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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Flashed
>> Off the Big Island
It wasn't the first morning Sonya Chang awoke aboard the yacht now called Wet Spot. Still, rising slowly back to consciousness, she had a moment of bafflementation, the old where-am-I-and-how-the-heck-did-I-get-here? And then, realizing her head rested on a man's arm, there was a bout of who-the-heck? Oh yes, of course. Daren. Her formerly dead fiancee.
Through a porthole, the eastern sky showed the first steely gray hints of dawn. She remembered now. At Daren's memorial service, the old man whispered Daren was alive and that she must join him ASAP on this yacht, and then the old man had turned out to be Daren!
Crying, laughing, blubbering indecipherably, they'd made love and she'd fallen joyously asleep. When she awoke sometime later, it was dark and she heard Daren up on the deck. She fell back asleep, happy that he was alive and back with her. When he returned to bed, they loved again and fell asleep entwined.
Hinting at pink, the horizon offered just enough light for Sonya to watch the rise and fall of Daren's chest as he slept. Yes, it was really him and he was really alive. She wanted to snuggle closer, but felt the call of nature and gently rolled off the bed.
Returning from the head, she knelt beside him, amazed at how different Daren looked -- and so handsome! -- without the beard he'd shaved off after winning the Lotto. The cops' theory was that he'd shaved the beard, gone for a swim to wash away the hairs and that's when the shark attacked him. That theory now had a flaw or two. But what really happened?
Daren was sleeping deeply, and as much as she wanted to snuggle, he obviously needed to rest. Blowing him a kiss, Sonya stood, wrapped a pareau around her. She needed caffeine, remembered seeing a pitcher of ice tea in the refrigerator. She found a tumbler glass, crystal with the familiar PS logo etched in pink. Filling it with tea, out of the corner of her eye saw a sheaf of pink stationery with the PS logo embossed in silver.
Sonya had received a polite, if rather perfunctory, thank you from the ship's owner Cue Garbanzo, publisher of Pet Shop magazine, on the same stationery after her previous night aboard. Just two years ago, and so much had happened.
The horizon was mixing pastels now, and Sonya realized that the pink stationery was filled with Daren's handwriting. Pages and pages. On the bed he stirred, snorted, shifted in his sleep.
Curiosity getting the better of her, Sonya grabbed the pages Daren had written and took them up on the deck with her tea just in time to catch the morning Green Flash. Her illumination was just beginning.
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Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com
