“Think so?” R.J. said.
“Sara’s told me that you’re very persuasive.”
“Did she?” R.J. asked, smiling. “I hope she’s right. I’d like to get that island for Charley. I was thinking that with modern mining methods, maybe the springs could be uncovered. Charley was right that most people like the caché of going to a tropical island, but a place off the coast of the U.S. with hot springs? That has enormous possibilities. Maybe an ad campaign could make people believe the waters had healing powers.”
Sara liked everything that R.J. had told her—except, of course, for the lie about advertising the waters as having healing powers. Maybe she could persuade him to let her work on the project. She could live in Arundel and work on King’s Isle. Doing what? she wondered.
“There it is,” R.J. said and she looked ahead. In front of them was the water, a huge dock jutting out from it, and in the distance was the island. There was no ferry. R.J. pulled the car to the side of the road and cut the engine. “Anyone hungry?” he asked.
“Heavens no!” Ariel-as-Sara said from the back. “After the breakfast at the inn, I may never eat again. You should have seen it! Thick slices of bread stuffed with cream cheese and soaked in syrup. I think I gained three pounds.”
“I had a big breakfast too,” David said.
Sara didn’t turn to look at R.J., but she doubted if he’d eaten that big breakfast at the B and B. About two months ago, he had been on his fourth Danish one morning and she couldn’t resist saying, “I see you’re turning in your six-pack for a keg.” As far as she knew, he hadn’t eaten a doughnut or a Danish since. “I’m hungry,” she said.
“Thanks,” he murmured, but she wouldn’t look at him.
He started the car, turned it around, and drove back to a little mom-and-pop restaurant about a mile down the road.
“So, Mr. Brompton,” David said as soon as they’d ordered, “what’s your purpose for going to King’s Isle? Other than to exploit the people, that is.” David was smiling as though he was making a joke, but it fell flat. “That’s what you do for a living, isn’t it?”
R.J. leveled his eyes at David. “Of course it is. That’s what all of us working-class stiffs do. We use up the world’s resources. So, tell me—what was your name again, sonny?—what have you done in the world?”
“Studied how to save it.”
When Sara saw the two men looking at each other like clashing elks, she wanted to walk out and never return. What were they so angry at each other about? She looked at Ariel to see if she had any answers, but then saw that Ariel was leaning toward R.J. in a way Sara had seen many times. He seemed to fascinate some women. R.J. was ruggedly handsome, with that brash, aggressive, pulled-himself-up-by-his-bootstraps look, while David had a clean-cut, never-had-to-work look about him.
This has to stop, Sara thought.
“My money’s on the old one,” she said loudly. “He’s older, but he has a ruthlessness that young one has never had. It’s my guess that this man would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, while the kid has a conscience and scruples. Those are great ideals, but they aren
’t needed in the business world. And if these two take their juvenile whose-is-bigger fight into the alley, I believe the old one will win. What about you?” she asked Ariel.
“The younger one, definitely,” Ariel said. “He can be quite persevering when he wants something. He doesn’t quit. Nothing makes him stop. When your old man is worn out, the kid’ll still be fighting. He might have broken bones and missing teeth, but he’ll keep on fighting. David doesn’t give up.”
Sara glanced at R.J. and saw that he was thoroughly enjoying every word of what the lovely young women were saying, but David was red to his ears. Whatever the men were thinking, Sara had successfully shut them up.
After they finished their lunch, they went back to the car, where R.J. smiled at Sara in a conspiratorial way, as though he were a prizefighter and she’d just bet on him to win over a kid half his age.
By the time they got back to the dock, the ferry was there. It was a fairly modern thing, able to carry four cars. R.J. mumbled that he’d expected a man with a raft and a pole. Sara nudged Ariel to pay the five-dollar charge—that’s what the assistant does, after all—and R.J. drove the car onto the steel surface. Theirs was the only car on the ferry; they were the only people going to King’s Isle.
Once the ferry was underway, they all got out of the car and walked to the end of the rail to look out across the water toward the little island in the distance. After a while, Ariel and David moved away, talking in low voices about something urgent.
“Think Sara will marry him?” R.J. asked quietly.
“I beg your pardon,” Sara said.
“Him. The jock. Think she’ll marry him?”
Sara had no idea what to say, but she knew that R.J. was up to something, so she let him talk. “I guess Sara’s told you that she’s always saying she wants to quit her job. I should let her. I should give her a big severance bonus, then let her go do whatever it is that she wants to with her life. From the way she was looking at that jock at lunch, I think they’re already half-engaged. She could live in a big, old Victorian monstrosity in Arundel and grow prize-winning roses. Why she wants that kind of life, I’ll never know. I guess you know that she trained to be an actress.”
“Not a very good one,” Sara said.
“Are you kidding? She was on Broadway in a play and she was really good.”
“How do you know this about her?” Sara asked softly. She wouldn’t have thought that R.J. could shock her, but this did.
He shrugged. “I typed her name on the Internet one day and it came up that she had a bit part in a Broadway play. I went to see it three nights in a row. She only had a walk-on part and three lines of dialogue, but I thought she was great. She was the heroine’s daughter’s best friend, and she wore one of those thin, white dresses that always makes you wonder what’s underneath.”