Life and Other Near-Death Experiences (7 page)

Even so, I had nothing else to do, so I kept stealing glances at him. I couldn’t tell how old he was; his hairline was just starting to recede and his sideburns were threaded with gray, but acne scars pocked his cheeks slightly, which gave him the air of a teenage boy. He sat facing forward, saying nothing, which was aggravating, although the aggravation itself was grating because my goal was to be left alone and there I was, not even enjoying this rare triumph.

Finally, he said something into a headset, then yelled back at me, “Green light. We’re going up.”

Up we went. Once again I found myself over the turquoise sea, staring at the lush green landscape and long yellow beaches that make up Puerto Rico’s northeastern coast. I was curious to learn more—in my haste, I hadn’t even bothered to buy a travel book—but the pilot proved to be a piss-poor tour guide. “You can’t really see the rain forest from here, but it’s out there . . . ,” he droned. “To your right is Fajardo, which is where the ferry runs from . . . that lump of land in the distance is another island called Culebra.”

Even so, there was something magical about the altitude; we were up in the air, but so close to the water that I could see passengers on the boats we flew over. In spite of Maxine, my headache, and the unpleasant events of the past week, my spirits rose significantly. I had made many wrong decisions recently, but this trip? It couldn’t have been one of them.

As the plane began to descend, bringing us closer to the water, the pilot looked over his shoulder at me. “Isn’t it great up here?” he shouted.

“Yes!” I shouted back. “I love being away from the rest of the world!”

He smiled. “Exactly!”

Buoyed by my newfound sense of well-being, I was feeling generous. Gregarious, even. “By the way, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Shiloh,” he shouted again.

That’s an unusual—
I didn’t have time to finish my thought, because there was a loud
thud-thud-thud
, followed immediately by a shredding noise, which coincided with the plane lurching from side to side.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins as stomach acid surfaced in my gullet. “What was that?” I whimpered as I stared out the window at an inauspicious plume of black smoke billowed out of an unidentified location.

“Nothing,” he said, but then he started yelling into his headset. “Carib Carrier seven three two. Emergency. Bird strike to air intake. Requesting landing at VQS. May attempt water landing. Alert Coast Guard.”

We began to drop. Rapidly. At which point I began to freak out ever so subtly. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and texted Paul:
I LOVE YOU. XOXO.
Then, as further evidence of my mental infirmity, I texted an identical message to Tom, adding,
IT’S -OKAY
, exonerating him just in time for my demise. I considered calling my father, who didn’t text, but realized that this would amount to him listening to me scream as I flew into the sea.

The man I now knew as Shiloh yelled at me again. “Tighten your seat belt, tuck your head between your arms, and lean into your lap. Now!”

As the plane careened toward the water, I had a singular thought, and this thought branded me a liar.

Because all that stuff I told myself about not caring if I was strangled and being ready to see my mother again? Lies. Damn lies.

No, as I begged God for a miracle, the truth rang clear through me:
I don’t want to die.

TWELVE

The plane skidded clumsily and hit something—the ground? the sea?—with a tremendous crack. My head smashed against the back of the seat in front of me, then jerked back as we tipped precariously to the left. I held my breath, waiting for the worst, the engine to explode, the water to seep in and deliver me to a watery grave. But all was silent, save a faint rumbling coming from the front of the plane.

Shiloh let out a whoop, then turned to me. “We made it! You’re okay?”

“Am I okay? Are you fudging kidding me?” I spat. To say his celebratory mood ticked me off was pretty much the understatement of the century. “You almost just killed us. We almost just
died
.”

He undid his seat belt, then reached back to unlatch mine, like I was a child. “We need to get out of here in case the engine decides to blow. And for the record,” he added, quickly opening the panel door and all but pushing me down the stairs, “the flock of pelicans attempting to get a bird’s-eye view of the propeller almost killed us.
I
just saved your life. Do you have any idea how hard it is to land a plane like this on the side of a beach with absolutely no warning? If we’d stayed in the air another two minutes while I attempted to make it to the airport, you would be fish food right now.”

Continuing to yap, he took my hand and pulled me through the shallow water we’d landed in. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the plane was smoking, at which point I yanked my hand away and started to run for the beach—just in case God was still making up his mind about whether I should be granted a few more months on the planet.

“Hey!” Shiloh yelled, running after me. “Wait up!”

When the sand turned to patchy grass, I figured I was safe and collapsed onto the ground. Shiloh jogged up, and only then did I realize there was a trickle of blood coming from his face.

“I think your nose is bleeding,” I said, shielding my face in case he got too close.

He reached up to touch it. “So it is.” He wiped it with the corner of his shirt, then sat next to me and tilted his head back as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thanks.”

I hugged my knees to my chest to try to stop shaking. “Don’t mention it. So . . . now what?”

“Now we wait. We just landed on the part of the old naval grounds that are still off-limits to the public, and the control tower knew we were about to crash, so you’d better believe we won’t be here by ourselves for long.” He put his head back down and took his sunglasses off to examine me. “Lizzy, are you all right?”

Our eyes met again, but instead of triggering strange flutterings, it somehow reiterated that my current circumstances were not a bad dream, but instead reality. And reality, as it turned out, did not agree with me. “Libby!” I snapped. “My name is
Libby
!” Then I sort of stopped breathing.

I’d never suffered a panic attack before. Had I known mine would have me clawing at my chest in a futile attempt to get air into my lungs, I would have scurried into the brush so I could humiliate myself privately. Alas, I didn’t know what was happening to me. As I gasped and scratched at myself, Shiloh watched me with interest. Not worry. Not amusement. Just interest, like I was a nature documentary he just happened to land on while channel surfing.

When it became clear I was about to choke on my own terror, he began to pat my back, and only because this was something Tom did when I was upset did I allow him to continue. “Whoa. Whoa there. It’s okay, Libby,” he said, saying my name as clearly as possible so I would catch that he got it right this time. “Pretty sure I know what’s happening to you. You’re having a panic attack. I’ve been there. That was a bad situation, and I’m really sorry.”

A panic attack?
I thought incredulously, but I couldn’t get the words to come out of my mouth.

“Look,” he said, continuing to pat me with one hand while pointing at a distant dirt path with the other. I squinted, attempting to focus, which was difficult with so little oxygen making its way to my frontal lobe.

Then I saw them—the wild horses my father told me about. There were four, galloping majestically through an opening in the trees. They trotted across the narrow path and disappeared into a clearing on the other side, gone as fast as they had come. And at once, so was my panic attack.

“Wow,” I whispered.

“You feel better,” Shiloh said. He smiled, and now that his sunglasses were off, the lines around his brown eyes showed that his smile was genuine.

“I do,” I admitted.

“Distraction. Works every time. I learned that from an old friend back when I was having trouble coping.”

I flushed. “Thanks. And sorry for yelling at you. It’s just that I don’t want to die. I lied to myself about it, and I thought it was fine, but now I’m sure I was wrong, and I really just want to live, you know?” I wasn’t really making any sense, but I couldn’t shut up.

Shiloh looked at me curiously. “But you’re alive. You didn’t die.”

“I’m
going to
,” I explained. “I have cancer.” A rush of relief washed over me as I shared the worst news of my life with a stranger.

“Damn,” he said, and let out a low whistle. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. And it’s not even ovarian, which is what killed my mom, but some rare super cancer that’s especially lethal for women my age. Twenty-nine,” I added slyly, and then I knew the panic attack had fully passed.

He grinned. “See, and I would have put you at twenty-two.”

“Guilty as charged.” I was tempted to ask him how old he was—my current guess placed him well into his forties—but even though he knew my terrible truth and had been permitted to touch me, I wasn’t going to get too cozy.

A government truck pulled up at about the same time a Coast Guard cruiser began to circle the shore. A police officer got out of the truck and approached us. “You’re the pilot?” he asked Shiloh, who nodded. The officer pulled out a pad and started asking questions while I zoned out. Paul and Tom had both called me back, and I hadn’t picked up because I wasn’t sure how to respond to either of them. Paul was probably freaking out, but he would freak out even more once he found out that I was in Puerto Rico and hadn’t told him about it. As for Tom—well, I didn’t even want to go there.

“Miss? Where are you heading?” the officer asked me.

I could barely remember my middle name, let alone recall my itinerary. I grabbed my phone and opened my e-mail. “Island Motors,” I told him, once I’d located my reservation confirmation. “I’m supposed to pick up a rental car.”

“I’ll give you a ride if you like,” he said.

I looked at Shiloh. “Go ahead,” he told me. “I still have to deal with dispatch and the Coast Guard.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Given that your current means of transportation is your two legs, and I would prefer to never get into a moving vehicle with you ever again, I wasn’t asking you for a ride. But I smell like dirty socks, and I was hoping I could get my luggage.”

He glanced back at the plane, which no longer appeared to be smoldering. “Let me check.” He jogged back to the shore, where a couple of Coast Guarders were milling around. He returned a few minutes later with a sheepish expression. “They’ve got a bunch of clearance stuff they need to do. So probably not until this evening. But I’ll tell you what. You tell me where you’re staying, and I’ll make sure our company gets it delivered to you.”

I peered down at my filthy T-shirt and frowned. “Is that my only option?”

“Afraid so.”

“Okay.” I was reaching for my phone to find the address to the beach house when it began to ring. Blech. “Cripes, Tom,” I muttered.

“Tom’s your boyfriend?” Shiloh asked.

I flushed, embarrassed that I’d been overheard. “Um, no. He’s not.” I caught his eye, but this time, I looked away quickly. Because this guy—the one who almost just killed me? He was very attractive—if you liked the sinewy, weathered type. And the expression on my face just informed him that I did.

It was a good thing I’d never see him again.

THIRTEEN

“This your first time in Vieques?” the police officer asked.

“How can you tell?” I shouted, my head half out the window, like a dog coming home after a week at the kennel. Vieques was verdant, beautiful, and largely untouched by humans. There were cinderblock houses scattered among the rolling hills and dotting the roads, and we passed the occasional grocer and restaurant. On the whole, though, it was miles of solitude hedged by sea. Heaven.

“Good luck,” the officer said when he dropped me off at the car rental place.

“Gracias!”
I responded.

I rented a Jeep because I’d read that a vehicle with four-wheel drive and the ability to withstand a pothole or thirty was the only way to get around here. I almost never drove; Tom liked to, so I let him and took public transportation or a cab when I was on my own. Now I realized I’d done myself a terrible disservice. As I puttered along, the other drivers whizzed by at what seemed to be eighty miles an hour. Nerves got the better of me, and my hands began to shake again. With no navigator and only a paper map for reference, I made one wrong turn after another. I was about to drive myself into a ditch and call it a day when I spotted the street sign.

It was hand-painted on a panel of wood, sort of like the type people like to post in front of their vacation homes—
Retirement Road
;
Had Her Way
. This sign read
Calle Rosa
.
It was a long dirt path canopied by trees and vines. Half a mile down, I located the driveway and turned in. Then I saw it in the distance: the stretch of beach I’d been waiting for.

I parked the Jeep at the foot of the driveway and climbed out, not bothering to grab my bags. My feet crunched on the gravel as I strode toward the pale pink stucco house where I’d be staying.

“Took you long enough.”

I jumped as an older woman emerged from behind one of the large fronded palms in front of the house.

Her laugh was broken glass on concrete. “I’m kee-ding! You’re Libby, no?”

“Yes,” I said, extending my hand. “You’re Milagros?”

Her skin was soft and crepey beneath my fingers. “Ay,
gringa
,” she trilled. “Mee-lah-grohs.”

“Milagros,” I corrected myself, trying not to frown at the woman who would be my landlady for the next month.

She gave me a toothy smile. “
Muy bien!
You’ll be just fine,
mija
. Come on,” she said, waving for me to follow her farther down the drive.

“So that’s not where I’m staying?” I said, pointing at the house.

“No. That’s
mi casa
.” She led me to the back of her house and down a winding path, until we hit a similar but markedly smaller pink house (which, judging from the crumbling stucco and the wavy metal roof, could more accurately be described as a fancy shack). “This,” she said, unlocking the wrought iron door, “is yours.” She handed the key to me and motioned for me to step in.

There was a small living room, a tiny bedroom, and an eat-in kitchen. But off the back of the kitchen, a large glass-walled porch opened directly onto the beach. It was the entire reason I’d chosen this property, and unlike the rest of the house, it looked exactly as the online photos depicted it.

Milagros crossed her arms and regarded me. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s perfect.”

She beamed. “Good. Because you already paid for it, and I don’t do refunds.”

I inquired about the bathroom, which I hadn’t seen yet, and she directed me to a small door next to the bedroom. I looked in and tried not to gasp. It was a glorified broom closet with a sink and a toilet better suited for a preschool.

“Um . . .”

“No bath,” Milagros said.

I sighed, catching an unfortunate whiff of eau de B.O. on the inhale. I could always bathe in the sea.

Milagros hooted. “You are too easy, Libby!” she said, slapping her thigh. “The shower’s the best part. Follow me.”

She unlocked a door off the end of the kitchen, which led to a garden surrounded by a stucco wall as high as the house itself. Though tiny, the garden was filled with birds of paradise, orchids, and dozens of other tropical plants I’d never seen before. At the end nearest to the beach, there was a cement stall. I stepped inside to find an expansive outdoor shower lined with vivid blue tiles and—just in case I needed to be reminded that I was newly single—two enormous shower heads.

“Is it safe?” I asked Milagros.

She pursed her lips. “Nothing in this world is safe,
mija
.
But it would take a lot of effort for someone to get over the wall and into this garden. I’ve lived alone for forty-one years now. When you’re a single woman, you’ve got to use your head. Hell,” she said with that jangled laugh of hers, “when you’re any kind of woman, you’ve got to use your head. Don’t leave your purse on the back of your chair, don’t wear your jewelry to the beach, and don’t flash your money around.” She examined me. “You okay?”

Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling so hot. “I just need to sit down,” I told her. On top of my most recent brush with death, I hadn’t had a proper meal since . . . yesterday? I couldn’t actually remember the last time I ate, which may have been the first time in thirty-four years that I was able to make that claim.

“Here,” Milagros said, guiding me to the sofa on the back porch. “Sit. I’ll be right back.”

I sank into the sofa and surveyed my surroundings. The place was sheer Caribbean kitsch: old wicker furniture topped with weathered floral cushions, candy-colored walls decorated with cheesy prints of seashells and boats and sunsets. Tom would have an aneurysm if he had to sleep here for a single night. I loved it.

Milagros returned with a frosty glass, which she pressed into my hand and instructed me to drink. Coconut water! Was anything ever so delicious?

“Now eat these,” she said when I finished, handing me a plate full of crackers spread with a thin reddish-orange paste.

“Is this guava?” I said, my mouth jammed full of food.

She nodded. “I put fresh fruit and milk in the fridge, and coffee and granola in the cupboard. When you need groceries, there’s a place about a mile from here, but there’s a better one closer to Esperanza. I can tell you about any restaurant on the island, too, so if you’re not sure, just ask me. You feeling better,
mija
?”

“Much better,” I assured her. “Thank you. Now, I hate to ask, but do you have a T-shirt I can borrow?”

I got in the shower as soon as Milagros left. Although the water made my incision sting and my lone toiletry was the bar of soap I snatched from the bathroom sink, I soaked myself until the shaft of sunlight shining through the roofless shower had almost disappeared. What a day. What a
week
. While I was profoundly grateful to still be alive, I didn’t know what to make of contradicting emotions racing through me. I was proud of myself for getting out of Chicago and excited at the prospect of my month in paradise, even if I had barely made it there.

But the more I thought about it, the more Maxine’s comment—
I always wondered about Tom—
gutted me. She may as well have said, “Stupid Libby, I’ve known he was gay since high school! How could you not?” It was a valid question. I’d slept next to the man almost every night for the past decade and had called him my own for nearly twice as long. I truly believed he loved me in every way that a husband should love his wife.

And I had been wrong.

No amount of improved communication or couples’ counseling was going to fix us. Tom and I were over. Absolutely, irrevocably done. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that what I’d said to Jeanette in the coffee shop was true. Tom wasn’t dead, but this felt an awful lot like death.

I got out of the shower, wrapped myself in one of the stiff towels I’d found in the closet, and walked back into the house. I was halfway across the kitchen when something skittered across the far edge of my peripheral vision.

On instinct, I ducked behind the cupboard island that divided the kitchen from the small dining space.

“You can get up,” a wary voice called. “It’s just me.”

Me?
This suggested I knew my attacker. Which, if memory served, was statistically most often the case.

“Shiloh,” he said.

I groaned.

“Yeah, I sense that you’re happy to see me,” he said. “The good news is, I have your suitcase. So you can put some clothes on.”

I stood up slowly, intending to peek over the edge of the counter to see if I could run to the bedroom without being seen—then shrieked when I realized Shiloh had walked over and was peering down at me. “Whatcha doin’?” he asked.

I pulled my towel tighter around my chest. “First you try to crash our plane, now you’re trying to give me a coronary. You just let yourself in? What if I was naked?” I said indignantly, even as I mentally chided myself for failing to lock the screen porch just minutes after Milagros told me to be careful.

“I’m confused,” he said, grinning. “Is that supposed to sound like an adverse outcome?”

“Creep,” I retorted, although I wasn’t really feeling threatened by him. (Paul would say this was on account of my faulty people reader. “You’d find something to like about Charles Manson,” he groused after I mentioned I didn’t think his ex-boyfriend—who, admittedly, exhibited bunny-boiling tendencies—was as awful as Paul made him out to be.)

“Guilty as charged,” Shiloh said, borrowing the phrase I’d used on him earlier that day. “But I happen to be the creep who brought you your stuff. Otherwise you’d be sitting in your own stink for another forty-eight hours. No one else was available to bring your bag by.”

“As you so rudely discovered, I’ve showered, and now I smell perfectly fine, thank you very much.” I eyed him suspiciously. “I hope you’re not doing this because you feel sorry for me. Because you know about . . . well, you know.”

He leaned in to sniff me—the nerve of this guy! “You do smell better, and no, I didn’t bring your luggage just because of the ‘you know.’ I happen to be a fairly decent person.” He glanced around. “So what are your plans for your time on the island? Are you meeting people here? Is this Tom character making an appearance in the near future?”

I stuck my chin out. I may have even pouted. “He most certainly is not.”

“Good, because you didn’t sound too excited about him calling you. What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

“Finding something in the fridge,” I said. “Given that I survived a near-death experience today, I’m not really up for exploring.”

He gave me a half smile. “Life is a near-death experience. But suit yourself,” he added lightly, as though I’d just rejected the offer he didn’t actually make. “Your suitcase is on the porch. See you around, Libby.”

I opened my mouth, but he was gone before I could get the words out.