by Suzan Colon
“Better.” Carson zooms over. He takes out his phone and pushes it at me. “Check this out!”
On the screen is an email from Evan and Randy, his friends and former fellow surf instructors at Emerald Cove. The message is brief and as excited as Carson is now, a bunch of exclamation points around surfer speak. I read it, and I look up at Carson. “Randy and Evan are going to a surf contest in Mexico?”
“Yeah!”
I feel like I should be getting something that I’m not.
Then Carson says, “It doesn’t have to be all about the contest, though. We could extend the trip, call it a honeymoon.”
“Oh, you want to meet them there.” I hand him back his phone. “Sweetie, people generally get married before they take a honeymoon.”
“I wanted to get married in New Orleans,” Carson says, sitting on one of the many cardboard boxes of his stuff that we still have to deal with. “You said no.”
“I didn’t say no, I said not yet. I’ve been too crazed with the book, and I want to wait until we can have a real wedding, with our families, maybe on the beach at your parents’ place. That would be so beautiful. And the money we save on a wedding hall could be put toward our house fund.”
Some of Carson’s fizz goes flat. “That would be beautiful, if my father and I were on speaking terms and if he wasn’t going to make you sign a prenup, which I know he will if he finds out we’re getting married. And if it’s money you’re worried about, eloping would have saved us a ton.”
I take his hands in mine. “Carson, it’s not just about the money. I want a real wedding. We don’t have to sneak off like criminals and get hitched in Pirate Alley.” I laugh, but he doesn’t.
“I thought that would have been romantic,” he says. “Anyway, this trip to Mexico doesn’t have to be our honeymoon. Call it a vacation, my last one before I’m chained to a desk in an office.”
“Carson, I know you’re not excited about managing an insurance agency, but it’s not going to be that bad. And we just got back from being away for two months.”
“During which all we did was work.” Carson lets my hands fall away as he gets up, shrugs off a parka still glistening with snowflakes that have melted, and goes to the kitchen. “You were writing seven days a week,” he says, unpacking the groceries. “I was building houses all day and exhausted at night. We never even got to do any of the things people go to New Orleans for on vacations.”
“Well, that’s what work is about,” I say, tentatively following him into the kitchen. I look on the counter and see that some of the eggs broke on the way home. “That’s why they call it ‘work’ and not ‘vacation’.”
“I never thought of my job at Emerald Cove that way,” Carson says, not looking at me as he puts away the chocolate he likes and my oatmeal. “I worked six days a week, sometimes seven, and felt like I was on an eternal vacation.” He stops and sighs, bracing his hands on the counter. After a moment, he says, “I miss us, Kate.”
A chill settles over my skin, despite my favorite ivory turtleneck. I know there’s more to this than talk of a vacation. “What do you mean?” I touch Carson’s shoulder. “We’re good, aren’t we?”
When he faces me, sadness has come over him. “I feel like so much has changed. Like we’ve changed. You never even do yoga anymore because you’re working all the time. You’re writing the book, you’re freelancing, all day, every day.”
“Carson, I have to. We’re barely making ends meet. My book advance and that freelance work is our only source of income.” Oh God, as soon as the words come out of my mouth, I wish I’d just thought for three damn seconds how this would make Carson feel.
He pushes past me out of the kitchen. “Don’t you think I know that?” He tries to pace in the living room but gets hemmed in by boxes. He looks like a caged animal before standing still and turning around to me. “Don’t you think I hate not pulling my weight? That’s why I took that insurance job. But it’s just another thing I don’t recognize about us anymore.”
“Carson,” I say, feeling my stomach twist. “I thought you wanted to get married, start a family, make a home.”
“I do, Kate. I want all of that. It’s just looking so different than I thought it would. I didn’t want the life my father had, working so hard all the time to support his family that he never saw us, living a way of life that, as far as I can tell, made him money but doesn’t make him happy.”
“Carson.” I’m trying to be brave in the face of this, our first big disagreement, but I’m afraid of where it might go. “What are you saying?”
“Oh, Kate,” he says, coming to me and putting his arms around me. “Don’t be upset. I love you. I love you so much I’ll do whatever it takes to be with you and have kids with you and make a home and a life for us. This is just a really big transition for me. All I’m saying is, I want to be us again for a while, the way we were when we met. I want to wake up with the sun and go surfing with my friends, watch you do yoga, make love on the beach.” He tips my chin up. “I need one last hurrah before I have to trade in my board shorts for a suit and tie.”
I’ve always heard that love meant making compromises. That sounded right to me. Some compromises, though, can begin to look more like sacrifices. That’s the way I felt with Daniel, as though I had to go so far to be met halfway that I didn’t recognize the terrain anymore. Now I wonder if that’s what has happened to Carson. I was so thrilled to have what I thought I could never have, a real relationship, with someone I fell for so hard I may have gotten a concussion. My joy may have blinded me to the fact that he’s been making all the compromises. Some so big they qualify as sacrifices.
I reach up and touch his face. “You know, I’ve never been to Mexico.”
For the second before Carson lifts me up and swings me around, I get to see that smile I live for.
35.
IF IT’S POSSIBLE for a person to bloom, this is what Carson does from the moment we step off the plane and into the warm, bright sunshine of Mexico. Right on the tarmac of the airport where our commuter plane landed, he peels off the heavy sweater and thermal so necessary for winter in New York and gets down to one of his sun-faded surf company T-shirts.
“Feel that, Kate!” he says, turning his face up to the sun. “Ahhh, this is heaven.”
After a quick pit stop in the terminal for both of us, Carson completes his transformation, emerging from the men’s room in board shorts and a pair of flip-flops. “Kate, aren’t you hot in those jeans and boots? Don’t you want to change?”
“I’ll wait for the hotel,” I say, distracted by the frantic emails from my agent and publisher about revisions on my book. I don’t want to tell Carson it’s looking like I’ve got more work to do during our vacation.
What finally distracts me from thoughts of work is our hotel room. It’s not a room at all, but a round stone hut right on the beach. Inside, our white-sheeted bed is draped romantically with netting, and it faces two huge windows.
“Oh hallelujah,” Carson says, looking at the view of azure sky, a sapphire sea, and gently rolling waves as little as thirty feet of white sand away. He grabs my hand, and together we rush outside, him pulling me along as he runs for the water. I hang back, laughing, still fully dressed, and he picks me up and walks right into the waves, dunking us both.
When we resurface, it’s four months ago, the first day we met. Carson is that incredible mythical sea creature, his hair slicked back from his face, his lashes sparkling with tiny beads of seawater, his eyes dancing. This is the man I fell in love with, and I didn’t realize until now that he’s been missing.
A WHILE LATER, I sound like such a good girlfriend when I send Carson off to surf while I unpack for us, but my ulterior motive is to get some book work done while he’s out. I don’t want him thinking I’m going to spend our week here indoors, typing away. I can tell how much this trip means to him.
Before I start my computer, I unpack a few things, in case he comes back early. I take my
toiletries to the bathroom, which has a large, open shower of deep grey stone and two showerheads. This place is so built for romance. I was initially worried about the money, wanting instead to feed our house fund. Now I’m glad we splurged on a week here with five relaxing days before the surf contest this weekend.
When I lay out all my bathroom stuff, it doesn’t look right. I always forget something when I travel, though I’m sure that, just like at Emerald Cove, there’s a place to buy overpriced toothpaste or bug spray. Slowly, I realize they won’t have what I’ve forgotten. My birth control pills.
The moment of worry passes quickly. Please, women usually have to go off the pill for months before trying to get pregnant, and with my family history of fertility issues, I should probably have gone off them months ago. I resolve not to tell Carson about something that won’t matter anyway. I don’t want a single thing to disturb his vacation.
OVER THE NEXT few days, we float back into a routine we used to know and are so happy to see again. We wake with the sun, though there are no noisy monkeys here to jolt us out of our sex-induced slumber. Carson grabs his surfboard, I get my yoga mat, and we head outside our beautiful hut. We do a little yoga together, and I’m surprised at how stiff Carson has become in just a few months away from stretching and surfing. Then again, I’m one to talk. Constantly sitting at my desk hasn’t done my body any favors.
I do my sun salutations to an actual sunrise as Carson hits the waves, slipping into them so naturally it’s like he was born in the water and is returning home. As for me, I exhale a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding as I stretch and watch the sun paint the sky the colors of the mangoes we eat for breakfast. Salted, of course.
And we make love. It’s so easy to make love here, as though the place wants us to. Shaded by the palm trees, our room is cool, our big bed inviting to linger in. We don’t need all the space in our shower for two, because we’re so often one. We slowly wash each other, our hands sliding over soapy skin, our kisses wet from the warm water cascading over us. We don’t even need as many words here as we do in the real world. Carson and I are entwined emotionally and physically, our thoughts in tandem, our legs around each other, him inside me, me knowing how he feels when he gazes at me, and knowing that the look in my eyes says more than any words I could come up with.
On an overcast day when the waves are flat, Carson suggests we go exploring. Zicatela is a surf town with plenty of little shops, all owned by locals, none of them big franchises. The surfing stores have signs made out of old surfboards and driftwood. There are stalls with artisans selling hand-woven blankets and delicately embroidered dresses. We marvel over tiny Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons made of painted clay and posed in everyday situations, like bowling or being at the beauty parlor. Carson buys me one of a wedding scene, the bride’s and groom’s little skulls inclined for a kiss.
We wander over to a cantina that the hotel manager, Zicatela’s version of Emerald Cove’s Juan, recommended to us. At a table right on the beach, we watch the sun set and feast on fish tacos and frosty margaritas.
“This place is almost as good as Surf Taco, back in Costa Rica,” I say. “Doesn’t it all remind you of Emerald Cove?”
Carson finishes his margarita and leans back in his chair, looking relaxed and content as he gazes at the water. “It’s so much like home,” he says. “I mean, Tamarindo.” He smiles at me. “All that’s missing is the Emerald Cove crew.”
“Evan and Randy will be here tomorrow. As for Anya, I don’t miss her.” I take his hand possessively. We watch the waves rolling in, retreating, and rolling in again, without much variation in their pattern. After a few moments, I ask, “Whatever happened with you and Anya, anyway?”
He turns to me with a quizzical look. “That’s a funny question.”
“Just wondering,” I say, shrugging. “I mean, she moved all the way to Costa Rica for you.”
“Not just for me.” He strokes my fingers with his thumb. “She fell in love with the place, just like I did. She said she wanted to live on the beach in beautiful weather year round.”
“So if she wanted that and so did you, what happened?”
Carson thinks for a moment. “I’m not really sure it was one specific thing. We seemed like a good idea at first. I don’t know,” he says, though he doesn’t seem evasive or offhand about it. “We just didn’t work out.”
We hold hands and go back to gazing at the ocean, now turning darker as evening falls. The waves are hypnotic, and my thoughts flow with them, but they roll over each other before I can catch them. I know I asked Carson about Anya for a reason, but it’s like a small, slippery fish dancing in the surf. I can’t get a grip on it.
We walk the dirt road back from the cantina to our haven on the beach, tipsy and affectionate. Carson tells me to wait outside, and he ducks into our room, emerging a moment later with a blanket. He spreads it out on the sand, and we snuggle together to watch a nearly full moon rise and speckle the tips of the waves with diamonds.
His hands pull me closer and wander under my tank top. I giggle and try, not very hard, to push them away. “Carson, someone might see.”
“It’s dark, and no one’s around.” He nuzzles my ear. “Doesn’t this remind you of something?”
My eyes close as I feel the tie of my halter top being undone. “Heaven,” I whisper. The name of the beach where we first made love and a perfect description of this moment.
Carson lays me down gently, and the soft sand beneath me gives as he lies on top of me, kissing my mouth, moving languidly to my neck. My back arches for want of more. My hands pull with greed at his shirt. More of his skin, please, so smooth, so warm. More of his strong limbs around me, biceps tensing as he holds me close, hard thighs nudging my legs apart. Oh, yes, please, more of his mouth on my breasts, his tongue making deliberately slow circles to tease me. More of him, because I can never get enough of Carson Wakefield, and I never will.
The threat of discovery makes us both cautious and excited. I pull up my long white peasant skirt and take off my panties as Carson undoes the button and fly of his cargo pants. I’ve been trying for discretion in this public lovemaking, but a cry of animal passion escapes me as Carson pushes inside me, making him laugh. It really feels like the first time we made love, before I was used to him. He feels different, more excited, more enthusiastic, just . . . more. It’s overwhelming. I’ve gone from lustful to almost desperate for him, my fingertips digging into his back, my hips arching to meet his as my feet push against the sand.
His arms were braced straight around me, but now he gathers me up in them and holds me so close we have to breathe opposite each other, his sharp inhalations to my gasped exhalations. His mouth covers mine, and our tongues dance furiously as the passion builds, keeps building, and I’m aching for release, knowing Carson will wait and follow me.
And then it happens. A quiet explosion of everything, of love, excitement, the heady feeling that comes with salt ocean air and salted margaritas, of skin exposed, of plans, of dreams. All of it at once. The night looks as bright as day. Just above me, but from so far away, I hear Carson calling my name. But it’s not my name. It’s Kate, the name he knows me by, the person I may have become. But am I really Kate? As I fall from this exploding sun, I feel more like the Katy I used to be, vulnerable, so unaccustomed to dreams coming true that I’m suddenly scared.
The feeling passes with Carson’s tender kisses. I open my eyes and see stars poking bright holes through a blue velvet sky, a thousand wishes fulfilled.
36.
“CARTOON!” RANDY rushes from the cantina bar to tackle Carson, lifting him up off the ground in a bear hug.
Evan, his light brown dreadlocks longer and tied back, eases off his bar stool to give me a long hug hello and wait for his chance to greet Carson. “Ah, brother,” he says, as he and Carson embrace, back-slapping. “So good to see you.”
“And both of you,” Carson says, with a hand on each man’s shoulder as thou
gh he can’t believe they’re here.
“We missed you, Cartoon,” Randy says, his blue eyes excited behind unruly red ringlets in his face.
“Ah, you don’t miss me,” Carson says. “You’ve got that new surf instructor at Emerald Cove.”
“He sucks!” Randy declares. “You didn’t know shit on your first day, and he knows less after four months! Juan would take you back in a heartbeat, dude.”
“Let’s get a table outside,” I say, leading the men, still hugging and laughing, out to the beach.
We order pitchers of margaritas, nachos, fish, chicken, pork, and even cactus tacos. Evan and Randy ask us how we’re doing, but after Carson brags about my book deal, he wants to hear all about Emerald Cove. It doesn’t sound like much has changed, and Carson is mightily relieved to hear that his beloved Heaven Beach is still hidden from developers’ greedy eyes.
“Oh, wait, there is news,” Evan remembers. “Anya’s getting married.”
“To who?” Carson asks.
“A British stockbroker who came to surf camp a few times. He wasn’t doing much surfing, though,” Randy snickers. “Last time, she left with him. She lives in London now.”
So much for Carson’s theory that Anya didn’t move all the way to Costa Rica just for him. This seems like proof that she uprooted her life not to live by the sea, but to live with He of the Sea-Green Eyes. I remember those slippery thoughts from last night and take a gulp of my margarita, wondering why this is nagging at me.
“We’ll be getting married soon,” Carson tells the guys proudly as he takes my hand.
“Really? And having little surfers?” Randy says, grinning. “A toast!” He raises his margarita. “To Cartoon and Mermaid and their little surfers!”
We all clink our glasses. While I take a sip, the boys drink theirs down, and Carson signals for another pitcher.
