A bronze-tinted china doll with coal-black hair and rose-smudged cheeks waves to Lily Ana from the path to the beach. Betty is back. Her terrycloth beach cover falls to the sand as she waves greetings to the other regulars. Half the crowded beach waves back.
Lily Ana slams an empty Jack Daniels bottle into the trash can behind the bar just to hear the beer bottles shatter. Immediately she is ashamed that Betty can agitate her so easily—without even trying.
Having a perfect body is not a fault, but the way she flaunts it—parking herself by the café door to be walked around by every customer. When she is sunbathing, beer sales double. Legion demurs that she chooses that location for convenience, but he always moves from the bar to a table overlooking the beach when she arrives.
For her, flirting is as ubiquitous as breathing. Her seductions are not obvious, maybe not even intended. She should not blame Betty—or even Legion for ogling. He would do more if given the chance. Any man Betty wanted could be had for the price of a lingering smile. Maybe it had already happened.
Betty’s ingratiating politeness towards her, Lily Ana suspects, cloaks a condescending pity. She likes to think of herself as slender, but men would call her skinny. Her nipples are like dried stalks of cut flowers sticking out of her flat chest.
The blunt feeling of inadequacy knots her stomach. Jealousy. Envy. She sighs and turns toward the kitchen, out of sight of the beach, chastising herself for the sins in her heart. She will have to pray for forgiveness twenty times a day until Betty leaves.
≈≈≈
Paul enters the café at four, still in his dress clothes from yesterday. His eyes are on the floor as he maneuvers through the tables to the bar. Another man, from a year ago, flashes into Lily Ana’s mind.
“Where is the town?” Paul asks. “I need to buy a few things.”
“What do you need? Maybe they sell it at the resort store.”
He looks up with a smirk. “Bathing suit for one.”
“I’ll be going to Grand Case when my shift is over.” Already she regrets mentioning it. “A cab will be waiting at the gate to the compound in an hour. You can ride in with me.”
“You don’t mind? Look, you don’t have to pretend…” He looks down at the bar. “Thanks for letting me stay the night.”
“It’s Legion’s cabin.”
“It’s an imposition on you, not him. I’ll be leaving in the morning if I can get a flight.”
She tries to reconcile the snarky kid from yesterday with the congenial gentleman of today. He is different when Legion is not around. What’s happened between these two?
“I’ll see you at the cabin at five.”
“Thanks.” He turns to the side door that leads to the cabins. Again, the flickering overlay of the man from a year ago. Had her first impression of Legion been any better?
≈≈≈
Lily Ana swung her legs off the couch and immediately went back into survival mode, heart pounding. Cradling her face in her hands, she willed the fog of sleep away. Stagnant air reeked of mildew and stale beer. The coo of a pigeon and the rhythmic crash of surf drifted through an open window. She must be in one of the resort’s beach cottages. The calamities of the previous day came flooding back. The man…
In the twilight, she could barely make out a round table with four chairs in the center of the single room cabin and a bed on the far side. A strange man lay on his back across the bed, his shoes still on, snoring. Did she even know his name? She shook her head and forced her gaze away. She could deal with him later. If she were going to survive this, she would have to get ahead of events rather than allow her mind to wander. What to do next?
There was breakfast. She didn’t know the time, it was still early, but she needed to get to the café quickly. She rushed to the bathroom mirror, hoping she wouldn’t look like she felt. Bedraggled and dirty, her stringy auburn hair matted against her scalp. The bathing suit and sarong she had slept in were her only clothes. She stared into the mirror. Frightened hazel eyes looked back. How could she have let this happen? But there was no time for self-loathing. She couldn’t do anything about her clothes right now, but she could shower and braid the hair.
≈≈≈
Eduardo was already at the café when she walked in barefoot from the sand path onto the cold concrete floor. He waved for her to hurry. Eduardo, dumpy with thinning hair, was the cook who had hired her only the day before. He spoke Spanish and a little French but mostly directed her by pointing. How had they ever gotten through the interview? She didn’t even know her salary.
He pointed to the oranges, which she thought he wanted squeezed, but then to a knife for her to peel and cut them into chunks. After the other fruits were cut into bite-sized cubes, it was all stirred together with grapes and fresh strawberries in a punchbowl. Lemon juice poured over the top kept the bananas from darkening. He showed her how to brew the strong coffee the customers preferred. At the bar, Lily Ana poured steaming cups for Eduardo and herself. The coffee lay molten in her empty stomach. Eduardo filled two salad bowls with the fruit and pushed one to her. “Usted come,” he said jabbing at her bowl with a fork.
A truck arrived with bread, which she stacked in the pantry. The smell of fresh bread mingled with the aromas of fruit and coffee, overpowered the dank smell of the seaweed washed onto the shore out front. Sunrise around the edges of the shutters streaked across the tables like prison bars. Her head tilted to one side of the glare then to the other as she laid out place settings.
After setting the last table, her eyes roamed the interior looking for anything out of place and finally settled on Eduardo who had been watching and waiting. He signaled thumbs up, the tables were set to his satisfaction. With a flick of his hand, he waved for her to follow him to the shutters.
The waist-high walls of the café were capped with a flat board. Varnished wood shutters, hinged at the ceiling, hung down to the walls. Slowly, methodically, he showed her how to raise the shutters using the cords routed through pulleys at the ceiling, looking at her after each step until she nodded. After Eduardo demonstrated the first one, she raised the rest herself. Some of the chairs had to be scooted out of the way to lift the shutters. Tomorrow she would remember to move these first.
Eduardo leaned against the kitchen doorway. She detected a slight smile (or was it just the absence of a frown?) before he disappeared inside. She could do these things herself, before Eduardo arrived in the mornings, to show she could be trusted to open. She took a deep breath and surveyed the room one last time before throwing open the double doors facing the beach.
The resort clientele began to arrive. Most were American couples, but also some French families with children. All seemed to know each other, at least well enough to exchange greetings. They drank coffee standing at the bar and some ate croissants. They were quickly out the front doors, chatting as they walked towards the far end of the beach. This morning walk must be a sunrise ritual.
As they trickled back an hour later, they dished themselves bowls of fruit and placed orders for eggs that Lily Ana awkwardly relayed to Eduardo by pointing and hand signals—a whipping motion for scrambled, hands pressed together for fried hard.
She greeted and introduced herself to each new customer, did her best to carry on a light conversation in whatever language they spoke. Her native language was Italian, but because she had worked ten years at the international resorts at Monaco, she could speak French and English almost as well. After eating, the sunrise crowd ambled to the beach or back to their cabins.
When the café finally emptied, Lily Ana flopped into one of the chairs and looked out the front doorway at the white beach, turquoise water, and the islands in the distance. For the first time that morning, her tense muscles began to uncoil. A drop of sweat ran to the tip of her nose and she swabbed it away with the bar towel draped over her shoulder. The morning breeze from the ocean picked up to offset the rising heat and humidity. If her destiny was to be marooned on an island, it couldn’t get much better than this.
Eduardo came to the doorway of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron until he was sure she was paying attention. She imagined there was approval on his face, but maybe not. He flicked a switchbox on the doorframe. Above, ceiling fans began to twirl. Okay, she indicated with a head nod, she would do it tomorrow.
When he went back in the kitchen, her shoulders slumped; and then she jerked herself erect again. She was exhausted but also encouraged. She could do this. If she could keep this job, her fall could be arrested; a new life forged from calamity. The betrayal was at the edge of her mind, but she willed the memory away. There would be time later to ruminate the past, but for now, she had to stay in the present, plan ahead. The terror of a new place, strange people, would be surmounted by the routine of work. One day she would breathe again, a full breath, uninhibited by the anxiety that gripped her stomach now.
Around ten, the man from the cabin wandered in with tentative steps like each footfall was painful. He wore the slacks and dress shirt from yesterday, now wrinkled from being slept in. He sat at a center table and lowered his forehead to the tabletop as if his neck could no longer support the heaviness. Lily Ana brought him coffee and the wastebasket in case he was going to be sick. When he noticed her legs approach from the corner of his eye, all he could manage to say was “water.”
He gargled a mouthful of the water she brought and spit in the wastebasket before draining the rest of the glass. He looked clownish. His pink nose and cheeks, the sun’s doing the previous day, contrasted with the greenish-clay circles that the sunglasses had covered. With a dire frown, he squinted out to the ocean, through the kitchen door at Eduardo, before finally turning to her.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“La Belle Creole.”
“I can see I’m at a café.” Impatient, he glared at her. “I mean what country am I in?”
“French Antilles—Saint Martin.”
He looked away at nothing as if trying to recall. He stood up abruptly and rammed his hands into the pockets of his slacks. He produced a wadded-up boarding pass, which he spread on the table.
“SXM? Where the hell is that?”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t make any more sense now than the night before when he was fall-down drunk. A smile crept onto his face like he had discerned her disgust. She forced a smile. A cheerful greeting to even the most obnoxious customers would bring the best tips. She vowed to be more disciplined.
“Thanks for the coffee.” He sat back down and took a sip. “I’ll be better when I get this down. And thanks for last night, taking care of me and all. I do remember that.”
He had drunk gin last night past closing time, until his head flopped on the bar. He was still there when she finished securing the liquor and cash register. She would have abandoned him, locked the doors and left, if she had had any place else to go herself. But her plan, the only thing she could come up with, was to sleep at the café, maybe some place in the pantry.
She had watched his slow, inevitable slide off the barstool. If left alone, he would be crumpled on the floor in the morning, probably bleeding. Eduardo would not be happy. But dealing with drunks was not a bartender’s job, at least not in Europe, where there was always a bouncer. Here she was on her own and would have to learn new rules as she went.
He had left the key to his cabin on the counter to show where to charge the drinks. She slipped herself underneath one arm and he shuffled, with her encouragement, back to his cabin. She let them in, flipped the light switch by the door, and pushed him onto the bed. He went instantly asleep. She collapsed exhausted on the sofa. A moment of rest was all she intended but didn’t remember anything until this morning.
“Thank you for taking care of me last night,” she said with a devious smile.
His gaze again went to some indeterminate place. “What happened last night?”
She turned out her lower lip feigning anguish. “You don’t remember? You don’t remember promising to marry me?”
“I think I’d remember that. But to be honest, everything this side of Miami is a little hazy. I asked this friend of mine, this travel agent, to get me out of town. Told him I didn’t care where, as long as there were a beach and naked women.”
“Well, he must have done a Google search. If you put in ‘beach’ and ‘naked,’ I’m sure this place would come up first.”
He broke into a laugh and slapped the table. “That’s exactly what that son-of-a-bitch would do. That’s it exactly!”
Eduardo stuck his head out the kitchen door to check if the man was disturbing other customers. There were no other customers.
“Do you want something to eat?”
He grabbed at his stomach, but his face retained a grin. “Lord, no. I don’t think I could hold anything down.”
He seemed to be sobering up.
“Mystery solved. I know how I got here. But I still don’t know exactly where I am. What’s this place like?”
“I can’t tell you. I’ve only been here a day myself. And all I’ve seen is this café.”
“Then let’s investigate. Can you get away?”
Eduardo still lingered at the kitchen doorway. She pointed back and forth between Legion and herself and then made her fingers walk through the air. Eduardo waved her on with the back of his hands, then extended ten fingers, ten minutes. She flashed the ten fingers back, then closed her fists and flashed ten fingers again. His face soured but he brushed with the back of his hands again.
“Twenty minutes—I’ve got to be back in twenty minutes.”
“Is that how you two talk?”
“I don’t speak Spanish and he can’t speak any of the languages I speak.”
The man pulled off his shoes, socks, parked them under the table, and rolled up his pant legs to the knees. Lily Ana draped her sarong over the back of a chair. When they walked out into the blaring sun, he held his hand at a salute to shade his eyes.
“Are you going to be here long?” she asked.
He didn’t respond immediately, as if this was the first time he had thought about it. “I think so. This place has a good feel to it. And besides, I’ve got no place else to go.”
“It’s expensive here. Can you afford to stay?”
“Actually, money is the only problem I don’t have. I might stay here forever, now that I think about it.”
They walked casually, like any other couple on the beach, except for their clothes. She was more self-conscious in her one-piece bathing suit than the others seemed without anything. She knew the nudity would not startle her in a few weeks. Not that she would ever go nude, but she could get used to the mores of the customers in time.
“I just sold a factory to a conglomerate. I have an obscene amount of money right now. So, I can afford anything. The questions are: What do I want, and is it for sale?”
She wasn’t sure she liked this pompous braggart who had turned his face to her, expecting her to be impressed. She walked on, matching her strides with his, without returning his gaze.
“How about you? You just got here too?”
“Yes, yesterday—came in by boat. I needed a job and some-body told me about this place. Eduardo didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“Oooh. Sounds intriguing.”
“Not really, but it’s a long story, longer than we have time. We’d better start back. The short answer is, I don’t have a passport. If the word gets to the authorities, I’ll have to leave.”
“I hope you’re not telling everybody this. First disgruntled customer and you’ll be out of here. Why do you think you can trust me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t. I guess I’ll have to be careful about making you mad.”
“Not to worry. You’re the only friend in the world I have right now.”
“Well, Mister… I don’t know your name.”
“Legion.”
“Well, Mister Legion––”
“No, just Legion. I’m not as old as I look.”
“Well, Legion, I’ll let you decide if I’m a friend or not. I’ve got a favor to ask.” She walked on stiffly, gathering courage. “Did you know I slept in your cabin last night—on the couch? I was gone before you woke this morning. You see…I don’t have a place to stay and no money. I’ll be living on tips until my first payday, whenever that is. I’m asking if I can sleep on your couch until I can find something else, until I get paid.”
They both walked looking straight ahead saying nothing.
“You don’t know me and I can imagine what’s going through your head,” she said. “That’s why I wanted you to know about the passport. If anything goes wrong, if something gets stolen, if I do anything you don’t like, you can call in the gendarmes and I’ll be deported. I’ll pay you, anything reasonable, but it will have to wait until I’m paid, or until I can get enough in tips.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“I know, but I will have to pay or I can’t do it. And I’ll pay in money. You’d have to agree to that part. I’m not offering you anything else.”
“I don’t want your pay, money or otherwise. If you need a place to sleep, you’ve got it. I don’t have anything to steal anyway. I pay for everything by credit card. The bill goes to my lawyer and he pays from my account. I guess we can work out about the panties on the towel rack later.”
“Thank you.” She felt lighter, like her feet could barely reach the sand. She had a place to sleep, with no strings attached if her intuition about this man was correct. “Thank you,” she repeated with prayer hands below a beaming smile.
“Well…you should hold that for a while. I’m not exactly domesticated.”
“I’ll do the cleaning. You’ll see. I’ll do everything.”
When they walked back into the café, Eduardo was behind the bar serving drinks to a French couple. He looked relieved to see her return.
“Go to the store, where you checked in,” she advised, “Get your-self some suntan lotion. You’ll be sick if you stay out in the sun today.”
When she took over at the bar, Legion followed Eduardo back to the kitchen. She could hear them well enough, but couldn’t understand the Spanish they spoke.
Legion left and then came back to the bar about two. His styled haircut, still damp from a shower, gave him the look of the executive he claimed to be. The morning stubble was gone. He wore new clothes, tasteful khaki shorts—with belt, Hawaiian shirt—tucked in, and leather deck shoes—with socks. Lily Ana hid her face with her hands when a giggle overcame her. This is as casual as he knows how to be. He is handsome, but he will stick out like a clipped poodle in a nudist resort.
He walked stiffly straight to her, his jaw clenched, glancing at her furtively. Her heart dropped. He had reconsidered their arrangement and come to tell her.
“Fix me a gimlet, make it a double,” he said.
She didn’t know how to make one, so he talked her through it. When she pushed the drink in front of him, he cradled the glass with both hands without returning her smile. He rocked his head back and downed it with one gulp. He grabbed the bar with arms stiff, his head tilted down, waiting for the alcohol to kick in. “You did good. Another just like it.”
“Shouldn’t you slow down? It’s barely past noon,” she said.
His eyes rose to hers for the first time, full of fury and loathing. “Give me another,” he demanded with a stern voice.
She mixed the drink and set it before him. He stared into the glass a moment then threw it down like the first. The muscles in his cheeks, which had been rippling under his skin, began to relax. He pulled himself onto the stool in front of her.
“You know that little secret, the one you told me earlier? Well, this is my secret. I’m an alcoholic. I’m not one of those ‘drink-to-have-a-good-time’ drinkers. I’m a full-blown drunk. I’m going to stay drunk until I die. Do you hear what I’m saying? And I won’t have…” he moved his face in closer and spoke quietly but emphatically, “I won’t have a woman around hounding me about it. I’m through with that. Do you understand?”
He shuffled over to a table bumping chairs as he went. When he was seated, he raised his hand for another drink. She mixed the third drink and brought it to the table, scooted it in front of him. His gaze stayed on the beach.
“It’s a deal,” she said as politely as she could muster. “I’ll never mention it again.”
When she came back to the bar, Eduardo caught her attention and with a movement of his head beckoned her into the kitchen. Through the doorway, he pointed at Legion, then to her, and then clenched his hands together.
She shook her head. No, they were not a couple.
Again, he pointed at Legion then made an “X” out of his pointer fingers while shaking his head. He then pointed to her and followed that up with a pushing motion with both hands. He was admonishing her to stay away from this no-good drunk.
Her eyes rolled as she sighed in exasperation. She was not that stupid plus he should stay out of her business.
Eduardo shrugged before walking back to his stove. She watched him scraping the griddle with a spatula and marveled that they could have such an intimate conversation without saying a word.
Her shift was over at three. Legion was slouched back in the chair still watching the beach activity and didn’t notice her leave. When she entered the cabin, she found a paper sack on the bed. On the bag Legion had printed in block letters that he had negotiated a one-hundred- dollar advance with Eduardo. A pair of blue jean shorts, two blouses, two panties and twenty dollars in change were inside. She stripped off the bathing suit and rushed to the shower. After drying, she luxuriated in the silky feel of the new underwear. And surprisingly, he had guessed right on the size.
The woman looking back at her in the mirror didn’t seem to be her at all. This face, although not young, looked younger. But something else was different. She combed her wet hair into a helmet and pinched color into her cheeks before again comparing what she saw to the desperate woman of only that morning.
≈≈≈