More Than Paradise (6 page)

“We’ve adjusted her medication,” Dr. Winterton said. “But I’m not going to beat around the bush. At this time we can only be cautiously optimistic.”

“What are you saying?”

“She may not regain consciousness. And if she has another stroke…”

Ash tried to clear the fog swirling in her mind so she could interpret the doctor’s face and tone. He was trying to reduce the shock of bad news, circling around the naked truth while he prepared her for it. “You’re saying my sister might die?”

“I’m saying it would be wise to prepare yourself for the worst, but hope for the best. It’s too soon to make precise determinations.

However, there has been additional brain damage. Emma is in a coma.”

“Tell me what the options are.” Ash knew she sounded frantic, but she couldn’t hide her distress. “I don’t care if it’s a long shot. If there are trial drugs and the side effects aren’t terrible, I’ll sign off on that.

Anything.”

“We’re doing all we can, Ms. Evans. Maybe one day, a long time from now, new treatments will emerge from Þ elds like stem cell research and we won’t use the word ‘irreversible’ anymore.”

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“She’s been through so much.” Ash spoke her thoughts aloud.

“She doesn’t deserve this.”

The doctor’s calm brown eyes met hers. “You know, a lot of people discard a family member like Emma. They give up. Your sister may not be able to show you how much you matter, but trust me, she always responds to you. Even unconscious, she may still do so.”

“I’ll never give up on her,” Ash said emphatically. “I love her and I know who she was…is…inside.”

Dr. Winterton rose. “We’ll talk some more about her condition, but Þ rst let’s take a walk so you can see how she’s doing.”

v

The sign on the terminal said
Port Moresby. Jackson International
Air ort.
Out on the tarmac, Charlotte waited in the stiß ing heat with the other unfortunates who’d disembarked from the bumpy ß ight across the Coral Sea. She wasn’t sure why the gantries weren’t being used, or why everyone was being forced to stand out in the blazing sun, but she knew enough about her destination to understand that the mores of Western civilization did not apply in Papua New Guinea.

Thank goodness Tamsin had decided to stay in Australia for two more weeks instead of coming with her to explore a little of this remarkable land before the expedition was due to depart. To Charlotte’s surprise, her best friend seemed to be thriving among the laid-back, unpretentious Australians. They’d met a lesbian couple at Ayers Rock who had invited them to visit and really meant it. So, after their travels in the outback, they’d headed for Sydney and soon found themselves enjoying poolside barbecues with some of the friendliest people Charlotte had ever met.

No one there knew who Tamsin or her father were, and Charlotte told her to just be herself. When she was asked what she did for a living, she said she was a professional shopper, which, as Charlotte pointed out, was almost the truth. She was always shopping for her father and various pals of his in television. Last year she’d even house-hunted for one couple. And every time Charlotte wanted to buy a gift for someone difÞ cult, she always asked Tamsin’s help.

The Australians seemed to Þ nd the whole idea hilarious, and this put Tamsin at ease. She could tell stories about stores she knew well and show-business people she’d met without having to explain how

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she really came to be rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.

Charlotte had left her planning a beach party with their hosts, excited that a woman she’d met at a neighbor’s potluck was going to come.

Charlotte had also met Tamsin’s lust object, a no-nonsense equine veterinarian who made beautiful blown-glass pieces as a hobby.

Rowena Knox struck her instantly as the kind of person who would never have materialistic motives for anything. And she was hot. Tamsin had been completely giddy after they met and Charlotte found it hard not to be carried away herself. The last thing she’d expected to happen on their vacation was that Tamsin might meet someone. But as they’d lain awake on Charlotte’s last night in Sydney, Tamsin couldn’t talk about anything else.

“You just don’t know what’s around the corner,” she sighed. “This was meant to happen. I just know it.”

Wanting to keep her best friend’s feet on the ground, Charlotte said, “It’s early days. You’ll have a chance to get to know her better while I’m in New Guinea.”

“I feel like I’ve known her my whole life already,” Tamsin gushed.

Charlotte thought
Oh, God
, but she couldn’t be entirely dismissive.

She’d seen how they hit it off. There was something quite uncanny about the way Rowena related to Tamsin. She seemed to sense she was dealing with someone who was emotionally fragile, and the instant connection between them was obvious.

“Just take it slowly,” Charlotte cautioned.

“I will,” Tamsin said. “But I’m not going to run away just because things haven’t worked out for me before. I made bad choices. It doesn’t mean I can’t make a good one.”

Charlotte had thought about that comment a few times over the hours since, and she had to admire Tamsin’s persistence. She would never be the kind of person Charlotte was, able to compartmentalize her emotions and abide by self-imposed rules. She would always fall prey to her romantic dreams. Maybe the odds were Þ nally in her favor and she would Þ nd what she was looking for. Charlotte hoped so.

As for herself, she didn’t need what Tamsin needed. She’d gotten over all that and her life was exactly the way she wanted it to be. Free of drama. Entirely within her own control. And, most importantly, professionally satisfying.

Smearing beads of moisture back into her hairline, she scanned

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her surroundings. A couple of security guards loitered nearby. They carried bows and arrows instead of guns. A team of sweat-soaked men shoved push-mowers back and forth along the wide belts of lawn that separated the runways, Þ ghting a losing battle to keep the grass down.

In this hot wet climate, vegetation grew like it was on crack.

About a hundred yards away, a burned-out DC10 was parked in front of a hanger. Its body was stripped of parts and under each shelled-out wing locals had set up makeshift stalls selling drinks and souvenirs.

Their children swarmed toward the droopy passengers, hawking coconut water and fruits Charlotte recognized only because she was a botanist.

She purchased a small bag of guavas for Þ ve dollars, which, according to the weathered man standing next to her, was “daylight bloody robbery.” In a broad Australian twang, he added, “Welcome to the shithole of planet Earth. Whatever they’re paying you to come here, it’s not enough.”

Charlotte said with level dignity, “I’m with an international research expedition to the Foja Mountains.”

Dubiously, the Aussie looked her up and down. “You don’t say.”

Charlotte swatted at an insect trying to land on her mouth. She had a feeling anything she shared about the signiÞ cance of the expedition and what it meant to her would be lost on this dog-eared traveler, so she asked, “What about you—what brings you here?”

“It was this or ten years in an Aussie jail.” At her faint start, he added, “I’m not one of the bad guys. I just made a dumb mistake.”

Charlotte didn’t ask.

“The Fojas,” he mused. “Yeah. I heard about that. The lost world, right?”

“Yes. A completely undisturbed ecosystem. No human impact at all. We’re being dropped in by helicopter.”

“Good luck. How long are you planning on staying up there?”

“Two months.”

He gave a low, expressive whistle. “You know that TV show
Survivor
?”

Charlotte usually refrained from assaulting her intellect with the dross that passed for television entertainment, but she didn’t want to sound condescending, so she said, “Yes, of course.”

“They were out here scouting a location a couple of years back, but they Þ gured no one would
survive
long enough to Þ nish the show.”

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JENNIFER FULTON

Charlotte guessed he was trying to be funny and offered a smile.

“I gather it’s very difÞ cult terrain.”

“Yeah. And that’s not counting the cannibals or the Indonesian army.”

“The Fojas are not inhabited.” Charlotte tried to sound conÞ dent about that. “And we’ll be going in with local guides and a security team, so I think we’ll be Þ ne.”

He looked unimpressed. “A friendly word of advice…the genocide. Just ignore it. You don’t want to end up in an Indonesian jail for the next twenty years because you acted like a bleeding-heart do-gooder.”

Charlotte felt herself blanch. “Genocide—what genocide?”

“Exactly. Keep that up and no worries. One more thing—don’t use the ladies’ loo inside the terminal unless you want to catch cholera.” He tipped his yellowing Panama hat and strolled off into the crowd.

Charlotte considered scuttling after him to ask some more questions, but before she could assemble her wits, a small boy seized her shirt sleeve and tried to sell her a mango. He was painfully thin and appeared to be almost blind, so she bargained half-heartedly and Þ nally purchased the fruit for a crazy amount. As she peeled the mottled skin away with her pocket knife, she craned to see the Australian. He was standing twenty yards away, handing money to a guard. He then strolled off toward the terminal.

Obviously a bribe had just changed hands. Charlotte wondered what the going rate was. Right now, she’d pay most of her salary to escape the merciless sun. As soon as she had consumed the mango she was going to pay up so she wouldn’t have to die of heat exhaustion before her trip had even begun. She supposed she could have ß own into Jakarta and stayed in a decent hotel like most of the team. Instead, she’d decided to arrive early on the Papua New Guinea side of the border, to do some sight-seeing and walk the Kokoda Trail. In hindsight, she could see this was a mistake.

She Þ nished eating and cleaned the sticky juice from her hands with a Wet Wipe. It seemed the arrivals had now been ß eeced of sufÞ cient cash—the vendors were busy counting a cut of the proceeds into the hands of the security guards. A moment later she and the other passengers were herded into the open-sided hangar that passed for the airport terminal and she was assailed with a cacophony of sights and smells unlike any she’d ever experienced in a foreign country. Which

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wasn’t surprising, since she’d only traveled in Europe and Great Britain.

The arrival hall was a clamor of women carrying their babies in string sacks, Polynesian islanders with hibiscus ß owers in their hair, loud Australian men in shorts and knee socks, tall blueish black locals from the city, and short sturdy tribesmen with grass and leaves covering their butts. These indigenous people carried umbrellas—a smart idea, Charlotte thought. Their country routinely saw brilliant sun and drenching rain within the same half hour, according to all the travel guides.

There was no air-conditioning inside the grubby, foul-smelling terminal and the crowd waiting to clear passport control was a haphazard melee. A single ofÞ cial sat at a desk, casually issuing entry visas. A couple of his buddies were accepting bribes to allow people to the front of the line. American dollars were the currency du jour and after a few moments of determined disdain for corruption, and ß ea bites from an aggressive species that infested the Þ lthy carpet, Charlotte overcame her reservations and waved a twenty. This secured a berth behind a group of businessmen who gallantly offered her a spare place in their rental cars so she wouldn’t have to take one of the notorious “public motor vehicles” or PMVs, as they were known. They told her cheerfully that these were involved in fatal accidents most days of the week.

A short while later, they escaped the airport and a sign on the highway to Port Moresby bade them “Welcome to Paradise.” When the howls of laughter subsided, her fellow travelers instructed her never to go out at night, never to travel alone in the highlands, and to beware of

“rascals.” Eventually they pulled up outside the Crowne Plaza, hauled her luggage into the lobby, and wished her luck. As a whoosh of air-conditioning greeted her, Charlotte almost got down on her hands and knees in thanks. All she could think about was washing. She was only twenty-eight hours away from Boston, but she might as well have landed on another planet.

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Where was the perfect pick-up line when you needed one?

Ash contemplated the woman nursing a drink at the bar.

Alone. Gorgeous. The one beddable female in this sweltering, roach-infested dive in Port Moresby.

Are you out of your mind?
or
What the fuck are you doing here?

were the only conversation starters that sprang to mind. Ash thought this was probably a consequence of her distraction level. All she’d been able to think about since returning to PNG was Emma, alone in her big white hospital bed, surrounded by machines. After the meeting with Dr.

Winterton, Ash had extended her stay and spent every waking hour with her sister, desperate for the smallest sign of improvement. There was nothing, and knowing she could be stuck in the same limbo indeÞ nitely, she had decided to return to PNG and wind up her affairs, completing only the assignments she could not wriggle out of.

Ash hadn’t been in town for a day when Tubby Nagle, her biggest customer, chased her down for a lousy gig rescuing a copper mining executive who’d been taken hostage by a small band of so-called resistance Þ ghters. This label was applied to West Papuan landowners who got upset when their homes were destroyed, their wives and daughters raped by goon squads, and their animals killed in a process known as “resettlement”—at least by the Indonesians, who’d invaded the country back in the sixties.

Once the villagers were forced off their land and intimidated into signing timber and mining concessions, the big overseas companies moved in—BP. Rio Tinto. Freeport-McMoRan—along with them, a ß eet of Western executives who made attractive targets for the few