The Rhythm of the August Rain (35 page)

“I'm looking forward to reading your article,” he'd added. “Actually, I'm looking forward to seeing you.”

She'd felt warm inside when she hung up, and she'd measured Ransom—kind, good-looking, intelligent, interested in her and not ashamed to show it—a definite possibility. She wasn't sure he was the type to fall madly in love with her, what with his social life, but if she saw him in October, she'd find out.

Feeling hopeful about Ransom, swapping stories with Jennifer, eating Miss Bertha's soups and porridges had put Shannon in a reasonable frame of mind by the time Eric picked them up to go to the airport on Wednesday morning. He'd dressed in long pants and put on aftershave, and he seemed extra chipper on the drive.

“Where you off to next?” he'd asked her at a rest stop while Eve was in the bathroom. “They assign you anything yet? I hope it's not as—”

“I'm quitting my job.”

“What do you mean?”

She'd looked down at her guava juice, jiggling her straw in the glass. “My old editor at the
Star
wants me back—and I think Eve would be better off if I was home more.”

“Might be a good idea. Although you've done a fine job with her so far.”

“I want to do better.”

“Me, too.” He'd lowered his eyes as their daughter approached.

At the airport, he'd turned solicitous again, waiting while they checked in and walking with them to Immigration carrying Shannon's bags. The hugs and farewells exchanged were warm and brief. Maybe she'd come back to Jamaica one day, Shannon had thought as she waved at her daughter's father behind them, but she'd bring a boyfriend with her next time—or have him meet her at the airport. Standing in the security line, she'd taken a moment to recognize the pain in the middle of her being, the pain she knew would get less with time and other distractions.

The in-transit lounge was getting more crowded, standing room only for late arrivals, and groups of people had congregated around the cafeteria at the back.

“I'm going to get something to drink,” Shannon announced. “You want anything?”

Eve looked up from her iPad and raised her lip. “Coconut water?”

“I know you're kidding.”

Shannon bought two bottles of water and gave one to Eve. Restless, she walked the length of the lounge and back. She was looking out of the hall's plate-glass windows when their plane glided up to its breezeway. Fifteen minutes later, the first arriving passengers were heading to Immigration down a passageway outside the lounge. A glass wall, across which was a horizontal stripe of yellow, green, and black, the colors of the Jamaican flag, separated the departing from the arriving.

Shannon found a space between two potted palms to inspect the passengers. Her heart started pounding, dreading the inevitable, and a wave of heat crept up her torso. My first hot flash, she thought with a grim smile, the end of my youth, right on time. With her chest and neck glowing with sweat, she finished her bottle of water and resumed her watch.

A middle-aged couple holding hands was followed by bustling businessmen and businesswomen clutching briefcases and dragging bags. Tourists in shorts and jeans, young mothers holding babies, college students, returning locals, filed past.

“These the people from our plane?” Eve asked at her shoulder.

“Yeah, I think so. Did you leave our stuff—?”

“The couple beside us said they'd keep an eye on it.” Eve put her arm around her mother's waist, and Shannon around her daughter's, and the two examined the passengers streaming past.

“I had a dream about this,” Shannon said. “I was looking through this pair of glasses that had plants and vines around the frames, and a bar across the lenses, like it was my past in Jamaica. Then there was another pair that—”

“Don't go weird on me, Mom. I was just starting to like you.”

An elegant woman was walking toward them pulling a carry-on bag, a woman Shannon knew at once. Slim and petite, she had slanted eyes and her short hair was black, not a gray hair in sight. She wore her clothes well: a long-sleeved T-shirt, skinny jeans, and low-heeled sandals. Dangling, gold earrings swung from her ears as she walked, with an ease to her lips, ready to charm the Immigration and customs officers.

“She's pretty,” Eve said.

“She is, isn't she?”

This exchange, the arrival of Eric's new love and the departure of the old, had a smooth, psychic rhythm. Shannon placed her hand flat on the glass separating her from Simone, the woman who'd scared away two men with her gun, who'd gone naked because she felt like it. The new arrival looked straight at her and hesitated for a second—a flicker in her eyes as she glanced at Eve—before hurrying on to those who awaited her.

T
he rain drummed down on the thatch roof, the first of the August rains. Eve would have done her dance if she were here. When he got up, Eric decided, he'd write her an email telling her it was raining, and he'd say that he missed her. It might earn a mental shrug, but he'd do it, anyway.

Beside him, Simone was still asleep, her naked back turned to him. The tawny stepping-stones of her spine curved from her hips to her neck on the pillow. He pulled the sheet up to her shoulders and dropped it like a snowflake so it wouldn't wake her. She was
exhausted
, she'd said when she arrived, although she hadn't looked it.

When she stepped out of Immigration, he'd had to look twice to recognize her. She'd put on weight since she'd left Largo, no longer the gaunt woman waving out the window as her brother drove them away. The baggy shorts and faded T-shirt that had been her uniform on the island had been replaced by an outfit from a fashion magazine, the shiny gray top and tight black pants looking chic and sexy.

She'd walked up to him, glowing, earrings swinging, and stuck out her hand. “I don't think I know this handsome man.”

“Come here, you.” He'd hugged her close, pleased that she'd noticed his shirt and long pants.

“Aren't you going to kiss me?”

He'd answered by whispering something in her ear, and she'd laughed out loud.

On the way back in the Rover, they'd talked, the year apart making conversation sporadic at first. Halfway through the drive, she'd tossed out the question he was ready to answer. “Has your ex left yet?”

“Went out on your flight, as a matter of fact.”

“I thought so.”

His altar-boy guilt about the women's playing musical plane seats had melted away. He'd been tempted to say something to Shannon on the drive to the airport, but he'd reminded himself that sleeping dogs were best left alone. She'd been through enough already. A reminder of the other woman in his life was uncalled for just when she was leaving the island.

It was cowardly, he knew, his cowardice coming from mixed emotions. Seeing Shannon again had brought up some of the old feelings, and his dilemma had gotten worse when he saw Zadock manhandling her. He'd wanted to kill the man with his bare hands, had been figuring out how to do it when I-Verse's flashlight had slammed into Zadock's head. On the drive back to Largo, he'd wanted to protect her for the rest of his life.

The following morning, Sunday, he decided to bounce it off his bartender.

“Great work last night,” he'd commented when Shad walked into the bar. “Good thing we took I-Verse, eh?” When Shad had answered with a nod, Eric had rattled on, “I never had much to do with Rastas before, the whole white-man bugaboo, I guess. They stay away from me and I stay away from them. Ras Walker fixes my shoes, of course, but that's business, you know, and he's kind of like part of the scenery. I'd never gotten up close and personal before this. The whole evening was really an eye-opener for me. This loony Zadock guy thinking me and Lambert were the police and we'd destroyed his old camp? Oh, man. He would have killed Shannon if he'd had a chance. Crazy guy, he'll probably die up there all alone one day. You have to feel for him, living like a hermit. No wonder he's gone bonkers.”

“I called Bellevue, the mental hospital,” Shad said glumly. “They sending police to pick him up. I didn't tell them nothing about what happened, though.”

“Good thinking. Shannon's not going to press charges, but somebody needs to keep him away from people.” Eric had drained his coffee cup. “But that I-Verse, I'm telling you. Here I am, practically shitting in my pants, and he comes along and saves the day. He doesn't even need a gun, just a flashlight, like some superhero.”

“Rastas just people, boss—good and greedy, hero and crazy—just people who believe in God and want to lift up the poor. People think that Rasta is different from them, but is not true. They want the same things we want: house, food, safety. They just go about it different. Rasta want to change the world, so they start with themselves.”

“You're starting to sound like them. You thinking of going Rasta?”

Shad had rubbed his scalp. “I like my bald head too much.”

“Every other young man seems to have dreadlocks nowadays, even in the States.”

Shad opened the fridge to start preparing the bar for service. “The music, the food, the language, it catch on—and young people like the one-love culture.”

“One love? Look how they treated Shannon at the Nyabinghi!”

“They were 'fraid of Shannon. If you had police flying helicopters over you and drug enforcement people burning up your weed, weed you use in your religion, you wouldn't get suspicious of every stranger, especially when they taking photographs?”

“They're mighty touchy, though.” Eric had picked up the newspaper. “You told Beth about last night?”

“She don't want to hear nothing.”

“The wedding, you mean?”

The bartender hadn't answered, just kept cutting up limes and oranges, the knife held tight in his hand.

“You still getting married?”

“If I can get out of the doghouse.”

“That's bad.”

After a minute of trying to read the newspaper, Eric had put it down. “I'm thinking of asking Shannon to—you know—for us to live together.”

Shad had looked up with a frown. “You moving up to Canada, boss, like how you hate the cold? And you can't leave the new hotel just like that.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn't live in Canada. I was thinking they could come and live down here. We could put Eve in the same school that Casey goes to.”

Shad waved the knife across his neck. “But—you up to here with debt, don't even have money to support yourself. It going to take at least one year to build the hotel, and you going to be sucking salt the whole time, and when that finish, it going to take time to make any money off of it.”

“I have my Social Security starting next month, and Shannon can work.”

“You already say your Security check not going to pay you much.” The bartender frowned. “And what work you think Shannon going to find in Largo Bay? She can get good work in Canada, and she would have to keep it because you don't have any money to support her. So she going to be gone, working to keep Eve in boarding school and college. Most of the time, both of them not even going to be here, and you going to be right back where you are now, alone, but deeper in debt.” Shad had tut-tutted over the limes. “And, another thing, Eve don't need to go to no boarding school now. She come down here with a sour face, like she angry, and she just start to relax now and enjoy life. You can't put her in no boarding school, man.”

“Why you so negative all of a sudden? I give you some good news and—”

“Because marriage is a serious business, boss. You hear me? Is a
business
. It not something you just decide to do one day. You don't take
every
somebody you love to your bed and bosom. A man must think about it careful first, see if it's a good thing to do. Marriage is about people planning their happiness, and you have to be able to make enough money to provide for your children. Both people have to pull together, that what Beth teach me. She cleaning toilets so we can pull together for the children sake—and to pay for the wedding.” Shad had gone back to his slicing and sighed. “Even though her money gone now.”

The sledgehammer of Shad's words had hit Eric, and he'd walked down to the beach with the truth of it. Boarding school cost a pretty penny, according to Lambert, and the little primary school in Largo had nothing to offer Eve, who had free visits to museums and zoos in Toronto.

A fishing village had nothing to offer Shannon, either, but an occasional break from her work. She was at the peak of her career. In ten or fifteen years, perhaps, she would slow down, but she still had mountains to climb, notches to carve on her belt. If she moved down to Largo, editors would call someone nearer at hand, and he knew Shannon loved her work, had to have a notebook or a camera with her. But if he asked her, he knew, she'd move down and try to find some kind of work. He'd be closer to Eve, even if she was in boarding school, and she'd have Casey for company, anyway. They'd be a family, something he hadn't had much of growing up. He had to do this.

When Eric returned to the bar, his bartender had continued talking as if Eric hadn't left the room. “And another thing, boss,” Shad said as he swept a broom over the cobwebs on a beam overhead, “I not feeling like you really love Shannon.”

Eric had stopped in the middle of the empty restaurant. “Whoa, that's kind of private, don't you think, buddy?”

“Love is not a private thing, boss, unless you hiding it. Beth say is good to talk it out—and women know them sort of things.”

Eric had sat, a little disoriented, at a table he never used. He'd looked at his hand and spread his fingers. “Shannon is a good woman and I'm lucky to have her in my life. I'm glad she had Eve, and she's done her best to bring her up well. I'm grateful that she loves me, crazy as I am, and she wants Eve to love me. I've always admired how she's fought her way up in her profession. That's not easy, you know, in North America. I sure don't have that type of drive. She's a good mother and a woman of character, that's how I'd sum it up.”