Roni drove around downtown still curious about the island, what she remembered and what she didn’t. She found a few more places she would check out in due time. There was a poster stapled to a light pole that announced “The Bahamian Rock Star” was playing at Pineapples on Tuesday night. She would have to go see what that was about come Tuesday. On her way back to the house, she headed down a side street just outside of town, which looked like it might loop to the ocean and back. It was a residential neighborhood: small houses on larger lots, dense trees, pines and mangroves, a large tree with red flowers. It was down this road that she ran into Joe again, but this time, Joe was in the front yard of one of the houses. A littered yard with odds and ends. Roni stopped the golf cart. While she sat watching Joe eat large patches of high grass, a man came out from a barn-like shed to the left of the house. He caught Roni’s eye and walked towards her. He was a short, stocky Bahamian, very dark, almost intimidating because she couldn’t make out his features. When he got closer to her, a big smile spread across his face.
“Lookin’ fo’ Joe?” he asked, his accent not quite as thick as some.
“Well, I wasn’t actually looking for Joe. I just sort of stumbled on him while I was exploring.”
The man walked up to the golf cart and put his hand on the roof, casually looking down at Roni. She could see his features now that he was close: laugh lines extending from his eyes, the smile still on his face.
“Does he live here?” Roni asked.
“Mos’ time, but he wander a bit too,” the man said.
“I’m Roni,” she said, extending her hand.
“Calvin,” he said, taking her hand firmly and shaking it.
“I ran into Joe my first day here, on the main road, right in the middle. We had a stare-down until a man on a motor scooter made him move,” she chuckled. “That’s when I found out he doesn’t see so well.”
“It true, but he git along okay. Mos’ folk like ‘im,” Calvin said. “Ya wan’ meet he best frien’?”
While Roni tried to process what he said, she looked around the yard for another horse. There didn’t appear to be any other animals around.
“He has a best friend?” she asked.
“Oh, yeh, come see,” Calvin encouraged as he headed for the shed.
Roni got out of the cart and followed. Joe’s ears twitched and went back with the sound of movement.
“Jes’ me, Joe,” Calvin said, reassuring the horse with his voice.
At the back of the yard was a shed with a makeshift gate—two horizontal metal bars hammered into a wood frame. A big pig had his head stuck between the bars, sniffing up at the air. His nostrils flared and shifted; the little white hairs on them moving around.
“He smell ya,” Calvin said, laughing. “Dis Joe’s bes’ frien’. He name Bacon. He like ta t’ink dat smell good.”
It took a minute for it to register for Roni. A horse named Joe with a pig for a best friend, named “Bacon”. No wonder Calvin had laugh lines; apparently, he had a sense of humor. Roni turned from the pig to look at Calvin, who stood with his hands clasped together, a smile on his face, proud as could be.
“Well, that is one hell of a best friend,” Roni chuckled. “You are a funny man, Calvin. Does Bacon wander too? Will I find him in the road next?”
“Nah, Bacon stay home. Someone might t’ink he dey dinner,” Calvin said, laughing.
Roni joined in with his laughter, which tickled Calvin. He watched her laugh and, when she got close to stopping, he would start up again. He had a high giggle, which didn’t quite seem to fit his physique, making it even funnier to Roni. Hearing the commotion, Joe walked across the yard with a happy kind of gait, tail swishing, and put his nose to Bacon’s. The two of them nuzzled each other.
“See, he like ‘im,” Calvin said.
“What isn’t there to like?”
They laughed again. Roni was so amused. It was so funny, so cute, so trouble-free she thought. She couldn’t wait to tell Mack about her discovery.
“Can I bring some friends to visit Joe and Bacon? I have several girlfriends coming in a couple of weeks. I think they would love your animals, really get a kick out of meeting them,” Roni said.
“Any time,” Calvin chuckled. “Ya mus’ be duh lady stayin’ at Fair Winds.”
“I’m staying in the doctor’s house,” Roni said.
“Yeh, dat Fair Winds.”
“It has a name?”
“All de houses have a name,” Calvin said.
“Really, how interesting,” Roni pondered.
There were so many new things to learn about the island, and Roni felt excited. She could explore a whole new world, a world so different from hers. She was starting to understand Mack’s point about being open to a whole different thing.
“Well, Calvin, it was nice to meet you,” she said. “I will see you again, I’m sure.”
Calvin rubbed Joe’s big head, smiling as she made her way across the yard back to the golf cart. She was ready to relax, maybe even have a nap in the hammock under the trees in the doctor’s back yard. Oh, Fair Winds’ backyard I mean. She pressed the pedal on the golf cart, turning around in Calvin’s dirt driveway. Roni was pleased that she’d ventured down the road. When Roni pulled into her driveway, she saw a sign she had not noticed before: a wooden plank with faded pink writing. Sure enough, “Fair Winds”. She chuckled and then unloaded the groceries into the house. Before she headed out to the hammock she put the chicken in the marinade and grabbed a magazine. It was cooling off a little, being that it was later in the day, and the hammock was in the shade stretched between two large trees. Roni climbed into it and lay down, letting the netting wrap itself around her. Flipping through Self magazine, she settled on an article by a personal trainer explaining the benefits of certain types of weight training. Roni mainly did cardio; she hadn’t done much with weights, but was thinking she should start. When she finished the article, she laid the magazine on her chest and closed her eyes. It was so quiet, so peaceful, and her mind started to wander.
When she woke, the sun had dropped lower in the sky. She looked at her wrist. Stop that! Looking for the time was a habit she knew she wouldn’t break easily. Her entire career had been run by a clock. It was time to try and Skype Mack again regardless. She thought about being a little mean, tell him the tuna he’d emailed about was really, really old, and she hoped he hadn’t eaten it. Get food poisoning maybe. She went into the house and made herself a crystal light before she turned on her laptop. She checked emails first. Nothing but a lot of spam, and then she clicked on the Skype logo. It made the weird little sounds she’d heard when they’d practiced at home--the blop, blop, blop like musical bubbles underwater. She waited for it to connect to Mack’s computer.
“Hey,” Mack said suddenly appearing on her screen. “It works.”
His face was somewhat distorted, but she could see him, his round face, blue eyes, and slightly crooked mouth smiling back at her.
“You must have forgotten to leave the computer on last night,” Roni said.
“I did, sorry about that. Got your email though, knew you made it safe. How was the trip?”
“Long. I was glad to get here for sure. I was able to rush around and get a few groceries and wine last night. Did a little exploring today. Found a place called Pineapples, a real tiny, funky bar. I’ll send you some pictures I took with my phone. I guess we didn’t do too much exploring when we were here. I don’t remember a lot of these places,” Roni said.
“We were on our honeymoon. We were exploring other things,” Mack teased.
Roni didn’t want to go down that path. Of late, she hadn’t felt very romantic and she knew Mack was missing it. He had tried to get physical, had even asked, but she’d pulled away. He was frustrated with her in more ways than just her attitude about her lost job. She hadn’t been kind in some of her rejections and he’d thrown that at her in their fight.
“I met a horse named Joe and his best friend, a pig named Bacon,” Roni said enthusiastically.
“Seriously?” Mack asked with a laugh.
“Seriously. Guess he’s kind of the island mascot. Runs around loose. He blocked the road and then pooped in it my first day. A nice Bahamian man on a scooter came to my rescue and got him to move along. Joe apparently doesn’t see well, so maybe he doesn’t know where he is.”
“And the pig?”
“The pig stays in his pen,” Roni chuckled. “His owner is nervous someone might mistake Bacon for dinner.”
Mack laughed again and it tugged at Roni’s heart a little. There hadn’t been a whole lot of laughter as of late.
“That’s funny.”
Mack could tell by her tone that she was excited to be on Green Turtle. He hoped that the time away would make her think about a new career or even if not a new career to quit obsessing about the lost one. She’d said two weeks, he’d insisted on a month. He needed his own time to think about things. He’d almost walked out their last fight. He still wasn’t certain that it might be the thing to do. Hell, she doesn’t even want to have sex anymore. Reaching for his glass of water he moved back from his computer. Roni saw his image blur as he did so.
“I can’t see you, Mack. You have to stay close to the camera.”
“Sorry,” he said, moving back into sight. “You hear from the kids?”
“Haley emailed me. I plan on emailing them some pictures soon.”
“They’d like that,” Mack said.
If they didn’t stay together Mack knew it would be hard on the kids. He really didn’t want to do that to them.
“Well, I’m in for the night. Just me and my magazines. I’ll start with those and then move into one of the books I brought. It’s so quiet here, so different than home. I really like it.”
Mack wondered if quiet meant away from him or the city, or both. He envisioned the dock they’d gotten off on so many years ago as newlyweds.
“Okay, then,” Mack said with a sigh. “As you know I’m always on the computer during the day, so email is probably the best way to catch me. I’ll try and remember to leave it on afterhours in case you Skype.”
“Sounds good,” Roni said and paused, “I hope you didn’t eat the tuna.”
The tuna wasn’t old, but his email had annoyed her. There was a delay in Skype, the picture froze, then Mack popped back up briefly and then the screen went black. Roni didn’t try to call back. They’d finished talking. They hadn’t said goodnight and she chuckled that the last thing she’d said was about the tuna. Maybe he would think about not being so mundane about what he put in an email. Sometimes, when she would see someone else’s husband kiss his wife or pay them a compliment, it made her envious. Mack was never big on affection. It would be nice every now and then if he would appeal to her ego, make her feel good about herself and their relationship. Mack loved her, she didn’t doubt that; he just didn’t verbalize it like some men did. Frustrated, and feeling like she needed to think about something else, Roni Googled Green Turtle Cay history on her computer. She read through several web sites and found one that was very informative.
“Lucayan Indians once lived on the island, but they were forced by the Spaniards to relocate to different islands. Once they were gone, pirates inhabited the harbors. Then came the British Loyalists after the American Revolutionary War in the late 1780s, choosing allegiance to the British Crown over the new Republic. … Many of the people on the island today can trace their ancestral roots to those who first settled on the island. … The town of New Plymouth was named after New Plymouth, Massachusetts. The pastel-colored clapboard cottages with white picket fences are reminiscent of a New England fishing village.
In its earliest days, because it was adjacent to the shipping routes to and from the New World, it was lucky enough to get a continuous stream of wrecked ships. … In rough seas, that particular stretch of Bahamian water could prove to be perilous. … The wrecked ships became giant salvage sites where the abandoned vessels would be stripped of wood, metal, rations, oil, and cargo. … New Plymouth was one of the largest wrecking harbors of its time, pushing it into relative prosperity. As new shipping and technology would lessen the number of wrecks off the Northern Abaco coast, pineapples would pick up the slack. … The sandy, desert-like soil, although considered low quality, was perfect for growing pineapples. … It is believed the Indians originally brought the plant from Paraguay and Brazil. … Because pineapples cultivated in the Caribbean went bad so quickly on long voyages, they were in demand as a delicacy exclusive to royalty and the upper classes in England and deemed a symbol of hospitality in America. By the end of the nineteenth century, England and America were importing pineapples by the hundreds of thousands. … Green Turtle Cay flourished until the United States annexed Hawaii. Once Hawaii became a state, the US had a producer to whom they did not have to pay duty. The Atlantic-side coves were at one time the breeding grounds for hundreds of green turtles. The pirates used to refer to them as belly timber because they made for good eating on long voyages. Now, few turtles inhabit the waters and are protected.”
All the sites agreed that today Green Turtle Cay mainly relied on tourism. One Internet site even mentioned that Miss Emily’s Blue Bee Bar was the birthplace of the Goombay Smash. Roni sat back and took a sip of her drink. So many of the names made sense to her now: the Wrecking Tree restaurant, Pineapples, Green Turtle Bay Club. Roni had passed by the Blue Bee Bar in town. Another place she would have to visit. The island had so much history, none of it made up in order to attract tourists. It had managed to weather time and stay almost like it was originally. No highrises, no commercial chains. The island felt good to her, comfortable and safe. She was glad Mack had encouraged her to go, get away, figure it out. She figured he might need some time too.