Ode to a Fish Sandwich (4 page)

She fixed up the plate and carried it to his table.

“Tell me what you think,” she said as he eagerly grabbed the sandwich and took his first bite.

A broad smile broke across his face—the first truly cheerful emotion he’d experienced since the morning of his wedding.

“Wow. That’s delicious.”

Winnie had already started walking across the sand to the kitchen, but her reply carried back to the table.

“I know.”

THAT DAY, DR. JONES spent several hours at the diner’s picnic table. Long after he’d finished his fish sandwich, he remained in his seat, staring out at the sea.

The pleasure he’d derived from the satisfying meal eventually wore off, and he slipped into a trance of somber reflection. Every so often, he got up to soak his feet in the water, but after each dip, he resumed his quiet musings beneath the umbrella.

Winnie frequently stopped by the doctor’s table to check on him. Over the course of the afternoon, she brought out numerous bottles of water along with a few rum punches. Through their short bits of intermittent conversation, she learned about the doctor’s dermatology practice, his strident position on the risks of skin cancer, and, finally, his failed wedding and solo honeymoon.

He, in turn, began asking questions about the island.

“So, Winnie, what can you tell me about the volcano?”

“The volcano?” She shrugged her disinterest. “It sits there, as it likes, and we all hope it doesn’t wake up one day and decide to blow.”

“Is there a trail to the top?” he pressed. “Have you ever climbed to the summit?”

“
Pfft
.” She pointed down at her wide hips and thick legs. “Do I
look
like I’ve been running around a volcano lately?”

The doctor took a sip of his rum punch and tried again.

“You’ve lived here your whole life, and you’ve never checked it out? Aren’t you curious what’s up there?”

Winnie replied with an indignant scowl, “I don’t have any business that needs to be done at the top of a volcano.”

She began shuffling back to the diner.

The doctor suppressed a laugh as she muttered loudly.

“Why tempt fate?”

~

WHEN AT LAST the extended lunch session reached its close, the doctor removed his umbrella from the rock pile at the center of the table and limped to the kitchen window to pay his bill.

Despite the rest and the numerous sea-soakings, his blistered feet were in no condition for the five-mile return walk to the resort. He was hoping to hop on the resort’s bus when it stopped to pick up the guests arriving on the afternoon ferry.

As Winnie calculated his tab, the doctor studied the name written across the top of the menu board. Stepping away from the counter, he studied the faint lettering on the building’s outer plywood sheeting.

“Delilah’s Beachside Diner,” he mused, reading the sign out loud. He raised a questioning eyebrow. “So where’s Delilah? Does she work a different shift?”

Winnie breathed out an exhausted sigh as she handed him the receipt.

“It’s just me. Been no Delilah for ten, no twelve years now.”

The doctor paid the sum, leaving a sizeable tip.

“So what happened to her?”

Taking the cash, the chef leaned over the counter and looked meaningfully up at the volcano.

After a moment, she whispered grimly.

“She tempted fate.”

FOR DR. JONES, THE second day’s departure through the resort’s front gates was far less eventful than the first.

This time, the guards offered no objections to his leaving the secured grounds. They appeared resigned to his untimely demise—either through heat exhaustion or at the hands of the savage spirit they believed inhabited the cane fields.

Or perhaps management had reasoned it would be better for everyone involved if the dermatologist stayed away from the resort’s pool and beach areas.

Regardless, when he asked to cross the fortified security barrier, no one tried to dissuade him. He passed through without incident.

As the gates swung shut behind him, Dr. Jones gathered his wits and stared bravely at the wild wall of sugarcane framing the empty road ahead.

After many hours of reflection on the balcony of his smaller, less romantic room the previous evening, he’d decided to approach the narrow gauntlet as a challenge, a personal test of courage.

He adjusted the shoulder straps to his backpack, feeling much more prepared for the walk into town.

In his pack, he carried two full liters of water along with a set of snorkel gear he’d rented from the resort’s dive shop. The blisters on his feet were covered with ointment and band aides. He’d hooked his sandals to the side of his pack, wearing socks and sneakers instead.

Sucking in his breath, he wrapped his right hand around the umbrella handle and marched resolutely into the creepy sugarcane canal.

~

FROM INSIDE THE security tower by the resort’s front gates, the two guards monitored the doctor’s progress until his black umbrella disappeared around the far corner of the road.

For several minutes, the pair stared out the tower’s open window. The scene’s eerie quiet was broken only by the sea breeze whistling through the sugarcane and the occasional burst of static from the shortwave radio connecting them to the reception desk.

“Think he’ll make it into town again?” the younger man asked skeptically.

The senior officer stroked his chin, thoughtfully tugging at an errant gray hair that had sprouted near his dimple.

“That depends on Delilah.”

~

THE THICK REEDS swaying about his head were just as unnerving the second time around, but Dr. Jones managed to maintain a pace no faster than a brisk walk on the nervous journey through the throttling cane. It took every ounce of self-restraint to keep from launching into a headlong sprint for the shoreline, but he finally emerged from the field’s opposite end unscathed.

His chest swelled with a modicum of pride. He wasn’t the pushover everyone assumed him to be.

His satisfaction only increased when he realized that not once during the whole cane-crossing experience had he thought about his former fiancé.

~

FROM THE DARK depths of the cane field, the island’s haunting spirit monitored the doctor’s progress as he left the shadowed portion of the road and began a leisurely stroll along the southern shoreline.

Delilah had decided to allow him safe passage through her cane domain—but not due to any benevolent change in character. A dozen years after her death, her desire for vengeance was undiminished.

Crouching in the reeds, she plotted her next move.

She had a specific use in mind for the diffident dermatologist.

BY THE TIME Dr. Jones arrived at Winnie’s lunch counter an hour and a half later, he had built up a ravenous appetite.

He didn’t hesitate with his order.

“Hi Winnie!” he called out as he approached the diner.

“I’ll have the fish sandwich!”

Peeking through the front window, he saw three youngsters playing on the kitchen floor. He recognized the group from his ride in on the ferry—although on that occasion the children had been wearing their school uniforms.

“The kids had the day off from school today,” Winnie explained, adding wearily, “No such vacation for the parents.”

She dusted her hands on her apron and began clearing her prep counter. “Go on out to your table, and I’ll get a sandwich going for you.”

“Take your time,” the doctor replied as he rounded the corner of the diner’s plywood exterior and headed toward the seating area. “I’m going for a quick swim.”

~

AT HIS FAVORITE picnic table, Dr. Jones slid the backpack from his shoulders and set up his makeshift umbrella stand. With the shade in place, he applied another coating of sunscreen to his nose, ears, and neck, slipped off his shoes and socks, and removed the snorkel gear from the pack.

Leaving the rest of his belongings on the table, he carried the mask, snorkel, and flippers to the shoreline.

The protective mound of boulders offshore from the diner formed a curve-shaped bank that created a perfect swimming area. The calm water in the protected bay sparkled sapphire blue against the soft white sand.

After staring at the picturesque view for the duration of the previous day’s lunch session and dipping his feet several times in the tranquil surf, the doctor had returned determined to explore the aquatic life he felt certain he would find beneath the water’s surface.

Wobbling on the beach, he squeezed his bare feet into the flippers and prepared to enter.

Winnie walked onto the diner’s back porch, quickly joined by her three children. Concerned, she hollered down to the beach.

“Don’t you drown, Dr. Jones. If you get into trouble out there, I’m not going in after you.”

Crossing her thick arms over her chest, she muttered under her breath.

“Lord, help him.”

~

GENTLE WAVES SPLASHED over the doctor’s flippers as he waded into the sea, soaking his pants legs and causing the lightweight fabric to cling to his shins.

He leaned over, balancing his weight first on one foot and then the other, trying to shake the sand from the flippers’ snug rubber fittings.   

That’s when he saw the first fish—the first of many.

A hundred or so minnow-sized beings swarmed in the shallows, darting in and around his ankles. He wiggled the flipper’s webbed toes, marveling at the micro-movements of the tiny fish as they easily darted out of the way.

The doctor sloshed a couple yards deeper into the water, to where the sea wrapped around his waist. His pants now floated freely, the baggy fabric moving with the rocking tide.

Here, the fish were larger and more varied, their bodies decorated with zebra striping and patches of neon orange and yellow.

Fascinated, he tried to pull the snorkel mask over his head to get a better look—but his canvas hat got in the way.

He’d forgotten to take it off back on the beach.

He struggled for several minutes, trying to maneuver the snorkel and mask around the hat, before finally conceding defeat.

On his return to the picnic table, he opted not to remove his flippers, instead resorting to an awkward duck-walking maneuver that caused Winnie’s children, still lined up along the diner’s shaded porch, to collapse into fits of giggles.

Dr. Jones waved good-naturedly to his audience as he returned to the sea.

Resolutely pushing through the water to the hip-level mark, he tugged the mask over his head. The rubber rim slipped on the sunscreen coating his face, before the suction took hold, clamping the plastic mold around his nose. Breathing through his mouth, he adjusted the snorkel tube and eased himself into a horizontal floating position.

The doctor took a few steadying breaths through the tube, letting the air flow into his chest, creating buoyancy. His ears filled with water, clogging out any sounds from above, magnifying the curious gurgling noises of the deep.

He thought himself alone in the bay off the diner’s beach, a wad of wet clothing attached to a snorkel-tube, a silent flippered observer.

He was completely oblivious to the commotion his presence had caused in the aquatic community below.

The doctor’s progress was being followed with great interest—by someone other than Winnie and her children.

SHE FIRST SAW him from a distance—the fully dressed, pasty-faced dermatologist—and he immediately caught her eye.

His stiff lurching movements were unlike those of any other creature that inhabited the sea, making him at once both foreign and exotic.

She’d never seen anything like the ghostly white glow of his skin, which flashed in the water as his clothes flapped about his bony limbs. She herself swam without such bulky encumbrances, but the stark difference in their attire made her all the more intrigued.

In her world, he was utterly unique.

From across the liquid blue horizon, she watched, fascinated, as the strange man staggered into the bay.

And she found herself inexorably drawn.

With a natural grace, born of the sea, the fish swam nimbly toward the shore, intent on investigating further. The elegant curve of her body shimmered in the water’s diffracted light as she gazed at the curious figure standing in the shallows.

Bashfully, she blinked her delicate round eyes; she wiggled her fins with girlish flirtation. It was as if a powerful spirit had taken over her being and infused it with the infatuation-prone personality of a teenage girl.

How do I get closer
, she thought, her crush quickly growing.

The object of her affection was surrounded by a throng of tiny fins, a crowd that increased in size and density with each unsteady step. He was an underwater rock star, besieged by admirers.

The fish paused, pondering her approach, but in that moment of hesitation, the doctor suddenly turned, clomped onto the beach, and disappeared from sight.

Come back
, she thought desperately.

She circled the bay, her longing intensifying with every second of separation. Then she sank in the water, drowning in despair.

If only she’d moved faster…if only she’d made herself known to him. Perhaps things might have turned out differently.

With a heavy heart, the fish was about to retreat to the safety of the depths—when a growing shadow appeared along the shoreline. Her spirits soared as first one gangly webbed foot and then the other re-entered the water.

He’s returned
, she thought, elated at the sight of the doctor’s swaying pants legs.

She would not let this second opportunity pass her by.

She surged forward, determined to make contact, to engage in some way—even though she knew it was forbidden.

Throughout her short life, the fish had been warned not to venture too close to humans, particularly those sitting in boats. Mankind was a dangerous species, she’d been cautioned over and over again. The bloodthirsty creatures bore nothing but evil in their hearts.