Stone - Big Girls & Bad Boys (19 page)

Sleep came easily having not slept the night prior but it was not pleasant, restful sleep. I had dreams I couldn’t remember but the feelings they left me with were familiar. Guilt, longing, unease and weariness. I awoke physically rested but mentally drained. But work demanded I get up and do my duty. There were invoices to generate, spreadsheets to update and ledgers to balance. And so, I threw myself into it.

“Looks like the system is down. We’ll probably have to come in Saturday to catch up,” my supervisor announced. She wasn’t a bad person, just doing her job, but I hated what she represented. She was authority and authority was demanding. Allied Chemical, the deity I’d chosen to pray to for my daily bread, demanded continual sacrifices. The pay was phenomenal, the benefits generous but I sacrificed much to earn those.

I put my head in my hands and sighed. I felt numb to it. More sacrifice on the altar of expectations. More martyrdom in the name of success as dictated by others. But inside, a pitched battle was being waged. The Erin I had met and become familiar with in Jamaica, the woman that longed to be back there right now, in Rick’s arms, showing off my less than perfect body without a care in the world, was fighting back. I could not yet discern what was happening but I could feel that the matter was not settled.

Weeks passed and the feeling of uneasiness grew. Each day, the practiced routine of climbing from bed became more difficult. I felt sick, depressed and listless. I knew what it was. I wasn’t ill. I wasn’t suffering from real depression. I wasn’t actually fatigued, as evidenced by my time at the gym. Not physically anyway. I finally got a whole, honest to goodness weekend off at work and that time alone would be my undoing, or rather, my rebirth.

Rick had occupied a larger and larger part of my thoughts as of late. I had even dared to fantasize about leaving all of this behind and returning to him but it was just a fiction. A momentary lapse of reason. But as the weekend passed, my longings finally broke through the lines and I openly admitted that Rick was right. I should have stayed. There, with him, I was happy and it wasn’t a temporary fling. Rick, as I came to discover, meant so much more to me than I could admit at the time.

But he was lost to me. I knew where he lived but had no idea how to contact him. And even if I did, what was I going to say? That he was right but that I was still in Chicago and wasn’t prepared to leave. What good would that do? I couldn’t ask him to join me and I doubt he would have agreed if I had. Rick had paid a heavy toll in the past to live the life I did now. His mind, body and soul were damaged by it and now I could see that so were mine. My wounds weren’t as deep but they were there.

“So, why don’t you chuck all this and go to him, Erin?” I asked myself out loud and then looked around my apartment as if someone might be listening.

“Because, I don’t even know if he’s still there,” I answered, feeling a bit self-conscious about talking to myself but doing it anyway.

“But what if he is?” I asked.

“He’s probably seducing some other girl into becoming his island lover,” I told myself and the thought cut through me like a knife. I wanted to be his island lover.

“I’ll never know unless I go find out?” I said, but couldn’t help but wonder what if he wasn’t still there? My God, I could have already lost him forever. I was beginning to regress back to where I had been. I was already making excuses not to go find out. It was for the best, I told myself. I’d only get hurt, I thought. But then, something that had not yet occurred to me wiggled its way into my mind.

“Am I doing this for Rick or am I doing this for me?” I wondered, aloud again. That single question and the possibilities it suggested turned my whole world upside down in a moment’s time. I had been thinking of this in terms of Rick. Suddenly, he was just a part of the equation and not a necessary one. Oh, I wanted him desperately. To be sure, I wanted to be there in his shack making love to him, getting a massage while I smoked pot on his patio watching him make me dinner. But there was more to it.

This wasn’t about him. I came to realize this was about me. I didn’t have to choose between Rick or my dreary life in Chicago. That was a false choice. It was Rick or it wasn’t but how I chose to live my life was a separate issue. I didn’t need him to change my path. I just needed to decide I didn’t want to live this way any longer and I didn’t. I hated my life. It seemed so glamorous when I was young. Get a degree, get a good job, make money, live in the city, it was such a fantastic dream. But the reality was far different.

I had lost Erin to the hungry machine that demanded more and more of me for less and less reward. Money was nice but it couldn’t buy happiness if earning it drained everything from me. All my possessions were more a prison than anything. The payments were keeping me here and every time I spent more money, I became more firmly dependent on my job. That job, in turn, kept me firmly rooted in Chicago, a place I had come to loathe. The noise, the people, the hustle and bustle.

In a vacuum, it was tolerable. But in contrast to my time spent with Rick in Jamaica, Chicago was a little bit of hell. My mind raced. I could get out of my lease on the apartment. My car was kept in a garage and had almost no miles on it. I could sell it. My other stuff, hell, I could give it away to charity if need be. I had a little bit of money in the bank. I could cash out my retirement accounts. The idea was crazy. It was rash. It was probably stupid. But despite that, it felt right.

Damn it, I was going to do it. I was really going to drop out of the rat race and go find Rick. I was going to do it in any case regardless of what happened with the man I met in Jamaica, but I wanted to be with Rick. I wanted to get to know him better. I wanted to see where our relationship took us. And if he was gone I figured if I really loved him, I’d find a way to track him down. I stopped for a moment, stopped the sudden flurry of planning and possibilities, and realized I felt, for the first time since I left Rick and Jamaica behind, happy. I was smiling like a fool and giggling to myself. And it felt amazing.

>>O<<

My stomach churned as the taxi turned down the gravel road where Rick lived. I had landed hours earlier with two bags and not so much as a room reservation. I was scared out of my wits and I loved it. It felt exciting and dangerous but it wasn’t the same kind of fear I felt when I left Rick. It was a delicious kind of fear. The kind of fear that told me I was living right for once in my life.

The taxi pulled up and I paid the driver, handing him a hundred dollar bill to cover the seventy-five dollar ride plus a tip. He smiled and thanked me. I wished I wouldn’t have let the driver go. I walked around the back of Rick’s shack and the patio was empty. No chairs, no grill, nothing. Then I had a sinking feeling as I noticed the wooden sailboat was gone. I had a little panic attack. I imagined Rick was sailing the Caribbean already and I’d lost him.

Then I wondered if he already had somebody else. It had been nearly three months since I watched him ride off on his rickety scooter. I didn’t have anywhere to stay. I was essentially homeless though I had plenty of money to get a place. But I didn’t come here to spend another night at a resort. I took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cry and curse my stupidity when I heard a voice.

“Ma’am?” the middle aged woman greeted me in a thick Jamaican accent.

“Yes?” I replied.

“You be lookin’ for dat man that lived here?” she asked me.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am,” I replied a glimmer of hope appearing on the horizon.

“He gone. He took dat boat and went away,” she said. Hope faded.

“When?” I asked.

“Not two days ago,” she replied. Damn it. I could have come three days ago but I waited to get a cheaper fare. Now I’d missed Rick. But then the woman lifted my spirits higher than I’d imagined they could ever go. “He said if you show up to let you know dat he anchored off shore near where he met you,” she told me.

“Oh my God! I love you,” I exclaimed and hugged the poor woman. She took it in stride. “Sorry. I wish that taxi was still here. I guess I can walk. It’s not far,” I said to myself as much as to the woman.

“No, you come wit me,” she said and walked away. Did she have a car? I followed, bags towed behind me. She didn’t have a car. She had Rick’s scooter. She helped me tie my bags to the back of the seat, then I thanked her and rode off, shaky at first but determined to find Rick or die trying. And that wasn’t hyperbole considering the busy highway ahead.

I managed, however, and when I got to the jerk shack where Rick and I had met, I left the scooter sitting on the side of the road, untied my bags and made my way through the trees to the beach. I scanned the water looking for Rick’s boat, already wondering how I might get his attention or even get to his boat. Swim maybe? I didn’t know but I was going to figure it out. I marched towards the water and spied his boat bobbing lazily in the waves.

“Want some chicken?” came a familiar voice from behind me. I turned and there was Rick with a plate full of jerk chicken and fries at the Beachside Bar & Grill. I wanted to cry on the inside but on the outside, I played it cool. I was in Jamaica, after all.

“Do I really look that desperate?” I asked playfully.

“As a matter of fact, you do. Where are you staying?” Rick asked as if we were meeting for the first time.

“I heard there was a beach bum turned boat’s captain looking for a first mate,” I replied boldly. I wondered for a second if maybe he already had a first mate. Then again, he suspected I’d be looking for him and left a message and his scooter for me so it was probably an irrational fear.

“Pay sucks but the fringe benefits are out of this world,” Rick told me.

“So, I’ve been lead to believe. I suppose I could see my way to giving it a shot. Not that I don’t have dozens of offers already...and I don’t,” I said. Rick smiled.

“Willy, another order, please,” Rick said, turning toward the jerk shack.

“Hi, Willy,” I greeted the man behind the counter. A Red Stripe too, please,” I added.

“Yes, ma’am. Glad to see you again,” Willy replied.

“Glad to be back,” I answered.

“For good?” Rick asked.

“Better be, because I quit my job, gave up my lease and cleaned out my retirement accounts,” I told him.

“About time,” Rick replied.

“I’m a slow learner but it seems you already knew,” I said.

“Suspected, hoped maybe? Sure. But I didn’t know, not for sure,” he admitted.

“Hope is enough,” I said. Willy brought out my beer and another plate of chicken. I tried to get money out of my wallet but Rick shook his head.

“I got it,” he said, pulled a twenty out of his shorts and handed it to Willy. “Keep it, my friend,” Rick told him.

“Thank you, sir. Enjoy,” Willy said and went back to his counter.

“For a beach bum, you sure do pick up the check a lot,” I observed.

“I live a simple life. I’m not poor, I just choose to live that way,” he said.

“Well, I’m not poor either but throwing twenties around like you do and I soon will be,” I said.

“How much did you cash out?” Rick asked.

“All together, after selling my car and some possessions, about a hundred grand,” I said. Sounded like a lot, even now, but I knew it wouldn’t take long to chew through it if I wasn’t careful.

“I have about ten times that.  I just don’t spend it very often,” Rick told me smugly. I felt my jaw go slack.

“You son of a...all this time I thought you were poor,” I replied.

“I was...until I met you,” he said. OK, that was nice but way too much.

“You’re trying too hard,” I teased.

“Am I?” he asked playfully.

“Stick to what you're good at. Massages. Oh, and that thing you did with your tongue...you know,” I replied. Rick chuckled.

“Good thing I don’t enforce the sexual harassment rules on my vessel,” he joked.