Suzanne was exhausted. Twenty hours ago she had taken off from the Dublin Airport and had chased the sun west. She had lost track of what day it was now, let alone the time. All she knew is that she was worn out and damned glad to have left the February gloom of Ireland behind her.
The jet stream had been less than favorable and as a result her flight across the Atlantic had been over an hour late arriving. Her connecting flight was long gone, and she had been worried that there would be no one to pick her up at the airport.
The foreboding that she felt as she walked into the terminal vanished when she saw a young man with dreadlocks holding a sign advertising the name of the resort that she was going to be staying at.
She walked over and asked, "Is this where I need to be to connect to Sandy Isles Resort?"
He flashed Suzanne a warm smile and in a sing-song Jamaican accent he replied, "You have found it." He looked at his clipboard. "Just follow me; we have one more flight to check."
"What about my luggage?"
"Did you put the tags on your bags that the resort provided?"
"Yes, I did."
He smiled again. "Not to worry, miss, not to worry. Me mate, Simon will get your bags and deliver them to the resort. They will be taken directly to your room."
---
By the time she had arrived at the resort it was dark. On top of that, she was exhausted. All she could think of was to crawl into her bed and let the sleep she needed take over.
The morning was bright and sunny. Suzanne stretched and had to think for a moment to remember where she was. She was on holiday!
Her room was fabulous, even better than it had looked in the brochure. It was almost as big as her apartment. It had a large sliding door off of the small sitting room that opened to a balcony and a view of the white sandy beach and blue water of the lagoon. It was hers, all hers. Well, for the next ten days it was hers.
She stood on the balcony clad in her robe. The warmth of the sun felt heavenly. The winter in Dublin had been cold, dreary and wet. The prospect of spending ten days of just relaxing sent her spirits soaring. Trade had not gone according to expectations over the Christmas season, and the troops in the trenches were paying for it.
After a shower and a quick breakfast Suzanne slipped into her bikini and a wrap and headed for the beach.
The sand was so white and so clean. The tropical breeze was warm, and moist. She walked along the beach in her bare feet. The sand felt warm on the soles of her feet. She stood and let the water lap at her feet, it felt warm as well.
She found an empty chair and settled into it. Almost immediately one of white shirted young men from the resort was there at the ready. "Can I get you anything, miss?"
Suzanne shook her head. "No thanks, not just yet."
The young man smiled. "If you want anything, miss, just wave."
She smiled as she leaned back in the chair, she could get used to this kind of pampering in a hurry. The sun felt heavenly as she lay in the chair. Big white fluffy clouds hung in the sky like puffs of cotton on a string.
It was a delight to pass the day away on the beach. The young men from the resort would come up to remind her to use her sunscreen, and bring her what ever she asked for.
She reached into her bag and pulled out the book she had purchased in the Dublin Airport. A smile crossed her face as she looked at the cover. A few days before she had carefully selected a book for the flight, but in the mad rush to get packed and get to the airport, she had left the book in her apartment.
Suzanne had grabbed a book at the kiosk in the airport just as her flight was beginning to board, and it wasn't until she was on the flight that she noticed that she had grabbed the wrong book. She had groaned as she looked at the cover, Montana by D. Moon. She had never heard of him.
Surprisingly the book hadn't been too bad; she thought that there might be hope for the writer. The words on the pages would transport her to the mountains of Montana until the warm breeze would lull her to sleep.
It was late afternoon as she made her way back to her room. She needed to have a bath and get ready for dinner. She found that all of her bags had been unpacked, and everything either neatly folded and placed in drawers or hung in the walk-in closet.
A frown crossed her face as she looked at the dress she had planned on wearing tonight, it was slightly wrinkled. "Five thousand miles, and I need to iron," Suzanne chuckled wryly.
She searched the room from top to bottom and couldn't find the iron.
A sing song voice answered the phone, "Front desk, how may I be of service."
"I can't find an iron in my room, my dress has some wrinkles that I need to press out," Suzanne explained.
"Oh, we can take care of that. I'll send a boy right over," replied the man at the desk.
The boy promised to have the dress back in less than twenty minutes.
"Just lay it on the bed." Suzanne knew she was in heaven now; there was no doubt about it.
The soak in the tub was just the thing she needed. Suzanne couldn't remember the last time she had felt so totally relaxed. She padded back into the bedroom to find her dress perfectly pressed and laid out, waiting for her.
She looked in the mirror as she prepared to leave for dinner and smiled. "You look stunning!"
The dining room was an elegant room that had a wall of large windows that faced the lagoon. Suzanne remembered from the brochure that the seating was assigned, and that she would have the same dinner companions throughout her stay at the resort.
She found two couples; they looked to be quite a bit older than her already seated at the table. They briefly acknowledged her arrival and then went back to their conversation. A man claimed the seat beside her. He wore a wide smile on his face. "Hi, I'm Richard; I didn't see you at dinner last night."
Suzanne shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Suzanne. I was late getting here, my flights didn't quite line up I'm afraid. By the time I got here all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and die."
Richard nodded. "Oh, by the way, I'm psychic, just in case you're wondering."
"Psychic?" Suzanne questioned.
He nodded and put his hand to his forehead. "Yes, wait, wait...I can sense you are from Ireland."
Suzanne laughed. "Go on with ya. You're no more psychic than I'm the Virgin Mary."
"Nice to meet you Mary." He leaned over and whispered. "I see you've met our other dining companions. It's my theory that they are a convention of morticians, I don't think they said more than three words to me last night."
