That Birthday in Barbados Read online

  He unbuttoned his shirt, grabbing the bottom and tearing it off over his head. He’d walked straight for me, pushed me onto the bed and pulled off my clothes, one deliberate piece at a time until I lay naked on the bed. He stood, unzipped his pants and then removed them altogether.

  I stared at him, unable to take my eyes off him. It was the first time I had seen him this way. We’d waited until marriage, wanting to save the first time, for it to be as special as our love for each other.

  He lay down next to me, running his hand over my shoulder, around the curve of my breast to settle at my waist. He kissed me then, long and slow, and I can still remember how it felt, the way I had wanted to stay there with him forever, loving and being loved.

  My eyes snap open now, and I stare at the ceiling above me. Not for the first time, it seems a shame that memories cannot stay with us as they were. That what comes after has the power to reshape what seemed right and true at the time. But betrayal does that. It’s the rust that corrodes and collapses and requires us to see that what we thought would last forever never really had a chance of doing so.

  Muted laughter floats up now from the beach below my oceanfront room. Children’s laughter, happy, carefree. I wonder what would have happened had Connor and I made a baby on our honeymoon here. Would we still be together? Would our lives have taken a different track? Would I have seen my business differently, not let it become the focus of our marriage?

  Tears well up and slide down my face. I don’t bother to wipe them away because it’s been so long since I cried, I’m almost glad to know I still can.

  But what is there to cry about?

  I married a man who turned out to be someone I didn’t know at all. A man who chose my sister over me. If there’s anything to cry about, it’s my gullibility. That I’d actually thought love lasted forever.

  It doesn’t.

  If it exists at all, it won’t last. And if you don’t expect something to last, it can’t hurt you when it finally decides to leave. Sorry, Madeline, but that’s the real truth.

  *

  I WAKE TO A knock at the door.

  I open my eyes, reluctant to yield to the pull toward consciousness. I pull myself up on one elbow, noticing the darkness now serving as a backdrop to my porch view. What time is it?

  I squint at the clock next to the bed. 8:45. Oh gosh.

  A voice sounds from the door. “Housekeeping.”

  I get up, still in my travel clothes and go to open it. The woman standing on the other side smiles at me. “Turn down service?”

  “Ah, yes, please,” I say. “Thank you so much.”

  “Do you need fresh towels?” she asks.

  “No. I’m all good on that.”

  She walks to the sliding glass doors and closes the curtains. When she begins to tidy the bed, I say, “I’m going to take a shower. Thank you so much.”

  “Have a good evening, Miss,” she says with a smile.

  I step into the bathroom and close the door, flicking on the light to stare at myself in the mirror. Oy. The nap didn’t help.

  A marble shower sits in the far corner of the room. I walk over to turn on the water, adjusting the temperature. I shrug out of my clothes, grateful that I won’t be wearing heavy winter things for the next two weeks.

  Two weeks.

  I should have booked a shorter stay. There’s no way I won’t go stir crazy with that much relaxing. If I can even remember how.

  I step into the shower, turn my back to the warm spray and then tip my head to let the water run across my hair and down my face.

  Fourteen days of sitting on the beach. I can’t quite imagine.

  I think about the spin class, that gorgeous man’s face popping into my mind.

  Had he been flirting with me?

  No.

  Definitely not.

  He was being nice. It is his job to be nice to guests. To get people to come to his class. He probably gets paid based on how full it is.

  I recognize my own cynicism and try to remember a time when I wasn’t this way. When I could meet a man and not be suspicious of intention. B.C. Before Connor.

  I wash my hair with the hotel’s lovely-smelling shampoo, rinse it out and add conditioner.

  It’s been a while since I’ve done a spin class, but I’ve always loved them, and I need to work out while I’m here. I’ll pick a bike in the back of the room, and odds are he won’t even notice I’m there. Even if he does, I’ll just be one more guest he recruited for the class.

  I get out of the shower, reach for a thick white towel, dry off and then wrap it around myself, searching out a pair of pajamas from my suitcase. My first night at the Sandy Lane and I’m doing PJs and room service. Madeline would not approve.

  I’ll do better tomorrow.

  Chapter Three

  “A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.”

  ― Frederick Douglass

  Anders

  I’D BEEN CLIMBING in my vehicle, heading out for the day when my cell rang, and the hotel manager asked if I could pinch hit for a no-show bartender in the upstairs restaurant. At loose ends for the night, I’d agreed, and as I pour gin into an icy glass with one of the Sandy Lane’s majestic sunsets bowing out in front of me, I’m hit with a not unfamiliar stab of appreciation for the simplicity of my life.

  It’s not the one I’d originally set my sights on, but it is the one for which I have no regrets.

  I work out for a living, encourage others to do it as well, and when needed, revert to the skill I had relied on to get me through college and an MBA from Columbia.

  “What are you making there?”

  I glance at the end of the bar to see a man in a white shirt and navy jacket watching me intently. “Barbadian Gin punch,” I answer.

  “What’s in that?”

  “Genever, which is like gin, but not. Coconut water, lime juice and bitters.”

  “Genever?”

  “Known as Dutch gin, not to confuse it with London dry gin.”

  “Ah. Looks good.”

  “Like to try one?”

  “Sure,” he says. “The New Yorker in me usually can’t get away from the bourbon.”

  “Nothing wrong with a good bourbon,” I say. “But I think you’ll like the change of pace.”

  I finish the one I’m making, set it on a tray for the waitress to pick up and start another. Once I’ve made it, I walk to the other end of the bar and set it in front of him.

  He picks it up, takes a sip and says, “Too bad I had to discover this on my last night.”

  “Just another reason for you to come back,” I say.

  He nods. “Wish I didn’t have to leave.”

  “You don’t. Have to.”

  He laughs and says, “I’m sure it looks like that from your point of view, but I live in reality, unfortunately.”

  “We all do. It’s just that our choices create our reality.”

  “But then you live in paradise. Easy for you to say.”

  I pick up a towel and wipe off a spot of water from the bar. “By choice.”

  “Were you born here?”

  “Actually, I was born in New York. Went to school in the city. Worked in the city.”

  Now I have his attention. “Wait. Aren’t you the guy teaching spin in the spa?”

  “That would be me,” I say. “I fill in up here when needed.”

  “What did you do in the city?”

  “Wall Street for a while.”

  Now he looks as if he doesn’t believe me. “Me, too,” he says.

  “Different life,” I say.

  “Who did you work for?”

  I name the well-known Wall Street firm, note his raised eyebrows.

  “That’s a fairly big transition,” he says.

  “It was my dream. I worked really hard to get there, but life had other plans for me.”

  “So you didn’t stay around long eno
ugh to get a pair of the golden handcuffs.”

  “You hold the key, man.”

  He takes another sip of his drink. “You look awfully young to cash out.”

  “The sunsets here don’t have a price on them.”

  A look of pure envy crosses his face. But right behind it comes resignation, and I can see that he thinks his own fate is sealed. “It’s never too late to make another choice, you know.”

  “My wife would never understand. She’s gotten used to the perks.”

  “If you work the hours I worked, she’s not spending too much time sharing those perks with you.”

  “No, she’s not,” he admits. “Nonetheless-”

  A waitress appears at the end of the bar, hands me an order. I look at the drink requests and reach for a bottle of rum on the wall behind me. “Hope you get back down soon,” I say and then get to work.

  I feel his gaze on my back, hear the words he can’t bring himself to say. He’d like to walk away. But he won’t. And yeah, I feel sorry for him. I’ve met others like him in the time I’ve been here. People who’ve worked hard, accrued enough wealth to come to a place like the Sandy Lane. But they’re trapped in their own lives. And if they got a wake-up call, they haven’t bothered to heed it.

  I think about the woman I met at the front desk earlier, and I somehow know she’s one of those people. It’s not that hard to recognize the signs and the all but visible imprints of the cuffs. And that what probably started out as a dream for her has somehow turned into a prison.

  I should know. I created one of my own. Looking at the guy at the end of the bar, I find myself glad for my wake-up call, despite the hell it sent me to. Without it, I would be that guy. There is no doubt about it.

  *

  Four years ago

  IF ANYONE HAD asked me whether I considered myself a humble person, I would have said yes. Maybe I would have hesitated before answering. Truly humble people do that, don’t they? Appear uncomfortable with any kind of spotlight? Turn the conversation away from themselves?

  I don’t know if I was uncomfortable with it. I wasn’t used to it. Growing up in the foster care system, going to college on scholarship. I got hired straight out of NYU, worked on Wall Street in a firm where I’d had to borrow money to buy the suits I needed to fit in. So yeah, I knew what humility felt like, but after three years of working my way up the ladder and being given the opportunity to skip a rung here and there, I might have bought my own press to some degree.

  I was young, on the way to being rich by any standard I’d ever considered a measuring stick, and women seemed to enjoy my company.

  On this particular night, a group of us headed downtown for dinner and drinks at Cipriani. We’re ordering a second bottle of wine when Ashley Lewis pulls a chair over and wedges it between me and Sam Hawkins, a co-worker who’s likely my biggest competition for a next promotion. Ashley tells him to move over, and he does so with a raised eyebrow and a knowing smile directed my way. There’s a bit of jealousy etched beneath it.

  I stand and help her position the chair closer to the table.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey,” I say, sitting back down, and picking up a bottle of wine, holding it poised over the glass in front of her.

  “I’d love some.”

  I pour her one, stopping halfway since it’s fairly clear she’s well on her way to being intoxicated.

  Ashley started with the firm last year, an MBA out of Stanford, and when it came to the genetic lottery pool, she got more than her fair share of winning tickets. Beautiful enough to be on magazine covers for a living. And smart enough to run her own hedge fund one day.

  For the past couple of weeks, she’s been letting me know she’d like to take our friendship outside the office. It hasn’t seemed like a great idea, but now that she’s sitting here next to me, looking great, smelling great, I realize I’m going to have a hard time turning her down.

  The place is crowded, and laughter rings out from multiple tables around the room, conversation a hum beneath it. Ashley barely lets me finish answering one question before she tosses me another one, and I recognize her people skills with some admiration. She has no need to turn the focus to herself, and I wonder if this is because she is shy or so confident in who she is that she doesn’t need to display insecurity over it.

  We share the risotto I’d ordered and are making our way through our mutually agreed up on sides of the plate when my phone pings. I glance at the screen and see a text from an unfamiliar number.

  I pick up the phone and tap into messages. I recognize the number as the doctor’s office where I had gone for some lab work a few days ago. The blood work had been a non-negotiable part of completing an update to my health insurance policy with the firm. I recall now checking the box that gave them permission to contact me through text and email. The message is short.

  Your results are in. Please come by our office between

  8 and 10 AM tomorrow for some further testing.

  He feels the ping of concern that hits his center. He puts the phone down.

  “What’s wrong?” Ashley asks. “You look worried.”

  “Probably nothing. Just getting the results back for our health insurance update.”

  “What a pain, right?” she asks, taking a sip of her wine. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m sure,” he says. “Maybe they missed something.”

  “Yeah,” she says, reaching over to cover my hand with hers, as if she senses my uncertainty.

  In all honesty, I was grateful for the connection. Before that message, I had no real plans of furthering anything with Ashley. But I went home with her that night. I did not want to be alone.

  Chapter Four

  “Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

  ― Satchel Paige

  Catherine

  THE KNOCK AT my door comes at six a.m. Before going to sleep, I’d arranged for coffee delivery as my wake up call, and I trudge to the door, wishing I’d used the clock so I could tell it to go away.

  The young man holding my coffee tray looks as if he expects me to be unhappy to see him and enters the room with a cheerful, “Good morning, Ms. Camilleri. You are going to be so happy you woke up for this coffee.”

  I smile despite my grogginess. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Would you like to have it outside?”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  He sets the tray down on the desk and opens the sliding glass doors. He carries it outside then and arranges the service on a marble-top table. “As you can hear, the birds are already declaring it a wonderful day.”

  “They are cheerful,” I admit.

  He chuckles while I sign the check, wishes me a good day and leaves me to my coffee. I breathe in the ocean breeze and note the sun rising out of the horizon. I pour myself a cup and stand at the balcony rail to take it all in, suddenly glad I’m up and witness to the day’s rebirth.

  I remember then it is my birthday. I close my eyes for a moment. Forty.

  Good heavens. How did that happen?

  I open my eyes again, staring out at the dawning light on the ocean.

  It is a breathtaking sight. The hotel surroundings have come alive. Attendants are pulling the chairs from their storage spot and lining them up in the sand, covering each one with the hotel’s signature pink towels. They talk as they work, their voices low and harmonic.

  Forty, and I’m alone here in the same place where I’d spent my honeymoon, thinking I knew exactly how my life would go.

  Could I have been more wrong?

  Doubtful.

  The coffee is as delicious as predicted, and I pour a second cup, going inside for my laptop and sitting on the small couch by the balcony, reluctant to connect with the world outside this place. But my work habits are too ingrained to continue ignoring email, so I turn it on, find the wireless connection and login.

  First in the queue is from my sister. I con
sider not opening it, as I always do, but curiosity won’t let me ignore it this morning. I click in, and there’s an e-card with a picture of a big white cake.

  Happy birthday, C-. I miss sharing birthdays with you. I hope you’ll forgive me one day even though I don’t deserve it.

  Tears well in my eyes, slide down my cheeks. Suddenly, I miss her so much that it feels like a knife slicing through my heart. I think too about the unfairness of losing not only my husband, but my sister as well.

  You could forgive her.

  The words dance through my thoughts, not for the first time. Unlike all the other times, they linger this morning because I don’t immediately shove them from the realm of possibility.

  But how can I?

  I can’t deny the bitterness rooted in my heart. I feel its presence on a regular basis like bile in the back of my throat. How is it fair it should be up to me to fix something I didn’t break?

  I slap the laptop closed, severing my connection to the life I’ve left behind for two weeks. Work can wait.

  Work will be there when I get back. It’s the only thing that will be, but it’s always been enough. A vacation isn’t going to change that.

  I pull workout clothes from the drawer I’d put them away in last night. I’ve just finished getting dressed when my cell rings from the nightstand where I’d plugged it in to recharge.

  I walk over and look at the screen. It’s the Manhattan area code, but I don’t recognize the number. I should ignore it, at the least let voice mail pick it up, but I’ve never been good at ignoring questions, and I tap the answer button with a short, “Hello.”

  “Catherine. Please don’t hang up.”

  Connor’s voice shocks me into silence, and I hold the phone to my ear, waiting.

  “I called from a number I knew you wouldn’t recognize. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have answered.”

  “What do you want, Connor?” My voice has an edge to it, and I resent him for bringing that out in me.

  “Just to wish you happy birthday,” he says softly.