Right Place, Wrong Time (6 page)

“I live down in Chelsea now,” she told him. “You know the city?”

“Sort of.” He smiled sheepishly and hoped she wouldn’t quiz him. “I live in Arlington. That’s in the northwest corner of Connecticut.”

“Yeah. I know it.” She used the plastic shovel to dig the trench deeper. A murky puddle of water lingered at the bottom. “So where’s the rest of your group?”

“Shopping. I thought I’d come back and enjoy a little beach time.” He glanced toward the snorkeling gear by the palm tree. “Did you visit Coki Beach?”

“Not today. We just snorkeled around here. They rent equipment for the whole week. The guy at the cabana said we should try to get over to St. John. There’s this underwater snorkeling trail there. I can’t imagine snorkeling along an underwater trail.”

“It’s supposed to be amazing.” He wondered whether he’d be able to separate Kim from her Visa card long enough to take her snorkeling at Trunk Bay on St. John. Paul had told him he
had
to go there. He’d hate to go alone, though.

And he couldn’t go with Gina. Not when she looked the way she did in a swimsuit.

“I’m figuring we’ll try Coki Beach tomorrow. We saw some fish here. Not a lot, but Alicia was pretty excited.”

Ethan did a little desultory one-handed digging while he sipped his beer. “You want some?” he asked, extending the bottle to her.

She flickered a glance toward the bottle, then zeroed in on Alicia again. “Thanks,” she said, letting him place the bottle into her hand so she wouldn’t have to look away from her niece. “It’s hot out here. We brought some sodas down to the beach, but we finished them a while ago.”

“Beer is better,” he said. She smiled her agreement.

Down by the water, Alicia straightened up, clutching the rim of the bucket. Gina handed the bottle back to Ethan and watched her niece pick a path across the beach, sloshing water with each step. By the time she reached them, she looked upset. “I spilled too much of it,” she said, a sob making her voice wobbly.

“That’s okay, sweetie. Pour it in and I’ll get the next one.”

Ethan wanted to argue. He’d barely begun talking to her; he wasn’t ready for her to run off. And he definitely wasn’t ready to shoot the breeze with a little girl. But who would be the water carrier wasn’t his decision to make. Gina rose, lifted the pail from Alicia’s hands as soon as she’d emptied it into the trench, and stalked
across the beach, her hips swaying as her heels sank into the sand.

Alicia threw herself back into the labor of digging. Ethan took another sip of beer and observed her. “We snorkeled today,” Alicia told him as she flung sand to one side.

“Your aunt told me. She said you saw some fish.”

“They were white. Kind of silvery. The color of angels,” Alicia told him. “I wanted to snorkel forever, but I swallowed some water and started coughing, and Aunt Gina said we had to take a break.”

“You’ve got a whole week,” Ethan pointed out. “You can go snorkeling again tomorrow.”

“Where’s the lady?” Alicia asked.

He assumed she meant Kim. “She’s in Charlotte Amalie. That’s the big town on the other side of the island.”

“Do they have snorkeling there?”

“No. What they have there is shopping.”

Alicia wrinkled her nose. She obviously didn’t think much of shopping. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“Yes,” Ethan said, feeling noble and virtuous for having gotten that established, even if he hadn’t established it with Gina. She’d surely figured it out. And now the kid knew, too.

“My daddy has a girlfriend,” Alicia said, bringing him up short.

“Does he?” Perhaps her mother was dead, or her parents were divorced.

Or perhaps they weren’t. “It makes my mommy very mad,” Alicia said.

“I would imagine,” he agreed faintly.

“I don’t think she’s as pretty as your girlfriend,” Alicia continued matter-of-factly. “I haven’t seen her, but
the way my mommy talks about her…Sometimes my mommy uses bad words. I hate that.”

“I remember.” Ethan recalled Alicia’s howls yesterday when anyone uttered a
damn
or a
hell
. He toyed with the label on his bottle and searched the water for Gina, eager for her to return. Compared with this conversation, his political debates with Ross Hamilton had been a piece of cake.

“Aunt Gina is my mommy’s sister,” Alicia went on. “That’s what an aunt is—your mother’s sister. Or your father’s sister. Do you have any aunts?”

“Yes.” He spotted Gina straightening up, clutching the replenished bucket. Good. In less than a minute, she’d be back to rescue him.

“Are they as nice as Aunt Gina?”

“No. Aunt Gina seems extra nice.” Every step that carried her toward him made her seem even nicer.

“She is. Extra extra nice. Extra extra
extra
.” She greeted Gina’s arrival with a big smile. When Gina emptied the water into the trench, Alicia let out a whoop. “Look, Aunt Gina! It’s staying. We dug deep enough! The water isn’t all soaking in!”

Ethan rose onto his knees and peered into the trench. A nice pool of water stretched below the bridge. “Hey,” he said admiringly.

“All right!” Gina slapped Alicia’s hand in congratulations, then slapped Ethan’s, too. Her touch startled him. Her palm was slick and cool with water, her fingers slender, her wrist graceful. She wore a ring on her thumb, braided strands of silver in a pattern identical to the ring on her toe.

The brief contact obviously meant nothing. She was just celebrating their engineering feat. Because Ethan
was there, she included him in the celebration. That was all.

Yet the cool texture of her skin and the exuberance behind her gesture stayed with him, long after she and Alicia had moved on to bolstering the bridge, decorating it with shells and strands of grass, analyzing the feasibility of importing some of those angel-colored fish to swim in their tiny version of New York Harbor.

Sipping his beer and listening to their bubbly chatter, Ethan felt the impact of Gina’s hand against his and contemplated the tide as it tugged the sand, shaped the shoreline and left beach reconfigured, rearranged—almost unrecognizable. Tides could be dangerous, he thought. Extra extra
extra
dangerous. He’d better be careful.

Yet he closed his hand, as if he could hold Gina’s touch inside it forever.

E
VER SINCE HER RUN-IN
with the nuns at Our Lady of Mercy at the age of thirteen, Gina hadn’t been particularly religious. But she believed in God—and if she hadn’t, snorkeling at Coki Beach would have turned her into a believer.

The beach itself was nothing much, just a strip of sand, a few picnic tables, a man operating a kiosk from which he sold grilled sausages and citrus punch, and a couple of local women who’d set up a hair-braiding enterprise in the shade of a looming old tree. Alicia had asked if she could have braids done, and Gina had paid one of the women to add two delicate braids, tipped with beads the color of the sea, to the hair behind Alicia’s right ear. Another kiosk offered snorkeling equipment for rent, but Gina had brought the gear they’d rented at Palm Point.

She’d also brought Ethan and Kim—or, more accurately, Ethan and Kim had brought her and Alicia. Grateful for the lift, Gina had packed extra peanut-butter sandwiches, fruit-juice boxes and grapes, happy to cater lunch for everyone in return for the free ride.

Kim hadn’t seemed overjoyed with the plan, but she’d gone along with it. Her parents were apparently spending the day playing tennis and golf, and Kim had seemed torn about having to choose between those activities and snorkeling. Ethan had told her that whether or not she
joined him, he intended to snorkel—“I can play tennis at the club in Connecticut, for God’s sake,” he’d argued, just loudly enough that Gina couldn’t help overhearing him, even though he and Kim were in their ocean-view bedroom and Gina and Alicia were in the kitchen when this quarrel had taken place. By the time Kim had emerged with Ethan from their room, she’d been wearing a swimsuit and a resentful pout.

Once they’d arrived at the beach, though, she’d dutifully donned the mask and flippers Ethan had provided, and they’d gone into the water together. Gina had watched them kick away from the shoreline, then helped Alicia put on her equipment and followed them in.

The water was as clear as teal-tinted glass, and it swarmed with fish. Blue fish. Yellow fish. Violet fish. Iridescent fish that shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow whenever they swam through a wavering shaft of sunlight. Fish that skittered in and out of coral formations, ducked behind sea plants and sometimes swam right up to Gina’s nose and stared at her, as if trying to determine whether she was one of them.

I am, I am!
she wanted to shout—although she wasn’t sure fish had ears. But she felt as if she were just another fish—a big, clumsy, gill-less one, but in some humble way a part of their magical world. Of course God existed, she thought. The tranquil beauty of all these fish letting Gina and a score of other humans snorkel in their territory proved it. How could a place this beautiful and peaceful exist if God hadn’t created it?

She managed to keep track of Alicia while she swam among the glorious fish. Alicia wore her bright orange swimsuit, which made her quite visible in the water, and she frequently bobbed her head above the surface and hollered, “Aunt Gina! Over here! Look at this!” Her
cries would invariably attract half a dozen other snorkelers, who would all converge wherever Alicia was standing in time to see a vivid purple-and-orange fish scoot away, no doubt startled by the sudden crowd. Gina didn’t mind, though. Whenever a few minutes passed without Alicia’s giving a yell, Gina would surface and scan the inlet to locate Alicia and make sure she was safe.

Ethan seemed as taken by the underwater world as Gina was. He wouldn’t yell to get her attention, but every now and then he would swim over to her, his feet pumping in his long black flippers, nudge her shoulder and point. Together they would watch a hole in the coral until some wondrously colored creature would emerge. Then Ethan would smile at her around his breathing tube and swim off.

He looked damn good in a swimsuit. Not that she noticed or anything.

Kim looked good in a swimsuit, too. Kim would probably look good in a ratty bathrobe, torn stockings and hair rollers. Gina knew a fair number of models through work, but they tended not to be quite so beautiful. In person, they were often emaciated, and they also usually had some odd feature—knife-sharp cheekbones, perhaps, or a bumpy nose, or collagen-plumped lips. The New York fashion world loved slightly weird faces. Kim would never make it as a model; she was much too classically pretty.

She left the water a good half hour before Gina, Alicia and Ethan were ready to break for lunch. Actually, Gina would have been happy to skip lunch and remain in the muted, glittery world of the fish, tasting salt on the rubbery mouthpiece of her breathing tube and feeling her ears rush and pop with water. But eventually Alicia
yanked on the strap of her mask and announced that she was starving, so Gina reluctantly abandoned her sacred fish for a sandwich.

She spotted Kim at one of the picnic tables, her wet hair combed back from her face and a book open in her lap. Gina wrestled out of her flippers, then helped Alicia off with hers. They stalked across the hot sand to the table, underneath which Gina had left her tote with the sandwiches, fruit and drinks. “We’re hungry,” Alicia declared.

Kim gave them a supercilious glance, then tucked a bookmark into her book. “Don’t splash water on the pages,” she chided Alicia. Gina glimpsed the book’s title:
A Buyer’s Guide to Diamonds
. Not exactly her idea of light vacation reading.

She wrapped a towel around Alicia, then draped a second towel over her own shoulders. Tugging off her mask and snorkel tube, she felt the snaggles in her hair. Had she thought to toss a comb into the tote? She didn’t think so, but no big deal. She’d just be going back into the water after lunch.

“Wow!” Ethan’s voice drifted toward her from behind. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him jogging up the beach, his mask perched on the crown of his head and his flippers dangling from one hand. His chest was sleek with water and lean muscle, and the wet fabric of his swimsuit lay pasted to his thighs and hips in a way that was just this side of obscene. Gina wished he would turn around so she could check out his buns. He belonged to Kim; she knew that. But a woman was allowed to look, wasn’t she?

“Isn’t it cool?” Alicia said, climbing up onto a bench. “Did you see those fish with all the colors on them? They
glowed!
”

“They were pretty special,” Ethan agreed, sliding onto the bench across from Alicia and next to Kim, whom he gave a swift kiss. She shrank from him and held her book away, evidently worried that he would drip water onto it. His hair appeared as messy as Gina’s felt, sticking out in all directions and spraying droplets of water every time he moved his head.

“All I’ve got is peanut butter,” Gina said, unpacking the sandwiches from her tote. “And grapes. And lots of juice.”

“I’m not hungry,” Kim said. She hadn’t done as much swimming as the others, and maybe she’d eaten a huge breakfast. Or maybe she was counting her calories, although her body, like the rest of her, appeared flawless to Gina. Then again, if Gina had packed a picnic of Brie and truffles, Kim might suddenly discover she had an appetite. Peanut butter was probably too déclassé for her.

She did help herself to a few grapes. Gina, Alicia and Ethan attacked the sandwiches and juice. “I couldn’t find an octopus,” Alicia said. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

“Did you see all those coral formations?” Gina asked both her and Ethan. “It’s amazing to think they’re created by teeny little animals.”

Alicia seemed troubled. “What teeny animals?”

“They’re so teeny you can’t see them,” Gina explained. “I can’t believe that snorkeling trail in St. John could be better than this. Thanks so much for bringing us, Ethan.”

“Hey, I’m enjoying myself, too,” he assured her.

Kim sniffed.

“You guys don’t have to stay here on our account,” Gina said, aware that Kim wasn’t overly thrilled about
the whole experience. “We can find our own way back to Palm Point, if you want to leave.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Ethan assured her. Kim glared at him but said nothing.

Alicia tore off a sprig of grapes from the bunch at the center of the table. “I wanna go back in the water,” she said between grapes. “And it’s not true that you can get cramps if you go in the water too soon after eating. My friend Stephanie said her father said so. And he’s like a scientist or something.”

“Not that I want to cast aspersions on Stephanie’s father,” Gina said, “but it wouldn’t kill you to stay out of the water a few minutes so you can digest your lunch.”

Alicia frowned. “What are you going to cast?”

“Aspersions. And I’m
not
going to cast them.”

“Excursions? What’s that?”

A hot wind rattled the palms overhead. Gina grinned and shook her head. “Never mind. If you can’t sit still, you can collect shells for a few minutes. No snorkeling until I say so.”

“I can go in myself!” Alicia had obviously figured out why Gina was preventing her from swimming. Cramps or no cramps, Gina wouldn’t let her go in the water alone.

“No, you can’t. It’s a rule. Even grown-ups don’t go in by themselves.” Gina glanced toward Kim and Ethan, hoping for support, but they didn’t say anything. Gina turned back to Alicia. “Why don’t you collect some shells? Bring me back the prettiest shells you find, okay?”

Alicia made little attempt to hide her irritation as she slipped off the bench and stomped across the sand.

Kim leaned toward Ethan and whispered something.
Great. As if Gina didn’t feel bad enough for having forbidden Alicia from returning to the water, now she was going to have to finish her sandwich while the lovebirds cooed and nuzzled each other.

It wasn’t exactly nuzzling, really. Kim tucked her head close to Ethan’s so she could murmur things to him, and he tilted his head to give her better access to his ear, but Gina didn’t see any kissing. Not that she was looking closely. She was too busy choking down the last couple of bites of her sandwich. A few sips of juice, and she’d join Alicia on seashell patrol.

Before she could lift her juice box to her mouth, Alicia came racing back to their table, her feet churning the sand and the two narrow braids behind her ear dancing, the beads bouncing like blue bubbles against the dark background of her hair. “Aunt Gina! Aunt Gina! Guess what I saw?”

Gina was so grateful to Alicia for rescuing her from the lovebirds she lowered her juice box and struck a thoughtful pose. “An orangutan?” she guessed.

Alicia pulled a don’t-be-silly face. “No! It’s—”

“No, let me guess. A zeppelin?”

“A lizard!” Alicia told her. “A big green lizard!”

“I bet it’s an iguana,” Ethan said.

Gina eyed him, surprised. She hadn’t realized he’d been listening.

“It’s really big and funny-looking,” Alicia announced, yanking on Gina’s hand as if she could pull Gina’s attention back to her. “Hurry, Aunt Gina, come look at him before he runs away.”

Gina had never seen an iguana before—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to see one now. But she bravely stood and let Alicia drag her across the beach. A shadow stretched beside her, and when she glanced to her left
she saw Ethan loping to catch up to them. “Kim’s a wimp,” he said, “but I want to see the iguana.”

“How do you know it’s an iguana?” Alicia asked. “It could be a dinosaur.”

“I don’t think so.” He flashed a smile at her. “Iguanas are indigenous to the region.”

“What does that mean?”

“They live here,” Gina explained.

Alicia halted. “It’s right over there,” she said, lowering her voice to a near whisper as she pointed toward an outcrop surrounded by scrubby beach grass and ferns. Perched upon the rock, basking in the sun, was a large lime-colored creature, as grotesque in appearance as the fish had been beautiful. Its skin reminded Gina of textured vinyl, its head was circled in green fringes that resembled the collar a court jester might wear in a Renaissance castle and its tail draped over the rock, long and wiry.

Gina flinched. It was truly a vile-looking beast. Now that she’d viewed it from only a few feet away, it would probably be starring in her nightmares for years to come.

“Yuck,” she muttered, then pivoted on her heel and stalked back to the picnic table, at which Kim sat with her book spread open but her gaze on the rock where Alicia had discovered the monster. Her smile was quizzical as Gina collapsed onto the bench and hugged her arms around herself. “That was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?” Kim laughed, but she seemed sympathetic. “I don’t like insects. I figured I wouldn’t like iguanas, either.”

“It was scary. Ugly enough to creep me out.” Gina gave a shudder, then reached for her abandoned juice box. She took a deep sip through the straw and wished
the apple juice were applejack, or something even stronger, something to help her recover from the sight of that horrid lizard.

By the rock, Ethan had hunkered down to eye level with Alicia. Gina could see his mouth moving, but he was too far away for her to hear the words. “He’s an environmental nut,” Kim said. “He runs the Gage Foundation, an organization that gives grants to protect habitats.”

Gina nodded, impressed. She wouldn’t have figured him for that kind of career. He seemed like such a white-bread businessman, as upper-crust as Kim and her snotty parents.

“He actually thinks insects are interesting.” Even wrinkling her nose, Kim looked adorable. “I guess I’ll have to get used to his weird interests once we get married.”

“You’re engaged?” Gina asked, eyeing Kim’s left hand. No ring, but she
was
reading that book about diamonds.

Kim wiggled her fingers. “We’ll probably pick a ring out down here. The jewelry stores offer fabulous discounts. And of course everything’s duty-free. That was the main reason I jumped at the chance to come to St. Thomas. I mean, St. Thomas in July?” She wrinkled her nose adorably again. “But I figured the shopping would be great.”

“I guess.” Gina enjoyed shopping well enough. She wasn’t a diamond sort of girl, though. She liked her jewelry funky, and if she ever had a lot of money to blow on earrings and necklaces, she’d go for handcrafted Native American designs. She was a real sucker for silver-and-turquoise.