Caribbean's Keeper (25 page)

Murph saw Cole’s reaction, laughed, and pulled a stool up at the bar. Cole followed and the old man behind the bar brought them a plate of green olives and peanuts. They both drank rum punch and snacked on the peanuts for an hour or so, still swapping stories about wild nights, women, and the places they’d been. It was almost midnight when they turned in. Murph set off down towards his room and Cole found a sign pointing him to the left and down an open-air walkway to the end. To his left was a steep rock embankment covered in small flowers and brush. To the right was a single row of rooms with the beach on the far side. He found his number on the last room on the right and walked in, not knowing what to expect.

Like he always did, he set the thermostat a few degrees lower and walked over to the sliding glass doors. Opening them and stepping out onto his balcony, he saw a sand beach below and two dozen sailboats at anchor in the small cove to the left. He could hear the breeze whistle through their aluminum masts and halyards. Listening to it, he thought of Key West for a moment. So much had happened since he’d left the Conch Republic. He took one last deep breath and turned in for the evening.

g

He awoke the following morning later than usual. With nothing to do, he made some coffee in the room and went again out on his balcony. He’d missed it the night before, but the balcony wrapped around to the left and opened up onto a covered deck, almost hanging over the coral jetty below him. Taking a seat on a bench and throwing his bare feet up on the table, he shook his head and grinned at his fortune.

It wasn’t long before he heard Murph calling up to him from the beach below, “You lucky son of a bitch.”

Cole grinned even wider and quipped, “Better to be lucky than good Murph.”

Murph shook his head and looked away towards the water for a second before returning with a light-hearted smile. “Get down here, man. You gotta see this.”

Cole finished his coffee and made his way back through the room and down a set of wooden steps to the beach. He had on only a pair of board shorts and tucked the room key in a pocket. Murph walked quickly back down the beach, almost to the water, before motioning with his head for Cole to look out into the water behind him. There, two tanned and pretty girls were topless and lounging around in a foot or two of water. Cole stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at Murph, who was now the one with a smile on his face. “Welcome to France, buddy.”

From there, the two of them made their way out onto a small dock and walkway that led out to another bar jutting into the small cove. Once there they drank themselves quickly into a mess and recounted the previous 24 hours. The bartender again brought out peanuts and green olives, which did little to help manage the rum punch that soaked their bellies.

The bartender eventually gave them the cold shoulder, and with their cups empty and their minds clouded, they settled back into some chairs on the beach and set about watching the French girls that walked past. They were all beautiful and paid little attention to the two drunk Americans. At some point Cole had nodded off and woke around noon under the shade of a palm tree. Murph had found another drink somehow and was fidgeting in his chair, unable to sit still and appeared to be looking for mischief.

“What’s up, man?” Cole was still waking up from his nap.

Murph was scanning the cove and said, “I’m bored. There’s a drink for you on the table.”

Cole rolled over and sat up, reaching for the rum punch and he took a good long sip. It brought him back to life.

Beyond the bar, a young couple was seated in a pedal boat and they slowly chugged along out into the cove cutting a wide circular path. Even with the language barrier, it was clear the women was loudly nagging the man, who seemed to be trying to explain himself for some perceived transgression. Taking another sip from his punch, Murph set it down and spoke under his breath. “Watch this. I’ll give her something to bitch about.”

Cole said nothing, but watched Murph walk calmly out into the water and dive under for a moment before taking a few strokes out. He seemed to be lining himself up with the pedal boat and Cole chewed at his lip for a second trying to figure out what Murph was up to. He took another sip from his drink to finish it off and watched intently as the couple unknowingly made their way closer to Murph.

When he was within a few feet of them, he waved hello and they waved back, the woman stopping her tirade for just a moment, before Murph turned to make his way to the beach. As they passed him, Murph suddenly dove underwater again and emerged just inches from behind the pedal boat as it took a leisurely course further out into the cove. He was up to something and out of sight of the couple as they pedaled along. Seconds passed, and Murph finally slipped back under the water and emerged with some distance between him and the boat, this time making his way on in. Stepping out of the water, he again walked matter-of-factly back to his seat, dried off with a towel, and cleaned the rest of the melted ice and rum punch from his drink.

“What was that all about?” Cole had missed whatever Murph was up to.

Murph grinned and extended his right palm out with his fist closed before opening it and revealing the two hull plugs from the pedal boat. Cole looked for a second at the plugs then back out at the pedal boat making its way into the deeper water of the cove. The two young lovers were now giving each other silent treatment.

“No fucking way.”

Murph was now sitting back down on his chair and laughing hysterically. Cole followed suit. They both looked out at the cove to try and see if the boat was getting any lower in the water but couldn’t tell. But not more than a minute later, they heard the first yell. From its pitch, it must have been the woman, and she clearly had realized their boat was sinking. Cole and Murph looked out again, this time squinting harder and both giggling like little girls. The man driving was trying to turn the boat around, but it was now sinking lower and lower into the water and not responding to the two of them pedaling frantically.

The woman yelled some more towards shore and the man followed suit, both of them waving their hands in the air towards the beach. After a few seconds, the woman slapped the man and yelled at him once again. With the two of them yelling, Cole and Murph had to steady themselves so as not to fall out of their seats. The couple had caught the attention of the boy working the dock who was now yelling back at them and motioning with his hands for them to pedal faster. Guests on the beach were now standing up and talking as the couple on the boat yelled at the boy on the dock and the boy yelled back at them. It took a serious turn when the dock boy finally jumped in the water to swim after them.

Moments later, the pedal boat finally succumbed to Murph’s sabotage, and with a titanic-esque dramatic list to one side, it finally went under. The couple, now without a boat, swam back to shore and the woman was out of breath by the time she reached the shore, not so much from the swim, but more from her tirade against her man while they swam the 30 yards to shore. The dock boy swam out to the boat and was the only one left yelling after it had sunk before he realized the futility of it all and swam back to the dock.

It had caused quite a scene. Murph buried the two plugs in the sand and suggested that he and Cole make a run for some lunch at the bar by the lobby. Cole agreed. They both tried to contain their laughter, but could take no more than ten steps before one of them would start laughing again and it inevitably triggered the other to do the same. It was in this condition that the two of them made their way up the steps and sat at the bar, ordering sandwiches and another round of rum punch.

Cole had to wipe his eyes from the sweat and laughter, finally controlling himself when his drink arrived. Murph was still giggling, his forearms against the bar and his head bent low as he tried to regain his composure. Cole took a sip from his drink and as he set his glass back down on the bar, he saw a girl walk down from the lobby. Her long hair, dark and curly, bounced around her shoulders with each step and her skin was olive with a slight tan.

She walked up to the bartender and spoke in French with him, no more than five yards from Cole. Cole watched the words roll off her lips and wanted desperately to understand her language. She carried a clipboard with her and must have worked at the hotel from the way the two of them talked. A long green cotton dress hung from thin straps over her bare shoulders and she couldn’t have been more than 22 or 23, but she carried herself like she was older, or at least more mature than her age. Cole stared motionless. She was thin at the waist and through her dress Cole could see subtle but curved hips. The top of her dress hung low and Cole saw enough of her to lose his normally cool composure around beautiful girls. His mouth went dry. He bit down on his teeth, exhaled to steady himself, and just as he did, she looked away from the bartender and directly at Cole.

He was caught staring right at her and she knew it. He didn’t look away, nor could he at that moment even if he had tried. She held her gaze for a few seconds more, tilting her head just a bit as she did. Her eyes were dark and beautiful as they looked directly into Cole’s. For a moment, she looked as if she might smile just before she turned and walked back towards the lobby.

Chapter 12 – Amour

MURPH SLAPPED COLE on the back to snap him back to life. “Ohhhhh shit, Cole,” Murph was shaking his head as he spoke. “I’ve seen that look before.”

Cole took a handful of peanuts from the tray on the bar and blinked a few times to get his thoughts in order. “What look?” He tossed a few peanuts in his mouth and took a sip from his drink, still trying to regain his mental footing.

“The one you just had when you locked eyes on that pretty little thing that just rolled through.”

“Yeah, she’s a cutie, that’s for sure,” he replied casually, but kept the other more intense thoughts to himself.

What he wanted to do was describe every detail of who he’d just seen and the effect she had on him, but Cole knew better than that. Murph wouldn’t have any of that talk in his present state. Cole had been around girls from all walks of life over the past months, many of them beautiful in so many different ways, but he couldn’t shake the girl in the green dress from his mind. There was something different about the way she walked, the way she had looked at him deliberately longer than expected and then walked away.

He thought for a moment of taking a walk up the steps to the lobby to find her, but he knew well enough that he was drunk and sweating and would need a better game plan to make a worthwhile impression. Still, he found himself looking back up the steps, hoping he’d catch another glimpse of her.

Murph finished off the dish of peanuts and emptied his drink. The bartender made his way over and looked at Murph for confirmation to fill it back up. Murph nodded in the affirmative and the bartender shifted his gaze to Cole. He looked at the bartender for a moment then asked plainly, “Who is the girl?”

The bartender leaned in, apparently not understanding English very well.

Cole pointed back up the steps. “The girl. The girl in the dress. Who is she?”

The bartender looked confused for a moment and still he stared at Cole.

“La chica?” Cole said it a bit louder.

Murph chimed in,“Fucking brilliant Cole, he doesn’t know English so you try Spanish in a French-speaking country?”

“Shut up Murph,” Cole said it without taking his attention away from the bartender.

“La chica?” Cole was desperate.

The bartender grinned a bit then let out a soft chuckle. “Isabella.”

Cole mouthed it to himself,
Isabella
, and the bartender laughed some more than spoke rapid French as he shook his finger at Cole and laughed.

“Merci.”
Thanks
.

It was all Cole knew of the language and the bartender nodded, walking back to a corner of the bar to mix up two more drinks. It was getting late, and the first hints of sunset painted the tops of the scattered cumulus clouds that hung over the island. Cole was tired. As the bartender brought Murph and Cole their last round, he again spoke French to Cole, who wished once more to understand what the old man was saying. After a minute, the bartender retired to a quiet corner and took a seat. No one else was moving about and the hotel seemed all but abandoned.

It was the farthest thing from Panama City, where on the other side of the Caribbean the lights and sounds were most certainly booming. Here, there was a steady breeze pushing in from the east that wafted through the open-air bar and pressed against Cole’s back. It was so quiet that he could hear the wind against the trees. Cole took a few minutes to soak it all in.

Murph finished his drink and parted ways, stumbling at times down the steps to his room. Cole did the same, down a long set to his floor, then down the same corridor to his room at the end. The whole time he thought again about turning around, but knew in his present state that he best wait until the morning. Entering his dark room, he pulled the curtains apart and slid the glass door open, stepping out onto the balcony overlooking the bay. To his left he looked out over the anchorage, with most boats entirely dark save for their anchor lights at the tops of their masts. He could hear the ripples of water slapping against their hulls and watched as they all turned slowly in rhythm with the subtle changes of the wind. The sun was setting off to the west, across the Caribbean. He thought about Panama once more, trying to keep his adventures in a positive light, but the more he fought it, the more Cole realized he’d gone too far with it all.

On the other hand, Cole felt that he could stay in a place like Martinique for a while. With his hands against the railing, he took deeper breaths and thought about Isabella. He would stay, he decided, until he had the chance to meet her. Even if she wanted nothing to do with him, he might stay longer in Martinique.

Back in his room, Cole pulled the bandage off his shoulder and looked at his newly formed scab as best he could in the mirror. It was still a bit red, but seemed to have closed up all right. With a light conscience, he turned in for the night, pulling the comforter almost over his head as he fell asleep.