Returning to the beach, she trained her binoculars on the harbor, and felt oddly relieved to find the Caribe Dream still at anchor with the rowboat tied alongside. As she watched, the man hoisted several cardboard boxes onto the deck of the sailboat, then climbed aboard and lugged one of the boxes into the blue cabin. When he did not reappear for several minutes, Nancy picked up her book, but every few minutes found herself gazing toward the Caribe Dream. When he emerged from the cabin, he seemed to squint in her direction. Of course, without binoculars it would be impossible for him to identify her at that distance, but º She decided to concentrate on the novel.

Ten minutes later a voice called, “Hello there.” Nancy’s head jerked up. She looked around. The man from the

Caribe Dream was rowing toward her in the dinghy. “Good morning,” he called out. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

“Oh, no. I was just reading.”

He skillfully maneuvered the dinghy in the gentle waves, working the oars so that, with his back toward the bow, he faced her. “My name’s Jack — Jack Conrad. Saw you looking at my sailboat. Would you care to go out and look her over?”

“I have to bring Robert his lunch,” Nancy replied. She hesitated. She almost said, “Thank you, no.” Instead she reached for her satchel and began searching for her watch. “Do you know the time?” she asked.

***

That night the room oozed with sticky heat. Nancy flung open the windows to the sultry tropic air. In the darkness a tiny frog repeated its name, co-qui...co-qui...co-qui... She tried to soothe Robert’s sunburnt skin with damp towels. His belly itched, and he complained that touching his forehead or legs felt like a bee sting. And there had been more bad news in the newspaper: plummeting stocks, Wall Street clamoring for Greenspan to lower interest rates, the Fed not budging. Robert slept poorly — too many beers in the afternoon and several more with and after dinner. Finally, he fell into a deep, catatonic sleep.

He awakened sweaty and thirsty. His head pounded. The brilliant sky chafed his eyes. He blinked, rubbed his eyelids,

fumbled for his glasses on the dresser. “Nancy?” The bathroom door was closed. Again, louder, “Nancy? You in there?”

No reply. He studied his Rolex watch, burped loudly, suddenly felt famished. “Damn, ten-thirty,” he mumbled, but his watch was on Eastern time and here it was an hour earlier — or was it later? He foggily recalled her moving quietly about the room, a kiss on his cheek. He did not notice the long note propped on the dresser.

He relieved himself in the bathroom, gulped down two Advils and a Propecia tablet, dressed without shaving or showering, and stumbled downstairs to the lobby. The clerk sat engrossed in a soap opera, but Robert demanded he switch to CNN,

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