She stops, blinking out of her trance, while I gape at her, my mouth open, my lips parched like my throat, a terrible feeling galloping through me.
It’s not her words and her stream of consciousness that makes me quiver inside. It’s the timing and this surreal feeling.
The sequence in which these moments come through the closest people.
It’s the gory feeling that they carry something real. Like a metaphysic riddle I’m supposed to solve.
What is happening to her?
Frankie smiles casually as if we haven’t spent half of the afternoon talking about Olivia’s warnings and the strange sensation it has spurred in me.
“Do you know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh,” I mutter hurriedly, not having the slightest idea what it means in a context.
Why is she relaying this to me now?
Why the ‘men talk’ all of a sudden?
“What do you think?”
Her question slaps me out of my head.
“Uh... What do I think? I think you have a great imagination, and maybe you should write books for a living instead of teaching.”
I season my words with a dash of humor, yet she seems taken aback, registering with her as blunt irony.
I shift gears, cleaning up my grin.
“It’s beautiful. And it’s romantic, and you said it right... A lover on each continent would be more fitting.”
She regains her sense of humor.
“I thought he needed some competition.”
“Haha. Funny.”
“Men like competition.”
“Not always. Do you remember––?”
She cuts me off.
“Yeah, yeah. I remember.”
Pete was a quiet man who owned a vast collection of poems.
He had a crush on Frankie, and she treated him nicely until he dumped her one day because she started to study with a male colleague.
Nothing brought him back–– not her reassuring or her pleadings.
“Forget about him. I don’t want to ruin my day.”
She looks at the ocean again.
“You know what? I think I’m going to venture into the water,” she says, tipping her gaze up to the sky, figuring that the sun would shine for the next few minutes before a cloud would block it. “Do you want to come?”
“Not now,” I say, rifling through the contents of my backpack and pulling out a few peanut butter crackers.
“I love those,” she says, leaping to her feet and heading to the water. “Save some for me too.”
“I will,” I say, crumbs falling from my lips. “They’re so good,” I murmur to myself.
I indulge in a couple more before sweeping the crumbs off the beach towel and centering my eyes on the water.
5
LUNA RAE
She moves her arms up in the air, waving at me, her tiny bra disappearing into the water before she dives completely under a wave.
The ocean looks scary in the distance, maybe because of the clusters of thick gray clouds blocking the light and tossing a dark-green veil over the surface.
The weather is about to change. I fish out my phone and check the local news. Forty percent chance of rain. That’s high for this place.
Maybe we’re lucky, and they go away.
My hand hits the towel as I slide my phone to the side and lean my head against the backpack. I shift my eyes up to the bright sky vaulting above the shore.
The wind brings the scent of the ocean, embalming my hair. I smell like salt and algae, and overall the mysterious world, living beneath the water.
Within seconds, the sound of waves turns into a quiet hum, my mind opening to a realm of thoughts and inspiration.
What if Frankie is right?
What if I get to the point where something’s missing after a few years of practicing law? What if playing my violin would bring me more pleasure?
Mysterious man aside, what if she sees what lies ahead of me instead of me?
“Luna??”
Her voice glides across the waves, prompting me to shoot upright and look at her.
I fear something bad, but then I see her waving at me again, flashing a big smile and diving into the water again. Her spine arches in the air before the water sweeps her in.
Like a fish in the water... The ocean always made her happy. It makes me serene too.
I lift my hand to shield my eyes and scan the shore when the blonde man I noticed before starts surfing next to the woman.
Their friend is way up north, away from them.
“They always do that...” I murmur to myself. “One gets the girl.”
They’re both in their twenties like us, but a few years older than us, I suspect.
She’s athletic like him, her hair tied in a ponytail. She’s pretty, his face escaping my gaze for the second time.
Bored, I fall back and look at the sky again. I wonder what kind of man he is.
Amused, I laugh softly to myself. Olivia and her advice.
I scoop up my phone, swipe my finger across the screen, and start reading a book.
Between the light that keeps shifting as the sun slips behind the clouds one moment to explode with glow a few seconds later and my restless mind, I can’t focus on the first paragraph, let alone a chapter.
I plop my phone down onto my chest, my eyes pinned on the sky.
I bet he’s the second kind.
The kind of man you do everything for.
Furtively, I sneak a glance at the couple. They pulled ashore not far from me.
I get a better glimpse of her body––her toned thighs, trim waist, and chest draw an hourglass silhouette. She’s about Frankie’s height and fills her wetsuit better than I would.
I’m far from luscious–– I look more girlish–– but I have a nice shape forged in long hours of playing sports.
I’m stiffer too.
She has that nice tease in her body, the kind that comes with getting hot between the sheets with someone. Her sexy smile makes her attractive, and flirting seems to be her second nature.
Her male companion folds his kite, turning his back to me. I wonder if it worked... Her smile on him.
I don’t know, but he undoes his wetsuit and lets it hang around his waist–– maybe his sculpted V-shaped torso is his answer to her teasing.
She thinks that too, glancing furtively at him several times.
I let them be.
The place goes eerily quiet for a few long moments.
As if the wind no longer blows and the people no longer walk on the shore, and Frankie no longer tumbles in the water.
Slowly I inhale the oceanic air. It works its magic. It calms me down and makes me slip into a trance.
Olivia must be cruising at a high altitude right now, and Frankie must be rolling in the water.
The surfers must’ve left the beach, and the evening will most likely find them wrestling between the sheets.
I shed their surf suits in my mind, imagining them locked and panting–– naked.
Lucky woman.
Perhaps giving everything to him comes with rewards, after all. Olivia said that it could happen, but it’s not a sure thing.
Let’s not fool ourselves; it never is.
The sky turns gray, the barking of a dog floating in the air.
I thought that dogs were not allowed on the beach. The realization makes me pull up and look in that direction.
People retreat, anticipating the bad weather, and the dog and his owner are in the parking lot, picking up their family members.