Right Place, Wrong Time

Once they’d arrived at the beach, though, she’d dutifully donned the mask and flippers Ethan had provided, and they’d gone into the water together. Gina had watched them kick away from the shoreline, then helped Alicia put on her equipment and followed them in.

The water was as clear as teal-tinted glass, and it swarmed with fish. Blue fish. Yellow fish. Violet fish. Iridescent fish that shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow whenever they swam through a wavering shaft of sunlight. Fish that skittered in and out of coral formations, ducked behind sea plants and sometimes swam right up to Gina’s nose and stared at her, as if trying to determine whether she was one of them.

I am, I am! she wanted to shout—although she wasn’t sure fish had ears. But she felt as if she were just another fish—a big, clumsy, gill-less one, but in some humble way a part of their magical world. Of course God existed, she thought. The tranquil beauty of all these fish letting Gina and a score of other humans snorkel in their territory proved it. How could a place this beautiful and peaceful exist if God hadn’t created it?

She managed to keep track of Alicia while she swam among the glorious fish. Alicia wore her bright orange swimsuit, which made her quite visible in the water, and she frequently bobbed her head above the surface and hollered, “Aunt Gina! Over here! Look at this!” Her cries would invariably attract half a dozen other snorkelers, who would all converge wherever Alicia was standing in time to see a vivid purple-and-orange fish scoot away, no doubt startled by the sudden crowd. Gina didn’t mind, though. Whenever a few minutes passed without Alicia’s giving a yell, Gina would surface and scan the inlet to locate Alicia and make sure she was safe.

Ethan seemed as taken by the underwater world as Gina was. He wouldn’t yell to get her attention, but every now and then he would swim over to her, his feet pumping in his long black flippers, nudge her shoulder and point. Together they would watch a hole in the coral until some wondrously colored creature would emerge. Then Ethan would smile at her around his breathing tube and swim off.

He looked damn good in a swimsuit. Not that she noticed or anything.

Kim looked good in a swimsuit, too. Kim would probably look good in a ratty bathrobe, torn stockings and hair rollers. Gina knew a fair number of models through work, but they tended not to be quite so beautiful. In person, they were often emaciated, and they also usually had some odd feature—knife-sharp cheekbones, perhaps, or a bumpy nose, or collagen-plumped lips. The New York fashion world loved slightly weird faces. Kim would never make it as a model; she was much too classically pretty.

She left the water a good half hour before Gina, Alicia and Ethan were ready to break for lunch. Actually, Gina would have been happy to skip lunch and remain in the muted, glittery world of the fish, tasting salt on the rubbery mouthpiece of her breathing tube and feeling her ears rush and pop with water. But eventually Alicia yanked on the strap of her mask and announced that she was starving, so Gina reluctantly abandoned her sacred fish for a sandwich.

She spotted Kim at one of the picnic tables, her wet hair combed back from her face and a book open in her lap. Gina wrestled out of her flippers, then helped Alicia off with hers. They stalked across the hot sand to the table, underneath which Gina had left her tote with the sandwiches, fruit and drinks. “We’re hungry,” Alicia declared.

Kim gave them a supercilious glance, then tucked a bookmark into her book. “Don’t splash water on the pages,” she chided Alicia. Gina glimpsed the book’s title: A Buyer’s Guide to Diamonds. Not exactly her idea of light vacation reading.

She wrapped a towel around Alicia, then draped a second towel over her own shoulders. Tugging off her mask and snorkel tube, she felt the snaggles in her hair. Had she thought to toss a comb into the tote? She didn’t think so, but no big deal. She’d just be going back into the water after lunch.

“Wow!” Ethan’s voice drifted toward her from behind. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him jogging up the beach, his mask perched on the crown of his head and his flippers dangling from one hand. His chest was sleek with water and lean muscle, and the wet fabric of his swimsuit lay pasted to his thighs and hips in a way that was just this side of obscene. Gina wished he would turn around so she could check out his buns. He belonged to Kim; she knew that. But a woman was allowed to look, wasn’t she?

“Isn’t it cool?” Alicia said, climbing up onto a bench. “Did you see those fish with all the colors on them? They glowed!”

“They were pretty special,” Ethan agreed, sliding onto the bench across from Alicia and next to Kim, whom he gave a swift kiss. She shrank from him and held her book away, evidently worried that he would drip water onto it. His hair appeared as messy as Gina’s felt, sticking out in all directions and spraying droplets of water every time he moved his head.

“All I’ve got is peanut butter,” Gina said, unpacking the sandwiches from her tote. “And grapes. And lots of juice.”

“I’m not hungry,” Kim said. She hadn’t done as much swimming as the others, and maybe she’d eaten a huge breakfast. Or maybe she was counting her calories, although her body, like the rest of her, appeared flawless to Gina. Then again, if Gina had packed a picnic of Brie and truffles, Kim might suddenly discover she had an appetite. Peanut butter was probably too déclassé for her.

She did help herself to a few grapes. Gina, Alicia and Ethan attacked the sandwiches and juice. “I couldn’t find an octopus,” Alicia said. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

“Did you see all those coral formations?” Gina asked both her and Ethan. “It’s amazing to think they’re created by teeny little animals.”

Alicia seemed troubled. “What teeny animals?”

“They’re so teeny you can’t see them,” Gina explained. “I can’t believe that snorkeling trail in St. John could be better than this. Thanks so much for bringing us, Ethan.”

“Hey, I’m enjoying myself, too,” he assured her.

Kim sniffed.

“You guys don’t have to stay here on our account,” Gina said, aware that Kim wasn’t overly thrilled about the whole experience. “We can find our own way back to Palm Point, if you want to leave.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Ethan assured her. Kim glared at him but said nothing.

Alicia tore off a sprig of grapes from the bunch at the center of the table. “I wanna go back in the water,” she said between grapes. “And it’s not true that you can get cramps if you go in the water too soon after eating. My friend Stephanie said her father said so. And he’s like a scientist or something.”

“Not that I want to cast aspersions on Stephanie’s father,” Gina said, “but it wouldn’t kill you to stay out of the water a few minutes so you can digest your lunch.”

Alicia frowned. “What are you going to cast?”

“Aspersions. And I’m not going to cast them.”

“Excursions? What’s that?”

A hot wind rattled the palms overhead. Gina grinned and shook her head. “Never mind. If you can’t sit still, you can collect shells for a few minutes. No snorkeling until I say so.”

“I can go in myself!” Alicia had obviously figured out why Gina was preventing her from swimming. Cramps or no cramps, Gina wouldn’t let her go in the water alone.

“No, you can’t. It’s a rule. Even grown-ups don’t go in by themselves.” Gina glanced toward Kim and Ethan, hoping for support, but they didn’t say anything. Gina turned back to Alicia. “Why don’t you collect some shells? Bring me back the prettiest shells you find, okay?”

Alicia made little attempt to hide her irritation as she slipped off the bench and stomped across the sand.

Kim leaned toward Ethan and whispered something. Great. As if Gina didn’t feel bad enough for having forbidden Alicia from returning to the water, now she was going to have to finish her sandwich while the lovebirds cooed and nuzzled each other.

It wasn’t exactly nuzzling, really. Kim tucked her head close to Ethan’s so she could murmur things to him, and he tilted his head to give her better access to his ear, but Gina didn’t see any kissing. Not that she was looking closely. She was too busy choking down the last couple of bites of her sandwich. A few sips of juice, and she’d join Alicia on seashell patrol.

Before she could lift her juice box to her mouth, Alicia came racing back to their table, her feet churning the sand and the two narrow braids behind her ear dancing, the beads bouncing like blue bubbles against the dark background of her hair. “Aunt Gina! Aunt Gina! Guess what I saw?”

Gina was so grateful to Alicia for rescuing her from the lovebirds she lowered her juice box and struck a thoughtful pose. “An orangutan?” she guessed.

Alicia pulled a don’t-be-silly face. “No! It’s—”

“No, let me guess. A zeppelin?”

“A lizard!” Alicia told her. “A big green lizard!”

“I bet it’s an iguana,” Ethan said.

Gina eyed him, surprised. She hadn’t realized he’d been listening.

“It’s really big and funny-looking,” Alicia announced, yanking on Gina’s hand as if she could pull Gina’s attention back to her. “Hurry, Aunt Gina, come look at him before he runs away.”

Gina had never seen an iguana before—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to see one now. But she bravely stood and let Alicia drag her across the beach. A shadow stretched beside her, and when she glanced to her left she saw Ethan loping to catch up to them. “Kim’s a wimp,” he said, “but I want to see the iguana.”

“How do you know it’s an iguana?” Alicia asked. “It could be a dinosaur.”

“I don’t think so.” He flashed a smile at her. “Iguanas are indigenous to the region.”

“What does that mean?”

“They live here,” Gina explained.

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