A CHANGE OF PACE... Bermuda (Part 164m)

A CHANGE OF PACE…  Bermuda (Part 164m)

Looking at the source of the voice I knew he had to be somebody who’d attended the school while I was there. Now staring at him, no name jumped out at me and I was embarrassed. Another call out from him using the nickname followed. Finally, the guy got up and approached the table. Sticking out his hand he said but one word… “Wolfie…”. Then it came back to me as to just who he was… and an unpleasant memory surfaced. In two years at the school I’d never interacted with the guy in anything… classes, sports, living quarters etc. He was part of what I and my friends called the “elitist eight”. The group all hailed from the Greenwich, Stamford, Darien Connecticut area and, to put it bluntly, thought their s__t didn’t stink. They all came from very rich families and they let everyone around them know it. But Jeff was especially bad. I’d observed his behavior at a ‘meet and greet’ type affair the night before classes started my first year at the school. I watched a kid go up to him, put out his hand and watched as Jeff just turned and walked away. I decided, right then and there, he was someone I didn’t need to be involved with… and managed to pretty much avoid him over the following two years. So, here we were some 13 years later, in Bermuda, and he wanted to be all buddy buddy. Once I realized who he was I did have to give him his due… as the first of the class to make a name for himself. He'd written a book that made the NY Times best seller list. Regardless, I still wanted no part of him.

He asked what I was doing in Bermuda and without having time to warn Elle about him she answered telling him about our anniversary. Even though I didn’t really want to I felt I had to ask him the same question. His answer served to cement his notoriety as he said he was chairing some sort of literary forum with authors from other countries. In giving us his answer the old ‘bravado’ he’d exhibited back at boarding school shone through. I wanted to put the conversation to bed so looked at my watch and made an excuse that we had to get changed to meet some people for dinner. I can’t explain why but just being with him for those few minutes put me in a bad mood. However, that was nothing compared to what it became once we entered our room.

As soon as I opened the door I was greeted with a blast of air. Looking towards the balcony I could see the sheer curtain that hung in front the sliding doors to the balcony blowing somewhat violently into the room. Next, I could see the carpet in front of the open doors was wet and in the form of a semi circle. Lastly, the panties I’d carefully hung out to dry on the chairs on the balcony were missing… at least from where they’d been hung. First things first was a motto my grandfather had drummed into my head as a fairly young boy and the first thing was to close the sliding doors. Immediately, the rain started pounding against them. Looking out and down towards the pool I could barely make out the diving board and the cabana area as it was raining so hard. After observing it for a minute or two I started looking for where the panties might have disappeared to. The wind and rain were blowing straight in towards the building so it was my hope they were still somewhere on the balcony. Trying to see anything clearly with the rain pounding against the glass in the doors was almost impossible. However, I wasn’t about to open the door to go out and look for them.

I’d not really explained to Elle the reasons for my boorish treatment of Jeff just a short time before. After the initial shock of seeing the room in a state of disarray she focused on finding out the story. When I finished she wasn’t totally ‘in tune’ with my thinking about him and let me know about it. I distinctly remember cursing (to myself) the fact that “Wolfie” had turned up in Bermuda. I also remember thinking that this was not the way our time there should end. We’d talked about going to another hotel to see the steel drum band again but with the rain I wasn’t about to go out. Now, with the situation that had arisen between us from my treatment of Jeff I didn’t have a solution as to how to get her back into at least a neutral mood… and didn’t. Dinner was almost silent other than for giving our choices to Andres. Just to say something I asked if she wanted to go to the evening’s entertainment at the hotel and she declined. I don’t remember what it was (I didn’t go either) and we ended up sitting in the lobby watching people come and go for a while. We eventually got word the rain had let up and I asked Elle if she wanted to see the steel drums. All I got was a negative shake of her head. A very bad night!

Since we had to be out of the room by noon I spent most of the rest of the evening packing. I’d located all the panties. The wind had blown them up into a corner. The were sopping wet which presented a bit of a problem. Since most were the heavy ribbed cotton type that Elle wore in her ‘package’ at night I knew they wouldn’t be any where near dry by the time we were to leave. They didn’t provide plastic bags to put your laundry in back in those days which limited me to the vinyl carry bag that I’d used to bring the Polaroid camera and our tennis shoes. Elle had used almost all of the ‘supplies’ she needed for her package so I knew I had some leeway as to space in the luggage. It was obvious that we wouldn’t/couldn’t play tennis in the morning as the courts would still be wet so I wrapped the tennis shoes up in dirty clothes and placed them, along with the Polaroid camera in the large suitcase. That left the carry case empty to hold the damp panties on the trip home. Elle had gone to bed leaving me to complete the packing.

Of all the things we’d wanted to do while on Bermuda the only thing we hadn’t been able to accomplish was the trip to St. Georges. Our flight was at 5pm and we had to be out of our room by noon which gave us a fair amount of time to fill. I hatched a plan that I thought might work that would allow us to get in that visit. The airport was very close to the village so the idea was to take a taxi to the airport, check the bags and then head for St. Georges Of course, it all hinged on Elle’s attitude in the morning.

It was like the previous evening had never occurred. When Elle woke up she was full of vim and vigor asking what we could do to make our last day memorable. I jumped on it with my plan for St. Georges. All for it, she said she wanted to spend some time at the pool after breakfast. Since our bags were mostly packed it was certainly doable. Breakfast was sort of sad because it was the last we’d see of the wait staff assigned to us. I’d packaged their tips in envelopes and when I gave Andres his he pulled a bag out from his station and gave it to me. I had to peek and in it were two more sweet breakfast buns. I wanted to get the bill paid to get it out of the way so stopped at the desk. When I asked about a taxi I was asked what time I wanted it and with that had everything in place. But, I was asked if we could vacate the room any earlier than noon. When I explained why we wanted to wait we were offered a poolside cabana. That was even better. By 9am we were ensconced in it and ready for the pool.

To be continued…