“Me too,” she says, returning the kiss. She needs to pee. The trip out was long, and she is hot and uncomfortable. He places his hand on her breast, and she lets him. She likes the way he touches her and the way he smells. Leather and sand. That he is English. It is like being ravished by a Regency duke. His hand is now under her shirt and her nipples are hardening. She doesn’t want to break away and decides she can wait. It is over quickly. He didn’t even bother removing her top or his. Her panties are around one ankle, and she is sitting on the bed while he washes up in the bathroom.
“We’ve just inaugurated the bedroom,” he calls to her.
Unfulfilled, she stares down at her naked legs and black pubic hairs, feeling vaguely foolish.
He comes back out. “Right, let’s go meet the others, shall we?”
“One moment.” She goes into the bathroom now, carrying her underwear and shorts. There didn’t seem any point in putting them on first. The bathroom is large and covered in marble. The towels decadently soft. There are two sinks, a bidet, and a shower with multiple heads in gleaming steel that probably cost her entire salary. There is another television screen, this one concealed behind the mirror. She splashes water on her face and wishes she had thought to bring in her toiletries. She has no hairbrush, no lipstick.
“Come on then,” calls Clive. “I’m famished.”
She walks out. “You look gorgeous, darling,” he says, swiveling his hips. “Fancy another go?” He winks and gives her a peck on the cheek. “Here, thought you might like this.” He hands her a glass of champagne like a reward. He is carrying another. “Don’t want to get too far behind everyone else. They’ve got a head start.”
By the pool are two other couples, the women reclining on chaises and the men at a table with a champagne bucket on it. It is very hot now, and she blinks in the sunlight. She is introduced to Derek and a blond woman who makes no attempt to rise. Her name is possibly Irina, but Claire doesn’t quite catch it. She looks for a ring and sees there isn’t one. The woman has an accent Claire can’t place, and looks quite tall. She is in good shape. Derek is stubby and also English and wears a red Manchester United shirt. On his wrist is a fat, diamond-encrusted watch. He was in the middle of telling a funny story and clearly didn’t like being interrupted.
The other couple is married. “Larry,” says a portly, balding man with glasses, “and this is my wife, Jodie.” Jodie smiles at Claire, turning her head just enough to inspect her. She, too, is wearing an expensive watch. And several glittering rings. They are all wearing expensive watches. Claire doesn’t wear a watch.
Jodie is around forty and has a taut, trimmed stomach that flattens into an orange bikini. Her breasts look too good to be natural. “So where did you two meet?” she asks, taking a sip of champagne. Claire notices that Jodie’s fingernails and toenails are painted burnt gold. The veins on her feet and forearms stand out.
“At a party in New York a few weeks ago,” says Claire. “It was . . .”
“It was love at first sight, wasn’t it, darling?” says Clive with a laugh, sliding his arm around her waist.
“Speak for yourself,” responds Claire playfully. “Handsome English hedge fund managers are a dime a dozen these days.”
Jodie smiles. She has been here before. Has met his other women. Clive preens.
“Right, chaps,” he announces. “I don’t have a bite of food in the house, and even if I did I’m a rotten cook, so I’ve booked lunch. Let’s drink up and go.”
Lunch takes most of the afternoon. There is caviar followed by grilled lobster and more wine. It is Clive’s treat. “My shout,” he said when they sat down. “Order whatever costs the most.”
Even though it is hot, they sit outside under large green umbrellas looking over a harbor full of sailboats. Clive points out to Long Island Sound and, in the distance, Connecticut. It was an old whaling port, he says, once one of the biggest on the East Coast. “Settled by an Englishman, of course,” he says. “A bit of a soldier of fortune named Lion Gardiner. The family still owns an entire island in the Sound that was given them by Charles the First. Must be why I feel so drawn to the place. I think old Lion and I would have been great mates.”
Seagulls wheel overhead. Occasionally a particularly brave one lands and is then shooed away by a waiter. Claire is seated between Clive and Larry, but the men just talk across at each other, and there doesn’t seem to be much point in trying to join in because most of the conversation is about either the derivatives market or English football, of which both Clive and Derek are big fans.
As a result Claire drinks more wine than she should and begins to wonder when she could get the earliest train back to New York. Would Clive drive her to the station or would she have to call a taxi? He would be annoyed. She is silently relieved when he proposes a trip to the beach. The other two women make vague noises about not liking the sand and can’t they all just go back to the pool, but they are shouted down by Clive and the other men.
After a quick stop by the house to change, Clive piles everyone into his Range Rover—“I’m the only one with a beach sticker and the bloody cops like nothing better than handing out parking tickets on weekends in June”—and Claire sits in the back between Jodie and Larry. Derek sits in front with tall Irina perched comically on his broad lap. When they arrive at the crowded beach, Clive, carrying a cooler, marches down close to the water and stops on a tiny patch of unoccupied sand between two other groups. “You can still get a decent cell phone signal here,” he says, opening a complicated nylon folding chair. Claire is holding the towels, a nanny visiting the beach with her employers. The others are straggling behind. Jodie is complaining. “My hat’s going to blow away, dammit,” she says. “Christ, why’d we have to come here?”
Claire looks out at the sparkling blue water and the small foam-tipped waves gently crashing against the sand. Children are playing, laughing and diving through the surf while parents and babysitters stand in the shallows and watch. It is still early in the season, and the water is too cold for most swimmers. The cloudless sky stretches endlessly back beyond the curve of the world. She wishes she were here alone.
“More wine?” asks Clive. He is filling glasses.
She shakes her head. “No thanks. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“There’s a reason why these houses cost so much, love. See that one over there? It sold last summer for forty million. There’s one down there that sold for twenty million the other year. The new owner tore it down and put up an even bigger one.”
“You couldn’t give me one of those houses,” says Larry. “You know what the upkeep is on one of those things? Salt damage, dune erosion, hurricanes, taxes? Only an asshole with more money than brains would buy one.”
“That’s why I bought one well inland, old boy. I’m an asshole with money and brains,” Clive adds with a wink.
Jodie walks up. “Do we have to stay? My hair is getting ruined.”
Clive has taken off his shirt. His torso is as tanned as his face, the muscles lean. He is a fitness enthusiast, one who practices yoga every day, goes to the gym regularly, pops vitamins. Claire can see the other women admiring him, envying her. She knows that body, has felt it, tasted it. But she has never seen it outside the bedroom. In the sunlight. She looks away, conscious of her desire. Her own arms are pale. She has never been able to get tan the way Clive can. She freckles instead.
“Oh, don’t worry about your hair, darling,” Clive says. “The windswept look is very fashionable out here.”
“You’re a riot, Clive. I just had it done and it wasn’t cheap.” A light wind gusts and blows off her hat. “Shit! Larry!”
She glares at her husband, who goes scurrying after the hat.
“What did I tell you?” she says when he returns. It is all his fault. He is the man. He should have been protecting her. Larry grimaces and says, “Clive, can you drive us back to the house? Jodie really doesn’t want to stay.” Jodie stands a few feet behind him, victorious, her arms crossed against her torso.
Irina, who has been lying on a towel, says, “I want to go too. I am getting all sand everywhere.”
“All right,” says Clive, throwing up his hands in mock defeat. “Sorry, love. Day at the beach cut short.”
Claire hesitates. “Can I stay?”
“Sorry?”
“I’d like to stay. It’s just so beautiful, and I haven’t seen the beach in so long. Do you mind? I could take a taxi back if it’s too much trouble. I just really want to go for a walk and a swim.”
“Water’s bloody cold for swimming,” says Clive, looking at his watch and then toward the parking lot, where his other guests are now waiting. “Look, I didn’t plan on spending the day playing chauffeur, but I could come back for you in half an hour or so, after I’ve dropped off this lot. That do?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He is surprised, she can tell. It has probably been a long time since a woman failed to go along with his plans. In his world that sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen. It’s a black mark against her. She can tell he is already thinking who he should invite out next weekend. The others are almost back to the parking lot. He turns and follows them, lugging the cooler and the chairs. She feels lighter now.
With a sigh, she looks down the beach and removes her shirt and shorts until she is standing only in her bikini. The sun and wind feel good on her exposed skin. Although it is crowded here, she can see that farther down it thins out. That is where she wants to be, and she starts walking. The sand crunches pleasantly between her toes. The afternoon sun warm against her face. A wave bigger than the others crashes to her left, sending foaming surf rolling up over her feet. Involuntarily she lets out a little shriek and leaps aside. She had forgotten how cold the water could be, but after a few moments she becomes used to it.
When she was a child, her family would go to the beach every summer. The water was always cold there too. Maybe even colder. They would rent an old, thin-walled house on the Cape, near Wellfleet, for a week. There would be lobsters and sailing and sand in the sheets, her father playing tennis with his old wooden racket and a smell of mildew that saturated the whole house that always made her think of summer. That had been a long time ago, before her parents’ divorce.
She passes several surfers bobbing like seals in the small waves and watches them for a while. One of them starts paddling and gets up unsteadily as the wave begins to crest. He manages to stay upright for a few seconds before falling. A pretty girl with long sun-bleached hair claps her hands and whistles. Claire thinks it would be wonderful to know how to surf. If only there was time. She thinks she’d be good at it. She is a good skier and used to dance in high school, so she knows her balance is good and her legs are strong.
Crossing over a seaweed-covered stone jetty that juts out into the ocean, she comes to a stretch of beach that is almost completely deserted. Up ahead in the distance is another jetty, and beyond that what looks like a large lagoon. There are signs posted on hurricane fencing that warn against disturbing a breed of bird called piping plover. Imposing mansions occupy the dunes behind her, but for the moment she feels as though she has the beach all to herself.
The sun is strong and she decides to cool off by going swimming. It is too cold to wade in. She waits for a moment at the water’s edge, timing the waves, gathering her courage. Seeing her chance, she runs in, lifting her legs awkwardly out of the foaming water, and dives into a breaker. The cold shocks her, but she kicks hard and comes out beyond the swells. As she treads water, tasting the salt on her lips, her body feels strong and clean. She starts swimming a breaststroke, but the current is stronger and pushes her back, and she realizes she isn’t making much headway. For a moment, she is anxious, concerned that she might not be able to get back to shore. Knowing that to fight the current would be to risk exhaustion, she swims parallel to the shore until she has escaped it. When she no longer feels its pull, she bodysurfs back to the beach, stumbling wearily out of the water.
“You should be careful out there.”
She turns to see a man of about forty standing beside her. He is good-looking and well-built, with sandy hair slowly turning gray. There is something recognizable about him. It is a face she has seen before.
“There’s a powerful riptide there,” he says. “I was watching you when you went in, in case you got into trouble. But you looked like you could take care of yourself.”
“Thank you. I wasn’t so sure for a moment.” She takes a deep breath and realizes her fear has passed. She smiles at him. He is an attractive man. “I didn’t realize this was a full-service beach. Are you lifeguards salaried or do you work on commission?”
He laughs. “We work strictly for tips.”
“Well, that’s too bad. As you can see I’m not carrying any money.”
“You’d be amazed how many times we lifeguards hear that. Maybe I should go into a more lucrative line of work.”
“Well, you could start a line of bikinis that come with pockets.”
“That’s a great idea. I’ll bring it up at the next lifeguard convention.”
“You should. I hate to think of all those starving lifeguards, saving all those people for nothing. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“Well, we don’t do it for the money but for the glory—and for the gratitude, of course.”
“In that case, thanks again for almost saving me.”
He makes a little bow. “It was almost my pleasure. Well, so long. Stay out of riptides.”
He walks down the beach in the direction of the lagoon. She watches him get smaller and sees him join a group of people by some canoes. A chill runs through her. She shivers, wishing she had brought a towel. She has to head back anyway. It is getting late. Clive will be waiting.
T
hat night they are in the kitchen, ready to go out. “Where are we going?” Claire asks. She is wearing a simple white dress, low cut over her small breasts. Jodie appears serene. She has forgiven Clive.
“There’s a party. Writer chap I know. Gorgeous wife.”
“I want to go to nightclub,” pouts Irina, applying lipstick while staring at the mirror in her compact. “My friend say they are very good here. You take me, baby?” This to Derek, whom she towers over, caressing his thinning hair. He grunts in assent. “ ’Ere, what about a nightclub then?”