Judith Arnold - Right Place, Wrong Time

He would turn this vacation into something good, he resolved. He would not let Kim’s parents rattle him. He would not knock himself out to win their favor. He would not play golf against his wishes. He worked damn hard in Connecticut, but he was out of town for a week, out of the office, out of touch, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

He cruised past the gated entry to a hotel, then another…and then he spotted the sign for Palm Point. He turned onto the drive, which was appropriately lined with towering royal palms, and maneuvered over the speed bumps. He passed a parking lot and a series of tennis courts surrounded by green chain-link fences, then followed the drive as it zigzagged down the hill toward the ocean. Beige stucco buildings dotted the road, their ocean-facing facades marked by vaguely Spanish-looking wrought-iron balconies. Ethan imagined sitting on a balcony with Kim, both of them flushed and sated after making love. They could be sipping drinks—beer for him, nothing with Absolut or Stolichnaya in it—and watching as the sun slid down toward that breathtakingly blue sea, and not sparing Kim’s parents a single thought. This was Ethan’s vacation. It was his fantasy.

“Here we go,” he announced, pulling into a parking lot beside a building identified by a small sign as number six. Paul’s unit was 614, on the second floor. Ethan’s mood brightened. He’d found the place without incident or accident. In ten minutes he’d be unpacked and in a swimsuit, ready to take a walk on the beach.

“It doesn’t look like much,” Mrs. Hamilton said with a sniff.

“Oh, Mom,” Kim scolded. “It looks lovely.”

It looked fine to Ethan. The stucco was freshly painted, the gardens surrounding the building well tended. When he opened the car door, the air that hit him was heavy with heat and thick with the scent of those red flowers.

“Hibiscus,” Kim answered his unasked question. She threw open her door, climbed out and circled the car to him. “I just love the smell of hibiscus. Isn’t this beautiful?” she gushed, as if to nullify her mother’s disparagement of the place.

“As soon as we unpack, let’s go to the beach,” said Ethan.

Kim gazed up at him, her hair golden and her eyes a blue paler than the sea but darker than the cloudless sky. She was beautiful. From the moment Ethan had seen her stepping out of the elevator into the lobby of the building where he’d worked, he’d been almost uncomfortably aware of her beauty. It was as overpowering as the fragrance of those red flowers.

“We’ll have to help Mom and Dad get settled in first,” she said.

“They’re adults. They can get settled in without our help.”

“I really appreciate your taking the convertible couch in the living room,” she added. “I know that wasn’t what you wanted.”

A ripple of resentment passed through him, impeding his evolution to mellowness. Sleeping on the living-room couch was definitely not what he wanted. Paul had told him one bedroom had a queen-size bed and the other had two twins. Ethan had thought he’d been demonstrating admirable selflessness by ceding the queen-size bed to Kim’s parents. He and Kim could snuggle together in one of the twins—and they could rumple the other bed’s blanket each morning so it would appear that they were sleeping separately.

But Kim had maintained that such an arrangement wouldn’t work. They couldn’t sleep in the same room, not with Mom and Dad right across the hall. If they were married—or even, perhaps, if they were just formally engaged—she might consider it. But without anything official declared between them, she just wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing a room with him when her parents were present.

Ethan had contemplated calling off the whole trip at that point. But that would have made him seem like a sex maniac. After all, he and Kim slept together often enough in Connecticut. It wasn’t as if he had to travel all the way to St. Thomas to get his rocks off. For Kim’s sake—for her parents’ sake—he could be a gentleman.

He didn’t have to like it, though.

Unlocking the trunk, he gazed at the array of luggage Kim and her parents had brought. A folding garment bag, a large pullman, a midsize pullman, a tennis tote containing racquets and fresh cans of balls, and two carry-ons—all in a matching tapestry pattern—belonged to Ross and Delia Hamilton. Given the option, Ross probably would have brought his golf clubs, too—and he probably kept them in a golf bag with the same quaint tapestry pattern. Kim had packed an enormous wheeled, leather-trimmed suitcase for herself, as well as an ergonomically designed shoulder tote she’d ordered from a catalog company specially for this trip.

Ethan had fit everything he needed into one modest duffel.

Nonetheless, he knew that as the young man of the party, he’d be the one hauling all the luggage inside.

He hoisted his duffel out of the trunk and slid the strap onto his shoulder. Then he pulled out Kim’s wheeled suitcase and the Hamiltons’ garment bag. “I’ll get the rest in the next round,” he promised the Hamiltons, who had finally emerged from the air-conditioned car into the broiling Caribbean afternoon.

“The condo is air-conditioned, isn’t it?” Delia Hamilton asked her daughter anxiously.

“Of course it is.” Kim grabbed her ergonomic shoulder bag, handed her mother one of the carry-ons and her father the other, then stepped aside so Ethan could close the trunk. Why she didn’t close it herself—she had two free hands, after all—he couldn’t guess, unless it was to prove to her parents that the man she intended to marry was properly chivalrous.

Feeling like a packhorse, he lugged the bags along the walk to the stairway and up to the second floor, the wheeled bag thumping as it hit each riser. Kim and her parents trailed him like baby ducklings following a mother duck. Sweat slicked his face and dampened his collar as he trudged along the open-air corridor to the door marked 614. He balanced the luggage on the concrete floor, then dug into the pockets of his khakis and pulled out the key Paul had given him. It slid easily into the lock. Smiling, he twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

He was greeted by a blast of cold air and an skull-splitting scream.

IN THE HOUR since they’d arrived at Carole’s unit at Palm Point, Alicia had changed into a swimsuit and run circles around Gina, investigating their vacation digs and announcing her discoveries: “They got a microwave, Aunt Gina! Can we make microwave popcorn?” and “This TV doesn’t get the Disney Channel!” and “There’s a balcony!”

That announcement had torn Gina from the dresser drawer into which she’d been dumping her underwear and sent her flying down the hallway, past the bathroom and through the living room to stop Alicia before she ventured onto the balcony. Alicia was seven, and in general she was smart enough not to fling herself over the balcony railing, but “in general” had nothing to do with this week. Alicia was wired. She’d just taken her very first airplane trip, and now she was in an ocean-view condo on a Caribbean island. Remembering to be careful on a balcony would not be high on Alicia’s to-do list.

But when Gina had joined Alicia on the terrace, gazing down the gentle slope toward the palm-studded beach and the vivid blue water beyond, she’d felt almost as wired as her niece. The air smelled tangy and sweet, so different from the usual sour scents of Manhattan in July that Gina could almost believe she was on a different planet, with its own separate atmosphere.

This was exactly what Alicia needed, she’d thought—a safe, happy planet for a week of carefree fun.

“Don’t lean over the railing,” Gina had warned, even though Alicia was too short to fall over accidentally.