Paper Dolls [Book Five]

by Blythe Stone

  I’m sure you can image.

  When we reached the coast I was up in arms with my camera. Since I was with Avery it was different. I had her pull over almost right away.

  Big Sur has so many turnouts and overlooks. With my mom I was too rigid to ask her to pause. With Avery it was different. Any chance I felt like taking a picture or a second to look, I would ask and she would park. There was no pressure, no strangeness. I didn’t feel like I was holding her up or asking for the world.

  Avery drank her Slurpee and sat on the outside of the car watching me a lot of the time. Sometimes she would take pictures with her cellphone but mostly she just stared.

  On one part of the highway they were doing road-work. We had to park in the middle of the street for a rather long stretch of time while they cleared rocks out of the way.

  We turned our music up and got out. Long ago was the time of Hamilton. We were listening to one of Avery’s playlists now and it was beautiful. We sat on the wood supports of the metal guardrail with a few friendly strangers. The construction men ahead were trying to fix a net along the cliff. They needed to work it right, stabilize it, it must’ve failed or just fallen. Its sole purpose was to catch all the rocks that were falling, prevent the landslides that tended to crumble down onto the road and completely block it, causing problems like this.

  It was hot out but I reveled in the heat.

  Being trapped like this was hardly a problem. My skin loved it and there was no better place to be stuck. Something about the ocean beneath, and us up above it, the hot sun beating down and the cool breeze that occasionally blessed us, made the world seem terribly old and deliciously new. Having Avery present was the icing on the heavenly cake.

  We’d been out for several minutes now just hanging out. More people were getting out of their cars as the line behind us sort of grew and grew. I felt Avery move behind me and stand. She pressed her body into mine and used her hands at my sides to hold me up as I leaned back into her and trusted her to hold me.

  She let her hands touch my skin beneath my shirt and I loved her.

  “It’s gorgeous out here,” she said.

  “I know,” I hummed, allowing the moment to sink in.

  Off in the distance the sounds of rocks falling into the net and the tractor backing up only to push more dirt and rock out off the road could be heard. Laughter to our side also touched on the brush of the wind.

  “I could stay here all day,” I said. I could stay anywhere all day, in truth. Here would be better.

  We had somewhere to be but nothing was ever set in stone. We could be anywhere all day. We could be here.

  “I know the feeling,” Avery said. Her hands kept moving and touching my skin. I’m not sure when but my breathing had changed.

  I turned my head a little bit and sat up a bit more so that I could pull myself in to kiss her neck.

  “I like when we take road trips,” I whispered.

  “I think I’m aware,” she smiled and let out a small gasp while she continued to stare out at the drop.

  I turned again and rest on her, trying to calm myself. It was hard to calm with her touching me. We could make love here in the heat somewhere. I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.

  Off in the distance my eyes caught sight of something. They looked like steps.

  “Hey,” I said, pushing myself off the rail to stand on the other side, the dangerous side where Avery wasn’t. “Look over there,” I said, pointing off.

  “Get over here,” she said. She was all stern and nervous. I felt her hand tug at my wrist. It was the edge. My proximity.

  “Oh,” I said, looking down, realizing. I had plenty of space and my balance was good but she was scared. “Sorry,” I said, allowing her to tug me a bit and get me back over the guardrail.

  Once I was back over with her we fell into a natural lover’s hug. The kind of semi-absent careful hug that means more somehow than a bear-hug after months away.

  As I leaned my whole body into hers, she rocked me a bit.

  “There are stairs,” I whispered, holding her to me, my hand wrapped around the top of her shoulder, my chin touching down carefully near my own fingers as I felt her stomach with my other hand and loved her so.

  “I can see,” she sighed.

  “Wanna go?” I asked, nodding my hair back and looking up at her eyes.

  “Do you?” She asked back.

  “Yeah,” I said, realizing. I searched her eyes with my own and wondered if she’d hate it.

  “Let's do it,” she said, smiling.

  “Okay,” I laughed, light relief in my tone.

  We walked back to the car and backed it out of the line, turning around.

  Other people had done this. We’d been in the sun for so long and there was a gas station with food and wine just a little ways back. It made sense to leave. I liked it here though, I really did.

  When we got to the small turn-off down the way I parked and we got out.

  The stairs were wooden and probably old. When we got to the landing Avery stopped.

  “Whoa,” she said, looking down.

  I scoot up behind her and looked around her to see. The stairs went down and down and down the cliff.

  “You sure you wanna do this?”

  “Yup,” I said, thinking of how the bottom was probably void of people. “Hang on though,” I said, going back to the car and filling a bag up with water and snacks. I had tennis shoes in the trunk that were better for this. I opened it up, stole them out and tugged them on.

  Avery was just waiting. I could tell she wanted to go, she was just hovering and waiting for the go-ahead.

  When I finally locked the door and got back to her, the size of her smile made me burst out in laughter.

  “God, okay, go,” I said. “I’m not running down that thing. Be careful!” The last two words I had to yell. She was quick and ridiculous. By the time I reached the landing I could see she’d already found her way to the third row of the steps that fell down the mountain almost haphazardly.

  Coming back would be the hard part, this was nothing. I took my time, watching her slowly escape my view.

  There was no one behind us. I saw no one out front. Mostly I was curious to know what it looked like on the bottom. There were so many trails like this, obviously man-made, obviously here for a reason.

  From the top and even from here, I couldn’t see where the trail really led.

  We could get to the bottom and the tide could be high and it could just be a single step right into the ocean. We really had no way to know. It was a gamble and I wanted to play.

  My legs were shaky by the time I neared the end, sore from the nervousness of dangling so close to the edge.

  Avery’d been sitting at this one spot. I’m not sure how long. She had her knees up and she was staring out at the sea over the small cliff.

  “So? Is it worth it?” I asked, panting.

  “I dunno yet, I was waiting for you. I just had a feeling. If I rounded this bend it’d be over and I’d be there alone. I wanted to wait for you.”

  I gave her a soft approving smile. “I’m glad,” I said, holding my hand out and helping her to stand. There was a railing here and she turned and pushed my back against it. I felt her kiss me hungrily. I could taste the sweat on her lips and it made me smile to be kissed by her when I was already breathless. My hand held on hers, happy to have found her again.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “You took a long time,” she laughed. “I just kept thinking about it. How much I wanted to kiss you.”

  “You could’ve come back up and found me,” I teased.

  “Nah, the wait was worth it.”

  “Mhmm,” I raised my eyebrow to let her know she was in trouble.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling us down to pass the final bend.

  She’d been right. There was a view of a cove right after that blind spot. I secretly wondered if she had cheated and peaked before backing out to wait
for me. She could be entirely full of shit and all for the sake of romance. Avery would do that.

  “This place looks secret,” she said, as we walked the thinner cliff passage, nearly hugging the wall as the rock led down on into the sand.

  There was no one around.

  In the distance there were trees that had somehow grown from the dirt where the cliff met the beach. They weren’t palm trees, they were droopy wind-crafted pines. A steady waterfall poured down onto the sand where it kept on running straight into the ocean. The natural pool, which somehow separated from the ocean into a sweet private cove, attracted me greatly. In my head I knew it was probably warmer than the ocean. I just wasn’t sure if maybe the bottom would still just drop out. Avery was a strong swimmer but I wasn’t used to fighting the water like I knew she could. Sometimes the sea scared me.

  As we walked around to the sand I thought of us swimming and knew now we had no choice, we would have to.

  I paused a second and took my shoes off to feel the granules of sand- they were thick and beady. No one had mined this sand or brought it in on a tractor like they did on some popular shores.

  As soon as we stopped Avery pulled her shirt up over her head and began to unbutton her jeans.

  I started to laugh.

  “Okay, how did I know?” I laughed harder.

  “What?!” She teased.

  “You’re such a water-baby, I can’t take it.”

  “Wait… Are water-babies cute?”

  “Shut up,” I pushed her.

  “No, really, what does that mean? Is that like a cabbage patch doll?” She chuckled, pulling me into her. “Are we talking like, actual babies in the water? That can swim? Are they mermaids? Are they creatures. What are you even saying?!”

  “Okay, you’re being ridiculous now,” I pointed out, loving it.

  “I’m just trying to play your game,” she teased.

  “What game?” The way I talked was the way I talked. I was introducing her to my brain again and again.

  “You bring up these things and I know they mean a lot to you but I have no idea what they mean.”

  “And that’s my fault because?”

  “It’s not your fault. I just wish I knew what you were talking about.”

  “Fair enough,” she was making me laugh and I loved it.

  “When I said water baby I meant you were more yourself in the water, happier. But I’ve had a toy before called a water-baby… And, from what I’ve come to learn, there are certain life-like dolls that feel like real babies if you fill them up with water. Also there’s an old satire by Charles Kingsley called The Water-Babies that I’ve always had an odd fondness of. Just the oddness of the tale and the themes and the ending. The accidental hilarity of it, the author was a highly opinionated idiot. Shall I go on?” I teased, knowing I could droll on for hours and never make a lick of sense.

  “Please,” she said, petting my arms and touching me.

  “You’re not much like those water-babies, thank goodness,” I laughed darkly. “The main character in that book is an orphan who was forced into child labor when he pretty much drowns in a moment of peace and instead of dying he becomes a water-baby and has to live in this other complicated world beneath the blue. I just found it interesting, even as a child reading, that I was laughing at the author. But I felt for Tom...”

  My mind swam in all the details.

  “The water-baby toy I had was like a colorful lil bear you could bring in the bathtub. It had beads inside and when it touched the water it absorbed a lot of it and filled out a bit, making it fun to touch and submerge. Like you- it was cuddly and it could float.”

  “Anyway,” I went on, trying to give her all of my thoughts. “They recently made a Water Babies Musical over the pond. The music was so adorable. I’ll have to play you some when we get back to the car. There’s one song I really love. The way they set up the musical was all high tech and they had the actors swim in these huge elaborate water tanks and it was all choreographed and done on a stage- live for each performance- so much technical work and choreography. I watched these behind the scenes videos and it just looked so amazing. I wanted to go but I was doing college classes last year and I had a heavy double load. Funny how a year can change your life so much. Now I’m running out of work.”

  I’d been rambling on for sure.

  “I like when you talk like this,” Avery said once I’d finally stopped.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Not holding anything back,” she said, interested.

  “I’m just going on,” I shrugged.

  “No, you’re telling me everything. It’s different.”

  “A lot of it’s useless,” I laughed defiantly.

  “No,” she answered, locking her eyes with mine.

  I felt her dip her hands and pull my dress up until she had carefully removed it.

  “It’s all just bullshit,” I said. “All you really needed to know was that I thought you belonged in the water, loved the water. Every time you see water you want to become a part of it.”

  “It’s not bullshit,” she said, a little aggravated. “It’s all the stuff I want to know but can’t ask.”

  “There’s a lot of stuff like that baby. You could never learn it all. It’d be impossible.”

  “I know,” she said. “And that’s all I’m saying.”

  “See, now you’re the one being short.”

  “Maybe so,” she shrugged, amused with us both.

  She dropped my dress down ontop of her clothes and pulled me toward the water.

  “Come on,” she said, tugging me.

  When my toes touched the water I felt it was warmer but not too warm. Out in front of us the water was calm mostly, occasionally getting a swell or two but rarely having a wave. It really was a safe cove. My apprehensions were ridiculous but I knew we were so far from any other human who could see.

  Avery let go of my hand and took off into the blue, swimming freestyle for a ways before stopping at a distance and coming up for air.

  “Can you touch?” I asked.

  I saw her move a bit. It was obvious that hadn't been a worry of hers. “No,” she said. “But it’s fine, there’s no current. Come on.”

  I hovered a second, nervous. Just because there wasn’t a current now didn’t mean there wouldn’t be one in three minutes. Having the bottom drop out really scared me. It wouldn’t in a pool but this was different.

  I tried to be like her. I lifted my feet up and just took off, chopping my arms through the water and hurrying to get to her.

  I had my eyes closed most of the way. My ears flooded with the sounds of moving water. I didn’t stop until I felt her arm around my waist and then heard her saying “whoa,” and then laughing.

  “Sorry,” I gasped, feeling that we were out in it now with no walls to swim too and no floatation devices to cling onto.

  “You okay?” She asked, pulling me up onto her so that my legs were around her waist and it was just like we were back in my pool.

  “I dunno,” I sighed nervously. “I don’t much trust the ocean.” I had a sort of irrational fear I guess of being completely swept away. If I could touch the bottom it was okay. I liked to stand in the water and stare down and look for the fish and the creatures but this water was dark, almost terrifying. I didn’t like not knowing how deep it was, what its patterns were. I couldn’t study it, I couldn’t see.

  “Since when?” Avery asked.

  “How long have I been alive?” I asked. I loved to stare at it but to dwell in it always seemed irrational. Perhaps it was my small obsession with the Titanic and all those Patrick O’Brian books and things like Moby Dick. The ocean was beautiful but it was dangerous. You couldn’t parcel that out. One came with the other, it always would. I hadn’t been kidding when I asked Avery’s dad if he was scared. I could barely stand to go sailing. That was the truth. We hadn’t much talked about it though.

  “Olivia,” Avery laughed, holding me. �
�Wait, are you really scared?”

  “A little,” I confessed. “I don’t like when I can’t touch but you’re here and you’re strong.”

  “I am,” she said, reassuring me. She was so at peace. She didn’t even need to move and she was floating. Even with me on her.

  “How are you doing that?” I asked.