Sunbaked Page 2

  It was a short half-hour hop to Pineapple Cay. In the few minutes they were airborne, Nina studied her fellow passengers. At the front of the plane, a group of casually dressed businessmen chatted among themselves, laptops on their knees. Behind them, a young mother with three small children took up an entire row. The children were dressed in their Sunday best—the boy in a clean and ironed white shirt and pressed navy-blue pants, and the two little girls in fancy party dresses, their hair done up in elaborate braids tied with brightly colored ribbons. They sat quietly on the edges of their seats, looking all around them.

  A few rows ahead of Nina sat a couple who looked to be in their early twenties, both a little overweight and very pale, huddled close together and looking out of the small porthole window at the water below. Honeymooners, Nina thought. The young woman wore a flowered dress with a bright-pink cardigan over it and shiny, pink heeled sandals. New clothes bought for this trip, Nina guessed. The woman’s new husband was dressed in blue jeans and a faded black T-shirt with a beer logo on it, a baseball cap with another corporate logo on it, and dirty white sneakers. This was the girl’s idea, thought Nina. She probably spent hours searching for the perfect destination for her dream honeymoon. He just showed up.

  Across the aisle from the young pair, a tiny white-haired couple also huddled together. They were looking at a field guide. They were probably about fifty years older than the honeymooners and were dressed in identical khaki shirts, pants, and hats, each wearing a sort of canvas fishing vest with lots of pockets. They wore similar tan walking shoes, and even the silver wire-rimmed glasses perched on similarly long, thin noses were the same. They looked like a pair of birds, twittering quietly to each other. Clearly they were birders looking to check off a few more species on their life lists. Their appearance and mannerisms were so alike, it was almost as if they had abandoned trying to be individual entities at some point and were now fused into one being.

  Watching the older couple share a packet of complimentary in-flight cookies, Nina felt a small pang of—what? Regret that she wouldn’t be sharing cookies with Darren in her golden years? Nostalgia for the ten lost years of her marriage? Maybe, but she also felt something else—relief. Thank God it would not be Darren and her sailing into the sunset. She was no longer responsible for his happiness or his dirty socks. She glanced over at the newlyweds. Thank her lucky stars, also, that she was not just setting out on married life with a guy who thought it was appropriate to wear a baseball cap on an airplane. Nina sniffed. She checked her emotional temperature. No, she did not regret a thing. She felt a tingle of adventure she hadn’t felt in years.

  The sound of the engine changed pitch, and they began to descend. Nina leaned over to look out the window. There was Pineapple Cay below them. An oval of emerald green, with steep cliffs on the Atlantic coast sloping gently down to thick, soft scallops of white sand on the other side of the island, which faced the Caribbean Sea. The water on the Atlantic side was a deep sapphire blue with a froth of white at the base of the cliffs and along the several wild strands of beach they flew over. On the Caribbean side, the water was shades of turquoise, emerald, and jade. The gorgeous jewel-colored water surrounding the island was dotted with miniature boats. A sprinkling of tiny sandy islands of various shapes trailed off the southern tip of the island.

  The plane flew low over gentle green hills dotted with coconut palms, citrus fruit orchards, and large tracts of pine forest and bush. A ribbon of a creek wound its way from the interior to the coast, its many tendrils curling around clumps of mangrove and tracing channels through the sand flats along the shore. Here and there were clusters of tiny houses in sheltered coves scooped out of the coastline. At the northern end of the island, Nina saw a larger settlement fronting a wide bay rimmed with white sand and knew it was Coconut Cove. She recognized the tidy grid of lanes lined with candy-colored toy houses from the satellite image. Seconds later, the plane touched down. Here we go, thought Nina, taking a deep breath and slipping on her sunglasses and sandals.

  Descending the rickety aluminum stairs of the plane, Nina saw a yellow stucco building the size of a large garden shed. A sign on the roof read WELCOME TO PINEAPPLE CAY. The midafternoon heat hit her full in the face, and she suddenly felt overdressed in her close-fitting black T-shirt, linen blazer, and blue jeans. There was a covered area to the right of the building where a small crowd of people was milling about. Her fellow passengers headed in that direction, and Nina followed them. She passed through a gate in the chain-link fence that separated the runway from the baggage-claim area and looked around her, wondering what she should do now. She watched an older couple with salt-and-pepper hair bend down to kiss and hug each of the three small children from the plane.

  “Hello, Nina! Over here!”

  Nina turned her head to follow the sound of the voice. Walking toward her quickly was a woman about her own age with long dark-red hair and bangs, bright-red lipstick, and a mile-wide smile that lit up her face. A few inches shorter than Nina and a little rounder, she was dressed in a white linen tunic, bright-blue leggings, and strappy gold sandals. She held a small sign in her hand that read NINA SPARK. As she reached Nina, she put her other hand on Nina’s forearm in greeting.

  “Hi, Nina! I’m Pansy Gallagher. Welcome to Pineapple Cay! How was your flight? What does your bag look like? We can pick it up over here.” She gestured behind her to where passengers were collecting their bags off the baggage cart parked next to the gate.

  “Hello. Thanks for meeting me. No baggage,” Nina said.

  Pansy looked surprised for a second. Then she said, “Gotcha,” and smiled. “OK, I guess we can go. My cart is out front.”

  Nina shouldered her duffel bag and followed Pansy through the crowd and out to the curb, where a shiny turquoise golf cart stood. It looked like a miniature antique car, complete with doors, a pretend chrome grille, and a hood ornament.

  “Hop in!” said Pansy, and Nina did. Pansy put the key in the ignition and began to drive slowly out of the congested arrivals area.

  “A lot of people in Coconut Cove get around on foot or by golf cart because the island is so small,” she said, glancing over at Nina. “This cart is electric—we charge it off solar panels on our roof. So! I am so glad you are here and to finally meet you in person after all those e-mails!”

  “Thanks. Me, too,” said Nina.

  There was a commotion up ahead. Several people who’d been walking on the road ahead of Pansy’s cart were suddenly jumping up onto the narrow sidewalk as the snout of a champagne-colored Mercedes convertible nosed its way in and came to a stop ten feet in front of them. The driver—a slim, balding man in his late fifties dressed in pressed khaki dress pants, a pink golf shirt, and white shoes—sprang from the car. He marched toward Pansy’s golf cart holding a large placard above his head, his gold watch glinting in the sunlight. As he got closer, Nina saw that he was holding a Pineapple Cay Real Estate lawn sign with a fluorescent orange SOLD banner running diagonally across it. The man was livid. Pink-faced and wild-eyed.

  “What is this? You sold Sundrift without consulting me? Without even telling me you were finally listing it?”

  “Yes, Barry. I understand you’re upset, but what can I say? The posting went up Tuesday morning, and in my role as Miss Rose’s executor, I accepted the first reasonable offer I received.”

  The man in the white shoes threw the sign on the ground in front of Pansy and slammed his fist on the hood of her golf cart. “You knew I wanted to buy that land! I came to see you the day the old lady croaked! As soon as I heard!”

  Nina flinched involuntarily as the sign clattered to the ground, but Pansy maintained her composure, sitting tall in the seat with both hands firmly gripping the steering wheel. She turned her head slightly toward him and spoke calmly and slowly, as if to a small child in the throes of a tantrum.

  “Yes, I understand your position, Barry, as you have explained it to me many times. You were interested in the land. However, I w
as charged by Miss Rose with selling her home. There is a difference, which I am sad to say, it appears you cannot see. Now if you don’t mind, we are blocking the road, and people are waiting to get by.”

  Nina looked around. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered, and three or four golf carts and a couple of cars were backed up behind Pansy’s cart, their drivers and passengers straining to get a better view of the action.

  Seriously? thought Nina. I’ve been on Pineapple Cay for approximately ten minutes and am already engaged in an angry confrontation with a stranger and stuck in a golf-cart traffic jam. I might as well have stayed in New York.

  The man took another step toward Pansy and put his hands on his hips.

  “Listen, you hippie, this is not over. That place is a wreck. It should be torn down and something useful done with that land. I know you’d like it to become an organic seaweed-juice commune where you could all sit around all day making jewelry out of junk you find on the beach and talking about the meaning of life, or some goddamn airy-fairy thing, but I’m here to tell you that there is no money in that. So tell all your hippie friends, change is a comin’, whether they like it or not!”

  He pranced around a bit as he spoke, fluttering his hands and swinging his hips, presumably mocking the airy-fairyness of hippies. Pansy rolled her eyes.

  Throughout this entire exchange, a woman sat impassively in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, scrolling through text messages on her cell phone. Her eyes were hidden behind the huge dark lenses of designer sunglasses, but her posture suggested she was finding the whole thing—and maybe life in general—supremely boring. Nina gave her a quick once-over. Fake boobs, bee-stung lips, long hair an unnatural shade of chestnut brown with blonde streaks, and skin burnished to a light terra-cotta with the help of a tanning bed or a spray can. Oversize gold hoops dangled from her ears, and large rings adorned several fingers. As Barry finished his hippie speech, the woman reached a thin, tanned arm across to the steering wheel and gave three angry jabs at the car horn with her palm, bloodred-tipped talons spread flat to avoid breaking a nail.

  “And that’s Her Majesty heard from,” said Pansy under her breath. Nina looked behind her to see if she could still get back on the plane and head back to relatively easygoing New York. It was taxiing down the runway. Nina watched it climb into the cobalt-blue sky.

  “For heaven’s sake, Barry,” said Pansy, “you’re going to make yourself ill with all that raging. Look around you. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. You have your lovely wife beside you. Go have a mango smoothie with extra fiber, and I’m sure things will start looking up.”

  With that, Pansy slammed her foot on the accelerator and steered the golf cart up onto the curb and around the Mercedes. As the cart pulled away, there was a smattering of applause and laughter from the crowd.

  They drove in silence for about ten seconds, and then Nina found her voice. “They seem like a nice couple.”

  Pansy laughed, slapping the wheel with her hand a few times. “You are so right.”

  “Um, is there a problem?” asked Nina.

  Pansy glanced over at her and, registering the look of concern on Nina’s face, waved her hand dismissively and said, “Hey, don’t worry about that. Everything is fine. I saw the lawyer this morning, and I have your deed to the cottage in my purse. It was all done as it should be, and according to Miss Rose’s wishes. Old Barry just doesn’t like to lose.” A decidedly mischievous grin lit up Pansy’s face.

  “You see, Barry is our local tycoon. He rolled in here a couple of years ago from Miami with his trophy wife and built a huge monstrosity of a villa in The Enclave. The Enclave is a very upscale residential development along the coast north of town. That kept him busy for a while, ordering people around and such. When the house was finished, he immediately started looking for something else to do. He spent a few months playing pirate, looking for lost treasure. Then he hatched this scheme to develop a huge condominium-and-resort complex on the edge of town.”

  Playing pirate and looking for lost treasure? Nina decided to let this pass for now. At the moment, her primary concern was why the man was so angry that Pansy had sold the cottage to her and how that might complicate her new life.

  “So far, Barry’s managed to buy up about forty acres bordering the village,” continued Pansy. “The problem is, there isn’t a stretch of beach on it. It’s all limestone right up to the water’s edge, and a rocky bottom all the way—no good for swimming.”

  Pansy chuckled. “As far as Barry’s concerned, the missing piece is Miss Rose Knox’s property—Sundrift Cottage, with its one hundred yards of white sandy beach. He has already tried to buy Ted Matthews out, but Ted’s not interested. Ted owns a fishing lodge on the point with a nice beach below it. It adjoins yours, actually. You’ll be neighbors.”

  Pansy glanced at Nina and then continued. “Ted accesses his land by a right-of-way across Barry’s property. That right-of-way has been established forever, and Barry tried to close it off and squeeze Ted out, but the judge denied his claim. So, Ted owns the point, including the beach, and Barry is left holding a useless piece of beachless scrubland behind it. After he lost his claim against Ted, Barry turned his full attention on Miss Rose.”

  They had left the small hubbub of the airport behind them and were now traveling along a narrow, winding paved road with no other vehicles in sight. Tall banyan trees grew on either side of the road, their broad canopies of green leaves growing together overhead to form a corridor of sun-dappled shade. Where the trees thinned out, Nina caught glimpses of the sea to her left. At regular intervals, they passed driveways that led up and over low dunes to houses, with only their roofs visible from the road. The signs on the gateposts gave them whimsical names like MERMAID HOUSE, THE FLIP-FLOP, and BOUGAINVILLEA VILLA.

  Pansy continued her story. “Miss Rose’s family has owned Sundrift forever. She was born in that house, and she lived there her whole life until she died two months ago at the age of ninety-three. At first, Barry tried to sweet-talk her into selling, and when that didn’t work, he bullied her. She was a sweet, refined old lady, but she was no pushover. She was a schoolteacher, and anyone who can manage a classroom full of eleven-year-olds can handle Barry Bassett, no problem. She knew what he wanted to do with her land, and she wanted no part of it. Then he decided he’d just wait her out. She’d never married and had no living relatives, so he knew the property would have to be sold when she died. She directed me to sell it and give the proceeds to the local museum for children’s educational programs and a scholarship, and not to let him get hold of it. He has been after me about it constantly since she died. So, when I heard he was going off-island for a few days, I bet on his not paying attention while he was gone and posted the listing at midnight. Lo and behold, two hours later, I got your e-mail! As soon as I read it, I knew it was fate! You are meant to be here, living in Miss Rose’s house!”

  She reached over and gave Nina a friendly and reassuring pat on the shoulder. Although Nina couldn’t let go of the feeling that she’d stepped into the middle of something potentially messy, Pansy’s warmth and enthusiasm made her smile as she took in her surroundings. They were entering the village. A sign on the side of the road read WELCOME TO COCONUT COVE, LARGEST SETTLEMENT ON PINEAPPLE CAY, POPULATION 3,000. Suddenly, Nina had a hankering for a piña colada.

  Coconut Cove was picture-postcard perfect. Rows of colorful little houses lined both sides of the narrow lane, each with a tidy front garden enclosed by a picket fence or a low stone wall. There were coconut palms, mango trees, and waves of pink-and-orange bougainvillea blossoms tumbling over garden walls. They passed the primary school, painted bright yellow. A noisy swarm of small children dressed in white shirts and navy-blue school uniforms was climbing on the play structures under the watch of two teachers. Next door was a pristine white stucco church with a tall steeple soaring into the cloudless blue sky. Then they were in what looked like the center of town. On the water side of the ro
ad sat an imposing two-story pink stucco building with an official coat of arms above the door. Next to it was the police station, painted sea blue. A road between them led down to a wharf and a marina where boats of various sizes bobbed in the water. Wide green lawns separated these official buildings from the main street.

  On the other side of the street was Pineapple Cay’s main commercial district. Pansy and Nina drove slowly past a row of golf carts and pickup trucks parked diagonally in front of a couple of blocks of storefronts with striped awnings shading the sidewalk. Nina noticed a bakery with a few people sitting at tables on the sidewalk out front, a clothing and gift shop, a bank, a hardware store, and a small grocery store doing a brisk business. People were going in and out of doorways, greeting one another cheerily as they passed.

  “You can get just about any basics you might need here,” said Pansy, waving her arm at the shops. “There’s a drugstore on the next block, as well as the public library and the museum, in case you’re interested.”

  A few minutes later, they were on the outskirts of town again, passing clapboard houses and small bungalows spaced increasingly farther apart, until Pansy came to a stop in front of a little faded-yellow wooden cottage in the middle of a large, overgrown lot. Nina’s new home—Sundrift Cottage. It was the last house on the edge of town before the village gave way to bush.

  “Well, here we are at last,” said Pansy. “Your new home sweet home. Let’s go have a look!” She hopped out of the cart. Nina grabbed her bag and followed her through the creaking front gate and up the overgrown path. Pansy pulled out a key chain with a miniature foam flip-flop on it and unlocked the door. Then she stepped aside with a big smile on her face to let Nina enter first.