‘It’s Krista!’ she says. ‘Krista Miller!’
My mind scrambles vainly for a foothold.
‘I’m so sorry, Krista,’ I say. I hope my smile is charming. ‘You’ll have to help me.’
‘Ah, it’s fine,’ she says, totally unfazed. ‘I’ve changed a lot – although you haven’t. Aruba? Aruba ’98? Baby Beach?’
A memory forms, slow as a Polaroid. The last eclipse I saw with my dad. Missing a week at university – it was the year before I met Laura – to fly out of the UK in February and lie on white sand that rippled like silk and burned like hot metal. A beautiful eclipse, Venus and Jupiter shining studs in the sky. All the Brits and Americans congregating at the same beachside bar every night of the trip and among their number an American student in – the image coalesces quicker now – gypsy top and Bermuda shorts, train-track braces. I remember posing for a group photograph that someone had taken with one of those disposable cameras that were all the rage back then. Memories flood back of promising to write, to get a copy of the photo sent, of street addresses rather than emails being exchanged. Lost in the past, I become aware that Krista’s staring expectantly at me.
‘Of course I remember,’ I say, and reach down to return the hug she offers.
‘I can’t believe my luck, catching you like this,’ she says. ‘I was showing your photo around but I can’t believe it’s you. We’d all given you up for dead!’ She laughs in delight. ‘You know a whole bunch of us kept in touch after Aruba? I did write you . . .’ No wonder she couldn’t find me. Everything would have been sent and received via my childhood home. My parents moved so often that the post didn’t always catch up, and now there is no longer a Kit McCall to trace. ‘I tried to contact you through Facebook, or I thought it was you, I remembered you were wearing that same Chile ’91 t-shirt and you got a huge . . .’ she lowers her voice here, as though the drug squad have been waiting all this time to bust us, ‘You got a burn from a joint on the front of it; you were devastated.’
‘ShadyLady!’ I say hearing the unintentional comedy in the words on their way out. ‘You should’ve told me your name, said how we knew each other!’
Krista slams her palm into her forehead.
‘No wonder you didn’t write me back. That stupid name. My fault. I should have been more persistent.’ She shrugs. ‘We had a big get-together the other night. Are you free this evening? Some of the other guys are around.’ Suddenly she registers Richard’s presence. ‘You too,’ she says with a smile. Richard shifts unsubtly from foot to foot.
‘My boat goes any minute now,’ I say, gesturing to the huge vessel behind me.
‘No way!’ Krista wrinkles her nose. ‘But let’s keep in touch, we’re planning the mother of all reunions for 2017,’ she says. ‘We live right in the path of totality. You should camp in our yard.’
‘I’d love that,’ I say, and realise I mean it.
‘I married Bill, you know,’ she says. She pulls a ‘whodathunkit’ face at me, and I mirror it back, thinking, Who the fuck is Bill? I have no idea. ‘He’s literally along any second now, you have to wait and say hi.’
I look at my watch; ten minutes till they close the doors and the boat is only a few steps away.
‘Wow! It’ll be good to see him again,’ I say, still none the wiser as to Bill’s identity.
‘I’ll see you in the cabin,’ says Richard. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he says to Krista, and only now do I realise I haven’t introduced them.
‘I thought he was your brother for a few seconds,’ she says. ‘How is he? Still wild?’
‘Not so much, these days,’ I say. ‘But he got a lot wilder before he got calm. He’s good. Couple of kids, runs his own business in London.’
‘And how about you?’ she says, although I’ve already seen her glance down at my ring finger.
‘Married my university girlfriend. Laura.’ Saying her name casts a little hook in my heart, pulling me home. ‘She’s at home in London, pregnant with twins. It’s been a long haul. Four rounds of IVF.’ To my horror, my voice starts to crack. I don’t know if it’s the release of tension or the shock of a face from my youth, but there’s something about this familiar stranger that makes me want to tell her everything. All of it, even the stuff I’ve never told Mac.
‘Four years,’ says Krista, while I work hard to control my face. ‘That’s hard, on both of you. But twins, though! Two little eclipse chasers to cart around the world. We’ve taken our two everywhere. You think it’s disappointing when you’re clouded out, that’s nothing compared to the look on kids’ faces. Oh look! Speak of the devils.’ She waves manically – I’m remembering now that Krista did most things manically – as the fabled Bill shoulders his way through the crowd towards us, leading two little children, a boy and a girl. They’re all wearing the same violet anoraks as Krista. It’s a snapshot of my own future; any sense of style utterly surrendered to family life. They are the picture of belonging.
‘Buddy!’ he says, delightedly to me. I’ve never seen this man before in my life.
‘Good to see you again!’ I say. ‘It’s been too long.’
Bill looks skyward. ‘Too bad we were clouded out.’
We compare notes – they took their chances in the harbour, didn’t see anything either – and then swap email addresses, and hug goodbye with promises to write to each other soon.
It’s with a sense of relief that I board the Celeste. If I can make myself this visible over the course of a few days, and Beth hasn’t found me, then the danger must have passed. Beth didn’t find us here, when I might as well have carried a flashing neon sign above my head for three days. She must have given up.
Chapter 45
LAURA
20 March 2015