I lean on one leg and peer back over the ledge where Will has resurfaced. He treads water and tosses his head so that ocean spray flies out and plasters his hair over his right eyebrow. He cups his hands around his mouth and calls up to Penny: “Get it together, Hightower.”
We discovered this point two months ago while we were swimming offshore of the public beach. From the surface, we took turns diving as far down as we could, trying to see if we could touch the bottom to find out whether it was safe enough to jump. It was Will who had tried it first. I had held my breath, waiting for a scream—or worse, nothing. But Will had come up laughing and baiting us in after him. Will and I have been coming back once a week like kids circling the line at an amusement park.
Staring down, my pulse thumps in the webbed skin between my thumb and pointer finger. The feeling of my stomach leaping clear into my throat is there even before I step into thin air.
I look back at Penny, who is quivering in a turquoise triangle-top bikini and using her eyes, the color of sea glass, to plead with me. I consider myself the definitive expert on all things both Will and Penny, and this, I know, will be good for her. With just a few weeks left of our last summer together, her chances to conquer her fear of heights are dwindling.
“Think about it this way,” I tell her. “You just start from there and keep on walking. One step, that’s all you have to commit to and then—poof!—no turning back.”
“Keep on walking…off a cliff,” she says. Goosebumps pop up all over her skin, even though the air is the temperature of a Jacuzzi. “You forgot to mention that part.”
“If all your friends jumped off a cliff, wouldn’t you?” I quirk an eyebrow and hold out my hand. “We’ll do it together.”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep, soothing breath, pinching her thumb to her middle finger. It’s what she calls her “centering” ritual, and since she’s not looking, I don’t mind rolling my eyes. Penny is a devotee of yoga and Eastern meditation, much to the confusion of her Jewish parents. As for me, I’m more act first, think later. Penny, on the other hand? Think first…and then think some more.
After a moment, she swallows and nods, then gingerly steps closer to me. Her palm locks against mine, hot and damp, covering up the silvery crescent-shaped scar on the side of my hand left over from where a dog bit me a couple of years back. Between heights and fang-toothed fluff-balls, I’ll take the death-defying drop any day.
Penny peers down her nose at the water below. The waves break in white crests, slamming up against the rock face, but I’m not worried. Penny’s a good swimmer. It’s the jumping she needs work on.
“The only way the bottom gets closer is if you get farther from the top,” I say. “You ready?”
Her lower lip quivers. “You’re sure this is safe?”
I squint. “I’m living proof, aren’t I?” At this she looks me over as if to double-check that I am, in fact, alive and therefore suitable evidence. She squeezes my hand tighter. “Okay. On three. One…” I bend my knees. “Two…three…” I swing my arm and lunge out into the open air. Penny’s fingers immediately slip from between mine, and all of a sudden I’m grasping nothing but wind. I try to turn to see if she’s with me, but I’m falling too fast. The air whistles in my ears. Sky and sea roar around and through me. It’s a split second before the ocean stabs my legs and the tough skin on the bottom of my feet.
A gush of salt water rushes into my nostrils. My sinuses burn. I squeeze my eyes tighter and kick. Bubbles pour out my nose and the tide drags me back and forth horizontally while I struggle up, up, up.
I fight against the undertow and the water grows warmer, which is how I know that I’m headed in the right direction. My mouth breaks the surface and I gulp air down. My hair clings to my head and neck and I’m grinning, shaking the water out of my ears and swishing my legs furiously to tread water.
I glance up and there’s Penny waving at me from the top of the cliff. “I couldn’t do it!” Her voice echoes down the cragged face. “I’ll meet you guys down there.”
“Pen—” But splashing is coming from behind me and before I can get a word out a weight pushes down on my shoulders and water charges through my parted lips. Sinking back under, I work to pry the calloused fingers away. Then, twisting, I give Will a sharp jab to the ribs. He swims backward and I come up coughing and laughing before whacking my arms against the water and splashing him square in the face.
“Truce! Truce!” he calls, dog-paddling toward me. I let a few sips of salt water fill up my cheeks, and then when Will’s hands are on the straps of my bikini bottoms and he’s leaning in for a kiss, I spit a fountain of water at him, giggling and retreating with a backstroke for safety. “Hey! I called truce!” He runs his hand over his eyebrows and down his face. “A blatant violation of the rules of engagement.” He snatches my ankle just as I’m almost clear of his reach and tows me back where he plants a wet kiss on my cheek. I scrunch up my shoulders and make a show of not liking it even though it’s obvious to us both that I do.
“Let’s hurry up. I’m so hungry I could eat a woolly mammoth,” I say.
“Why not just an elephant?” Will asks.
“An elephant? But they’re adorable.” I dip my head underwater, wetting my hair so that it slicks straight back. “God, Will, I’m not a monster.”
Will swims in front of me and I wrap my arms around his neck so that he’s giving me a swimming piggyback ride. “I could eat a pterodactyl. I bet they taste like the chicken of the sky,” he says grandly.
“We’re strange, you know that?” I rest my chin on the crook between his neck and shoulder. He smells like seaweed and coconut suntan lotion.
He shrugs. “Three more weeks until your great, big, epically magnificent, cowabunga awesome birthday surprise. Have any guesses?”
I feel the steady beat of his legs underneath me, kicking calmly toward shore. His broad shoulders tense and relax with each stroke.
“Does the birthday surprise have a nickname? Because that seems like a bit of a mouthful.”
“Oh, that is the nickname. That’s how awesome the surprise is.” Will doesn’t do understated. Sometimes I worry that if we ever get married, Will’s proposal will involve a large-scale choreographed dance number and singing animals, if he can swing it.
“Let’s see. Last year you took me on a helicopter ride during which I puked in a bag. The year before that you rented a party bus to take us all to see a cheesy horror-movie marathon. So, that’s land and air. I’m going to guess water this year. A boat! You’re taking me on a boat!” I squeeze him harder around the neck.
He lifts a hand and wipes water from his eyes. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”