“So that’s a bad idea,” I admit.
“All flirting aside, is it all right if I show you something?”
“Ah, sure,” I say, wondering what it could be.
“Okay,” he says, standing on one leg to swing around and face forward again. He starts the Sea-Doo and hits the gas so hard that it lifts and dips to the left, causing me to grab onto his shoulders.
As the machine settles itself, I snatch my hand back as if I’ve touched a hot stove. I find the strap on the seat instead, anchor my fingers through.
He aims the Sea-Doo toward the hotel, and we slow and settle over the waves until we reach the no-wake zone where he idles to the rental area. “I just need to get something out of a cooler, and we’ll be on our way.”
I’m curious but decide not to ask, watching as he speaks to one of the guys obviously in charge of renting the boats and other water toys. The guy glances at me, smiles and nods. Anders walks over to the cooler sitting on the beach, opens the lid and pulls out what looks like a takeout box. Carrying it, he splashes through the water and climbs back on.
“That’s Ernesto. I told him we’d be back in an hour. He hasn’t had any takers yet today, anyway.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, as he idles back through the no-wake zone.
“It’s a surprise,” he throws over his shoulder. And then he laughs. “Wait. Don’t bail on me. This is a good surprise. I think you’re going to like it.”
I start to protest, but we’re already sailing off over the gentle waves. My “I hate surprises!” gets caught in the wind and is gone.
He angles right, the coast line flowing by in splashes of color, pink bougainvillea, a red umbrella, a bright green wooden boat bobbing against an anchor. The sky is that incredible blue above us, and for a moment, I think I must have landed in a dream. Yesterday morning, I woke to a cold, gray winter New York day. It seems impossible that this day could exist on the same planet.
We drive for ten minutes or so, and Anders points the Sea-Doo toward a row of buoys bouncing gently on the water.
He eases to a stop, pops the front compartment, pulling out the box he’d taken from the cooler. He opens it, scoops out something I can’t see. “Come on,” he says, sliding into the water.
I give him a skeptical look. “What are we doing?”
“Trust me.”
It’s a ridiculous request. I don’t know him. He could be planning to drown me. Maybe all the flirtation stuff was a lead-up. “Ah, I’m just now remembering my mother taught me not to talk to strangers. And here I am out in the ocean with you, trusting you don’t have some sinister plan to do away with me.”
“Hold on,” he says, leaning back to give me a look. “First, I’m expecting you in spin tomorrow, and second, what I really want to do is kiss you right now, but since it’s way too soon for that, come on. Let’s do this.”
He slides off the Sea-Doo, making a splash into the water. I’m still suffering from the shell-shock brought on by his last admission. Did he say kiss me?
“Come on!” he calls back, waving one hand in my direction, clutching a plastic bag in the other.
I could overthink this, find plenty of reasons to stay right where I am. But the water is a deep compelling blue, and the sun is shining down on my face, and I want to. I just want to.
And so I do.
I stand up, step off the side and do a knife dive straight into the ocean.
The life vest brings me up. Sputtering, I push my hair out of my face as Anders reaches for my hand and drags me along behind him, kick-swimming several yards out from the Sea-Doo.
He lets go of my hand, opens the plastic bag and pulls out something, tossing it in the water.
“Is that meat?” I ask, picturing sharks from miles away calling all their friends and swimming toward us in a straight line.
“Yeah,” he says. “Watch what happens.”
He tosses out another piece, and I barely suppress a small squeal of terror, voicing my fear. “Um, are there sharks in these waters?”
He looks at me and laughs, as if I have truly amused him. “Here comes my girl.”
I look out to where he’s pointing and spot the sea turtle swimming at us from just beneath the surface, her face pointed straight at Anders.
“Oh my gosh!” I scream in delight.
Anders holds out the treat, and she swims right up to him. He drops it in the water and she whisks it up. “Against the law to touch them,” he says.
I stare at her, stunned by how beautiful she is. “How do you know she’s a she?”
“Adult males have a long tail. Adult females don’t. And the girls have prettier faces. She’s a Loggerhead.” He tosses out another treat, and she swims a circle around us and dives for the snack. “They have been considered critically endangered for some time now.”
“Why?” I ask, crestfallen, my gaze falling to the beautiful turtle a few feet away.
“Over-harvesting by man. For the meat, shell and eggs.”
Hearing the words makes me feel sick. “It’s really too bad God made us overseer. We’re certainly doing a lousy job.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine we’re impressing him. In 1987, the University of the West Indies started the Barbados Sea Turtle Project to restore the populations. Hunting turtles or their eggs is illegal and comes with huge fines and jail time. The efforts are working, but it’s a shame that man can be so thoughtless and selfish.”
A knot has formed in my chest. “She’s so free and perfect. I can’t stand the thought of someone hurting her.”
“Me either.” We’re quiet for a few moments, and then he says, “Did you know they can migrate incredible distances? So I read this study where they put satellite transmitters on four Hawksbill turtles in Barbados during the nesting season to figure out where they migrated to. All four left Barbados after their nesting and went as far as Dominica, Grenada, Trinidad, and Venezuela.”
“How many miles is that?” I ask, shocked.
“Two seventy at the farthest.”
“That is truly incredible. Why do they go so far?”
“Foraging for the things they like to eat. The sad part is much of the territory they end up being in doesn’t protect them as they are protected here.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Yes. I wish I could tell this girl not to ever leave these waters.”
“Please don’t,” I say, looking at her sweet face again, unable to imagine someone taking her life.
“They are amazing creatures. They imprint the place where they’re born and come back twenty to thirty years later to lay their own eggs.”
“That long? That’s smarter than anything I’ve ever done.”
Anders laughs. “Me, too. Since I’ve thoroughly unveiled myself as a sea-turtle geek, I’ll leave you with one more fact. They are very careful where they place their eggs. Sea-water kills the developing embryos. And the temperature of the sand determines the sex of the embryos. If the eggs are closer to the tide line where the sand is cooler, the eggs will produce a male. If it’s in the warmer sand, the eggs produce females.”
“Wow. I’m going to buy a book on sea turtles. I want to know everything about them.”
He smiles and nods once. “I was bitten by the same bug. They really are fascinating.”
“Thank you,” I say, looking at him and realizing I’ve underestimated him. He’s way more than a pretty face. “This is the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten.”
He snags my gaze, and we float alongside the turtle, something real and substantial hanging there between us. What on earth?
“We’re out of treats,” he says softly, and as if she knows exactly what he’s said, the turtle turns and swims peacefully off in the opposite direction.
“Come on,” Anders says, taking my hand and pulling me back to the Sea-Doo.
Once we’re there, he climbs on the back and tells me to place my feet on the rubber edge. He takes my hands and catapults me up. The Se
a-Doo tips crazily side to side, and I’m forced to grab his waist to hold on. It settles eventually, and I pull back, staring up at him.
“Wanna drive?” he asks with a risk-taker smile.
“Me? I’ve never driven one.”
“You gonna wait until you’re fifty?”
I give him another playful slap, realizing I’m acting like I’m in high school with all the slapping, giggling and staring. Good grief. “No. As a matter of fact, I’m not. I think I’ll learn today.”
“Outstanding.” He unhooks the cord with the key from his life jacket and hands it to me. “Snap it through one of the loops on your vest. If you fall off, you want the key to stay with you.”
“Fall off? Oh ye of little faith.”
“I see how it is,” he says, smiling.
It takes a little maneuvering for us to switch spots. He holds onto the seat, giving me the chance to scoot forward. Then, he spins back around and climbs onto the seat behind me.
“What was that game I played as a kid? You put your hands and feet-”
“Twister,” he says, laughing.
“This is definitely that.” It feels different to have him behind me, and it feels absolutely safe when he reaches his arms around me, placing a hand on top of my own as I hold on to the handlebar grips.
His breath is against my ear and the warmth of it spreads over me like candlelight.
“The right side is the gas,” he instructs me, pumping his right hand against mine. “The left side is for hitting neutral or reverse.”
I grip my hand tight around the throttle, pressing my thumb down on it. The Sea-Doo bolts forward. From behind me, Anders jolts backwards. He grabs onto my side and holds on with both hands as I increase the speed.
I skip along the waves, running perpendicular to them. Each time we hit a bump, the front of the Sea-Doo aims skyward, and it’s as if I’m flying with the weightless free fall of a roller coaster dropping at a precarious angle.
Once I manage to smooth out my efforts, I press the throttle and take a sharp right to head further out on the ocean where the waves are wilder, banging into each other before they have the chance to reach the shore.
But just then, a wave crashes against the side of the machine. The sea water drenches us both, the salt instantly burning my eyes, the taste of it on my lips.
It’s only when Anders’ grip tightens around my waist that I realize something has gone terribly wrong. And then I’m landing headfirst in the ocean, the Sea-Doo turning off as I take the key with me.
I go under, and it’s as if I will never stop sinking, but the life jacket regains its footing and shoots me back to the surface like a rocket headed for the sun.
As soon as I break the surface, I gasp for air and blink the water from my eyes. I jerk my head right and left in search of Anders, and then hear his voice behind me.
“Are you okay?”
I whip around, thankful to see that I haven’t killed him. “Ah, sorry?” I say.
But he’s laughing, as if I’ve given him the thrill ride of his life.
“I knew you had it in you,” he says, swimming toward me.
“Death by Sea-Doo?”
He laughs again. “If you don’t get thrown off, you’re not going for it hard enough.”
“Oh, is that how it works?”
“Sure is.”
The Sea-Doo is some fifteen yards away, waiting patiently for us like a horse who has no idea how the rider ended up on the ground.
“First one back gets to drive,” he says and takes off swimming.
“No fair! You got a head start!”
I give it my best, but of course he beats me, and to be honest, I’m happy to let him take over the driving. By the time I get there, he’s already on board, reaching a hand out to help me climb on the back.
I place my feet on the rubber edge, and he takes my hand, quickly pulling me up again where I bump into his chest and grab onto his jacket to right myself. He stares down at me, and for a second I think it wouldn’t be so bad to drown in those blue eyes.
“There’s something I’d really like to do,” he says in that low, lust-inducing voice of his.
I hear in my head the words he’d said in the water earlier. What I really want to do is kiss you. “What’s that?” I ask, wondering if I sound as jumbled as I feel.
“I’d like to take you to dinner for your birthday tonight.”
“You don’t have to do that.” Surely he’s being nice.
“I want to do that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Never been more sure of anything.”
I smile and nod. “Thank you.” He pulls his phone out of the storage compartment, taps the screen and says, “May I have your number in case we need to touch base?”
I give it to him, and as we find our spots on the Sea-Doo and head back up the coast, I’m still thinking about that kiss.
Chapter Nine
“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Nicole
DR. BAKER’S OFFICE is on the fifth floor of a high-rise in West Palm Beach. This is only the third time she’s had an appointment with him, and her stomach drops as she steps out of the elevator, apprehension popping a fine sheen of sweat across her forehead and the back of her neck.
She knows that the job of a psychiatrist isn’t to judge his patient, but she can’t talk to him about her life and the choices she’s made without waiting for that look of disbelief to cross his face. You did that?
And so she arrives at each appointment with a sense of dread that hangs over her like a heavy grey curtain.
She wipes a hand across her forehead and opens the office door, stepping inside and walking over to the check-in window. The receptionist is moderately cheerful, as if she knows patients are there for serious reasons and it would be inappropriate to look too happy to see them.
Nicole gives her name. The woman checks her insurance card and her contact info, then asks her to take a seat in the waiting room. She’s the only one here, which is a good thing as far as she’s concerned. She hates making eye contact with other patients because there’s always some reluctant acknowledgment that each of them would pretty much rather be anywhere else.
She flips through a couple of magazines, uninterested in the lives displayed on the pages, perfectly dressed people with flawless complexions getting out of Ferrari’s in Hollywood. She used to look at such pictures with envy. Those people had the world by the tail. They were the chosen ones. Tragedy never touched them. Everything they wanted appeared as if by magic at their fingertips.
She’s old enough and far enough down the road of life to know this isn’t true. Those people have affairs. Over-invest. Gain weight. Lose weight. Betray. Are betrayed. Get married. Get divorced. They experience all the same highs and lows as the rest of the world. But maybe people like to buy into the fantasy, that somewhere, for someone, life is perfect. Like a novel with a pink bow happy ending, suspension of disbelief required.
The door at the corner of the waiting room opens. A nurse steps out. “Miss Camilleri?”
Nicole glances up, puts the magazine on the end table and follows the woman in white down a hallway to Dr. Baker’s office. She opens the door, waves Nicole inside.
Dr. Baker looks up and smiles a smile she would have ordinarily found contagious. But somehow, here, she is suspicious of such gestures. “Hello, Nicole,” he says. “How are you today?”
She takes the chair across from his desk, puts her purse on the floor and clasps her hands in her lap. “I’m good. How are you?”
“Fine, fine.”
He studies her for a moment, and she remembers what she dislikes about these sessions. She feels as if she is under a microscope, resists the urge to squirm under the scrutiny.
“Where did we leave off last time?” he asks softly.
“Um. We were talking about my sister’s birthday.”
“Ah, yes. It was-”
“Today, actually.”
He leans back, makes a teepee of his fingers, lets a few beats of silence drop between them. “And did you get in touch with her?”
“I decided you were right. I sent her an email wishing her a happy birthday.”
“And has she responded?”
“No,” Nicole says quickly. “But I didn’t expect her to.”
“Did you say anything else in the email?”
“Just that I hope she’ll forgive me someday.”
“Good. And do you think she will?”
She shrugs, looks down at her hands. And then, in a low voice, “No. And as I’ve said, I don’t blame her.”
Dr. Baker is silent until Nicole lifts her head and looks at him. “Neither one of us knows if that will turn out to be true. The only thing we can affect is how you see what has happened. And how you choose to be shaped by it.”
Nicole laughs a soft laugh. “I choose to be shaped?”
He nods. “Yes. It is your choice, really.”
“The only choice that was mine was cheating with my sister’s husband.”
Again, if she intended to shock him with her words, he appears unfazed. “That was your choice as well, I agree. And based on everything you’ve said here so far, it is something you seriously regret.”
“Regret doesn’t erase pain though, does it?”
“No, it does not.”
“And it doesn’t change the fact that I am a horrible person.”
“Nicole. You made a mistake. One action does not define us for a lifetime.”
“I’m afraid this one does.”
He sits back in his chair, folds his arms and studies her for several long moments. “The question you have yet to answer is the why. Why did you choose to have an affair with your sister’s husband? As I have explained to you before, I believe that until we can identify the root cause of our actions, we are doomed to make some version of the same mistakes again and again.”
“I won’t be making this one again,” she declares instantly.
“Maybe not exactly. But some version of it, yes, I believe you will. It’s what we humans do.”
Nicole bites her lower lip, wanting to snap her disagreement with him, but she doesn’t allow herself. She keeps her voice deliberately even when she says, “I have never been successful at beating my sister at anything, and I certainly didn’t beat her at this.”
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