Chapter 8

Sasha did not call Lionel right away as Dandan had recommended. In fact, she didn’t call him at all. She told herself she needed to understand more fully what exactly was going on with the shipment before she could take Dandan’s advice and ask for his assistance, or before she would take him up on the several offers he had already independently made. She’d see how she felt later. He would certainly bring it up at dinner, so she might be ready then to take a different approach, who knows.

She wasn’t quite sure what the hesitation was. She needed, needed, needed to find this damn container and get her equipment and merchandise sorted, cleared out of customs and set up in the spa. And she needed that done fast. Time was running out. From a purely business point of view, talking to him was worth a shot. She knew she ought to be objective and pragmatic and not be driven purely by emotions where her business was concerned, but this, for some reason, she thought, was different. Not that she quite knew what the difference was or anything! “To tell the truth,” she acknowledged to herself at one point, “for some unfathomable reason, I am really not sure about anything to do with that man. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’ll see how dinner goes.”

True to his word, Lionel was at the dock at seven forty-five on the dot. She, somewhat to her own surprise, had been ready by seven thirty. She was sitting on the deck with her laptop on front of her when Lionel walked up. He waved up at her from the pier. She waved back, clicked something on her keyboard, put the top down and stood up. She went below to stow her things away. When she returned, he was deep in conversation with the man who owned the boat that was docked right across from her. She watched him for a second. He glanced up and saw her. As she was about to step onto the dock, he reached out his hand to help her down. She knew she didn’t need any help, but she gave him her hand anyway. His was cool and dry. She said hello to her neighbour and he told her to have a good time at dinner, the food at Pino’s is really good. She looked sharply at Lionel. He seemed not to have heard.

“Take it easy,” Lionel said to the man by way of good-bye.

“You, too,” the man answered.

“’Bye, Sasha,” the man also said.

Sasha looked quickly at him. He knew that she was going to dinner and he also knew where. He knew her name. She had never actually spoken to this man before! She had seen him on only a very few occasions and they had exchanged greetings, but nothing more. Lionel must know him, she thought. But how? As they walked away, she asked Lionel, “Friend of yours?”

“No,” he answered. “I just met him. He says his name is Salvador. He lives in Chicago, but spends a couple of months in TCI every year. Not all in one block, though. He says he goes back and forth, spends a couple of weeks at a time, sails up and down the other islands as the urge hits him. I want to live like that one of these days. Must be fun.”

“I’m sure it is,” was Sasha’s comment. “He’s retired, is he?”

“No. He says he runs his own company and that his son and daughter work for him, so he has trusted employees, which generally allows him to take as much time off to play as he wants. That’s a good thing. A very necessary thing. I work for my father’s company, too, but Pierpaolo Errivo is not like that! Oh! No!” There was an edge to his tone. She sensed some bitterness and some anger. She chuckled lightly.

“I take it you and your father have differences of opinion on his work timetable?”

“His plan is to work ‘til forever.”

“Perhaps he loves his work that much.”

“He loves control that much,” Lionel answered back. “My sister Antonella worked for my father for a couple of years right out of college,” he continued, “but he micromanages and she couldn’t take it, so she left and went to work someplace else. My father was livid. They had a huge fight! Must be ten years ago, or so. Words flew back and forth. There was much shouting and the slamming of doors. She picked up her bag, stormed out of the building, drove straight to the airport, got on a plane and left the country. For weeks, nobody heard from her. Not even our mother.” Sasha struggled for something to say.

“Wow!” was all that came.

“Eventually, she called our mother and told her she had found a job in Turkey, and would be staying there for the time being,” Lionel went on. “We thought Pierpaolo would have blown a gasket! He fumed. For days! For weeks! But eventually, he settled down and left her alone. He says that when he dies, though, she’s gonna have to come back to the family firm. She told him she will consider it only then. We’ll see. She loves her work so much, travelling from hotel to hotel, from country to country.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” offered Sasha.

“She’s quality control and she does not play! When she shows up, staff quiver and quake. They know she is going to uncover all their little unprofessional secrets and they have difficulty with that. At first. Then after she has put them through the wringer and turned them inside out, she shifts. She treats them really nice and helps them improve the quality of their work. She helps them learn to enjoy their work, and they find they like her a lot. The same thing is happening at the Royal Providenciales right now, with her and the staff. Some of them are hating her right now, because they’re at the beginning of their treatment. Some of the others are already defending and protecting her like an army. Those are the ones who have already experienced “the shift”. It was a hotel owner in South Beach who first called it that, and now we laugh about it, and sometimes call her “The Shifter.” She hasn’t quite decided if she likes the name yet, which is why we find it so funny and the reason we use it at all.”

“I see,” Sasha responded. “The Shifter, huh?! I might want to consider getting some lessons from her, to help me train my expanding staff!” They both chuckled at the thought. By now, they had reached his car. He opened the door and held it until she was seated. She thanked him and clicked in her seatbelt while he walked around to the driver’s seat. He walked ‘round the front of the car and as she watched him, she had the unfamiliar feeling again. She was feeling as if her heart skipped a beat, but of course, that could not be! It just couldn’t.

It was a lovely island evening and they drove to Pino’s with the windows down, letting the warm air rush through the car at will. They both liked the feel, the freedom, the air pushing against them. Lionel had his iPod plugged into the car’s system and they listened to the music as they drove. They did speak to each other from time to time but only to comment on something they saw or thought of; mostly they drove in silence, just listening to the music and watching the darkening evening passing by outside their windows. It was not, in any way, an uncomfortable silence. Sasha felt relaxed and at ease, and every now and then she heard Lionel whistling along to a tune.

Dinner at Pino’s was every bit as good as Lionel had said it would be. The restaurant patio was situated directly over the water and Sasha could look up and down the coast and out to sea. It was a beautiful evening; a still, hazy evening. The sea was calm, deep blue and glassy. Under the floor of the restaurant, the waves rolled slowly ashore, barely making a sound. Out towards the horizon, she could see the outlines of two cruise ships, lit up from bow to stern and appearing to be altogether unmoving. She was still worried about her missing shipment but she determined to put the thought aside for the time being, if she could at all, and just try to enjoy the meal and the evening out. It was going well, so far.

Very soon after they were seated, the waiter arrived with a carafe of water, a basket of fragrant, fresh bread, and the menus. Sasha looked at the menu and suddenly felt very hungry. Lionel ordered wine.

“Red or white?” he asked her.

“Red, please,” she said. “I know I’m not having steak but I really fancy a good Malbec.”

“Malbec, it is,” he agreed. “Let me see what they have.”

The two of them talked all through the meal. The conversation was light and casual for the most part, though they did talk about the islands, about politics in the United Kingdom, of which the Turks and Caicos Islands is an Overseas Territory and they talked about politics in the United States. They talked about the difference between living on a boat and living in a house on land, and the difference between navigating life on an island and wandering the streets of the big cities. They meandered through an ever-changing range of topics, but did not speak about her business. They said very little at all about work. Throughout the hour-and-a-half they spent at table, he never mentioned China; nor did she. In fact, though, she was a little confused, that he never brought it up; never asked her how things were going. She was perplexed, to put it mildly, but she didn’t broach the subject either. Nothing was said about international shipping challenges, about international commerce or any opinion advanced on any related topic. Until dessert.

Near the end of their main course, the waiter had invited the couple to consider taking dessert and coffee in the gazebo on the far side of the patio where there were couches and armchairs in which they could lounge and relax and where “madam can take off her shoes and put her feet up.” Sasha accepted eagerly, so they moved to the gazebo. Sasha did take off her shoes. They climbed onto one of the large daybeds piled high with cushions and Sasha leaned back, deep into the pile of satin and foam, and accepted her dessert bowl of profiteroles slathered in thick, rich, dark chocolate with a handful of raspberries for garnish. She closed her eyes and moaned soft and slow as she bit into the puff of pastry under the chocolate and felt the cool of the rich, vanilla cream ooze out and roll onto her tongue. On a tray, between them, the waiter placed a bucket of ice and a pair of champagne flutes. He handed Lionel a bottle of champagne already prepared for popping. Lionel pushed the cork up and let it fly with a pop loud enough to cause other people in the restaurant to look around for the cause of the celebration.

Sasha accepted the glass being passed to her by the waiter, and glanced back and forth between Lionel’s hand and his face as he poured out her drink. He, possibly a little over-eager, misjudged the amount of wine, so the bubbles rose up and over the rim of the glass and ran down Sasha’s fingers and wrist. He quickly put his other hand under her dripping fingers in attempt to catch the liquid. She looked at him and they laughed. She released the glass into his hand and, raising her fingers to her mouth, tasted the wine from her finger tips and wrist and nodded at him as if to say, “This is good!” before accepting a napkin from the waiter and wiping her fingers clean, one by one by one.

Lionel watched her enjoyment with pleasure. He was really very much enjoying his time with her. As he observed her, it occurred to him, not for the first time, that he wasn’t sure what she thought of him. She was polite and, recently, seemed to be comfortable in his presence, and she had agreed to have dinner with him tonight, after all, even after having spent hours with him over drinks the night before. They’d been chatting easily and casually together this evening, but he still felt like she was being somewhat aloof and reserved. She answered whatever questions he asked her, she shared her thoughts on things he brought up in the conversation, but she never really asked him anything about himself, nothing about his work, his activities, the things he liked to do, nothing. Nothing personal at all.

He, on the other hand, wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to hear all about her work and how everything was going with that; wanted to understand her thoughts and opinions on everything; wanted to know what her childhood had been like, who her friends were, what sports teams she rooted for, where she wanted to live when she retired. Everything. He wanted to get to know her, he realised. He wanted to know her deeply. And she seemed to him to be not the least bit interested in knowing anything about him except what was right in front of her, in the moment. Not his past nor his future, just the here and now.

Well, he mused inside his head, gazing across the couch at her, except for that one moment yesterday when she said, ‘Tell me’,” which had concluded with the dinner date that had brought them here, to Pino’s, and to dessert, lying together on a couch overlooking the sea. He shifted his body, letting his legs find their full length along the couch, close enough so that they were almost but not quite touching hers which she held slightly bent as she leaned on her elbow, her face and her entire body slanted somewhat towards him, but not fully oriented toward his. They were facing each other from opposite ends of the couch; there was a tray with a bucket and a bottle of champagne between them. The music was good. They were sated and relaxed. The night was still young. As were they two of them.

Over at the far end of the patio, a small band struck up a tune. Sasha and Lionel both turned to listen.

“I love live music,” she murmured. “I love to hear music played live. I love to watch musicians get all into their music, especially when they get all psyched by the audience and begin to play just for them. It is a truly beautiful thing to watch. What about you? It seems to me that you like music, too? Do you play an instrument?”

“I can tinker around on the piano,” he said, delighted that she had actually asked something about him, finally, “but it is the guitar that really…uhmm…it’s the guitar that really pulls my strings.” He laughed as he spoke. He laughed at his own pun. Sasha got it.

“Pulls your strings?” she asked, her eyes crinkling with laughter under two very highly-arched eyebrows, “or plucks them?”

“Ooh! ‘Plucks’ sounds too painful!” he laughed, squinting comically back at her.

“With fingers like yours, you could easily do either one,” she commented. “Or both. And play the piano, too. Why did you only learn to tinker on the piano, though? You definitely have piano-playing fingers.” He put his hand out and examined his fingers for a moment before he answered.

“Jimi Hendrix,” he answered. “I wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix. Man!! I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix! When I was in middle school, I saw a video of him at Woodstock and I lost my mind. I got me some bell-bottom jeans, a jacket with fringe all down the sleeves and everywhere, and an electric guitar. I couldn’t play a note at the time, but I would wear my Jimi Hendrix outfits all the time, everywhere. Even to school.” He laughed out loud at the recollection and Sasha laughed, too.

“How old were you?” she asked.

“Oh! I must have been ten or eleven,” he told her. “I was in middle school. That was before I got sent to a school where I had to wear a uniform!” She heard the edge in his voice, again.

“And you have played guitar ever since?”

“Yup. I never stopped. I even used to play in a band when I was in college. We played for beer and pizza, essentially!!” he laughed. “Saturday nights at Pizzeria di Livorno, in Little Italy, New York City! I loved it. My father? Not so much”

“Your father sounds like a very interesting character,” Sasha remarked.

“He sure is,” came Lionel’s rejoinder. “He truly is, actually. He just is not exactly the most sensitive – or maybe, supportive is the right word – father in the world. Y’ know what I mean? He is a really cool guy, in a lot of ways, but man! Is he ever a pain in the ass as a father! For some things, there is no better ally, but for others? You’d probably get more reassurance from Mussolini than from him.”

“Was he born in the US? Your father?”

“Yeah. He was born in New York. His parents came from Calabria and went to Chicago, first. My grandmother’s sister had immigrated a few years before my parents came. She had got married here in the US, and lived in Chicago. And you know how it is with immigrants. They always go where somebody for them had gone before. So, my parents went to Chicago, too, but my father couldn’t get any work there. No lawful work, at any rate! There was regional rivalry stuff in the city, from what I hear. He was Calabrese, and the Italians in Chicago at that time, were mostly from Genova. They say Genoa, in English. So, Genova is in the north of Italy and Calabria is in the south, at the tip of “lo stivale” – the boot – ‘cause Italy is shaped like a boot, you know?!”

“Yeah, that might have something to with the fact that Italians make some very nice boots!” she commented.

He smiled. “Yeah, we are famous for our leather.”

“So…but…what is the difference between the north and the south of Italy? It’s one country, no?”

“Yes,” he answered, looking across at the band which had, just seconds before, begun to play Volare, an old Italian standard. “And no. It is and it isn’t.”

“Tell me about that,” she asked. “I have to admit, I really don’t know much about Italian history. All I really know about Italy is, shoes and fashion and music. And food. I love Valentino and Versace and Ferragamo and Zannotti and so on. And music. I love Rossini and Salieri and Verdi – and, of course, Milva!! And Pino Daniele.”

“Oh. Wow!” Lionel exclaimed. “I’m impressed. The opera? Well, that’s easy enough. Italian opera composers are famous all over the world, and everybody studies them in college, but Pino Daniele? And Milva? How do you come to know them? How did you hear about them? From whom?”

“From my mother, mostly,” she said. “My mother was – is – a musician and singer, and a music teacher. She loves classical European music, especially the Italian composers, and she has a special interest in folk music. She thinks that Milva is the absolute greatest Italian singer of the century.”

“She might be right. Milva is a phenomenon. La Rossa, they call her.”

“Yes. With her flaming, flowing red hair!”

“Did you learn to play an instrument?”

“Piano.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. But I have not played in a long time. I’ve been too busy with other things. With work, mostly.”

“I know how that happens! I went through a period like that, myself, where I did not pick up a guitar for what must have been, like, at least a year! Maybe more.”

“But, then you got back into it.”

“Yeah. I had to, man. I was missing it. My life was missing it.”

“Me? I don’t even own a piano. We had one at home when I was growing up, but I never got one of my own. I keep telling myself that I will get one – and I shall! I absolutely, definitely shall – but I have not yet, and I am hardly ever home these days, anyway. So, I wouldn’t be playing it even if I did have one. It would mostly just be sitting in the living room gathering dust. It would probably be just a perch for my cats most of the time.”

“You have cats? I like cats.”

“Yes, I have two. One’s a rescue and the other is my dad’s cat – a Russian blue – that he had for about three years before he died.”

“Oh! Sorry to hear about your dad.”

“Thank you.”

“I sometimes take my guitar with me when I am going to be away for more than a couple of weeks. I have it here in TCI with me. I’ve played it every day since I came. You know! I am actually liking it here very much. I’m thinking I shall be hanging out here a lot over the next year or so.”

“Tired of California?”

“Not tired exactly, but something like that.”

“So, maybe I will get to hear you play one day soon?” Sasha asked him.

“Ok,” he replied. “I’ll play for you one day soon.”

She looked at him and he looked back at her and they sat in silence for a long moment. A long and comfortable moment.

“You have piano-playing fingers, too,” he said softly, after a while, and brushed the back of her hand with his fingers, where it lay on her hip, still holding her champagne glass. She looked at him but said nothing. She let her hand remain where it was. The glass was empty. He took it from her and put it in the tray. He reached out and touched hand again. She lay still. He stroked the back of her hand with his fingertips and then lay his whole hand over hers. Her hand was warm and the skin, very soft. He wrapped his hand around hers and when he pushed his fingers through hers, she opened her hand and let him in. They lay like that, fingers intertwined, sometimes moving sometimes not, and listened quietly as the band ran through several songs.

“Do you dance?” he heard her ask.

“I do,” he answered, “Do you want to dance now?”

“No,” she said, “Not right at this moment. I’d have to put my shoes back on, for one thing, and I’m feeling too relaxed and comfortable to do that right now. I do not want to move.”

He laughed. “That is exactly how I feel. But I would put your shoes on your feet for you, if you wanted, and I’d take them off again when we got done.” As he said that, he released her hand and slipped his hand under one of her feet. “I daresay, madam, that you have dancing feet.” They laughed. “I would be delighted to see them in action.” She wiggled her toes and he held her foot. He put his hand under it so that his fingers were holding her heel and her toes were grazing his wrist. She wiggled her toes again, but didn’t pull her foot away. He massaged her heel slowly and every now and then, she wiggled her toes again and flexed her feet in appreciation.

Eventually, the band stopped playing. She had finished her dessert long ago, and the champagne bottle was empty and turned upside down in the bucket. She sat up. “I’m ready whenever you are,” she told him. “It’s getting late, I think. We should probably go.”

He rolled languidly off the side of the couch and reached to help her up. She gave him her hand but then, took it back and paused to put her shoes on. He held her hand again when she was ready to get up. When she did, she looked at him. He looked at her. The seconds ticked by, and finally, he pulled her towards him. She responded to his pull and let herself lean in as she encountered his chest. Their eyes never looked away from each other. When their lips met, she looked deep into his eyes and he into hers. He let his lips rest against her mouth for a moment, feeling the soft moistness of her. He let his tongue probe gently into her mouth. She tasted of chocolate and champagne. Still, holding her hand, he wrapped his arms around her so that one of her arms was behind her back. She put the other one on his shoulder, and curled her fingers round the back of his neck. She kissed him back and felt him wrap around and enclose her. She closed her eyes now, breathed in deeply, and savoured.

She felt the warm hardness of his body braced against hers and remembered. It had been so very long since she had been held like this. She liked the feel and the taste of this man. She breathed him in deep and he pulled her more tightly against him, drinking her in with his eyes, his lips, his mouth. She squeezed his hand that was still holding hers, and he responded in kind. She pulled her lips from his, put her head back and smiled at him. He reached round and kissed her just below her left ear.

“We were leaving,” she whispered, almost breathlessly, and with a laugh that sounded like a low moan. He kissed her again.

“Yes, we were,” he said softly back.

“Ok. Let’s go,” she said. He kissed her again.

“Let’s go,” he repeated, and kissed her again.

She used her free hand to gently pry his arm away from around her waist, reached onto the couch to pick up her purse and, still linked hand in hand with him, led him towards the door of the restaurant. He followed willingly.

Once outside, as if there were an unspoken agreement, they turned left and walked in the direction opposite to where their car was parked. The beach opened out before them. When they reached the sand, she stopped and slipped her shoes off; the heels would make walking very difficult on the sand. He did the same with his loafers. He reached his hand out for her shoes and she let him carry them. He put his other arm around her. She settled into the crook of his arm and walked slowly along the sand with him until they reached the water line. She was happy she had worn a short dress. The waves were still low and quiet so they walked right into the sea behind where the waves were breaking and the water rippled up her legs past her knees. She thought that Lionel didn’t even seem to notice that his pants were getting wet. He hadn’t bothered to roll them up even a little bit.

The moon escaped from the cloud behind which it had been hiding, and the water glistened with silver all the way from the horizon to the shore. The two cruise ships they had noticed earlier still lay far away on the edge of the sea; they seemed not quite so large anymore. Closer to the shore and to them, several sail boats were anchored on moorings out in the bay, a few of them casting small shadows in the moonlight.

“This is beautiful,” Sasha remarked, pausing to look out to sea.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed, giving her waist a slight squeeze, “all of it is beautiful – the moon, the light, the sound of the sea, the smell of the sea – all beautiful, just not quite as beautiful as you.”

“Why, thank you very kindly, sir,” she said, faking a curtsy on the move. “My grandmother used to say that the moon makes all women beautiful. The moon is a woman, did you know that?”

“Oh! Is that so!” he replied. Then, with a tone of the utmost seriousness, added, “That would explain why there is a man in her.” Sasha about fell over into the water. She had never heard it said quite like this before. She was astonished and amused at the same time.

“All women know,” she told him, “and every little girl feels it in her body – we know the moon is female. The ancients told that to us.”

How there got to be a man in the moon, she had no idea, but she found it hilarious the way he explained it. Men are something else, she thought. And how! However much he might have thought that he was joking, Sasha, the woman, knew how very deeply he and his brothers in every part of the world had been conditioned about womanhood and femaleness in all its forms. She stopped walking, knee deep in the surf, turned to face him full on, held both of his hands, and said, with the most exaggerated gentleness she could muster, “There is no man in the moon, sweetie. None. None at all. Not one.”

He looked at her for a moment, very intensely, not quite sure how to respond. He thought she might be joking, but he couldn’t be altogether certain. He searched her face for something. She recognised his uncertainty and kept a straight face. He blinked, still searching for what to say. Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Her face glowed silver. He could see the pulse at the base of her throat, right where the light from the moon met the shadow made by her chin. His heart skipped a beat. He felt her squeeze his hands briefly. He pulled her towards himself. She reached her body up and leaned into him, putting her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, and tight. He lifted her off her feet. She held on to him, and there in the stream of moonlight on the water, she kissed his mouth, full and deep, opening up the full force of her femininity to him, and he kissed her back, with ardour and desire equal and heartfelt.

She touched his face; she let her fingers wander down and caress his shoulders, stroke his arm, cup his elbow and slide up again to wrap around him as she breathed him in. She smelled him, tasted him, felt him; salt, sweet, soft, hard. Like no-one she had ever felt before. Her mind was reeling. Every cell in her body vibrated with the pleasure of this man.

Lionel closed his eyes and could see her still, the moonlight reflected in her eyes, the silver glow on her shoulders, her hair billowing out around her face and shoulders. The ache in his chest exploded and spread through his body, like wildfire, until he could feel it tingle in the tips of his fingers, his toes, his hair. He was burning up. He opened his soul and poured it into her eyes, her ears, her mouth. He moaned into her hair. She ran her fingers up and through his. Like castaways finding each other on a deserted shore, they clung to each other in the stream of moonlight on an island in the middle of the sea far from home, far from their familiar. They clung to each other and willed the moment to last. After a time, a nightbird hooted close by and broke the spell.

“Oh!” she sighed, lifting her head to look up at him. “Ohhh!”

“Mmmhh!” he answered. “You! This! This is what I have wanted. You are who I have wanted. Oh! If you only knew!” He looked deep into the moon in her eyes and kissed her mouth again. She arched her body into his and let him lift her off her feet and set her down again. For a few moments, they held each other, still and quiet, until he said, ever so softly, “I could stay here all night, but we probably shouldn’t.”

“We probably shouldn’t,” she agreed. He kissed her forehead, took her hand and led her to the shore.

Lionel and Sasha walked back to his car with their arms around each other, his pants soaking wet and stuck to the skin of his legs, her head cradled in his shoulder. He still carried her shoes in his other hand, along with his own. In the car, she snuggled in close to him. He took the long way back and drove very slowly.