The Sea Grape Tree by Gillian Royes Page A

high.
    Discombobulated, as her father would have said, her heart beating fast, she pushed the camera into the bag. If she hurried, she could get away before he returned.
    Carthena greeted her when she returned the stool to the kitchen. “You come back early.”
    â€œThe heat,” Sarah said, fanning herself with the hat. “I still have to get used to it.”
    â€œJamaica plenty hot,” the young woman said, and threw the scallion she’d been chopping into a bowl. The beads rattled when she looked up. “You must be careful you don’t burn, you hear?”

CHAPTER SIX
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    T he words and numbers swam before Eric’s eyes. He groaned and patted the top of the refrigerator, his hand finding nothing but gritty dust.
    â€œShad, do you know where my glasses are?” he called to the bartender wiping a table at the rear of the restaurant.
    â€œOn the middle shelf, boss. You put them down after you fix the blender last night.”
    Glasses found, Eric returned to his usual chair at his usual table and scrutinized the document.
    â€œI think we have a problem,” he said, reaching for the pipe in his pocket.
    â€œA problem?”
    â€œThe budget doesn’t include the cost of putting electricity and water on the island. We can’t have the people in the campsite without water and lights.”
    While Eric lit his lignum vitae pipe, Shad peered over his shoulder at the report. “Can’t we run a water pipe out there?”
    Eric blew out a column of smoke. “A quarter mile offshore? Cost a fortune.”
    â€œWhat about rain barrels?”
    â€œThey’re going to need water to bathe in, to drink, to wash dishes, you name it—too much for barrels.”
    â€œAnd they going to need electricity to cook with. They can’t use charcoal, like Simone used to use.”
    â€œNext thing, they burn down the tents.”
    Shad wiped a corner of the table absently, his eyes on the report. “We going to have to tell Mistah Caines, nuh?”
    The problem hadn’t come to Eric while examining the business proposal, which he had never fully read since it was completed in December. He’d thought about it for the first time during his drive from Port Antonio earlier that day. His mouth still aching from the dentist’s injection, he’d been ambling from one self-pitying thought to another, most of them revolving around Simone.
    Talking about her with Danny had made him miss her again, almost as much as when she first left Largo six months earlier. He remembered watching her brother’s rental car disappear down the main road—Simone’s thin, brown arm waving out the passenger window—and how he’d walked back to his apartment and sat on the side of the bed facing the island.
    Before her arrival, the rocky little island had been loaded with bittersweet memories from years past. Seated on his verandah every night, staring into the blackness, he’d reminisce about the seven years he’d been the head honcho of the small inn, lingering over incidents like when a guest had had a heart attack and he’d taken him to the hospital in his Jeep and the man had lived. And the two guests who’d met at the hotel and married in one week—and he’d wonder if the marriage had lasted.
    Everything had changed when he and Shad had discovered Simone living on the island. His nightly verandah vigils had become consumed by things she’d said, by her safety, by her needs. After they became lovers, he’d arrive on the island with treats, imported cheese and olives and wine, which they’d enjoy on her bed before making love. When she left Largo, they’d agreed there’d be no phone calls. Long-distance relationships didn’t work, he’d said. But he’d broken his own vow and called her a couple of times since, once to ask her permission to name the island after her, once to tell her that the island was