When We Believed in Mermaids(86)
And in the darkness of the beach, high on cocaine, he gave in.
In my fantasies before that night, we had sex like in a movie, all soft focus and music playing a romantic score. In real life, it was both better and worse. Touching him and kissing him was a million times more charged than I’d ever expected. It was like we melted together, and I slid under his scarred, wrecked skin and into the blood that still flowed in his body. He swam into my blood, into my soul, and I became something else, someone else. He showed me, gently and slowly, what it should feel like when somebody who loved you touched you in just the right way. I learned to have an orgasm for the first time, and it blew the pieces of my body out into the stars, bringing starlight back when they settled into my flesh again. I learned to please him too, and at that I’d had some practice.
But the actual sex hurt. A lot. I pretended it didn’t, but it wasn’t easy, and he took some time making it work. Finally it did, and I pretended to like it, but I didn’t. At all. There was a lot of blood after, which I hid from him.
We fell asleep on the beach, drunk and high and also sated, wrapped up together like puppies.
One night. That one night.
The end of everything.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kit
When I get off the ferry after meeting Mari, I stop for ice cream and sit on a bench to watch people streaming past. Ice cream is a weakness, the creamy sweetness, the cold, the depth of satisfaction. As a child, I would eat as much ice cream as my parents would let me have—giant bowls of it, triple-decker cones in three flavors. Today I’ve chosen vanilla bean and a local favorite called hokeypokey with chips of honeycomb toffee that is so good I find myself wishing I’d ordered both scoops in that flavor.
With adulthood comes discipline, however, so I give the ice cream my full attention, aware that I’m using food to soothe my aching heart and not caring a bit. Sugar and cream ease my nerves, and the flow of humanity passing by reminds me that my problems, however big they might seem at the moment, are dew in an ocean.
But damn, I feel unmoored.
After Josie “died,” my mom got serious about getting sober. She detoxed in a thirty-day residential program, then dedicated herself to AA, going to meetings every day, sometimes twice or three times. She worked the steps, found a sponsor, and became the mother I wanted so badly when I was five and nine and sixteen—present and able to listen.
Most of all, she put me first in her life.
In the beginning, it freaked me out. I didn’t know how to handle the change. How to talk to her when all she cared about was sobriety and her daughter. I didn’t have time for it, honestly. It was the end of my fellowship, and I had a lot of writing to do in addition to the responsibilities of the work—and even that was okay. She let me know she was available if I needed her. She patiently called once a week or once every other week, and even though I nearly always let it go to voice mail, she left upbeat messages, a little story about something at work or on her long daily walks. For the first time in my entire life, she didn’t have a man, and she didn’t want one, and without the constant struggle of men and booze, she had a lot more time. She threw herself into houseplants, which cracked me up—it seemed such a funny thing for the least nurturing person I knew—but when I saw her orchids, I stopped laughing.
After a while, I started taking her calls. I moved back to Santa Cruz and took a position at an ER there. After a couple of years, I bought my house. A couple of years later, I realized my mom’s sobriety was going to stick and I could trust this new version of her, and although I have never really been able to fully warm up, as is often true of the children of alcoholics after so many years of neglect, I did buy her a condo on the beach so she could hear the ocean at night.
Taking a small bite of ice cream, I think I should call her. It’s evening there. I could get an update on Hobo.
But what will I say about Josie?
I walk back up the hill to my apartment, and it occurs to me that I can probably make arrangements to go home now. I’ve found my sister. I’ll hang out with the kids tonight, maybe take an extra day or two to surf. Hang out once or twice more with Javier. I still haven’t heard him sing again.
A pang cuts through my chest, but I brush it off. We’ve had a good time. Of course I’ll miss him. We can stay in touch through email, and in a few weeks, we’ll forget the urgency of now.
You are falling a little with me, he’d said.
I test the emotion. Am I?
Maybe. Or maybe I’m stirred up by everything that’s happening. The search, the place, the fact that we’ve been having really, really satisfying sex. Beyond satisfying. Fantastic. Thinking about it makes me wish for his solid, naked body right now.
Not love, though. It’s not an emotion I can trust.
The luxe marble hallways of the high-rise are empty this time of day, midafternoon, when all the residents are working and tourists are out sightseeing. I suddenly do not want to go up to my room and stare at the water again. Instead, I turn around and cross the street to a park that climbs a steep hill, a path weaving in long zigzags toward the top.
I pause at the foot of it and loop the strap of my purse over my body; then I climb the first part of the hill. It’s a dense green landscape, dappled sunlight and shadows covering thick green grass. The lushness makes me realize how dry it’s been in California.
As I follow the asphalt path upward, it’s the trees that steal my attention. Giant, old trees, Moreton Bay figs with their improbable span, their very long arms stretching out over the landscape in a most human way. I slow to touch one, running my hand over the bark, and follow it toward the trunk, which is as wide as a small car and full of nooks and crannies. I step over the roots and into a hollow made by the bark, and it’s big enough to live in. I’m sure people did, once upon a time.