by Hazel Kelly
“Anything to do with getting your hair wet?”
“Everything,” she said. “If I go in there now, I’ll come out looking like a Portuguese Water Dog, and Matteo might retract his offer to go to dinner.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen. Plus, worst case scenario you could just wear that bikini to dinner.”
She looked at me. “Why would I do that?”
“Because he’d never notice your hair with your tits out like that.”
“Oh shut up,” she said, turning back to her magazine.
“Just saying.”
She shrugged. “That’s actually not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”
I finished my drink and set my empty glass down next to hers.
“To be honest, I am a little nervous about it.” Megan leaned her head back and looked up at the underside of our umbrella. “I haven’t gone out to dinner with a man since-”
“Before you started dating Max?”
Megan sighed.
“Sorry. That was a low blow.”
“It’s okay. He deserves it.”
“You’re sure you aren’t up for a little snorkeling then?”
“Rain check?”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’m going anyway. They’re supposed to have some of the best snorkeling in the world out here.”
“I’ll go to the aquarium with you when we get home.”
“Suit yourself.” I stood up and made my way over to a little wooden stand where I was able to rent a snorkel and goggles for three dollars. Then I returned to my chair to adjust them.
Megan looked at my rented snorkel with disgust.
“They disinfect them you know.”
Megan laughed. “Yeah, with sea water.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’ll catch a lot more than fish with those.”
“I’m not going to catch anything,” I said, wiggling the clear plastic straps into place. “Plus, if I like it, I can buy my own set.”
“It was nice knowing you.”
I put the goggles over my eyes and pressed them against my face, letting the snorkel dangle beside my head while I looked at Megan.
“Do yourself a favor and wait until you get in the water to put those on,” she said. “You look like an alien.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, my eyes bulging out of their sockets. “I thought this look might get Romeo’s attention.”
“Attention, yes. Affection, no.”
“Okay then.” I removed the clunky headset and wiggled my face back into position. “If I don’t come back, tell my family I met a merman.”
Megan nodded once.
I made my way down to the water’s edge slowly to minimize any unattractive jiggling in the off chance that Blondie looked up from his book. The water was warm but still offered a refreshing break from the heat, and as soon as I walked in up to my knees, I turned back towards Megan for a moment.
She offered an encouraging wave.
I turned back towards the horizon, strapped the uncomfortable contraption to my head, and started breathing through the thin tube as I walked farther into the water.
Once it was up to my chest, I put my face in, pushed my feet off the bottom, and began flutter kicking away from the shore.
At first there wasn’t much to see. The sandy ocean floor was mostly bare except for the occasional scuttling crab and some fat sea slugs that were lying all over the place like a bunch of floppy dildos.
But moments later, my eyes went wide as the sea floor dropped several meters and a bunch of colorful corals sprang up below me like an underwater city.
And there were fish everywhere!
I didn’t even have to look around to find them. They were just hanging out, swimming around, and going about their business while I hovered over them.
Big ones hid under the boulder sized pieces of coral while small ones darted in and out of them. For a while, I followed two orange fish that seemed to be swimming together, like a couple out for a relaxing Sunday stroll.
However, they soon disappeared behind a menacing row of sea urchins with prickly spikes that made me lose interest in following them so I floated in another direction until I came across some lazy looking starfish.
Soon after, I stumbled upon some fascinating rainbow fish whose scales were different colors depending on the angle at which they caught the light from above. Their little fins looked like wings as they flapped along from coral to coral like a flock of underwater birds, and every time they found an area of coral they liked, I could hear their tiny mouths scrapping away at it.
It was the only sound I could hear besides my own slow breathing through the tube, and I never thought sounding like Darth Vader could be so meditative.
I felt like an astronaut!
After all, the scene below me was like a beautiful planet that I was only just discovering. It was nothing like going to the aquarium. In fact, I was starting to think that renting the rubbery tasting snorkel was the best idea I’d had in a long time.
Next I found a fish that was hilariously overconfident in its camouflage. It was red with big brown spots on it, two of which were its eyes. And every time I got too close, it would swim really fast to a spot just a foot or two away and freeze as if it had lost me.
Then something lurking underneath a small cave of coral caught my attention. It was a big fat fish the size of a football with oversized eyes and a tiny fin on each side. I recognized it instantly. Or at least I thought I did.
I mean, I was no expert and I’d never seen one before- not alive anyway. But I would’ve bet all my Thai baht that it was a puffer fish with its spikes retracted. It certainly looked exactly like every cartoon parody of them I’d ever seen anyway. And then I remembered that they were poisonous, and I felt my stomach drop.
Perhaps I’d had enough fun for one float?
Besides, my fingers had gone pruney and a poisonous fish seemed as good a sign as any that it was time to head back to shore.
As I poked my head out of the water to get my bearings, something brushed past my leg and scared the shit out of me. I stuck my face back in the water to see what it was, but as soon as I took a breath, I inhaled a bunch of sea water and coughed it out, choking as my goggles filled up with water.
That’s when I panicked.
Unable to breathe or see properly- and knowing that I was surrounded by sea urchins and at least one puffer fish- I began kicking wildly as I struggled to get my bearings and catch my breath. Unfortunately, I kicked something so sharp I knew instantly that I’d hurt myself.
But when I tried to look underwater to see what happened, all I could see was blood, swirling like smoke away from the top of my foot.
Chapter 11: Jack
When she started splashing around, I knew something was wrong.
I sprang out of my chair, dropping the book I’d stopped reading when she first walked by, and ran into the water until it was deep enough for me to dive under the surface. I came up swimming, taking big strokes with my head out of the water to make sure I was headed towards her.
As I approached, I could tell she was disoriented. She was flailing around, coughing and gasping for breath with her water filled goggles still glued to her face. By the time I reached her, she wasn’t even facing the shore.
Fortunately, her position made it easy for me to hook my arms under hers from behind. I started pulling her towards the beach without waiting for permission, telling her to calm down in the clearest English I could manage while I dragged her through the water.
Once I found my footing in more shallow water, I scooped her up and carried her in my arms, inspecting her for business and pleasure as she sputtered.
It wasn’t until she inhaled sharply through her teeth and straightened one of her legs that I noticed her foot was bleeding… and probably stinging terribly from the look of it.
When I reached the beach, she finally pulled her mask off, releasing a bunch of water that splashed down her
panting chest. From the expression on her face when she looked up at me, I got the impression that the only thing greater than her embarrassment at being in my arms was the pain in her foot.
A moment later, her curly haired friend was in front of us. “Oh my god, Audrey! Are you okay?!”
“I am now,” she said as I laid her down on her beach chair.
“You might not be,” I said, trying not to laugh at the deep goggle marks on her face. I turned towards her friend. “What’s your name?”
“Megan.”
“Megan, can you go in the hotel and get a first aid kit and some water?” I asked, taking a seat on the chair beside Audrey and trying to suppress my delight that they were American.
“Of course.”
“Make sure it has tweezers and gauze in it.”
Megan nodded and ran for the hotel without another word.
“I have some water in my bag,” Audrey said, still trying to catch her breath. “If that helps?”
I smiled. “It’s a start,” I said, taken aback by her bright blue eyes.
Audrey reached for the bag, pulled the water bottle out, and handed it to me.
I noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring.
“You said I might not be okay?” she asked.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” I said, dropping to my knees in the sand beside her bleeding foot. “You’re not in immediate danger or anything.”
“I thought I’d been attacked by a puffer fish or a sea urchin or something,” she said. “But it’s only a small cut. I probably just kicked some coral.”
I screwed the top of her water bottle off and looked at her. She was even prettier up close… now that she’d stopped thrashing around like a lunatic. “Coral can be just as dangerous, unfortunately.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I said, tipping the bottle of water over the messy gash in her foot. “It’s alive, and some types can be quite toxic.”
Her eyes grew wide.
“So we have to make sure there’s none in your wound or your foot won’t heal properly.”
“How dangerous is it?”
“Worst case scenario, you get blood poisoning and it kills you.”
“Excuse me?!”
“That’s how John Smith died.”
“Pocahontas’ boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing up at her. “But don’t worry. That’s not going to happen to you.”
“Maybe I should go to the doctor?”
“I am a doctor,” I said before looking back at her foot. “Or I used to be anyway.”
“You’ve done this before then?”
“More times than I can count,” I said. “Though never for someone so-”
She cocked her head. “So what?”
“So pretty.”
She swallowed.
I could see a few small chunks of coral in her pruney foot, each no bigger than a large grain of sand. Of course, it was the ones I couldn’t see that I was most worried about.
Megan returned with the requested supplies, and I thanked her as I opened the kit and found the tweezers.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to do my best to make sure there’s no coral fragments in your foot.”
“You really don’t have to go to all this trouble,” Audrey said.
I looked at her. “Yes I do. And it will be a lot easier if you just accept the help and tell me if I’m hurting you.”
“She can’t do either of those things very well,” Megan said, wrapping a sarong around her waist and sitting down at the top of her beach chair.
“Megan,” Audrey said. “Not helpful.”
“What? It’s true.” Megan shrugged. “I just didn’t want him to take it personally.”
“Thank you for the help,” Audrey said, giving Megan a look. “Both of you.” Then she pushed her wet hair out of her face. “I’ll tell you if it hurts.”
“Please do,” I said, turning my attention to the task at hand.
Audrey took a deep breath and Megan reached for her hand. A moment later, Audrey burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, holding the tweezers away from her shaking foot.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t think anyone’s ever looked that closely at my foot before.”
I pursed my lips.
“I’m just nervous,” she said, her hair dripping down her chest.
“Just relax,” I said, trying not to think about how badly I wanted to work my way up her legs.
For the next fifteen minutes, I hunted for tiny fragments of white coral, plucked them out one at a time, and placed them in the empty water bottle.
“Are you okay?” I asked, looking up when she became noticeably quiet.
Audrey nodded. “Never better.”
“Is it itchy?” I asked.
“Ridiculously itchy.”
“Yeah, it might be itchy for a while.”
“How long?”
“Days maybe.”
She nodded.
“But don’t itch it under any circumstance,” I said. “And keep it dry. It’s hard enough for wounds to heal in this humidity without getting them unnecessarily wet.”
“Okay.”
“At least you didn’t hurt yourself at the beginning of the trip,” Megan said.
Audrey smiled. “Every cloud, right?”
“Megan,” I said.
“Yeah?” she asked, leaning towards me.
“If you could pick up some antibiotics at the pharmacy next to the hotel, that would be great.” I looked at Audrey. “The sooner you start taking them, the better.”
“Sure,” Megan said. “Any specific kind?”
“Bring them these and tell them what happened.” I handed her the water bottle with the coral fragments. “They’ll know what to give you.”
Megan raised her eyebrows at Audrey.
“Okay.” I pulled some antiseptic out of the first aid kit. “I’m going to sterilize this now and then wrap it up for you as best I can.”
“Can I look at it first?” Audrey asked.
“Of course.”
She leaned forward and examined the gash in her foot. It looked more like several deep holes than a shallow scrape, and the flesh was red and angry looking.
She crinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“It’s going to sting when I disinfect it,” I said. “A lot.”
Audrey eyed the empty glasses on the table, but there was nothing in them so she turned back to me. “I’m ready.”
I squirted the antiseptic over her cut.
She inhaled sharply when the liquid made contact.
“That’s the worst of it,” I said.
She blew the air out of her mouth slowly, her chest sinking like a popped tire.
“You were very brave.”
Her face lifted. “Thanks.”
I smiled at her, noticing a smattering of light freckles on her nose for the first time.
“So I’m not going to die after all?”
I laughed. “No,” I said. “Not on my watch.”
Chapter 12: Audrey
Why couldn’t I meet an attractive man like a normal person?
Like in a coffee shop or a club or any place where I wouldn’t be bleeding in my bathing suit?! Honestly, the whole thing was so awkward I would’ve been cracking up if he hadn’t been tweezing hunks of coral out of my foot.
I mean, as a young woman, my instinct was to flirt with this man. And between the drinks I’d had earlier and the adrenaline coursing through my body, part of me even wanted to throw myself at him.
But he was staring at my foot! What the hell?! I had no idea how to be attractive in this situation. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I’d shaved my legs.
And he was even more handsome up close. He was tan, but not leathery, and the streaks of blond in his hair were clearly natural, the kind that Jennifer Aniston and I happily paid big bucks for.
To top it off, he wa
s ridiculously fit. Like so fit his abs had abs. I mean, was it even necessary to be that cut? What did he even do with all those muscles?