Olivia was about to dive in when Brody emerged, his mother in his arms. She was coughing and pushing against him.
“Leave me alone!” Fanny shouted.
Brody pulled her over toward Sébastien and the now upright kayak, holding one arm across her chest.
“I’m fine, goddamn it!” Fanny yelled. “I know how to swim, for Christ’s sake.”
Nell started laughing. “Look at the three of you,” she called. “Three heroes in search of a damsel in distress.”
“Well, I’m no damsel,” Fanny said. “Brody, let me go right now or I’m going to smack you.”
Brody released her. She put her arms on the side of the kayak and rested for a moment.
“Need a hand?” Brody asked sheepishly.
“Not on your life,” Fanny said. She pulled herself up and into the boat. Nell and Olivia cheered wildly.
“My God,” Nell said. “There is way too much testosterone around here.”
Brody hauled himself up into the kayak with his mother.
He looked back, avoiding Olivia’s eyes. “We’re switching teams,” he said.
And then suddenly her kayak lurched and Jake climbed into the back.
“Is this musical chairs?” Olivia asked, unsure about her new partner.
“Or spin the bottle,” Jake said with a grin.
“Spare me,” Olivia groaned.
Sébastien climbed into the kayak with Nell and they were off again, following Brody and Fanny as they headed west.
“Brody’s worried about his mother,” Olivia said, her jaw set as she began to paddle again.
“He’s a good son,” Jake said. “Always has been.”
Olivia turned back, surprised. Jake was Brody’s oldest childhood friend. Of course he knew Brody’s relationship with his mom.
“I would hate to fall in love with a man who hated his mom,” Olivia said. “Bad sign, I think.”
“Good thing you didn’t fall in love with me,” Jake told her.
“I haven’t seen my mother in six years. The woman’s a holy terror. I need to stay away to stay sane.”
Olivia looked back at him.
“Keep paddling,” he called.
She spun around and fell back into a rhythm, stroking left, then right. She imagined Jake behind her, watching. It made her uneasy. Something about him unnerved her. They had met once before, when she visited Brody in Wyoming. The three of them went to a small-town music concert, set up on an empty lot by the river. One band played what they called western blues and another band played roots rock. Olivia loved the crowd—families, western hipsters, old hippies, and cowboys. Jake spent all his time on the dance floor, grinding with the prettiest girls.
Jake made Olivia feel old. With most people she was the bohemian, the theater person, the Californian freethinker. But she found herself judging Jake. Why didn’t he grow up? Why didn’t he settle down?
Why was he solid, reliable Brody’s best friend? Why was he going to perform their wedding ceremony tomorrow?
When they told him they were getting married he had sent Brody an email.
No fucking way, Brody. Do I have to come out there and save you? Live a little. Live a lot. Why turn into a married man again?
“Why do you like this guy?” Olivia had asked Brody.
“We have a long history together,” Brody had told her. Which told her nothing.
“Just give him a chance,” he had insisted. “Do it for me.”
But did she have to spend the morning kayaking with him?
Of course Jake hated his mother. He probably hated all women.
“Do you have women friends?” she asked Jake now.
“I was very close with Grace,” he told her.
Olivia felt it like a slap across her face.
“Tell me about her,” she said. Her paddle smacked against the water. She had lost her rhythm. She could feel Jake behind her, trying to correct the boat’s direction.
“She was very different from you,” he said.
“How so?”
“In about a million different ways,” Jake told her.
And then he fell silent, leaving her to fill in the blanks.
Olivia tried to settle herself by falling into a comfortable rhythm with the paddle: stroke, lift, twist; stroke, lift, twist. Sure enough, her arms were growing tired. But she wouldn’t admit that to Jake; she powered on.
Grace probably had superwoman arms, she thought.
As they passed the first opening in the cliffs she finally could see what a calanque was all about. A long finger of water stretched inland, bordered by immense limestone cliffs. The iridescent blue water shimmered against the dazzling white rock.
“Take a look!” she called to Jake.
“Want to blow off the group and go explore?” he yelled back.
She felt a flash of anger. Brody’s the leader, not you. Brody’s my partner, not you.
“No,” she said. “We’re supposed to go in backwards order. We’ll see this one last.”
“Aha. So you’ll be a dutiful wife?”
She spun around and glared at him. He was smiling devilishly.
She turned away. “Brody and I will be good for each other,” she said. “I’m sure of that.”
“How can you be sure?” he asked. “What if another guy catches your eye?”
“I don’t think so, Jake.”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said. “I’m sure there are lots of men who hit on you.”
She shook her head. He was testing her. He wanted to know if he could warn his buddy against her. She wouldn’t play his game.
Her arms pushed the paddle through the water with a surge of new energy. I can’t compete with Saint Grace. I’m not her. I’m me.
N
ell and Sébastien were the last to pull up to the beach at the end of the calanque. Nell had finally figured out how to paddle, using Sébastien’s advice. “You told me you practice yoga,” he had said when he saw her slapping the water with each stroke. “Try zen kayaking.”
“What the hell is that?” Nell asked, wet from the constant splashing of her paddle, annoyed that she had lost Jake as a partner. He was sexy and distracting. She needed a major distraction.
“Breathe through each stroke. Just like yoga. Make your breath long and steady. Same with the stroke.”
Not a chance, she thought. But she started to match her breath with each stroke. Soon, the strokes lengthened and her heart eased. The kayak glided through the water.
“It worked!” she called back to him.
“Je sais,”
he told her.
“Zen kayaking,” she said, pleased.
So they zen kayaked to shore and finally abandoned the boat, pulled it up high on the beach, and walked to join the others.
Nell stayed back for a moment, watching the group, their feet in the water, staring out to sea. She was the kid among them, though at twenty-eight she should stop thinking of herself as a kid. But they seemed like a different species to her—they had jobs and homes and history. She had nothing. She felt unformed, as if she were still hoping to wake up one morning and recognize herself in the mirror. There I am. Nell, an adult in the world. This is what I do; this is where I’m headed.
Her mother and Jake stood to one side, in the middle of some kind of argument. Olivia was always over-animated when she was angry. Now she gestured madly with her hands, as if speaking sign language. And her body emanated excess energy. Nell could see that Jake was smiling, either amused by Olivia’s outburst or doing his best not to let her get under his skin. Nell liked the wicked smile.
Sébastien offered Fanny a towel that Brody then wrapped around her shoulders. Nell stepped up to them and breathed in the sea air. I belong here, too, she told herself.
The mountains that hugged this spit of water were sheer and luminous. The sea lapped up against the rock, blue and white so startlingly bright that Nell squinted in the glare of so much color.
She relaxed her shoulders and let her arms drop. They were
weary from paddling. She let a slow breath run through her, calming her.
Then Gavin flitted through her mind like a gnat, disturbing her peace. She imagined him driving her lousy rental car, picking up a hitchhiker, a pretty young French girl with a short skirt. She imagined his eyes on her thighs.
No. She swatted the gnat away.
“Who wants to swim?” she called out.
The group startled as if all of them had been caught in a trance.
“Race you to the rock!” Brody shouted, his body catapulting forward so that in three long strides he could dive into the water.
Nell saw a low flat rock that protruded from one side of the inlet. It was halfway down the finger of water, a long swim from the beach.
“You’re on!” Nell shouted, though Brody could no longer hear her.
She ran until the water was deep enough and then dove into all that blue.
She swam quickly, her tired arms pushing her forward. Her muscles trembled with the effort. Zen swimming, she thought. She found a rhythm to her stroke, slow and steady, and soon her arms started to float overhead, one and then the other, propelling her forward. Her head was filled with the sound of the sea.
She imagined Chaney swimming at her side. They matched their strokes, their stride, their smiles. We’ll make love on that rock, she thought. Black rock, blue sea, white cliffs. And your
long body next to mine. When we make love you’ll come home to me.
She swallowed water, too much water. She coughed and sputtered and blinked the salty water from her eyes.
“You okay?” she heard.
Brody bobbed by her side.
“You were underwater too long,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. But she wasn’t fine. She had lost Chaney and Gavin and now she was gasping for air in the calm Mediterranean Sea.
“We’re almost at the rock,” Brody said. “Catch your breath.”
“Not in the middle of a race,” Nell insisted and pushed herself forward one more time.
Brody swam behind her, probably so that he’d scoop her up if she sank underwater. There was something so heroic about him, so rock solid. Oddly, he made her feel wobbly, as if she needed a guy like him to save her.
I can save myself, she thought.
But she couldn’t save herself. She picked up a guy who fucked her like crazy and then stole her car and went AWOL. In front of her mother, her sister, and Mr. Knight-in-Shining-Armor.
Finally the slick black rock appeared in front of her. She pulled herself up onto it and dropped back on the sun-warmed surface. She was spent, every muscle exhausted.
“You beat me,” Brody said, and he piked his body up, spun around and sat on the edge of the rock.
“I so didn’t beat you,” Nell said, unmoving.
“You all right?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Tired or something more serious?”
Nell didn’t answer for a moment, considering all the possibilities. Tired. Sad. Angry. Embarrassed. How about crazy? Conjuring up a dead boyfriend was pretty wacky business.
Brody put his hand on her foot. “Rest for a while,” he said.
But she couldn’t rest. Her mind raced, thoughts colliding into each other. She and Chaney used to play a game, What Lurks in Your Brain, telling each other random thoughts that led to other random thoughts, the crazier the better, until they’d both be laughing hysterically. Why was everything so funny back then? Did he have a secret life of random thoughts that were dark and scary? Did she seem too frivolous a girlfriend to carry the burden of what really lurked in his brain?
Nell opened her eyes and stared at the sky. Wispy clouds sped across the expanse of pale blue. The sun warmed her body from above; the rock warmed her from below. She felt Brody’s hand holding her foot as if he was scared she’d escape. Where the hell would I go?
“Your wife died, right?” Nell said, still staring above her into the endless sky.
And just like that he let go of her foot. She felt adrift somehow.
“Breast cancer,” Brody finally said.
She sat up and looked at him. He gazed down into the water.
“I thought they could cure breast cancer these days.”
“Not all kinds.”
“Was she sick for a long time?”
Brody finally turned toward her. His face was different—stonier,
somehow. He didn’t want to talk about it. No one wanted to talk about dead people.
He nodded. “A year.”
“I wonder if that’s easier,” Nell said.
“Easier than what?” His voice was sharp.
“Than what Chaney did. Dying in an instant. Dying without letting me know.”
Brody turned away but his hand wrapped around her foot again. She lay down, took a deep breath and felt herself sink into the rock as if her body could lose its hard edges.
“None of it’s easy,” Brody said. “Losing someone you love.”
“But you had time to get used to the idea.”
He shook his head. “There’s no getting used to it.” He tilted his head up to the sky. “And then she was gone.”
Nell thought about all of the ways in which Chaney was gone. The funky smell of him when he came back from karate and she’d say: “Don’t take a shower, take me to bed.” The sound of his voice reading for the part of a frog in an animated movie. Later that night he croaked to her: “Wanna join me on my lily pad?” She still had his peacoat, which she wore every day of the mild Los Angeles winter even though it made her look a little homeless, a little childish. No, he was gone, gone, gone.
“I never told Chaney I loved him,” she said quietly.
“Why not?”
“I was scared he’d flee. Guys do that. They’re scared of girls like me.”
“Why?”
“I wanted so much. Too much.”
“There are guys who will want that.”
She shook her head. “If Chaney had known that I loved him,” she said finally, “he might not have killed himself.”
“You couldn’t save him, Nell.”
“How do you know?”
“Because in the end, love isn’t always enough.”
She heard a shout and lifted her head. A kayak overturned near the rock and two teenagers screamed at each other in French.
“So how’d you do it?” she asked.
He glanced back at her, confused.
“Fall in love again.”
“It’s all your mother’s fault,” he said and he squeezed her foot.
“But you were ready,” she said.
He looked out to sea. Finally he shook his head. “No, not ready,” he said. “But you do it anyway. You fall again. You fall hard. You fall like you’ve never fallen in love before.”