The plane dipped again, and Eva felt her stomach lurch
upward into her rib cage, pressing uncomfortably in her
mild panic. Her hands gripped the armrests with such force
that color began to drain from her knuckles. Her well-
shaped head with its short crop of gently layered curls
was also pressed with equal force into the headrest.
Anyone looking at Eva Duncan in that moment would have
suspected that the woman was merely waiting out the boring
process of the landing of the Boeing 727 jet. They would
not have seen the distress that held her prisoner and
which, in fact, held most people prisoners on their very
first plane flight.
Eva completely missed the developing panorama out the
window of the Caribbean Sea, spotted with islands of
varying size and topographic details. She missed the
aerial view of dozens of white-sailed vessels gliding
along the aqua surface of the water below. But she also
missed the plane touching down on the St. Thomas runway,
looking for all the world as though it were headed for the
mountains in front of it.
"We're on the ground," came the knowledgeable child's
voice next to her. Eva opened her eyes and turned to look
into the calm, wide-eyed face of her flight companion.
"You can open your eyes now," the little girl's voice
continued before she turned her eyes to watch the ground
procedures out her window as the plane slowed and reversed
its powerful engines. "My name's Diane," she
offered. "What's yours?"
"Eva," the woman replied.
Eva let out a silent sigh and released her armrests,
placing her trembling hands in her lap. She'd done it!
She'd actually gotten on a plane and taken a flight of
several hours — and survived. She chuckled softly in self-
derision.
The little girl turned back to her, her own head tilted,
and raised her brows. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"Oh...I was just thinking what a big baby I'm being about
this trip. I should be more like you. You're not afraid to
travel alone," Eva observed.
"I was the first time," the little girl said. "I thought
my daddy wasn't going to be here to meet me."
Eva smiled at the self-assurance of the youngster, so
adult in so small a person. And it was ironic that at ten
years of age Diane Maxwell had so much confidence, while
twenty-nine-year-old Eva Duncan could have used a little
more.
Starting to relax again now that the plane was safely on
the ground, Eva was once more amazed at the determination
with which she'd set about taking this trip, her very
first vacation, all by herself. She could still hear her
mother lamenting her daughter's lack of good sense.
Cautioning Eva that there were far too many plane crashes
these days, Florence Stewart tried to persuade her
youngest child and only daughter that a bus trip to
Philadelphia would serve the same purpose. That it was
unnecessary to fly all the way to God knows where just to
have an adventure. But Eva had remained firm. She wanted
this trip to someplace new, someplace far away. And no one
knew better than she that lives could be lost on the
ground far easier than in the air.
Eva straightened the elastic neck and long, full sleeves
on her white peasant blouse and smoothed the front of her
red slim skirt, hoping her outfit didn't look too wrinkled
after three and a half hours in close quarters. She
absently swept her hands over the short hair from front to
back several times, fluffing it and feeling the curls
spring into place with new life. Her toffee-colored face
with its rounded soft cheeks and small rounded chin began
to glow with the beginnings of excitement. Her brown eyes
with their almond shape were bright and wide open, and her
small mouth smiled gently. Eva looked over the head of her
companion and also peered out onto the sunny afternoon as
the plane taxied downfield and came to a stop.
Eva frowned, expecting to see a modern, sterile airport
and terminal building, but could only see a rather old,
dreary-looking hangar.
Diane settled back in her seat and sighed. She began to
swing a leg back and forth over the edge of her seat in
growing impatience to be off the plane.
"Do you always travel alone, Diane?" Eva asked. Diane
nodded, a pinky finger stuck into the side of her mouth
and gnawed on absently by her small white teeth.
"My mama doesn't like to fly. She's scared more than you
are!" she enlightened Eva.
Still, Eva couldn't really imagine ever sending a child of
her own on a trip like this alone.
"She says she can't leave my stepfather and step-brother.
Robert is still a baby," Diane announced.
At the beginning of the trip down to the U.S. Virgin
Islands, Diane had been filled with impatience to see her
father. Now that it was the end of school for the summer,
she would be spending two weeks with him. It had been
nearly a year since she'd last seen him, but she spoke of
her father with gladness and love as though she saw him
every day of her life. Eva wondered about a father that
could inspire such devotion from so far away for fifty
weeks of the year.
Diane informed Eva that her parents had divorced when she
was a little girl. That had brought a smile to Eva's lips,
because Diane was still so obviously a little girl. At ten
she was still a bit chubby with baby fat. Her thick wavy
hair was pulled back into a ponytail and gently twisted.
Her brown face for the moment was round, but once the fat
was lost and she grew some more, it would be more square
with very attractive features.
Earlier when Eva asked Diane what her father did in the
Virgin Islands, she'd responded that he studied fish. That
had puzzled Eva, but she didn't have a chance to find out
more as their lunch was served at that moment.
Over lunch, however, Diane regaled Eva with stories of the
other times she'd visited her father, except for the one
summer when he was away somewhere else, so her mother had
sent her to summer camp. She hadn't enjoyed that nearly so
much, but it was clear to Eva that at ten Diane Maxwell
had experienced quite a lot.
Now as they gathered their carry-on luggage and prepared
to leave the plane, Eva realized that she was about to
leave a circumstance she'd gotten used to for almost four
hours, to begin the next unfamiliar phase of her six-week
vacation. The one hundred and thirty-eight passengers
began filing out of the plane.
"Now we have to get our luggage," Diane said over her
shoulder informatively, looking up into Eva's face as they
started down the stairway of the plane.
The heat was unexpected and fierce. It hit Eva full force
as she crossed the runway to a sheltered walkway that took
the passengers into the Harry S. Truman Airport and to
their luggage. Diane walked with knowledge and ease toward
the hangar, and Eva could only follow behind. She knew
that after she got her luggage she was to take a cab to
the boat docks at Red Hook on the other side of St.
Thomas. From there she was to catch a ferry to St. John,
the smallest of the three Virgin Islands and just twenty
minutes away. That much seemed enough to worry about for
the time being.
The dark, but cool, interior of the hangar was a sudden,
welcome change to the heat. Eva hoped that she would
adjust quickly. She thought ruefully that if she wanted
unbearable summer heat and humidity, she could have stayed
home in New Jersey.
She followed behind the other passengers to a motionless
conveyor belt, and assumed that eventually her luggage
would come this way. Diane, standing next to her, was
craning her neck around the old, oddly converted hangar,
obviously searching out her father.
"Are you sure he's going to meet you?" Eva asked the
little girl in some concern.
"Yes..." Diane answered, giving up the search for the
moment. "Sometimes he's late, but he always comes," she
said positively. She looked up to Eva with a frown.
"Isn't anybody going to meet you?"
"I'm afraid not. I...I don't know anybody here. This is my
first time, remember?"
"But what hotel are you staying at?"
"I'm not staying at a hotel. I'm renting a house for my
vacation."
"All by yourself?" Diane asked, eyes wide open.
"All by myself," Eva confirmed, nodding with a smile.
"I'd be scared. "Specially at night," Diane confessed. The
smile on Eva's face went through a transition totally lost
on the little girl. It grew sad and rather pensive, her
eyes distant and staring, its depths sudden dark pools
hiding pain from the past.
"You get used to it," Eva murmured. She quickly pulled
herself together and smiled down at Diane.
"Maybe I'll see you around while you're here," Eva
suggested.
Diane nodded in agreement. "You might get into trouble all
by yourself. Maybe my father and I should keep an eye on
you. Just in case."
Eva laughed lightly. "That's very nice of you, but I think
I'll be okay."
Eva liked Diane's open friendliness, her thoughts of other
people. She must have really wonderful parents, Eva
imagined, even though their marriage hadn't worked and
they separated. They were both doing something right with
this youngster.
For a long time Eva used to compare every little girl she
saw to Gail, her daughter. Every little body with two fat
pigtails used to make her stop in midstride to stare and
wonder, to feel her stomach tighten and eyes mist. It had
taken a while to reconcile herself to the fact that there
had been only one Gail, and she was gone.
Eva blinked and took a deep breath. She passed a slightly
shaking hand over her damp forehead. It suddenly seemed so
very warm in the hangar.
The conveyor belt churned into motion, and the passengers
from her flight pushed to the edge in a rush, everyone
anxious for his bags so each could continue on his way.
Eva spotted her brown nylon duffle with its yellow luggage
tag and reached to swing it off the conveyor to the floor.
Her thirty-six-inch case came next, but she was not
prepared for the weight and couldn't move it. She had to
let go of the handle as the bag remained on the belt and
went on a journey around the system again.
A tall blond youth, probably a college student, helped her
the next time the bag came, and she thanked him. But she
still had no idea how she'd manage everything by herself.
As Eva stood in indecision, the blond young man again came
to her rescue.
"You look like you could still use some help," he said
good-naturedly. Eva smiled ruefully, looking down
helplessly at her bags.
"I guess I do. I'm wondering how to get all of this to a
taxi. For that matter, where do I find a taxi?"
"That's easy," the young man answered, the tropic breeze
ruffling up his long shaggy hair. "The taxi depot is just
through that door." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
And then without any apparent effort he lifted the one
oversized suitcase and her duffle. "If you have everything
else, I'll walk you over."
"Oh, I really appreciate this!" Eva said with feeling,
lifting her heavy tote onto her arm.
"No problem. You've never been here before?" he asked,
adjusting his lanky, long-legged steps to her slower,
shorter ones.
"No. This is my first time."
He chuckled. "Everybody packs too much the first time down
here."
"But I'm going to be here for six weeks!" Eva said as they
once more walked into the brilliant, startling sunshine.
The youth shook his head as he put her bags down on the
curb. "You don't need much on the islands. You'll probably
be in a bathing suit most of the time anyway. I bet you
won't wear half the stuff you brought with you."
Feeling already as though she was way overdressed in her
blouse and skirt and open-toed sandals and with
perspiration making trails down the valley of her breasts
and down her back, she could well believe him.
"At any rate, I want to thank you for your help. It was
kind of you."
"Sure...anytime." He smiled, standing with his hands on
his narrow hips.
"Are you on vacation?" Eva asked.
"Sort of. I work here," he answered.
"What kind of work?"
He laughed. "The easy kind, and as little as possible! I
come down every summer and work at the resort on St. John.
I teach the guests how to snorkel, use the Sunfish, and
how to surf sail..."
Eva raised her brow. She didn't know what he was talking
about. She smiled, however, at his enthusiasm and obvious
enjoyment of what he did.