CHAPTER THREE

Welcome to Jamaica

"It's beautiful. Have you ever seen water so blue?"

She had red hair, a white suit and green eyes that were witness to several more years of living than those of the young man seated next to her. With no immediate answer forthcoming from her seat mate, she continued her one-sided conversation.

"It's so nice to have someone to talk to on these long flights, she said as she leaned across the vacant center seat to share his porthole view of the Caribbean Ocean. A fragrance of Christian Dior perfume wafted behind her as she returned to her original seating position.

“This is my first visit to Jamaica. It is Alfred, isn't it?" she asked with a reaffirming glance at his boarding pass that lay on the seat between them.

Alfredo," replied the man sitting by the window of Air Canada's flight 992."My friends call me Alfie."

"My name is Nancy Epstein. Oops. I mean Nancy Cohen,” she added with a broad smile and a wave of her unadorned wedding ring finger.“I divorced last year.”

There was a moment of prickly silence.

“Alfredo . . . is that Spanish?"

“Cuban, but I live in Canada now.”

"Maybe we’ll meet at the beach later," the green-eyed lady suggested.

"That's not likely," replied Alfie.“I have to go up into the mountains on business.”

"That’s too bad," she pouted, with an i