Spa Page 12

  “Nope.” He ran a finger around the neck of her sweater. “You know, ‘under different circumstances’ I’d invite myself in, but you look like you’ve had a rough day. So, I’ll take a rain check for tonight.”

  She tensed. The nerve of the man. She was trying to apologize, and he was telling her she looked tired. Well, she would tell him what he could do with his rain check.

  “You’re going to have a long wait. The forecast doesn’t call for any rain in this area for another six months.”

  He moved closer and she caught the scent of his cologne. His body was pressing ever so lightly against hers. “That’s funny, I could have sworn there was a little drizzle on the way.”

  She fumbled for the doorknob. “Well, you’d better check it again. There’s absolutely no possibility of any moisture in these parts, believe me.”

  He sighed resignedly, but a smile was playing at the corners of his mouth. “In that case, I guess I can put down my umbrella.” And with that he turned and sauntered down the hall toward his own room.

  Slowly, Joyce exhaled the breath she had been holding in, and let herself into her room.

  Chapter 19

  Joyce spent a restless night, what there was of it. It seemed like she had just gone to sleep when there was a knock on the door.

  “Whosit?” She mumbled into the soft comfort of her feather pillow. She didn’t remember ordering room service.

  The door opened and a black maid entered, bearing a silver tray covered with a large turquoise linen napkin.

  “Time to get up, Mrs. Allan.” She placed the tray on the night table and shook Joyce gently by the shoulder.

  “Go away, Fredo. It’s not time yet.” Joyce rolled over, wrapping the covers around her like a cocoon, and sticking her head half under the pillow.

  The maid sighed. They were all like this the first morning. She went over and drew the curtain back. A bolt of sunlight struck the bed, hitting Joyce squarely in the face.

  “Ugh!” Red rockets went off in front of her eyeballs. Joyce dragged herself awake and sat up.

  “Sorry, Ma’am, but sometimes it is the only way. I brought your breakfast.” The maid retrieved the tray and, placing it over Joyce’s lap, whipped off the turquoise napkin to display the smallest bran muffin Joyce had ever seen. The word ‘thimble’ came to mind. Next to it were three slices of papaya and a small pot of what smelled like coffee but which Joyce knew could only be Sanka. There was no butter, no cream, and of course no sugar. Breakfast?

  The maid disappeared out into the hall. Maybe she’s gone to get the rest of the breakfast, thought Joyce, picking up a piece of the papaya. It had a ripe, earthy sweetness that quenched her morning thirst. She nibbled the bran muffin and poured a half of a cup of the “coffee” into a delicate white china cup.

  “The hike starts at half-past six.” The maid returned from the hallway, carrying, not food, but a turquoise and white sweat suit. “Everyone is assembling on the main patio beside the pool.”

  “The hike? What hike?” Joyce had thought about lounging in bed for an hour or so and making some notes for her article.

  “Every morning there is a two-mile hike around the island. You will see it in your program when you have consulted with the doctor.”

  “But if I haven’t consulted with the doctor yet, why do I have to go on the hike? I thought this was supposed to be one of those do-your-own-thing spas?”

  The maid shrugged. “Every morning there is a two-mile hike around the island.” She said it as though it were part of the eleventh Commandment. “Thou shalt not sleep in because.…”

  “Alright. I’ll be there,” Joyce assured her. But the maid remained standing in the center of the room.

  “I said, I’ll be there.” The maid shrugged and, having completed her mission, she left. Joyce finished the last of the coffee and got reluctantly out of bed, wondering if you could get jet lag going north and south as well as east and west.

  She pulled on the fleece-lined sweat shirt and tugged up the matching pants, tying the string tie firmly around her waist. The suit fit perfectly. It was a size eight. Her size. None of that one-size-fits-all nonsense around here, she thought. The doctor and his staff obviously didn’t miss a trick.

  Down on the main patio, Regina Taylor was already waiting when Joyce arrived. She looked fresh and lovely, as though she had just had ten hours’ sleep. Joyce, who had avoided looking in the mirror, in case she still looked like she had “had a rough day,” wished she had at least put on some lipstick.

  “Hi.” Regina smiled at Joyce.

  “Hi. Where’s your mother?” Joyce was surprised to see the girl on her own, and she looked around, but Belle was nowhere in sight.

  “Mother’s not coming. She has some phone calls to make. It’s already eleven-thirty in the London office and she wants to catch them before they go to lunch.”

  She was lying on her back, doing stretching exercises. Clasping each ankle firmly in one hand, she bent it back against the top of her thigh. Joyce tried to do the same thing and got a shooting pain down the back of her leg.

  “Ouch!”

  “Did that hurt?” Regina was touching the floor with the palms of her hands now, without bending her knees.

  “A little.”

  “Your hamstrings are probably too short. It comes from wearing high heels a lot. Do you wear high heels a lot?” She was doing waist twists now, swinging her elbows all the way around.

  “I guess so. To work anyway. Don’t you?” Joyce was following suit with the waist twists, and could feel her back creaking under the strain. She decided to sit down and wait for the others before she did something to injure herself.

  “No. I only wear high heels when I’m on a shoot. The rest of the time I wear Reeboks. Much better for the legs. More support for the ankle, and the flat shoe stretches the hamstrings.” She finished her warm-up and came to sit beside Joyce in one of the chairs by the pool.

  “Do you work out often?”

  “Never.” Joyce felt a pang of guilt. She was always planning to start on one program or another, but there just never seem to be enough time.

  “Never!” You never work out? Don’t you go to Dancercize or anything?”

  “Actually the only thing I go to is Workercize.” She paused. Regina looked suitably confused. “I go to the office everyday and jump whenever my boss says so.” Joyce knew she was being sarcastic. It was a defense mechanism she used when she really didn’t have a good enough excuse for not doing something that was good for her.

  “Wow! I can’t believe it. I go to dance class everyday and Nautilus three times a week and.…”

  Regina obviously inhabited a world where not working out was considered in the same class of mortal sins that having sex before marriage was when Joyce was young. The only difference being that you couldn’t get pregnant not working out.

  Maxine arrived then, looking quite uncomfortable and out of place in her sweats. Kind of like Dr. Ruth in a baseball uniform.

  “Such a nice morning. I slept like a baby.”

  Cathy arrived next, waddling across the patio, trying to pull the sweatshirt down over her hips in an effort to disguise her bulging rear.

  “Was that breakfast? I mean: all of it?” She sat down on the cement with a thud. “Aren’t we going to get anything else when we come back? I can’t last until lunch on that.” Thank god she was grumpy, thought Joyce. It was a welcome relief from the too-early cheerfulness of Maxine and Regina.

  “Of course you will have something when we return.” They all turned their heads. It was the young girl who had chauffeured them from the airport the day before. Only this time she wasn’t wearing a uniform, but a tightly molded blue body-suit that clung to every curve and crevice and shimmered expensively in the sunlight. Her brown arms were bare, with the well-defined shape of someone who lifts weights regularly. And her white-blond hair hung down to her shoulders with an almost military straightness. She was the epitome of everything a Calif
ornia girl was supposed to be. And, thought Joyce with a little rush of envy, she had no thighs.

  “When we come back, you will all have a nice cup of potassium tea.” She said it as though she were offering a Thanksgiving dinner for six. Yummie, thought Joyce. A cup of potassium tea was just what she had been hoping for.

  “If everyone is ready now, we can go.” They all stood up. Joyce looked around to see where Cliff was. It didn’t look like he was coming, but she didn’t want to ask Mariette why not, in case her curiosity was construed as showing too much interest, which of course is exactly what it was.

  Off they went, single file, with Mariette in the lead, her perfect blue bottom straining muscularly against the shiny fabric of her suit. Regina was next and then Maxine and Joyce. Cathy, naturally, brought up the rear. She had started huffing and puffing with effort before they had even left the patio.

  Two miles isn’t all that far—when you’re walking up Fifth Avenue on your way to have drinks at the Plaza. But two miles on St. Christophe seemed immeasurable. For one thing, Mariette eschewed the only road, the one that led from the spa to the airport, saying that it was too easy. So they clambered about the countryside, over rocks and along beaches at a pace that Joyce was sure the army reserved for training its Green Berets.

  By the time they were a mile into the “walk,” everyone was sweating except Regina and, of course, Mariette, both of whom seemed to take this early morning torture trail in their stride.

  At one point Joyce looked back at Cathy who was steadily dropping behind, her round face beaded with perspiration and redder than an apple in October. She slowed her own pace a little so that Cathy wouldn’t feel left behind. Also, she needed to catch her breath and cool down a bit. They didn’t call these “sweat suits” for nothing.

  “Come on. You can make it.” She said encouragingly.

  “I’ve got to make it,” puffed Cathy in response.

  Finally the spa came into sight once more. They shambled gratefully back to the main patio and threw themselves down into chairs or onto the cool cement. Cliff was sitting on a chaise lounge reading a newspaper.

  “Morning, ladies. Have a nice walk?”

  Joyce glowered at him and gratefully accepted her mug of potassium tea. She was dying of thirst and too tuckered out to talk.

  Dr. Voight appeared a few moments later, looking very trim and healthy in a white Lacoste shirt and navy blue trousers.

  “What do you think of our island, then? Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t exactly a nature walk.” Joyce had finished her tea.

  “So our Mariette has been working you hard, has she? You will appreciate her efforts later in the week.” He exchanged a look with Mariette, who had draped her incredible body casually over one of the chairs next to Cliff. A thought flashed through Joyce’s mind that there might be more to their relationship than simply doctor and enforcer, in spite of the age difference.

  “Mrs. Allan, since we are going to begin our counselling sessions alphabetically, you will please accompany me to my office now.”

  Joyce stood up. Her legs felt like rubber. She hoped her hamstrings appreciated what she had just done for them. Wobbling a little, she followed the doctor to his office which was opposite the main building, on the other side of the pool.

  He closed the door behind her and indicated a pair of bamboo armchairs on either side of a small matching table.

  “Sit down, won’t you, Miss Redmond.”

  Joyce gratefully sank into one chair while he took the other. She noticed her notebook and pen on the table.

  “I took the liberty of having your notebook brought from your room. I thought we might take this opportunity to discuss a few things about the spa. It will be difficult for me to find excuses to talk to you alone later in the week, and we don’t want to give the game away, do we?”

  “What about my counselling session?”

  “Ach. Yes. I have already taken the liberty of drawing up a program for you myself. It will enable you to sample almost every aspect of the spa, and we hope therefore to write a more accurate, not to mention flattering, story about us.”

  Joyce nodded. She guessed he spent so much time taking liberties, he couldn’t afford to waste any getting to the point. She picked up her notebook and pen.

  “O.K., Doctor. Why don’t we take it from the top?” She flipped the cover open to a clean page and wrote “Spa interview. Dr. Voight, Sunday,” at the top of the page.

  “How did you first get involved in the spa business?”

  “A very good question. It was several years ago, in Europe, when I first went to a spa, that I realized what a truly wunderbar experience it was. You know, spas are a very old institution. They go back to ancient Greeks and Romans. People have always needed a way to combat the rigors of everyday life.…” He droned on for a few more minutes as Joyce rapidly took down his answer.

  “It must cost a lot of money to open a spa. Could you comment on that?”

  “Yes, it cost a great deal of money to open The Spa at St. Christophe. Almost six million dollars. But of course I bought the island as well, so my guests could have their privacy.” He smiled munificently. “Every cent I had has gone into creating this place.…” He waved his arm around in a gesture of encompassing possession.

  “You mean you financed the spa personally?”

  “Yes, as I said, every cent I had.”

  “Did you come from a wealthy family then, Dr. Voight? I mean, not everybody has six million dollars they can lay their hands on.” Joyce didn’t believe in beating around the bush. If he was going to try snowing her under, she would give him the opportunity now. Then she would still have the rest of her stay to find out the truth.

  “Yes, I was fortunate to be the only son of a very old German family. Shortly after I finished medical school, both my parents were killed in a very tragic plane crash and I, of course, inherited the entire family estate. Later on, when I found this island, I sold the estate to raise the money for the spa.”

  “I see.” Not very original, she thought, and not very likely, either. “And tell me, Doctor, just what motivated you personally to go into the spa business?”

  “My dear Miss Redmond, or may I call you Joyce?”

  She nodded.

  “My dear Joyce, a spa is more than just a business. It is a philosophy, a way of life.” He noticed that her pen had stopped scribbling across the page.

  “I think you should take this down. It is an important point. Now where was I? Oh yes. Beauty is a quest that has always plagued mankind. Artists, architects, sculptors, have always sought to create physical beauty, to immortalize loveliness with their art. In my own small way I, too, am an artist, an architect of the living body. I cannot create such a wondrous thing, no, that is for powers far greater than I—but, I can preserve it and mold it, until each and every one of my guests has the most beautiful body, both inside and out, that they can possibly achieve.” He paused, giving her time to get down every word.

  Joyce thought she hadn’t been exposed to this much bull since the barbeque she had attended for the governor of Texas last summer. Did he really believe all this bullshit? Did he expect her to believe it? Maybe he did.

  Twenty minutes later, the interview was over. As Joyce was leaving, with instructions to send in Maxine, the doctor gave her his hand. She noticed that his palms were sweating. What did he have to be nervous about?

  She found Maxine out by the pool with the others. This time they were all dressed in white bathing suits with little blue terry coverups. Regina, taking advantage of her mother’s prolonged absence, had left off her coverup and was sunning her length on one of the chaises next to Mariette. Joyce thought that together they looked like a pair of very exotic salt and pepper shakers.

  Mariette sat up. “Here is your robe and your swim suit. You can change over there.” She pointed to the bath house that peeped out from behind a hedge of hibiscus. Joyce took the suit and the coverup. She could
do with a nice dunk in the pool. All that walking had made her feel very hot and sticky.

  When she returned, the others, minus Maxine but now including Belle Taylor, were already in the water. Joyce waded in from the shallow end and joined them in the center of the pool. The water was silky warm and felt good against her aching legs. But she had a feeling that they were not getting ready for a leisurely swim.

  She was right. Mariette was speaking.

  “This is what we call an aerobic pool class. It allows you to do a little more than you can on dry land, and therefore increases the benefit you will get in toning the muscles. We use the resistance of the water to work against the pull of the muscles.” She gave a short demonstration.

  Suddenly from out of nowhere someone turned on the music and they were assailed by Michael Jackson and “Billie Jean.” Mariette went into action, stretching, jumping, leaning this way and that.

  Joyce looked around. Nobody was keeping up, although everyone including Cathy was giving it their best try.

  As they were resting for a moment while the tape was changed, Cliff walked by wearing a white sweater and a pair of very snug white shorts, a tennis racket clutched lightly in one brown hand. He waved to them. Cathy waved a water-sodden hand back. And why not, thought Joyce, she was the only one who looked better submerged.

  Finally it was over. They dragged themselves dripping and puffing out of the water. Joyce staggered over to her coverup and checked her program card. What next? A sea-salt massage. That didn’t sound too bad. At least it didn’t sound like it required any movement. And she could do with a rest.

  What she really wanted to do, of course, was have a look around the doctor’s office—this time alone. But that would have to wait until later. He still had to work his way through the other individual counselling sessions first.

  Chapter 20

  By noon, Joyce had five ticks on her program itinerary. She was feeling both exhausted and elated, relaxed and raring to go. Now, she decided, was the perfect time to have a little look around the doctor’s office. Everybody else would be at lunch—starving for calories after the morning’s activities—and he would probably be presiding over the meal as he had done at dinner the night before.