A Trip to the Beach Read Online Free PDF Page B

then exhaled and resumed crying.
    Bob was quiet for a moment. “We’ll leave tomorrow,” he said. He started the jeep and headed for the hotel.
    At Malliouhana I ran upstairs, hoping no one would see that I’d been crying, and Bob informed the front desk that we’d be checking out in the morning. He asked them to call the airline and get us on the flight to Boston. In the room, I broke down completely. I changed into a long T-shirt, climbed into bed, and pulled the sheets over my head.
    My face mashed against the pillow, I heard the big door open and close, then Bob’s voice telling me we’d been booked on a 2:05 flight the next afternoon. I heard the door leading to the balcony open, and the light behind my eyelids turned red—it was the setting sun. “How about dinner?” said Bob.
    â€œI’m not hungry.”
    I had stopped crying, but my stomach hurt. An odd sense of guilt had swept over me. I felt as if I’d betrayed someone—but who? Mac? Bennie and James? They’d see us as impulsive foreigners who’d come into their lives and made empty promises, but they were businessmen—they’d survive. Joshua? Would he ever call me “daughter” again? Maybe it was Anguilla itself that I’d betrayed—my favorite place on earth, my refuge. Or had I betrayed myself?
    â€œYou could just have a salad,” said Bob.
    â€œGo down without me.”
    Bob sat on the bed and put his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go back to Vermont,” he said softly. “We’ll get jobs like normal people.”
    I raised the covers and looked into his eyes, which were bluer than I’d ever seen them. Those eyes could always do it. “Okay,” I said, “you’ve hypnotized me. Let’s have one last great meal before we leave.”
    The Restaurant at Malliouhana was presided over by Jacques, the quintessential maître d’, and overseen by the great Michel Rostang, who’d fly in from Paris periodically to tweak the menu. We sat at our usual table, which overlooked the rocky cliff and the turquoise water below. The spotlights on the rocks attracted three-foot-long gar fish, whose glowing eyes seemed to meet ours as they drifted lazily past. Bob ordered a bottle of ’85 Château Palmer, and as we waited for the salad of haricots verts and marinated scallops and roasted whole chicken from Bresse for two, I began to feel better. Who wouldn’t? By the time the chocolate soufflé arrived, we were brainstorming about business possibilities back home.
    I fell asleep dreaming of Vermont. I wondered, however, as I drifted in and out of sleep, why barefoot James was grilling burgers back in our barn.
    At five A.M. my eyes snapped open. I crept onto the balcony to watch the day come in. The dark sea pounded on the rocks below as the sky turned from black to dusky blue and the stars disappeared. My favorite time; while the world slept, I could bring order to even my unruliest thoughts. I stretched out on the lounge chair and sucked in the strong scent of the sea. Five minutes later I unlocked the heavy mahogany door to our room, trying not to wake Bob, and slipped into the open hallway.
    The only way to the beach at Malliouhana is via a long and winding staircase that looks as if it has been chiseled into the cliff. This time of day it bends almost literally from the darkness of the previous night into the blue and red of the dawn.
    With each step I felt as if I was coming out of a cloud. I rounded the last curve of the stairs and saw the white beach below, and it seemed suddenly vital to reach its safety. The instant my bare feet landed in the cool, wet sand, I knew I was home. A wave broke around my legs and then receded, eroding the sand under my feet and causing me to sink farther down, as if the beach were claiming me. I was overcome with a sense of belonging.
    When I woke Bob, breathing hard from my climb back up the