Suddenly the flight was on and everyone piled into the plane. She crawled into the seat behind the captain. His white shirt was soaked with sweat.

From the window she saw a sudden stir at the counter. Startled, she saw little black Louie race across the concrete. He was barefooted, and in his hand he held a ticket. They opened the door and let him in. He took the last seat, behind her.

She turned, curiously. “Bonjour, Louie.”

His wizened little face froze. His aged eyes regarded her. They were full of contempt. Shocked, she stuttered: “Where are you going, anyway?”

“I go to help my father. And why you h’ask?”

Astonished, she turned back. She tried to lose herself in the beauty of the flight, down the chain of the Iles Sous le Vent: Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, and finally the pristine beauty of Bora Bora itself, rising to threatening clouds. But she could not relax with the ebony eyes drilling the back of her head. On the little ferry across the lagoon, she sat forward on a wooden bench staring out at the glassy gray water, but she felt him glaring at her through the door at the stern, where he stood at the helmsman’s elbow.

At the Air Polynésie dock, she found a van from the Hotel Bora Bora, meeting nonexistent guests. The driver would be glad to drop her at the Oa Oa.

A hundred yards down the road, they passed Louie. Her impulse was to ask the driver to pick him up, but she conquered it.

Let the little bastard walk to hell and gone.

Linda Lee tugged at the dock in a sudden gust of wind. Mitch stepped topside for perhaps the tenth time that hour, to look at the sky. Clouds to the north were sagging full-bellied over the peaks. Hans was on the wharf, obviously wondering when Mitch was going to clear his dock. The water, Hans said, was heaving like an excited virgin’s breasts. “Here I think it is my hotel going to get screwed.” He jerked his thumb at the slope. “When you row back in, you will find me a thousand meters up that hill.”

Mitch was casting off when he heard Lindy’s voice. He cleated the line and looked up. She was lugging her suitcase, two-handed, across the Oa Oa lawn, with her long bronze hair swaying and her fine legs swinging. He had not known how much he missed her. He shut off the engine, jumped ashore, and took her in his arms. He kissed her and looked into her face. She was tired. Below, she told him about her father, and why she had come back so soon.

“Honey,” he scolded her, “this thing’s missing Tahiti! And heading here. Didn’t you get my cable?”

Her eyes dropped. Something about it jarred him. She looked up and said: “I had to come. Mitch, there’s a hole here! A hurricane-hole!”