“What the name of the person?
“Jules-somethin. Just meet her, over at the fishing beach.”
“So where she is? She on a boat? How you meet her if she on a boat? You should know her last name, so it can write up inna the book.”
“Not a boat. Surfboard. She soon come, man. Me will just wait over there, under the tree. You can see me. Me not going move from there.”
“Can’t let you in yout’. Not without the person full name for the book. Step back.”
Lloyd looked at the guard. He was young, in his twenties. His uniform was not properly ironed and he wore cheap dark glasses, the kind sold by downtown vendors. His hands were rough with big knuckles. Perhaps he had been a construction worker and had found easier work as a security guard and was not going to lose his job over a strange boy.
Lloyd stepped back, ducked under the barrier, and stood on the side of the Palisadoes Road, looking around for a place to wait. He needed to see the entrance to the hotel as he was afraid that the woman would not come right out into the parking lot, but would simply stand on the front step and look for him under the almond tree. If he was not there, she would turn around and go back into the hotel and he might never find her again. There was a little shade beside the gate but it gave no clear view of the front door. Lloyd crossed the road and stood in the sun, waiting for the dolphin woman.
He did not wait long—she could make that surfboard move fast-fast. As he had thought, she walked out of the hotel, stood on the curb and looked toward the almond tree. She shrugged and turned to go back inside. “Hi! Miss!” he called, as he had done from the dock. “Over here!” A bus drove past just then with a line of cars behind it, and he could not cross the road. She might not hear him or see him. “Miss!” he shouted to her back, jumping up and down, trying to be seen over the cars.
“That her?” said the guard, coming out of his shelter.
“Yes! Please, sah, please? Let me in. Do. Please.” Lloyd was finally able to run across the road. He waved his arms, hoping the movement would catch the woman’s eye. He could barely see her now—the inside of the hotel was in deep shadow. “MISS!” he shouted one last time, and the woman came out of the hotel into the parking lot.
“What . . . ?” she said. She shook her head and said something under her breath. She walked over to the barrier. She was wearing rolled up jeans over her wet suit and a towel around her neck. “He’s with me,” she said to the guard and her voice was sharp.
The guard was not impressed. “What him name and your name?”
“You write up my name already. You don’t remember? Look in the book. Jules Collier. His name is Lloyd.”
“Need him last name.”
“Saunders,” Lloyd said. See! He wanted to say to the guard. He was sweating more than ever in his church clothes. He wiped his face on his sleeve. The guard wrote slowly in his big register.
“Come inside, Lloyd,” Jules said. “I need to change. We can get you a drink and you can tell me your story.”
They sat at a bar overlooking Kingston Harbour. Lloyd had never been inside the hotel although from the sea he had seen the bar and the masts of sailboats moored in the marina. The seawater pool was murky and seaweed grew on its sides. He could not imagine white people swimming in it. He saw no guests although many tables were set for lunch with bandanna tablecloths and white napkins and empty glasses.
“What you want to drink?” Jules said, as the bartender stood in front of them.
“Soda, Miss.”
“Which kind? Pepsi? Coke? Ting? Ginger beer?”
“Pepsi.”
“A Pepsi and a Ting,” Jules said. “They on ice? You hungry, Lloyd? You want anything to eat?”
“Kitchen not open ’til twelve,” said the bartender.
“You don’t have any bar snacks?”
“Cheese crunchies, plantain chips . . .”
“Two each,” she said. “Plenty ice with the drinks.”
When the drinks came, Jules got up and moved to one of the tables nearer to the dock. The wind was strong and Lloyd felt less noticeable. If he were to leave the table, if he were to walk over and sit on the dock, with his back to the hotel, if he narrowed his eyes and gazed out to sea, he could pretend he was on the dock of the Port Royal fishing beach and no one would come and tell him to move.
A man washed down the decks of the nearest large boat, flying an American flag. Lloyd wondered what it would be like to go to sea on a boat like that—he could see tables and upholstered seats through the hatchway. He wondered if they needed crew, if they fished, or if they just moved around from place to place, marina to marina. What would it be like to own such a vessel, to truly live on the sea?
“. . . your story?” Lloyd realized Jules was talking to him. He took a sip of his drink and it was so cold it hurt his teeth and he could not really taste it. She pushed two of the bags of snacks over to him and opened one for herself.
“So tell me,” she said. “What happen to your granddaddy?”
“He go to Pedro. Sunday night. Leave from Rocky Point. Him don’t fish at Pedro. Never. Him was supposed to reach back Thursday, but him don’t come back.”
“When last you heard from him?”
“Wednesday.”
“Him went alone?”
“Dunno, Miss. Nobody at Gray Pond beach seen him. The fishers say to ask the Coast Guard; they say they go out there every Monday night. Me come over
