Placencia, Page 2

  When Elodie looked up from her notes, the woman from the shuttle was standing over her. “Have you been here all this time?” she asked. She was American, as Elodie had guessed.

  Elodie tried to think of the correct answer, until eventually she just said, “Yes.”

  “Are you a writer?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Elodie said. “Just making a list.”

  “Of what?”

  “A shopping list.”

  The woman smiled.

  “I’m Sage,” she said. “There’s a party at my hotel tonight.”

  “What kind of party?”

  “A party where people gather. Music. Alcohol.”

  “Where is your hotel?”

  “Up the beach.”

  Elodie wondered if she had it in her to be reckless. She looked back toward the bar where Morgan was playing dominoes with three other men. He seemed to be always waiting for her to do something.

  “Maybe another time,” Elodie said.

  Sage pulled the notebook from her hands. It took several seconds before Elodie realized what was happening. Sage was reading her notes.

  Elodie grabbed the book. “Are you drunk?” It was all she could think of to say. The woman was blatantly rude and presumptuous.

  “Who’s Andrea?” Elodie had written Andrea’s name along the margin of the page. “Can I join you?”

  “Why?”

  “You look lonely.”

  “I’m not.” Elodie looked down, focusing intently on the book in her lap.

  “I am.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “You were staring on the shuttle,” Sage said.

  “I was looking at your necklace.”

  “Right.” Sage dragged her belongings over. Elodie pretended to write. She scribbled some notes about Placencia from what she had read in one of Morgan’s guide books. “I came here by myself,” Sage said.

  Elodie looked up. “Why?”

  “Some friends and I planned the trip, but they decided to go to Cabo.”

  “You should have gone to Cabo.”

  “My boyfriend is in Cabo. Ex-boyfriend. Going to Cabo would have been a bad idea.”

  “You still shouldn’t vacation by yourself. It’s not safe.”

  “You’re by yourself.”

  “I’m coming to terms with some things,” Elodie said.

  “Like what?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Sage fell silent, which surprised Elodie. She was expecting her to press for more, as nosy as she seemed. Instead Sage reached into the ice bucket next to her and pulled out a Corona. She pointed it toward Elodie.

  “Want one?”

  Elodie nodded. Sage opened the beer and handed it over.

  “How old are you?” Elodie asked as she took a sip.

  “Old enough.”

  “That’s very telling…”

  “How old do I look?” Sage asked.

  “Twenty-five is the most I’d give you.”

  “Twenty-seven. You?”

  “Older.”

  Sage smiled and fell silent again. They sipped their beers and listened to the ocean as it rolled in. The moments between the waves always made Elodie reflective.

  She got up and walked toward the water. She wore a mini jean skirt and a white blouse that flowed in the wind. She went out until the water was up to her thighs.

  When she looked back Sage was going up the beach, her blonde hair blown softly to one side by the wind. She wore a bikini top and a wrap skirt that slid open with each step revealing a set of firm, tanned legs. The water came up to Elodie’s waist. When she turned around again, Morgan was looking in her direction. He was still at the domino table, but he had stood as if to get a better view of what she was doing.

  The Vermillion Hotel resembled a small stone tower resting atop a cliff on the beach. Its round white walls contrasted with the rocks beneath, which anchored the structure to the sand. A long set of exterior stone steps curled around the hip of the building down from the balcony.

  Revelers inside the ballroom were losing more and more pieces of clothing as the night wore on. It was the kind of party Elodie realized she despised: hedonistic tourists with their uninhibited enthusiasm, and native women in skimpy undergarments attempting to please their guests beyond all sense of decency. Her nervousness increased every time the crowd roared above the music.

  The fisherman moved through the crowd in a zipped-up windbreaker, trying to converse with partygoers and making a nuisance of himself. At times he attempted to dance and instead tumbled to the floor. A server came over to him and said, “Mr. Beckford, go out of the ballroom.” He ignored that request and returned to a table, where he sat alone with his bourbon. He pinched at a woman’s skirt as she passed and fell from his chair. He dug his hand into a fruit bowl and crushed everything to a pulp. The hotel manager came over. “Mr. Beckford, you want me to send you up to your room?” And so it went on.

  Sage was on the dance floor between two men, beckoning Elodie to join her. Elodie went to the bar to refresh her drink. She wondered what Andrea was doing in Roatán. She was a woman whose heart, soul, and desires were always at the surface, not hidden and filled with turmoil as Elodie’s were at times. Still in a certain intangible way she knew she was Andrea’s source of strength. In turn, Andrea had a practical and unburdened sensibility that Elodie found comfort in, time and again. Tonight a mere one hundred and thirty miles lay between them.

  Elodie went out to the foyer that wrapped around the front of the hotel. She reclined on a European-style chaise in a rum-induced languor. Sage came out and knelt on the chair above her. Her halter dress was flimsy and damp with sweat.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” she said. She sat and plucked Elodie’s drink from her hand. She took a slow sip and leaned over to put the glass to Elodie’s lips. There was a commotion at the other end of the foyer. “It would be more fun if you came up to my room.”

  “I have a girlfriend,” Elodie said.

  “Is she here?”

  Elodie shook her head no. Sage traced the contours of her cheek. “Your eyes are like honey,” she said. Her thumb hovered above Elodie’s lips. She moved closer, but Elodie pointed behind her. Sage turned around. The fisherman was watching them. He looked like a character from an old sailor’s tale. Scruffy silver beard dominated his face. His eyes were small and watery.

  “There’s that man again,” Elodie said softly.

  Sage pointed at him with her chin. “You know the kind of people who spend their lives doing what they want?” Her words slurred, and Elodie had to strain to catch what she was saying. “Then they turn around one day and realize what they missed out on. Only they can’t get it back.”

  Elodie marveled at Sage’s drunken clarity, but before she could prepare a response she heard someone determinedly clearing his throat. The old man leaned heavily over them, propping himself up against the wall and the arm of the chair.

  “You again, Beckford.” Sage breathed the words as if she was beyond exasperation.

  “Yes me! Me-for-godsakes-me,” he snarled. His tone startled Elodie, for it wasn’t so much filled with anger as it was a rasping utterance of pain and desperation.

  Elodie got up. Sage grabbed her hand.

  “Don’t leave,” Sage said.

  “Don’t leave on my account.” Beckford straightened and looked at Elodie.

  She looked away from his eyes, and turned to walk along the curve of the front wall in the large and airy space. Movement behind her indicated her company, both of them, were in slow, unsteady pursuit. She went out to the balcony. The floor was smooth, dark rock that jutted out from the building above the water. Elodie could see the romance of it–she imagined couples entwined against the railing, their dreams expanding across the glorious stretch of water that lay before them. She did not go toward the edge, instead when she heard footsteps behind her, she moved away and went down the steps that led to the beach.

  There Sage st
aggered over to her and wrapped her arms around Elodie’s waist. From where she stood, Elodie could see Beckford leaning against the wood railing above them, looking out at the sea. He still had his drink, the glass mostly swallowed up by his large grip, and something was dripping from his hand. Elodie tried to decipher the expression on his face. Somehow along his fumbling journey outside, a hat had materialized on his head. It looked like the type Greek fishermen wore. Between the black hat and the thick beard, his face had become pinched in. She could not read it. His haggard figure draped across the railing. Still there were the unusual drops of water. A strange thought crept into Elodie’s mind: She wondered if he was real. Perhaps she had imagined…

  “Fucking tragic old man,” Sage spat. “They all are.”

  She pulled Elodie’s face toward her, pulling her attention away from the figure against the railing above them.

  “What couldn’t he get back?”

  “What?” Sage asked. Her glance roved across Elodie’s body.

  “You said people realize what they missed out on, but they can’t get it back.”

  “Who cares?” Sage said. “He’s been spreading his sob story all over the hotel, bringing everybody down. We’re here for a good time, right?” She smiled and searched Elodie’s face with her eyes.

  “Argh!” The sound came from the rocks above them, but Beckford had moved out of sight.

  “What’s he gone and done?” Elodie said, but as she moved toward the stairs she saw him at the top of it, blood dripping from his hand. He held a piece of broken drink glass.

  “Are you mad, Beckford?” Sage asked. “Why don’t you go inside? Go to bed and quit making a fool of yourself.”

  He stumbled down the stairs, grasping the banister and skipping steps as he surged to the bottom. He uttered some other gruff noise and pushed past Sage, who was protectively blocking his path, as if her slight frame was enough to deter him and send him to his room. He flung what was left of the glass upon the sand, and went off along the beach. Elodie watched him disappear under the jutting rocks.

  She followed.

  “Let the old fool go,” Sage said, and ran after her.

  On the other side of the rock wall, the hotel was dimly lit and vacant. The palm trees were dark and silent, the hammocks beneath them empty. A beach ball and a black floating tube had been left behind in the sand. Elodie could not make out much else, until she sensed movement under the thatch-roofed gazebo at the end of the jetty that extended into the water. Beckford dangled at the wooden edge. A small dingy was below him in the water. He jumped at the boat and missed, his body hitting the water with a dull, definitive splash.

  “Hey,” Elodie called out. She ran down the long dock and peered into the water. “Beckford?”

  He came to the surface and looked up as if he were surprised to see them there. He fumbled with the boat, trying to untie the rope that anchored it.

  “Grab the rope,” Elodie said, but Beckford had already reached up and cut it loose with a little knife. She could see traces of his blood all over the rope and the wood. He struggled to swing himself into the boat, which kept turning and throwing him back into the water. He shoved against the hull in anger and fell backward. Elodie reached down, and he swatted her hand away.

  Sage was standing over Elodie, shivering. She wrapped her arms about herself. “The party is still going on,” she pleaded at the old man. The harshness was gone from her voice, and it made him pause.

  “I’ve been all over the blasted world,” he snarled. “Even in a God-damn boat.” Streams of blood seeped into the water. He lurched forward and gripped the side of the boat, walking it further out. The water was up to his chest.

  “Wait,” Elodie said. “Take me with you.”

  He stopped and looked up at her, puzzled, and then his expression softened.

  “Come.” He put his hand out, and Elodie jumped into the water.

  “Are you crazy?” Sage asked. She climbed down quickly and grabbed Elodie. Beckford held on to her arm at the other end. “Help!” Sage screamed, but the beach was empty.

  “Let me go,” Elodie whispered.

  “She wants to come with me,” he said.

  “You’re mad,” Sage said.

  “Come on,” Beckford moved again, pulling them both further into the water. “Let go.”

  The water was up to their necks.

  “You let go.”

  “Come on.”

  They went out still. The boat was drifting silently above them, waiting. Elodie could see Beckford’s eyes clearly now. They were red and bloodshot from the salt water and the alcohol and whatever else it was that ailed him. He was pulling her down into the sea. The sea. She felt a surge within her. She gripped the old man, and his eyes widened.

  “Let’s go back,” she said.

  Fear tightened across his forehead. His hat was long gone, and his graying hair was thin and coiled against his head. He looked even older and feebler now, but somehow he also looked like a child. Elodie pulled him toward her, and he released the boat.

  The next morning Elodie packed and said goodbye to Morgan and Nakia, though Morgan insisted on waiting with her for the shuttle. Half of Placencia was asleep. Early risers were gathering their gears for the day’s events, and the smell of steamed fish bathed in okra and thyme made Elodie smile.

  She had avoided this part of who she was for much of her life, and with her father’s death, it had become a part of her that was irretrievable. She thought about the fisherman wandering aimlessly across the peninsula, feeling sorry for himself, and a flush of shame needled across her skin with the morning chill.

  The sea was her consolation, with its varied moods, holding every color, overflowing upon the shore. “I feel like the sea,” Elodie said, mostly to herself, for the bus was arriving and Morgan had already gone ahead to secure her place in the line to get on. She was headed to Roatán, to Andrea, and she was relieved. She saw the way the passengers’ faces opened up at the first whiff of the Caribbean Sea. They disembarked and gathered their belongings eagerly. When they finally cleared off toward the village and Elodie moved forward, she saw Andrea emerging from the shuttle.

  Acknowledgement

  I would like to thank everyone in my writers group for giving new and fresh perspectives. Thanks to writing coach Brooke Warner for her insights, and editor Barrett Briske for her keen eye. My deepest gratitude to my friend Andrew J. Peters, who had to endure Placencia in its infancy. Most of all, thanks to my mother and the rest of my family and friends – my quiet and steady cheerleaders.

  About the Author

  C.A. Clemmings grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. She writes general fiction about ordinary characters with an enigmatic and enduring spirit. Her short stories, Placencia and Rebirth were published in eBook format and are available where eBooks are sold. Her debut novel, The Outlaw’s Enigma, will be published winter 2015. C.A. Clemmings lives in New Jersey. Visit her online at www.caclemmings.com.

  Edited by Barrett Briske

  Cover by Littera Designs

  Placencia

  Copyright © 2013 C.A. Clemmings

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