Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“So how about you, did you have a good time last night? We saw you and Alan dancing when we were walking back to the cottages. Looked like you were having fun.”
“Fun, yeah. I need to get dressed pretty quick, though. We’re meeting up to do a thing.”
“Me, too, actually,” Amanda said, contemplating her suitcase again and pulling out a rash guard shirt and some coordinating swim shorts. “Jeremy planned all this stuff for us to do together, I guess because he thought he’d need to fill the time while he was convincing me to give it another shot. He genuinely didn’t consider the possibility we could just bonk our way through all the awkward pauses. So this morning it’s kayaks or something like that, apparently. He said he really didn’t want to miss it, and I knew he’d already paid for it so I figured what the hell. Dammit, where did I put the other sunscreen?”
No. No, anything but kayaks. Please have that wrong.
“Kayaking, really? That doesn’t sound like you and Jeremy.”
“He wanted to see the turtles. And it’s supposed to be pretty cool. The kayaks have these—”
“Clear bottoms. Yeah, I know.”
It was going to be an interesting day. A horribly interesting day.
* * *
The pale sand and too-blue-to-believe water of the picturesque bay looked strangely familiar. Probably, Alan thought, because he’d seen the place in the scores of TV shows and movies that had been filmed there over the years. He dutifully snapped pictures, knowing he could get almost identical but much higher-resolution shots on postcards back in the hotel gift shop. Especially as he was using the camera on his phone, which he’d sealed in a waterproof pouch, no doubt further reducing the quality of the photos.
The postcards wouldn’t have Julie on them, though. She was the running theme of his photo essay. Julie pointing to something on that famous scenic beach. Julie dipping a hand into the surreally clear water. Julie looking back over one shoulder and pouting as she paddled, because Alan was taking pictures instead of helping to row the boat.
“Lazy,” she accused him. He was in the back of the two-seater kayak, the position that should have been providing most of the power.
“You’ll thank me when you have all these pictures to look at once we’re home again.”
“Just be sure to get some of the turtles later, okay? And during one of the hiking parts I think there’s a big banyan tree. I want some pictures of that, too. Oh, look! Another one of the raccoon butterfly fish!”
Alan looked down through the boat’s clear floor in time to spot a sleek flash of gold and black against the coral reef beneath them. “No, I think that was one of the humunuka...humahuma... You know what I mean.”
Julie grinned. “Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. But nope. Raccoon butterfly fish.”
A group of psychedelic wrasses swam by, startling the fish in question away before Alan could take its picture for later study. “Humahumanupua... Dammit.”
“Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. You’ll get it next time!” the tour guide assured him cheerfully as he skimmed past in his own neon orange kayak. “That one was a raccoon butterfly fish, though. Okay, everyone, time to head for the beach!”
Jeremy and Amanda paddled by, waving as they passed, and Alan silently cursed the fate that had brought the four of them together on this tour. He’d been looking forward to numerous stolen kisses, copped feels, a general building of anticipation throughout the morning, for a payoff sometime that afternoon. Instead, Julie had whispered frantically to him as they started out that they’d have to play it cool. Amanda knew nothing, and Julie thought they should keep it that way, because her friend had enough on her plate. What with the bonking she and Jeremy had been doing all night, and the history, and all. Besides, Julie said she preferred to be discreet about things for now.
So not only did he get zero kisses and groping, but he also had to carry around the unwanted knowledge that Amanda and Jeremy had spent the night fucking like angsty bunnies.
Now those two were wielding their paddles in perfect unison, in rash guards that practically matched. They’d always been one of those disgustingly cute couples that looked almost like siblings. Put them in coordinating tops, holding hands at every opportunity, with identical rosy post-fuck glows on their faces, and it was little wonder the guide had assumed they were on their honeymoon. His second guess had been that they were celebrating an anniversary.
He’d made no such assumption about Alan and Julie, and that kind of ticked Alan off. He didn’t even get to hold her damn hand. She didn’t even want her friends to know. Instead of feeling closer than ever to Julie today, he felt impossibly distanced, maybe because now he knew what he was missing. It wasn’t speculation anymore. And like a junkie, he’d had just enough to make him want more. Her arm around his waist, a quick kiss like longtime lovers gave, the right to take near-obsessive numbers of pictures of her because she was so damn cute. All the stuff Jeremy and Amanda were doing. Except he’d look a lot less desperate than Jeremy, and Julie wouldn’t look nearly as skeptical as Amanda.
Can’t we all just get along and cop feels like adults? But apparently not. Because discretion. Stupid discretion.
Jeremy had figured it out, anyway, Alan was pretty sure. He didn’t know the guy well, but they’d given each other the once-over at the beginning of the tour, then shared a look and a nod. That look and their body language around the women had pretty much said it all. They’d each staked their claim, no mistaking it. The rest of it, all the complicated emotional mess and the domestic particulars, would get sorted out down the line. Probably by the girls. Meanwhile, he and Jeremy would be sitting around like all the other males, grunting and scratching and drinking beer, secure in the belief that they would at least be getting laid sometime soon.
Really, they might as well be the subjects on a Wild Kingdom episode. Instead, they were making like Jacques Cousteau, scouting for exotic marine creatures.
Life is weird.
Jacques Cousteau had been pretty cool, though.
“Weren’t you going to send a picture to your mom? It’s almost nine here, so it’ll be close to eleven in California.”
“Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me.” He let her paddle toward shore while he scrolled through his photos. Viewing them in sequence, he realized they really were a Julie-fest, and he didn’t want to send any of them to his mother. It seemed too telling, too private. As if Mom could tell from one photo with Julie in it that she appeared in all of them. Also, Jules was wearing a loose tank top over her bikini, and she’d been leaning over the side of the kayak and gesturing to things a lot, so several of the pictures were covert side-boob shots. He wasn’t texting those to family any time soon.
Aiming his phone toward the beach and making sure Julie wasn’t in the frame, he snapped a few iconic views, then picked one at random to add to a quick text.
Before they’d even reached the sand, his mom replied.
Beautiful! We should have taken you up on your offer. Hope you’re having a great time!
Then, a few seconds later, another line.
If you see Julie, tell her I said Aloha!
Of course. No surprise. His mom loved Julie. Alan lifted his phone and took another shot, this one of Julie from the back as she paddled. That seemed safe enough. It came out unexpectedly well. With the shoreline in the near distance, and Julie’s gorgeously toned shoulders shown off by the tank top, it could have easily been a postcard. He’d caught her with her ponytail in midswing, an unexpected note of whimsy on the otherwise cliché-perfect picture. Before he could reconsider, he pushed the note into a reply text, adding a quick message.
I’ll tell her as soon as we get to the beach. She’s busy paddling. Love you!
He shouldn’t have, because he knew that kind of thing only raised his mother’s hopes. But this time, it seemed like the thing to do. The next best thing to a stealth grope.
Chapter Eight
The turtle bore
an uncanny resemblance to her Great-Uncle Anthony, and it obviously gave exactly zero fucks about the kayaks skimming the surface of the water over its favorite coral outcropping.
All the turtle cared about was grazing. Its jaw worked steadily, and every few seconds it dipped its head to snatch another tuft of algae from the rough surface. Julie and Alan’s kayak was at an angle to the massive creature, and through the boat’s clear bottom and the water, she could make out the turtle’s expression. Or lack thereof.
“It’s the most zen thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah,” Alan agreed. “He’s pretty chill.”
The tour guide was relating one of the many legends surrounding the turtles, or honu, but Julie didn’t even need the extra background to get a sense for how ancient this thing was. This particular one was between eighty and ninety years old, according to the guide. It had been old before she was born. But more than that, in this one example she could suddenly see the entire concept of sea turtles, the sheer magnitude of the fact that these things had been leading pretty much identical lives for the past hundred and fifty million years. They’d been doing these same turtly things back then, the same things they were doing when they outlived the dinosaurs. They would probably outlive humans, she thought, if the humans didn’t kill them all off as they’d so nearly done. The turtle lived in slow motion, doing what it had always done, a timeless sort of existence that humans couldn’t comprehend. And people tended to attack what they couldn’t understand.
“Humans suck.”
Alan paused from lining up his next picture, looking around his phone quizzically. “Yeah. Did you have a particular gripe, or you mean in general?”
“Well, both, I guess? Look at that guy. He’s... She’s? Whatever, he’s got it figured out, you know? He’s wise in ways that have nothing to do with intelligence. People could learn from that, but instead, as a species, we’re more inclined to stamp it out than to honor it. We’re awful.”
“Pretty vile. Present company excepted, natch.”
“And yet we accepted a free vacation at a resort that most of the local environmentalists despise, because of all the development and destruction of habitat. Not to mention the native culture activists.” She’d been ignoring the occasional twinges of conscience over that, but the turtle broke down her internal defenses.
Alan shrugged, snapping his picture before hunkering down to observe the turtle below them. “But the resort employs a ton of people. And face it, if you hadn’t won the vacation, would you have ever even known about the environmental stuff? It raises awareness. There’s always a trade-off.”
True. But too clinical for her current mood. She was grumpy, edgy, unsure of how she felt about Alan and well aware she was deflecting that uncertainty into this unrelated but relatively safe arena. “I think the trade-off thing is our collective problem. Turtles don’t know from economics. They just are.”
“I really want to kiss you right now.”
She looked up, startled. Alan’s eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, masking his expression. “I—What?”
“Sorry. Well, not really that sorry. I know we agreed to keep it on the down low. It’ll keep. Everything’s cool.”
For a few seconds, Julie had actually forgotten the deal. In that moment, it was Alan-the-buddy stating a desire to kiss her, out of the clear blue sky. Total surprise. And her heart skipped a beat at his words. She’d waited so long to hear it...
Except she hadn’t, because that would have been dumb. She was sensible, and she didn’t need attention from a guy to define who she was, and blah blah blah why isn’t he just kissing me already? Which was unfair, of course. She’d been the one who asked him not to, and he was being considerate and respecting her request. But she still wanted him to lean across the boat and kiss her, consequences be damned. Even the consequences that would come directly from her. It didn’t have to make actual sense—it made emotional sense.
She hadn’t wanted to forget, and she hadn’t wanted Alan to forget, either. To fall so easily into their old pattern of merely working well together and getting along nicely. Last night had been too astonishing. His excessive politeness and deference now seemed almost insulting, like he didn’t feel their status had changed enough to warrant a change in his behavior. Julie wasn’t sure whether that meant he didn’t take it seriously, or he was so very comfortable with her that he’d already shifted into established-relationship mode. Taking it for granted that now they were a thing.
“It’s not cool.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Nothing, forget I said that.”
I’m insane. I may actually be insane.
Hormones, probably. She had no idea what she wanted here, because sex hormones were fogging up her brain and making it impossible to see the correct path. It was her own damn fault for ever letting the sex hormones free in Alan’s presence.
“M’kay.”
Frantically, she cast about in her clouded brain for some other subject. Nope, empty. Instead, she went with the first thing she saw, as if it explained everything and he ought to know that. “Turtle!”
Alan looked at her like she was indeed insane. She could tell, even through the glasses. And really, who could blame him?
“Yep. Turtle, all right.” Seeming unsatisfied with this, he added, “Motherfucking turtle, man.”
Of course the sixtysomething couple on the tour chose that moment to paddle by. They shot Alan the stink-eye in tandem, the choreography crafted by years spent together.
“Children,” the wife stage-whispered at Alan, nodding toward one of the other kayaks, which did indeed contain a boy of about ten or eleven, along with his father.
Alan nodded at her, waving politely and as if he took her words to heart. As soon as the kayak was out of earshot, he turned back to Julie and whispered, “Motherfucking children.”
She lost it completely. Not wanting the older couple to hear her laugh and think she was making fun of them, Julie doubled over, pretending a tremendous interest in the view through the kayak floor. She cackled into her hand so hard tears came, until she felt a warm hand on the back of her neck.
“Jules...?”
Oh God, he thought she was crying. She could tell from the concern in his voice. Julie sat up long enough to wave a reassuring hand and grin like an idiot, put a finger over her lips, then bent right back over until the hysterical spasms eased.
Chagrined, she sat back up to find him smirking at her. Then he glanced around to make sure the coast was clear. “Motherfucking turtles and children, man!”
“Fucker!”
This time he joined her down there, hunched over the plexiglass, his hands slung over her shoulders, head brushing against hers as they attempted to chortle in silence. It was a good long while before Julie could sit upright again, and by that time she knew she must look destroyed. The only upside was that she had no makeup on to smear or run. If history was any guide, she was probably blotchy and pink, her cheeks streaked with tears. Her stomach and sides ached with every breath. It felt great.
Jeremy and Amanda’s kayak was five feet away, and Julie’s best friend was watching her with an expression she could absolutely read despite the sunglasses. She’d owe an explanation later, but now was not the time.
“Something you want to share with the class?” Amanda sounded like she was working hard to feel pissy, but couldn’t quite manage it in the face of this much fun and tropical splendor.
“We were admiring the turtle,” Alan explained.
“Right,” Amanda replied, nodding then shaking her head. “Okay, well, the guy said we should head back in a few minutes. Wasn’t sure you’d heard him, what with the turtle admiration and everything.”
Julie pivoted on her seat, facing forward and gripping her paddle. “Right. Hey, Alan, you’re gonna paddle, too, this time, yes?”
“Yeah, sure, just let me get this one more—Yeah, lean in like that, Amanda. Okay, smile...got it!”
Julie tu
rned around in time to see the pose before Amanda and Jeremy settled back to their seats again. Her with dimples showing, like Julie hadn’t seen in over a year. Him with a rakish grin, looking unbelievably healthy. More solid, and somehow more in focus, than she’d remembered him.
“You’ll email it to me?” Amanda asked, glancing back as she and Jeremy turned their kayak around to return to the hotel’s beach.
Jeremy chimed in. “I’d like a copy, too.”
“Sure. As soon as I can take this thing out of the bag again.”
They were adorable. And they were going to end up getting back together. She could tell, in that split second, the snapshot moment of happiness, and from that brief conversation. Regardless of what they had to work out, the bottom line was they both wanted the picture. They both planned to remember this trip as time they’d spent together. Not even planned, so much as assumed. The two of them were already working on making memories together again, whether they realized it yet or not.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Not jealous, definitely. Not even envious. She wanted some version of what they had, but she’d never been able to work out how to get to a place like that from where she was.
Julie dug into the water with the paddle, following the other kayak at a comfortable distance. It took her a few minutes to notice Alan was paddling as well this time. His strokes were synchronized so well to hers, she hadn’t felt the difference until she looked to the side and saw how fast they were traveling. The sand and palm trees were whizzing by as the kayak sliced through the surf.
“You can take a break if you want,” Alan offered. “I got this.”
It was a long haul back to the hotel, though. Julie kept paddling until the kayak stand was in sight, so they wouldn’t be left behind the pack. But for the last few minutes, she let her paddle come to rest across the little craft, lifted her face to the sun and breeze, and let Alan bring them home.
Mai Tai for Two Page 6