Losing the Light

by Andrea Dunlop

  I leaned back on my elbows and stared at the sea. As usual, I hoped he would leap on me the moment we were alone, and as usual, he did not.

  “How long do you think you’ll be in Nantes? Are you anxious to get back to Paris?”

  Alex sighed and shrugged. “It’s true that I miss Paris, but I don’t know when I will be able to go back for good. And it has been useful for my work to have some quiet and to have come across a couple of interesting new subjects.” I could see the curve of a smile cross his face from beneath the rim of his straw fedora. It was unsettling not being able to see his eyes.

  “Interesting new subjects? Care to elaborate?” I hoped he meant me, I hoped he would say so.

  But he just sighed as though my question had been rhetorical.

  I sensed that if I asked further questions, they wouldn’t be answered. “I hope Sophie and I come back here someday.”

  “To Cap Ferrat?”

  “I meant to France, but yes, to Cap Ferrat if we’re invited.” I settled myself on my stomach with my face turned toward Alex.

  “You are always invited.”

  “I can’t believe it will be time to go back to California soon.” Tell me not to go, I didn’t say.

  “You mustn’t think about it yet.” Alex propped himself up on his elbows and tipped his hat back to look at me. “You have to learn to live in the moment, chérie, or you are not even really living at all. Don’t you know that?”

  Would it be now that he came toward me? “I know you’re right, but I can’t help it. I try to be present, but my mind just won’t cooperate. Sometimes when I’m enjoying myself, the only thing I can really feel is time passing by me too quickly.”

  “It’s a trap to think that way. You will always be simply planning and anticipating or reminiscing and regretting. You have to savor the moment, the day you are in. You cannot think about where you will soon be or you might as well already be there instead of here.”

  “I don’t want to be anywhere but here,” I said, never having desired anything more. He smiled at me and lay back down on the sand, pulling his hat over his eyes as if to imply that the problem had been solved.

  A short time later, both of us turned when we heard Sophie approaching, and Alex eyed Sophie’s bare torso with blatant admiration. And who could blame him? Sophie had the kind of body that health-club marketers and women’s magazines wanted to make us all believe we could achieve if we worked hard enough, but the truth was, it was a gift of blind fate. I couldn’t help but wonder how my whole life might have been different if I could have removed my clothes, stood before a mirror, and been faced with that instead of my own body.

  I closed my eyes and tried to regain the serenity I had just felt, to remind myself that I did not need to compare myself to Sophie all the time, that she was a friend, not a rival. Sophie—perhaps assuming that I was sleeping and not wanting to disturb me—asked Alex to spread sunscreen on her back. I opened my eyes and for an excruciating moment caught a glimpse of Alex’s hands caressing the space between Sophie’s shoulder blades, his fingers sliding underneath the straps of her bikini top.

  We lingered on the beach for hours, drinking beer and lapsing into a comfortable stupor in the warm sun. Eventually clouds came in—seemingly from nowhere—and the winds that sprang up from the ocean chilled us.

  “It probably won’t last long,” Alex said, shaking the sand out of his beach towel and rolling it up. “But why don’t we go into town while it’s cloudy, then maybe we can head down here again this afternoon.”

  My head spun as I stood up; I felt myself sway back and forth as I made my way up the path once again behind Sophie and Alex. Once we were sheltered from the breezes of the ocean, the air felt dense and humid, as though the molecules were pressed up against each other.

  We changed back into our clothes and got into Alex’s car to drive the short distance into Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. I let Sophie take the front seat this time. It seemed only right since I had been in it the whole drive from Nice, but seeing them together laughing and chatting in the front of the car, their words mostly getting lost in the wind, I had the unpleasant sensation that I was suddenly invisible.

  We had lunch in a small café near the harbor where Alex seemed to know all of the employees. The maître d’ welcomed him and spirited us to a choice spot on the patio despite the small crowd of tourists who had obviously been waiting for a table. A German woman openly scowled at us, and I smiled back at her as if I were totally oblivious. How good it felt to be the person for whom the rules were different, if only momentarily and by proxy. It occurred to me that both Alex and Sophie were probably familiar with the sensation.

  Soon after we sat down, a short, portly man came tumbling out from the kitchen and threw his arms around Alex. Judging by the deference of the attendant waiters and busboys, I figured him to be the chef or owner or both. Between the lilt of his regional accent and the speed at which he spoke to Alex, I could barely understand him but gleaned that he planned to bring us something special. A moment later a bottle of crisp, delicious sparkling wine appeared unbidden.

  “I’ve been coming here since I was a little boy. The de Persauds have been good customers for many generations,” Alex said.

  “You never talk much about growing up,” Sophie said. “What were you like when you were a kid?”

  Alex looked out to the harbor for a moment. “A pain in the ass mostly,” he said just as the waiters appeared with salads.

  We laughed. “I bet that’s not true,” I lied. I could imagine young Alex as a terror, ruling over the other children—and the occasional adult—the way that the bright and somewhat spoiled always do in the kingdom of childhood.

  “I could see you being a bit mischievous. Torturing a nanny or two,” Sophie said.

  “I could be guilty of that. In fact we even had an American au pair one summer. I was twelve at the time, completely in love with her. I think she was the last American in the house until the two of you.”

  “Your first love,” I said, smiling, “what illustrious company to be in.”

  “Not my first.” Alex speared a beet on the end of his fork and put it in his mouth. “That happened when I was five or so. But certainly one of the great loves of my early life. There is nothing like an unrequited passion to stoke the flames of your imagination. It’s the fantasy of her that’s lasted so long, not so much the memory of the girl herself, whoever she was.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Tall, I think. But maybe she was only tall to me at the time because I was tout petit for my age. She was blond.”

  “Naturally!”

  “We have something against blondes now?” Sophie asked, a sparkle in her voice.

  “Oh, no,” I said, my voice laden with what I hoped was cheerful sarcasm, “gentlemen prefer them. Even young gentlemen, apparently.”

  “I have no preference,” Alex said magnanimously. “Beautiful. That is my only preference.”

  “How generous of you,” I said. In my heart, that distinction, even the word, belonged to Sophie.

  “And what do we think our Brooke was like as a child?” Alex said. “Sophie, did you know her then?”

  Two busboys came from either side and discreetly cleared our plates, readjusting place settings so meticulously that it looked as though nothing had touched our table to begin with. It occurred to me that I had never been in a restaurant quite like this one. I kept smiling nervously at the staff, while Sophie and Alex looked perfectly at ease.

  “No, we didn’t know each other until college, so your guess is as good as mine, Alex.”

  “Not very exciting I’m afraid,” I said, “what we refer to in the States as a late bloomer. I was very quiet and spent a lot of time reading.”

  “A late bloomer? Well,” Alex said, “some things are worth waiting for.”

  I blushed.

  “And, Sophie?” he asked. “Were you also a late bloomer?”

  “Bet not,” I said, “be
t you were born in bloom.”

  Sophie gave me a wry little smile and I remembered the conversation we’d had in Paris, that it upset her that everyone thought things came so easily to her.

  “I’m certain,” Alex said, smiling appreciatively at Sophie, “and she probably drove all the poor boys crazy.”

  It seemed like a long time until anyone said anything else.

  “A mixed blessing if there ever was one,” Sophie said quietly, “boys being what they are when they’re young. Though you, I’m sure, were lovely,” she added to Alex. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t roll them.

  “I was an animal,” Alex said, “you wouldn’t have wanted to know me then. I wish I hadn’t known me then.”

  “Good thing we’re all so grown-up now,” I said, “like all of this was so long ago.”

  “In a way it was, though, non?” Alex said. “Years are not simply measured in minutes and days, Brooke. Not all years are equal, and the ones that take us away from childhood are so crucial.”

  “I just think it’s funny that we’re sitting around talking like we’re so very old and sage when we’ll look back a couple of years from now and feel like we were so young and stupid.” Sage was a convenient word, a cognate.

  “But that’s exactly my point! In two years you will feel as though you are a decade older than you are now, and yet it will only be some seven hundred days, eight seasons, that will have gone by. You will see, you can tell me if I’m wrong then. When you get back from France—worldly and unfamiliar in your familiar surroundings—you will feel as though you’ve lived another lifetime, and yet for your classmates it will have been several months like any others.”

  “Don’t talk about going back!” Sophie said. “I’ve just tried to get Brooke to stop thinking about it!” Her voice had an edge of genuine pain. “Besides, we might not even go back.”

  “Ah”—Alex smiled—“there is an escape plan? New names, new passports? How very James Bond!”

  Sophie smiled and shrugged.

  “Oh!” I was startled by the appearance of a whole fish staring up at me from its platter that had materialized silently at my right elbow. We all laughed. Alex gave a nod of approval to the waiter, and in a snap it was returned to us perfectly filleted.

  In those days I didn’t eat fish, but I had resolved to pretend to love it either way. This proved to be unnecessary; the fish was unimaginably light and flaky and perfect. Alex was right. Each moment in this place I discovered a new part of myself, while the things I thought I knew dissolved effortlessly. It was both terrifying and liberating. And I was a person who liked fish now. Who knows what other mysteries might yet reveal themselves to me before I returned to the United States?

  “Sea bass,” Alex explained, just as the owner was approaching the table. “Guillaume swam out in the harbor and caught it with his bare hands when he saw us coming towards the restaurant.”

  The owner gave a hearty laugh and gripped Alex’s shoulder.

  “That’s what he always used to tell me when I was a little boy. I believed him too!”

  “But it’s true, I will show you my wet swimming trunks!” Guillaume boomed, then turned to us. “How do you like the fish?” he asked in English that sounded as though it wasn’t often used.

  “It’s wonderful!” I said in English.

  “And you like it here, in Cap Ferrat?”

  “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” Sophie said.

  He beamed as though not only the delicious fish but Cap Ferrat itself were his doing.

  “People are much more cheerful here than in the north,” Sophie observed when Guillaume had left our table.

  “Wouldn’t you be with all of this surrounding you?” Alex asked. “Perhaps I will come here this summer, at least for July and August. I had forgotten how much I missed it.”

  “Let us know if you need company,” Sophie said.

  Alex looked thoughtful.

  “I was kidding, Alex,” she said quietly, perhaps embarrassed that she had seemed to be inviting herself. Even so, I knew she wasn’t kidding. It was becoming evident that Sophie didn’t intend to leave.

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” Alex said. “Think of the time we would have! We could eat here every week and go swimming in the ocean. Brooke could write a novel. Sophie, you could paint all day in the attic studio. I will show it to you when we get home.”

  Sophie and I exchanged a look. Could he be serious? Could we delay the inevitable? Too good to be true would have been an understatement of massive proportions.

  “Well,” he said with a shrug, “think it over, les filles.”

  And with that a new world opened before us, one that actually seemed to be within our grasp.

  By the time we had finished lunch, the clouds were beginning to roll across the sky like slow-moving animals leisurely heading toward another pasture. A sunny afternoon was in our future.

  We took our time wandering through the village, and with Alex a few steps ahead of us, Sophie dropped back, took my arm, and leaned her head on my shoulder for a moment. “I’m so glad we’re here together,” Sophie said, and I agreed. I knew somehow that I couldn’t handle too much of Alex on my own just yet. I couldn’t imagine the lather I would work myself into if I didn’t have her here to create some kind of balance, to put me at ease.

  Popping in and out of shops where all of the proprietors knew Alex, we picked up supplies for dinner at the house.

  “We are going to have the only thing I know how to make for dinner,” said Alex. “Galettes! Au chèvre.”

  We spent some more time on the beach that afternoon and were drunk with sun and good wine by the time we started dinner. We laughed and prodded each other with kitchen implements as we cooked, destroying a half dozen of the galettes before we got one right. I thought how much my mother hated wasted food. Then we sat down on the large stone patio and ate while the sun went down.

  Alex began to tell us about the things we would do that summer, as if it had already been decided that we’d be joining him. It was as though he’d been listening in on our train conversation and was now joining the game of future tense that we had been playing. He told us about an older friend of his, Marie-Eléne, who had parties every other weekend on her yacht, and he told us about the people we would meet there. Artists, he said. People like us. Not like the people we’d met in Paris. As he talked, I remembered Sophie and me—how long ago it felt now—walking along the harbor in La Rochelle, telling each other about our boats. I snuck a look at Sophie and she smiled at me; she was thinking the same thing. And now here we were; she wasn’t about to let it go.

  Who knows how much wine we consumed; this house, like the one in Nantes, had an impressive cellar. After dinner, Alex ably built a fire in the elegant stone fire pit on the beach, and I noticed not for the first time that he seemed capable of drinking endless quantities of wine without much effect—unlike Sophie and me.

  Though my own tolerance had been improved by my time with Véronique and Alex, by the time the fire was going and we were dancing around it and laughing like hyenas, my memories become a bit untrustworthy. Some flashes are clear as day, but between them there must be omissions. I don’t remember, for instance, any discussion about going into the water; I only remember hanging back on the beach while Sophie and Alex ran toward the surf, tearing their clothes off as they went. I remember my initial reluctance, then the feeling of its disappearing as I pulled off my dress to their great delight, the rush of the elements hitting every inch of my skin: first the wind, then the waves. I remember the cold water hitting my ankles and rushing up my torso before I dove into a low wave. I remember the crazy, large moon and the way it highlighted the rippling water all around us.

  I remember sneaking furtive glances at Alex. I remember admiring Sophie and for once not feeling so threatened and feeling instead that in this combination of moonlight and ocean, perhaps I was—at this moment—beautiful too.

  Sophie stayed in
the water when Alex and I returned to sit near the fire. We both watched her; she seemed lost in her own world. Her lower half was submerged and she was staring off toward the horizon; we could only see her back and a little of her face. I noticed that Alex was taking pictures, and without quite knowing why, I grabbed my small, disposable camera and began to quietly take a few of my own. I wanted to remember how his face looked when he was looking at her, when he was capturing her beauty as it slipped off into the night.

  I don’t remember how we managed going back up the path. I do remember dripping on the floor, and I remember Sophie and me clutching at each other, and I remember the three of us opening yet another bottle of wine after we’d dried off and curled up with Alex on the couch under a blanket—one of us on either side—and I remember almost crying from the feel of his bare skin on mine, wanting to dig in my nails just to get closer. I remember thinking that at any moment Sophie might slip away and leave me with my chance.

  I also remember thinking it was the best night of my life. After that, nothing more.

  I’M SURE that I didn’t sleep well that night, but my mind was too drowned in wine to notice, and mercifully I was down for the count for at least a few consecutive hours. I woke to the sun shining so brightly in my eyes that it felt as if a klieg light were trained directly on my face. Not only were the blinds all pulled back, but one of the French doors to the balcony was flung wide-open as if someone had just come through moments before. Blinking, I reached for one of the silky couch pillows to put over my eyes. My head was spinning in a way that told me that the alcohol was not yet gone from my system and that the worst pain of the hangover was still to come.

  It occurred to me that I’d been dreaming of water, and I knew that I’d be much better off if I could just rally myself to get some. These physical concerns distracted me momentarily from the questions that would assault me in merciless succession once my head had cleared enough to begin asking them.

  Why was my hair damp?

  Why was I sleeping on the couch and not in my room?