Hot Ice

clear tenor, grinning when Whitney joined in with him.
    From the stores Jacques had brought aboard, they had a late impromptu lunch of coconut meat, berries, and cold fish. When he passed Whitney the canteen, she drank deeply, expecting plain water. Tilting the canteen down again, she swished the liquid around in her mouth. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t plain water either.
    “Rano vola,” Jacques told her. “Good for traveling.”
    Doug’s paddle cut through the water smoothly. “They make it by adding water to rice that sticks to the bottom of the cooking pot.”
    Whitney swallowed, trying to do it graciously. “I see.” Shifting a bit, she passed the canteen down to Doug.
    “You come from New York, too?”
    “Yes.” Whitney popped another berry into her mouth. “Doug tells me your brother goes to college there.”
    “Law school.” The letters on his T-shirt nearly trembled with pride. “He’s going to be a hotshot. He’s been to Bloomingdale’s.”
    “Whitney practically lives there,” Doug said under his breath.
    Ignoring him, she spoke to Jacques. “Do you plan to go to America?”
    “Next year,” he told her, resting his paddle across his lap. “I visit my brother. We’re going to do the town. Times Square, Macy’s, McDonald’s.”
    “I want you to call me.” As if she were in a plush East-Side restaurant, Whitney drew a card out of her wallet and handed it to him. Like its owner, the card was smooth, classy, and slender. “We’ll have a party.”
    “Party?” His eyes lit up. “A New York party?” Visions of glittering dance floors, wild colors, and wilder music raced in his head.
    “Absolutely.”
    “With all the ice cream you can eat.”
    “Don’t be cranky, Douglas. You can come too.”
    Jacques was quiet a moment while his imagination worked out all the fascinations of a party in New York. His brother had written about women with dresses that came high above the knee and cars as long as the canoe he rowed. There were buildings as high as the mountains to the west. Once his brother had eaten in the same restaurant as Billy Joel.
    New York, Jacques thought, awed. Maybe his new friends knew Billy Joel and would invite him to the party. He fondled Whitney’s card before tucking it into his pocket.
    “You two are…” He wasn’t quite sure of the American term for what he meant. Not a polite one anyway.
    “Business partners,” Whitney provided, smiling.
    “Yeah, we’re all business.” Scowling, Doug cut through the water with his pole.
    Jacques might’ve been young, but he hadn’t been born yesterday. “You have business? What kind?”
    “At the moment, we’re into travel and excavation.”
    Whitney lifted a brow at Doug’s terminology. “In New York, I’m an interior designer. Doug’s a—”
    “Freelancer,” he finished. “I work for myself.”
    “Best way,” Jacques agreed while his feet tapped out the beat. “When I was a boy, I worked on a coffee plantation. Do this, do that.” He shook his head and smiled. “Now, I have my own shop. I say do this, do that. But I don’t have to listen.”
    Chuckling, Whitney stretched her back while the music reminded her of home.
    Later, the sunset reminded her of the Caribbean. The forest on either side of the canal had become denser, deeper, more junglelike. Reeds grew along the verge, thin and brown, before they gave way to dense foliage. At the sight of her first flamingo, all pink-feathered and fragile-legged, she was charmed. She saw the iridescent blue flash in the brush and heard the quick, repetitive song Jacques identified as the coucal’s. Once or twice she thought she’d caught sight of a fast, agile lemur. The water, becoming shallow enough now and then to require the poles, was washed with red and skimmed with insects. Through the trees to the west, the sky was lit up like a forest fire. She decided a ride in an outrigger canoe had a lot more allure than punting on the Thames, though it was just as relaxing—except for the occasional crocodile.
    Over the quiet dusk and jungle silence, Jacques’s stereo poured out what any self-respecting DJ would have called hit after hit—commercial-free. She could’ve floated for hours.
    “We’d better camp.”
    Turning her eyes away from the sunset, she smiled at Doug. He’d long before stripped off his shirt. His chest gleamed in the dim light with a light sheen of sweat. “So soon?”
    He bit back a retort. It wasn’t easy to admit that