The Sea Grape Tree (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

R
oper's home was nothing as Sarah had imagined. Instead of a rustic cottage surrounded by palms, she'd found a very modern, wood-and-glass structure clinging to a mountain. The view too was a surprise, particularly the colors. The greens of the bamboo around the house and the blues of the ocean visible from its deck were more brilliant than any colors she'd ever seen in nature. She had the sensation of almost being pummeled by the stimuli coming at her.

The Caribbean Sea—with at least six different blues she'd identified—filled everything with its presence. The smell of salt had assailed her from the minute she stepped out of Immigration, the trade winds wrinkling her hair into a frizzy mess within minutes. Most constant in subsequent days was the drumbeat of the waves, which seemed to pursue her all day.

There was noise everywhere. The villagers spoke and laughed loudly. Passing taxis played their radios at top volume and blew their horns as they tore down the road. Even the night air was pierced by the bellowing of frogs—­mercifully segueing into the cooing of doves in the early morning. She'd lain awake the first couple of nights convinced that she'd never sleep with the racket of waves, wind, and frogs, but on her third morning Sarah awakened to find that she'd slept deeply, deeper than she had in months, maybe in years.

She'd started setting up her traveling easel—not as portable as she'd hoped—on the beach across from Roper's house. There was a clearing under the coconut trees that gave her a view of the ocean while providing shade. She was relieved to find that this eastern end of the beach was almost deserted, the fishing activity being concentrated on the opposite end, and there'd been few interruptions since she'd started working. On one occasion a gaggle of children had come and stared at her from ten feet away before running off, jabbering in patois.

It had taken her a few jet-lagged days to settle into her new routine after being met at the airport by Sonja, Roper's girlfriend. The woman had held up a handmade sign that said
Sarah Davenport
and smiled broadly when the new arrival nodded. She'd apologized for Roper's absence (he was opening a show in Toronto, apparently) and for being sleepy, the result of working late the night before.

“I'm a writer,” Sonja had mumbled as they started off toward the parking lot, “and my best time to work is when everyone else is sleeping.” Roper had apparently woken her that morning to remind her to meet the London flight.

“Totally forgot, of course.” The writer's hair stood in a spiky Afro, and Sarah wasn't sure if she'd styled it that way or forgotten to brush it. “Anyway, if I fall asleep, just shake me and take over the wheel!”

The driver had proven to be more awake than her guest. Having had only snatches of sleep on the flight, Sarah had fallen asleep for most of the four-hour drive back to Largo. When the SUV ascended the steep driveway to the house, she'd jerked awake. Together the women had lugged the bags and easel into the house and deposited them on the rug inside the door. The maid—called
helpers
on the island, Sonja had whispered—had met them at the door.

“My name Carthena,” she'd informed Sarah. She looked to be in her mid- to late-twenties and wore capri pants and a T-shirt with a gold design on the front. A shower of pink and white beads decorated the braids that cascaded to her shoulders.

“How long you planning to stay, miss?” the woman asked on the way to Sarah's room.

“As long—as it—takes, I suppose,” Sarah had answered, struggling with her suitcase down the stairs. She was already regretting refusing Carthena's help with the bag because of her guilt about being served by anyone.

“A real English lady,” the helper remarked. “I never meet one before.”

The guest room on the lower level contained a sitting area and a bedroom with twin beds, a desk, and a ceiling made of bamboo woven in a herringbone pattern. Left alone, Sarah slid open the glass doors leading from the bedroom to the terrace, absorbing the reality of her surroundings. Somehow, she was in Jamaica—and without spending a penny, thanks to a kind and wonky artist. She'd collapsed onto one of the beds, smiling broadly and giving herself two full days before starting her painting routine.

On this, her fourth morning, the light on the ocean was breaking into a mosaic of glitter and Sarah pulled out her sketch pad to capture it. She drew a square in the center, a rough four-by-four. Her goal was to spend a week or two painting the unfamiliar in the familiar way, sticking to her miniatures, followed by a gradual expansion to a thirty-six-by-twenty-four-inch sheet—Roper's required size for a return ticket. The five large sheets she'd placed out of sight on a high shelf so they wouldn't annoy her.

A noise overhead made her look up, holding on to the crown of her straw hat. She was being inspected by a large black bird with a bald head and a red ring around its neck, a vulture of some kind, sitting on the stem of a coconut leaf.

“Hello? I'm not dead yet,” Sarah shouted, and the bird flew off to soar on an air current.

Settling again on the kitchen stool loaned by Carthena, Sarah got back to her drawing of the waves. Water was not her strength, especially tossing, rolling, foaming water like that of Largo Bay. She'd done some work on the beaches of Kent, but that was a different ocean—heavy, dark, and certainly cold. The water of the Caribbean seemed lighter and friskier to her by comparison. Although she hadn't stepped into the surf yet, she knew it must be warm, hot even, in line with everything she'd encountered so far.

You'd never think Jamaica was once British,
she'd written Penny in an arrived-safely email.
It has a character all its own. It's loud, crude, beautiful, and utterly unpredictable.

The night before, Sonja had asked what she thought about the island. “It's terribly alive, isn't it?” Sarah had answered, frowning into her wineglass. “Everything is in motion.”

“You either love it or hate it. There's no in-between about Jamaica.” Sonja leaned forward for a handful of almonds. “Most poor countries, the ones I've been to, anyway, never seem passive. Nothing is easy, nothing has soft corners. I guess that contributes to our strong instinct for survival.”

“I had no idea, none whatsoever, that being here would make me feel so—different, might be the word. I'm a total bloody foreigner here. I can't understand one word of the dialect, probably never will. And everything feels new, the night noises, the smells—from dead dogs to flowers, even the touch of the sea breeze. I never know what to expect next.”

“It takes a while.” Sonja nodded. “I was living in the States for fourteen years, and when I first came back I remember being in culture shock—in my own country. Took me a few weeks to settle in and start writing again.”

“What kind of writing do you do?”

“Business books, would you believe? I used to work in strategic planning with an insurance company, then I worked in training. After I got tired of the nine-to-five, I left and started writing training manuals for the insurance industry, then human-resource-type stuff.”

“How do you write from so far away?”

“Everything I need is on the Internet, from the
Wall Street Journal
to the latest books and research data. I can write from anywhere, even Largo.”

Several inches shorter than Sarah and some ten years older, Sonja had a kindness to her rounded features, despite the spiky hair. Before dinner that first night, she'd taken Sarah on a tour of the house. There were three floors: the lower level, where Sarah was lodged; a middle floor with a living and dining room, Sonja's office, the kitchen, and a deck; and a top floor, where three bedrooms and bathrooms opened off a sitting area.

Roper's office and studio were in a separate building behind the house and up a path of flat stones. The smell of oil paint and turpentine greeted them when Sonja opened the door to the high-ceilinged room. Canvases of all sizes, most between three and six feet tall, were stacked against the walls in various stages of completion. One painting had the artist's bold one-name signature scrawled on the bottom (the
R
in
Roper
dominating the other letters). On two easels were half-finished paintings, one of a nude woman with a basket of flowers on her hip, the other of a group of market women, the artist's style a blend of realism and impressionism. The women's features were symmetrical and their expressions peaceful, their skin painted with hues of browns and blues and greens.

“Now that I look at his paintings,” Sarah commented, “I see Jamaica in them. I didn't really understand them in London. They seemed overwhelming, full of passion and color.”

“Like the man himself, wouldn't you say?”

“I don't really know him—”

“You will,” Sonja said with an impish grin. “He's larger-than-life.”

“And all his subjects are women.”

“Women are the creators, and he's reaching for the eternal through them.” Her hostess winked at her. “So he says, anyway. I have to respect that.”

“Don't you get jealous? He must have models.”

“I used to. When you live with an artist, though, you have to accept the whole package, and that includes his ­subject matter. So far,” she said, knocking on the table she was leaning on, “his philandering has been limited to canvas­—as far as I know, anyway.”

It turned out that Sarah was not to be the only guest. “We're expecting a couple from New York,” Sonja had explained over dinner. “He's a trumpeter, an old friend of Roper's. I have to check, but I think they're coming in a day or two after Roper comes back.” Sarah had gone to sleep that night certain that the couple, along with Roper and Sonja, would turn into a foursome, herself the odd one out, as usual.

A wave broke in front of her and pushed up the hilly slope of sand. Turning the sketch pad to a fresh page, Sarah drew another four-by-four square. The constant motion of the water was starting to frustrate her, her attempts to capture it unsuccessful. Her rapid pencil strokes quickly became irrelevant as the foam pulled back and prepared for another onslaught.

There was only one way to capture a close-up of a wave's movement, she decided, and pulled her digital camera out of her bag. After turning it on, she rested her elbows on her knees and steadied the camera. Focusing on the slope of the beach in front of her, she zoomed the lens in and waited. As soon as she heard the pause of another wave curling over, preparing to crash to the sand, she clicked—and photographed a large brown foot planted in the middle of the foam.

“Shit!” Sarah muttered, and looked up. The owner of the foot had already passed and was streaking toward the end of the beach. Wearing only a pair of red trunks, the invader was a strapping local man, by the looks of it, his shoulders thick with muscle, his bald and shining head held high.

Discombobulated, as her father would have said, her heart beating fast, she pushed the camera into the bag. If she hurried, she could get away before he returned.

Carthena greeted her when she returned the stool to the kitchen. “You come back early.”

“The heat,” Sarah said, fanning herself with the hat. “I still have to get used to it.”

“Jamaica plenty hot,” the young woman said, and threw the scallion she'd been chopping into a bowl. The beads rattled when she looked up. “You must be careful you don't burn, you hear?”

CHAPTER SIX

T
he words and numbers swam before Eric's eyes. He groaned and patted the top of the refrigerator, his hand finding nothing but gritty dust.

“Shad, do you know where my glasses are?” he called to the bartender wiping a table at the rear of the restaurant.

“On the middle shelf, boss. You put them down after you fix the blender last night.”

Glasses found, Eric returned to his usual chair at his usual table and scrutinized the document.

“I think we have a problem,” he said, reaching for the pipe in his pocket.

“A problem?”

“The budget doesn't include the cost of putting electricity and water on the island. We can't have the people in the campsite without water and lights.”

While Eric lit his lignum vitae pipe, Shad peered over his shoulder at the report. “Can't we run a water pipe out there?”

Eric blew out a column of smoke. “A quarter mile offshore? Cost a fortune.”

“What about rain barrels?”

“They're going to need water to bathe in, to drink, to wash dishes, you name it—too much for barrels.”

“And they going to need electricity to cook with. They can't use charcoal, like Simone used to use.”

“Next thing, they burn down the tents.”

Shad wiped a corner of the table absently, his eyes on the report. “We going to have to tell Mistah Caines, nuh?”

The problem hadn't come to Eric while examining the business proposal, which he had never fully read since it was completed in December. He'd thought about it for the first time during his drive from Port Antonio earlier that day. His mouth still aching from the dentist's injection, he'd been ambling from one self-pitying thought to another, most of them revolving around Simone.

Talking about her with Danny had made him miss her again, almost as much as when she first left Largo six months earlier. He remembered watching her brother's rental car disappear down the main road—Simone's thin, brown arm waving out the passenger window—and how he'd walked back to his apartment and sat on the side of the bed facing the island.

Before her arrival, the rocky little island had been loaded with bittersweet memories from years past. Seated on his verandah every night, staring into the blackness, he'd reminisce about the seven years he'd been the head honcho of the small inn, lingering over incidents like when a guest had had a heart attack and he'd taken him to the hospital in his Jeep and the man had lived. And the two guests who'd met at the hotel and married in one week—and he'd wonder if the marriage had lasted.

Everything had changed when he and Shad had discovered Simone living on the island. His nightly verandah vigils had become consumed by things she'd said, by her safety, by her needs. After they became lovers, he'd arrive on the island with treats, imported cheese and olives and wine, which they'd enjoy on her bed before making love. When she left Largo, they'd agreed there'd be no phone calls. Long-distance relationships didn't work, he'd said. But he'd broken his own vow and called her a couple of times since, once to ask her permission to name the island after her, once to tell her that the island was now officially Simone Island. She'd met his calls in a cool yet friendly way and even called back once.

He'd been looking for another excuse to call her and had now found one. If the island were to be a campsite, he was going to say, they'd need her advice about outfitting it properly. It had then dawned on him that, although a canoe had been enough to transport her supplies, it would be way different for a slew of people. Fifty guests plus staff living and working on the island would need a lot more water than a few bottles a week. They'd need
running
water, and lights and power.

By the time Caines appeared later that evening in another tourist shirt, Shad and Eric were a grim duo. They watched him bouncing in, greeting the few customers as if he were already an owner, introducing himself, charisma flowing out of his pores.

“Had a good day?” Eric inquired, motioning for him to sit down.

“Great!” Caines said, and pulled out a chair.

“Anything to eat?” Shad asked with a strained smile. “We have some nice stew peas and rice tonight.”

“Miss Mac took care of me, thanks. But I'll have a rum and ginger.”

Eric asked about his day and Caines mentioned he'd started running on the beach, the first time he'd run in a couple of years.

“I'm feeling like a new man,” he added. He looked boyish, wiggling his shoulders, excited by his discovery. “You feel like a youth when you running, you know. It takes years off your life. Ever tried it?”

“No, I'm not a runner.”

“It's a great run, that beach. How long is it?”

“About a mile.”

“Two miles altogether. I'm going to do it every day. All the stress just goes away, man. Being on the beach does something—takes me back, you know?”

“Watch out for the jellyfish. Sometimes they wash up and sting you when you least expect it.”

“I'll be careful, don't worry.” Caines dropped the smile. Small lines appeared around his mouth, making him look older. “I've decided to rent a car, because I need to know the area, Port Antonio and the other towns, you know. I'm going to start driving around every day.”

“Don't forget that we have to see Delgado, the contractor, tomorrow.”

“I won't forget, and I want to meet Horace Mac.”

“MacKenzie, Horace MacKenzie,” Eric said, glancing at Shad, who was twisting off the ginger ale cap, his forehead in a rare frown.

“I'm liking the idea of a campsite more and more. Leasing the island could be cash money at the start, don't you think? Setting the hotel up, running it, advertising, all the expenses in the first couple years is going to mean more money going out than coming in until we get our guest numbers up. And we'll have to hire a marketing agent—”

“I used an agency in Miami for the old inn. I don't know if they're still in business—”

“And with all the initial outlay, we're going to need the cash from that campsite,” Caines said, rubbing his palms together. “We need to talk details and terms, and start getting something down in writing with Horace Mac.”

There was nothing of the ingenue in the investor that Eric had expected. He'd assumed before meeting him that an African American with a few small properties in Queens and the Bronx would be green around the ears. Danny was anything but green. Amiable and easygoing, he deceived at first, but there was a hard core to him when it came to business.

“Shad,” Eric called. “When you're coming, bring some of those mints in the green wrappers, will you?” The ones that settled his stomach. He turned to Caines. “Do you want peanuts or anything?”

Eric's discomfort with the idea of a new hotel only increased listening to Caines, now sounding more like an entrepreneur than an island man returning home. His business acumen clearly went deeper than that of a human resource manager of a paper company. Although running the inn had taught Eric one or two things (he'd called his bumps in the road
the school of hard rocks
),
he was just getting the hang of it when the hurricane had come along and school was out.

After Caines took his first sip of rum, Eric put his hand on the business proposal. “Speaking of Horace—we need to talk to him about how the campsite is going to get water and electricity. We thought we might negotiate—”

“There's no water on the island?” Caines said, leaning forward, eyebrows high.

“There's nothing but—walls. The hurricane destroyed the pipes running out there.”

“It has to have water.” The investor's voice dropped an octave. “Does Horace know?” He frowned at the island, dimly outlined by the three-quarter moon rising over the water.

“We never discussed it.”

“If I were him, I'd want some kind of infrastructure. Who's going to pay for that?”

Eric cleared his throat. “About the electricity, I thought we could—”

“We can use solar power,” Caines interrupted. “All the sunshine here, it shouldn't be a problem. Expensive as hell to install, though.”

“I was thinking solar, too.”

“We'd have to add that on to the budget, though,” Danny snorted, twisting his upper lip.

Ten minutes later, the bar owner departed for his apartment, mulling his partnership with Caines. Several things were becoming clear. First, the man would argue for every penny he had to borrow or spend. Second, there was nothing about building this hotel that was going to be a cakewalk. And third, Caines was sounding more and more like a man who wouldn't think twice about dragging someone into court. Eric sighed and tuned the radio to his favorite Havana station.