Sabrina (Post 4)

I sat on a pink bench, the painted wood hot against my thighs. Holding a bottle of water in one hand, I tossed the white pill into my mouth. Drinking it down, I eyed the catamaran warily as it bobbed up and down in the harbor. I hated boats. Just looking at one float on the waves made me nauseous. I glanced at Sky and Tanya. Sky was reading a trashy romance novel and Tanya was putting on lip gloss. Neither one of them had thought about my propensity toward sea sickness when they’d signed up for this, and I hadn’t reminded them. I was enough of a drag as it was.

I sighed, looking back up as a group of college students sat down across from us, laughing loudly. I leaned toward Tanya. “I can’t believe we’re going on a booze cruise,” I muttered.

She pressed her lips together and flashed a coy smile at one of the frat boys. Not looking at me, she said, “It’s not a booze cruise. It’s a day-long excursion to Rose Island, which happens to serve alcohol.” She handed me her lip gloss. “Can you put this in your backpack?”

Being the raging dork that I was, I had insisted that we only take one bag – my backpack – on this trip. I figured it was a better way to keep track of our belongings, and only one of us had to carry anything. Plus, it allowed me to sneak my Blackberry along. I hadn’t anticipated how much crap would get loaded onto my back. I felt Sky unzip the backpack behind me and slip her book into it as someone called us to attention.

“Ahoy, mates!” We turned to see our captain – a young man in his mid-twenties with bleach-blond hair. He was decked out in a pirate’s outfit he must have gotten from a Halloween costume store: red handkerchief tied around his head, white shirt with billowy sleeves, tight pants tucked into black boots, a sash around his waist. And of course, an eye patch. The shirt, as expected, had no buttons, and lay open to reveal a “V” of very tan, very muscular, very hairless chest. He explained to us what our trip would consist of, his words enhanced by the lilt of an accent. Australian. I wanted to roll my eyes. Of course he was Australian. This guy must get tourist booty like nobody’s business.

As we and the eight other passengers followed the Aussie, named Bryan, onto the 40-foot catamaran, Tanya hooked her arms around Sky’s neck and around my waist, pulling us close. She growled into our ears, “Day-yam. He can shiver me timbers any day of the week.” Sky and I smiled at each other. The minute Captain Bryan had appeared, we knew that Tanya would be lost to us today. Just as well. One less person to notice if I spent the trip puking over the side of the boat.

The instant we were seated on the boat, a young Bahamian woman hurried out with cocktails, grinning playfully at us. Jesus. It was, what, eleven in the morning? Who wanted to drink anything but coffee at this time of day? I sighed. I knew that, unless I wanted to be harangued mercilessly by Tanya, I would have to start drinking soon. I stared at the dock, trying to focus on the lack of movement there. So far so good.

“I hear the Bahama Mama is awesome,” Sky told me, handing me a fruity-looking drink as she took one herself.

I tried not to look disgusted. “What’s in it?”

Sky grinned. “Rum, rum, and more rum.”

I looked over at Tanya, who had slipped out of her cover-up and was enjoying the not-so-subtle stares of the frat boys, a sly smile on her lips. “What is Tanya having?” I asked.

Sky tried not to laugh. “Sex On The Beach.”

Of course. How stupid of me. I settled back, holding the cup in my hands, my eyes focused on the shore as we set off. The speakers blared some calypso, and the college kids seemed to go through the drinks faster than the girl could bring them out. It was a particularly steamy day, steamier than yesterday, and a haze had settled on the horizon. It was neither cloudy nor sunny, just hot. Had we not been moving, there would have been no breeze.

I leaned forward, my eyes still on the shore, my drink still untouched. For some reason, Miryam Dieujuste’s haunting words whispered in my head, and I shuddered. While I’d been fairly successful in blocking out yesterday’s experience, it came back to me suddenly, at the oddest times, and made my skin crawl. I was not remotely superstitious, but that woman had freaked me out. While my practical, lawyer’s brain pointed out how ridiculous the whole thing was, my body wouldn’t listen. Goosebumps rose on my skin, my heart picked up its pace ever so slightly, and my armpits went moist. A voice repeated the words: You have displeased your loua… Something big is about to happen to you…

So stupid. It could have been said to anyone, about anything, by a coin-operated fortune-telling machine. So the woman knew who I was, big deal. She may have heard Sky or Tanya saying my name, she may have stolen a library card from my wallet. Maybe she talked to someone who worked at the resort. There were many plausible explanations. There was no reason to be so spooked.

Still. Why me? I didn’t necessarily look Haitian. With my bronzed skin, green eyes, and thick, black hair, I could have been Indian, Russian, or just plain American mutt. I didn’t particularly resemble anyone in my family, anyone she would have known in Haiti. And I certainly didn’t look like my three-year-old self.

“…and Sabrina grew up in Haiti. But we all live in Houston now.” I looked up at my name to find that Tanya and Sky had befriended the college students. Let me rephrase that: Tanya had befriended two athletic-looking frat boys in baseball caps and Sky had been unwillingly drawn into the conversation.

One of the boys, a tall guy with shaggy brown hair, looked at me and grinned. “Haiti, huh? Do you practice voodoo?”

Idiot. I gave him the iciest stare I could muster. “You sure you want to know?”

His grin didn’t fade. I could tell he was one of those guys who didn’t get the hint when a girl wasn’t interested in him. He was one of those guys who went around saying, “Dude, she totally wants me,” even when he’d been slapped in the face. He pointed to my drink. “You gonna drink that before we get to the island or what? You haven’t even had a sip yet.”

I wasn’t sure what bothered me more: that I’d been called out, or that the frat boy had been watching me. I set the drink down in irritation. “Don’t think so. Feel free to drink it.” I stood uneasily, wondering if going below deck was a terrible idea. I really had to pee. I deliberated for exactly one second, deciding that I’d rather vomit non-stop than continue my conversation with the shaggy-haired kid.

“Hey,” Tanya called at me as I gripped the railing tightly and tried to walk forward, stumbling as I did. She lowering her glasses to glower at me. “Don’t even think about it, okay? He’s mine.”

I stared back at her blankly until Sky mumbled under her breath, “She means the Aussie, S.”

I rolled my eyes, groaning, “For God’s sake…” and then turned and stumbled to the cabin, trying to keep my eyes on the horizon but not lose my footing.