Catalina

  We watch him swim to shore, us girls, with the wind picking up so that the salt water on our shoulders and mouths dries like a second skin.

  “He’s fantastic,” Charly says before following him in.

  “He scares me a little,” I say to Jane.

  “Me too,” she says.

  We build a massive fire and eat black beans and avocado and grilled skirt steak with onions and potatoes that we’ve rolled in tinfoil and roasted in the fire. It takes a while for the island to get dark, but suddenly there are thousands of stars, and across the bay the soft glittering light of a city. I try to make out where the Miramar might be. I wonder if Rex is working, if someone has claimed Mary’s scarf, if a version of me exists there too.

  Tom produces Irish coffees, which are very strong. Everyone is sleepy, like tuckered-out children, each of us taking our drink as if it were a warmed milk bottle.

  Charly has wrapped herself in a blanket, Jared nodding off, his head in her lap. She rouses him and helps him into a sweater.

  “Don’t get cold,” she says.

  He smacks his lips together. “I’m definitely sunburned.”

  “SPF seventy for you tomorrow, buddy,” Robby says.

  “Shut up.” Jared throws an empty water bottle at him.

  Robby has his arm around Jane, who moves to protect him with her body. The water bottle bounces gently off her side.

  “Did you just throw something at Jane?” Robby says, pushing himself up. But then he reaches out for Jane to steady him before flopping back down. “I should’ve passed on the Irish coffee, I drank way too much today,” he says, pushing his palms into his eyes. “I haven’t drunk like this in a long time.”

  I struggle to pay attention, to maintain a guarded expression. I look at Tom, who’s sitting with his legs sprawled out in front of him. He’s watching me, one hand behind his head, the other holding his drink. He looks away from me then, toward Robby and Jane.

  “How long have you been together?” he asks.

  “Jane and Robby?” Jared asks, pointing at them with the sleeve of the sweater. “Almost a year, right?”

  Robby has his arm around Jane again. He’s looking at her quizzically.

  When she doesn’t answer, he says, “A year and four months. I thought you’d have kept track by now.”

  I can see her shrug in the firelight. She wraps her arms around his side, tucking her face into his chest. He puts a hand in her hair.

  “When were you and Elsa…” Tom motions to the two of us.

  “Oh, that’s ancient history,” Charly says. “Elsa left Los Angeles more than five years ago. Gosh, can you believe it’s been that long?”

  “Were they still married?” Tom asks as if Robby and I were not here.

  She nods. Jared points his sleeve at me. “No, they got divorced while we were on our honeymoon,” he says.

  “The papers weren’t turned in yet when she left for New York,” Charly tells him. “Robby had to do it alone.”

  “Let’s go look at the moonlight on the water,” Jane says to Robby.

  “But I’m comfortable,” he whines, but she’s already walking off.

  Tom has pushed himself up on his elbows. He watches them walk into the darkness.

  “Why the sudden interest in our sordid past?” I whisper.

  He leans toward me. I can feel the heat from his skin. It’s oppressive, like a furnace in a crawl space. He refills my drink from his thermos.

  “I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here. Are you back for Robby? Is that it?” His teeth are very white. I can see him biting his tongue a little.

  “I care about Robby, but that was a long time ago.”

  “Just out to cause trouble?”

  I shake my head, which is swimming, and watch Jared and Charly, who have moved on to arguing over their kitchen remodel.

  “I hate when you’re this drunk,” she hisses. “We can’t discuss anything.”

  “And I hate when you’re the sober martyr,” he says, getting up. She follows him, leaving Tom and me alone.

  “I didn’t want to be in New York anymore,” I tell him. I can hear the waves at the shore. The tiredness has settled in my chest like a weight.

  Tom throws water on the fire. “You remind me of my first wife,” he says, holding a hand out to me. “Hot as shit, but absolutely bonkers.” He pulls me upright, holds my arm at my side. I can feel the bones in his hand. “She was a pill popper too—don’t think I haven’t noticed. I can hear them rattling around in your purse.”

  “Come on, guys,” Charly calls out to us from beside the dinghy. “Before Jared and Robby pass out.”

  But Tom is still holding me; the smoke from the extinguished fire stings my eyes.

  “This coffee is bitter,” I say, dumping the last of my drink into the fire pit. My legs feel rubbery. I’m wind chapped and sunburned and completely exhausted.

  He lets go of my arm. “Like life, baby, just like life.”

  15

  The morning is quiet, drifting. The water barely taps at the hull; the grass up on the cliffs is still. There are no seagulls, only ravens so large they look like patches of black cloud high in the sky. Even the seals dive in and out of the water in silence.

  I ask Charly and Jared if I can help in the kitchen. The others are already snorkeling.

  She laughs. “I like my toast toasty, not burned.”

  “I’m not that terrible at cooking.”

  “Aw, poor Elsa. You can help make the orange juice,” Jared says, handing me a mechanical juicer. Charly’s in an apron and humming along with a song on the boat’s radio. She tells me she’s making an omelet Española, pronouncing it with a Spanish accent. Jared smiles from over the bowl of oranges. There’s the sound of his knife against the cutting board.

  “I feel so domesticated with the two of you,” I say.

  “I’ve never cooked on a boat,” Charly says with satisfaction.

  Jared hands me an orange half. “Nothing like fresh-squeezed OJ in the morning.”

  “As long as we can spike it with vodka.” I push the fruit hard against the juicer, which vibrates and hisses and sends pulp everywhere.

  Jared pulls down a bottle of vodka from a cupboard, waving it at me.

  “Leave some unspiked,” Charly says. She’s greasing an earthenware bowl and reading a recipe from her iPhone.

  “Poor wifey, back to being sober—and while on a trip with Elsa. Must be torture, huh?” He gives her a quick kiss on the nose.

  “I don’t mind one bit. Alcohol is just empty calories,” she says, pouring the egg mixture into the bowl.

  He grabs her bottom, a firm smack. “And you don’t need any extra of those.” He laughs lightly and hands me the last orange half. “There. All done. Do you need me for anything else or can I join the others for a swim?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just gives Charly another quick slap on the behind and heads for the deck.

  “Elsa, you coming?”

  “I’ll stay here. I don’t think my hangover can handle swimming just yet.”

  He shrugs and disappears up top.

  Charly has her back to me, the ties of her apron are coming undone.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  When she turns, her cheeks are flushed. “Perfectly fine. He knows I can’t drink if I’ve taken my hormones.”

  The omelet goes into the oven and she slams the oven door. “I think I’ll take some of that OJ—the spiked stuff—please.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Her face takes on a hysterical slant. She makes her fist into little balls and slams them onto the counter, hard enough to send the salt and pepper onto their sides. “It’s just not fucking fair!”

  There’s egg on her front, a bit of yolk, smeared. I want to point out the metaphor; maybe she’ll laugh.

  “You know I do hormone injections in my ass?”

  I shake my head.

  “That’s what I got up to do this morning: stick a needle in my ass.
He doesn’t even help with that—I do the injections myself.” She motions to the deck, where Jared has gone. “And I can’t go drink a bottle of whiskey to cope.”

  I still haven’t moved to comfort her, but I know I should. Eric would ask occasionally, usually while we were a tangle of hotel sheets and limbs, Do you want children? And I’d think about saying the truth, No, I do not. But something about his face, about anyone’s face when they mention babies, as if being a woman renders me defenseless to motherhood—as if my life has not had meaning, and won’t, until a baby comes along. So I would lie. Yes, oh yes, babies, babies. Yes, please.

  “We’ve been trying for two years,” she says, looking at me, her cheeks wet.

  “It’ll happen,” I say lamely.

  “But when? I’m almost thirty-two.”

  “That really isn’t that old.”

  She looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. “You don’t want children, do you?” I think I see her lip tremble.

  I turn and pour a large spiked orange juice. I can still feel her looking at me like that, even with my back to her.

  “Babies are adorable, don’t get me wrong,” I say, taking a drink. I can feel the vodka in my sinuses, making me momentarily light-headed. “Let’s talk about something else,” I say, looking at her. “You’ve got egg on you. Let me get it.” I take a damp cloth but she’s crying now, great big heaves, shoulders shaking as if she’s having a small seizure.

  “Charlotte, please.”

  “I’m okay … I’m okay. It’s just the hormones.” She stops crying and looks at me with those dark, twinkling eyes. “Maybe, instead of drinking, maybe one of those little white pills you’ve been carrying around—they’re Xanax, aren’t they? Can I have one?”

  “I’m not fooling anyone, am I?” I kiss her forehead, relieved I can comfort her in some way. “If you think they’ll help, of course.” I pull out the Altoids tin.

  “What’s their milligram?”

  I don’t want to tell her that I have no idea, so I say, “Point five.”

  She takes two and sets them beneath her tongue. “Thank you,” she says.

  During breakfast Charly is pliant and hospitable, carving out generous portions of her steaming egg dish. I watch her carefully now, or at least I do at first. Then I catch the way Robby looks at me from the water, as he emerges triumphant with a whole sand dollar in his grasp, offering it up to me. Tom catches it too, and looks at me with a wolfish grin—eyebrow raised, earpiece of his aviators between his teeth—then I’m back downstairs, back to my duffel bag, searching for medicine of my own.

  16

  It’s a short sail from Paradise Cove to the village of Two Harbors. Jane barely has time to get the sails up before she has to pull them back down. It’s a small village. Tom tells us there is one general store and one bar, which is inside the only restaurant.

  “Don’t worry,” he says to me with a smirk, “they make a killer cocktail.”

  There are more than a dozen other boats already moored, and at the water’s edge is a small group of men and women in summer dresses and island shirts. It’s almost four in the afternoon and the light in the harbor turns the water turquoise and lapis. Palm trees line the shore, tall and bent in lazy halos of shimmering light. Drifting from the shore is the sound of a ukulele.

  “Is there a festival this weekend?” Charly asks sleepily.

  Tom shrugs. “There’s always something going on.”

  “As long as it isn’t pirate-themed,” Robby says. “That would be so cheesy.”

  “It could be fun,” Jane says to him. “Silly but fun.”

  “I don’t think it’s got anything to do with pirates.” Charly points to a figure dressed in white, walking down the stone path to the beach. The ukulele is clearer now, joined by a melodica and a hand drum.

  “It’s a wedding,” Jane says softly.

  “Well, we’ll have to wait to go to shore now,” Tom says with a pout.

  “Do you recognize that song?” I ask. It’s the same melody the Latino producer was whistling on the beach.

  We stand for a moment, listening.

  “‘Besame Mucho,’” Tom says. “You know it?”

  “I’ve heard it before is all.”

  We watch the bride walk across the sand and join the groom. Cameras flash. The ukulele stops. A man in a straw hat—the kind you can get away with wearing only on an island—reads from a book. The bride faces us; she’s wiping at her eyes.

  “I bet they aren’t even in their mid-twenties,” Robby says tersely.

  “How can you tell?” Jane is holding her hand to her forehead, squinting.

  He shrugs and sits with his arms across his chest.

  “Why do you think her dad didn’t walk her down the aisle?” Charly asks.

  Jared sits beside Robby. “Maybe he wasn’t invited.”

  “Oh. I think that’s him standing right there, he’s got a cane. Maybe it would have been too difficult to do in the sand.”

  “Shitty thing to do, have a wedding in the sand when your dad is handicapped,” Robby says. He points with his chin, his arms still crossed. “He probably paid for the whole damn thing, too.”

  Jane sighs. “She’s a beautiful bride.”

  “How can you tell from here?” he asks, shaking his head. “She could be a Cyclops.”

  Tom goes below deck and comes back with a bottle of champagne.

  “Oh, yes!” Jane cries. “That’s just the thing, we’ll toast them.”

  “Wait until they pronounce them man and wife first,” he says, handing her the glasses.

  Robby slouches further in his seat. “How would we know when that is?”

  “You’re quite the sourpuss,” I say. “They’ll cheer, of course.”

  Robby drops his sunglasses over his eyes. “Wake me when that happens.”

  The groom takes the bride’s hand. He’s a tall, thin man, and from here he looks completely capable of being someone’s husband. Rigid spine, his feet firmly planted in the sand—ready. But then he fidgets, moves from one leg to the other, scratches his lower back, tugs on his earlobe, and I think, Oh God, he isn’t sure about anything.

  The man in the straw hat takes both their hands and the crowd erupts into cheers. We pop the champagne and Tom blares the boat’s horn, which makes the crowd erupt again and wave at us. We hold up our glasses and shout, “Congratulations!”

  We motor in on the dinghy soon after, each of us packing a small day bag. The wedding party has moved into the restaurant; we can hear their plates and silverware and glasses when we pass by.

  Behind the restaurant is the one road, unpaved, cutting through a dry open field, sloping mountains on either side. No golf carts anywhere. This is a different Catalina than the one I visited with my parents. Wild. The conservancy rangers drive trucks with heavy wheels. There is one red schoolhouse that looks out onto a rusting playground, no hotels, only a campsite down a steep hiking trail. Kayaks rest on the beach, ready to be rented, snorkeling gear too. Behind the schoolhouse, rope swings hang from a cluster of eucalyptus trees. Charly and I play on those first. We laugh like we did when we were kids. From here we can see the second harbor, across the isthmus—a turquoise so languid and calm it could be some exotic lagoon.

  “It’s like Neverland,” Charly says.

  We watch Jared and Robby play disc golf with Tom and Jane. Jared is being ultracompetitive, which is making the others laugh.

  “It’s a serious game,” we can hear him shout at them. “Take it seriously!”

  But Robby picks up Jane, who has the disc in her hand, and runs her to the basket.

  “GOAAAAL!” Tom shouts.

  “That isn’t proper play,” Jared yells, pointing. “And that isn’t proper terminology, there’s no goals in disc golf.”

  Charly asks if she can push me on the swing. She pulls me way back until I’m shouting Not any higher! then she lets go and I’m flying forward so low to the ground I let out a whoop. I tell her to
do it again and again until we are both out of breath.

  “I could’ve done that all day,” I say when we’re walking to rejoin the group.

  “You weren’t doing the heavy lifting,” she says, squeezing my arm.

  “Hey! Be nice.”

  We loop arms and walk side by side. I think of our childhood sleepovers at her house, a grapefruit orchard at the edge of town. Charly’s parents were older, in their fifties, more like grandparents, and when I spent the night, we were free—we watched whatever we wanted, and ran around with an old airsoft gun, shooting at rocks and empty soda cans. On hot summer days we caught lizards, letting their mouths snap onto our ears, wearing them as earrings until they wiggled too much and we were forced to let them go.

  The sun has dropped low; ahead the mountains grow dark against a bright silvery sky. Jared, Robby, Tom, and Jane are small against the horizon. I pull my jacket collar up against the wind.

  “Thank you for the Xanax,” Charly says quietly.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” I’m worried she might start talking about babies again. “I hope it helps.”

  She takes my hand in hers and we walk in silence for a moment.

  “I mean it,” she says squeezing my hand. “I sometimes get so twisted I think I might really lose it. Today was the first time in a long time that I felt relaxed.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say, gently shaking my hand free.

  17

  The wedding reception has taken over the restaurant, so we eat burgers and drink Buffalo Milk cocktails in the bar.

  “This is the best drink I think I’ve ever had,” Jared says. He has whipped cream in the corners of his mouth. “I’m only sorry you can’t try any of it.” He looks sadly at Charly, who sips a Shirley Temple.

  “Is it real buffalo milk?” Jane asks.

  Tom gives her a sweet, pitying look. “No, doll, it’s just the name. Should I order you one?”

  “I can do that,” Robby says. He’s been in a mood since seeing the wedding party in the restaurant.

  The bride and groom, both very young, are dancing awkwardly to Etta James’s version of “At Last.”

  “That is so cliché,” Robby sneers at them. “Can’t young people do anything original?”