by Hilary Duff
“How can you dance and take pictures at the same time?”
I laughed, and the sound unlocked the last bit of tension in my body. “Motion stabilization in the camera—can’t live without it!”
Cruising slowly behind the revelers, our Jeep became part of the parade—even more so when two men wearing nothing but black thongs and bongos leaped aboard, screaming encouragement to the crowd.
“Seriously?” Ben groused. “No way. I’m going to get pulled over.”
“How?” I shouted over the bongos. “The police are dancing too!”
I snapped a close-up of one of the bongo players, who then offered me a spot on his drum. We played together as Ben drove on, finally pulling into the hotel valet parking area, where the drummers leaped off the Jeep and ran ahead to continue with the crowd.
More music blared from inside the hotel. I felt it carry me, lighter than air. “Not so much for Carnival?” I asked Ben playfully, hooking my arm through his.
“Not so much for driving through Carnival,” Ben amended.
“Too tough for you?”
“I travel with you. Nothing’s too tough for me.”
“Not even that guy?”
He turned to look, and the minute his attention was diverted, I raced to the elevators.
“Hey!” Ben cried, and ran after me, but I dove and pressed the button first.
“Yes!” I cheered.
“Loser,” Ben said.
“Actually, I just won. Let’s go up and change, then we can hit the Samba Parade.”
“Change? But I like you just the way you are.”
“You are such a dork.”
Ben nodded, accepting the title with grace as the elevator arrived.
I’d thought we’d get ready and go back down right away, but once I got to my room, I realized how exhausted I was. I looked at the clock and was grateful to see we still had a few hours before we needed to get to the Sambadrome—enough time for a room service snack and a nap. I called Ben to tell him the new plan.
I didn’t sleep that long, but it was enough to energize me. I woke up refreshed and excited for the Samba Parade. It was the perfect excuse to wear my favorite black sundress with the excellent twirling properties, and I felt light and breezy as I knocked on Ben’s door. He swung it open and presented me with a single red rose.
“For you,” he said.
“Very gallant,” I replied. “Of course you do realize I have the same cut flower in my room.”
Ben glanced over his shoulder at the now empty bud vase sitting on his table. “Hmm. Didn’t really think that out. Still gallant?”
“Very.”
“You happen to look ravishing tonight.” He said it with a British accent that made me laugh out loud.
“As do you, sir,” I responded in kind.
“Excellent. Shall we go, then?” He extended his arm and I linked my own through it, first shifting my camera bag to my other shoulder so it wouldn’t bang between us.
Even upstairs we could hear the music from the streets, but it blared in our ears as the elevator doors opened. The hotel had its own Carnival party, and we wove through the crowd to the bar. Ben and I each ordered a drink, and they arrived in obscenely wide glasses overflowing with obnoxiously large cuts of tropical fruit.
“To Rio?” I giggled, offering my glass for a toast.
“To Rio,” he replied.
We clinked glasses and drank, soaking in the atmosphere and the music until it felt like a crime to stay seated.
“Dance with me,” I said.
“Clea,” Ben said, balking, “you know I can’t dance.”
I did know that. And I also knew Ben didn’t say no to me very often. I slipped off my bar stool and took both his hands, already sambaing as I carved out a path to the dance floor. It was crowded, but not painfully packed. Ben looked terrified. Clearly I was going to lead.
“Okay, what do I do here?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I just danced.
“What are you doing? I can’t do that. It’s impossible. My hips don’t go like that. How do your hips go like that?” He tried moving with frenzied baby steps, completely out of rhythm with the music.
I put my hands on his hips. “Slow down. It’s okay. Just relax, and let your hips go.”
“I am relaxed. My hips are very shy; they don’t like to go off without the rest of my body.”
I laughed, and we danced through the end of the song, then took off for the Sambadrome, home of the official Samba Parade. The magazine that had hired me for the photo shoot had gotten us tickets in a frisa, or front box, as close to the parade runway as we could possibly get. We arrived about a half hour before the parade started, and the sound of the crowd was deafening. I clung to Ben’s hand and my camera as we wormed our way through an endless sea of bodies to get to our seats. As a rule I hated crowds like this, but this place trumped that rule.
Fireworks exploded into the sky to start the parade, and the Queen of Carnival led the first group of dancers into the Sambadrome. I was in heaven. Ben looked pained.
“How much would you pay right now for earplugs?” I asked him. This was so not Ben’s scene, but he was being great about it.
The parade transformed the street into a kaleidoscope of eye candy. Each group had hundreds of dancers and drummers, all in huge matching costumes with feathers, wings, mirrors, beads, bells, and more. They moved between massive floats that reached to the sky, and the floats themselves teemed with more dancers and musicians. It went on and on, with each group more over the top than the last. I wanted to look everywhere at once.
Ben and I stayed most of the night, dancing and taking pictures. By four in the morning the Sambadrome still raged, but part of my assignment was to cover things happening outside the Samba Parade, so we poured back into the city. It was more alive at this predawn hour than most cities at midday.
As the first shades of pink sunrise glowed in the sky, Ben and I made it to the beach by our hotel. Here, too, the party continued, with several lone drummers scattered along the sand, each one with a small group of people dancing around him. The atmosphere was charged but subdued—the final embers of an all-night celebration. Only one group seemed to still be going full steam—a crowd of what I pegged for frat guys who whooped and danced like the night had just begun. I snapped pictures of them and everything else happening on the beach, and then I was done. Work time was over.
I put my camera back in its case and breathed in the ocean air. My eyes were bleary, but I couldn’t imagine going to sleep. Instead I turned to Ben.
“Dance with me,” I said.
Amazingly, he did it without complaint, holding my hands and swaying to the beat of a nearby drummer. I kicked off my shoes to feel the sand on my toes, then closed my eyes, letting the music guide me. I let go of Ben and twirled around and around … until I lost my balance and fell. Ben caught me in his arms, then surprised me by spinning me into an expert dip.
I looked up. My whole field of vision was Ben. His face, so familiar, standing out against the early-morning sky. His rumpled brown hair, his nose just slightly too big for his face, his puppy-dog light brown eyes. A layer of thin stubble coated his chin, and I suddenly had the irresistible urge to touch it. I ran my fingers gently down his cheek. Scratchy.
“Clea.” Ben’s voice cracked a little on the word. He pulled me back upright, but he didn’t let go. I didn’t mind. I liked the feel of his arms around me. I remembered the night I came home from Europe, the way his damp tee clung to his chest. Without conscious effort, my eyes drifted down to the V of his blue button-down shirt, and for a wild second I imagined myself unbuttoning it, brushing my fingers against his skin as I did …
This was crazy. This was Ben. My friend.
I raised my eyes from his chest and looked at his face, but it was different from the face I’d always known. He looked serious, and sure of himself in a way I’d never seen. I liked it. He reached up his hand and pushed back my hair,
tucking it behind my ear. Had he ever done that before? I didn’t think so. It felt wonderful.
“Clea,” he said again, softer this time. “There’s something I want to tell you—”
“WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
It was a stampede of frat boys, the rowdy guys I’d snapped earlier. They stormed down the beach, and people leaped to get out of their way. Ben and I tried to do the same, but we were split apart as the guys swarmed all around us and started dancing to our drummer.
“Ben?” I called. I couldn’t even see him through the sea of bodies.
“Clea?”
He sounded pretty far away. I started snaking through the crowd to find him.
“Ben!”
“Clea!”
Better. He was closer now. I peered through gaps in the mass of bodies, straining to catch a glimpse of him …
… when suddenly I froze, and the entire world screeched to a stop.
The man from my dreams was with us on the beach.
six
“CLEA!” BEN CRIED as he burst through the crowd to stand in front of me.
I didn’t even see him. My eyes were locked fifty feet down the beach, where the man stood alone, scanning the sand with a furrowed brow, as if searching for something he’d lost.
He wore jeans, a leather jacket, and a gray T-shirt.
Suddenly he lifted his head and looked right at me. It was the face I knew as well as I knew my own, and I watched as his eyes filled with a shock that exactly mirrored mine.
Then he turned away and fled down the beach.
“NO!” I shouted, and immediately took off after him.
“Clea?” Ben called, but I barely even heard him. I was focused only on the man. I couldn’t let him get away. I strained to catch up before he flew out of sight.
The man was fast, but so was I. I could easily clock a six-minute mile on the treadmill, and Krav Maga kept my endurance high. I chased him all the way across Copacabana Beach, dodging and darting around scattered knots of partiers.
When he reached Leme Hill, the jungly mountain at the northernmost end of the beach, the man didn’t stop. He plunged forward, eschewing the cleared dirt trail for the camouflage of the overgrown brush. I followed without hesitation, despite the fact that I’d left my shoes far behind. He had the advantage now, and I quickly lost sight of him, but he left a trail of trampled plants, and I plowed after him, my breath rasping in my throat as I pushed my legs harder and faster.
I never saw the knot of roots. One minute I was running my hardest, the next I was screaming at a searing pain in my ankle and landing face-first in the brush.
“NO!!!” I screamed, far more frustrated over losing him than any injury I might have. I tried to get up, but my left ankle wouldn’t take my weight, and I thumped back onto the ground.
“Shit!” I winced, shifting to examine my rapidly swelling ankle. “Shit-shit-shit-SHIT!”
I tried to stand again, gingerly this time, but my ankle wouldn’t have it, and I plopped back down.
Great. I was all by myself in the middle of nowhere with a ripped-up ankle, completely unable to move. Defeat rushed over me like an avalanche, and I suddenly felt the impact of it all: my dad, the nightmares, the dreams, the secrets, the pain, and oh my God I was so, so tired. I just wanted to be six years old and curled up in bed with my mommy and daddy tucking me in and kissing me good night.
That was what I wanted. It was so simple and yet so completely and hopelessly impossible. With nothing left to hang on to, I curled into myself and sobbed uncontrollably.
“Hey … you okay?”
I recognized the voice—how had my dreams known his voice?—but when he crouched down next to me, I skittered away.
“Don’t touch me!” I snapped.
He held up his hands to show he was harmless. “Okay, okay,” he said with a smirk. “You were the one chasing me.”
I glared at him. It was an impressive show of restraint on my part, when the truth was that having him physically in front of me was wreaking havoc on my body and my brain. My heart was pounding fast, and my mind played a loop of every moment we’d shared in my dreams.
I forced myself to remember he was a stranger. Quite possibly a dangerous stranger. I needed answers from him, but I also needed to stay strong.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you were hurt.”
“I am hurt. I twisted my ankle.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be chasing strange men through the woods, then.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t pretend you don’t know who I am.”
His eyes widened in shock for a moment. “You reme—”
Then he twitched his head briefly to the side, as if flicking away an unwanted thought, and his face relaxed. Only the clenched muscle in his jaw gave away any tension.
“You must be mistaken. I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
“Really? You look at most girls like you were caught with your hand in their purse?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“And then you ran away. Full speed, even though you knew I was trying to catch up with you. That’s not normal. That’s not how you act with a stranger.”
The man pursed his lips and pressed his right fist to his temple, a gesture I’d seen him make so many times I almost lost my grip. Somehow I managed to stay steely eyed.
He lowered his fist and smiled, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“I reacted poorly,” he said stiffly. “I don’t have a good answer for why, other than I like to keep to myself. I only came back because you were hurt, and it seemed irresponsible to leave a girl all alone in the middle of nowhere. But if you’d rather I left …”
“No.”
“Fine. Let’s take a look at your ankle.”
He crouched down and raised his eyebrows, asking for my leg. I stretched it out toward him, and as he took it in his hands, there was a crashing sound in the foliage behind us.
“Oh my God, get away from her! What did you do?”
I wheeled to see a red-faced Ben leap into the clearing and shove the man back.
“Ben!” I objected.
“Easy,” the man said, rising. “She’s hurt. I’m just looking at—”
“Get. Away. From. Her,” Ben growled.
“Ben, stop,” I said.
He looked at me, confused, then turned back to the man. His whole body leaned forward, like a pit bull straining against its leash. In another situation it might be funny: lanky, bookish Ben even dreaming he could pose a threat to this brick wall of a man.
The man backed away. “It’s not broken or sprained,” he said, nodding toward my ankle. “It’s just a strain. She should be fine by tomorrow.”
Ben kept his eyes on the man, but he spoke to me, his voice calm and studied. “What you need to do is simple, Clea. Tell him he doesn’t affect you. Command him to leave you and never come back. Say you compel him to go forth and wander the world forever on foot.”
Had he lost his mind? “What are you talking about?”
“Ancient mythology,” Ben said. “It’s how you get rid of an incubus.”
“A what?” The man laughed.
Ben wasn’t amused. “Do it, Clea.”
“Please … don’t bother,” the man said, holding up his hands. “I’ll get out of your way.”
He made a move for the woods, and I was about to scream “NO!” at the top of my lungs, but I didn’t have to.
“STOP!” Ben leaped for the man, his muscles taut with rage. He grabbed the man’s wrist and held it in front of his face. “Where did you get this?”
My eyes grew wide as I realized what Ben had found. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it myself. On anyone else I would have, but seeing this man in the flesh had my head spinning with so many other things.…
The man was wearing my dad’s watch. A silver Omega. He and my mom had bought each other matching ones the first day of their honeymoon, and they rarely took them off. On t
he rare occasions when one of them thought they’d lost their watch, the world stopped, and we had to drop everything and turn the house upside down until we found it.
That watch was on the man’s wrist.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “It’s just my watch.”
“Bullshit.” Ben unclasped the watch and pulled it over the man’s hand, then tossed it to me. “Clea?”
My hands shook as I inspected the watch. It was true, there were many watches out there that looked just liked my dad’s. It wasn’t impossible that this man would have the same make and model.
Then I turned the watch over to look at the back of the casing. Engraved in fine italic print were the words GRANT—YOU HAVE ALL MY LOVE FOREVER. VICTORIA.
There were some scratches below the engraving, but that didn’t matter. The watch was without question my father’s.
My whole body was trembling now. I felt sick fury boiling inside me even as I struggled against tears. “What did you do to him?!” I screamed.
“Nothing,” the man objected. “I did nothing. You’re right. The watch isn’t mine. A man gave it to me.”
“Liar,” Ben snarled.
Clutching the watch in my hand, I struggled to my feet. My ankle was still too sore to use, so I hopped the few steps to Ben and leaned on him. I stared into the man’s eyes and blocked out everything except what I knew for sure: He was connected to my father. My eyes bored into his, and I hissed through the pain in my ankle, “That watch is my father’s. He would never give it to anyone. Never. I need you to tell me who the hell you are and how the hell you got his watch.”
The man raised an eyebrow, and I realized there was something patently absurd about me trying to strong-arm him when I couldn’t even hold myself upright without help.
The man held up the wrist that Ben still squeezed in a death grip. “Can I have my arm back first?”
“What, so you can run away?” Ben snapped. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
The man just looked at him. “If I really wanted to run, neither one of you could stop me.”