For Juliette, per your request.
*
Chapter One -- Mostly set-up.
The trip was meant to be a vacation for John. He had worked tirelessly on his latest articles for New Yorker magazine and felt he was due a break. He had thrown himself full time into his work since his wife died the year before of breast cancer at the tender age of thirty-nine. Their one son was a freshman at Hofstra University and very independent. He only called his old man when he needed money or advice. John had to track him down on his cell once a week just to say hello. For this reason, John didn't think Nick would miss him if he left for a week's R & R in the Caribbean.
Being a last minute deal, he arranged everything through an on-line web-site to get the best prices. He would fly from New York to Miami and then on to Barbados. His final stop was in Saint Lucia but he needed to get there via a short plane hop from Barbados. He was headed for a Sandals Resort on Saint Lucia.
The trip down was uneventful until they landed on Barbados. The medium sized Saab plane from Miami was full of vacationers like John. As they stepped off the plane, down the stairs to the tarmac, the heat of the winter tropics bathed everyone as they were ushered into the small airport to clear customs. It had been February in New York and the heat of the Tropics felt marvelous after the depressing New York winter. John finally got inside the poorly air conditioned building and into one of the two lines for customs. He was twenty people deep because his seat had been in the back of the plane. It took another twenty minutes before he was addressing the customs agent. He handed him his passport and plane ticket.
"You're a US citizen, Mister Morrison?" the agent asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Where do you live in New York?" the agent questioned.
"In Queens, sir," John replied, wondering why the guy asked looking right at his address.
"Mets or Yankees?" the agent queried with a smile.
"Mets," John responded, smiling back.
"Have a fun vacation, Mr. Morrison."
"Thanks."
Leaving the customs area with his bags, John noticed a young girl holding a sign for Saint Lucia. Several people were already standing with her laded with luggage of their own. John observed a handsome young couple that looked like newlyweds. From all the kissing going on between them, it was pretty obvious. There were two overweight Latino guys that looked like twins. They seemed to be with another guy of roughly the same height but thinner. He was doing most of the talking as the brothers listened. At nearly six-three, John was a good five to six inches taller than the three guys but thinner than the two Latino guys.
Standing nearby but on the other side of the girl with the sign were what looked like a mother and daughter team. They were gabbing away between them and somewhat detached from the immediate group. John eyed up the daughter first. She was a knock out. Blonde, blue eyed, and curves in all the right places. She was holding her winter jacket under her arm and had been prepared for the warmer climate with a tight fitting tank top underneath. Trying not to stare too badly, John let his eyes drift to the mother. She looked to be around forty like him and he could see where the daughter got her looks. She was beautiful, even at forty, and kept herself in excellent shape, something John appreciated. 'I wouldn't mind meeting her on this trip,' John thought as another couple joined the group.
They were maybe in their sixties and probably celebrating a thirtieth anniversary or something. They were not dressed for the warm weather and complaining of the heat in the building. Otherwise they looked like a cute older couple and made John miss Kathy all of a sudden. 'That could have been us in twenty years,' John thought.
Apparently they were all there now as the young girl with the sign welcomed them and told them to follow her to the plane. They exited the building not needing to go through security again and back out onto the tarmac from a different side of the building. Standing there was a World War II vintage American made version of a plane like the British de Havilland. It was an old prop plane converted into a passenger airline for this short flight to Saint Lucia. 'My god,' John thought, 'what an old bucket of bolts this is.' The same sentiments he could hear being voiced by the older couple near him.
They all dropped their luggage as instructed by an attendant, who was loading it into the belly of the old plane. The young girl led them to the back door and up a small staircase into the fuselage of the plane. The two Latinos and the other guy followed the honeymoon couple into the plane first. John let the older couple go first before he ducked low to step inside. Inside the plane, several of the seats had apparently been removed, no doubt due to wear and tear, and only one seat remained on each side. The leather of the once nice seats was cracked and faded with age.
The honeymooners and the older couple took the seats in the front. The Latinos and their friend took the middle seats, leaving only four in back for John and the mother and daughter team. John was surprised the plane had so few seats and wondered what they did if more people wanted to go to Saint Lucia on a given day. He sat in one of the back seats giving the mother and daughter their choice of seats across from each other or one in front of the other. The young girl had headphones on so it didn't look like they planned conversation. The mother sat in front of the daughter and the daughter sat across from John.
John heard the door close behind him and the cargo hold too, and then the left engine whined as it tried to kick over. The first attempt at starting it failed and John thought, 'Oh, boy, here we go.' But the next try worked and the ancient engine kicked over and eventually drummed to a smoother purr. The right was equally stubborn but soon joined the left at a smooth idle.
The pilots got the all clear and began to taxi down the runway. The plane had no air conditioning and it was getting stiflingly hot inside with the door closed. The pilot said something over the old speaker system that John could barely make out. It sounded like it would be cooler once they got airborne for the short twenty minute flight. John decided to just lay back and close his eyes for a short nap when he heard a voice close by.
"What did he say?" the pretty mother of the daughter across the aisle was asking nervously.
"It was hard to hear," John said, yelling over the loud engines, "but I think he said it would be twenty minutes to Saint Lucia and would cool off once we get airborne."
"Oh, okay," the mother responded with a weak smile.
