Float Plan(54)

As afternoon turns into evening, friends and family trickle in, including a girl dressed in a hot-pink gown with a sparkling tiara on her head and a Miss Montserrat sash draped over her shoulder. She is Sharon’s sister, Tanice, straight from the festival.

“You needn’t have brought out the royalty on our account,” Keane says. “We’re regular folk.”

Sharon straightens her shoulders and gives a small head toss. “But I am no regular folk, Mr. Sullivan. I am sister to the queen.”

Tanice rolls her eyes and goes for Desmond’s CD collection to put on music, removing her tiara and kicking off her high heels. A group of men start barbecuing chicken on the grill, and some of the women come inside to unwrap their potluck side dishes. I wander between the two groups, Guinness in hand, listening to them lament about how long it’s taken to turn Little Bay into a proper town and catching snippets of gossip about people I don’t know.

I walk around to the west side of the house to watch the sun go down. Keane comes up behind me, slips his arms around my shoulders, and rests his chin on top of my head. “If you keep your eyes just above the sun as it slips below the horizon, you may see the green flash.”

We watch together and I try not to blink, but as the sun sinks, I see nothing but sky. “I missed it.”

“Next time, then,” Keane says, kissing my cheek. “We’ve got many sunsets to come.”





the real world (26)





Sharon drops us off in the village of St. Peter’s the next morning at the Fogarty Hill end of the Oriole Walkway, a trail that runs through the island’s center hills to Lawyers Mountain. Queenie stays behind to play with Miles, while Keane and I go hiking in a dense forest of trees, roped with vines bearing leaves as big as our heads, and ferns growing thick along the trail. Keane points out a large iguana crawling through the branches of a tree and we hear—but don’t see—the croak of mountain chickens, a once abundant frog, endangered since the eruptions.

The climb is steeper than we anticipated and when we reach the summit, our shirts are damp with sweat. But at an elevation of more than 1,200 feet, we can see in every direction. To the north, my boat is a blue dot in Little Bay. Beyond it are the Silver Hills, remnants of a dead volcano. In the south, clouds of steam and gas hover above the dome of the quiet Soufrière Hills volcano and the pyroclastic flow cuts across the green island like an angry gray scar. Nevis and Antigua are rocky blue shadows on the horizon.

“After listening to the talk last night about unfinished construction and unfulfilled campaign promises, I don’t know how the island sustains itself,” I say. “But up here, I understand why people wouldn’t want to leave. I understand why you love it.”

“So many people are attracted to the wreckage,” Keane says. “But the people are the reason I come back.”

On our way down the mountainside, we fill our pockets with lemons and guavas from trees along the trail. When we reach the end, Sharon and Miles are waiting. Queenie watches us approach from the open back window of the little SUV, her tail a furious blur.

“If it wouldn’t be a bother, would you mind dropping us at Little Bay so we can check on the boat?” Keane says. “We’ll call a taxi to bring us to Lookout, so you won’t have to come fetch us.”

Sharon leaves us at Little Bay and Queenie jumps into the dinghy before we’ve pushed it off the beach. On the boat, we check the bilge, make sure the engine starts, and then collapse in the shade of the cockpit tent. Keane removes his prosthesis, sock, and liner, and rubs the back of his residual limb. He didn’t complain of pain during the hike, but he looks uncomfortable.

“Can I do that for you?”

“What? Rub my leg?”

“It always feels better when someone else does it.”

“It does.” His eyes meet mine and hold there. “But you don’t have to do it.”

“I want to.”

I lean forward and take the lower part of his right leg in my hands. His limb is a topographical map, raised ridges of scars and soft valleys of normal skin, and touching him this way feels almost too intimate. But when I work my fingertips gently against the muscles along the back of his leg, he closes his eyes and sighs. I knead my thumbs along the back of his knee and his groan is pure pleasure. “Jesus, that feels good.”

It doesn’t take long for my fingers to feel comfortable with the scar patterns on his skin, for it to stop feeling foreign and start feeling like Keane. His eyes are still closed when I notice a rise in the front of his shorts.

His eyes fly open.

“Fuck. Anna, I’m sorry, I—” He scrubs a hand over his face while he covers the front of his shorts with the other. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s—That’s not true. I want you so badly right now, I can barely stand it.”

It’s been almost a year since the last time I had sex. My body has been ready, but my brain is the reluctant sex organ. I think too much. Worry it’s too soon.

“I crave you all the time,” Keane says. “I’ve imagined you naked more than once when I was—well, when I was alone with my thoughts, but—”

“Oh my God.” I laugh, my face growing warm. “How can I possibly compete with the fantasy?”

“Come here.” He extends a hand and I let him draw me onto his lap, facing him. Through the layers of fabric between us, I can feel his arousal pressing against me. His hands are big and warm on my back as he kisses me, his lips salty from sweat. “I can promise you that nothing I’ve imagined could ever be better than the real thing. You are the fantasy.”