by Suzan Colon
But the glow of us continues to spread within me. I need more of him. My hands hungrily wander his arms, feeling his biceps tensing as he balances above me. Then down his back and to his hips. I can just feel the ridge of muscle leading down to his pelvis, but then the band of his jeans stops me, so frustrating to my inquisitive fingers. They quickly go to the button at the top of his jeans. Not wanting to stop kissing me, Carson merely lifts his hips away from mine so I can undo the button fly. I try to free him slowly, to sweetly tease him as he has me, but it’s too much for him. He makes a gleefully frustrated moan within our kiss before breaking it, quickly rolling to one side, shucking off his jeans and underwear, and rolling back on top of me so fast I start to giggle. Until, that is, I feel him pressing against me, warm and wanting. But waiting, as he looks deeply into my eyes.
“Kate.” He swallows hard. “There’s something I want to say to you.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I whisper. I can’t ask him for forever, and he can’t give it to me. I don’t even want to hear him try. Too soon, the day would come when forever would end, and that would be the same as him coming to this beach, his vision of heaven, and finding it ruined. “Please, Carson. Just make love to me.”
He looks at me to make sure. “My beautiful Kate,” he whispers. He kisses me deeply, and a moment later, he pulls away to root through the back pocket of his jeans. He blushes. “I was so hoping this would happen,” he explains, tearing the condom wrapper open. Then he gets quiet, his eyes locking with mine as he slowly pushes inside me.
Ecstasy possesses me, filling me, but it’s more than that. I’m overwhelmed with the emotions I feel and see in Carson’s eyes as he looks at me. It’s all so much that my head falls back, my body wrapping around his as we two become one. I feel him tremble in my embrace as we revel in this first moment of our union.
As we get used to this magic, we begin to move together like silk. We’re graceful, sensual, our motions choreographed by instinct. Oh, we move so well together that it makes us smile. We’re in our glory, Carson and I, giving and taking with ease, our desire mutual, our desire to please just as mutual. My legs wrap around his waist. He gathers me up closer to him, and our chests press together. I can feel his heart beating a call to mine. Our eyes are locked, we breathe the same breath, and Carson kisses me, hard, moaning in our kiss, moving faster, my hips rocking to meet his as we hold each other tighter.
Bliss streaks like lightning across the sky. Then, suddenly, everything beautiful I’ve ever seen or felt or thought of in my life comes together, blinding me and making me see so clearly what love can be. I cling to Carson the way I want to cling to this most perfect moment and be in it forever. He gasps with the beauty of it, too, his eyes shut tightly, stunned by it as I am, saying my name over and over and over like a string of prayers.
When we fall, we fall together, into each other.
20.
I’D FORGOTTEN WHAT it was like to make love for the first time and then to recreate that physical alchemy again and again. After the first time at Heaven, and the second, Carson and I returned to Emerald Cove, showered together, and got dinner to go. We had a picnic on our bed, feeding each other for a while before moving the plates out of the way and becoming each other’s dessert.
The next day was the same, a blur that could be recounted not by time, but by our physical discoveries beyond the ones I expected. Carson’s muscles leave dimples at the small of his back. I never knew how sensitive I was behind my knees until Carson drew designs there with his tongue.
Now, groggy from a deep, dreamless nap after another ecstatic stupor, I wake not knowing whether it’s still night or day or what day it is. The only thing that feels familiar is the warmth of being spooned from behind, a male arm slung possessively around me, and I wonder in a dazed sort of way where the cartoon mouse tattoo on Daniel’s forearm has gone.
“Mmmh,” Carson moans sleepily behind me as I startle awake. Not Daniel, not five years ago. I’m so disoriented that my heart starts pounding. Carson doesn’t seem to notice as he lazily shifts on top of me, murmuring, “You’re going to kill me,” as his hips nudge my thighs apart.
“Same.” That’s all I can think to say, still trying to wake up, get my bearings. Is it possible to be sexed senseless? Carson rests his chin between my breasts and smiles. “I was wondering if you’d have dinner with me some time.”
I have to laugh, given our situation and our position. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
He nods. “If we’d met some other way, I would have asked you out properly. Taken you someplace nice, not just the buffet at the Emerald Cove mess hall. So, better late than never. Would you have dinner with me?”
Smiling, I answer, “I’d like that.”
“I don’t want to insult you with short notice, but are you free this evening?”
“And I don’t want to seem too available,” I say, “but yes, I think that could be arranged.”
THAT NIGHT, AS the sun colors the ocean and sky orange during its lazy descent, I put on my best dress, otherwise known as the only dress I brought here. Carson, dressed crisply in a blue button-front shirt and khakis, borrows the shared Beetle again to drive us out of Emerald Cove and through winding hills. When we get to a short steel bridge, he pulls over. “I have to show you something cool,” he tells me, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
We lean over the bridge, which is about fifty feet over a shallow river. The water rushes gently over small boulders and some logs. By Costa Rican standards, it’s not a particularly pretty view. Just as I’m wondering what Carson wants to show me, a palm frond floats toward the water, and one of the logs leaps up and snaps a tremendous set of jaws. I jump about three feet in the air. “Oh my God!” I say, laughing from shock. “Are those alligators?”
Carson nods, wearing a little-boy grin. “Pre-dinner theater, Costa Rica style.”
A short drive later, we come to a fancy restaurant with a big wooden sign that reads, in Gothic lettering, Valhalla. “A German restaurant?” I ask.
“That’s where you go to get good German chocolate cake. And they have the best view,” Carson explains. I don’t know about the dessert, but he’s right about the other part. The maitre d’ leads us to a corner table on an outdoor deck overlooking a vast, lush green valley creped in evening mist.
Carson moves his chair from across the table and puts it next to mine. I try to read the menu, but I can’t concentrate with his fingers drawing little patterns on my knee. “There’s no point in looking at that,” he says. “We have to get the steak for two. It’s the house specialty.”
“Well, okay then.” I guess the days of me sitting patiently while Daniel analyzed the menu for vegan options and then special-ordered the waiter to death to make sure there wasn’t a shred of animal in his food are over. “Do you always make decisions this easily?”
“Definitely. I’m not much of a ‘look before you leap’ guy. Once I make up my mind, that’s it.”
“Even with big decisions?”
Carson nods. “Especially for big decisions. No over-thinking, no regrets.” He touches my hand affectionately. “I’m sure you can relate.”
“Me?” I have the presence of mind not to tell him that I’m the type who frets about thinking about looking before she decides not to leap.
“Yeah, you,” he smiles. “You changed your mind about going home in five seconds. I bet you made the decision to come here pretty quickly, too.”
“Well, the travel website didn’t give me much choice.”
“You could’ve said no,” Carson tells me.
Well, money issues aside, I suppose I could have. But everything has turned out so incredibly well that I don’t even bother with that moot point. I just smile as Carson gives the bow tie-wearing server our order, adding a bottle of some incredibly froufrou-sounding wine with perfect French pronunciation. When the server says they don’t have it and makes an equally chichi suggestion, Carson says, “Only if it
’s the eighty-nine. The ninety’s not that great.”
The server walks away before I call, “Oh! Sir, is there any avocado in what we ordered? I’m allergic.” The waiter assures me there isn’t, and Carson looks repentant. “Kate, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Of course, how could you have?” I say, and just manage to stop myself from adding We barely know each other. Such a small detail, a food allergy, and something that only comes with time spent together. Mentioning it was the first thing Daniel did whenever we went out to eat or ordered in. He was always looking out for me. I shake the thought away, demoting it to him adding one more thing to his own litany of food issues.
Moments later, the server returns with the wine. He displays the bottle for Carson’s approval. With a show of grace and dexterity, he uncorks and pours a small amount in a glass. This is all very impressive, but I like the way Carson’s not making a big deal about his part. He takes a sniff and a taste, and he closes his eyes for a moment of enjoyment. Then he hands me the glass.
“Me? I don’t know anything about wine.”
“You’ll know whether you like it or not,” he says. He and the waiter smile at me kindly.
I take a sip. In my first formal wine presentation moment, my writerly pronouncement is, “Ohhhh yeah.”
Carson and the waiter laugh as our glasses are filled. We clink to nothing, just gazing in each other’s eyes. After a few luscious sips, I ask, “Where did you learn about wine?”
“My father,” he says. “Well, it was part of executive training at his company. So I guess he kind of forced me to learn about it.” He takes a larger swallow.
“What kind of business is your father in?”
“Media,” Carson answers, his eyes on his glass, though somewhere else. “Newspapers, magazines, websites, television.”
“Wow. That sounds kind of big.” Carson nods once but stays quiet, swirling his wine. “I’ve worked for some magazines,” I prompt, wanting to know more about him. “What company does your dad work for?”
He bites his lower lip for a moment before answering. “Wakefield.”
I’m not sure I’ve heard him right, though I know I did. “Wait a minute. I’ve worked there. Your father works for Wakefield Media?”
“No,” Carson answers. “My father is Wakefield Media.” He drains his glass, then he picks up the bottle. “More?”
“Yes. No, I mean more about you. Carson, you told me your last name was Richardson.” Slowly, something dawns over me. “As in, Richardson Wakefield. The head of Wakefield Media, one of the biggest media companies in the world.”
“The biggest. Last I checked.” Carson sighs and looks at me with a new kind of vulnerability. Not the way he’s shown me his emotions. This is the wariness of someone wondering if he can trust the person he just told a big secret.
He gets a momentary reprieve from my questions as the waiter brings our tiger shrimp cocktail appetizers. Then, when I keep staring at Carson, not even knowing what to ask, he says, “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to lie to you. I’ve been hiding who I am for so long I forget the truth. Or I try to.”
I don’t know whether I should be mad that he lied to me, so I just ask, “What is the truth, Carson?”
He thinks for a few seconds before a smile twists one side of his mouth. “Can you imagine me in an office, wearing a suit and a necktie as tight as a noose, crunching numbers on spreadsheets?”
I shake my head slowly. “Not even if I tried.”
“Well, my father could. From the time I was little, like all the Wakefield kids before me, I was being groomed to go into the family business. No choice, no questions about whether I’d be into it or not. Just, ‘You’re going to this university, and you’re taking these courses.’ School year round,” Carson says, “except for the days I played hooky to surf or snowboard.” He chuckles. “The old man nearly killed me for that.”
“Just for taking a few days off and surfing?”
“Zero tolerance for anything other than what he says,” Carson tells me, his eyes rolling briefly. “My mom begged me to go with the flow, not cause trouble. I love her, so I went along with things for a while. I put on the suit, the noose, went to the office, crunched the numbers. And each day, I felt like a piece of me got grey and died.” Carson’s shoulders hitch in a shrug. “I tried to tell my father it wasn’t working out, but he didn’t want to hear it. So I left.”
“You went to work somewhere else?” I ask.
“No,” Carson says, peeling the tail off a tiger shrimp. “When he told me to pick five hundred people within the company to lay off for cutbacks when we could have done a number of other things to save money, I got up, put my necktie in the shredder, and walked out of the Wakefield Building. Then I went home and booked a one-way ticket to Costa Rica.”
My mouth is suddenly dry. “I was one of those five hundred people,” I say.
Carson’s eyes go dark. “Just think, I almost fired you,” he murmurs as he refills my wine glass. “I like the way we met much better. Don’t you?”
I take a gulp of wine. Of all the things I thought I knew about Carson, now I feel like I hardly know him at all. “What did your father say when you left to come here and teach surfing?”
“I didn’t tell him. And he doesn’t know where I am now, hasn’t since I left two years ago. It’s only fair,” Carson says, his voice turning bitter. “I never knew where he was when I was growing up. He was never home, always at the office or at one of the company offices somewhere around the world. He missed all of my graduations and my sister’s as well. And all our birthdays. He was never there for any of us.”
The server comes with our steak, and after a concerned glance at our barely-touched appetizers, he begins carving it carefully on a small table, slicing and dividing with precision. I watch his movements intently as I try not to feel so many things swirling inside me. It’s not that Carson lied. It’s the way he suddenly left his mother and his sister, ultimately because he was angry that his father was never there for them. He must not be able to see the parallel. And he couldn’t know how it resonates with me, with my father leaving me behind.
He waits until the server leaves to put his hand on top of mine. “Kate, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t want anyone here to know who I am. There was a big scandal at home when I left. It made the papers, and my father was furious. And people have always treated me differently when they find out who I am. Or was,” he amends. “It’s just so much easier being some random surf instructor, not the heir to a huge family business that I don’t want any part of.” He squeezes my hand tentatively, asking for me to look at him. “Kate, talk to me.”
“You left your mother and sister,” I accuse.
“No,” Carson insists. He shifts his chair closer to mine and takes both my hands in his. “I left my father’s iron-fisted plan for my life, right down to the person he wanted me to marry. Yeah, really,” he says to my look of shock. “But I’ve always stayed in contact with my mother and sister, and I’ve sneaked home to see them when my father’s out of town.” He smiles when he sees me soften a bit. “I’ve told you something nobody else knows, Kate. Not even the people I love most in the world know where I am right now. But if they could see me here with you,” he says, “I know they’d be happy for me.”
His eyes beg me to return to the way we were just a few minutes ago, when everything in the world was ours to share. I’ll have to leave that world soon enough, but not yet. “I understand,” I say, squeezing his hands back. “And I won’t tell anyone.”
We enjoy our dinner and our beautiful evening. The drive back to Emerald Cove is quiet but for some soft music on the radio. Carson holds my hand the entire way, frequently looking at me to gauge my expression. I give him small smiles to let him know that everything is fine.
Back at my tentalow, we undress in silence. This is the first time in days that we don’t automatically begin kissing as soon as we’re alone. We climb into bed, and Carson g
ives me a long look. “I feel like something’s changed,” he says. “I shouldn’t have brought my family issues into this. But I wanted to be honest with you.” He rolls onto his back and sighs. “Have I ruined everything?”
I touch his cheek to make him look at me again. “I can make things even with us. One big, ugly family secret for another.” I take a deep breath, and now I have to lie on my back so I can look at the blank green canvas of the tent’s ceiling. “I don’t like being honest. I don’t like telling people the truth about things, the way I feel. I did that once with my dad when I was nineteen. I hurt him. Badly.”
Carson waits. Then he asks, “What did you say?”
“I told him I hated him.”
He asks softly, “For leaving your mother?”
“No,” I admit, “for leaving me with my mother.”
Only once before have I heard myself say these words, and they were spoken in the kind of hysterical child-anger that delivers the most hateful messages. As much as I meant it, I almost fainted from shame when I saw the pain on my father’s face, caused by what I’d said. I know I was a kid, and I was angry, and mostly I was sad. But I felt like a person without a country. The loving parent had left me with the one who was so devastated when he left that it turned her cold. I wanted to hurt him, and I did. And then he died thinking I hated him. I close my eyes against the burn of tears.
I feel arms around me, and for a second my heart mistakes it for Daniel’s comforting embrace. In that second, I know I should have told Daniel this. There were times we were together, in the dark in bed, when he would tell me things about himself that he’d never shown anyone else. He’d trusted me with them, but I think he always felt that it made him seem damaged in some way. I could have done for him what I just did for Carson, made things equal. I know it’s good that I finally trusted someone with this, the secret wound I’ve hidden from everyone. But it should’ve been Daniel I showed it to. Maybe if I’d confessed why I couldn’t talk truthfully with him or anyone else, I could have learned how to be honest at last.
