How to Fall

by Rebecca Brooks

  Julia wondered who these other people were and what they were like and how they had found their way to this hamlet outside of town. She wondered, too, about the man sitting next to her as he brushed her hand with his and then suddenly pulled away, reaching for a menu as though an afterthought.

  Was everything okay?

  But she was being paranoid. Of course it was—Blake was just tired after the, ahem, energetic activities they’d shared. Jamie had said he’d found Blake napping all afternoon, which was why Julia didn’t see any more of him when they got back from the falls.

  He’d practically promised to spend the rest of her trip with her. She didn’t know exactly what that was going to entail since she hadn’t booked any more nights at the hostel, but she was pretty sure there’d be space for her to stay on.

  Everything was fine.

  In the distance, headlights blinked between the trees where a road wound up a hill, rising like a dark stain around the edges of the sky. Somewhere down there was Argentina, and on the other side, Paraguay, but here in the deepening night there were no borders and no boundaries, just the lap of water against the muddy banks.

  They had piled five into a cab again with Chris, Jamie, and Lukas, Julia squished uncomfortably on Blake’s lap in the back seat over the bumpy roads that twisted and turned to the lake. The whole time he hadn’t known where to put his hands, until he basically sat on one and wedged the other between the seat and the door. At first it seemed weird—didn’t his arms belong around her? But then she’d decided his awkwardness around his friends was cute. And it was always good to have something in reserve that she could tease him about later, when they found a way to be alone again.

  She warned herself that it was dangerous to see her and Blake this way, as a couple that would seek each other out when they could. But she couldn’t help it. Hadn’t Blake made it clear how much he wanted her? Shouldn’t she take in as much of him as she could?

  They grabbed two tables, red plastic chairs angled close together on the sandy shore. Chris plunked down between Jamie and Lukas, talking about the view and how she’d heard this spot was a popular place for locals, away from the more energized bars in town. Naturally Julia parked herself next to Blake. He was being oddly quiet, but Julia told herself there was nothing wrong with being comfortable with silence. The rest of the group more than made up for it with their chatter.

  She was wearing cut offs and a dark cranberry tank top loose around her hips, perfect for the night breeze coming over the water. The warm air and the hum of conversation washed over her in waves, reminding her that had she stayed by herself in São Paulo, she’d probably be curled up in that closet of a hotel room right now, reading about curriculum development and trying to convince herself she was happy “traveling” alone. She’d been at the falls for just over a day, and it still managed to surprise her that she was here.

  “Don’t you feel lucky?” Chris asked, perusing one of the plastic menus left on the table. “Other people have jobs and mortgages and kids to worry about and we’re like, fuck it, let’s go sit by a lake and drink beer.”

  “I live by Lake Michigan. I can sit by a lake and drink beer any time,” Julia said, kicking off her sandals and burying her toes in the sand. “But I guess bringing work there sort of defeats the purpose. Plus it’s completely iced over right now.”

  “All the more reason to stay down here.”

  “I like how Chris pretends she doesn’t have a job.” Jamie laughed as he signaled for the waiter, who was bringing another round of beer to a table by the shore.

  “It’s on hold,” she said.

  “Yeah, until we get back and pick up where we left off.”

  Chris shook her head. “How can you say that? It’s like six months away doesn’t even affect you—you can’t wait to get back to early morning meetings and nothing in the fridge for dinner.”

  “That’s why I’m a photographer,” Lukas said cheerfully, holding up the camera that was always around his neck. “Travel the world, make my own hours—”

  “Be perpetually broke,” Jamie teased.

  Lukas shrugged. “I’d rather have little money and spend it on this than a lot of money and be trapped by car payments and my dry cleaning bill.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Chris exclaimed, turning toward Jamie. “Don’t you like this way of life better?”

  “This isn’t a way of life,” Jamie said. “It’s a long vacation. You know, a break from the real world.”

  “This is real to whomever’s living it,” Chris protested. “It’s not like they don’t need real estate agents here. We could move to Rio. Or some gorgeous small town on the beach and I could sell land. Or we could run an inn! A little pousada—wouldn’t that be great?”

  Jamie looked pleadingly at Blake. “Come on, you’re with me, right? Don’t you want to go home? I mean, not right now, obviously. But…eventually?”

  Julia looked over at Blake, but she couldn’t figure out what he thought of the question. “I’m not looking for a life on the road,” he said carefully, and Jamie pounced on the affirmation.

  “See? We can’t always keep moving, but some day we’ll save up enough again and take another vacation. Maybe India. Or Egypt, I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt. We could tour the rivers of the world.”

  Even in the darkness Julia could see Lukas smirking, and although he was handsome, the expression didn’t sit well on his face. “I’ll try and meet up with you on your two-week holiday,” he said. Chris laughed. Jamie looked like he wanted to say something but held his tongue.

  “Well I for one am glad to have even a week,” Julia said quickly. “Not everyone is so lucky to get any time off, let alone can afford to travel.”

  Chris may have wanted to protest that a week was nothing, but she couldn’t argue when everyone else was nodding. Inwardly Julia sighed, relieved that the prick of tension seemed to be dissipating. She may not have been easygoing like Jamie or adventurous like Blake or independent like Lukas or a laughing, carefree leader like Chris, but she knew how to smooth things over and help make people feel calm.

  See? She smirked to herself. Leave it to her not to let bouts of wild sex in semi-public places with a gorgeous foreigner go to her head. She was still the same old sensible Julia, wanting everyone to get along. She could practically feel the force of Liz’s eye-roll from across the equator.

  Jamie started a headcount for beers to signal to the waiter at the bar but Blake interrupted, saying, “A caipirinha for me.”

  “A what?” Julia asked.

  “I need something stronger,” he said, which didn’t exactly answer her question.

  “Make it two,” Chris said.

  “Three,” Lukas added, and Jamie pointed to Julia to see if she wanted to switch her order.

  She thought of how she’d finished Blake’s pineapple juice that morning and decided that whatever he was having was worth a try. So far, saying yes to Blake had served her well.

  Even if right now he was tracing circles on the plastic table with his fingernail, some unreadable expression on his face.

  “What’s in it?” she asked him, touching his forearm to make him look at her.

  “Cachaça, way too much sugar, and about as much lime.”

  “What’s cachaça?” she asked.

  Chris clutched her chest like she’d been hurt. “Nectar of the gods,” she said.

  “Gift of Brazil,” Lukas spoke up. “The cheapest liquor money can buy.”

  “It’ll fuck you up,” Jamie said drily, with a look at Chris that Julia didn’t miss.

  “It’s sugarcane rum,” Blake finally explained. “Also known as fire water.”

  “And you’re going to subject me to this?” Julia raised an eyebrow, feeling very much like the newbie at the table. The travel virgin, except for the fact that everything else she’d been doing so far on this trip was anything but virginal.

  “It’s Brazil’s national drink. No trip here could be co
mplete without it.”

  “We may be underselling it,” Chris considered.

  “Not the fucking you up part,” Jamie warned, rubbing his hand over his beard.

  “I’ll try to keep my wits about me,” Julia laughed. “Count me in.”

  “Five caipirinhas coming up,” Jamie said, and went to tell the waiter.

  Julia wasn’t sure how he and Chris had found each other, since they were so different, but she could see why Blake liked him. His quiet charm helped soften the edges of Chris’s brashness, making the other woman easier to handle. Would the constellation of guests at the hostel have gravitated together if Chris hadn’t been around? Julia wondered if it was simply the nature of traveling that foreigners found each other wherever they stayed. But she had a feeling Chris liked the attention of people besides Jamie, if the way she bantered with Lukas like they were constantly sharing one long inside joke was any indication.

  She wondered what Blake made of their relationship, but she knew that wasn’t something they were likely to discuss. Talking about relationships—even if it wasn’t your own—probably wasn’t on the list of acceptable conversation topics for people just hooking up for the short time their paths crossed.

  Maybe talking, period, wasn’t part of the deal, judging by how quiet Blake was being, practically giving her one-word answers all night. But what did she know? It wasn’t like she’d ever done anything like this before. She was just going to have to make her brain shut up and go with wherever the night took her. It had worked okay so far.

  Jamie draped his arm over the back of Chris’s chair in an easy gesture, sharing a laugh with Blake about the first time they’d tried the fiery rum drink before realizing its full bite. Chris was hardly paying attention, leaning over to fiddle with Lukas’s camera as he explained the different aperture settings he could use for a night like this, where the dark water contrasted with the bright pinpoints of light on land. Julia looked over at Jamie and wondered if he even noticed that anything was wrong with the picture.

  The photography lesson was interrupted when the drinks arrived, five oversized glasses floating with ice and a fat wedge of lime.

  “Cheers!” Chris raised her glass, and even though everybody groaned, Julia’s stomach did a little flip remembering how she and Blake had looked at each other when they clinked glasses—was it only yesterday?—and made a promise they had been more than able to fulfill.

  “To the waterfalls,” Jamie said.

  “To making travel last,” Lukas added.

  To being someone new, Julia whispered to herself. She glanced up at Blake as they clinked glasses. But this time he blinked and looked away when he lifted the drink to his lips.

  The first touch to her tongue burned, and then a burst of sugary lime exploded in her mouth. It was sweet and tart and burning all at once, sour and aching and so strong it brought tears to her eyes.

  “That was terrible,” Chris commented as Julia coughed from the liquor, and she thought maybe she’d done something wrong and that was why it felt like her whole insides were bathed in lighter fluid.

  But it was the eye contact, of course, that Chris was complaining about. “Never met a sorrier lot in my life. Every single one of you is going to be doomed to nearly a decade of lousy lays.”

  So not funny, Julia thought to herself as she recalled the streak of celibacy Blake had broken her of. It wasn’t the ritual, of course, that had made them so explosive together. But they had held each other’s eyes, and it had worked, and she wasn’t about to tempt fate.

  Blake didn’t seem too worried, though, as he tipped the liquid back, and so Julia followed suit. The second sip burned less and the third warmed her all the way through.

  When Chris, Jamie, and Lukas walked down to the water’s edge to take pictures, Blake didn’t make any move to follow. Julia didn’t mind. She was happy to stay admiring the view, sipping on the sweet, tart caipirinhas, and reaching for another piece of the fried yucca they’d ordered.

  “Did you like the falls today?” Julia asked, breaking the silence between them.

  Blake looked up from wherever his thoughts had taken him. “Yeah. You?”

  “It was spectacular,” she said.

  “I didn’t mean us,” he chided, and Julia was relieved to see that familiar, flirty glint in his eye.

  “I was talking about the waterfalls! We did a few things today besides have sex, you know.” With the quiet around them and everyone else down by the water, she spoke more freely, without worrying about being overheard.

  “I’m just making sure that you had a good time during the parts where you weren’t quite as vocal about letting me know that things were going well.”

  She flushed at the mention of how the waterfall had drowned out her cries. There was enough light glowing from the bar that she knew he could see it. “You say things like that to make me blush,” she accused, and he held up his palms but didn’t deny it.

  “I don’t want you to get home and feel like you spent your whole week doing unspeakable things with unsavory men.”

  “I thought you said it was man. Singular. One.” She narrowed her eyes at him. She thought she saw him frown at the reminder of his own words, but it was hard to tell in the dark. “I won’t ask how many women you’re doing unspeakable things with,” she went on, “since you have seven months of travel. And maybe have no interest in ever going home—I don’t know, you were a little vague on that part with Jamie.”

  “What I said to him is true. I’m not looking to live like this forever. I just… I just wanted to get away for now.”

  “And when you get back?”

  She wondered what he was thinking about when he looked over the darkened lake and said, “Maybe things will be different then.” She didn’t want to push. And anyway…wasn’t she thinking the exact same thing?

  She noticed he didn’t do anything to protest how she’d characterized his months of travel, but she tried not to let that bother her. She wanted him to know that she was okay with the fact that they were going their separate ways. She was even okay with him being lost in his thoughts, without letting her in. These were simply the conditions they had set forth for the few days they had together. It was already more than she should have gotten, since he’d been planning on taking off without a second glance. Then she would have really been alone.

  She tried not to think about what it would have been like if she’d gone to the falls with just Jamie, Chris, and Lukas, and whether she would have paired up with the single Dutch photographer instead. But the thought was too weird to wrap her mind around. For one thing, she didn’t want to get in the middle of whatever he had going on with Chris, reigning in their flirting just enough so that no one could directly call them out for crossing the line.

  And after this time with Blake, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wind up with someone else. It may have opened her up to the idea of random hookups, but it certainly didn’t convince her they’d all be this good. If anything, she was sure that now that she knew what it was like with Blake, she’d inevitably be disappointed with anyone else.

  The thought didn’t sit well with her. It looked like more long, lonely months in cold Chicago. Only this time, instead of telling herself she wasn’t missing out on anything, she’d know exactly what kind of fire she wished were keeping her warm.

  “What’s whirling around inside that brain of yours?” Blake asked, shaking the ice in his drink.

  She could have asked him the same question, but still she cringed at the thought of telling him what she’d been thinking. “How I’m having a nice time,” she said.

  “Now you’re the one lying. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She pinched her eyes shut. “How about now?”

  “You always wear this perfectly calm expression, but your eyes give everything away.”

  This time he leaned in close so they were looking at each other, locked into each other like they were making up for the chance they’d missed to wish for m
ore years of good sex—with each other or with anyone, the superstition didn’t say.

  “What am I thinking now?” she asked, but he shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said, and she wanted to reach up and touch the curls tumbling into his eyes because he suddenly sounded so sad. But the sounds of arguing were getting louder as the trio returned from the lake, empty glasses in hand.

  Jamie and Lukas came back to the table, engrossed in some debate about the merits of São Paulo versus Rio de Janeiro while Chris peeled off toward the bar to order another round. Julia felt something unclench within her when she realized that they weren’t really fighting about anything and that Jamie and Lukas seemed to get along fine. Maybe that stuff she thought she’d observed earlier was all in her head. She was always worried about relationships falling apart. She was probably looking for trouble when everything was fine.

  Like she was looking for trouble with Blake, when now he was smiling and laughing along with the rest of them. She had to admit that she hardly knew him well enough to guess what was running through his mind.

  “You have to appreciate the architecture of the skyscraper city,” Lukas was saying.

  “I’m not saying I don’t, but how is it unlike so many other cities?” Jamie said.

  “That’s what I thought when I was there,” Julia spoke up. “Like, okay. I’m in another city. Now what?”

  Lukas shook his head like she’d told him she didn’t like music, or dancing, or anything remotely fun.

  “You were in São Paulo before this?” Blake asked. Julia explained how she’d flown into the city before heading to the falls, selectively editing out the overwhelming loneliness and all the time she’d spent reading in her hotel room. Further proof that no matter what they shared when they were naked, they barely knew each other.

  “So what did you do while you were there?” Lukas asked.

  She shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know. Walked around, went to a history museum, went to some parks and a really big garden.”