screener will come over and ask you just a few little questions.”

The crowd’s enthusiasm was underwhelming. One drunk guy sitting alone in the front row put his hand in the air. Someone in the corner belched. Most of the other guests went back to eating coconut shrimp and sipping drinks with umbrellas.

Juli looked at Alex.
A thousand dollars?
Even split two ways, that was a lot of cash. After the Feds had seized Uncle Frank’s assets, what he’d left her had barely covered her airfare down here.

“Want to play?” she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

He stared at her. “Hi, I’m Alex. We just met. I believe you’re confusing me with someone you’ve exchanged rings with.”

“Don’t be a spoilsport, it’s easy,” Juli said, raising her hand. “You’ve seen how these things are played. We just need a system beforehand so we have a shot at picking the right answers.”

“Are you nuts?”

“No, are you married or here with a girlfriend or something?”

Alex flinched. “No.”

Interesting
, Juli thought, and wondered if there was a story there.

“Then there’s no problem here if you aren’t already attached,” she pointed out. “The first question is number one. That means if it’s a multiple-choice question, you go with the first one. If the answer has to be a random word, make it start with the first letter of the alphabet. If the answer has to be a number—”

“Right, I get it,” Alex said, reaching across the table to pull her hand down. “I just don’t think we should—”

“For the second question, we go with two. The answer is two or starts with a
B
or—”

“Hey there, you two,” chirped a perky blonde in a pink halter top with a clipboard in her hands. Juli admired the product of several thousand dollars’ worth of plastic surgery, blinking against the blinding whiteness of the woman’s teeth. She rested her manicured hand on Juli’s shoulder and kept right on chirping. “We’re having a tough time getting volunteers tonight, so if you’re reasonably sane, you’re up. How long have you been married?”

“We’re on our honeymoon,” Juli chirped right back, taking a sip of her drink. She stole a look at Alex, whose expression suggested he was dubious about the sanity requirement.

“You know how this game works?” the blonde asked.

Juli beamed. “Absolutely.”

The woman turned her attention to Alex. “How about you, gorgeous? You ready to do this?”

For a brief moment, Juli wasn’t sure what he’d say. Hell, she couldn’t believe she was roping him into it, but now that the ball was rolling, she didn’t want to stop. She gulped the rest of her drink and signaled the waiter for another, wondering if she’d be doing this without all the liquid courage.

She looked at Alex and felt her stomach do a somersault of lust. Probably.

He met her eyes, his expression unreadable.
A thousand dollars
, Juli mouthed, giving him her best smile. He shook his head and took a swallow of beer. Then he tipped the bottle at her.

“Come on,
honey
. Let’s kick some ass.”

***