Chapter One

 

With the sighting of land-green like the springtime valleys of my home, green like fluorescent leaves shimmering in sunshine, green like tendrils of ivy wet in the morning-my heart soars. After weeks on an eternal sea of navy water that looks often like seaweed and mud, occasionally like a pristine azure sky, I am anxious to view something other than the tedious expanse of horizontal planes made by water and sky. Being on dry land means that my feet can feel rooted to something again, that my stomach won't turn queasy after eating and that I don't have to share my living space with my stepsister, Lydia.

I look out on the sight of our new home seeing its jungle rising before me, its mysterious foliage drawing me to it. My imagination has spent so much time building fantasies of my life here. Romantic ones-of meeting a dashing rebel with a heart who'd sweep me off my feet, marrying me in the jungle and then sailing for years from one exotic port to another.

I know we'll be isolated on this remote island. Adam Sebring, my stepfather, is making this South Sea island the place to grieve the passing of his latest wife, my mother, Anna. Theirs was such a short relationship, barely a year together before an aneurysm ended her life with an unexpected abruptness that posed an enigma for us all.

At eighteen, I could well be on my own, my years wouldn't have prevented that. But I have to face the reality of my experience with life. I've been sheltered, and have allowed people to shelter me. Mother held on to me with a gentle grasp honed with iron. Her will was mine, her thoughts my thoughts, and her tenderness mine too. We'd spent so much time joined, it's been almost difficult to breath without her. I miss her and all those thoughts and feelings that became mine. I don't know what to think or feel anymore.

I was jealous of her attention to Mr. Sebring-I've never been able to call him Adam or father. Both options were given to me. I refused them both-at least until we made this trip. Though now, for some reason the moniker of 'father' is becoming easier to use. I suppose because I gave myself to this journey of his, consenting to be a companion for his daughter, the black-haired libertine, Lydia. She hardly needs me. In fact I'm sure she despises me just as I despise her. We are so unalike.

Lydia is bold, sometimes crass, but with a charm and verve that easily attracts men. She's coy with them near, like a deliciously sweet dessert of cream and chocolate. Her smile engenders men's lust easily, as does her full bosom and lush thighs and the flawless tan skin that looks as lovely naked as it does dressed. Her eyes can be mean they're so biting when she's angered. But with a young male pup to play with they are like molten embers that seduce, while confusing and deceiving her prey into thinking that she is some rare and tender lover with arms to embrace and a warm sex to satisfy.

She is eighteen like me, but six months older, which gives her reason to refer to me as her 'little sister'. Each time she says that, I cringe. She speaks of me as if we've lived together all our lives, when we hardly know each other. She's impertinent enough to believe she knows me. She's figured out that I'm weak and mousy. Several times on this trip she spat that to my face when she was annoyed with me. Little does she know how I feel about her, what contempt my mind heaps on her. I keep my thoughts away from her scrutiny. She'd crush them into dust.

I envy her however. How her dark hair shimmers like a sheet of black glass in the sun. My golden hair flies in a catastrophe of curls I can never tame. So light, I perpetually look pale and flawed next to Lydia's smoothness. My skin does not tan, so I have to wear sunscreen, sun hats and clothes to cover my arms and legs. Though I've noticed that on this trip my skin has darkened with all the concentrated and inescapable sunlight. Still, next to Lydia, I'm as pale as a ghost. She seems to know how much this annoys me. Her features are well defined: high cheekbones, a sharp nose and small wide-set eyes. Mine are more vague and nondescript. My eyebrows are white and as are my lashes, though I've been told that my eyes are so large it makes up for that. I wear some make-up just to be seen, but there is no make-up that could bring my radiance up to the degree that Lydia's shines naturally.

I have accepted this. Knowing that I'll never be the raven-haired beauty, I don't have to fuss with myself and worry what men I attract. I'll let the right man find me, the one that is not impressed by appearances, but who will understand my nature and love it for its own quality. Then too, I don't seek lovers but a husband. A constant man that will belong beside me my life long. I do have to be careful with myself and what I communicate to my stepsister, since she's decided to hinder any efforts I make to start a romance. It happened on shipboard the first week just out of San Francisco. The young sailor was friendly to me from the start, his smile perfectly intentional. We talked several times privately, but when one of these conversations was noticed by Lydia, she began to swoosh her ass for him, batting her eyelids like some coquette. She took all her attention from two other, perfectly charming sailors, to concentrate on this one. And, as if she didn't have a clue that this man was interested in me, she chattered like a blue jay in my presence, 'confiding' in me about her secret love. I knew immediately that I'd have to be more furtive with my own secrets. However, for the remainder of the trip, there wasn't another man so interested in me as this one had been. By the time Lydia had cast him off, he seemed to have lost his regard for me. I wasn't sure I respected him anyway, considering how he'd been duped. And then too, it's silly to think that I could find a good husband in such inconstant circumstances.

 

Reaching the small port on the tiny island rescues me from a dozen awful scenes I've imagined, having to do with Lydia being pushed overboard, or her red blood shed as I drive a kitchen knife into her gut. I don't know why she hates me since I am no match for her talents. But I have every fiber of my being engaged in the process of despising her from her wretched soul to her skin. Knowing this hostility isn't healthy, I welcome the distance we can maintain once we're off the ship. Father tells us we'll live in two huts, a large one for him alone, another with two rooms at either end of our living room, one each for Lydia and me.

The port of Kiachi is the only village on the island. Though such a small island doesn't need a lot of commerce. There are native people living in pockets here and there, fishermen, and a few westerners like my father. These "white men" came for various reasons: usually to escape part of civilization they couldn't abide. My stepfather is here to grieve and do research on exotic plants. He plans to pour himself into his work, while taking his two daughters out of the mainstream of reality for a year to experience a culture that is completely removed from American hamburgers and movies and the fast-pace of cities. He promised us after a year-he did say maybe two-that he'll take us back home where we'd both enter college. He considers this a treat few young women would ever experience and we should be overjoyed with the opportunity.

Lydia finds it hateful with so few men around.

I think of it as stepping back in time to something primitive. I take it with a good degree of resignation, knowing that I'm not ready to be independent in the world. Even if I barely know my adopted father, he is someone to cling to until I'm able to grieve for my mother myself and dredge up the courage to step into an intimidating world.

It isn't as if the other world doesn't occasionally come to us. Weekly, ships sail into our port and bring supplies. Young good-looking sailors crew these ships and Lydia often has her pick of interested boyfriends. I'm not sure she has sex with them all, but she certainly gives me the impression that she beds them regularly, or is at least willing to.

To spend our time father has school books he expects us to study. He's brought dozens of American and English novels, and plenty of texts on botany, and a smattering of other topics he thinks would be useful to read. It is an informal study. Lydia and I have both graduated from high school. But father insists that we not let our minds waste and it was his original plan to quiz us on our knowledge. So far this hasn't happened. Father seems to be pouring himself into his work with such fervor that we hardly see him.