Judith Arnold - Right Place, Wrong Time

Yet he closed his hand, as if he could hold Gina’s touch inside it forever.

EVER SINCE HER RUN-IN with the nuns at Our Lady of Mercy at the age of thirteen, Gina hadn’t been particularly religious. But she believed in God—and if she hadn’t, snorkeling at Coki Beach would have turned her into a believer.

The beach itself was nothing much, just a strip of sand, a few picnic tables, a man operating a kiosk from which he sold grilled sausages and citrus punch, and a couple of local women who’d set up a hair-braiding enterprise in the shade of a looming old tree. Alicia had asked if she could have braids done, and Gina had paid one of the women to add two delicate braids, tipped with beads the color of the sea, to the hair behind Alicia’s right ear. Another kiosk offered snorkeling equipment for rent, but Gina had brought the gear they’d rented at Palm Point.

She’d also brought Ethan and Kim—or, more accurately, Ethan and Kim had brought her and Alicia. Grateful for the lift, Gina had packed extra peanut-butter sandwiches, fruit-juice boxes and grapes, happy to cater lunch for everyone in return for the free ride.

Kim hadn’t seemed overjoyed with the plan, but she’d gone along with it. Her parents were apparently spending the day playing tennis and golf, and Kim had seemed torn about having to choose between those activities and snorkeling. Ethan had told her that whether or not she joined him, he intended to snorkel—“I can play tennis at the club in Connecticut, for God’s sake,” he’d argued, just loudly enough that Gina couldn’t help overhearing him, even though he and Kim were in their ocean-view bedroom and Gina and Alicia were in the kitchen when this quarrel had taken place. By the time Kim had emerged with Ethan from their room, she’d been wearing a swimsuit and a resentful pout.

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.”