Float Plan(20)

Sara doesn’t take up her old space beside James. Instead she moves closer to Keane, and it swirls up a storm of unease in me. Not jealousy, but a sense that she had better be worthy of him. And I feel ridiculous because their affair is none of my business.

It is past midnight when James stubs out his last cigarette and unfolds from the seat and waves. “I’m calling it a night. Pleasure meeting you both.”

“Where are you headed next?” Rohan asks me. Sara touches Keane’s arm and laughs. He’s telling her a story about another sailboat race, and her smile, her undivided attention, has made him angle his body toward hers.

“We’re hopping our way toward the Turks and Caicos,” I say. “Rum Cay tomorrow, then Samana and Mayaguana.”

Rohan takes a long swig of beer. “We’re going ashore at Port Howe in the morning,” he says. “Perhaps you could join us, and we can travel together to Rum Cay the following day.”

“I love that idea,” Sara says, interrupting Keane. “Anna, you and I could sail together on your boat. Leave these boys behind.”

“What do you think?” I ask Keane, trying to telegraph my concern that Cat Island is not a part of Ben’s plan. But Keane doesn’t pick up my signals, and says, “Sounds grand.”

“Then we have a date.” Rohan says it like an official proclamation. He stands and begins gathering the empty green bottles that litter the table. His arms full, he wishes us a good night and heads off into the cabin. We are down to three and one of us does not belong.

“I think I’ll head back to the boat. If you, um—” I stop, not wanting to sound like I expect them to fall into bed together the moment I leave, even though I’m pretty sure that will happen. “I can come back in the—”

“No sense in that,” Keane says. “I’m ready to go.”

If Sara is disappointed, she disguises it with good manners, kissing us on both cheeks and telling us how happy she is to meet us. “Anna, seriously. The two of us sailing. Consider it. And call over in the morning if you want to go ashore with us.”

“We will.”

Keane leans toward her, and whispers something that makes her lips curl into a sly, sexy smile, and we leave.

“Nice crowd,” he says as we row the short distance between boats. He faces Chemineau and I wonder if Sara is still standing on deck, if he is looking at her.

“Yeah.”

“Everything okay?”

I nod, but the truth is, I’m not sure. Now that I’ve seen Keane in a different light, I can’t go back to seeing him any other way. He is a man—an exceptionally good-looking man—and we are together on a small boat. The thought makes me nervous in a way it didn’t before. “Long day. A little too much beer. But it was fun.”

“Do you want to stay another day?”

“I don’t know.”

“Whatever you want, Anna, is what I want,” he says. “But for what it’s worth, there are sights on the island you might like to see, including a plantation in ruin and a beautiful abandoned monastery.”

Even though this island is not on Ben’s route, I would like to see it. “Okay, let’s stay.”





ghosts (10)





Keane is wearing jeans again when we climb down the swim ladder into Rohan’s inflatable, and Sara shifts to make room for him. They smile at each other first, like the rest of us aren’t there.

“Good morning!” Rohan booms in a voice too loud for such an early hour. “Sleep well?”

My dreams were about Ben, leaning forward to whisper something in Sara’s ear. About Ben sailing off with her, leaving me on a beach full of pigs, desperately flailing my arms and going hoarse from screaming for him to come back. I woke up crying and my throat hurt, as if I’d really been screaming. But out in his bunk, Keane was sleeping soundly. I crept up on deck and finished the night wrapped in my comforter, waiting for my racing heart and shaking limbs to realize it was only a dream.

“Yeah,” I lie. “Thanks.”

It’s a short trip to shore and we drag the dinghy onto the beach near the Deveaux mansion. Keane explains the property was deeded to Andrew Deveaux to use as a cotton plantation, a reward for his role in resisting the Spanish at Nassau in the 1780s. Most of the house is still standing, including a few thick roof timbers, but the inside is a hollow shell, littered with plaster and old wood. James kicks through the rubble, a burning cigarette in hand, while Rohan uses an expensive camera to take photos of a tree that has grown through the wall. Every window facing the bay has a gorgeous view and I lean in the open door frame, looking at the blue-green water and the pretty blue boat that brought me here.

“Some of the islanders believe the spirits of those who once lived in a house remain among the ruins.” Keane moves up beside me. “They’ll build new houses beside the ruined ones so as not to anger the spirits. It’s a lovely way to live, don’t you think? Letting the present peacefully coexist alongside the past.”

He steps from the doorway and heads toward the beach, where Sara lies on a towel in the sun. He sits down beside her and trickles a bit of sand on her bare stomach until she lifts her head to look at him. I turn away and move on to the kitchen house, where the bricks of the hearth are exposed, some blackened by cooking fires, others green with moss. If there are spirits here, I doubt they are any happier than when they were alive, with fortunes built on their backs and at the tips of fingers bloodied from picking cotton. I feel haunted, but I’m not entirely sure I haven’t brought my own ghosts.