didn’t catch it.
“You came to Europe to be an artist,” Everett said.
“I came to Europe to get away from the church. I love God but I don’t love the church. After dad died, mother insisted I study to enter a convent. I’ve been studying now for a year, but…last month I told her I had to be a painter instead. Go to Paris, study art. But I’m not a painter. I love the colors of nature, but I find them best when I’m in the garden. That’s where I feel closest to God too.” She blushed and ducked her head. “I shouldn’t be telling all this to you.”
“That’s all right.” Everett didn’t know where the conversation was going, but he wanted it to go on a long time. For the first time since he’d left Missouri he felt relaxed. “I think I know what you mean. All this year I’ve wanted to get away from the farm, from Miller County. I told my brother I was going to Paris. I was going to see the world. Since my dad died, my brother and I each own half of the farm—half the land, half the stock, half of the equipment. My brother is married, one kid two years old, another on the way.” Everett shrugged. “They’re good people and I love the kids, but I want a house of my own. I’ve sat under the oak tree on the little rise above the hayfield many times, dreaming about having my own house, right there. I told them I was leaving. Going to see the world. But what I really want is…” his voice trailed off.
She laughed a good-natured laugh. “A house of your own, a wife of your own, a family of your own?”
Embarrassed, Everett looked into her blue eyes and shook his head. “I want to farm. That’s what I want.” He looked away. “And maybe the other things too.”
The leaves overhead made moving patterns of light and shade on the stained wooden table. “I want to feel close to God,” Jan said. “But not in a church.”
A man opened one of the wooden doors under the sign that said Café Marinas. He latched it open, then the other one.
Jan turned a bright smile on Everett. “Let’s go swimming.”
Everett picked up her sketchpad, but she took it away from him and marched off down the cobbled street toward the hotel. He caught up with her and fell in beside her. Close, but not too close.
At the hotel, he rolled his bathing suit in a towel and went out onto the veranda, down the steps, and across the hot sand to the row of changing cabanas. Jan was waiting there. They chose cabanas at each end of the row, changed into their swimming suits, and immediately plunged into the water, embarrassed to be seen with so few clothes on.
She was a strong swimmer and beat him to the raft. He followed her up the wooden ladder and waved his arm around the curve of the bay. “Here’s your drawing.”
But she wasn’t looking. She lay down on the warm boards and closed her eyes. “The sun will warm us up.”
Everett thought her solid body looked beautiful, even in the heavy black wool bathing suit. He dove into the dark water and swam down until he was near the bottom, then let himself drift back up toward the sunlight and the shadow of the raft. He climbed out and dove in again, going deep, swimming down hard, following the chain down into darkness, trying to touch bottom, but he couldn’t.
Jan told him, “You’re rocking the boat. Quit diving and lie still for a while.”
They lay in the sunshine and Everett talked about many things, the guy at the bar, his loneliness, the people back home, but mostly about the farm. For the first time in months, Jan could feel her faith glowing again as it used to. The liturgy flowed through her mind, only this time it did not have the cool echo of St. Elizabeth’s, but the sound of an April morning in the country.
A guy was swimming over the long combers toward the raft, his right arm lifting higher than his left.
“Here comes the guy I was telling you about,” Everett said. Jan sat up. The guy got to the raft and pulled himself up the ladder, tilting the side of the raft down sharply.
“Hello,” Everett said. “You owe me fifteen pesetas. For your drink at the bar.”
The guy grinned a wide, square-toothed grin. “Fifteen pesetas.” Then he glared at the distant mountains, pulled his head down, and shadow-boxed a couple of punches. “You’ll get paid. Everybody will get what they have coming. No more phony happy ending.” He let his arms fall to his sides.
“Happy endings aren’t phony,” Jan said quietly.
The guy shook his head and dove in, rocking the raft hard against its anchor chain. But he came up and hooked an elbow over the edge of the raft. “You’ve got to do the one right thing, the true thing, whether it makes people happy or not.”
He pushed off and began stroking for the shore.
Everett looked at Jan and began to recognize the feeling inside him was love. “I think doing the right thing is how you get a happy ending. I want to marry you,” he said in one long line.
They looked at each other for a time, aware of the blue ocean, the slow rocking of the raft, the distant brown mountains, and the sunshine flowing down on them like molten gold.
“Alright,” Jan heard herself say. They both started to say more, then turned away from each other, already sure of their own happy ending.
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