“What time is it?” I ask him.
“Time for you to smoke a cigar,” he says affably.
“No, really—do you have the time?”
“Five twenty-one,” he says.
Oh no.
I thank him and dash out of the store.
“It’s okay,” I say out loud to myself. “Just find a taxi.”
But either there aren’t any taxis around or I’m too stressed to identify them.
I keep running, this time with the directions seared into my brain out of terror, and finally make it to the street alongside the beach, a straight shot to the pier. I canseethe ship, glinting white in the distance.
It’sfar away.
I am not someone who approaches strangers, but in my desperation I run over to a guy getting onto his motorbike and ask him if he knows where to get a taxi.
He gestures toward the port. “There’s a stand that way, by the cruise ships.”
Not helpful.
He must see my distress. He offers to drive me to the port on his bike.
Motorcycles scare me, his bike does not look big enough for two people, and he does not have a helmet.
I gratefully accept.
The bike lurches forward, and we zoom down the road toward the pier.
Felix
What do you do when the woman you were inadvisably falling for on holiday shatters all your illusions about romance?
In my case, you rent a jet ski in the Bahamas and angrily zigzag back and forth across the bay at top speed, hoping that stirring up a violent wake will exorcise the pain.
It doesn’t, but apparently itisa good way to run out of petrol.
The jet ski lurches to a stop with such force I almost catapult into the sea. I jam down on the throttle, hoping the ignition will miraculously turn and let me chug back to shore.
It emits a sound like an elephant passing wind.
Right.
I’m only about a thousand feet from the beach, but this being late in the day, there’s no one else on the water to turn to for help. I’m going to have to wait for the clerk at the surf shop to notice I’m stalled out and rescue me, or float off to my death at sea.
I refuse to perish on a Sea-Doo personal watercraft. I take off my mandatory orange life vest and wave it above my head whilst blowing the whistleattached to my key for emergencies. After about six minutes of this, someone on shore finally sees me. A guy from the surf shop motors out in a skiff.
“So sorry!” he shouts cheerfully as he approaches. “This never happens! I’ll take you back and get you a new WaveRunner. Full refund.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I say. My zest for channeling my depression into water sport has abandoned me.
The man attaches the dead jet ski to a towline and drives toward the beach at approximately three miles per hour.
His speed is making me anxious. I only planned an hour for this excursion, and it’s been at least ninety minutes.
