From the platform she could see over the Royal Police Band, past the seated spectators, to the beach. The Windsurfer races were over, the swimming tournament done.

Sailboats flying pennants and burgees from half the yacht clubs in the Bahamas were circling offshore, waiting for the grand finale, the Annual Whiskey Cay Aquatic Parade.

Powerboats manned by masked Junkanoo revelers, canoes and kayaks, graceful, island-built wooden fishing boats with their tattered working sails, ski boats and jet skis, dugouts and dinghies, racing sculls and paddleboats, all were gathering for the climax.

King Neptune—a smiling, jet-black bartender at the Inn of the Happy Whale—was seated on his throne on the anchored government barge. He wore a golden crown. His men-at-arms, armored in cardboard, stood behind him. Beside him sat his queen, a lovely Nassau TV newswoman, dressed in a shimmering mermaid costume.

A ragtag steel-drum band thumped from the barge's bow. A huge British West Indies flag—of green, black, red, and gold—flapped at her stern.

The inflated banana boat was loading on the beach. The last ride was always free. Carla saw Thea tugging at her grandmother's arm, begging to be allowed to go.

"Carla Brody," Witherspoon said, beaming, "a grand addition to our community, an American artist of growing reputation, who was commissioned to express our way of life in permanent form..."

Hardly listening, Carla kept her eyes on Thea.

She glanced at the bar across the street. Mike, weaving a little, was shouldering his way through the crowds.

"Carla"—Witherspoon smiled—"would you care to say a few words?"

The jib from Neptune's Folly shivered on the statue in the breeze, as if the figure beneath it was moving, straining to be born.

Neptune's Folly, at the dock!

Boom... boom... boom...

Tied there to act as a monitor, with the loudspeaker turned up high?

In case the shark returned? Mike and Jake did that often with conch, so that they could sense their movements while sitting on the porch drinking beer and without staying on the boat.

And the night before, she had turned it off?

And never bothered to tell Mike?

Suppose the shark had come back?

"Carla?" Witherspoon urged. "Mrs. Brody? Would you say a few words?"

Her eyes were focused past the audience, on the beach.

Down there, Ellen was nodding reluctantly; Thea had won the argument. The child waded out, holding one of Margaret de Lacey's hands; Margaret's daughter held the other. There were three seats left on the banana boat. Margaret hoisted both children into place, with Thea on the stern, and climbed between them where she could hang on to them both.

The banana boat, low in the water and laden with screaming children, headed for the rear of the waterborne parade.

Mike was passing below the stand. He tripped over someone's feet, bowed elaborately, and stumbled into his seat. He patted Louisa on the knee, gave Jake a high-five handshake, and defiantly frowned up at Carla.