That Birthday in Barbados

by Inglath Cooper

  “Do people die if their appendix is bad?”

  Catherine’s expression becomes a cloud of worry. “Maybe you should go to the nurse’s office.”

  Nicole shakes her head. “No, I don’t want to without you. Can’t we go on the canoe ride and see how it is when we get back? If I’m with you, you can keep an eye on me.”

  Catherine glances at Johnny again, and Nicole realizes she doesn’t want to miss the canoe ride because that would mean missing out on Johnny. “Okay, but if you get worse while we’re out there, we’ll have to come back and go to the infirmary.”

  Nicole nods, remembering to keep her face convincingly concerned, her hand on her side.

  The canoes arrive, the college-student counselors pulling them on shore and making sure everyone gets a spot on one. And as they paddle for the center of the lake, a hot July morning sun draping their shoulders, Nicole glances back. Johnny is in the last canoe with Corinne Matthews. By all accounts, he appears to have forgotten about Catherine. And if Nicole feels a smidge of guilt, she tells herself Johnny would never have been good enough for Catherine, anyway.

  No boy will ever be good enough for Catherine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

  ― Mae West

  Catherine

  ANDERS HAS TO work at the spa for the afternoon. Just as well. I park myself on the beach, the pink-toweled chair lulling me into a couple of naps that prove I’m a complete no-hang. I also down a large bottle of Evian and prop up the sign in the sand that brings the waiter over. I order another one and yield to his recommendation of a garden salad that comes with grilled artichokes.

  Once he returns with the tray holding my salad and bottled water, I sit up in the chair and pull a novel from my canvas bag, attempting to read while I eat the admittedly delicious lunch.

  But my thoughts refuse to stay on the plot, veering instead to last night’s moonlit beach and the flashes of memory in which I can still feel Anders’ mouth on mine, the hard outline of his body beneath mine.

  Heat fans through my belly, and I blink away the memories, telling myself I should know better at my age. I use my fork to toy with another bite of salad, my appetite suddenly dulled under the realization that I am yearning for something I most assuredly am not going to have.

  Before coming on this trip, I would have declared myself not even remotely interested in a relationship. Three years, and I haven’t been out on a single date. I’ve wondered if there was something wrong with me. Most women would have gotten over it by now and moved on, or at least that’s what the therapist I saw for a year tried to make me see.

  But I haven’t been ready to move on. I haven’t met anyone who made me want to move on. Who seemed worth the risk.

  Until now?

  Is that what I’m thinking about Anders? That he might be worth the risk?

  The only reasonable answer to the question is no. He’s almost ten years younger than I am. A relationship isn’t something that can only last in countable days. Other words might apply. Fling. Hookup. One-night stand.

  Is that something I see myself doing?

  No.

  Casual sex won’t fix what’s broken inside me.

  As tempting as it might be.

  Reality check. A gorgeous young man took pity on a woman spending her fortieth birthday alone and asked her out to dinner. Things went a little farther than either of us planned. And here’s where reason re-enters the picture.

  No more thinking about kissing on the beach. No more wondering what it would be like―

  I stop that thought there, place the lid back on my tray and pick up my novel. Vacation. Tanning. Reading. Escape the winter cold for a few sun-kissed days. And then back to reality. Work. And the very different life I lead in New York City.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

  ― Pablo Picasso

  Catherine

  OF COURSE MY resolve only lasts until mid-morning the following day when a text from Anders pops up on my phone.

  I’d opted out of spin, deciding to run on the beach instead since I didn’t have enough faith in my will power to test it by actually having to see him face to face.

  The text contains a simple invitation.

  Up for an adventure today?

  The answer should be simple enough. Busy with a book on the beach today. No can do.

  But then I tell myself this will end of its own accord. Time will run out like sand in an hourglass, and I’ll be on a plane back to Manhattan and the sun, the sand, the sea turtles, and Anders, too, will all be part of the past, sweet memories, and nothing but.

  *

  ANDERS DRIVES US to Seabird Parasailing in a vintage Land Rover Defender. It’s light-blue, boxy with open sides and a canvas roof. The seats are anything but cushy, but it’s the perfect island vehicle. I hold my arm out the window, loving the warm air and the unexpected glimpses I get of the ocean along the way.

  “There’s something I should probably tell you,” I say, leaning my head against the seat and trying not to let my concern show.

  “You’re scared of heights?” he says, nailing me.

  “A little?”

  “I defer to Eleanor Roosevelt. ‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do.’”

  “Excellent in theory,” I say, glancing out my side of the truck where a trio of goats are grazing the yard of a small house. “What if I get up there and decide I can’t do it?”

  “I’ll be right beside you. They have a two-person parasail.”

  I admit to breathing a sigh of relief. “If I fall out, does that mean you’ll dive in after me?”

  He laughs, hanging a left on a road that winds toward the ocean. “At your service, ma’am.”

  I smile and shake my head, wondering how I let myself get talked into this. “You know my original idea was something benign, like a picnic.”

  “You’ll do great.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you don’t like to let things beat you.”

  I lean out and give him a look. “And how do you know that?”

  “I pay attention. I want to know what makes you tick.”

  Something short and sarcastic rises to the tip of my tongue, but I press my lips together, and turn my head, not at all sure what to make of that assertion. I think of Connor and the last few years of our marriage. Of how I gradually became more and more aware of his lack of interest in me, in who I was as a person. The thought ignites a pain in my chest, and I realize yet again how quickly I can see myself through the lens of a husband no longer in love with his wife.

  “Hey.” Anders presses his hand on top of mine. “Come back. Be here for now. No before. No after. Just here. Now.”

  I swing my gaze to his, wondering how it’s possible to feel this connection with someone I’ve known for mere days. How is it possible for him to all but read my mind?

  But I want to do exactly what he’s just asked me to do. I don’t want to see myself as rejected wife, betrayed sister. I want to be a blank canvas. Figure out which colors paint a new me, a me I can see with new eyes.

  I catch a glimpse of a parasail on the horizon ahead of us. Anders points, and I nod once. “I can’t wait,” I say. And I actually mean it.

  *

  LESS THAN AN hour later, we hang high in the sky, at least four hundred feet above the slightly choppy deep blue ocean. I don’t even know how I managed to hook myself into the harness, sit calmly on the back of the boat as the attendant double-checked to make sure everything was secure. Just as the boat started to move, and the parasail began slowly lifting us into the air, I let out a little scream, and Anders reached over to take my hand, clasping his fingers through mine.

  His touch was like a release valve though which all my anxiety just flowed out into nothingness. Now, I am simply here in this moment, suspended
in the warm Caribbean sky with a man who’s making me see the world from a different point of view.

  He leans in now and says, “High enough?”

  I nod. “Plenty high.”

  He raises his voice so I can hear him. “Did you know there’s a type of vulture that’s been recorded at 37,000 feet? Commercial airliners fly around 35,000.”

  “How?” I ask. “What about oxygen?”

  “They have a kind of hemoglobin that makes them much more efficient at oxygen intake.”

  “That’s impressive, but I’m good right here,” I say. I lean back, give him an assessing look. “You know a lot.”

  He tips his head, shrugs. “I like to read. I’ve never bought a TV because I don’t want to give up my book time at night.”

  I smile at this. “You really are one surprise after another.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  “It is, actually,” I say. “It is.”

  We make our way along the coast, far enough out to avoid snorkelers and fishing boats, but still with an incredible view of the mansions lining the beachfront. I spot the pink chairs and umbrellas of the Sandy Lane beach and marvel again at what a beautiful place it is.

  Another few minutes, and the driver swings the boat in a wide arc, and we head back the way we came. Something I’ve never felt before sweeps over me, and I suddenly have a glimpse of the life I’ve been living as if I’m looking at it from high above my actual existence. It looks small and questionable, as if its pieces are constructed of toothpicks instead of timbers, capable of toppling at the first strong wind.

  Was that the life I meant to build?

  I close my eyes for a moment against the undeniable truth. No. I’d meant to do the opposite, actually.

  And yet here I am, aware as I have never been before, that I am living a life I am not sure I want to go back to.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Sometimes it just feels really really wonderful to be alive.”

  ― Doug Coupland

  Catherine

  WE LAND ON the parasail boat’s platform.

  As my feet touch the rubberized surface, I feel as if I’ve just climbed Mount Everest. “Let’s do it again.”

  Anders laughs. “Thrill junkie. I knew you had it in you.”

  The young man who helped us out of the harnesses smiles at me and says, “You come back tomorrow. We’ll make a time for you.”

  I smile back at him, saying, “That was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.”

  I’m not sure who looks more pleased, him or Anders. The driver eases the boat back to the beach, and once we’re close enough in, Anders and I climb out, thanking him for the ride.

  We’re headed back to the Jeep when I notice the sprinkle of rain on my shoulders. I look to the sky, see the dark, almost isolated cloud that is opening its contents above us. Anders grabs my hand, and we run to the Land Rover. He opens my door, and I climb inside, pushing my now wet hair back from my face.

  He climbs in the driver’s side and with a hand on the steering wheel, looks at me with a half-smile. “We need to make you a list.”

  “Of what?” I ask, hearing the teasing note in his voice.

  “Things you’ve never done before.”

  “Oh, a bucket list, you mean?”

  “Not a list for preparing to die. You need a list for living. A life list.”

  “Well, that was a good one to start with,” I concede. “Never imagined myself doing that.”

  He laughs a light laugh, starts the engine. “Show you where I live?”

  I see the line I’m about to cross, as if it’s been drawn out between us in red paint.

  Sensible Catherine would say, “Better get back to the hotel.”

  Newly adventurous Catherine says, “I’d love to see where you live.”

  *

  BY THE TIME we make the turn onto the drive leading to a lovely, surprisingly large off-white stucco house with a slate roof, the rain has begun to pour in earnest, pelleting the windshield like diamonds being hurled from the sky. Thunder rumbles an ominous soundtrack. Anders cuts the engine, and says, “We can wait here, or make a run for it.”

  I open my door. “I’m game if you are.”

  We race to the front entrance where he pulls a key from his pocket and opens the heavy mahogany door.

  We’re both soaked, my T-shirt and shorts sticking to me.

  “I’ll just grab some towels,” he says, disappearing into a bathroom to the right of the foyer. He returns a few seconds later with two thick white towels, passing one to me and drying off with the other.

  I run it across my hair and try to absorb some of the moisture from my shirt. I wrap the towel around my shoulders, taking in the house before us. The foyer is two stories high and opens into a very large living area with wide glass doors that offer a view of the beach and ocean beyond. A well-appointed kitchen sits to the left. I note the Wolf stove with its trademark red knobs. The flooring is a beautiful travertine stone in an antique white.

  Canvas paintings add vibrant color to the neutral walls. Casual, dark leather furniture sits on top of a sea-green rug. The house is impressive, yet welcoming. “This is beautiful,” I say, not hiding my surprise. “Wall Street must have been very good to you.”

  He shrugs. “I left some in the market, but I have to admit, as investments go, I’d rather live in one than look at it on paper.”

  “Real estate good here?”

  “I bought this place at a noted market low. If I needed to sell, I’d come out pretty well. And you know what they say. God isn’t making any more land.”

  “True,” I say.

  “Can I get you a dry shirt? Don’t think I have any shorts that are going to work, but-”

  “A dry T-shirt would be great.”

  “Be right back.”

  The house is one level, and he jogs off down the hall to our left. I walk over to the glass doors, staring out at the rain that has now lowered its intensity, washing the heat from the cascade of vivid bougainvillea draping the wall between the pool and beach. I wonder what it would be like to live here, and I know a stab of envy that is not typical of me.

  “Here you go,” he says, returning to hand me a white T-shirt with Sandy Lane Barbados scripted across the front in pink. “A friend of mine left it here after a visit. She’s not as small as you, but it should do.”

  I take it, thanking him, resisting the urge to tease more information out of him regarding the friend.

  He has changed his shirt and shorts and is now dry except for his damp hair. “You can change in that bathroom,” he says, pointing to the one in the foyer.

  I close the door behind me, flicking on the light and studying myself in the mirror above the sink. One thing is for sure. Wet hair is not my friend. I run my hands through it, trying to revive its lift and then decide it’s a lost cause. I pull off my wet shirt and replace it with the dry one.

  When I return, he’s in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge. “Beer? Bottled water?”

  “Water’s good,” I say, not yet able to tolerate the idea of alcohol.

  He hands me a cold bottle of Evian. I twist off the top and take a sip. “Do you miss anything about your old life?”

  “Sometimes. I miss how exciting the city can be. But then I remind myself I live in a place people dream about vacationing in. And too, living there meant doing something I no longer want to do every day.”

  “Working in a job you hate?”

  “I can’t say I hated it. But it owned me. I don’t want to be owned anymore.”

  I nod, wishing I didn’t understand exactly what he’s saying. But I do.

  I’m quiet for a few moments, and then, “When you were younger, chasing after all that, did you ever imagine you’d feel that way?”

  He laughs a dry laugh. “No.” He shakes his head. “No. I wanted to make a life I could call my own. Prove that I could be somebody worth keeping.”

  A lit
tle wave of shock ripples through me at the raw truth exposed in the words. He realizes he’s revealed more than he meant to and brightens his expression.

  “Whoa. Didn’t mean to go there.”

  I reach out and cover his hand with mine. “I’m sorry those things happened to you.”

  “It’s okay-” he starts, but I stop him again.

  “It’s not,” I say, squeezing his hand, and then pulling mine away under the increasing intimacy between us.

  “I didn’t tell you about my childhood to make you feel sorry for me,” he says, again attempting lightness. “It was what it was. And I try to believe that we are who we become because of every single thing that happens to us. My goal is to keep heading for a better place.”

  I glance around us at the wonderfully comfortable home, at the beckoning blue ocean beyond its glass doors. “I think you have certainly done that,” I say softly.

  The rain has stopped, the clouds lifting as if they know they’ve exceeded their allotted time, and the sun makes a welcome reappearance. I shake my head a little, and say, “Here, the rain ducks in for a few minutes, and then it’s gone again.”

  “Yeah. Unlike New York where gray needs to be a favorite color, right?”

  “The winter is when it gets to me. I’m told I have seasonal affective disorder, so I’ve had to find ways to lift the winter blahs.”

  “A change of locale would do it,” he says, leaning a shoulder against the door frame and throwing the solution out as if it’s an actual possibility.

  “As part of the IPO, I agreed to five years as acting CEO. I owe them two more.” I hear myself saying this as if it’s actually a consideration that I might leave. When had that thought planted itself in my mind?

  “Do you intend to stay on after that?” Anders asks quietly.

  “I’ve never really thought about doing anything else. I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design. That’s where I had my original ideas about ActivGirl. There were times when I would stay up all night sketching designs. I had no idea how I would get the money to start my own company, but I knew I would someday. I wanted it that much.”