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Island Recess, Chapter 3.
For the past week, the skies had darkened daily with sudden cloudbursts that
gave way to spells of damp heat and brilliant sunshine. A native of Seattle,
Helena could smell a pending rainstorm like a hound sniffing after a rabbit and
her nose twitched as the clouds banks continued to build. Helena walked slowly
back and forth over the small field, waving encouragement to all and dispensing
gentle reminders to a few. Periodically, she was stopped to mend an injured kite
with a few well-placed patches of tape. As the children ran back and forth,
attempting to build speed and raise their creations aloft, Helena smiled in
spite of herself. Against the June sky, the patchwork creations of cellophane
and tissue were as boldly colored as bands of stained glass. While most of the
kites bounced on the ground as their owners raced furiously back and forth, a
few caught and held by the wind, achieved momentary lift.
As Helena paced, she tried in vain to put the events of the previous Friday out
of her mind. For the past week, she had busied herself with school during the
day, and with helping her elderly landlord at night. With several units now
vacant, Helena had suggested that Ben allow her to assist with some minor
cosmetic renovations before he again advertised them for rent. Having seen the
changes Helena had made to her own apartment, Ben was easily persuaded to go
along with his new tenant’s scheme. Her first order of business was a brutal
assault with mops and rags and toxic-smelling cleansers. Pouring bleach into the
toilets and cleaning around the ancient taps with an old toothbrush, it had been
easy for Helena to banish the image of her humiliation before Neil. Once the
cobwebs, dust, and grime were cleared, Helena had thrown herself into the role
of interior designer. Together, she and Ben had decided on a different
decorating scheme for each unit. They purchased several lengths of bold,
tropical prints and Helena then set about designing and sewing curtains, table
linens, and throw cushions to suit each room’s dimensions. With the assistance
of Ben’s two teenaged nephews, she had painted each room a different colour,
using techniques like ragging and sponging to bring texture and visual interest
to the small spaces. Just yesterday, she had returned from a weekend trip to
nearby St. Thomas, where, under Ben’s direction, she had purchased woven raffia
mats to use as runners over the now-creamy linoleum floors.
As she watched her students frolic in the afternoon sun, heedless of their
teacher and, oblivious to the trials and tribulations of adulthood, Helena
couldn’t help but yearn for some simple recreation of her own. But after last
Friday, the only recent candidate for her affection would hardly be beating a
pathway to her door. She cringed inwardly at the spectacle she had made of
herself in the school’s courtyard. For the past week, she had played and
re-played the scene, wondering whether Neil had witnessed her emotional
breakdown or only her girlish flight. If only she had screamed shrilly, or
kicked up her heels and flapped her hands as she ran, she would have made the
perfect virgin-on-the-run. She now almost wished she had turned to see the
source of the honking horn. Had it been Neil, she could perhaps have summoned up
a smidgeon of self-respect, drawn herself up and made some viable excuse for
running away so readily from the offer of a juicy-steak-and-beer dinner.
Perhaps, “I’m a teetotaler and vegetarian” would suffice as explanation for her
behavior? Perhaps not.
How she had found herself back in her apartment, red-faced and mentally kicking
herself, she couldn’t quite remember. What she could partially remember was the
hesitant tap on her door that had come moments after her flustered arrival. On
opening the door she had found her landlord, Ben, standing awkwardly before her,
a bottle in one hand, and two plastic tumblers in the other. After a few searing
mouthfuls, it was explained to Helena that the bottle contained a potent island
liquor brewed from sugar cane. Several drinks later, Helena had hiccupped out
the story of the desertion of her fiancé and was beginning to unravel in
exhaustive detail, the particulars of her encounters with Neil when Ben held up
his hand with a slight grimace.
“I don’t think you want to be telling me all dis information, Miz Travis,” he
had slurred out. “Best you be telling one of your girlfriends about all dis.”
The topic had shifted abruptly to safer ground. Shortly after, Ben had departed,
taking with him an empty bottle.
Helena giggled as she recalled the next twenty-four hours during which she had
made every possible attempt to avoid running into her landlord. A normally
private person, Helena usually restricted her confidences to a few close
girlfriends. Watching her students play together, she sighed, thinking how far
away Julie, her closest friend, was. She desperately missed their emergency
councils, typically conducted over steaming cappuccinos and rich desserts, and
sometimes lasting until the coffee shop owner raised his eyebrows and tapped his
watch to indicate closing time. If only she could talk to Julie, de-brief the
last few weeks and worry out some kind of dignified solution! And now, the
elderly Mr. Holmes had been privy to her most private humiliations. Had she
actually told Ben about her embarrassing encounter with Neil? Of course, which
was more embarrassing encounter, that involving nudity or the one marked by
crying and running away? How she hoped she had not shared those details! Her
concerns had been unwarranted. Ben had cornered her in the hallway the following
day with a face turned suddenly innocent as an egg, and bade her follow him to
his apartment. There, in a corner of the room was an expensive-looking computer
and flat screen monitor, hooked up to a printer and scanner: the means by which
Helena had found her present home. Mr. Holmes had gestured in the direction of
the computer.
“Now you can find that girlfriend, you be needin’” he had said with a smile.
“You come and knock whenever you want to use it, send an e-mail, send a fax,
whatever you need.”
He had given her a paternal pat on the back, and then swiveled on his heel,
ushering her out of the apartment with elaborate courtesy.
Helena checked her watch. Luckily, she had remembered to put it on that morning.
Only half an hour left until the end of the school day. She could quickly finish
grading yesterday’s multiplication tests, and be home by five o’clock to e-mail
Julie. Glancing across the sloping field, she took a mental head-count of her
students, and frowned as she realized she was missing at least half a dozen. She
chided herself mentally as she strode quickly across the rough-bladed grass
toward the steep footpath leading down to the dock. She must learn to focus on
her responsibilities and keep her mind from wandering in foolish analyses of
silly encounters. Silly encounters that mustn’t continue, she reminded herself.
Blowing her whistle in short, strident bursts, she gestured to the children
playing nearby to join her.
“Robert, did you see where Samuel, Jacob, and, um, Michael and the others were
playing?” Helena spoke slowly in an attempt to convince the children that
everything was under control and to disguise her ignorance of the whereabouts of
half-a-dozen of their peers.
“They went down to the docks with that man,” spoke up one of the boys, pointing
up ahead. Helena’s heart began to pound against her breast. Visions of strangers
luring students to doom with sticky candy and empty promises filled her head.
Helena accelerated her pace, her skirt flapping about her thighs as the students
who had stayed nearby struggled to keep up. As she skidded down the sloping
trail, she sighted a clutch of children gathered around a tall man with blonde
hair. Nearing the group, she almost cried out in frustration. Neil, again!
Fighting the urge to organize the curls erupting defiantly from her ponytail,
and she slowed to a more dignified pace and approached with a frown.
“Samuel! Jacob! Michael! Alison! Eliza! Mattie!” She spoke the names like a
round of gunfire. “You were asked to stay where I could see you!” Realizing that
she was making herself look ridiculous, as she accented each word with a school-marmish
shake of her index finger, Helena was further annoyed to see that several of the
children, unaccustomed to such outbursts from their teacher, seemed to be
attempting to suppress a case of the giggles. She frowned in their general
direction, narrowing her eyes to convey the seriousness of the situation. It was
then that she noticed Neil had turned in her direction with a smile on his face
that could quite possibly been intended as apologetic.
“Miss Travis, I must take the blame for this. I asked your students to come down
here and give me a hand unloading these fish. I’m terribly sorry.”
As he spoke, Helena realized with horror that her eyes had strayed from Neil’s
face to his bare torso. He was wearing a short-legged blue wet-suit and had
unzipped and peeled the top portion back from his shoulders. The garment hung
from his waist, emphasizing the narrow line of his hips and a firmly jutting
pair of buttocks.
“Um, Miss Travis?” Neil spoke questioningly, and Helena returned her gaze
guiltily to Neil’s face. Her cheeks were hot and she thought she detected a
knowing glint in Neil’s eyes. One of her students was tugging at her wrist.
“Look Miz Travis, look at the conchs. They’re big ones.”
Helena knelt down to the child’s level. Next to a bucket of shimmering,
freshly-caught fish were several large shells. Their outer covering appeared to
be thick and grey, but the inner lip, still filled with the animal, was
blush-pink, ending in a surge of near-crimson at the edges.
“Once the shells are cleaned, scoured off with a wire brush and dried in the
sun, they’ll look just like the ones you can buy at the tourist stalls. That’s
if you were a tourist. Which you clearly are not.” Neil finished off the
explanation with a broad, and Helena thought, possibly cheeky smile.
Her students had gathered around her, subdued by her stormy arrival, and were
watching to see if good humor had been restored. Helena knelt and picked up the
smallest of the shells, peering at the contents.
“I think that’s it’s foot, Miz Travis,” piped up the recently shamed Michael in
an attempt to re-establish himself in his teacher’s good graces.
“They make good eating, Miss Travis,” said Neil, squatting back on his heels and
reaching his hand out for his catch. “I was spear-fishing around the bend at the
cove, but I couldn’t help but pick these up. I had a hankering for conch
fritters. Too bad there’s no one to share them with. I don’t think I can eat all
of ‘em myself.” He patted his obscenely flat stomach as he stood up, head
ambiguously cocked.
“Why don’t you share them with Miz Travis?” Obviously on a roll, Michael spoke
up earnestly, looking from one adult to the other with an excited smile.
Unfortunately, the pint-sized matchmaker was thwarted by a shriek from one of
the students waving from the top of the hill.
“Miz Travis,” she bellowed, “Home time!” She waved, and jumped up and down,
pointing at her wrist. Helena smiled briefly in the direction of Neil’s torso.
“I guess that means it’s time to go,” she said, turning just as Neil reached out
a hand.
Helena herded the children like an errant flock of geese back up the hill and
toward the school. As she entered the schoolroom and watched the children scurry
to gather their belongings, her thoughts drifted back to the dock. Despite her
best intentions to live in monk-like seclusion, Helena was fighting the
increasingly urgent demands of her libido. Hustling her students out the door
and waving frantically to encourage a speedy departure, Helena returned to her
desk. The math tests waited expectantly. She could almost hear guilt inducing
“Grade me! Grade me!” voices emanating from the stack of papers. Executing a
smart turn, she picked up her backpack in one hand and the tests in the other.
Pending further appearances by the mysterious Neil and following the completion
of her ventures into cyberspace, Helena promised to immerse herself in her
teacherly duties.
Swinging her pack onto her shoulder, she trotted down the path to the main road.
Unbidden, her thoughts returned to the afternoon’s adventure by the dock.
Because it was close to supper-time, Helena’s mouth watered at the thought of
the conch fritters. She had only had them once before, steaming from the pot and
smothered in hot-sauce. The temptation to follow up Michael’s invitation on
Neil’s behalf was highly tempting. She could imagine herself turning up at
Neil’s front door, eyes baleful and stomach rumbling, saying, “But you said you
couldn’t eat them all by yourself.” Helena giggled, causing a tourist to look at
her with some alarm and skirt her by a wide margin as he passed. She didn’t even
know where the elusive Neil lived, but the town was small, and Helena was sure
that she would run into him soon. Although one portion of her conscious mind was
annoyed with her continued thoughts about the builder, the other wandered
dreamily into nostalgic recollections of his nude torso and speculations about
the exact proportions of what lay below.
Ever yearning to be a pragmatist, Helena chalked her fantasies up to months of
sexual abstinence and to sheer desperation for the physical comforts of another
body. Still, she couldn’t deny the powerful attraction she had felt watching him
talking to the children, listening attentively and patiently as they vied for
his attention. Perhaps Neil, with his sculpted arms and taut belly, presented a
recipe for getting her mind away from the imminent return to reality.
Alternately scolding herself and flashing a mental green-light, Helena allowed
herself to drift into a pleasant daydream. She would be wearing something
irresistible and consuming a concoction sufficiently alcoholic to provide
herself with an excuse for her wanton behavior. No! That wasn’t right either.
Helena was too honest with herself to pretend that drunkenness rather than lust
would ever be the reason she had sex with a man. It always came down to making a
choice, and for Helena, that choice was always a very conscious one, even if,
she had to admit, many of her choices had been poor ones. As she continued on
toward her apartment, Helena carefully revised her fantasy, casting herself in
the role of an aggressive, take-charge woman of the new millenium. She was about
a block away from home when she developed a sudden craving for mango. Helena was
carefully inserting the presence of fruit into her latest erotic fantasy when
she realized that the scent of mangoes was carrying from a display at the
open-air market. She slowed her steps and approached the grocer, a rotund woman
in her senior years who always had a smile and a cheerful word for Helena.
“Good afternoon, Susan,” Helena said with a broad smile. “Those mangoes look
absolutely delicious. Are they ripe enough to eat today?”
“Of course, of course, Helen-ah” exclaimed Susan, hoisting the largest to
shoulder height for Helena’s inspection. The fruit was ripe and heavy on
Helena’s palm and the rich scent lingered as she passed the mango back to Susan.
Perhaps if she already possessed the fruit, her latest sexual fantasy would be
that much more likely to become a reality.
“Could you give me three or four please, Susan?” The woman slowly sorted through
the dozens of fruit on the counter, selecting and discarding until she had found
the four plumpest mangoes and placed them in a paper bag. As she took Helena’s
money and rang up the sale, she continued to chatter about the school and the
children and the changing weather. Then, just as Helena was turning to head
home, Susan said something that made her stop in her tracks.
“So you’ve met our Mr. Streep, I hear,” said the older woman with a smile. Her
broad brown face creased as her grin widened. Beneath her close-cropped curly
grey hair, her dark eyes twinkled with pleasure.
“Whaaat? Who? Mr. Streep? I…” Helena mumbled in confusion as she tried to sift
through tumbling thoughts. Her face grew hot and she struggled to come up with a
coherent response.
“Ah, then ‘tis true,” beamed Susan. I know by looking at you.” The older woman
wagged her finger as she spoke.
At these words, Helena felt she would burst into spontaneous combustion.
Actually, at that point she felt anything, even a yawning chasm opening up in
the ground at her feet, would be a welcome relief from her current humiliation.
What were people saying? For heaven’s sake, she was a teacher, world-wide icon
of virtuous conduct. She could only imagine the story of her nude sun-bathing
escapade passing from barstool to barstool over rounds of rum and draft beer.
“Oh don’t worry, Helen-ah,” laughed Susan, looking at the expression of horror
spreading across Helena’s face. “I hear it from Mr. Streep. He been askin’ about
the pretty new teacher, but I don’t tell him too much.” Helena practically
slumped over with relief.
“I only told him that you be a single girl looking for a good time with a
good-looking man,” said Susan. She burst into helpless giggles as Helena’s mouth
fell open. “I’m joking, don’t worry, don’t worry.” She patted Helena’s arms as
she spoke.
Struggling to regain a degree of composure, Helena couldn’t help but laugh out
loud herself.
“It’s just all been so strange, Susan. He seemed to come out of nowhere, and now
I see him all the time.”
“Oh, Mr. Streep, he been on the mainland. Now he back helping us. Before he was
over in St. Thomas and before, oh, I don’t know where. He comes and he goes on
that boat of his, stays a while and moves on. But he always be coming back to
St. John.”
“But what exactly does he do, Susan? How can he afford to live here just doing
odd jobs?”
“Oh, he don’t take money for the work he do here. I think he just a handy-type
of man. He don’t seem to need a job. He got a nice big boat and enough money to
buy the things he wants. Some say the man is downright rollin’ in money. “ Susan
beamed as she relayed Neil’s dossier. Then she leaned across the counter and
whispered to Helena,
“The only thing that man be needin’ is a good woman.” Susan winked broadly and
turned away to help another customer, her words trailing off into soft laughter.
Bewildered by the news, Helena continued her walk home, crumpled bag slapping
against her thighs. She tried to fit the puzzle pieces together, but somehow,
they didn’t seem to fit. A seemingly unemployed drifter, volunteering his time
for charitable acts who was rollin’ in money? What was Neil Streep anyway? A con
artist? A gigolo? A drug dealer using the local school as a cover for his
illegal activities? Only when she had accessed Karl’s personal e-mail, was
Helena made blatantly, unavoidably, aware of the fact that her fiancé’s business
dealings were at best, on the shady side. If Neil was some kind of criminal, he
was definitely not the kind of distraction she needed. She would have to find
out more and in the meantime, tread very cautiously where her new acquaintance
was concerned.
Chapter
4,
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