Sunsets of Tulum. Mr Raymond Avery Bartlett
Clione,” the girl said. “It’s a shame you’re so scared of the water. Because I’m going diving tomorrow and if you weren’t such a fraidy cat about it, I’d invite you to come along. There’s nothing more beautiful, nothing more magical than floating weightless over a coral reef. You should experience that sometime. Add it to the bucket list.”
Clee. Oh. Nay. Clee. Oh. Nay. A heartbeat, a rhythm in the darkness. He felt a wave of panic wash over him. Suffocating. He couldn’t breathe.
Another wave, a silence, a wave.
“I’m Reed. I can swim. It’s not like I can’t swim. I just don’t like…the open water. Maybe I was a minnow in a past life? Retained that little section of DNA that says ‘Be afraid of the water. Be very afraid.’“
“So come, then. If you don’t face your fears you’ll never get over them.”
“I thought I was facing them. You know how scary it is to bring a total stranger a book they dropped in a pool?”
She laughed. “Why? You’re also afraid of women? Do we bite?”
“Pretty ones, yes. Sometimes.”
There was a pause. He took a deep breath and dove in: “Can I take you to dinner tonight?”
She pulled her head back, crossing her arms.
“Wow, I was not expecting that.”
“Sorry,” Reed felt the blood rush to his cheeks. His ears stung. “I’m not sure why I asked that.”
“You were facing your fears?”
He tried to laugh.
Clione cocked her head and pointed at his left hand. “It’s okay with your wife?”
“I don’t think she cares who I eat with,” Reed said, then paused. For all the frustrations, he suddenly missed her. She might have even liked Tulum. It was all so stupid, the fighting, the differences. And here he was, talking to a beautiful stranger. “But I’m not sure of anything these days.”
“I’m not looking for anything,” Clione said. “Not with a married guy. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“I’m not looking either. Just dinner.”
She looked down at the book. Reed could feel her thinking, weighing the fathomless options that swirl around an invitation from a total stranger.
“Eight o’clock?” she said. “I know an Italian place.”
* * *
In the darkness of the bungalow Reed lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and looking at nothing at all. Each detail of their conversation burned into his brain, each lilt in her voice, each flawless half-smile, that amazing conversation that contained her magical name.
Eight, he mused. A bead of sweat tickled his forehead, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. Talk about facing his fears. Swimming was nothing compared to the terror of asking a beautiful girl for a date.
Clee.
Oh.
Nay.
The syllables felt like drops of cool water on his tongue.
Reed couldn’t remember ever hearing so lovely a name.
Entering the Water
“So, okay,” Sharon said, pouring herself a third glass of the Montepulciano. “We’d just reached the end of things, and when you’re at the end, you know, you’re at the end. Brandon’s a great guy and all, but he wanted me to go to law school, and I just figure that’s something that’s still waiting for me. Sometime. Does it matter if I start right after college? Or take a couple years and see some of the world? And he just, I don’t know. He was always too worried about me, like he was my father or something. Way too jealous about guys hitting on me. Like what, I’m going to just sleep with anyone? There’s a point where if a guy can’t trust you when you’re out of his sight, then who needs him? Unless he’s nice enough to buy you dinner.” She reached across the table and squeezed Reed’s forearm. “Thank you so much. It’s a treat to be able to dine here.”
“Don’t mention it,” Reed replied.
Sharon giggled. “Then again, maybe I would sleep with him. Depends on the guy.”
“So he was kind of right, right?”
“But him being like that is what pushed me away. And I wasn’t actually sleeping with anyone.”
“It’s jealousy, not envy, that’s one of the cardinal sins,” Clione said. “There’s nothing more destructive in a relationship than jealousy. If he was jealous, it means he didn’t trust you. And that means he isn’t happy with himself.”
“Which is why he’s becoming a lawyer,” Reed said.
All three laughed. Reed was on his fourth glass of wine and the absurdity of the evening’s events were playing out like a little movie in his head. A day before he’d been stumble-drunk beside a sterile resort pool; now he was having a romantic candlelight dinner with two young twenty-somethings, one of whom was the most perfect girl he’d ever met in his life. His heart had fallen a bit when he realized he wasn’t having dinner with just Clione, but he’d gotten over it. In fact, having Sharon as a third wheel took tension away, made him feel more at ease.
All the little coincidences of the past couple days seemed imbued with meaning. The Murakami book, the girls coming to the pool, the orange that the woman had given him—and Clione, her spectacular eyes, her lips…her lips. Wine had made him hungry to kiss them.
The restaurant Clione had picked sat directly on the beach, with wrought-iron tables anchored firmly in powdery, white sand. The Sunflower. A light breeze was coming off the waves, smelling of salt and the sea, but it was not strong enough to blow out the white candles that the chef-owner had lit for them and placed on the starched white linen. Votives lit the sloping walkway from the tiny two-car parking lot, darkness enveloped the tops of the palm trees, their silhouettes like giant feather dusters against the pinpoint patchwork of vivid, pale-blue stars.
“So,” Sharon said. “Clione said your wife left suddenly?”
“We had a fight. Sort of. She’s been busy. Maybe it was me, crazy to think she could pull herself away from her life on the spur of the moment.”
“What happened?”
“Long story.” He told them about the helicopter’s plunge, about how that had triggered the vacation, and how his avoidance of the water had ended up with him finding the book. “Actually, it surprised me that she came. Gave me hope.”
“Was it your fault or hers? That she left.”
Reed shrugged. “Hard to tell. I mean, you should try living with someone for a decade. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”
“She doesn’t appreciate you?”
Reed didn’t know. “We’re trying to figure some things out, I guess.”
Clione was watching him intently, her wine glass in front of her mouth as if she’d blown a giant bubble of transparent gum. “What things?”
“Big things. We’d talked about having kids for years and then talked about adopting and had some appointments set up, and she backed out. I guess she’s not as interested in it as I am. Or she’s scared. Or maybe we both need space. I don’t know. Maybe I pushed too hard on it.” He paused, poured himself another half a glass of wine. “I pushed too hard.”
“Is she pretty?” Sharon said, leaning in.
“She’s the girl that makes every guy’s mouth open when she walks into a room. She might have been a model. Now she’s a newscaster.”
“Wow. The newscaster