“Fire!”

“Yes, Teego.”

“I don’t mean to pressure you but … I think you should take this call.”

“Let it wait,” Fire said. “You don’t understand, Teego, I’m in a vibes right now where I just need some time to myself. I have things on my mind, Teego. Things that bigger than me or you.”

“In other words, woman business,” Teego said.

“Yeah,” Fire said, hoping this concession would give Teego a sense of victory and make him leave him alone.

“I don’t mean to pressure you, Fire, but chuss me … you should take this one. Seen.”

“Okay,” Fire grunted as he restarted the engine. The world had proven too insistent for sleep. As the boat nosed through the water, he said, “Gwaan.”

Then there was a new voice, saying in a scolding tone, “Why are you making me worry that I’ll never see you again?”

To which he could only reply, as a smile washed across his face, “I love you. I love you. I really, really do.”

“Is that your smile or the reflection of mine?” she asked. The texture of her voice was soft now, like leather soaked in water, creating in him a momentary connection to her consciousness, enabling him to picture her as she was, standing barefoot, at the water’s edge, her shoes in one hand, the radio at her ear, feeling the menthol coolness of the surf licking and lapping her toes. Behind her, beneath the thatch-roofed pavilions, the guests were skanking to old rock-steady choons and slamming dominoes on plastic tables and telling duppy stories and teaching the children old ring games.

“How do you know I’m smiling?” he asked.

“Because I can see you,” she said. “I can see your beautiful face as clearly as I can hear your beautiful voice. And,” she said jokingly, “what else could you be doing? Well, you could be laughing at me, because I got as far as the next parish over—St. Thomas—and decided to turn around. And I’m glad I did, because I can’t think of calling any other place home, because people I’ve known for less than an hour have been calling me ‘darling’ and referring to me as ‘friend’ when they introduce me to other people who’ve been telling me I’m the ‘dead stamp’ of so-and-so from over, so, so we must be distant cousins. So, no, Fire, I’m not going to St. Lucia. I’m staying in this place. And Jamaica is only four thousand, four hundred and eleven square miles, and that’s too small for the two of us. So what does that mean, buster?”

“That you are such a silly woman. Such a wonderfully missed and loved and needed silly woman.”

“You forgot to add ‘single.’ ”

“Did you say single?” he said, laughing as he gunned the engine, speeding toward her now. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I just thought—”

“No, you didn’t,” she interjected. “If you’d thought you would’ve asked me.”

“I’m asking now,” he said. “So tell me again.”