The Coconut Beach Bar was a grill and hangout in Cane Garden Bay. It was a laid-back place that played reggae music while we had lunch on an outdoor covered deck. I had suggested we eat there after I saw that they served chocolate banana cream pie. I had to see for myself if it was better than mine. Santiago and Monica went shopping, so it was just us girls.
The Caribbean jerk chicken was incredible, although they’d used a few more Scotch bonnet peppers than I would have. Hoo! “Da migh ha may your Top Ten,” I told Killian, fanning my tongue with a napkin.
“You think?” She winced and bit into a burger.
“Yeth,” I said. Killian’s nudie show was definitely one of her best performances, right up there with teetering off the ship’s guard rail à la Titanic.
Alma cracked her knuckles. “Daring, yet alluring. Killian’s ready for prime time. Right, Yoli?”
Yoli just rolled her eyes, sipping on her water with lemon.
“What did Tyler say when he came up to you?” I asked Killian. We hadn’t talked about this while Yoli’s brother and sister-in-law were around.
“Nothing. He wanted to see what I was doing later, if I wanted to hang out again.”
“Mm-hm,” Alma muttered. “‘Hang out.’”
Killian slapped Alma’s shoulder. “Yes, hang out. You have a problem?”
“None whatsoever,” she muttered, picking at her teeth.
“So where are we going from here? We have until six,” I said.
Yoli pulled out a pamphlet from her beach bag. “They have something called Dolphin Encounter, where we could swim with the dolphins.”
“Tourist crap.” Killian sipped from her drink.
“Everything is tourist crap,” Yoli said. “We’re tourists. So are half the people here.”
“True. But I don’t think the dolphins would survive Killian,” I said with a smile.
Killian looked genuinely hurt. “What would I do to the poor dolphins?”
“You would flash them, for one,” Alma said straight into her plate of island BBQ chicken and ribs.
I giggled. “Yes, you might kill them with your heat seekers.”
“I do not have heat seekers.” Killian thumped the table with her hand.
“So does that mean we’re not going to see the dolphins, then?” Yoli interjected.
“Those puppies looked pretty alert to me,” I continued, but I could see that Yoli was bothered that nobody was listening to her.
Killian jutted out her chest and lifted her boobs with her hands. “They did, didn’t they?”
I looked out at the dusty road and saw a girl in a mesh sundress rushing up the steps to our restaurant, clinging to a beach bag, pushing her sunglasses over her knotted hair. I almost didn’t recognize her with her chest covered. It was Tyler’s Booby Girl. Her friends waited by the road. She went right up to our table and stopped. “Let me tell you something… .” She pointed a finger at Killian.
What’s this?
“Learn some respect, okay?” She used her hands to accent the okay.
Killian leaned back in her seat. “Do I know you?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to,” Booby Girl threatened.
I checked out Alma’s face, midbite of a sparerib, eyes glaring up intently. Uh-oh. Down, Alma… . Easy, girl. I was very familiar with this look. The first time I saw it was when she was only twelve, two seconds before she charged at her stepfather after he’d yelled at her mom. But so far,except for Grandma Golden Bag in port the other day, she had behaved herself pretty well.
Killian just laughed. Which did not go over well with our intruder.
Booby Girl got close into Killian’s face, quickly becoming Psycho Chick. “Sí, go ahead and laugh, puta, but the next time you pull a trick like that … Don’t think I’m stupid; I know exactly what you were trying to do—let me tell you, that boy is with me!”
“Puta?” Alma dropped her sparerib.
Oh, shit.
“Did you just call my friend puta, as in slut?”
Oh, shitty shit.
Killian put a hand softly on Alma’s arm. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie.”
“Alma, don’t… .” I could hear Yoli’s voice somewhere in the background. Something about it not being worth it.
Psycho Chick swerved her head a bit and put a hand on her hip. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Okay, listen,” I interrupted. “We were having a private lunch here.”
“And I was having a private thing with that guy.”
“On a public beach?” I knew I was asking for it, but come on, did she not know the definition of private?
“Tyler,” Killian sang, her face all happy as if there were no hostility here at all.
The girl’s eyebrows told us she didn’t know who the hell this Tyler person was.
“His name’s Tyler.” Killian laughed. In her face, I might add. “You didn’t even know that, did you?”
Psycho Chick put her nose a millimeter from Killian’s face. “Laugh at me one more time, come mierda… .” Then she lifted a long-nailed hand and shoved Killian’s left shoulder hard enough almost to knock her off the edge of her chair.
Suddenly, Alma was out of her seat, reaching across the table to shove the girl back a few feet. “Take your fake titties and your nasty attitude out of here and hop it back to the ship!”
Holy crap!
One of the girl’s friends was suddenly there, tugging on her friend’s sleeve. “Let’s go. Just leave the stupid bitch alone.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Where were these people raised?
“These people” seemed to include Alma, who tossed her chair aside and, I swear, flew at the girls, until Killian and our waiter both tried to get in the middle. It all happened so fast, I couldn’t tell what was going on. All I knew was that there was a lot of yelling, and we were going to get kicked out of here for sure.
“Alma!” I yelled. Yoli came over and helped me pry Alma’s hands from Psycho Chick’s hair. Killian’s arm was somewhere between my face and a handful of black locks.
Somehow, the girls managed to free themselves. They backed down the steps. “Just watch out, puta, unless you want to get hurt. That’s all I’m saying.” Psycho Chick spoke between heavy gulps of air. “And keep your bitch on a leash.” She spit on the deck. She actually spit on the deck!
Alma surged forward again, but Killian and I had a pretty good hold on her, so that was the end of that. I looked around and saw that people were watching, but now that it was over, they went back to eating, quietly discussing the lunchtime entertainment.
The reggae music was still playing happily, like nothing had happened.
Our waiter asked if we wanted anything else to drink. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t kicking us out. “You should have ripped her hair out,” he said with a local accent.
“I tried,” Alma said, chugging down the rest of her Coke. “But these fools wouldn’t let me.”
“Well, we didn’t want you getting yourself killed,” I said, all of a sudden remembering stupid Madame Fortuna again and her stupid prediction. Maybe Killian and I had just succeeded in preventing it from happening. Maybe now we could finally forget about it.
“So you guys are worried about me killing dolphins with my breasts?” Killian snorted. “When Beast here is attacking people?”
“Me?” Alma put a hand to her chest. “You attacked her too!”
“Yeah, but only because you started it.”
“She started it!” Alma barked. “Because of your striptease! Maybe if you would stop causing problems everywhere we go, Killian, I wouldn’t have to defend you all the time.”
Killian stared at Alma, not sure if she was kidding or not. It wasn’t like Alma to get mad at her. Yoli or me, maybe, but not at Killian. “Well, I never asked for anyone to defend me.”
Alma reached into her bag and pulled out yet another cigarette. She put it to her lips then fished around for her lighter. “You know what? You’re right. From now on, you’re on your own.” The cigarette bobbed up and down as she spoke. She found her lighter, lit it, and breathed in deeply.
Definitely stress.
Yoli pulled some cash from her bag and plopped it on the table. She stood up.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the ship.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because what? Don’t listen to them, Yoli.”
“Because I’m sick of this. I’m sick of all this fighting!”
She scooted past me and stopped when I grabbed her hand.
“So don’t fight. Stay. Come on, we’re done. Happy-happy, joy-joy. See?” I pushed my face against Killian’s.Together we smiled. “Yo, Kill, All, Fee? Forever friends we will be?”
“Quit it, Fiona.” Yoli glared at me. “You can be so gullible sometimes,” she said, and walked off into the tropical sunshine.
I would have urged her to come back, but she had just called me gullible. Me! Someone ten notches above her when it came to reality checks, but she had the balls to call me gullible? I wasn’t the one who thought my full-body massage would be rendered with clothes on, or that a guy like Tyler would go for a cutesy, sweet girl like her instead of our resident vixen.
“Pfft. Whatever,” I said.
“Ouch.”
I eyed Killian. This was all her fault, but I wasn’t going to tell her and ruin our day even more. “Shut up,” I said, and for good measure, added, “puta.” I tried to contain my smile.
Killian’s rolled into a laugh. “Make me, bitch.”
And then Alma laughed hard, smoke curling out of her nose like a fire-breathing dragon, so I let it go. Because if Alma laughed, then I knew we were okay.