Shore Leave: The Conclusion

Once on the street, Nigel raised his arm to flag a taxi, but after a few seconds, brought it back down. “Traffic’s too heavy,” he said. “Would take us forever. Can you run?”

They bolted down one street after another, maneuvering around locals laden with groceries and workers strolling their way home. At one point, the sidewalk narrowed and the cars came so close that Holly could feel their steamy exhaust.

“We will make it, won’t we?” she yelled to Nigel, who was a few feet ahead of her. The trucks drowned out his answer.

Though the sun was going down, the thick air was a sauna, weighing on the couple’s energy.

As they neared a cross street, they were forced to stop to let cars pass. Red-faced, breathing hard and light-headed, Holly wondered if she’d be able to keep up the pace.

“You okay?” Nigel said, as he tugged at the front of his sweat-stained shirt. Drops of moisture trickled down the side of his face.

Holly nodded and managed to say, “What time is—?”

Nigel looked at his watch. “6. Our only hope now is if they’re holding the ship.”

The couple was now running side by side, but as they shifted to avoid a rusty overturned child’s bike, Holly’s sandal caught the edge of the handlebar, and she tripped and landed on her knees. This time, she couldn’t stop the tears.

“Holly, Holly, don’t…we’re almost there.”

She looked up at him from the ground and pushed her matted hair from her mascara-streaked face with the back of her hand.

Nigel reached out to help her up. “Come,” he said firmly.

The couple continued their run, past mango trees, hibiscus and coconut palms, toward their jobs, their friends and their ocean home. As they got closer, Holly said, panting, “We…we should be seeing it any minute now.”

“I know. The smokestacks.”

When they got to the yacht club, Nigel suddenly stretched out his arm in front of Holly to motion her to stop. “It’s not there,” he said flatly.

Holly stared at the spot where the Neptune had been. The pier was empty. She coughed a few times, slowly walked to the grass under a tree and sat down. She pulled off her sandals and rubbed her feet.

Nigel sat down next to her, stretching his legs out in front of him.

Neither said anything and the only sound was Holly’s wheezing and occasional cough. A foot-long scaly green iguana crept closer, but the couple didn’t notice.

“What do you want to do?” Holly said at last. “Find our way to San Juan?”

Nigel was silent. He stared at the sea and squinted, as if looking there for the answer.

When he finally spoke, his voice took on the softness he had used in bed. “We could always stay here and have a honeymoon.”

Holly looked up at him quizzically, unsure she heard him right.

“Yes, yes, that makes sense,” he said, more to himself than to his companion, as he nodded slightly. “Then we can fly back to London…Remember I told you my uncle offered me a job in his company when I came back…”

Holly pushed back all thoughts of the family issues that would inevitably lie ahead to get caught up in Nigel’s growing excitement.

 “Looks like I missed the ship, but I didn’t miss the boat,” Holly said with a small smile, gently falling back against Nigel’s warm, damp body.

A port guard, just coming back from his break, was taken aback to see the strange tourist couple sitting alone on the ground at the darkening deserted pier, on an island that was all their own.