Jamaica Dreaming (Caribbean Heat) (18 page)

Earle’s worried face appeared on her right.

“There’s only one bed,” he said.

“It’s a studio villa.”

“You should have told me.”

“I told you not to come.” They hadn’t slept together since The Event. At first, her doctors had warned against sex until they cleared her for it. Then when they said it was okay and her physical therapist had suggested positions that would make it easier on her, she begged off and blamed it on lingering pain. When the pain went away completely, Julissa found she still had no desire for sex. She needed to heal in both mind and spirit. Making love required energy she didn’t have. As she’d explained to Earle, it was like The Event had picked her up and wrung her dry, just squeezed everything she’d been out of her and left her a dry husk, unsure of herself, unsure of who she wanted to be or of her direction in life. This was why her physical reaction to Sebastian took her by surprise. She didn’t understand why she’d felt so indifferent about making love with her fiancé back in Chicago, and yet was reacting so strongly to the tall Jamaican.

Earle hadn’t been happy with her, of course. What man would be? But he’d told her to take the time she needed. He wouldn’t press her.

He twisted around. “That chaise isn’t made for sleeping.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He marched outside to the verandah to take another look at the couch. “I guess it’s the couch, then,” he said, not sounding too happy about it.

“You could bring it inside.” She pushed herself into a sitting position. If Earle wasn’t there, she’d probably have simply crawled over to her bed but, since he was, she got slowly to her feet, sending a silent thanks to her legs for not letting her down. Literally.

“Whether I bring it inside or stay outside, I’ll still be sleeping on it. What’s the difference?”

Julissa went into the bathroom and shut the door without answering. She hadn’t asked Earle to come and, as she stared into the bathroom mirror, she realized she didn’t want him here. It wasn’t because of Sebastian, either. Well, maybe a little bit. She would have preferred if Sebastian never met or even saw Earle, but she knew that was stupid. Sebastian already knew about him, so what if they met?

She squirted out some toothpaste and began brushing her teeth. She wanted Sebastian. Every cell in her body wanted him. She’d be lying to herself if she tried to deny that but, in the end, she’d done the right thing. That was what counted, so it was irrational of her to want to keep the two men apart. But that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want Earle here in Jamaica. She’d wanted her time on the island to be
her
time. Her time to sort herself out and make some decisions about her life and what she wanted from it.

She’d made that clear to Earle before she left and during her conversations with him, but here he was. She could hear him moving around in the living room. Here he was as if he couldn’t trust her out of his life. She rinsed her mouth out and flossed. Earle wanted her to continue singing, to marry him, and to have his babies. In that order. He’d announced their engagement everywhere – on his profile on the firm’s website, on his LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, everywhere. He had a stake in whatever decisions she made.

As she crawled in between the sheets, she realized that was a good reason for him not to want her out of his sight for too long. He knew she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue singing. Maybe he thought she might change her mind about the other things as well.

A rooster crowed in the distance and Sebastian’s eyes flew open. The sight of his bare feet high in the air in front of him and the slight swaying of his bed confused him, but then he remembered where he was. At Flax Hall, in the hammock he’d strung up in his hillside cabana. He swung his feet down and looked out over the fields and fields of coffee,
his
fields. The healthy green plants with their ripening red berries filled him with a fierce pride. They had not been here when the realtor brought him up to see the place years ago. The estate had been a wasteland, just the stone ruins and hurricane–flattened trees and plants.

The house the previous owners had built was buried in mud from an avalanche higher up the mountain and nothing remained of their dreams. He’d paid the asking price though the property evaluator he’d hired had said that, as it was, the property was worth half of what its owners wanted. Everybody had warned Sebastian about how much it would take to make Flax Hall profitable again and he had listened to them, he always listened, but, in the end, he’d done it his way and now the place was a lush paradise.

He’d wanted to show it to Julissa, had planned to bring her here after the Ocho Rios concert and share his ideas for the place. He felt sure she’d have loved Flax Hall. Maybe she’d have stayed, in Jamaica, in his life. All his dreams would have come true then. They would have worked on Flax Hall together, as husband and wife. Sebastian rose fluidly to his feet. It was senseless to keep thinking and thinking about her. She was not his, and never would be. Mooning around like a love–sick puppy wouldn’t change things. He brewed himself a cup of coffee on the Coleman portable coffeemaker he’d brought with him and took a shower from the rig he’d erected under a tree. The ice–cold water felt bracing against his skin and, by the time he emerged and got dressed, the coffee was ready.

Yesterday, he’d gone to inspect how well the new pulping machines were doing but, today, he planned to go down to the lower slopes and join the pickers. He’d never done that before and Purnell had done a double take when he announced his intention, but Sebastian was looking forward to it. He had no illusions that he’d be any good at it. He knew his best pickers could pick between four hundred and five hundred pounds per day and thought he’d be doing good if he picked half as much. He just wanted to be out in the fresh mountain air, working with his hands. He’d have no time to brood among the pickers with their jokes and tall tales. Sometimes one of them would bring a radio and they’d listen to the latest reggae hits or to the commentary if a cricket game was going on.

Sebastian ate the rest of a roasted breadfruit from the night before, shoved his feet into his shoes and made his way to the barn where the workers, eight men and three women, had already lined up to collect their baskets. He greeted them each by name and grinned good–naturedly when they roared with laughter after he picked up two baskets and they saw that he really did intend to work in the fields with them.

Hours later, at lunchtime, as he lay flat on his back looking at the flowering branches of the African tulip tree above him, Sebastian reflected that his campaign to distract himself it was working. Yes, he continued to feel nervy, as if the world had tilted, but he hadn’t sunk into his thoughts in the way he knew he would have if he’d remained in Kingston or hung about the pulpery. Busy, he had to keep busy, and then it would get better. He would never forget her, of course, but time would blunt the pain’s sharpness.

That afternoon, back at the pulpery, when his two baskets were weighed, he was surprised to find he’d outdone his expectations. Sebastian patted his fifty–two pounds of coffee like a proud father. “Tomorrow, I’ll do one thousand. I was just warming up today,” he said over the laughter of his workers.

Nevin Solomon, one of his older workers, invited him to dinner with his family. Mrs. Solomon had tried to gently quiz him about his love life over a simple meal of tripe and beans, washed down with a cold Red Stripe, but Sebastian did his best to avoid her questions. He’d overnighted at Flax Hall before, but never had he involved himself in the actual work of the estate. When he told Nevin and his wife how much he’d enjoyed himself that day, they looked skeptical. Nevin had grown up and lived in Thomas Christian Gap all his life and had been a picker from the time he was a young boy. Sebastian, on the other hand, was what people in Jamaica called a ‘bigga,’ meaning he came from the upper–class but since he hadn’t, somehow, lost all his money and become penniless, why was he here on the mountain picking coffee with them?

Mrs. Solomon had watched him shrewdly and, apparently, come to the right conclusion because, when she pressed four boiled eggs and two bammies into his hands as he was leaving, she’d whispered her advice. “She’s not worth it, forget her.”

Julissa
was
worth it but Mrs. Solomon had the right idea, he had to forget her. Picking coffee helped. At the end of each day, Sebastian found himself so tired that he fell asleep as soon as he climbed into his hammock.

Three days later, Sebastian had just begun filling his second basket when his cellphone buzzed against his hip. Sebastian checked it and frowned. Lori. He’d left strict orders that he wasn’t to be contacted unless it was an emergency. Like if a tsunami was approaching, or Jamaica was invaded by the neighboring Turks and Caicos Islands.

“Yes?”

“Sebastian—” The signal faltered and he missed the next few words. “She spent the night at St. Ann’s Bay Hospital––.” The signal cut out again.

Sebastian dropped his basket and ran up the hill. “Who?” he shouted into the phone. “Lori, I can’t hear you.” But all he got was silence. Oh, Goddamn it. He felt like flinging his Blackberry into the bush or pounding it into the ground. “Lori!”

“Sebastian—hear me?”

“Lori!” he roared into the phone. “Who’s at St. Ann’s Bay?”

“Julissa.”

Sebastian’s heart plummeted to his feet. “What? What?” The mountains spun around him. He stumbled toward a nearby tree and leaned against it, drawing comfort from its solidity and the rough feel of the bark against his hand.

“She was at the rehearsal studio here in Ochie and—passed out. They couldn’t revive her. Her fiancé—anxiety attacks—cancel the concerts.”

Oh, God, what had happened to her?
“I’m coming,” he snapped into the phone. “Call Eddy and tell him to have a copter ready. I’ll be there—” He glanced at the time. It was minutes to eleven. “By twelve.”

“Okay, I—” The signal cut out again.

Sebastian looked down the hill to where the pickers moved among the coffee bushes. “Hey, Nevin,” he shouted. “You can have my baskets. I have to go.”

The old man grinned so widely Sebastian thought he could see all eighteen of his teeth. “Thanks, boss.” Sebastian paid them by the day but, at the end of each crop round, the picker who’d harvested the most berries got a bonus. Nevin used to be one of the top pickers but now that he was in his late sixties he’d slowed down. Sebastian wasn’t sure his twenty or thirty pounds from today would help put the man over the top, but it couldn’t hurt.

“All right, soon come back.” The pickers waved good–bye to him, their faces avid with curiosity. Something was going on with their boss, they knew, but they couldn’t figure out exactly what.

Sebastian gathered up his things from the cabana and strode down the dirt track to the estate office where his Mercedes was parked. Purnell wasn’t in the office but he found him at the pulpery, overseeing the loading of the day’s delivery of pulp to the mill. Sebastian explained that he had to leave in a hurry and was heading to Ocho Rios. Purnell’s expression remained neutral, but his eyes revealed that he was as curious as the pickers about what was going on.

“When will you be back?” he asked, matching Sebastian’s hurried strides to the parking lot.

“Not sure. Maybe not until you begin the re–fertilization and planting out of the new seedlings.” Coffee berries were usually harvested in two rounds to ensure they were picked at the right stage of ripeness. After all the bad or damaged berries were removed during the flotation stage they were sent to the pulpery and then, after that, to the mill, where they were dried. Work on the estate, itself, continued, however, long after all the berries were removed. That was when manure and mature compost was added to the fields, new seedlings were set out, and older trees were pruned. Flax Hall provided year–round employment for all of its workers.

“Drive good,” Purnell said, as Sebastian jumped into the SUV. Sebastian nodded. He didn’t think his manager meant drive fast but right now, fast was good.

Sebastian drove down the twisty mountain roads like a maniac, shifting gears often but, really, only slowing down near the small villages. Once, near Mavis Bank, he got stuck behind a lorry. If the roads were wider and there weren’t so many bends he’d have overtaken, but he didn’t want to risk a stupid accident. Julissa needed him. He leaned on the horn until the driver pulled to the side and let him pass.

On the Palisadoes, he allowed the Mercedes’s speedometer to climb to eighty. Before he reached the main terminal, he turned down on the road leading to the private section of the airport. Theresa Morton, one of the three pilots with his friend Eddy’s outfit, Executive Air Services, stood by a black and silver helicopter chatting to a mechanic in yellow overalls.

In minutes, Sebastian had strapped himself in next to her and they were rising into the sky above Kingston. He usually made small talk with whichever pilot was flying but, after asking Theresa how her family was doing, Sebastian lapsed into a morose silence. Julissa had been terrified of having another anxiety attack, one that was so debilitating she couldn’t fulfill her contractual obligations. Or, worse, that struck while she was on stage, revealing her weakness to all. Sebastian’s fingers twined around each other as he stared, unseeing, out of the helicopter’s windshield.

Perhaps he should never have left her. Perhaps if he’d stayed she’d have been all right or, if not all right, at least he could have been there for her. Lori would have done the best she could and Carly and Winston, too, but they didn’t care for Julissa the way he did. Nobody could, not even her fiancé. He was sure of that. Suddenly, he remembered Lori mentioning Earle’s name. The connection had dropped and he couldn’t hear what she said right after, but why had she mentioned him? Surely, he wasn’t in Jamaica?