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Helena gathered her heavy tangle of hair into a knot at the top of her head.
Despite her best efforts, a cascade of tendrils slipped free and fell loose
about her face. The back of her neck was damp with the heat and she fanned her
flushed face with a sheaf of papers from her desk. In a ragged pile on the top
of her workspace sat a pile of unmarked spelling tests. She picked up her red
marking pen, then hesitated, rolling the marker back and forth over the
scratched wooden desk top with the tip of her finger. Sighing gently, she leaned
her chin on the heel of her right hand and half-closed her eyes as she allowed
herself to slide into a momentary day-dream.
In the late afternoon heat, the voices of the children in the concrete play area
rose and fell with the thunk of the school’s only basketball and the soft
scuffle of an improvised skipping rope. A trickle of perspiration rolled between
her breasts and she unfastened another button on her cotton blouse, fanning the
front of the garment against her skin in an effort to cool herself. Unbidden, an
image of the mysterious stranger flashed into her mind, causing her to bite her
lower lip as she recalled the rear-view of his hasty retreat. Helena flushed
deeply at the recollection of her clumsy attempts to conceal her nudity, and
then deeper still as she thought of the undeniable thrill of being observed by
the attractive stranger in such a state of vulnerability.
Re-buttoning her blouse, she chided herself for her foolish daydreaming and
ruefully returned her attention to the un-graded papers. For the remainder of
the school year, she had best focus her energy on dealing with the immediate
future. The past two months had been a crash course in heartbreak and she was
more than reluctant to experience a re-run. Still, she was flesh and blood, and
what hot-blooded woman could resist a little afternoon fantasy involving a sexy
stranger, a naked school teacher, and an isolated island cove? She smiled
inwardly as she recalled that lingering backward look. The stranger’s obsession
with the female form might be typically male, but his concern over the plight of
nesting birds most definitely was not. Helena ran her tongue over her lips and
leaned her head against her hand. Mentally, she replayed the scene, featuring
herself wearing the bikini she had impulsively abandoned, weighing five pounds
less, and making a number of snappy retorts to the intruder’s accusations.
A knock at the door brought her to her feet.
’Come in,’ she called, fingers crossed against an impromptu appearance by the
school principal. Helena knew that her afternoon kite-making activity had filled
the classroom with a hail of tissue paper scraps and the boisterous clamor of
excited seven year old voices. She was dreading what her supervisor would say
about her plan to take the children kite-flying the following week. Helena
breathed a sigh of relief as two of the fourth grade girls poked their heads
through the door. Standing one behind the other, their dark corn-rowed heads
looked like two laughing brown-eyed Susans.
“Something to show you, Miss Travis,“ the taller girl smiled shyly, revealing a
row of perfect white teeth.
“Please, girls, come on in,” smiled Helena, smoothing her wrinkled skirt and
extending her hand in invitation. The girls were fairly dancing with excitement
as they entered the classroom, swinging a plastic bag between their joined
hands. Helena clasped her hands about her waist and smiled encouragingly. The
girls both sang in the choir that was Helena’s latest responsibility and they
often stayed after school to help her in the classroom.
“What’s this all about girls?”
“Well,” began one in a soft voice, “My mama say it’s gonna be your birthday soon
so we made you some decorations for your room. “
The words of the two girls began to tumble together as each tried to deliver her
message over the other’s.
“And we wanna put them up for you as kind of a surprise,” breathed the smaller
of the two.
“We been making them for two whole days now.”
“And we ran all the way from home to get here before you went home and locked up
and all.”
Helena smiled. “Well girls, that’s just about the nicest thing anyone has ever
done for me. I feel absolutely honored to have such a wonderful treat. And I do
have some work to catch up on. So, how about if I just sit at my desk and mark
these tests and then I won’t see your surprise until you’re all done?”
Helena glanced with distaste at the pile of grading and then back at the girls.
Both were bobbing their beaded braids with infectious enthusiasm. Collapsing
once more into the rickety wooden chair, Helena drew the sheaf of spelling tests
toward her. Obligingly, she turned the chair so she was facing away from the
window. Despite her fatigue and the oppressive heat of the tiny classroom, she
marked each test with care, circling the parts of the words where spellers had
gone wrong and writing notes of praise or encouragement to each of her students.
Thoughts of her humiliating encounter dissolved as she temporarily reassumed the
role of instructor. As she passed from test to test, she grinned at the excited
whispering of the two girls, who had drawn a chair close to the window and were
making mysterious rustling noises as they extracted something metallic-sounding
from the plastic bag. In the late afternoon sunlight, something shiny already
winked as it dangled from one of the hooks she had driven into the low-lying
ceiling. Appreciating the childish excitement of the girls, she promised herself
not to sneak a peek before they were ready. She remembered her first day at the
school when she had cut out dozens of paper snowflakes and suspended them from
the ceiling. The children had clapped with wonder as they entered the classroom
and saw “snow’ for the first time. They had passed that first afternoon
engrossed in conversation, teacher and students losing their shyness as they
discovered the difference, and similarities, of their two cultures.
“Okay, now it’s ready!” shouted the girls separately, but seemingly in unison.
They giggled as Helena squeezed her eyes tightly closed and allowed herself to
be led toward the window. As she looked up she couldn’t help but gasp in
admiration. In the slanting light, the tin ornaments shone like silver and
twinkled as they spun on different lengths of thread. With carefully trimmed
edges and holes punched through to catch the light, the ornaments looked like
shining icicles twirling under the tropical sun.
“There’s twenty all together, Miss Travis - one for each year!”
Actually, Helena was close to a decade over twenty, but she didn’t care. She
scooped a girl under each arm and hugged them tight. There were tears in her
eyes that she made no effort to blink away as she thanked them.
“Emily and Sarah, you are absolute wonders! I’ll always remember this. Always.
No matter where I go, I know I’ll never ever again receive such a gift.”
Remembering the camera she had tucked inside her backpack that morning, Helena
asked the girls to wait so she could take a picture of their handiwork. While
she was rooting about in her bag, she was startled to hear girlish shrieks,
followed by wild giggling. As she straightened up, she saw Emily and Sarah both
clap their hands over their mouths and drop their eyes shyly to the floor.
“What is it girls?”
Helena smiled as she approached the window, shaking her head and good-naturedly
rolling her eyes at their childish antics. She followed the finger pointing
toward the open courtyard and took a hasty step backwards. Flushing scarlet,
Helena swallowed hard and attempted to bring the staccato beat of her heart
under control. Not twenty feet away stood the stranger from the bluff. Stripped
to the waist and beaded with perspiration, he had his back turned to the
admiring trio. A well-stocked tool belt was slung low over his hips. As a barely
stifled snort from one of the girls carried through the open window, he turned
and waved. Helena ducked down behind the taller of the students and prayed he
wouldn’t see her kneeling form against the glare of the louvered glass window.
From where she crouched she could see a smile twitch in the corner of his mouth
and spread slowly across his face, revealing brilliant white teeth. Running both
hands through his thatch of blonde hair, he ambled slowly toward the open window
until his muscular torso was mere inches from the top of Helena’s head. Raising
her eyes guiltily she allowed her gaze to roam across the sweat-slick surface of
his well-muscled stomach. A light-brown line of hair pointed down like an arrow
from his belly button beyond the waistband of his snug-fitting, low-slung jeans.
“Hi Emily, Hi Sarah. What are you doing here at this late hour? Aren’t you
supposed to be at home helping your mother get supper on the table?” He laughed
and wagged a finger at the girls.
Sarah giggled and made a face at Emily.
“No, that’s Emily’s job. I’m supposed to be minding Cecily. But mama said we
could come up to the school for an hour if we helped at the market on Saturday.”
“Well, well,” he teased, “I guess you must really love all that reading and
writing if you’re spending your precious spare time at school.”
Both girls giggled. Emily rolled her eyes and pointed to the twinkling ornaments
above her head.
“We were bringing these to Miss Travis. It’s her birthday in a couple more
days.”
“And where is this Miss Travis of yours keeping herself?” He leaned into the
window frame and cocked an eyebrow at Helena’s cowering form.
“Oh, there she is. Drop something, Miss Travis?”
“No, I…” Helena’s words were lost in a tongue-tied mumble as she rose to her
feet and faced the stranger. Beneath the thin cotton of her sleeveless summer
blouse, her nipples hardened unbidden at the memory of yesterday’s encounter.
Smoothing her chino skirt over her hips, she couldn’t help but notice that her
crawling about the floor had loosened a button from near the hem. The bottom of
her skirt splayed open, revealing a generous expanse of brown leg. As she met
her tormentor’s eyes, she noticed his gaze slide from her face down to her slim
tanned ankles and back over the arms she had crossed tightly over her breasts.
Ears burning with humiliation, she extended a shaking hand in the direction of
the man’s torso, inadvertently grazing his chest as she did so. Emily and Sarah
erupted in a torrent of giggles as she struggled to regain her composure and
introduce herself.
“Helena Travis. I teach second grade here at the school. ”
“Mmm. Most decidedly not a tourist, then.” He smiled a broad, genuine smile and
laughed, raising his hand to meet hers. “Neil. Neil Streep,” he concluded. I’m
doing a little work here at the school as well.” He gestured toward a stack of
two-by-fours piled neatly against the wall.
Emily and Sarah began to jostle each other impatiently as they listened to the
adults. Suddenly aware of their agitation, Helena remembered the picture she had
promised to take. Posing the girls in the open window, she located her camera
and snapped several photos from different angles. She noted that Neil had
quietly moved away and resumed his activity by the wood pile. With the pictures
taken and promises to make extra copies for both girls, Sarah returned to her
desk to complete her grading. The girls departed soon after with a fresh round
of embraces and thank-you’s. Once more alone, Helena made a conscious effort not
to glance toward the open window. Despite her best intentions, she found her
thoughts a tangle of emotion and reverie and she was aware that the heat
clinging to her breasts and thighs was due to more than just tropical weather.
With an immense sigh of frustration, Helena felt and acknowledged the undeniable
stirrings of desire. Suspended between a past she was trying to erase and the
uncertainty of the future, Helena felt a familiar tremor. Her attempts to wipe
Karl from her life had left her expecting to encounter betrayal around every
corner. Twice-bitten, Helena felt unable to stem the tide of suspicion that any
male between eighteen and sixty-five seemed of late to provoke, and Neil Streep
was no exception. He was, however an undeniably sexy, albeit suspicious, male,
and Helena seemed unable to banish him from her lazy afternoon thoughts.
Turning her reverie to the pragmatic, Helena pondered Neil’s claim to be working
for the school. In the month she had been on staff, this was the first she had
seen of him. She couldn’t fathom any legitimate reason for him to be on the
property after regular school hours, but he seemed to know the girls, and their
family, and they were obviously comfortable with him. That, in itself, was
something. Her spirits bolstered momentarily, she relaxed enough to raise her
eyes to the window. While she could see nothing, the familiar tingle between her
legs told her what she was seeking. Why couldn’t it truly be a case of the birds
and the bees with no questions, no calculated unkindness, and no fear of
heartbreak? It would all be so easy if it were just about sex: pure, lusty,
spontaneous sex with no past beyond foreplay and no future beyond climax.
The sun was beginning to sink low on the horizon, and the pink tinge in the sky
spoke of the coming evening. What on earth was he doing? Her curiosity getting
the better of her, Helena rose to her feet and took a few tentative steps toward
the window. Peering through the glass louvers, she could see nothing but the
neatly stacked pile of wood. Neil, or whoever he really was, was gone. Turning,
Helena returned to her desk, bent and grabbed her bag by its top loop. Slinging
the bag over her shoulder, she returned to the window, closed the louvers, and
left the classroom, locking the door behind her. Her lengthy strides increasing
in tempo, she strode across the empty courtyard, stopping to pick a tropical
bloom that had somehow found its way through the cracked concrete. Lifting the
flower to her nose, she inhaled deeply, savoring the sensuous odor. Raising her
hands behind her head, she tucked the blossom into the twist of her hair, then
adjusted her backpack so it sat squarely between her shoulders.
“That looks lovely on you.”
A voice from behind her caused her to start and she turned with a pounding in
her chest. A few feet behind her stood Neil, one hand on a slim hip, and the
other pointing at her rapidly collapsing French twist. His head was tilted to
one side as he regarded her with eyes as blue as the Caribbean waters. A faded
black t-shirt stretched across his wide chest. Confused, Helena brought her hand
to her head, then felt and removed the lustrous blossom.
“No, no, don’t take it out. Here, let me fix it for you.”
Taking a step closer, Neil reached for her hair, felt about, and with a
practiced hand, placed the flower in the dark gloss of her curls. Then he stood
back and surveyed his handiwork. Frowning, he extended his hand once more and
gently tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Then he smiled.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”
He uttered the words in a smooth baritone as he offered a calloused palm.
Glancing down, Helena noticed what appeared to be a small tattoo on the inside
of his wrist.
“I’m the jerk who startled you yesterday. And I would like to extend my most
sincere apologies for my incredibly rude behavior. It really upsets me to see
animal habitat reduced to such a small space and when I see it invaded,
especially by tourists, I get kind of carried away. The notice about the nesting
area is a little hard to see, and I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that.”
He blushed at the words “jumped on you,” but continued.
“Peace?”
Flushing slightly, Helena put her hand out to meet his. His grasp was warm and
firm and lingered against her palm, even as his fingers withdrew. First, he’d
seen her nude, now he was shaking her hand! This definitely wasn’t the normal
social order, and Helena’s thoughts tumbled busily as she attempted to regain
control of the situation.
“Well, perhaps I should call you Tom,“ she said, with a pert toss of her chin,
“Because you were most definitely peeping.” She met his smile with a stern and
teacherly glare, which deepened into a mock-frown as he burst into laughter.
“Really!” she exclaimed, once again coming up empty on snappy retorts. Inwardly
she was treading dangerous waters as she floundered between her raging desire
and the certainty that she needed to start putting distance between herself and
the suddenly-friendly stranger. As the interior war raged on, Neil continued
talking, seemingly oblivious to Helena’s dilemma.
“You must be wondering what I’m doing up here,” he said with a tilt of his head.
Helena nodded a hesitant affirmative as she tried to look busy readjusting her
pack.
“Your principal has asked me to do some work on the school. I just brought up
some materials so I could make an early start tomorrow.” Neil pointed to the
pile of lumber as he reached around and undid his tool belt, dropping it with a
tired clank on the concrete.
“I’ve been back and forth from my truck to the courtyard a dozen times, but you
didn’t look up once, so I figured you must either be angry or concentrating
pretty hard.”
“I had some grading to do,” said Helena quietly, her eyes following a line of
ants crossing the courtyard. Mentally, she was turning off the first of the
warning bells.
Neil was employed, and by the school as well. That is, if he was telling the
truth. Now, was he just being friendly to make up for their disastrous
introduction, or was he actually trying to hit on her? Her glance skittered up
from the ground and scanned his left hand. No ring, and no tell-tale tan line.
But that didn’t mean much these days. Appearances so often were deceiving,
particularly when it came to men of mystery. How many lies had Karl woven
through their brief engagement? Helena sighed as she met Neil’s warm smile with
a strained one of her own. Gathering the edge of her lower lip between her
teeth, she bit down hard.
“Come on,” said Neil, reaching out to touch her arm lightly. “You’ve worked a
long day today, and I think it’s quitting time for both of us. What do you say
to a nice juicy steak and a cold beer? It’s the least I can do.”
Helena paused, her heart thumping against her ribcage as she weighed her
options. Celibacy or heartache? The opening scenes of that last ruined night
with Karl began to play in her mind, and she felt her eyes fill with sudden
tears as the familiar wave of fear washed over her. Shaking her head slowly,
Helena turned on her heel and took a step away, panic filling her so suddenly
that she struggled to find the words.
“I’m sorry,” she said in the strongest voice she could muster. “But I can’t just
now.” Then, just as the tears began to spill down her cheeks, she strode away
quickly, toward the narrow footpath that would lead her home. Bursting through
the tumbling overgrowth that covered the entrance to the path, she feigned
deafness to the calls after her and picked up her pace. She was oblivious to the
sting of branches dogging her heedless steps as she stumbled down the hill,
moving faster and faster, too horrified by the thought of him following her to
turn around, or even wipe the tears from her damp face. As the path ended and
the roadway began, Helena risked pausing briefly, craning her neck to catch the
tell-tale sounds of dislodged pebbles and cracking twigs. Hearing nothing but
the calls of tiny birds and the rumble of nearby traffic, she pushed her
sunglasses firmly against her nose, and began walking alongside the main road
leading to her apartment.
Her head throbbed as her mind, unbidden, began to replay the scene that had just
unfolded. It had been a mere matter of days since the last humiliation she had
endured in Mr. Streep’s presence and at the moment, she felt more the fool than
she had ever felt in the entirety of her dating experience. To what part of the
distant galaxy had her ability to come across as calm, cool, and collected
vanished? True, she harbored no romantic intentions toward the stranger from the
bluff, but she had always prided herself on her quick wit and snappy repartee,
and in the face of Mr. Streep she seemed doomed to play the role of blushing,
tongue-tied, head-ducking teenager. To think that she had come so far to avoid
one man and now, on tiny St. John, she would have to steer clear of another. She
honestly did not think she could physically cope with any further humiliation
without falling into the deep pit she prayed would swallow her up. Her cheeks
flushed deeply as she saw herself with the eyes of an observer: the hysterical
female, so distressed by the slightest male attention that all she could do was
flee in terror. How very stereotypical Victorian heroine! Helena cringed, the
tears pricking at her eyes, now those of anger. Mentally kicking herself, she
sniffed loudly, despite herself. Looking up through swollen eyes, she stopped
short before running directly into the mother of one of her students.
For a fraction of a moment, the mother scrutinized Helena’s inflamed nose, then
reached a maternal hand to Helena’s arm and squeezed.
“It can’t be that bad, Miz Travis,” she said in a voice that conveyed both
sympathy and the curiosity to hear what would surely be lurid, and possibly
gossip-worthy details.
Horrified to find a ready audience for the source of her humiliation, Helena
waved vaguely in the direction of the floral bushes crowding the sidewalk and
then toward her nose, pantomiming elaborate sneezing fits while gasping out,
“Allergies! Must be the change in climate!” Returning the woman’s affectionate
gesture with a hand squeeze on her own, Helena bade her a good afternoon, and
hurried on her way, pretending not to notice the disbelieving shake of the
woman’s tightly curled head.
Rushing headlong through the crowded sidewalks that wound through the town,
Helena made a beeline for the sanctuary of her Mediterranean-style apartment. As
she stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street, a horn honked stridently and
she looked up in alarm. Registering a waving arm in her peripheral vision, she
was horrified to hear a strong male voice calling her name. Not Neil Streep,
again! Had he been following her?
Without breaking pace, Helena kept her eye on the door of her apartment as she
threaded her way around a passing vehicle and leapt up onto the sidewalk like
the lead in a cross-country race. Pounding up the stairs, she was already
removing and rummaging in her backpack for her keys. Locating these, she fumbled
with the lock, then tore open the screen door, slid inside, and pressed her back
to the lock. Breathing hard, she waited. Hearing a car door slam somewhere
behind her, she blessed Ben for having omitted an intercom system, and then
pitched herself forward, scrambling up several flights of stairs, until she was
at last, home sweet home.
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