Float Plan(21)

Rohan comes to snap photos of the kitchen house remains. “I could use a drink.” He drags a hand through the sweat beaded across his forehead. “There’s a bar at the resort just up the highway.”

“Oi!” James shouts toward the beach, where Keane is patting his prosthetic shin through the fabric of his jeans. He must be telling Sara about his leg. “Drinks!”

Keane helps Sara to her feet, and they walk together toward us, his arms going every which way as he talks, and her smile hasn’t diminished. Maybe she’s worthy of him after all.

“She fancies him rotten,” James says, and I’m about to say that the feeling seems mutual when he continues. “For today, that is. She’ll lose interest by morning.”

Rohan nods. “She always does.”

Keane and Sara reach us, and Rohan—already tired of being on land—fills them in on his plan to spend the rest of the day drinking rum. James and Sara quickly jump aboard this new plan, but Keane looks less than enthused and I’m not about to start drinking rum at ten thirty in the morning.

“I’d like to hike up to the Hermitage.” Keane turns to me. “You’ll come with me, won’t you, Anna?”

“Sure.”

We walk along a “highway” of crushed shells—a one-lane road with no traffic—to a small resort. It’s not fancy. Simply a row of bright yellow beachfront rooms, sandy grounds, and beautiful flowering trees. The three divers head immediately to the bar, while Keane borrows the front desk telephone to call a taxi service.

We find Sara, James, and Rohan at the honor bar, fixing their own cocktails, and tell them we’ll be back in three or four hours. They seem cheered to know they’ve got that much time to drink.

“I don’t know how they can drink so much,” I say as Keane and I backtrack to the highway to wait for our ride. “I mean, you’ve seen what happens when I’ve had too much beer.”

“You never told me how you ended up in that state.”

“I was alone in Bimini and so angry at Ben that I started drinking,” I tell him. “And when this guy tried to pick me up at CJ’s, I let it happen. We went back to his hotel room and we were about to, um—” The memory of Chris standing naked at the foot of the bed flashes through my mind and my face grows warm with embarrassment. “His wife called—I didn’t know he was married—and I bolted. Obviously, I left a couple of things behind.”

I expect Keane to laugh, but he looks disgusted, and I hope he doesn’t think less of me. “Jesus, Anna, it’s a good thing I didn’t know that at the time. I’d have panned his fucking head in.”

“Hey.” I nudge his elbow with mine. “You took me back to my boat. That was above and beyond the call of duty.”

He rakes his fingers through his hair, causing it to stand on end. “Common decency should never be considered above and beyond.”

“Well, I guess your mother raised you better than most.”

At the mention of his mom, his demeanor softens, and he grins. “Have a care, Anna. I tend to fall for girls who say complimentary things about my mother.”

“Oh really? How many girls has that been?”

He winks. “Only one.”

For the briefest of moments, I puzzle over whether he’s serious, but flirting seems to be Keane Sullivan’s default mode, so I laugh. “Do you think that’s our taxi?”

Bumping down the road is a solitary silver minivan that has long since lost its shine. “The odds are in our favor.”

Our driver is Eulalia, an older Black lady who asks us where we’re heading. Keane tells her we’d like to hike up to the Hermitage and asks her opinion about the best place for lunch. “Oh, and is there a Catholic mass tomorrow?”

“Holy Redeemer at eleven,” she says. “No priest, so it’s liturgy only.”

“That’s a bit late,” he says. “What about the Baptists or the Anglicans? When do they meet?”

“Are you allowed to go to a different church?” I ask. “Switch teams for a day?”

“Well, technically, no, but I reckon the good Lord is happy enough to see his people that he doesn’t much concern himself with which pews they’re sitting in.”

Eulalia laughs until tears leak from the corners of her eyes. It’s a good thing there are no other cars in either direction because she’s not paying much attention to the road.

“Eulalia is a lovely name,” Keane says, ratcheting up the charm, making her beam at him in the rearview mirror.

“My mother says ’twas a prophecy,” she says. “Eulalia means ‘well-spoken,’ and I came out of the womb bursting with things to say.”

Keane laughs. “My name was prophetic as well. My mother named me for Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. Left home at seventeen and haven’t stopped moving since.”

“Your name is Christopher?” I ask, reminded of the other Chris, the one I’d rather forget.

“Aye, but no one calls me that but my gran and the priest who baptized me,” Keane explains. “I had to have a proper saint’s name, but Keane is my mother’s family surname. She says she called me Keane ’cos after having seven kids she wasn’t keen on having eight.”