up. Her eyes fell quickly to the guitar neck and she started strumming. Her partner picked up the beat and they went into a bland version of “Island in the Sun.”
“It’s Bellefonte night at the Tabard Inn,” Chance said.
“They’re not bad.”
“They’re terrible, Frank. Their guitar playing makes you sound like Doc Watson and their singing is enough to make Rumble howl, which takes a hell of a lot after living with you.”
“I don’t think they’re all so bad,” I persisted.
“You’re horny.” He put down his drink and turned to me. “You whiffed with Liz Ford earlier and your gonads are driving you crazy. For chrissakes, Frank, both those girls are younger than your sons.”
“Maybe I’m lonely.” I felt like an idiot. There is nothing more pathetic, more despicable than a man in his fifties who thinks a woman in her early twenties might be interested in him.
Chance turned back to the table and attacked his drink. “I don’t want to hear about lonely. Being horny I can deal with. Loneliness I can’t even think about.”
The dining area was half full, vacationing couples in varying shades of tan, drinking pina colladas and strawberry daiquiris with little paper umbrellas for stirrers. They spoke in hushed tones, looking intensely at one another. Waiters and waitress moved around and between them, delivering food, removing plates, replenishing drinks, careful not to intrude on their intimacy.
“Must be nice,” I said.
“What’s that?” Chance dropped a small handful of coffee beans in his Sambuca.
“Being in love on a Caribbean island.”
He popped a bean in his mouth, chewing on it as he answered. “It’s just like being in love anywhere. You are in love for a while, it feels wonderful and then you’re not in love and you feel like hell because it’s over.”
“You’re such an asshole cynic.”
“I’m an asshole realist. I understand how hunger rises, makes its demands, gets glutted, falls off, and rises up somewhere else. And that’s all love is, hunger.”
I smiled at him, dropping the subject. Chance approaches life much differently than I do. Harder. It reflects his ups and downs, things he’s seen and had to do. I’ll always be a romantic. I try to hide it. I pretend to have Chance’s hardness, but I can’t feel it. The best I can do is hide my romantic streak from people who might try to use it against me.
Tobias took our dinner orders himself, returning in a few minutes with curried banana soup for our appetizers.
“My own recipe,” he said. “Do enjoy it, chaps.”
The soup was excellent. Tobias’ food always is.
Chance looked at me across the table, stirring the ice and coffee beans in his third Sambuca. He pulled out the swizzle stick, one without an umbrella on it, licking off traces of the drink, and leaned back in his chair, distorting the silk screened images of Groucho Marx and John Lennon on the front of his tee shirt.
“What would you say if I told you I was thinking of selling the plumbing business and investing in a television station?”
I was surprised. He doesn’t talk much about his own affairs. When he does, it’s often to hit the listener with something big he’s been sitting on for days.
“Here? On St. Ursula?” I thought he was joking, but when I smiled at him he nodded.
Several years earlier Chance had started a plumbing supply business in partnership with Rodney Creque, an Ursuline plumber. I knew he had been getting bored with it, but he’d never mentioned getting out.
“The new relay tower is going to open up incredible market potential here.” He played with the swizzle stick, folding one end and tucking it in the other, making a small plastic circle.
Finishing my drink, I shook my head. “There are less than twelve thousand people on the whole island. How can you support an operation as expensive as a television station with such a small population base? And you’ll have to compete with cable.”
“It’s plenty big enough if Government will guarantee I’m going to have the only station they’ll license here and they’ll also guarantee me ownership and control of the cable system. It’ll be a goldmine, Frank. Everything picked up by the relay tower will have to broadcast through my station or my cable, and the station will be beamed to the BVI and the American islands. Maybe even down island.”
“Government has given you complete assurance?” I was surprised. It’s not easy for an off islander to get such cooperation from the Ursuline government.
“The Minister of Communications has already given it to my potential partners.” He hooked his thumbs under the sleeve seams of his tee shirt, tycoon style. “Besides, I’ve got to do something. The supply business is in trouble.”
“I thought you were doing well.” I was surprised. Chance’s three delivery trucks always seemed to be out on the roads.
“We were. Hell, we’re moving supplies like crazy, but goddamn Rodney’s a piss poor businessman and it’s time for me to get out before he drives us into bankruptcy by giving credit to everybody, regardless of the risk. He’s still giving credit to people who haven’t paid us for six months.”
“Then get out. But television? What good is television going to bring to St. Ursula?”
He dropped the swizzle stick into his empty glass and looked directly at me. “Your problem, Frank, is that you’re just like everybody who comes to the islands. You want progress and change to stop when you get here so things will remain the way they were when you were attracted to the place.”
“Wrong. I’m an idealist. The only thing a television station will do is undermine the culture.”
“Horseshit.” He crashed his chair to the floor. “It’s going to come. Besides we’ve already got television over the air from the US islands and Puerto Rico. You’ve got a set yourself.”
“But the reception’s too lousy for it to be a major force, and it doesn’t directly involve St. Ursula.”
He smiled, shaking his head. “Better me being involved with it than someone with no respect for this place. I’ve got the money to make it work for the island instead of just for making more bucks.” He paused, looking off at the lights in the harbor. “Of course, I want it to make more money for me, not lose it. I’m not just an altruist.”
We ate our main courses in silence. I had grouper with a light sauce of butter and Parmesan cheese. Chance had a thick rare filet of beef.
Following the meal we had three stingers apiece. Rumble lay on his side sleeping under the table, sated on our scraps, snorting, whining softly as he dreamed, his stumpy legs fanning the air as he chased imaginary beasts. We sat quietly, Chance staring at lights on the pool’s surface, me feeling sorry for poor old Frank James, sleeping alone again. Finally we paid our bill, said our good nights to Tobias, who pressed a last beer into each of our hands. Stumbling and weaving, we made our way back to the Land Rover.
“You’re
