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Sailor Romance Novels, nautical themed romance set in the
Virgin Islands by Sonora Rayne.
Island Recess, Chapter 16.
Helena hoisted the cardboard box onto the desk and wedged a handful of felt pens
into an unoccupied crevice of the container. Teaching books and lesson plans
already filled the box near to overflowing and she glanced ruefully at the
stacks of papers still lying on her desk. While the lessons and workbooks she
had acquired would be useful in a future teaching position, the sheer volume of
materials made for heavy baggage. With a sigh, she emptied the box back onto the
desk, and spent the next half hour sorting papers and workbooks into a system
that would be more helpful to her successor. Then she penned a “Good luck” note
on a large piece of cardboard and placed it in front of the materials she was
leaving behind. With a sinking heart, she gathered up her almost-empty backpack,
and with one final glance behind her, walked out of the empty classroom.
Scattered across the courtyard were children at play. Now that classes were
officially over, the school seemed the ideal place for young people to
congregate. Helena cut across the courtyard, smiling and waving at the children
who interrupted their games to call out their goodbyes. Her voice catching in
her throat, Helena turned as two hands touched her lightly on the arm. She
smiled in recognition.
“Emily! Sarah! I’m so glad I had a chance to say one more goodbye.”
Wrapping the girls in her arms, she stood for a moment, responding to their
muffled and teary farewells with soothing words of her own. She was on the verge
of promising to see them again before long, when Sarah interrupted her.
“Are you going away with Mr. Streep?” she asked.
Her wide brown eyes were guileless as she tilted her head back to gaze
inquisitively at the teacher. Helena forced a hearty chuckle.
“Heavens, no!” she exclaimed. “What made you think that?”
Sarah’s brow furrowed and she looked to Emily for support. Emily’s smile was
radiant, as she replied for her younger sister.
“But Miz Travis,” she said, “Mr. Streep, he likes you. He sure spent lots more
time at the school after you came, and he was always looking in your classroom
windows to see what you were doing…”
“When he thought you weren’t looking,” Sarah finished up boldly.
Momentarily forgetting the seriousness of their farewells, the girls giggled
behind their hands as they nudged each other and eyed Helena. Then Sarah leaned
over and whispered something in Emily’s ear. Emily nodded. She spoke quickly, as
if doing so would give her courage.
“We think that you like Mr. Streep too, Miz Travis!”
Emboldened, the girls dissolved into laughter as they again embraced Helena.
Emotional farewells momentarily forgotten, they skipped away to join a game of
tag. As they began to run, Helena caught the squeals of laughter, and loud
kissing noises that showed the girls had not totally forgotten about her. With a
particularly loud, ‘she loves her boyfriend!’ echoing in her ears, she smiled to
herself and headed to the footpath path that would lead her back to her
apartment.
The sequence of shops and homes that lined her path home was achingly familiar,
and Helena scrutinized each in passing as if to memorize the color and detail of
each. With a lump in her throat, she turned in at her own apartment complex,
pausing with a smile as she remembered seeing it for the first time. It seemed
years since she had struggled up to the front porch with her oversized luggage
and over-dressed self. Dreamily she walked up the front walk, pushed open the
screen and climbed the stairs to her apartment. Letting herself in, she stood
for a moment in the doorway, glancing around her at the tidy living room.
Stripped of familiar clutter, the furniture and counter space looked pristine
and anonymous. Soon, another tenant would be putting up pictures, laying out
ornaments, and claiming the space as their own. Helena sighed as she tugged at
the oversized suitcase which stood bulging by the front door. Filled near to
bursting with the designer suits and dresses of her former lifestyle, her
luggage would be an unwelcome burden on the long journey ahead. Unfastening the
top zipper, she glanced ruefully inside at the expensive garments she had not
worn once since her arrival in the islands. Then, on a sudden impulse, she began
pulling from the bag the simple cotton t-shirts, chinos, and shorts she had worn
daily. These, she shoved hastily inside her backpack, leaving the neatly folded
and pressed designer clothing in place. Closing and locking the door, she
hoisted her pack to her shoulder and struggled with the suitcase to the door of
her neighbour‘s apartment. Knocking, and hearing no response, she left a hastily
penned note for the law student who lived there. Since they were about the same
size, and the girl had admired Helena’s taste in clothing, Helena felt confident
she’d happily accept the articles inside as a boost for her limited wardrobe.
She was turning around, when she caught sight of movement in the shadows of the
corridor. Karl. The scream in her throat faded to a gasp of shock as he stepped
into the light and she saw what he had become. Clothing rumpled, hair unkempt,
and face drawn, he was a mere shadow of his immaculately groomed former self.
“Please,” was the single word he uttered, extending a hand as if to stay her
flight. Helena paused, warily taking a few steps back, but stopping when she saw
he did not intend to follow her.
“What do you want?” she managed in icy tones, mentally gauging the distance
between her apartment and the flight of stairs leading to the front door and the
comparative freedom of the street below.
“Helena, I’m going to lose everything. My boss, Mr. Reyes, tells me that there
have been questions asked about my activities and that I have, on occasion been
followed while conducting business. This, he says, is unacceptable. I have been
cast out, Helena and I’m not free to return. I have nothing but what is in my
bank account and the clothes on my back. I’m leaving for Europe tonight, and I
was hoping you might forgive and leave with me.”
Helena shuddered, the suggestion so obscene that for a moment she could not even
summon a response. When she did speak, she phrased her words so carefully that
she felt as if she were reciting lines in a play.
“I know you’re leaving Karl, and what’s more, I know you aren’t coming back. The
reason you’ll stay away from the United States, and from me, is this.”
Helena reached a steady hand inside her backpack and extracted the packet of
photos she had paid the private investigator to gather. Pulling from the
envelope the stack of eight by tens, she passed these to Karl, who stepped
forward to accept them with trepidation. His hands shook with fear as he studied
each image of himself with horrified eyes. Raising his head, Karl nodded slowly,
defeat taking the place of the hatred she knew lay deep-rooted in his heart.
“Before you go, Karl, there’s something else I need you to know. I’ve made
copies. These are yours to keep. Should you return to the United States, or show
your face in any country I choose to visit, these pictures go straight to the
authorities. More importantly, should anything unfortunate happen to me, my
lawyers will release these photos on my behalf. You might have thought me a
child when first we met, Karl, but I’ve had to grow up very quickly. And with
the ‘insurance’ you thoughtfully provided a certain private investigator, I know
I’ll be able to take care of myself from now on. Good-bye, Karl.”
It seemed as if Karl’s body had shrunk inside his clothes, as consumed by the
collapse of his high-flying, drug-dealing, cartel-membership life, as if death
itself had claimed him. Shoulders sagging, he turned, photos held loosely to his
chest. His haggard face turned once more toward Helena.
“You win.” he said with a flimsy sneer. His once proud, almost military bearing
was reduced to a slump; his exit was the shuffling gait of an old man.
“You bitch,” was his parting shot, and a weak one at that, as he immediately and
ignominiously tripped, and had to right himself with the support of a
neighbouring wall. With that ignoble gesture, he disappeared down the staircase,
and with a final bang of the front door, was gone.
Heart thumping, Helena stood still for moment, suddenly and gloriously elated.
From every painful twist and turn Karl had brought to her summer, she had run or
she had hidden. For the first time, Helena had faced her demon alone, and had
been the victor. The realization that she had finally stopped running and stood
her ground, face to face, with the upper hand her only weapon, filled her with a
sense of strength she had thought long eroded. Having for so long played the
part of victim, she now understood that she could, and would, ask the questions
she needed to ask, and that no matter what the answers, she would survive: bent
maybe, but not broken.
With only a pack on her back, Helena felt liberated by more than just
hands-free, minimalist luggage. Humming softly to herself, she knocked at the
door to Ben’s unit. The door opened immediately, almost as if he’d been
monitoring her progress down the hall through his peephole.
Ben peered out, his face already split into a wide grin. He looked her up and
down and then said with an inquisitive tilt of the head,
“You on your way?”
Helena smiled and nodded, taking a step toward Ben to embrace him tightly.
For a moment, they stood together, and then Ben stepped back. While tears
sparkled in the corners of his eyes, he continued to smile.
“You’ll be back,” he said decisively, nodding his head as if agreeing with his
own prediction.
“I hope so,” Helena began, before her words were bitten off by Ben’s.
“Of course you will. You can’t go away and leave that Mr. Streep forever, now,
can you?” Helena stood silent for a moment, reluctant to share her relationship
miseries with the elderly landlord. Before she could say anything, he was waving
his hand airily, and supplying her with an answer.
“Oh, you young people may take a while, going here and there and back and forth,
but one day you see. You need each other, like big mother Earth and the Sky or…”
He struggled for a minute, lost in thought.
“Or like one half of the orange and the other. Old Spaniard told me that many
years ago. You are to Mr. Streep like ‘otra mitad de la naranja’ - the other
half of his orange. Yes, that’s it.”
Helena nodded briskly, reluctant to be reminded of Neil and the phone call she
had yet to make. Seemingly forgetting his citrus metaphor, Ben allowed himself
to be embraced once more, and then planted a noisy kiss on Helena’s cheek.
“Off with you now,” he said, “I’ll see you when you get back. Maybe you bring me
a t-shirt from that ball team up there. The Mariners? I’d like that.”
With tears misting her eyes, Helena promised to do so.
With a last wave, she descended the stairs and stepped squinting into the summer
sunshine.
She moved briskly along the crowded sidewalk, grateful for her light load. The
lunchtime crowd was gathering outside the stalls and restaurants. The savoury
smells of spices and frying food made her mouth water, and Helena glanced at her
watch to see if she had the luxury of time before catching her ferry and her
connecting flight from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico. She quickened her pace as she
realized she had but fifteen minutes before the ferry departed from Cruz Bay.
Rooting about in the pockets of her cargo shorts, she extracted a quarter.
Seeing a payphone ahead, she stopped to dial the number Neil had given her. You
can always reach me here, he had promised. She swallowed hard as the phone on
the other end began to ring. After five rings, she began counting. She stopped
at twenty, and then dialled again, unsure if she had dialled correctly the first
time. The phone rang again; hollowly, it seemed to her, and went unanswered.
Swearing under her breath, she replaced the receiver, and was surprised to feel
the sting of tears in her eyes. Just forget him, she admonished herself sharply,
before running ahead to the line of passengers boarding the ferry.
The ride to St. Thomas was smooth, the boat droning noisily as it cut cleanly
through the white-capped waves. Locked in thought, Helena did not notice the
warmth of the sun glazing the deck of the boat, or the admiring glances of the
sunburned tourists seated near her. As if on automatic pilot, she disembarked
from the ferry and hailed the first taxi she saw. Nodding in agreement with the
outrageous fare the driver proposed, she slumped against the cracked vinyl of
the backseat and turned her face to the open air of the window beside her.
The faces of the people passing blurred together as the driver wove his way
through the tightly packed streets, seemingly oblivious to the angry gestures
and calls of the pedestrians he narrowly missed. Against her damp skin, the wind
was warm, the scent of the sea carrying over that of car exhaust and city
living. Arriving at the airport, Helena fished in her pocket and handed the
driver the first bill she touched. Glancing at it, he raised his eyes and rooted
about half-heartedly for change, but Helena was already gone, running toward the
open door, airline ticket in hand.
Glancing at her watch, she felt her stomach lurch. She had grossly miscalculated
the time needed to catch her plane. By the time she reached the ticket counter,
clothes damp and hair sticking to her perspiring forehead, the last call was
being given for her flight. Urging her ahead to the gate, one person took her
ticket, and the other pointed ahead toward the tarmac. Helena broke into a run
as she saw the flight attendant gesticulating wildly toward her. Ushering her
unceremoniously on board, the attendant pointed in the direction of Helena’s
seat, and began a tired demonstration of the safety equipment. Removing her
backpack, Helena clutched it to her chest as she struggled down the narrow aisle
of the small plane. Exhaling noisily, she sunk into the assigned seat, shoved
her backpack into the cubby under her feet, and snapped the seatbelt around her
hips.
Seated, she glanced around her, noting the usual collection of sun-burned and
weary travellers. Her eyes continued to scan. Across the aisle, the sudden
appearance of a shock of sun-bleached hair made her gasp involuntarily. Helena’s
heart began to pound as Ben’s words flooded unbidden into her mind. You need
each other, like this big mother Earth and Sky. One half of the orange and the
other. You’ll be back.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Helena reached forward and lay her hand on the
shoulder of the blonde-hair‘s owner. A scornful looking twenty-something turned
around and fixed Helena with a belligerent stare. “Yeah?” she said.
Helena shook her head, hands clenching around her armrests as she struggled to
gain control of her heartbeat.
I wanted it to be him, she thought suddenly. Then, where is he? Tears filled her
eyes and splashed unnoticed down her cheeks. Suddenly, Helena was unbuckling her
seatbelt, reaching for her pack, and struggling to stand in the confined space.
Ignoring the droning instructions of the flight attendant, and the abrupt bark
of the steward, she began working her way down the aisle, making for the patch
of sunlight still visible through the open door.
“I can’t leave just yet,” she declared loudly through her tears, elbowing her
way past the outstretched arm of the steward, and running down the stairs back
in the direction she’d come. Chapter 17.
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