“It’s actually one of the most deadly vacation activities there is,” I inform him.
“You’re thinking of scuba diving. You can’t get the bends from going two feet underwater.”
“I’m not kidding. People get disoriented and can’t find their way back to the boat and drown. Or they get swept up in undercurrents and become too exhausted to keep swimming. I read a whole article about it. It’s the leading cause of tourist deaths in Hawaii.”
“Good thing we’re not in Hawaii.”
“We’ll have to go there on our next cruise,” I say solemnly.
“Uh-oh. Have you been converted?”
“Afraid so. I’m easily susceptible to cults.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re a Scientologist?” he asks.
“I’m trying to tell you that I’d endure no end of Broadway musicals, turbulent waters, and midnight buffets if it meant getting to do it with you.”
I worry I have once again tiptoed into saccharine town, but he leans in and kisses me.
“Same,” he says.
I’m pleased to report that neither of us dies while snorkeling. We do see an enormous stingray, which Felix finds majestic and I find so terrifying I immediately swim back to the boat.
When the catamaran returns us to port, we’re both hungry and decide to take a taxi into town for lunch. We ask the driver to take us to a good Caribbean restaurant, and he drops us at a bright turquoise seafood shack with tables on the beach. We order a feast of grilled grouper, jerk mahi, and spicy curry fritters.
“I’m starving,” I say, licking fritter grease off my fingers. “Who knew snorkeling was so strenuous.”
“You have a pattern of underestimating water sports,” Felix says.
“My toxic trait.”
“Well, if that’s the worst you can do, you’re pretty harmless.”
“What’s yours?”
“Gullibility.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m completely gullible,” he says. “My sisters spent my entire youth tricking me.”
“Like telling you that you were adopted?”
“No, they’re far more Machiavellian than that. Most of their schemes involved absconding with my money.”
He looks so dismayed that I laugh. “Give me an example.”
“Hmm. Okay, here’s one: at primary, Pear convinced me this very unpleasant girl named Jemima in year four was going to tell everyone Pear was a bedwetter if Pear didn’t give her fifty pounds. She said she couldn’t tell our parents because then Mum would call Jemima’s mother and Jemima would bully her even more for grassing up.”
“So you gave her the money?”
“Of course. Fancied myself quite the hero. Until I found out therewasno Jemima in grade four.”
“Poor boy.”
“Tragic, I know,” he says. “And of course, to this day it hasn’t stopped.”
“Dare I ask?”
