Paradise for a Sinner (16 page)

Winnie was about to announce she could pick her own clothing when Adam cut her off by saying, “Golden like your skin, green as your eyes—and I just like the last one.”

Making one final stand for female independence, she dug out her credit card and prayed the dresses wouldn’t put her over the limit. Adam handed it back. “These are gifts, and to refuse a gift is a grave insult.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to insult you.”

He urged her to wear one of the outfits to dinner. She rather foolishly chose the white garment because the others seemed too formal. Pleased, Adam robbed the shrubbery at their hotel of a matching red flower for her hair and tucked it in beside an ear. If she’d known he would guide her to a Korean restaurant on a backstreet where the spicy food made her nose run, and she’d dribble red pepper sauce down the front of her beautiful new gown, she would have insisted on wearing one of her sundresses. The tears she produced weren’t only because of the fiery kim-chi.

Adam wiped them away with the edge of his thumbs. “The hotel will launder the dress. All is well.”

She spent the night proving to him that she was not as clumsy in bed, a gift from her he did not refuse as she lowered herself over him, long legs astraddle, and rocked him to completion as he fondled her upturned breasts.

****

At breakfast, Winnie devoured half a papaya and several of the sinful buns dripping in coconut cream while Adam put away corned beef hash with eggs and a side of Spam. “You never worry about cholesterol?”

“Nope. Today we tour the western side of the island. Bring a bathing suit and a lava-lava, but wear a dress so we can go into the cathedral without upsetting anyone.”

He, evidently, was ready to go in a bright red shirt, a mid-calf length lava-lava sprayed with crimson flowers, and his heavy leather sandals. She followed his directions and soon they tooled along in the Jeep through the suburbs and out into the wilder part of the island. Adam stopped before a statue of the Virgin Mary. She expected to see the church sitting beyond it, but instead a mound with star-like projections rose nearby. Adam led her to a platform overlooking its levels.

“The
Tia Seu Lupe
where they say the ancient chiefs competed in pigeon catching contests. Maybe so, but I feel the power of old Polynesia here, the
mana
of its first gods, defeated but not entirely gone. When you do the
’Ava
ceremony, it is important that you spill some of your drink on the ground for the spirits that still linger here and say, ‘
Manuia lava
’ before swallowing it down in one long gulp. Got that?”

Winnie nodded and repeated the words with great solemnity. “What am I saying, a prayer to the old ones?”

“No, basically ‘bottoms up’ would be a good translation.”

“Oh, you!” She playfully slapped his arm.

“Doesn’t matter. You still have to say the words.”

They moved on to the cathedral with its impressive dome and bell tower. Winnie found herself charmed by the stained-glass portrait of the Madonna wearing a
puletasi
and a Christ over the altar offering two devoted Samoan worshipers an
’Ava
bowl. “See, even Jesus drinks
’ava
, Winnie,” Adam quipped. Indeed, the baby Jesus in the cathedral’s crèche scene lay in an
’ava
bowl instead of a manger. Winnie stocked up on postcards she knew the Rev would love.

Next up, another ancient site atop a cliff. Adam narrated the story. “In a time of great hunger, a village cast out an old woman because they did not want to feed her. Her granddaughter led her to this place and together, they threw themselves into the sea. When the family realized their fate, they came here greatly ashamed and cried out for the women. A turtle and a shark were summoned by their calls. They believed their kin had been transformed and saved in that way.”

Winnie waited for a punch line. None came from Adam. She gazed down at the rugged lava walls. A rough surf forced its way into a blow hole and sent up a spray of salt water. “It is a sacred spot,” he finally said.

“We believe what we must to live with ourselves,” she answered.

“And now a special place where we can have a picnic and swim.”

The special place appeared a little doubtful as they stopped at a cluster of convenience stores to get bottled drinks and snacks before turning down a side road that eventually led past a pig farm. Adam parked the Jeep at the start of a vague trail. “Ignore the smell,” he ordered. “Change into your swimming suit and lava-lava here.”

“Right here with a little, pink house sitting over there?”

“No one is around. Go to the other side of the Jeep if you want.”

She did want. Getting into the bikini in a hurry, no problem. Knotting a lava-lava with no practice, a big one. Adam came around the vehicle and wrapped her like a precious gift all tied up with a pretty knot of cloth. He grabbed the picnic basket.

They started down a narrow trail, very rough underfoot, and eventually veered toward a stream. Wading that, they continued up a steep slope and came to the head of a waterfall plunging through the rainforest to a pool below. “
Nu’uuli
Falls,” Adam said, spreading his arms as if giving her the place for herself alone.

Like a picture postcard of a tropical paradise, the water tumbled over lava rocks to its destination. They made their way to the basin of cool water and ate a lunch of juicy mangoes and little skewers of chicken and vegetables the hotel prepared for them. Winnie sipped her water, and Adam chugged a large orange drink. He offered her some of his potato chips purchased at the convenience store, but she shook her head. Chips had no place in her idea of paradise, but Adam did.

“Let’s swim!” She unknotted her lava-lava and turned to the pool. Before she could dive, Adam hooked a thumb in the back of the strapless bikini and released the catch. Her breasts tumbled out and the tips puckered under the fine spray of mist from the falls. She turned toward him. “Adam! What if someone sees?”

He threw furtive glances right and left. “No missionaries, no tourists. We are alone.” Without hesitation, he peeled off his shirt and untied his lava-lava. As she might have expected, he wore nothing beneath. “Step out of that bottom and get in the water, Winnie.”

She raced to obey. He followed, plunging in with a great splash. They swam and splashed and cavorted in refreshing water. Winnie convinced him to spread his legs to allow her to dive through the tunnel he made with his great thighs. She tickled his genitals as she passed and surfaced directly in front of him.

“See what you’ve done, Miss Winnie Green.” Adam pointed to a burgeoning erection.

“I plan to do more!”

She scissored her legs around his waist and laid back, exposing her breasts to his touch and letting the water support her. Slowly Adam spun her in a circle. The rush of the falls flashed by, its sound muffled by the walls of greenery. Curious colorful birds in the bush cocked their heads, viewing the performance. Far above, the smallest patch of sky watched them like single blue eye. Look at me, Winnie Green, living a scene from a romance novel, she wanted to shout.

Adam drew her up against his chest. She locked her arms around his thick neck and lowered herself onto him with her legs still grasping his waist. He supported her hips with his broad hands as they made love slowly at first. Then, he moved her hard and fast against him, getting just the right angle that sent her over the edge into her private paradise where he joined her very shortly.

Cradling Winnie against him, Adam knelt in the warm water still joined to her. She ran her fingers though his wild hair and rested her head on his shoulder. “I think you could easily pass for one of the old gods with your fine brown body and excellent tattoos,” she murmured.

“Maybe Fatu and ’Ele’ele, our Adam and Eve. Their names mean heart and earth.”

She placed one hand over the expanse of his chest. “Yes, I can feel yours beating beneath my hand. If I never lived another day, this one moment would be enough.”

He kissed her lips. “You will have many more like this.”

She gathered him close and shook her head against his flesh. “Fantasies never last.”

“Who said this is a fantasy?” With that, he brought his hands to her waist and propelled her through the air, dunking her deep. She came up sputtering with her soaked hair curling over her face. She raked it back and said, “Well, not anymore.”

Adam looked up to where the sky’s blue eye had closed a gray lid. “We have to move. The rain is coming in, and we don’t want to get caught before we cross the creek again.”

He shoved his shirt and her bikini into the picnic basket and wrapped them both in their lava-lavas for the trek out. They were within sight of the Jeep when the sky began to weep its own waterfall of tears. The drive to Pago Pago with the road made treacherous by the downpour, wandering pigs, and village dogs who did not mind the rain, became part of her adventure. Back in the city, they parked haphazardly near a building proclaiming itself the Pago Pago Yacht Club.

“Let’s go in and get a drink before dinner,” Adam suggested.

Winnie disagreed vehemently. “Not with my hair all curly and damp and not a hot comb in sight, not to mention wearing a wet lava-lava.”

“You look great.” He retrieved his wrinkled red shirt from the picnic basket, put it on, tucked it in. “But if it bothers you, take your dress inside and change in the ladies room.”

She did that, managing to finger-comb her hair into some semblance of order. By the time she joined Adam on the covered deck, he offered her a mai tai topped with a cocky paper umbrella to sip. They had the place to themselves, but Winnie glanced around cautiously. “You sure we aren’t going to be thrown out of here—because back in the States these kinds of places are members only.”

“I’m a member.”

“Call me impressed. You own a yacht?”

“Nope, but my father is a fisherman, and I paddle a mean war canoe. I only come here to have a drink and watch the clouds pile up against Rainmaker Mountain, wettest harbor in the world.” He took a pull on his bottle of Vailima, the local brew, and watched the rain pock the surface of the bay.

“You haven’t said much about your family.” Winnie removed the paper umbrella from her drink and twirled it between her fingers. “Your dad is a commercial fisherman?”

“Nothing much to say about them. My father fishes to feed the village, but doesn’t sell much of his catch. Commercial ambition is not highly thought of in our culture. My mother is big in the women’s society. I am their only child. She said having a ten-pound baby broke her in two. She didn’t want any more kids. Sometimes, I wonder if I was conceived under the palms and my parents were forced to marry.”

“I begin to understand. This love under the palms is illicit sex?”

Adam grinned. “The very best kind of sex. My mother says my father is a good and simple man who never raises his hand against her. They are happy. They live the
fa’a Samoa
, the traditional ways. When I am done playing football, they want me to come back here and live as they do. Maybe become a
matai
, a chief, the big man in the village. My parents found the gifts and the money to offer the
tufuga
for doing my tattoos because a true
matai
should have them. The tattoos remind me I am Samoan.” Much of the joy drained from Adam’s face.

“Is this what you want?”

“I feel I will disappoint my entire
’aiga,
my extended family, if I don’t.”

Winnie took a long swallow of her sweet drink and let it slide down her throat before she said, “Been there, done that. Two college professor parents saying study hard, make something of yourself, marry a man with a future, don’t fail your race. So I marry Douglas Hopper, doctor to be, when I am only nineteen. I put his future ahead of mine and become a nurse rather than a doctor. A bunch of years later, my nursing degree is all I have to show for my time. And you know what? I like being a nurse, especially when I can help children like Teddy. Maybe I don’t want to be a doctor.”

She made a fist and pounded it on the small table that held their beverages. “Now it’s Winnie Green time, and I will do what I want. Coming here with you finally made me realize I’m taking a great big step just for myself.”

“A very
palagi
attitude, Winnie Green. Foreign ways don’t go over so well here—unless it is fast food and big cars. Speaking of which, I could go for some Mexican food tonight. How about you?”

She knew he had turned their first really serious conversation into a dinner invitation, but didn’t press. “Sure, Mexican is fine with me.”

Chapter Twenty

After an evening spent in a cantina right in the middle of Pago Pago where the burritos arrived Samoan-sized, putting American super-sized to shame, and far too many Vailimas were consumed, Winnie did not particularly want to get up for another road trip in the morning. The place had offered music and dancing as well, and man after man approached Adam and quaintly asked for a turn with his lady. Always feeling awkward and inhibited, she wasn’t fond of dancing, but she stayed out on the floor all night. None of her escorts were Adam. He held court at the bar and paid for as many rounds as were bought for him.

Winnie learned flowery speech from her partners came with the whole package. Maybe they intended to set her up like some latter day Sadie Thompson ditched on a foreign shore and earning a living on her back. None became obnoxious, just rather persistent, until Adam claimed her at the end of the evening. Since he could have thrown most of them into the street with ease, her admirers gave way easily and cheerfully.

How Adam faced his usual huge, greasy breakfast, she could not fathom. She stuck to pineapple juice, tried to down a poached egg on toast and lots and lots of the hotel’s rather weak coffee. Despite her queasy stomach, he took the Jeep up the side the Rainmaker Mountain and through the pass into the National Park of American Samoa, acres and acres of unspoiled tropical rainforest teeming with birds, island wildlife, and dramatic vistas. Almost offhand, Adam pointed out a directional sign partly obscured by vines and marking a rutted dirt road that ran down the mountain to the coast. “The way to my village.”