Paradise for a Sinner (26 page)

Lita, standing nearby, laughed cruelly and commented, “Yes, from old, fat men. I guess I should go with them, but they aren’t going to thank me for what I’ve done. Adam, you must get me out of here soon!” Hips swaying more provocatively than Pala at her best, the lesser sister went after her family.

Adam put a hand on Davita’s sleeve. “After we gather our things, will you take us back into the city?”

“Of course, my friend, but I think you should stay and work things out with your parents.”

“If they had bothered to consult me, this could have been done in a more private manner. My father says he understands and has no quarrel with me. Once he was forced into a marriage, too, and never found the courage to leave because my mother’s family was so powerful. That answers a few questions I’ve had all my life. I cannot bend on this. Let’s get packed, Winnie.”

Since they’d come to the village with little more than lava-lavas and Sunday clothes, that task took no time at all. Winnie found her cell phone forgotten on the bedside table. It held a message about his being freed thanks to her efforts. Whether he called her first or second no longer mattered. Adam had chosen her over Pala.

Like a good son, Adam muscled the mattress off the porch and back into the bedroom before they left, but got no thanks for the job. Ela stayed in the kitchen and refused to speak to him. Noa did see them off and tacitly gave them his blessing. Soon they would be on their way to Hawaii again, then Louisiana. Thank God and death by coconut.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The tickets for their departure lay on the small hotel table with the vase of red ginger. Not easy to get at the last minute, Adam had scored the last two seats in first class for the flight by uprooting the Sinners’ lawyers who had arrived only to find their services were no longer needed. He put them up at the same hotel and told them to enjoy a few days in the islands at his expense. The heat and humidity had the attorneys out of their suits and basking their pale bodies, alcoholic drinks served in a coconut in their hands, by the pool within hours.

Adam and Winnie made love in the morning and left the sheets rumpled on their last day in Samoa. He let her have the use the bathroom first since Winnie wanted to make a last minute excursion to the stores for family souvenirs. Adam planned to shower while she shopped, and she knew he would spend almost as much time drying his hair as she did, though he didn’t give a damn about frizz. At the moment, he lingered over another mammoth Samoan breakfast, liberally dousing some fried plantains with ketchup and perusing a newspaper with an article about his release. Yes, the headline did read “Death by Coconut Declared.”

She left for a couple of hours and purchased
puletasi
for her mother, grandmother, Mintay, and Nell, lava-lavas for her niece, Riley, and all of Nell’s girls. Knowing better than to present any of Joe’s sons or her nephews with a skirt by any other name, she got the boys a whole fleet of small, carved Polynesian canoes she thought they might like to race in the swimming pool. For Joe Dean Billodeaux who inadvertently brought her and Adam together, she selected an
’ava
bowl to sit on his bar. Then, realizing the extant of her purchases, found a suitcase that would hold the lot. One good thing about traveling first class with a Sinner, no worries about extra baggage.

Another matter did niggle in her mind—she hated being the cause of a rift between Adam and his family, of severing him from a way of life he admired but found too confining. As he held her in his arms the previous night, he kept assuring her the decision to make his life entirely in the States had been a long time in coming. Meeting her only sealed the deal.

His father had confirmed what he long suspected, that his mother had gotten pregnant and married into a lesser
’aiga
than her own. Ela’s only hope to regain lost status rested in her son, his marriage, and his future. He possessed a fortune, much to give away and become a
matai
, enough to raise himself up to the territory’s congress, the
fono
, with the presentation of many gifts.

“Bribes, you mean?”

“No, lovely Winnie. Generous gifts for which I expect no return. It is how we gain status.”

“And votes?”

“Well, yes, but I have no desire to serve in the
fono.
I will always send gifts and money home because it is our way even if I never return. Do you understand?”

“I can accept that.”

She hoped he had no regrets later and would encourage him to visit once the bad feelings died down. Look at her, making plans about a future with Adam Malala when he had not proposed or even said directly that he loved her. He wanted her more than Pala. That would have to do for a while.

****

Adam polished off the plantains and had a second cup of coffee, so much weaker than the kind served in Louisiana. No need to hurry if he knew anything about women and shopping. Winnie wouldn’t be back for hours. He tossed his confining robe on the unmade bed and headed naked to the bath on the other side of the suite. A light rap sounded.

“Done shopping already? Forget your key?” He wrapped a towel around his waist just in case the knock came from someone other than Winnie and went to answer.

Pala stood on the other side of the door. Her long hair lay tangled in a provocatively sensual way, and she wore a fresh red hibiscus flower possibly plucked from the hotel’s shrubs behind one ear. Though she had creases in her lava-lava from a long drive, her skin smelled of fragrant coconut oil, not pigs or other people on a bus.

“How did you get here? They aren’t supposed to give out my room number at the desk.”

She stepped inside the room and quietly closed the door. “Lila let me borrow the Jeep. I told her I needed to get away after yesterday’s embarrassment. As for the other, one of my aunties is a maid here and very pleased I came to visit for a short time.”

She placed a hand, so good at weaving fine mats, preparing
’ava,
and moving gracefully in the
siva
dancing, on his cheek. Her fingers moved down his tight jaw and roamed over his chest, the very first time she had touched him intimately.

“I was very foolish to listen to Sammy and want to apologize. I know our parents should have asked you about resuming our engagement. I told them they must.”

Adam felt a tightening in his loins. She was a beautiful woman after all and standing very, very close. He stepped back. “Thank you for the apology. I appreciate it. You should go now. I need to get ready to catch my flight.”

Pala stepped near again. “I came to offer myself to you. Our wedding is only a few months away. What does it matter? Sammy kept saying that to me, and I would not have him. Maybe I sensed what he did with other women. Maybe I did drive him to it just as my turning from you forced you into the arms of the first
palagi
woman who came along. I know that you used this Winnie only to defy your mother and show her you are a man who makes his own decisions. We can still have all we were meant to have on our own terms.” She unknotted her lava-lava and let it drop to the floor, but her use of Winnie’s name broke the spell.

Adam backed toward the bathroom. “Pala, you are delusional. Don’t make me drop kick you naked into the hallway. Now, I am going in here, locking the door, and when I come out ready to leave the islands, I want you gone. Understand me? We are over. In fact, I think we never were in any real sense. No love, no affection, no trust in each other, just a physical attraction on my side and a desire for status on yours. Love, affection, trust, I have that with Winnie. Go, I don’t want to lay hands on you.”

He did as he said, clicked the lock, and braced his back against the door for a moment. Close call, very close call as if the spirits of the island were trying to lure him back again. Adam turned on the shower and waited for the steam to rise. He got in and washed Pala’s touch off his body.

****

Wanting very much to break something, Pala stood still naked in the center of the suite. She stalked over to the breakfast table intending to fling the vase of flowers against window with the ocean view, possibly breaking both. She would trash the room and see that her auntie reported the damage done by the self-centered American football player. Then, she noticed something else sitting among the dirty dishes—a folder containing airline tickets for Adam and the
palagi
woman.

Pala withdrew Adam’s ticket and ripped it into tiny pieces. He needed to stay. Winnie Green needed to go. Simple as that. With her rival out of the way, Adam would accept her offering of her greatest gift, her virginity. She would no longer be humiliated and scorned, but soon become the wife of a famous man who might become a
matai
or even serve in the national
fono
to govern the islands. Let him have other women back in the States. She would stay here and pave the way with gifts for his new career when he retired from sports.

Now, how to go about driving the
palagi
woman away? If she found Adam in bed with her, that would work, but he’d been very clear about not wanting to see her when he returned from the shower. Pala recalled the old wedding custom that had fallen into disuse, of the bride and groom going into an enclosure during the ceremony and having intercourse to prove the virginity of the bride with blood spilled upon a clean, white sheet. She would have passed that test and been proud of it! Her mother told her some women bled more, some less, and a bit of chicken blood often came in handy. She swiped her finger through a scrim of ketchup on the edge of Adam’s plate and stared at it thoughtfully.

Leaving her lava-lava where it lay, Pala kicked off her sandals and went to the unmade bed. She sniffed. It smelled of a man and woman together and still had a damp spot in the center. Centering herself just above that dampness, she smeared the ketchup on the sheet and drew the top sheet up between her breasts, but left both them and her legs exposed. She only had to wait and hope Winnie Green returned shortly. After some time, the shower stopped blasting and the roar of the hairdryer replaced that noise. Pala nearly missed the faint click of the key card in the lock, but when Winnie entered the room, she was fully prepared.

****

Winnie smiled at the sound of the hairdryer, that curly mane of his, his single vanity. “Adam, stop primping. I know I took too long, but the cab is waiting and our suitcases are in it. You need to finish dressing, grab our tickets, and go.”

A low seductive voice spoke from the bed across the room. “He is not going with you. I offered myself to him. He took my virginity, and now we will marry as planned because Adam Malala is a man of honor. He tore up his ticket, you see. Yours is still on the table.”

Pala dropped the sheet from her body and flung it back to expose a russet stain between her legs in the exact spot where Winnie and Adam had sex that morning. The lush body of the young woman adorned only with the ropes of tattoos on her thighs lay there naked as a Samoan goddess, the very spirit of the islands incarnate, summoning Adam back to his village and his way of life.

“Yes, I thought Adam was a man of his word. Evidently, a woman can be wrong about men more than once.”

Pala inclined her head as if agreeing with this statement entirely. “I win. You lose. Go home,
palagi
woman.”

Winnie experienced the same numbness she’d had when Doug announced his decision to leave her for another woman. Only her feelings for her ex-husband had atrophied by then from his lack of interest, her fatigue working long hours. Her love for Adam was so fresh and new, so easily bruised and damaged by this revelation. Of course, she came in second best compared to that lush creature in the bed.

Did he expect her to get into a cat fight with Pala over him? Or had he planned to come down to the desk, meet her, explain, and hand her the ticket to get home? He might have perfect timing on the football field, but it failed him now. Winnie took her ticket, went to the cab, and left Adam’s baggage behind.

Chapter Thirty

Adam emerged naked from the bathroom in a small cloud of steam like one of the old gods, hair wild, his tattoos showing courage and manhood. Wrapped in a bed sheet, Pala stood near the balcony doors and held out her arms to him. “Take me. Your other woman is gone.”

“What the hell, Pala! I told you to get dressed and get out of here. Where are my clothes, my ticket? Where is Winnie?”

“All gone. I have a sheet here with your semen on it and the stain I showed her marking the loss of my virginity before she left.”

Adam tore the sheet away from her body and examined the smudge. “Are you so crazy you cut yourself? I mean football groupies do some loony things, but this tops it.” He wet a finger, ran it across the patch of red, and popped it into his mouth. “Yeah, I thought so, ketchup.”

“We can make it real now.” Pala held out her arms again.

“That will not happen. Just tell me where my clothes are.”

“Out there.” She pointed a finger to the balcony.

Adam shrugged into the hotel robe, always too tight and too short on him, doubled the stained sheet over and wrapped it around him lava-lava style because no way was he going to leave it with Pala and whatever she might try next. He went to reclaim from the landscaping the clothes he’d laid out for his trip. His khakis and a red Sinners shirt hung on some bushes halfway down the cliff. He found his black boxer briefs tenting a vivid red ti plant and one of his athletic shoes in the driveway. Finally giving up, he pounded up to the desk and simply asked the clerk for help.

“Oh, Miss Green left your suitcase with us.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“Will you be staying on with us?’

“No. Call a taxi. I’ll need it as soon as I change my clothes which I’d like to do down here if you have a private space.”

“Is there a problem with your room?”

“Yes, pest infested.”

The clerk’s eyes widened in horror. “Not bed bugs!”

“No, only someone crazy as they are. I need a young woman removed and sent on her way.”

“So sorry about this. One of your fans?”