by Wicks, Becky
'The way you said what you said... you probably don't remember, but I was waiting for a kiss. It was all I could think about.' She laughs to herself. 'Stupid, I know. I thought you were waiting to kiss me, too. That's what I was remembering just now at the dive shop. I remember that when the other stuff gets too much.'
Holy shit.
I lean forward in the hammock, reach for her automatically, tug at her arm till it falls to her side, pull her by the hand towards me. She sits next to me and we sink lower to the floor, squished up close, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee through the fabric of her dress. I can hear her breathing, swallowing. 'I was waiting to kiss you,' I tell her. 'You know I was.'
I reach under her hair to the back of her neck, guide her closer, forehead to forehead. 'You wanted a kiss and you never got it,' I say. I brush my lips against the space between her brows; kiss, kiss, kiss down to the point of her pretty nose. 'That's one thing we can fix.'
I shouldn't. I shouldn't do this, but I can't fight Izzy's tsunami. I place my lips on top of hers, softly, gently. She presses harder, draws me into her opening mouth with her arms wrapped around me. I'm breathing in desire and breathing out confusion in an instant, but the two clash with redemption of some kind as we kiss and we kiss and we kiss.
Her tongue rests on mine, then sweeps and swirls in what space is left between our gasps and soft licks and light moans. 'How's this,' I breathe, my hand on her waist now, moving higher up to the curve of her breasts. I want to make her happy... so much happier than this. I trace my finger along the edge of the dress, brushing her flesh till she clamps my lip gently with her teeth.
'Perfect,' she breathes. I can feel her smile against mine as we lift our legs and lie down in the hammock. It swings as her hand finds my hair behind my head, clutching, kissing, kissing, kissing with the length of her body pressed to my side.
Yes. It's redemption, isn't it? Some form of it at least, being claimed with this kiss; with the pain and the scars of the past as bare in our breaths now as they are on her arms. I stroke the soft, hot flesh of them as they fall across my chest. Her fingers splay and hold tight to my shirt and she moves and breathes my name, just the once, like it means the entire world.
I fill my lungs with the scent of her shampooed hair and we kiss, and we kiss, and we kiss, till she's shivering against me and through me like the ripples of the moonlight on the ocean.
I don't know how long we lie here. I don't want dinner. I don't want a movie, not that it would be happening in the rain anyway. I want Izzy. I shouldn't but I do. I move my hand, run my thumb along her jaw, across her swollen bottom lip. I feel a dampness on her cheek, then on my shirt. 'Are you crying?' I say.
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because I got my kisses, Ben, from other boys,' she says. 'But that was the one I never stopped waiting for.'
ISLA
ONE WEEK LATER
Mali has fallen in love with me. I've never had so many hugs in my life and I'm kind of besotted with her, too. She's six, going on seven and she's the cutest thing; so keen to learn everything I'm teaching, especially English. 'Go sit down,' I tell her now, once I've re-tied the ribbon in her hair. She skips to her tiny chair at her tiny desk, rests her head on the heels of her palms and beams at me.
'Right guys. Animals!' I say, lining up my marker pens in a neat row on the desk in front of me. I balance the lid of the green one at the end of the row, start to draw a picture on the whiteboard. 'What's this, in English? Can anyone tell me?' A sea of hands appears in front of me. Isla, Isla, Isla, me, me, me!
Most lessons it's just me - being slow season there aren't as many volunteers passing through as there are in the drier months. But there's a sense of peace and usefulness in being with these children that I can't helping thinking I've been missing out on, sitting at a desk in London, writing articles that hardly anyone reads about fondue, stroppy chefs and who wore what to restaurant openings.
'Elephant!' a little boy called Tee shouts out now.
'That's right, Tee, now what sound does an elephant make?'
They stare at me blankly. Crap, they don't understand me. Sometimes this is hard. I make the sound of a cat and tap the picture. They all shake their heads and giggle. I bark like a dog and they giggle even more before Tee stands up on his chair and makes the roar of an elephant, mimicking the trunk with his arm.
'Excellent work!' I clap my hands and he jumps up and down excitedly while I spell out the word on the board.
It's been the most insane week. Most of the time I feel like I'm floating. I teach three hours every morning while Ben does his dives, though things are definitely slowing down with the tourists. It rains every afternoon.
I put the green lid back on, do the same with the red and start drawing the best rooster I can draw. I smile to myself, remembering yesterday after class when Ben met me back at the waterfall. I was writing in my book when he showed up. I've been doing that a lot more since we got back from Phi Phi.
'For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It's always our self we find in the sea'.
Ben read the quote aloud over my shoulder. 'E.E Cummings,' he followed when I put the book down flat. He sat next to me, bare-chested, straight from his dive no doubt and kissed me, easing me down to my back on the rock in a way I could tell he'd been thinking about doing before he even reached me. Whenever Ben kisses me; whenever I touch him I'm right back to being that sixteen-year-old girl with a stomach full of knots and a grin you couldn't wipe off if you tried.
'You know E.E Cummings?' I said, trying to sound normal as the tingles turned my body into a static mess next to him.
'Course I do,' he said against my lips, running his finger lightly down from the side of my face to the straps of my bikini top. 'Not such a dumb American after all, right?'
He pulled me up again against him and I kissed his salty lips, tasting the ocean; an enemy dressed as some kind of angel. He draped one arm around me and we looked out over the falls together. 'I think it's about going home,' I told him, 'maybe in a more spiritual sense, rather than sailing there, you know?'
He cocked an eyebrow, kissed my temple lightly. 'Go on.'
'Well, when we look at something so infinite, we feel small, like children. We go back to where we came from in a way, when nothing really bothered us. You can lose your worries in the waves.'
'I know I do, ironically, when I'm diving,' he said then, sighing into my hair. 'I had to force myself to do it at first, but then it was a lifeline, I think.'
'Back to a state of bliss?'
'Kind of,' he said.
'I suppose I can see that now - how it might be calming, even if, in a literal sense those waves are what gave you all your worries in the first place. What do you think the poem means?'
Ben was silent for a minute. Then he skimmed a stone across the water. 'When we set ourselves on some impossible mission... like, I don't know... like looking for a loved one who's never going to be found, maybe we wind up finding something else, in ourselves.' He looked at me for a second. 'And maybe that exact journey was always what was meant to be.'
'Deep,' I said as my heart leapt, and he groaned, pulled me to my feet.
'You know what, hot cross bun? I don't even need any magic mushrooms when you're around.'
'Chicken!' Mali yells now from her seat, yanking me from my daydream.
'Great guess, yes, that's a chicken!' I say. 'Or a rooster. But my drawing isn't very good.'
They all clap and giggle again, copying the letters that spell chicken into their books as I write them down. I start to draw a dog. My art is improving at least with this job, and the time always passes quite quickly, too.
When I'm here I try not to think that at any moment Kalaya could come back, or the fact that I still haven't responded to Colin. All I want to think about is Ben. Last night they rescheduled the movie we couldn't watch before and we sat on day beds that were put out on the sand by one of the resorts, watched the big screen flickerin
g with Jennifer Anniston. I didn't watch much of it. I was hyperaware of Ben's arm around me; every inch of my flesh that was touching his, and of the not-so-subtle looks Sonthi was throwing him. Will tonight be the night?
Tingles take over my limbs again.
We haven't slept together yet. He's being frustratingly gentlemanly about the whole thing, walking me back to my hut every night, kissing me in the doorway, then going back to his hut right next door. He's only ever slept in my room with me once - that first night when we kissed in the hammock and were three hours late to say bye to Marcus or meet Sonthi and Sasi for dinner. We didn't really do anything then either, except kiss and kiss and kiss. I could kiss Ben forever.
The kids rush outside to play as soon as class is over. I pack away books and straighten out chairs, waiting for their parents to arrive. Some head home themselves on foot, but others are always collected. I'm just packing some coloring pencils into a box with the notepads when a lady walks in with a purple sari around her head.
'Sorry, sorry!' she says to me in the doorway as Mali races up and wraps her little arms around her middle. Mali's mother.
'That's OK!' I say, 'you're not late, it's nice to meet...'
Oh my god.
I stop dead in my tracks when she pulls the sari from her head. 'Oh my God, it's you.' My hand flies over my mouth. 'It is you, isn't it?'
I step closer to her, putting the pencils on a desk. She looks at me in confusion, runs a hand through her thick black hair. It's glimmering slightly with gray.
'It's me, Isla,' I say. There's a lump in my throat I can't seem to swallow. 'You looked after me, the day of the tsunami. You took me up the hill and made sure I was warm, and you brought me food from the temple. Remember?'
I know she might not recognise me. I was bloodied and busted up practically beyond recognition. I couldn't even speak to tell her my name. Her eyes are still frowning, but I'd know them anywhere. She watched me non-stop for hours and I clung to them with mine like they were life rafts. She didn't even want to leave me at the hospital when we got there. She had to though; her baby needed her.
Oh my god.
She crosses to me now, reaches a hand to my face and sweeps my hair back, leans closer. Her almond eyes cloud over in a second and a sob escapes her mouth. 'You?'
'Yes! Yes it's me! You remember?' I put my arms around her as I start to cry, too.
'I remember.' I can tell she speaks barely any English but her tears turn to laughter before she starts talking fast in Thai. 'You so big,' she manages, putting her palms either side of my face, brushing a tear with her thumb. 'What you do here?'
'I never knew your name, what's your name?' I ask her.
'Lawan,' she says.
'I'm Isla, I could never tell you! Your baby,' I say, looking to Mali. She's staring at us like we're mad.
'Mali sister,' Lawan explains.
Yes. Mali's older sister would be ten. She wouldn't have been at this school, but Mali... this whole time. This is so surreal. I've been teaching the daughter of the woman who saved me.
'What's going on?' Ben's behind us. He puts a big box down on the table. 'New textbook delivery,' he says. 'Hey Lawan, how are you?'
'You know Lawan?' I say as he crosses to me. His shirt is damp from the rain that's starting to spit outside and he drops a kiss on my bare shoulder. He smells like the ocean again and I know he'll taste of it, too.
'Course I do, why?' He extends his hand to Lawan and she grips his arm, looking between us. Her eyes are dancing now with tears of excitement and I think, pride. My heart is swelling by the second.
'Ben, Lawan is the lady who rescued me that day! The day of the tsunami. She made sure I was safe. I owe her my life. I didn't know she was Mali's mother!'
'You beautiful girl,' Lawan says to me. She turns to Ben. 'Beautiful boy,' she says and just the words are enough to make me cry again as I hold onto her hands. She starts talking to us both in Thai and I laugh with the insanity of it all, rubbing my hot cheeks under the fan. I wish I understood.
'My mom says you come to house,' Mali says, tugging on my dress. 'And you,' she says to Ben. Each word is drawn out slowly and it's almost excruciating, this language barrier, when I have so many questions and I want to tell Lawan so much.
'I would love to,' I say, squeezing her hands tighter and hugging her again.
'We'll bring Sonthi,' Ben says. He turns to me. 'Lawan loves Sonthi, plus he can translate.'
'You come, you come,' Lawan says, beaming.
'I never thought I'd see you again,' I tell her, blinking back more tears. 'I hoped I would but I didn't know where to look. I'm so grateful to you, you have no idea.'
Lawan keeps on smiling with those beautiful, kind eyes. I know she knows what I mean, even if she doesn't understand my words. Sometimes you don't need words, though. Sometimes there just aren't any.
BEN
'This house is one we helped to fund. I've been here before,' I tell Izzy now as we put the stands down on our bikes in the mud outside and take our helmets off. She rests hers on the handlebar, climbs off and looks around. She's wearing her denim shorts and a tight red shirt, with her hair in two braids over her shoulders. I pull her against me and kiss her. Then we both realize we're standing in a puddle.
'Eeew!' Izzy springs away, but she's laughing, shaking the mud off her flip flops.
The rain has turned everything into one big slush pile and we're basically having to do everything between downpours, most afternoons. 'Come on,' I say, walking up the steps to the door and knocking. The house is all wooden, raised on stilts, like the ten or so others dotted around. Each one has space underneath for storage and chickens and in this case, a dog tied up on a rope. He doesn't even look up at us.
'Isla, Isla!' A voice. A moving tornado of pink T-shirt and long hair as Mali pulls the door open and wraps her arms around Izzy instantly. She does the same to me and I lift her up in my arms, just as Sonthi appears behind us on his bike, with Sasi. I didn't know she was coming too. She's grinning through pink lipstick that matches the tips of her hair.
'Hey!' she calls.
'Glad you could come,' I say. I guess they've been spending all their spare time together over the past week and I haven't seen Sonthi so much as flirt with any tourists, so who knows, maybe this time it will last. I hope so. She's the only one who doesn't put up with any of his bullshit.
Like Izzy wouldn't put up with mine.
Lawan guides us all into the small house, gestures for us to sit down on colorful scatter cushions on the floor. 'You have a beautiful home,' Izzy says, eyes full of awe. She's never been inside a traditional Thai home before and this one is pretty typical. Low bulbs on stands without shades are lighting the room and I can smell something amazing being concocted in the kitchen behind the wooden wall. A small TV set is flickering on a bench in the corner but other than that, the room is pretty bare. It's cosy, though. I sit down and straight away Mali clambers onto my lap, grips me like a monkey.
Lawan's other daughter sticks her head out from the kitchen area. 'Hi,' Izzy says, walking over now, holding out her hand. The kid has hair down to her butt in a long ponytail and she's wearing a faded Justin Bieber shirt. I wonder if she even knows who he is. 'What's your name?' Izzy asks her.
'Lea.'
'Lea. You were just a baby when your mother saved my life,' Izzy tells her, squeezing her hand. 'You were so brave. You hardly cried at all.'
Sonthi translates for her and Lea smiles bashfully before running back into the kitchen. I watch Izzy looking around the room, twisting one of her braids round her fingers. I feel like she's twisting me more every day. We haven't slept together yet. I want to, more than anything and usually I'd have initiated the act and probably won the prize by now, several times over, but this is Izzy. She deserves more.
'Tea?' Sonthi says now, reaching for the glass pot in the middle of the table. Sasi arranges the cups and flicks him as he splashes some water on her hand accidentally. He pretends to gasp
in horror and she pretends to stab him with a fork. 'Sonthi spends a lot of time here,' I tell Izzy.
'This is my village,' he explains as she sits down next to me on a cushion, crosses her legs.
'Right, I remember,' she replies. 'You must know everyone?'
'Most people,' Sasi answers. 'My village, too.'
'I can't imagine everyone knowing everyone in their village where I'm from,' Izzy says. 'Most people don't even know their own next door neighbors anymore.'
'Really?'
I can't help laughing at the look of shock that crosses both their faces at her words. It's a totally different world, for sure. I can't imagine a world without Izzy in it anymore and it hasn't even been two weeks. I watch her laughing now with Sasi. It's just like before, when we had those eight amazing days being stupid, being crazy... but not crazy enough to kiss. Now I'm not sure I'm crazy enough to sleep with her. Just that thought alone makes me pretty uncomfortable in my own skin. I've seen how she obsesses over the little things; her ex called her a control-freak, the asshole. But this thing between us isn't little. I don't want to ruin her.
When Lawan and Lea walk back into the room they're carrying dishes of food. They place them down in front of us - spicy noodles sprinkled with cilantro, chicken and cashews. My mouth waters just smelling it. 'Wow,' Izzy says, leaning down to sniff the steaming plate 'This is something I would definitely put in Sweet Eats, no question.'
'Sweet Eats?'
I explain to Sonthi what she means and Lawan beams as he translates in Thai. We talk while we eat. Izzy's animated again as she tells Lawan about London and the work she does and the hot cross bun shop and the cost of a ticket for the tube, but I can hear the trepidation creep back into her voice when the conversation shifts to that day. She puts her fork down.
Lawan asks Izzy what happened when she left her at the hospital. I reach for her hand. Izzy hasn't told me much herself and in spite of how much she's achieved by coming here I know she still battles with the memories all the time, like we all do. 'You don't have to...' I start, but she clasps my fingers tight.
