“Ha-ha. Close your eyes.”
I stripped down to my underwear—of course I had to be wearing a bra that didn’t match—and jumped in. The water was cold despite the warmth of the day. It sent a shiver through the core of me. I swam over to you. “Come on, then,” I said. “Show me what you got.”
“A race?”
“Two lengths. You and me.”
“Okay …”
“You think you’re going to destroy me? My dad was a SEAL, remember?”
“True.”
We half swam, half walked to the side of the pool facing the ocean. It was a shallow pool. Then we stood and looked at each other.
“One. Two. Three.”
We both threw ourselves forward. I swam as fast as I could, which was pretty fast because, well, Dad a SEAL and all that, doing the crawl, feeling the water rushing over me. When I breathed, I got a glimpse of the ocean, and you were right, it was like swimming in forever. Like there was no border between the pool and the ocean.
I also saw that, as fast as I was, you were way ahead. You got to the end of the pool and did one of those turns pro swimmers do, disappearing under the water and then reappearing alongside me but facing the other way, already breaking the surface with a stroke. A few seconds later I reached the end and turned to see you already back where we had started.
“Huh,” I said.
You gave a sheepish smile. “I meant to go easy on you but—”
“But you can’t help your brilliance?”
“I train a lot.”
You sounded not entirely happy about this. “You don’t like it?” I asked.
“It’s fine. It’s swimming. I don’t … It’s just something I do.”
“Right.”
You pulled yourself out of the pool; sat on the side and looked down at me.
“I’m staying in here,” I said. “I’m in my underwear, remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“Ha-ha.”
You sat there for a while, and we just didn’t say anything, the sun on our skin, your legs in the water, me kind of floating there. I never knew what people meant about comfortable silences before then because silences between me and my dad were never comfortable.
A thought flashed: Yeah, and Paris is still gone.
It punches you like that, when you least expect it.
You kept glancing over at something—I thought maybe the bar? I thought maybe you were going to suggest that we steal a drink, which I would have been totally on board with at that point; I’d have been on board with drinking and drinking until I didn’t even remember that I ever knew anyone called Paris. But eventually you levered yourself up on your hands and kind of popped into a standing position, then walked over to the bandstand.
I took a deep breath. Tried to put myself into the moment. To tell myself there was nothing I could do to find Paris right at that moment.
You came back with a ukulele and sat down again, your feet in the water. “They have, like, a Hawaiian band that plays in the evenings,” you said. “It makes no sense; I mean, the decor is all Florida. But what can you do?”
“Hmm,” I said. I was spaced out—the pool and the sun gleaming on it; I felt like I was dissolving. Into sparkle and blueness and the sound of lapping water, shushing and bubbling, tapping against the tiled sides.
You cradled the ukulele. I was watching you. I succeeded so totally at getting into the moment, I forgot then that there was a voice. That I had a dad. That Paris had disappeared. I was feeling the water on my skin and looking at you, at the look on your face.
The look was love.
I don’t mean romantic love. I mean … the love of someone who is holding the thing they are meant to be holding. Doing the thing they are meant to be doing. It was interesting because I had not seen that look when you dived into the pool, or when you were swimming. But I saw it now, now that you had that instrument in your hands.
You ran your fingers over the frets. Then you bent your head so I couldn’t see your face, and started to play. Just notes at first, then runs and arpeggios—I think that’s what they’re called? And scales, I guess. Then you flowed into something I recognized—the Beach Boys. “God Only Knows.” You hummed along.
And here’s the thing: you were amazing. Technically, of course. But also, the instrument, it was like it breathed with you. Like you made it live, made it want to pour out its own song. You were impressive at the pier, when you were playing what people called out, on the electric organ, but when you played that ukulele … it was like I was hearing your soul.
Okay, now I’m the one being poetic and sickly.
Anyway.
As you hummed, I don’t know, I guess it was that faulty inhibition thing again, but I began to sing. I knew all the words. I sang the first verse, and then the chorus. You looked up at me, and I stopped, embarrassed.
You put aside the ukulele. “Hey,” you said. “Don’t go all shy on me. Keep singing. I like hearing your voice.”
I don’t like hearing my voice, I thought. I shut up.