Life Spwot

“Whatcha spwot?”

“Whatchaspwot?” What do I support? Huh. Good question. Is this political? Or is this about bras? I’ll think about it later.

She’s been sauntering up and down this crowded white-sand beach, back and forth and back and forth, selling $25 cigars to honeymooning men and foreign bankers here on convention. Her voice is very close now. Not roving, but directional. It’s a shift in surround sound, no longer a soundtrack in the background, but a pointed attack.

“Wat spwotchu play, ma-MA?”

A bit louder now. “Ya play socca, I betcha.”

I squint open my eyes. Who’s she talking to? Behind my sunglasses the sky is still so bright, so very bright. She stands above me, blocking out the sun, a two-dimensional silhouette, her halo is radiant and features undefined. But I know what she looks like. We all know what she looks like. She’s been pacing all morning singing her “Tiii-yme ta Git Smooook-an’” jiggle. She’s older than my mother, maybe 70-75? And twists her hips and knees along the fine, white sand like a 17-year-old dancer who’s missing her poodle skirt. She should’ve had a poodle skirt. Did they even do the poodle skirt craze in the Bahamas? She’da been there, for sure. She’s smaller than a size 0, if that’s even possible, and wears a long-sleeved dark brown shirt that matches her neck, face and hands so precisely, so perfectly that from far away she looks topless. We’ve all had to look twice – to make sure? To catch a glimpse? Her pants are men’s oversized beige Dickies with a tight brown belt. This might be the smallest pair of Dickies on the whole planet, and they’re still too big. Her hair is barber shop short and dyed blonde, unusual in New Providence with hair salons on every corner and miles of jet black wigs in every curl, sweep and wave.

Oh, she’s talking to me! Ops. I lean up, sit up, slowly, lazily, heavily. It’s 11:30am and I’m on champagne #6 – if you count that really big wine glass as just one. Which at this time, I am.

“Yeahh, I played soccer, but years ago. Now I just chase kids. No sports.” My thoughts are slow. I was not expecting to have a conversation with anyone before lunch time.

“Mama IS spwot! I lookin atcha legs dere and – mama, wooo-wooo, you still got it! Dems’ killer legs. Strong legs. UMM!”

I’m smiling sweetly, blushing, just soaking it all in. This is the first time anyone has said my legs are Strong. She’s gone out of her way to compliment me, and I let her. Is she trying to pick me up? Is she trying to sell me a cigar for my husband? Why is she talking to me when there’s a beach full of younger bodies and longer legs to be oogled. But, I don’t care. I soak it in, the sun, the bubbles, the waves, the words.

I’m up on my elbows, and I try to keep my voice lower now. I don’t want to broadcast this conversation, for Pete’s sake, but my Minnesota Nice requires that I answer her. “Ok. Yearz ago, I played soccer, basketball, volleyball. Whatever a season, really. Nothing… particular. So, thangks. Yeah, now I jus’ chase kids.” I dig deep into the memories of my past. What did I play? Did I like it? Why did I play? Sisters were on the track team so I joined, too. Boyfriend was a surfer, so I had a board, too. Didn’t I win some athletic award eons ago? Family tennis lessons for Christmas. My husband lifts weights, so now I do, too. We all bicycle as a family. Does that count? Should I tell her about the bike rides?

“How many you got?”

“How many wha’?” Legs?

“Kids, mama. How many kids you got?” Did I pass out?

“Oh, 5. Thre’ in college n two little ones.” I have not missed the yelling, the crying, the fighting, the tears, nor the diapers this week. Because I am the one who yells, cries and fights. Those are my tears, too. But this vacation is exactly what I needed. What we needed: Time and space for nothing. To play. To have sex. To stay up late. To sleep in. Read a couple books. Nap. Sex. Drink. Nap. Sex. Repeat. In that moment, I know that I will return home a more whole, happy version of myself. Refreshed. Rejuvenated. Reconnected to who I want to be and who I can be. Isn’t that why we vacation in the first place?

“Ah! That be you pension baby! The little one – ‘e take care of YOU!” I think of our 5-year-old girl and our 2-year-old Finn – Surprise! Surprise! – and how he throws his head back when he laughs. She, too, throws her head back as she laughs open mouthed. She then turns to walk away, but her face and eyes are still on my legs. “Dem legs git you whateva you need, mama. Dey carry you and you family now, yeah?”

I take my sunglasses off and look her in the eye. “Yeah, theydo… I guess. Thangks, m’lady.” I blush a little and smile at my newfound awesomeness. I’m gunna be a great mama when I get home. As I inch back down along the wicker lawn chair, I catch a glimpse of her rocking and rolling and whooping along the sand. Under those Dickies, she has strong legs, too.

In a few minutes Deangelo and his uniform shirt and shaded hat returns with #7. Or is #8. I set it on the small wicker table at my side. “Thangks Deangelo. Could I ‘rder ‘oom service from you? Out here? If I’m gunna keep drinkin’, I gotta get somethin’ else in ‘ere, too. I know is not a room but I jus’ thoud I’d ask.” Oh lord, I’m drunk.

He laughs and if I were single would slip right into that printed mumu shirt. He knows it. “We not really supposed to, but I kin do that for ya. Wha’ would ya like?”

I’m giddy with this amount of spoiling. “Really?! Thank you. So much. Um (what’s easy). A chick’n ceezer wrap from a Royal Caf?” I’ll save half for my husband, he’s always starving when he lands ashore after a full morning of scuba diving.

“Yes ma’am. I tink itta be ready in about 10 minute. What ya room numbah?”

I have to think for a moment. Where am I? Oh, yes. “1103. Thangk ya so much. I ‘eally ‘ppreciate it.” I’m in bliss. Bottom’s up!

I happily return to my horizontal life and float away into the ebb and flow of clicking rocks and seashells and sand and birds and sunshine and memories of running in the grass and kicking balls and the wind in my face and peddling bicycles children falling asleep in their seats helmets resting on my back and mountain biking in the mountains and surfing for the past 25 years.

Champagne #8? 9. 9!

Deangelo arrives with my wrap. I sit up a little too quickly and am slightly, happily dizzy. Where’d he go? “Are those ‘xtra fries?” I smile and flirt. Spicy fries have never been this sexy before. They may never be again. I can tell that Deangelo isn’t as inspired by me as the cigar lady is. But that’s Ok. I sit up on the edge of my lawn chair, feet in the soft, talcum powder sand, shifting my hips to dig my toes and feet in deeper. I feel my legs in a new way. They have a presence they didn’t have before. A strength. A firmness. A length. I can feel the muscles inside, my thighs and hamstrings, my calves and shins. I’m right handed – does that make a difference? I don’t really care. I’m beautiful.

I am also famished and not self-conscious and quickly inhale two big bites.

“Tiii-yme ta Git Smooook-an’!!”

Over the top of my very creamy – yet still crunchy – wrap, through the salt-water spotted lenses of my sunglasses, I see two pairs of shoes on the sand. Leather slip-on shoes. They are standing in front of me, a coupla feet away. They should take ‘em off. I’d have taken mine off. I pinch three or four fries in my left hand and shove them in my mouth, delicious. The shoes shuffle in the sand, shifting their weight. I glance up the ankles, the knees, to the skirts, the vests, the matching uniforms. The sun blinds me as I get close to their faces, blinding. Oh shit! I’m not supposed to have food and a glass plate on the beach. Deangelo ratted me out! But HE brought it! This is an all-inclusive, was I supposed to tip him? They can’t kick me out of the resort. Can they?

They stand above me, I’m trying to look at them but they, too, are bright. They wait for me to be done chewing. I gulp a heavy bite, too soon. I look down.

“Sorry ‘bout the room service on the beach.” I’m sobering up a bit. I imagine a mug shot wherein everyone can tell how blotto I am, spicy fry spice smeared around my mouth and lettuce in my teeth. But over room service? Calm down – I’m not getting arrested over a wrap. The next people over have a plate, too. Why aren’t they arresting them?

“Are you Ally Mason? Your husband Chris went scuba diving this morning?”

Oh! Whew. “Yes! He goes every day. He’s been every day!” Am I talking loud? They are nodding, knowingly, patiently. So, wrap in hand, I keep talking. I’m just so giggly I’m not getting arrested. “He’d like to become a Master diver after he retires but we need the kids to graduate from college first before we can even think about it.” I can’t remember her name, and can’t read her nametag from this angle. I am really too happily drunk. They’re going to hire him, today. We can retire to this paradise, today!

“Tiii-yme ta Git SmOOOOk-an’!!”

“There was an accident on the boat.” They pause, not knowing what to say next. Or how to say it. What are they waiting for? I look back up, squinting. “We’ve been looking for you all morning.”

“Why have you been looking for ME? He can handle an accident. He’s not supposed to be back until 1:30 – or so. It’s like, just past noon. You can talk to him then. Or, when he gets back, I’ll send him to the front desk. He said he’d meet me here.”

“It was a rather dramatic accident on the boat. You should come with us. We’ve been looking for you.” Her words are slow and measured. Her accent isn’t as thick as others, and she’s speaking methodically, mindfully.

“Tiii-yme ta Git Smooook-AN’!!”

“An accident? He was IN the accident?” They’ve been looking for me. Chicken Wrap in my hand. Room 1103. Deangleo. “Oh. He was in the accident. What happened? Is he OK?” I look in their faces. They give me nothing. They are expressionless. One of the women looks away. Her eye, covered with sleek, white glittering eye shadow, the eye closest to me, it’s wet. The corner of her mouth is trembling. She’s starting to cry. “Is he OK?” There is a hand offered, and I stand myself upright. I am quickly wrapped in a white towel, I didn’t see until now. It’s been bleached. “Where is he?” Why aren’t they answering? Their feet are planted in the sand, standing still, not moving. “An accident? What accident?” Why aren’t they saying anything?! “Why won’t you answer me?!” I realize I’m still holding my half-eaten wrap. Chris was going to eat the other half when he got back. I watch it roll out of my hand, unraveling, its pieces falling into the sand.

I look up into their pained, restrained, faces. “We’re going to the hospital? They have hospitals here, don’t you?” I’m trying to look at their faces, into their eyes, but they look away, they look down. “You DO have hospitals in The Bahamas, right?” A tear races from the corner of her eye, glinting in the sunlight. It slides down her check and falls.

These legs buckle and I fall backward, landing solidly onto the sand, my legs now straight out in front of me. The towel unfurls in slow motion and knocks the plastic champagne glass off the side table. It splashes quickly on my legs, slides down my thighs into the sand, instantly soaking down and in. It, too, is gone.

How my husband died: A 310 lb. novice diver passed out 10’ underwater on the first dive of the day. His doctors said it was an acute myocardial infarction. A mild heart attack. It took all 7 divers to get this man out of the water and back onto the deck of the boat. While helping lift and push, my husband’s equipment got caught on the ladder, under the water. In the chaos, no one noticed that my husband wasn’t on deck. Although they saved this man’s life, by the time they found Chris, he couldn’t be revived. They tried. They tried.

Time of death: 10:15am.

I will bury your body here on the island. You have a 100-mile religious request and I have spite. There will be no time to grieve.

I will wake in the early mornings reaching for you in dark, but you won’t be there. Our little kids will ask where you are. “Daddy stayed in the Bahamas. We can go visit another day.” The older kids, the three in college, will insist I eliminate their monthly stipends and tuition payments while I get everything caught up and organized. But we’ll keep ‘em up. “That’s what your father would have wanted.” We have no savings, it all went to this vacation. This damned vacation. A few more deals coming through will get me, us, through Spring. But after that… You kept us all afloat. Why couldn’t you do that for yourself? I just fed and cleaned and scheduled and drove and ran around, chasing kids. You held me close as you whispered in my ear that it was me who kept the family together, “You’re the glue, mama.” But you were the one who kept us moving forward.

I don’t want to do this without you. But I can. I will.