Honey Santana had awakened to faraway harmonies. She’d filled the coffeemaker and gone to rouse the obnoxious telemarketer and his girlfriend.
Twenty minutes later they’d all sat down for breakfast. Boyd Shreave said, with his cocky half-sneer, “Hope we didn’t keep you up last night. The walls in this tin can are pretty thin.”
How very classy, Honey thought. With an innocent expression, she replied, “I did hear some banging, but it only lasted about two minutes.”
Shreave reddened, while Eugenie Fonda stifled a chuckle.
“Would either of you like an English muffin?” Honey asked.
Shreave didn’t say much after that. He inhaled a plate of scrambled eggs and went to the living room to reconnect with the television world. While Genie washed the dishes, Honey snuck outside and double-checked the gear: two pup tents, three sleeping bags, one waterproof box of matches, a first-aid kit, a fry pan, plastic forks and spoons, a short-handled ax, a dozen granola bars, six dehydrated Thai-style meals, two gallons of distilled water, a half-dozen packs of dried apples and figs, powdered Gatorade, insect repellent (a bottle of Cutter, spiced with garlic and cloves) and a jumbo Ziploc bag of Cheerios. All of it had to be fitted into two duffel bags, one for each kayak. The process of loading so much gear was further complicated by the fact that Boyd Shreave and his girlfriend didn’t know they’d be camping overnight, and Honey wanted to keep it a secret.
As soon as she re-entered the trailer, she was drawn aside by Eugenie, who whispered, “There’s no beach around here, is there? Be honest.”
Honey said, “It’s still beautiful. Trust me, you’ve never seen anything like it.”
Shreave’s girlfriend looked downcast. She turned and said, “Boyd, can I talk to you for a second? Hey, Boyd!”
He was gleefully enthralled by an infomercial that he’d come upon while surfing the channels. A fossilized TV actor named Erik Estrada was hawking lakefront real estate in a newly discovered “paradise” known as Arkansas.
“Know what this proves? That absolutely anything is possible!” Shreave crowed. “This is the greatest damn country in the history of the world. I mean, Erik Estrada? Good God, Genie, come look at this!”
She walked over and switched off the television and led Shreave down the hall. Even after the bedroom door closed, Honey could hear her saying: “I don’t want to stay here. I want to go to Sarasota and check into the Ritz-Carlton. I want a massage, Boyd. I want a sandy beach where I can wear my new thong. I want to go back to the room and order French wine and watch dirty movies on Payper-View.”
Honey Santana hurried outside and started stuffing the gear into the duffel bags. Her whole plan would be doomed if Shreave caved in, which seemed highly probable. Were he able to resist the vision of Eugenie Fonda power-tanning in a bikini, he’d surely be won over by the promise of a candlelit pornfest.
Honey feared she might crumble to pieces if Shreave bailed out now. Working late into the night, she’d fine-tuned her campfire lecture. A man such as he-a man who phoned people at the dinner hour and then insulted them coarsely when they objected-needed a lesson in manners and propriety. A few days in the wild would strip away all that smugness. A tour through the islands would expand his mind, open his eyes and deflate that superior attitude. Boyd Shreave would come back humbled and enriched. Of this Honey had convinced herself, and it was crushing to think that her mission would fizzle on the launchpad if his girlfriend bugged out.
Then Boyd and Eugenie emerged from the trailer-he sporting a new Indiana Jones-style hat; she sullenly smearing sunblock in her cleavage. Honey was practically giddy with relief. Wordlessly the couple helped her hoist the kayaks onto the car and, after a struggle, cinch them down. Shreave displayed a striking ineptitude for tying knots, but Honey didn’t mind redoing the straps. She was astonished that Shreave had rejected the decadent Ritz-Carlton scenario in favor of blisters and bug bites, and she wondered if she had misjudged him. Time would tell.
“That’s an awful lot of stuff for a day trip,” he remarked as they crammed the duffels into the backseat.
“Always be prepared,” Honey said lightly.
To her boyfriend, Eugenie muttered: “Now she sounds like you.”
They launched the kayaks next to the Rod and Gun Club. Eugenie graciously accepted Honey’s offer of a life vest but Shreave said he didn’t need one, citing several record-breaking performances on his high school swim team. Eugenie didn’t even pretend to believe the stories and Honey had trouble keeping a straight face, especially when Shreave lost his footing and sledded on his ass down the boat ramp. The fearful look in his eyes was not that of a man who was one with the water.
With almost no arguing, he and his girlfriend chose the yellow kayak. Honey held it steady while they stork-stepped aboard. After a few dicey moments they finally got settled-Boyd in the stern, Eugenie in the bow-and Honey eased them into the current. Quickly she climbed into the other kayak and followed.
The tide was falling hard, which was promising. A downstream paddle on a deep, wide river should have been effortless, even for amateurs. Yet right away the yellow kayak began zigzagging erratically. Before Honey could catch up, it plowed into a tangle of mangroves along the far shore. Shreave was cussing so loudly that he flushed a white heron and a flock of gray pelicans. Honey arrived on scene and saw Eugenie wildly swinging her paddle at spiderwebs, Shreave using his new hat to shield his face from the hail of broken twigs and leaves.
Honey was embarrassed by their racket, which had sullied an otherwise-lovely morning. She tied the bow of the Texans’ kayak to the stern of hers, and with some effort towed them out of the clinging trees. It was only a hundred-odd yards farther to the mouth of the river, beyond which lay Chokoloskee Bay, as slick as a mirror.
When they reached open water, Honey unhitched the other kayak and watched as it again started to vector wildly under Shreave’s rudder. She recalled from her trips with Perry Skinner that the weaker paddler should always take the bow, and therein lay the problem: Shreave’s girlfriend was clearly the stronger of the two. Knowing that he wasn’t nimble enough to switch places without capsizing the craft, Honey instead suggested that Eugenie Fonda lighten her stroke.
Shreave piped: “Yeah, I tried to show her the right way to do it but she won’t listen.”
“That’s because you’re a spaz,” Eugenie pointed out. She was still picking dewy filaments of spiderwebs from her hair. “My ninety-year-old grandma can paddle better than you, Boyd.”
Honey Santana began hearing distant echoes, so she covered her ears and shut her eyes. Soon there was the dreaded music-it sounded like Celia Cruz, whom her parents adored, and possibly Nine Inch Nails in the background. Honey took deep breaths, as she’d been advised to do by many therapists. If only these two would stop fighting, she thought. They’re ruining everything.
Boyd Shreave shouted: “What are you doing over there?”
At first Honey didn’t realize he was addressing her.
“Are you sick, or what? Don’t tell me you’re sick,” he said.
She looked up, smiled lightheartedly and waved for the Texans to follow. Where, she wasn’t sure. The charts were stowed in one of the duffel bags, and she didn’t feel like stopping to dig them out. That she could do later, when they took a break for lunch.
With clean brisk strokes she headed across the widest part of the bay, in a direction that she correctly estimated to be north-northwest. Not far ahead was a well-marked pass, she recalled, that would lead them toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Which will be as calm as a birdbath this morning, Honey thought.