Island Hopper- Chapter 18 : Hopping to Guam
Heading to Guam for Christmas
The basics--Claire is a nurse in the Marshall Islands. Jamie, Rupert, and Angus are teachers. Now that Claire & Jamie are married, they’re adjusting to life together... and about to visit Claire family who live on Guam.
Previously on Island Hopper-Chapter 17b: Sugar Sickness We meet someone important, and an illness means an early parting.
Island Hopper (Jimjeran Book 2) Full Table of Contents
Island Fever (Jimjeran Book 1) Table of Contents
Read the revised, improved, de-Outlandered version of the book on Kindle!
“What are the two of you doing here?”
Jamie and I had found seats in the waiting area of the Majuro airport and I was locating the motion sickness medicine in my bag to give to him when a strangely familiar voice spoke from behind us.
Jamie turned and saw him first. When I saw Jamie’s expression, I swiveled my body in the slippery plastic chair to see Anij John Kilmeej standing there.
After staring at him in shock, Jamie finally sputtered, “Why, we’re going to Guam to visit Claire’s family for Christmas. I might ask ye the same thing. What are you doing here?”
John blinked in amazement, smiling. “Visiting my aunt and uncle who live on Guam for a week, for Christmas.”
“Well, fancy meeting you here, John!” Happy to see my new friend after our week on the field ship, I trotted around the bank of chairs to give him a side-hug, then took him by the hand to bring him back to sit by us.
He and Jamie shook hands, and then John sat in a chair across from us. He shook his head, his eyes shining, looking at Jamie.
Looking across at the handsome man who I had a feeling was still quite in love with my husband, I suddenly thought of another handsome man who would be arriving on Guam in a matter of days. A newly single man who had told me he was waiting for a nice guy…
“If you’re not busy the whole time, John,” I offered casually, “We’d love to get together with you there. I’m planning on showing Jamie the island, and we will probably be going on some hikes, caving, waterfalls… going out snorkeling.”
“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” John replied, a hopeful smile on his face.
“Intrude? The more the merrier,” I replied. I met Jamie’s eyes and was glad to see the invitation had pleased him. “I’ve got a younger sister and a brother Jamie’s age who are both in college. They will probably have lots of friends around, and my best friend from Boston is coming over as well.”
John brought out his cell, and as we waited for departure we entered info into each other’s devices. It was strange to have coverage at all, and handy to not have to search through my luggage for a scrap of paper.
“What took your uncle and aunt to Guam?” I asked, once we’d returned our devices to pocket & purse.
“They’re climate change refugees, I guess you could say,” John responded. “They lived on one of the outer islands that was particularly low-lying. During the king tide three years ago, salt water swept over their property. It destroyed their home, ruined the groundwater supply, and killed over half of the coconut trees that they depended on for their livelihood. My cousin had already gone to Guam for college, so they moved over to be with him. They both found jobs—my auntie works at a day care and my uncle works for a sport fishing company, taking tourists out to catch huge mahi-mahi.”
“I am glad to hear they have found work,” Jamie said compassionately, “but it must be hard to move from an outer island to a westernized place.”
“Ayet,” John nodded. “My mother speaks of moving to be with them. She believes I will not stay in Majuro forever. And if she goes, other than my friendships and my heritage tying me here, I wonder what I will do.”
We sighed together, rescued from depressing thoughts by the announcement that they were beginning boarding for United Air flight 154.
After boarding our plane in Majuro just a little before noon, we flew for over an hour, landing in Kwajalein on the Army base. Just as we hadn’t been allowed to photograph the base when we were on the field ship, we were required to stay on the plane during the half hour layover after which we flew for two hours to Pohnpei (Ponape). After another half-hour on the ground we flew to Chuuk, had yet another thirty-minute layover to deplane and re-board, and finally sat through the final two-hour flight to Guam.
It didn’t matter how long it had been since Jamie had flown, nor did it matter how much motion sickness medication he had taken. Having to deal with four take-offs and four landings within eight hours was a recipe for gastrointestinal disaster.
He leaned forward in the cramped space with his forehead resting on the back of the seat in front of him. I had lifted the arm rest between us because it gave him a little extra leg room and the comfort of contact with me. Providing him extra room hadn’t taken care of the nausea, though. His skin had taken on a grayish hue, and he was sweating slightly.
“Babe, I’m so sorry,” I said, rubbing his neck. By the time we finally approached the airport on Guam and I viewed the strange hourglass shape of the island and the familiar red clay hills, Jamie looked so queasy I made sure I had the provided airsickness bag at the ready in case he didn’t make it through the final descent.
When we had collected our bags and gone through customs, walking to the arrivals area I could finally see my father’s salt and pepper hair and then spotted my brother and my sister.
Daddy stepped forward first, giving me and then Jamie each a tight hug. “Welcome home, baby. Good to see you again, son,” he said. Jamie flushed, and turned to Seth and Shelly, both standing behind Dad.
“Hey, man,” Seth said, reaching out to shake Jamie’s hand, sizing him up. Frank and Seth had been too far apart in age to really connect, and personality-wise they had little in common. I was curious if Seth thought Jamie too young for me, if he’d think he wasn’t man enough to marry his sister, but after he released Jamie’s hand, he met my eyes. “You’ve married a giant!” he exclaimed.
Jamie bent to my ear and whispered quietly, “Ye didna happen to mention that Seth and Shelly were adopted.”
I looked over at my brother; his smile, brown skin and close cropped black curls so familiar. Shelly stood behind him, shyly peeking over at Jamie, beautiful long curly brown hair with reddish highlights, big brown eyes, and the distinct nose and arched eyebrows that revealed her half-Samoan heritage.
“Don’t I have a picture of my family on my dresser?” I whispered back.
“Aye, now I realize you do. But it’s no’ a composed shot. You were all in goofy poses and making funny faces, so I didna realize it was your family. I thought it was just a bunch of your friends. Ah well, no matter.”
I glanced up to see that he was flushing in embarrassment, but he managed to cover it by reaching his hand out toward Shelly. “Nice to meet you, lass,” he said. Then Jamie looked around, asking, “Where’s Robin?”
“Mom’s making dinner at home,” Shelly offered. “She assumed you’d be starved, of course.”
“You know Mom. She’s German. She’s gotta make sure everyone’s fed,” Seth said, reaching out to take Jamie’s duffle bag. “Here, man, let me take that. You still look a little green.”
Jamie nodded, putting his arm about my waist. As we headed out toward the car, Shelly pointed surreptitiously at my husband as he looked away and mouthed, “He’s hot!”
I grinned back at her.
Daddy led the way, Seth and Jamie easily falling into a conversation about college and volunteer work and living in the islands. Shelly, meanwhile, kept on shaking her head at me. “You’ve got some explaining to do, Claire,” she said. “I mean, I get it. Just look at him. But still!”
Once in the parking lot we stuffed everything into the minivan and crawled into the seats, with Jamie taking shotgun reluctantly only after Seth refused it and I beat him into the bucket seat behind the passenger seat. I knew he needed to be in the front. The roads on Guam followed the contours of the land, and that meant they weren’t straight.
We left the airport and Dad turned us north toward the Air Force Base, Yigo, and home.
I leaned forward to point things out to Jamie as we passed them. What I noticed first was the smell of vehicle exhaust, but after months of silence out on Arno, I was most overwhelmed by the chaos, the noise, and the. I put my hand on Jamie’s shoulder and felt calmer as he reached up and grabbed my hand with his.
Thirty minutes later we were pulling up to my family’s tan flat-roofed two-story home just outside the base. There was a bit more space between properties out here which was what Mom preferred, so they had chosen not to live in base housing. Through the years she and my dad had made use of their backyard space. They had built garden boxes for beans, tomatoes, and okra; planted banana plants and papaya trees, and there was a gorgeous avocado tree right by the car port.
When we entered the house, I was met with the fragrance of fir. Despite the crazy expense, for years it had been our one holiday splurge. We could have purchased a decently lovely faux tree with Christmas lights already wired in. But Amy and I had always insisted that if we weren’t going to have snow, we needed a Christmas tree. And so Daddy shelled out two to three times what a tree would cost in the states for one shipped over in a refrigerated cargo container. Often it was a little scraggly and the needles would drop almost instantly, but that smell meant Christmas.
Mom appeared from the kitchen, bringing along a wake of delicious dinner smells. She threw her arms around me. “Welcome home, kiddo,” she said, squeezing me close. Then she turned to Jamie. “And to you, too,” she said. “Welcome home, Jamie.”
Jamie hugged my mom as well.
“Dinner’s almost ready, kids,” Mom said. “Shels, will you set the table? And Seth, I was hoping you’d make a salad.” She had turned back toward the kitchen and noticed Jamie and I standing there still waiting for instructions. “Look at the two of you, so well trained,” she chuckled. “Your job is to get your things moved into the guest room upstairs.”
Jamie and I grabbed our bags and took them upstairs. The downstairs of our home housed the living room, kitchen, and dining room, as well as the laundry room and my parents’ master suite. Upstairs were the other three bedrooms and bathrooms, Seth’s room facing north, the room I used to share with Amy facing south, and Shelly’s room in between.
When Amy and I had moved away to go to college in the states, my parents had removed the two twin beds and replaced them with a queen-sized bed to use the room as a guest room. However, there were still hints of the two of us around the room. Some of my clothes and a couple pairs of shoes remained in the back of the closet, and the paint was still a feminine pale purple.
Jamie walked around the room curiously, picking up a few objects, pulling the Twilight novels off the bookshelf and making a face at me.
“I was 17 when the movie came out,” I said.
“Let me guess… team Jacob?” he asked, holding the book up and grinning.
I glared back at him. “Are you making fun of me?”
He sat on the edge of the bed and bounced. “This could be a first for me, too.”
“You must be feeling better if you’re coming on to me,” I retorted, unpacking my suitcase into the tall distressed white dresser. “Are you implying that you need the experience of having sex in a girl’s bedroom?”
“Of course,” he said. “Though, were you the kind of girl that had boy band posters in your room? I admit, I will be quite disappointed to not being doing it in the view of the handsome gentlemen of One Direction.”
“You mean the Jonas Brothers, don’t you?” I kidded in response, shaking my head.”
After dinner, the family sprawled on the couches in the living room, Shelly curled up between Mom and Dad with Mom running her fingers through her long curls, Seth monopolizing the recliner, and Jamie and I squished together on the love seat.
Jamie and I shyly retold portions of our story—Jamie's accident, Samhain, Maxson, and a brief mention of Frank breaking up with me. We both seemed cautious about what we said, frequently making eye contact before answering questions.
It was probably 8:30 Guam time when Jamie and I both started yawning. After our fifth consecutive yawn, my mom laughed.
“Go to bed, you two,” she said. “Majuro is two hours ahead of us. There will be plenty of time for visiting tomorrow.”
We tiredly headed up to bed, stepping into the bathroom to brush our teeth. The wide expanse of white tile surrounding the two sinks was foreign, as were the brilliant LED lights and the gigantic mirror. Jamie sucked in his stomach and turned sideways.
“Am I getting pudgy, Claire?” he asked, eyeing himself critically. “I dinna think I’m jogging enough. And maybe I’m eating too much.”
I cocked my head to look at him in the mirror. “Sure look handsome to me,” I grinned, coming closer to him, putting my fingers inside the waistband of his shorts and pulling him toward me. “Have I shown you my bedroom, boyfriend?”
“I’m just going to read before bed, Mom,” I heard Shelley’s voice call from the top of the stairs. We paused, listening to her tromp down the hallway, shut her bedroom door, and turn on her radio.
I returned to the matter at hand, only to discover that Jamie seemed incredibly uncomfortable when I pressed myself against him.
“Your sister,” he said, pausing to demonstrate that we could clearly hear her music. “She might hear us. She’s only nineteen, ye ken.”
“I think she’s sexually active, Jamie,” I said. “And she knows we’re married.”
“Still,” he said, leaving the bathroom and heading toward the bed, frowning and shaking his head. “I dinna think… I am quite tired, after all… and my stomach still hasn’t settled very well.”
I stared at him, amused. “You’re saying no to sex? Well, there’s a first time for everything,” I said, chuckling. I turned off the light and crawled into the bed. “And there are still seven more days where you might just get lucky in a girl’s bedroom.”
“Aye,” Jamie said, cuddling his body around mine. “But I do have to say, air conditioning makes holding you close much more comfortable.”
After a few minutes of silence, I felt a hand creep subtly underneath my tank top. Shortly thereafter my husband whispered, “Well, Claire, if you can promise to be very, very quiet…”
Chapter Notes:
I hadn't planned on making Seth and Shelly adopted, but the inspiration came to me because MY two sons are adopted. Their racial backgrounds are in honor of my boys as well. My oldest is half-Samoan, my younger son is half-African-American.
Back in the 80s when I lived with my family on Guam, we were spending $75 for Christmas trees. Did you hear that? Seventy-five dollars for a Christmas tree in the 80s! An online calculator says that's about $170 in today's dollars. One Christmas we even went out during the eye of a typhoon to get our Christmas tree. My dad really loved us girls...
I actually had to do research for this chapter--research on which boy bands were popular in 2006-2008, and when Twilight and the Hunger Games books came out... What we do for fanfic, amiright? As I am in my mid-40s, it would have been posters of Wham! and Menudo (popular on Guam at the time--with baby Ricky Martin. Hmmm. Ricky Martin, George Michael... I really know how to pick them, don't I?) Maybe THAT's why I love Lord John so much...
On to Chapter 19: Family Beach Jamie is getting to know Claire’s family better...