smiles to see us so." She smiled. "We are perfect together, no?"
"Then why do I have to change everything?"
"So we will be happy!"
That evening, Gage downed a double scotch, poured himself another, broached the subject head on.
"Gabi, this isn't working."
"What is 'not working?'"
"This. Us. You staying here. It's my fault . . ."
"How can you say this?" Her mouth gaped. Her face paled. "Am I not beautiful? Do you not love me?"
"You're great. We've had a lot of fun. But we've just met. This is a small place, and I'm pretty set in my ways . . ."
Gabi howled, tears running down her cheeks. "These are hateful things! How can you say so to me?"
Gage, queasy. He had expected an argument, not a breakdown. "I just think we maybe rushed things. Two weeks is a long . . ."
"Two and a half weeks!" she sobbed.
"Look, Gabi," Gage sat beside her, put an arm around her shoulders. She leaped away, ran to the bathroom and slammed the door, lock snicking into place behind her.
Gage topped off his scotch and stepped onto the porch. The sunset was beautiful, but he couldn't enjoy it. He hadn't meant to hurt her, but he'd had to do something.
Ten minutes later Gabi burst through the front door, dressed in her evening gown and high heels, a cashmere shawl draped across her shoulders.
"I am going!" Without looking at him she strode down the limestone road, wobbling as her heels caught on the uneven ground.
"Going where?"
"Going away!"
Gage let her go. She wouldn't last five minutes in those heels. She'd come hobbling back barefoot, shoes in hand. Then they could sort things out rationally. He stepped inside for the phone and called the few resorts on the island, looking for a vacant room for Gabi. It was high season, though. Spring Break time. All the resorts were full, as were all the island's rental bungalows.
After fifteen minutes, Gabi hadn't come back. Gage gritted his teeth, climbed on the scooter. She might have hurt herself, twisted an ankle in those ridiculous shoes. Fallen, broken an arm. Or been 'rescued' by one of the island's dive staff.
A mile down the coast he spotted her, still hobbling in her heels, head high, shawl pulled tight around her shoulders despite the tropical heat.
"Get on," he said as he pulled alongside her.
Gabi kept hobbling.
"Gabi, I'm sorry. Please. Get on. We're miles from anywhere. We'll go back, talk this out."
She slowed. Her shoulders slumped. She hiked her evening gown up mid-thigh and climbed behind him on the scooter. Her feet were raw, bleeding across the tops and heels where the straps had cut into them. She leaned against him riding back, arms tight around his waist. Hot tears soaked through his shirt between his shoulder blades.
At the cottage he washed her feet, cleaned the cuts as gently as he could, wrapped them with gauze. All the while Gabi sat silent, refusing to look at him.
"So. We are not so perfect, then," she finally whispered.
"No." The words lifted an anvil from Gage's shoulders. "But that's not the end of the world, right?"
Gabi shook her head, teary eyes at last meeting his.
"Look, this is really awkward," Gage said. "But there's no place else. Everything's full up."
"But I am here for two and a half weeks," she said.
"Tickets can be changed. It'll be pricey, but I'll pay the change fee. Or buy you a new ticket."
"Oh! And what will I tell my family? And my friends, who know I have come to be with you? I cannot! No! I have come here to be with you and this I will do!"
"Can we start over, then? As friends?"
"Yes. Yes!" Gabi said. "I can stay here and we can still be together!" She smiled. All the warmth and joy of her first visit flooded over him. Gage was so relieved he didn't protest when she broke out her modeling portfolio again, though he had polished off half the bottle of scotch by the time she was through.
The next morning he woke to find a nude Gabi sitting cross-legged on the futon next to him, stroking his forehead with soft fingers.
"You are very peaceful when you are sleeping," she said.
Gage blinked, making sure he was awake.
"Last night you slept for one hour on your back. Then you turned and slept for one hour on your side. Then you turned again and slept one and a half hours on your stomach. Now you are on your back again. You do not breathe deeply when you sleep."
Gabi kept stroking his brow, her other hand clutching the pillow next to his head.
Gage bolted upright, eyes darting from Gabi to the pillow clutched in her hand. Ten minutes later he was shaved and out the door, Gabi right behind him.
Between dives that morning, he found her dive gear once again draped over his, and Gabi waving her arms as she chatted to guests about what a wonderful father Gage would be. The guests smiled at Gabi, laughed when they looked at Gage.
After lunch, Gabi said she would bike back to the cottage, "to make a nice dinner for us." Gage nodded. He needed time to think through his options, come up with some way out of this mess.
Jerrod at the bar was no help. "I'd take her off your hands, but that one's hooked deep. No one's gonna pry her loose. I'd offer you my couch, but she'd sniff you out."
So Gage was in a jam. If Gabi stayed, she'd smother him while he slept. If he tossed her out, no telling what she would do. And there was nowhere to hide. Maybe he could drug Gabi, swear she was drunk and pour her on the next off-island flight. No. He had to be realistic, even if Gabi wasn't.
She met him at the door that evening, back in her fancy gown. "I have a whiskey for you, so?" She handed him a tumbler filled with scotch and ice cubes.
Inside, the cottage had been transformed. The new curtains were up, candles were burning, and his old ice chest had been pulled to the middle of the floor and draped with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth.
"Is it not perfect?" Gabi said. "Until we get a table, we can have romantic dinners here and be happy forever."
"Or for the next two weeks."
"No, no. Forever! I have inquired for the job of island doctor! You know there has been no doctor here for three months, and they need a doctor so much!"
Gage could have swallowed an ice cube, his insides went so cold.
Gabi piled plates with chicken Florentine, guided him to one side of the makeshift dinner table.
"Now we will have a proper dinner!"
They sat on the floor, facing each other across the tablecloth-draped ice chest, candles in matching holders lighting the room. Gabi rattled on about their future, how wonderful it all would be.
"Am I not beautiful?" She smiled, a chunk of spinach lodged across her incisors.
"Sure," Gage managed. She was consistent, he had to admit.
"Then why do you not tell me so?" The chunk of spinach made her look like she was missing teeth.
"Hmm." He couldn't look at her hockey-player smile.
"Oh! How can you be so, so . . . cruel?"
Gage reached for the scotch. "Look, Gabi, this is crazy."
"You are crazy!" Gabi said. "And stupid!"
Her accent made the word come out 'schtupid.' Gage couldn't stop his laugh.
"If we're perfect and I'm crazy, doesn't that make you crazy, too?"
"My God! If someone is crazy, it is you. I am not crazy! You are both crazy and schtupid!"
Gabi snatched up the plates, flung half-eaten food into the waste bin and slammed dishes into the sink, spitting a steady stream of German all the while.
Gage killed the rest of the scotch. Closed his eyes.
Metal scraped on ceramic. In the kitchen, barely ten feet away, Gabi was sharpening the big kitchen knives, one by one, on the bottom of his coffee mug.
"Umm, what are the knives for?" Gage's face and hands went numb.
Gabi pointed a butcher knife at him. "All knives must be sharp. A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one, no?"
"No. I mean,
yeah." Gage, throat dry. "Say, why don't you leave that for later. We haven't had a chance to talk about this doctor thing yet." It was all he could think of to say. Gabi grinned.
"It will be wonderful, no?"
"Yeah." He needed to buy time, get her calmed. Away from the knives. "It'll be perfect."
Gabi set the knife on the counter and skipped over to him. "We will be so happy, yes?"
"Yes."
"And I am beautiful, yes?"
"Oh, yes."
"Would you like to see my portfolio again?"
"So how about dessert?" He couldn't take another session with her glamour shots. He stepped to the kitchen, grabbed a box of after-dinner chocolates. Slid the knives back in the drawer. "Something sweet for the sweet?"
He bowed, held the box out to Gabi, making a show of it. As she opened the box, something dark fell toward the table, hung in mid-air a moment, then clattered at her face. A cockroach, big as his thumb. It bounced off her nose, tumbled down her chest and burrowed into her lap.
Gabi exploded up, shrieking in German. The ice chest tumbled sideways, sending candle wax, wine and scotch across the tile floor. Gage scrambled to put out the candles, dodging Gabi as she flailed around the room, bashed into the walls, swatting at the air and scraping her hands over her torso as if a thousand cockroaches were covering her.
It hit Gage then, a giant neon sign flashing on in his head: a plan so simple it couldn't help but keep Gabi in check. And let him sleep without worrying about sharp knives or thick pillows. He took a moment to collect himself, waited for a pause in her shrieks.
"Oh, that's a small one. Nothing to worry about." He let it slide out, face poker-straight. "The big breeders stay hidden until the lights are out. It's the season, you know."
Gabi froze, as if an unseen switch had been thrown.
"What