Paradise for a Sinner Page 14

  The blonde’s husband thumbed his travel guide. “Hey, Tisa’s Barefoot Bar is right over there. Let me buy you a drink and a burger while we wait out the rain. What do you say?”

  To Winnie’s dismay, Adam said yes. As the first drops fell, Charlie Diggs of Paramus, New Jersey, covered his bald head with the travel guide and headed for the bar. Livy grabbed the bulging beach bag and rammed a wide straw hat over her bleached extravaganza of hair. She tripped over something invisible in the sand, seized Adam’s arm for support, and did not remove her red-polished claws until they reached their destination. Winnie trudged along behind with their beach blankets wrapped around her shoulders and their dry lava-lavas bunched under her arms. She and Adam changed in the restrooms. Livy drew a long, gold patterned caftan from her bag and considered herself dressed. Charlie scooted back to their rental car to put on a shirt and get an umbrella, but at last they were all settled and awaiting beverages and food.

  Somehow, Livy managed to make Adam the center of a Diggs’ sandwich with Winnie on the outside of the group like the dill pickle no one wanted. Considering last night’s overindulgence, Winnie chose the local koko over alcohol and indulged in its chocolate deliciousness while the others had beer. That and the sound of the rain soothed her despite Charlie’s endless conversation.

  “I met my jewel at a casino in Atlantic City. Imagine the luck. I’ve always been a lucky guy,” the tourist said.

  “Sometimes, we are meant to be in certain places at certain times to meet someone,” Adam remarked. He smiled at Winnie over the top of Livy’s big hair.

  “Me, I own a bowling alley. Turns out Liv loves to bowl and gamble. So do I. A match made in heaven, I say.”

  Winnie glanced down to notice Livy’s foot as it slipped from her sandal and began to rub Adam’s calf. Or a marriage made in hell. She doubted it would last out the year.

  “I says to Livy, where you want to go on our honeymoon? You name it, Paris, Hawaii. I got the dough. She says she been to both those places with her first two husbands. She wants me to surprise her. I check out Samoa, two fucking days to get here and it turns out to be the rainy season.”

  Adam agreed. “Rains here a lot even in the dry season.”

  “Now I don’t mind staying indoors and celebrating our nuptials, but Liv, she wants to see the island. Say, maybe you could show us around tomorrow.”

  “Sorry,” Adam said. “We’re flying out tomorrow.”

  Winnie stopped sipping her koko. “We are? Yes, I forgot we are. But, you should drive up and see the rainforest. Be sure to find someone to show you the guardians of the forest.”

  Livy reluctantly dropped her foot into her sandal again and addressed Winnie. “Come on, tell us what they are.”

  “No, I want you to be surprised.”

  Adam winked at Winnie over the blonde bombshell’s head. “Thanks for the burger and fries. I hope you enjoy Samoa. We have to get back to our room and pack.”

  “Maybe Charlie and me will fly down to New Orleans to see you play in the fall,” Livy hinted. “Look, write down your address, and we’ll send you a copy of that picture of us together.”

  Adam smiled cordially, but stood and reclaimed Winnie with an arm around her waist. “Just send it in care of the Sinners. I’ll get it. Nice meeting you.”

  They headed back to the Jeep unmindful of the rain. “Thanks for telling them that little white lie about our leaving tomorrow. I couldn’t take much more of Liv and Charlie. I don’t know how you could stand them,” Winnie said.

  “My parents raised me to be polite to my elders, and Livy was certainly that, but I wasn’t lying. While you were getting yourself out of bed, I made reservations to fly over to Ofu. It has the best and most deserted beaches in the world. I’ll teach you to snorkel.”

  “A deserted beach, I like the sound of that. Snorkeling, not so sure.”

  “Nothing to it. The reef sharks and sea snakes won’t bother us, but you do have to watch out for the poisonous spines of the stonefish.”

  “Maybe I’d rather take my chances with the fruit bats again.”

  Adam laughed his way back to the hotel. At the very least, she amused him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The small plane bumped along on the air currents and finally made a neat landing on Ofu’s small airstrip wedged between the mountains and the ocean. That landing alone would have been enough excitement for Winnie to last the entire day. Adam carried their bags directly to the nearby lodge and checked them into a plain, tidy room with a private bath. He rented a truck, borrowed snorkeling gear, and asked that the meal coming with the accommodations be packed as a picnic. Though the shore near the hotel looked perfectly fine to Winnie, he drove them to Ofu Beach, part of the national park, and offered her four totally deserted miles of white sand, swaying palms, crystal clear water, and coral reefs. A volcanic peak, sharp as a shark’s tooth, rose behind it. “A perfect paradise,” she had to admit.

  Adam started her out in the waist-deep shallow water until she got the hang of the ungainly flippers and clearing her facemask and snorkel. If she faltered, his big arms were there to catch her. Gradually, he inched her into deeper water and over to the reef that mushroomed from the sea floor and gave shelter to all manner of small, bright fish. A reef shark chasing down a meal did startle Winnie enough to send her sputtering to the surface, but again Adam was there to steady her. They ate lunch in the shade and dozed until the wind picked up and the sky darkened in preparation for the daily storm.

  Racing for the truck, Winnie got inside and scorched her bottom on the overheated upholstery. “We should have parked in the shade.”

  “Only if we want dents in the truck.” Adam pointed to the coconut-laden palms. “You never know when one of those babies will fall.” A storm-tossed tree illustrated his words by releasing a huge, green nut that landed like a bomb nearby. He drove away from the beach. “Not a good idea to stand under them, either. Death by coconut,” he said somberly.

  She thought he teased her again. “Yet you made love to me under the palms at Joe’s ranch. You’re joking.”

  “You have to pick your spot carefully. Besides, Louisiana palms don’t get coconuts, not that I noticed. A coconut can give a person as good a concussion as a linebacker, believe me. Only an idiot hangs around under them.”

  “So all this stuff about making love under the palms isn’t true?”

  He gave her that grin of his, so blazing white against his dark skin. “It’s a metaphor for fooling around sexually, Winnie. I thought you’d figured that out.”

  “Oh, I see.” They weren’t making love; they were fooling around sexually. Exactly what she wanted and needed, all she had planned on when she met Adam. No longer an easily flattered nineteen-year-old college student, she knew people did not fall in love in such a short period of time. Of course not. That would be ridiculous, especially when Adam, handsome, rich, generous, and good-natured could have anyone except this Princess Pala.

  Back at the lodge, they had more than enough for dinner and hiked it off climbing to Maga Point to watch the sunset over the Pacific once the rains passed, another picture postcard moment in Winnie Green’s life. They might have been on a secluded honeymoon, only they were not. When the rain returned in the morning and the small airplane did not, they cozied up in the lodge watching old movies on the DVD player and trying to beat each other at board games and cards. A third day doing the same bothered Adam not at all.

  “Won’t your family be worried?”

  “No, people get stuck on these islands all the time, especially during the rainy season.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have come if they are waiting for us.”

  “Not a problem, like I said,” Adam replied a little tersely.

  Winnie slapped down a winning hand in gin rummy. “Is it me—the reason you don’t want to go home—because I’m black. I can stay in Pago Pago or fly home if my presence is difficult for you.”

  Adam laughed so hard the card
s in his hand sprayed across the table. “You are lighter than most of the people in my village. You have golden brown hair and green eyes. They will see you as a white foreigner, a palagi, and treat you that way. Race is not much of an issue here as we are all mixed in some way or another. You are not the problem, lovely Winnie. The village will welcome you, I keep saying. Me, I am the problem.”

  “I can’t see how. You are famous, wealthy, very generous—and yes, extremely handsome. Don’t let that go to your head. Any village would be proud to claim you. Explain this to me.”

  Adam, damn him, gave her another one of his big shrugs. “You would have to be Samoan to understand.” He shuffled the cards. “Best of three?”

  The skies cleared overnight. In the morning, the light plane skittered to a stop on the soaked runway, picked up its passengers, both willing and reluctant, and sailed into the perfect blue sky back to Pago Pago.

  ****

  The next day, Adam lingered over his breakfast and generally delayed their start toward his home village, but eventually he could not put it off any longer. With Winnie at his side, Adam took the Jeep over Rainmaker Mountain again and this time turned off on the rutted road past its peak. Halfway down to the sea, only half-glimpsed where the forest gave way now and again, a small tree uprooted by the rains blocked their path. Adam got out and shoved it to the side. Winnie gave him a round of applause.

  “Don’t. This just means they aren’t keeping up the road the way the village should, but that is pretty hard to do during the rainy season. I guess the matai, our chiefs, will have it graded when the weather gets a little dryer.”

  She remained quiet as they churned along over teeth-rattling ruts and potholes. They came around a final curve and the village lay before them stretched out picturesquely along the beach and a small stream that flowed from the mountaintop. Two identical white churches anchored each end of the town. A tiny elementary school, a clinic, and a large traditional open-sided fale with a palm-thatched roof held the center. Simple homes of cement block painted various colors and shuttered with louvers filled in most of the gaps. Only three houses rose to two stories and these hugged close to the fale and the churches. Adam parked in front of an exceptional rambling white frame, single story home with a wide verandah, red tile roof, and slender turquoise columns. A couple of inviting rockers sat on its porch.

  Unfortunately, the village dogs arrived to cancel that invitation to linger with their snarls and barks. Unlike Macho, they meant business. Winnie drew her legs up on the seat. Adam got out, picked up a few stones and shouted, “Alu!” as he chucked them at the beasts. The mongrels slinked away and were replaced by an imposing woman nearly as scary. She dominated the porch with her height and breadth wrapped around by a queen-sized lava-lava of purple and orange. Her wide bare feet slapped on the wooden steps as she came toward the car. Much lighter in complexion than Adam, her skin tone hinted at an ancestry containing white sailors very taken with Samoan girls. She wore her thick black hair parted in the middle, drawn back and turned under at her neck.

  “My mother, Ela Malala.”

  “Son, you have been gone so long the village dogs have forgotten you.” With that statement Ela’s stern expression cracked into a smile. She kissed both of Adam’s cheeks, and after he helped Winnie from the Jeep, she applied the same greeting to her guest.

  “Talofa, Winnie Green. Afio Mai! Come in, come in and see where you will stay!”

  Following his mother’s impressive backside, Adam trailed behind with their bags. He cleared his throat loudly at the threshold, and Winnie remembered to slip her feet out of the pair of inexpensive slides he’d recommended for the trip. She half expected to find nothing but a sleeping mat in the bedroom, but it held a modern four-poster bed enveloped in a ring of mosquito netting and accompanied by a simple dresser and a single chair. Mats did cover the floor. Once Winnie assured her hostess that she would be very comfortable, they moved on to Ela Malala’s pride and joy—the bathroom with a sparkling white porcelain commode, a sink and a shower. A water-filled bucket and a roll of toilet paper sat prominently on the back of the toilet.

  “After you flush, you must refill the tank and get another bucket ready for the next person, “Adam advised.

  “From where?”

  Adam gestured toward the creek and the sea. “Plenty of water all around.”

  “But no need to use the beach for your business,” his mother pointed out.

  As they returned to the porch passing through other sparely furnished rooms, Adam asked after his father. Ela answered, “Helping with the feast to honor you and Winnie. We used some of the wedding goods since there will now be no wedding—and the gifts the Tau family owed us for the insult.”

  “They did a formal reparation because of Pala?”

  “Yes, we let the Taus sit in the sun all day before we invited them in and accepted their presents, a good traditional way to end the matter. Now if you want nothing to eat or drink, you must go to the fale for the ’Ava ceremony, and I need to help with the cooking.”

  Adam answered for them. “Nothing for us if we are feasting later. Winnie, you must try all the foods prepared so as not to offend anyone, but only a mouthful or two, or you won’t last to the end.”

  She nodded and tried to take Adam’s hand for reassurance. He drew it away. “No PDA’s in the village. Public affection between a man and a woman is immodest.”

  “Okay. I understand.” She understood she was on her own and had to watch her every move. All the way up the mountain and back down to the beach, the usually laidback Adam had coached her in Samoan customs. Winnie wished he’d started this the second they left the mainland instead of leaving it until the last minute. Pago Pago, so Americanized, had given her no hint of what was to come.

  Ela Malala walked with them as far as the ceremonial building, then slipped away to the cookhouse behind it. Before they could run the gauntlet of older men with imposing bellies waiting for them, another fellow came around from the rear and wrung Adam’s hand.

  “My father, Noa.”

  While Adam got his size from his mother, he certainly inherited his charm from his father. Under a bush of curly black hair and beneath two large dark eyes sparkling with mischief lay Adam’s broad smile welcoming her to the village. Noa Malala had a spare brown body made even darker by the sun and deep lines in his face grooved by the same source. His muscles were hard knots from hauling in the nets, and at the moment, though his hands were clean, he smelled vaguely of fresh fish.

  He shook Winnie’s hand. “I think you are prettier than Pala, but I must not say that too loud or the Taus will want their presents back.”

  Winnie mustered a nervous smile for him and a faint, “Thank you.”

  “Now, I must go finish preparing the fish for the umu and you must drink ’ava with the chiefs.” With a wink, Noa Malala returned to his more humble duties.

  Adam steered her to the assembly of elders who shook her hand and preceded them into the fale. Each of the matai settled cross-legged before a particular post in the building and beckoned Adam and Winnie to a place of honor. The men continued to chat, slapping their thighs and shaking hands with new arrivals while Winnie studied the inside of the fale. Far above, the interlacing of the branches holding the thatch made a pattern like the most delicate of fretwork. Flowers and garlands of leaves adorned the rafters and twined up the posts.

  They sat on comfortable mats. She mentally thanked both her Pilates and yoga instructors that she could sit like a tailor for long periods of time since Adam had told her pointing one’s feet at a person was the height of rudeness. Shoes left outside again and wearing only the flowered lava-lava Adam insisted on as the proper attire for ’ava drinking, she made sure enough of her was modestly covered. Mentally rehearsing the ceremonial words she needed to say when given the ’ava cup, she barely noticed a sudden cessation in the conversation.

  A man younger than most of the matai entered and made his greetings to all but Ada
m. Bending his legs and tucking in his lava-lava to show his tattoos, he slipped into a less honored place in the hall. The beginnings of a prosperous belly lapped over the cloth tied at his waist. Winnie thought how much more attractive Adam’s muscular, sculpted thighs displayed the designs compared to this man’s meaty legs. She disliked his narrow eyes, flat nose, and heavy lips, even the fat ear lobes displayed by his close-cropped hair. No surprise when Adam whispered, “Sammy Tau.” How could any woman want that when she could have Adam?

  Another young man, slight of build with short, wavy hair neatly combed back from a high forehead, entered tardily and did pause to shake Adam’s hand. He wore a dark lava-lava and shirt, and an incongruous clerical collar. Among all the bare-chested men, he seemed so very out of place yet sat among the most respected of the chiefs.

  “My childhood friend, Davita Tomanaga. He is now the Methodist minister,” Adam said just before a sharp clap of hands declared the opening of the ceremony.

  A young man entered bearing the kava root for inspection by the highest chief. Approved, he delivered it to a four-legged ’ava bowl, and the village maiden entered. Masculine eyes followed as she progressed to her place behind the bowl. The hand-painted saipo cloth she wore clung to her rounded hips as she swayed to her ceremonial position and slid gracefully onto the floor cross-legged. She carefully positioned her skirt and exposed smooth, brown thighs looped with tattoos like ropes of pearls. Another young man rushed to fill the bowl with water. Pala, because it could be no other, began macerating and kneading the root to bring out its narcotic juices.

  Winnie wanted to laugh at the absurd headdress the maiden wore, a nest of orange hair or fiber full of shells and tiny mirrors affixed to her flowing black locks with two carved wooden skewers that made the woman look as if she’d sprouted devil horns. However, the face that sat beneath that headdress was so beautiful in its symmetry, its smooth tan skin, its shapely lips, and luminous eyes that ridicule became impossible. If sailors had wet dreams of South Pacific women, they dreamed of the incomparable Pala.