by Mya Wood
She had one more thing to do and then she headed down to the beach. She was not impatient to get in the ocean. She knew it would happen. It was on the to-do list; therefore, it would get done. In fact, she thought, it had just moved up to number one.
Chapter 12
Landry woke up slowly, stretching and yawning. He reached out for Bianca, but his arm came up empty. He opened his eyes and looked around. There was no sound coming from the bathroom, and her dress was gone from the chair where she had draped it last night.
Landry looked at the clock. Ten o’clock. Man, he had really slept in. He smiled to himself, thinking of the reason. God, they were good together. He couldn’t remember ever having such good sex.
Landry pulled on his swim trunks and went to the kitchen to set up the coffee maker. He looked out the window and saw Bianca sitting on the beach, reading her book. He picked up the phone and dialed the number on the brochure in front of him. He spoke with the owner for a few minutes and then hung up smiling.
They were moving nicely through the to-do list. Now it was time to let Bianca swim in the ocean. Landry filled his coffee cup and threw a towel over his shoulder. He went down to the beach, waving to the people gathering at the pool but not stopping to talk.
“Good morning,” he said to Bianca. “…again.”
“Good morning, Sleepyhead,” she answered, looking up at him.
Landry spread the towel beside hers and dropped onto it. “I would apologize but, really, I think it’s your fault I was so tired.” He leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips.
Bianca kissed him back and said, “Okay, I’ll accept fifty percent of the responsibility.”
“Fifty percent?” said Landry.
“Well, I’ve started thinking like a math teacher. Which I am, by the way. I phoned the principal this morning and accepted the job. I start on the 25th.”
“Congratulations, Ms. Watson,” said Landry, kissing her again.
“Well, it’s all thanks to you.” Bianca laughed. “You’re the one that talked me into it, so if it doesn’t work out…”
“No, I’m just the one who pointed out to you that you had talked yourself into it,” Landry corrected her.
“True enough…okay, are you awake enough to go swimming? I was a good girl. I didn’t go in by myself.”
“Yep. Let’s go.” Landry stood up and reached for her hand. He pulled her to her feet and looked at her. His voice turned serious. “Bianca…” he began.
Neither of them knew what he was about to say, but both knew it would be a mistake, whatever it was.
“Let’s get wet,” said Bianca, cutting him off and running down to the waves.
They swam and played in the waves for an hour, laughing and jumping and floating. Then, they returned to the towels to dry off. Landry told her that he had booked the dolphin tour for 3:30, so they would have lots of time to shower and change and then have a nice lunch along the way.
They sat and stared at the ocean while the sun dried them off. Neither said anything, but they were both thinking the same thing. This was their last day together. By this time tomorrow, Bianca would be gone.
Landry leaned over and lowered her to her towel. He kissed her softly and sweetly.
“God, you taste so good,” said Bianca when he moved away.
“Don’t I taste like coffee?” asked Landry, sitting up and hugging his knees.
“I don’t just mean that,” replied Bianca, sitting up and kissing him on the shoulder. “I mean all of you. I love the taste of you.”
“Oh, God, Bianca…” Landry rose to his feet and walked away from her. He stood at the edge of the waves and took deep breaths.
She’s leaving tomorrow. Don’t wreck this.
Landry turned back around. Bianca had folded her towel and was gathering her things.
“So what about lunch?” she said brightly.
They stared at each other for a moment. They got the message. No emotion.
“Yes, please. I missed breakfast again.”
“It’s the most important meal of the day, so they say,” said Bianca, laughing.
They went to their separate rooms and got dressed for lunch. Then Landry picked her up at her room and ushered her past the seniors to the parking lot.
He drove. His car was much nicer than Bianca’s. It was a sports car with a working air conditioner. Bianca wasn’t much into cars – they were transportation, not a toy to her – so she wasn’t overawed, but she was comfortable.
Bianca spent the forty minutes of the drive giving herself a good talking-to. She had had two little crying jags this week, the first in years. Monday night’s had been the result of too much alcohol, and yesterday morning’s the result of…well, she didn’t really know. Hormones, she guessed, and finally getting it together with Landry after all the stumbles they had taken.
But no surprises, you hear me? Bianca told her tear ducts. None, zip, zero, nada. I am going to smile through this day. I am not going to wreck it. Does everybody hear me?
All her body parts gave their assent. They would behave and try and be happy.
Landry spent the drive giving himself the same lecture. Tomorrow, we’re moving on. Let's make this day a glorious memory. Just...keep smiling and try to keep your hands to yourself in public.
They stopped at a little restaurant halfway to their destination. It was part of a large hotel. They went through the lobby and out to the back, to a patio overlooking the ocean. The décor was lovely, and the food was excellent, but neither one of them could tell you what they ate.
In their determined efforts to be polite and friendly, yet also a little distant – everything that they had not been up until now – their conversation started out stilted and formal, with each of them asking the other questions about their family and their life.
They smiled and nodded, but there was no laughter. They answered in polite but short sentences and then waited for the other to take a turn. They were actually both wishing that Bianca would say something stupid so that they could relax and become their real selves again.
“Are you going to be starting the season soon?” asked Bianca finally, hoping that talking about his work would give him the incentive to string twelve words together instead of six.
Landry smiled. “I’ll answer that question if you can name five of our players.”
“You still haven’t forgiven me for not recognizing you, have you?” Bianca smiled at him and silently applauded his effort to relieve some of the oppressive tension.
Landry shrugged and held up his hands in invitation. Well, could she?
Bianca thought for a moment, then she relayed three names to him. They were right, but she still had two to go.
Luckily, Landry let her off the hook. “Good work,” he said, “You've obviously done your research.”
Bianca smiled. She wanted to say how much she loved his hair the way it was now. She wanted to reach over and touch the little bit that always hung down on his forehead. But she didn’t.
“Okay, so tell me. When does the season start?”
Landry nodded and relayed the date and process to her, and Bianca asked questions to keep him talking through lunch. In the car, it was his turn to ask her questions, but he didn’t really want to talk about a job she was about to quit, and since she hadn’t started teaching yet, he couldn’t see how she could talk about that. So instead he turned on the radio.
Shortly after, they pulled into the parking lot of the marina and went to find Captain Mike. As part of the torturous process of trying to be together without being together, Landry had explained every detail of the dolphin tour – how there was no guarantee that they would see any, that August wasn’t the best time, and how they would still see parts of the Inland Waterway and a lot of birds.
Well done, Landry, said his brain. You promised her dolphins, and now it’s ‘lots of birds’. But, hey, way to go, Guy, on keeping romance completely ou
t of it. I don’t know anyone that would be turned on by the words ‘roseate spoonbill’.
They found Captain Mike by wandering down the dock. A little flag with the words ‘Dolphin Tour’ was stuck in a bucket of sand by a boat. Captain Mike was in his early forties. He was a friendly man who was well-satisfied with his life and had never once regretted leaving Ohio to live out his days by the ocean. He welcomed them aboard with a smile and introduced Splash, a big friendly dog of questionable heritage.
The boat was big enough for six passengers, but Landry had booked all the spaces. He didn’t want to share this last afternoon with Bianca with anyone else at all, and it would be absolute horror to be trapped on a small boat for two hours with an adoring fan or two along.
Captain Mike knew his business. Landry had explained over the phone what he was doing, so Mike didn’t make a big deal out of it. Bianca had no idea that Landry had paid nearly five hundred dollars for the privilege of doing this with her and her alone.
Mike pointed out the cooler full of bottled water and soft drinks. He gave them each a pair of binoculars and told them to sit where they liked. The boat had two padded benches along the sides at the front and one along the back. There was an awning over the back to keep the hot Florida sun off, but it wasn’t a scorcher of a day, so Landry and Bianca chose the front and sat on opposite sides of the boat from each other.
When they started out, Mike gave them the usual tourist patter, asking them where they were from. When both said Florida, he skipped over some of the basic info. He didn’t think they were hearing it anyway. They’re way too busy trying to avoid each other, he thought. Probably ‘cause they’re hot for each other.
Mike reduced his speech to the basics, pointing out the wonders of nature that they passed. He amused himself by watching them and wondering if there would be any spontaneous combustion. He was glad he had Splash along. If he had to avert his eyes from anything, the dog would give him something to focus on.
They cruised for nearly half an hour before either Landry or Bianca said anything. They mostly just looked around, drank some water, and sat on their hands to keep them still.
Once they were away from the harbor and actually into the waterway, there was a lot more wildlife and they both perked up and started talking, pointing out the pretty scenery and the many birds – ibis, egrets, cranes.
Then they found the dolphins. Mike had told them from the outset that there was a good chance they would see them, but he made no guarantees. He had seen some the day before, but there had been none on his midday tour that day. He cruised through various channels, and there was great relief in his voice when he finally said, “There’s one.”
Landry and Bianca were both relieved as well – not so much because they wanted to see dolphins, but because they were feeling really badly for Mike. The dolphin was a fair distance away, and Mike cut the motor, cruising slowly toward it.
“There’s probably another one,” he said. “We don’t usually see them singly. There’s usually at least two, sometimes more.”
Sure enough, another fin appeared and disappeared along with the first one.
“Look, there’s a third one,” Mike called out a minute later.
The next thirty minutes was an awesome time. The dolphins came right up to the boat. They swam around it and played tag with it, coming close and then drifting away. Splash knew enough not to bark at them, but he was excited when they came close to the boat. He ran from the front to the back to look at them.
Landry and Bianca spent the time swiveling their heads back and forth trying to spot them and saying, “Over there…there they are…” and moving around the boat.
When the dolphins finally had played enough, they swam away together. Mike noticed that the two humans were no longer trying to keep their distance from each other either.
They sat down together, and Landry put one arm around Bianca and picked up her hand with his other hand. His fingers played with hers for the remainder of the trip. Mike had never seen two people look so contented and so sad at the same time.
The last half-hour of the trip was full of things to look at. It was as if Mother Nature had observed and then judged, deeming them worthy of seeing her splendors.
Mike handed over a couple of books, and they looked up information about the various things that they were seeing. He wasn’t sure why they found the page on the sandpipers so interesting, since they hadn’t seen any, but it was the one bird that merited a shy kiss.
When they pulled into the harbor, Bianca beamed at Mike and thanked him for the trip. Landry shook his hand and said, “Thanks, Man. It was perfect.”
Mike shoved his hand in his pocket, and it was only after they were gone that he pulled out the tip to see that it was a hundred-dollar bill.
When they left, Landry started up the road that ran along the coast. It was much more scenic than Route one, which was on the other side of the inland waterway. But it didn’t have the one thing that they needed, and that was a drugstore.
Bianca took a deep breath and dove in. “So, um…are there any stores or anything along this road? I don’t remember seeing any on the way out.”
“No,” said Landry, not getting it at all. “That’s the nice thing about this road. They’ve managed to keep shopping malls and crap like that off it.”
“Hmmm,” said Bianca. “Well, sometimes, you know, you need stores. Where do guests from the hotel go if they need…I don’t know, sunscreen or Band-Aids or Tylenol?”
Landry still didn’t get it. “I guess they’d go to the drugstore. There isn’t one close to the hotel. They’d have to go over to near Stewart.”
Then the light went on.
“Oh, shit,” he said. He turned right at the next intersection and headed over to Route one. He pulled into the parking lot of an outlet mall and stopped in front of the drugstore. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “You can wait here.”
Bianca sat in the car feeling like a teenager. It was all so high school. She wondered if Landry was feeling the same way inside. Would he get recognized?
Well, so what? said her brain. Using condoms is a good thing these days, and it isn’t much of a surprise to his fans that he’s getting some action. Still, if he comes out carrying a brown paper bag, it’s going to be too much.
What Landry did come out carrying was a rather large plastic bag. Bianca wondered how many boxes of condoms he had bought. Or had he done the teenage thing and bought a dozen different items in faint hope of disguising what he really went in for? She was dying to look in the bag.
They drove in silence the last few miles. When they pulled into the parking lot, Landry looked at his watch. It was nearly seven. “Let’s just drop this stuff off and then we’ll think about dinner.”
They got out of the car and went into the office. Landry carefully fished two boxes of tissues from the bag and handed them to Rose. “Here you go, Rose, I remembered that you needed these.” He discreetly handed the bag over to Bianca as he talked. “I don’t know what we’re doing for dinner yet, but I’ll be here by nine.”
Rose smiled and thanked him and watched them walk out the door. She prayed that there would be no emergencies tonight, and that nothing would happen that would steal a minute away from these two young people.
“So what about dinner?” asked Landry as they walked up the pathway. “Do you want to go out or pick something up or what?”
Bianca didn’t answer. Instead she opened the door to her room and they stepped inside.
Landry tried again. “There’s a pizza place just up the road. Rose says lots of guests’ order from there. Would you like that?”
Bianca answered so softly that Landry couldn’t hear her.
“Pardon?” He leaned his head closer to her.
Bianca shook her head.
Landry didn’t give up. “I didn’t hear you. What do you want?”
“I want you,” she said a little louder. “I just
want you.”
And just like that, their carefully constructed wall of emotional distance blew apart.
Chapter 13
Landry swept Bianca into his arms and kissed her so passionately that she saw stars. He lowered his head to the spot on her neck, and she moaned into his hair. She tipped her head back and through half-closed eyes that were filled with desire, she saw the pool and the French family having a last swim before the kids were put to bed.
Bianca moved away from him. Landry looked at her questioningly, and she nodded at the window. She went over and closed the blinds. The room became shadowy. She went back to him and slipped her arms around him, putting her lips to his ear. “I need to feel you inside me,” she whispered.