Uncharted (19 page)

The flight attendant moved to the front and spoke in a language Karyn couldn’t follow, then she gave emergency instructions in English. Karyn couldn’t help noticing the woman’s careful enunciation. This must be how English was meant to be spoken, but it was a far cry from what she heard in the New York boroughs.

When the stewardess had finished, Karyn turned to Mark. “So—you’ve been married four times, right?”

“Five,” he admitted cheerfully. “What can I say? I love women.”

“No children in all those marriages?”

A shadow flitted across his face. “Fortunately, no. I’m not home enough to be a good dad—maybe I’m not home enough to be a good husband.” He crossed his beefy arms. “You know me. Maybe
you
can explain why no one wants to stay married to me.”

She was fairly sure she could—
because you’re odd
—but she wasn’t about to be
that
honest with a man who sometimes made her uneasy.

She shrugged his question away. “Who can say why marriages break up? There are probably as many different reasons as there are divorced couples.”

As Mark plucked the airline’s magazine from the seat pocket, Karyn’s eyes sought and found Kevin’s brunette head among the many sprinkled throughout the forward cabin. His seatmate was an Asian woman, a stranger who might not even speak English.

For some inexplicable reason, that possibility cheered up Karyn.

Karyn had dozed off, her head propped on Mark’s thick shoulder, when a baritone voice rumbled over the intercom: “Excuse, please, ladies and gentlemen.”

She lifted her head and blinked her surroundings back into focus. “What’s going on?”

Mark frowned toward the front of the plane. “The pilot is about to make an announcement.”

“Are we in trouble?”

“Don’t think so. It’s been a smooth flight.”

A hiss of static poured from the speakers, followed by the pilot’s voice: “Because of bad weather on Kwajalein, we are being diverted to Majuro. If the weather is clear tomorrow, Continental will place passengers on another flight to Kwajalein.”

Karyn elbowed Mark. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“Bad weather ahead.” Mark leaned across her lap as he peered through the window. “This is typhoon country, you know.”

“Should we be worried?”

“Nah.” Mark straightened and patted her arm. “Nothing’s going to happen to a bunch of friends out to do a good deed. That’d be bad karma. This diversion is going to wreck John’s schedule, though. We can’t afford to lose a workday.”

She wanted to believe Mark’s assurances, but a warning voice kept whispering in her head. She was riding in a very small jet above an extremely big ocean. A sudden plunge from the sky would leave no survivors.

She’d be as dead as Lorinda Loving.

She closed her eyes and flinched as a cover of
People
magazine flashed on the back of her eyelids. Instead of a photo of her happily working with concrete, it’d feature a studio shot with bold print beneath it:
Karyn Hall, 1963–2005. A Soap Star’s Sad Farewell
.

How ironic. She’d give her one and only Emmy for the cover of
People
, but she didn’t want to die for it.

Karyn searched for John Watson and spotted him at a window two rows up. He was staring straight ahead with his hands folded at his waist. He looked perfectly at peace, like a meditating saint.

Maybe Mark was right. She didn’t believe in karma, but she went to church often enough to know that the Almighty rewarded those who helped others.

Surely God wouldn’t let anything bad happen to them.

Karyn’s confidence returned once they were safely on the ground in Majuro. After they exited customs, John murmured something about making other arrangements and headed toward the street.

Karyn looked at Kevin. “So what are we supposed to do?”

“We wait,” he answered, shoving his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “And from what I’ve read about the relaxed atmosphere of these islands, we may be waiting awhile.”

“I don’t know about you all,” Susan drawled, “but if I’ve got to wait, I’d rather do it in that restaurant over there.”

The café was nothing special, but it offered food, drink, and somewhere to sit. Karyn grabbed her suitcase and schlepped her way toward it. They piled the luggage in a heap by a table, then climbed onto tall bar stools.

Lisa draped herself across the colorful mosaic tabletop. “I’m so tired I could fall asleep right here.”

Kevin grunted. “It’s the altitude.”

“It’s jet lag,” Karyn countered. “At least that’s what John said.”

Kevin gave her a
must-you-contradict-me
look, which she ignored.

A lovely island waitress appeared with a pad and pencil. Mark and Kevin ordered fried rice; Susan asked if white rice was available. Lisa ordered a Coke, and Karyn asked for filtered water. “Water,” she repeated when the girl’s brow lifted. “In a bottle, if you have it.”

After the waitress walked away, Kevin tapped Karyn’s shoulder. “The water here is safe to drink. You shouldn’t insult these people.”

Karyn propped her heavy head on her hand. “I didn’t insult anyone. I asked for bottled water because I drink it at home. I
like
it.”

Kevin rolled his eyes, then excused himself to find the restroom. Grateful for his departure, Karyn let her heavy eyelids fall; then Lisa whispered in her ear. “Are you okay with having Kevin along?”

Karyn opened one eye. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, I don’t think we’re going to have a good week if you two are constantly at each other’s throats.”

Karyn felt a drunken smile spread over her face. “Honey, you haven’t seen
anything
. We’re behaving like angels.”

Susan leaned in to smooth things over. “Karyn and Kevin were friends before they were married,” she told Lisa, “so they can be friends again. They’re going to be fine.”

Karyn was about to reply that
she’d
be fine, though she couldn’t speak for Kevin, but at that moment John stepped into the restaurant and hurried toward their table.

“Good news.” A smile lifted the lined corners of his eyes. “We don’t have to spend the night here. I’ve found a charter boat that’ll take us to Kwajalein.”

“How far is it?” Mark asked, accepting an umbrella-topped tropical drink from the waitress.

“About five hours by boat,” John answered. “Not a short trip, but better than spending the night here and hoping to find a puddle jumper with six available seats tomorrow. So let’s get something to eat, then we’ll haul our luggage down to the dock. The captain should be ready by the time we get there.”

Susan’s eyes widened. “Isn’t that dangerous? How can the driver see where he’s going at night?”

Mark laughed and patted her arm. “Sugar, fishermen know their territory like the back of their hands. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”

Karyn managed to smile at this bit of good news. She knew she should be relaxed and content, but insecurity clung to her like a shadow.

She looked around the restaurant, where dozens of local men and women were eating and drinking and having a good time. She was only feeling insecure because this place was foreign. She wasn’t used to the sights and smells and sounds of a different place.

Once she adjusted to a new environment, she’d be fine. Once her friends adjusted to their different selves, they’d be fine too.

She twisted the top off her bottle of water, then met Lisa’s eye and lifted her drink in a silent toast to their great adventure.

Kevin couldn’t believe the beauty of the atoll. On the plane he’d read that Majuro was thirty miles long, but as they dragged their luggage to the dock, he realized the island was narrow enough to walk down the single nameless road and see the lagoon on the left and the ocean on the right. Pedestrians shared the road with private cars and beeping taxis that would deliver a passenger almost anywhere for less than a dollar . . . if you could convince a driver to stop.

John laughed as Susan tried and failed to hail a cab. “Come on, Susie Q,” he said, using his pet name for her. “It’ll be faster to walk.”

Susan grumbled as she dragged Mark’s plaid suitcase through the sand at the side of the road, but Kevin grinned in grudging admiration when she persevered. Lisa and Karyn didn’t complain as they pulled their luggage, and Mark seemed too interested in the beaches to gripe about carrying Susan’s wheeled monstrosity.

Kevin whistled in appreciation when his gaze drifted northward. The beaches were lined with sand the color of soap flakes; the water was a restful shade of turquoise. The lovely native women, wrapped in their silky muumuus, had coffee-colored skin and dark hair that tumbled down their backs like strands of lustrous glass. They walked on the side of the road, their feet enclosed in rubber sandals, and offered shy smiles to the strangers. One of them nodded to John and said, “
Yokwe
.”

The old man tipped his hat in response. “
Kommol tata
.”

Kevin quickened his pace. “Hey, John. Where’d you learn that?”

John tossed a smile over his shoulder. “I’ve been studying up for the trip. Figured it might be useful to speak a few words of Marshallese. Most of the people here speak English, but Marshallese has been a part of the culture for generations.”

Kevin grinned as another beautiful young woman walked by. “I think I could live here.”

John laughed. “I’m not convinced of that. It’s a different kind of life, a slower pace. Something tells me you’d be bored in about seventy-two hours.”

They passed a cinder-block house, where a group of women and children sat outside on benches. One woman was talking, her voice low and controlled. The sight reminded Kevin of the neighborhood Bible clubs his neighbor used to organize. He gestured toward the gathering. “Any idea what that’s about?”

John smiled. “Talking story, it’s called. Passing down oral traditions.”

Kevin inhaled a humid stream of the warm air. Though the sun was still bright in the western sky, the island had begun to cool as dusk approached. Yet judging from the short sleeves and open shirts of the local men, the temperature wouldn’t drop much after sunset.

John pointed toward a dock. “Here’s our charter. The captain’s name is George Weza. He and his son will be taking us out to Kwajalein.”

A smile wreathed Captain Weza’s face as they approached, and Kevin suspected John had paid a handsome sum for this spur-of-the-moment favor. Weza wore long shorts and an unbuttoned aloha shirt; his bare-chested son, a thin boy about Sarah’s age, stood at the bow of the roomy cabin cruiser, a thick rope in his hand.