Before Ever After (38 page)

“What happened?”

“That’s when he became …” he said, “immortal.”

“Oh … that,” Shelley said softly. She pulled her seat belt tighter.

Paolo turned away and took a deep breath. “I just didn’t think you actually had to die,” he said, “to live forever.”

“I …” Shelley grasped for a lie to comfort them both. She felt the landing gear being lowered and gripped Paolo’s arm. Her heart raced. It was her turn to be afraid.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No.” Shelley’s voice trembled. The island of Boracay was still two hundred and seventeen miles across the sea and another plane and boat ride from Manila, but the thought of standing on the same ground as Max drained the last of her courage.

Y
ou can tell a lot about a place by how it feels between your toes.

Shelley’s ten digits took great pride in their astute ability to judge an area’s character. Her left big toe was an especially thoughtful observer. By instinct, it could tell within seconds of touching the ground if a place was rough, slippery, or soft. Now it decided, as Shelley waded to the shore, that this particular island required a whole different category of praise.
Paradise
came close, but that rang a bit trite.
A happy accident
, it thought—a string of mishaps, to be precise—suited it much better. Shelley’s toe was utterly convinced that Boracay had not come about on purpose. If it had, it would be forced to accuse God of favoritism—something that the Catholic in it refused to let it do.

Shelley, however, was less reverent than her appendage. God, she decided, as she waded away from the outrigger that had ferried them to the
island, was selfish, and this was where He hoarded beauty like a secret stash of chocolate. Boracay was His kitchen drawer.

Powder-fine sand caressed her bare feet. The smooth, weightless grains swirled in the water and settled in the spaces between her toes. This was what life was supposed to be like, she thought—before she stubbed her toe on a piece of driftwood, hopped on one foot, and fell into the water. Salt water shot up her nose. She choked and pulled herself out. She grunted from the weight of her waterlogged jeans as she fished her backpack from the shallows. Her dignity was harder to recover.

Paolo chuckled. “Good form. Smooth entry. I’d have to give that a solid eight point five.”

She smoothed back her dripping hair and wrung the water from her blouse. “Well, I find that a swim always clears the head before confronting an immortal. You should give it a try.”

Paolo was staring at a startled yellow-and-black-striped fish before he realized that Shelley had shoved him into the sea.

Shelley stood under the shower of the small bamboo hut she and Paolo had rented. The water was as warm and salty as the sea she had dragged herself out of. She unwrapped a small complimentary bar of green soap and rubbed it between her palms. It refused to lather. She rubbed it again and coaxed a bubble. Getting clean was going to take longer than she had expected. But she had time. Unless she wanted to traipse around the island dressed in Max’s plaid bathrobe and gym socks, she would have to wait for Paolo to return with some dry clothes.

Shelley was beginning to think that the green brick would catch fire before it yielded another bubble. She gave up and set the bar down. She ran her hands under the stream of water falling on her shoulders and neck. Something hard brushed against her fingers. It was the mosaic tile from Torcello. Her fingers shook as she fumbled with its clasp. The ocher tile clattered on the bathroom floor. For a moment, she considered leaving it there. She steeled herself and picked up the tile, then set it on the tiny glass shelf above the sink. She stuck her head under the shower and covered her
face with her hands. A cold band of metal pressed against her cheek. She pulled off her wedding ring and placed it next to the tile pendant.

Shelley stared at the two tiny objects. They were the last reminders that she had once trusted and loved a man completely. It broke her heart to leave them, but she refused to let Max see her still wearing the relics of his illusion. She had never felt more naked. She wanted to dash out of the shower and throw on whatever she could find. Even a palm leaf would have been better than her emotional undress.

“I’m back,” Paolo called through the bathroom door. “I have your clothes. The lady at the store said I could take them back if they didn’t fit.”

“Great. Thanks.” She grabbed a towel and rubbed herself dry, then stuck her hand through the door.

Paolo handed her the plastic shopping bag. “I got you some flip-flops, too.”

“Thanks.” Shelley opened the bag. “Um … Paolo?”

“Yes?”

“A blue bikini? We’re not exactly on vacation, you know.”

“I figured that you’d prefer swimming in that rather than the sundress I bought for you to wear over it,” he said. “Unless, of course, you really do enjoy jumping into the water with all your clothes on.”

“Swimming?” Shelley poked her head out the door.

“Yup,” Paolo said. “Remember? The website said that we needed to swim over from the boat to The Shell.”

“Brilliant.” She was already nauseous thinking about what it would be like to see and talk to Max again. Confronting him wearing a tiny blue bikini was not going to help. She wondered what she would say to him. She should have made a list.

Hi? I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m supposed to be your widow
.

Maximus the Immortal, I presume?

Sorry to drop in like this, but I was just desperate to find out what you put in your baked eggs
.

“I hired a boat to take us to The Shell,” Paolo said. “We can leave as soon as you’re ready.”

“Paolo, if we wait until I’m ready,” Shelley said, “we’ll never leave.”

• • •

The small outrigger bobbed in the water, balanced by a pair of bamboo poles that stretched from its sides like wings. The boatman, a solidly built man named Manny, helped Shelley to her seat.

“How long will it take us to get to The Shell, Manny?” Paolo settled onto the damp wooden bench next to Shelley.

“Ten minutes,” Manny said. The lines on his face deepened as he spoke, mapping his life across his coffee-colored skin. He switched the motor on and steered his boat away from the shore.

Manny’s voice rang in Shelley’s ears above the motor’s rumbling. Ten minutes. She couldn’t decide if it was too short or too long. All she knew was that it made her want to hijack one of the bright yellow banana boats zipping past them and head in the opposite direction. A group of screaming tourists bounced past her on a yellow inflatable tube. Their cheeks flapped in the wind, making their faces look like the clay art project she had made in kindergarten. Shelley didn’t have to speak Korean to know what they were saying. Their high-pitched shrieks translated into fun in any language. Of course they could have been screaming for help, but she chose to believe the former.

Shelley sighed.

These were people who lived in a world that was governed by all the natural laws, she thought. If the speedboat pulling the inflatable craft happened to take a particularly sharp turn, physics dictated that the large yellow tube skidding behind it would take a nasty tumble and send its passengers flying through the air. And if one of those passengers—bless his soul—happened to crash into the water at a horribly wrong angle and break his neck, biology dictated that he would die—and not click his head back into place, towel himself dry, and hide from his grieving widow on some remote island.

Manny steered their boat down the coast and left the yellow blurs behind. There were no screaming tourists there. There was only aquamarine. Shelley realized that it was the color of quiet.

A man straddling an old surfboard paddled toward their outrigger.
A small pyramid of green coconuts was piled in front of his knees. He held up a coconut and a plastic straw and waved at Manny.

“Would you like to buy one?” Manny asked Shelley.

She shook her head and managed a weak smile. Unless the coconuts were filled with scotch, she didn’t think they were going to do her much good.

The coconut vendor paddled away.

Shelley held her breath as their boat rounded the limestone cliffs at the end of the coast. Lush vegetation cascaded over the rocks, softening their rugged beauty. Where the sandy yellow stone was barefaced, the sun set it ablaze with a golden glow. She shielded her eyes from the glare.

“There it is,” Manny said.

Shelley turned in the direction Manny was pointing. She bit her lip. Stubby trees and wild bushes sprouted from the cliff wall. Peeking through the green drapery was a small thatched hut. She heard Paolo take a deep breath.

The boat came to a stop several yards from the rocky shore. “What time should I come back for you?” Manny asked.

“We … uh … don’t really know how long this will take,” Paolo said.

“Would it be possible for you to wait for us here?” Shelley asked. She thought that it would be a good idea to have Manny nearby in case she needed to be fished out of the sea after the nervous breakdown she was going to have shortly.

Manny nodded.

“Oh, and do you know CPR?” she asked.

Manny gave her a puzzled look.

“That’s okay. Never mind,” Shelley said. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be revived, anyway. She just wanted to make sure that her mother got her remains.

“Let’s go.” Paolo stood up and pulled off his shirt. He dove into the water, emerging a few feet away, waving at Shelley to follow.

Shelley looked at him and then glanced down at her feet. They remained firmly anchored to the outrigger.

“Come on!” Paolo called.

She apologized to her appendages, slipped off her sundress, and jumped overboard.

A glittering swirl of iridescent fish scattered around her. Shelley briefly thought that she was seeing stars, which was never a good thing in her case. She swam toward Paolo.

He reached the cliff first. He climbed onto a narrow limestone ledge and helped Shelley out of the water.

She shivered in her blue bikini. The Shell was now just twenty feet directly above where she stood. She gripped Paolo’s hand to keep from diving back into the sea. A rope ladder dropped behind her, sending a breeze through the fine hairs on her neck. She lunged forward. Paolo caught her before she fell. Shelley wrestled free of his grasp and prepared to jump away.

Paolo grabbed her arm. “It’s too late to back out now. He’s seen us.” He handed the rope ladder to her. “Ladies first.”

“Absolutely not.” Shelley thrust the ladder back at him. “You go first.”

“So you can be halfway back to London by the time I reach the top?” Paolo said. “I don’t think so.”

Shelley knew that he was right. If Paolo made the mistake of letting her out of his sight, she would not hesitate to make her getaway. She gripped the rope and planted a foot on a rung. “Fine.”

Shelley climbed with her eyes shut, finding the sight of the jagged rocks below and the hut above equally terrifying. She reached upward for the next rung. Her hand closed around thin air. She pried her eyes open and looked up. A rung was missing. But this was not what made her freeze. A shadow moved across the slits between the hut’s bamboo floor. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the rope tighter.

“You okay up there?” Paolo asked.

Shelley chose not to answer. If she opened her mouth, she would start crying. She reached for the next rung. The open hatch in the hut’s slatted floor loomed closer. She pulled herself up the last rung. Stars twinkled in the corner of her eye and this time Shelley was certain that it
wasn’t a school of sparkly fish. Damn it. Not now. She reached for the bamboo handlebar next to the hatch. A hand closed around hers.

Warm fingers clasped Shelley’s clammy palm and pulled her into the hut. Shelley clambered up on her hands and knees.

A pair of bare feet stood in front of her—Shelley swallowed—attached to the longest pair of shapely bronze legs she had ever seen. She jerked her head up only to see the last thing any woman searching for her husband wanted to see. Draped in an orange tie-dyed sarong and smiling at Shelley with sensuous lips was the reason the word
jealousy
was coined. The woman was the island—a shore of caramel skin, a sea of blue-black hair, a stream of sunshine sparkling in bright honey eyes. Shelley hated her instantly.

“Hi.” The woman offered Shelley her hand. “Welcome to The Shell. I’m Sari.” Her lilting voice fell in time with the reggae beat playing softly in the background.

Shelley took the woman’s hand, suppressing the urge to twist it behind her back and demand to know where Max was. Her eyes darted around the empty café.

Vines grew into the crevices inside the hut and entwined themselves around its bamboo posts, making the hut look more organic than manmade. Man’s touch, however, or more accurately, a woman’s touch was still evident in the mismatched collection of batik drapes, tablecloths, and pillows strewn around the café. The eclectic decor gave the hut a laidback bohemian feel. Shelley, however, was anything but relaxed.