mouthed the word “drama.” Something had been there. And why had he even come here if he was going to let the moment slip away?
The girl looked at him, gently swinging the hammock back and forth, her bare feet hardly touching the ground. Her hair was wet and tied back with a green ribbon. Even from far away he could smell her fresh shampoo, the same scent he’d remembered when they’d been picking stuff up together by the pool. Coconut. Sea foam. A linen blouse just transparent enough for him to see a lavender bra. Her Guatemalan print skirt gracefully hugged her hips, and on an ankle as perfect as porcelain hung a thin embroidered friendship bracelet.
Reed didn’t say anything. Their eyes met and he clung to her gaze, forcing himself not to look away even though it was brighter than staring into the sun.
“You remember me?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. Her glance flickered towards the reception desk. Reed imagined her making a quick calculus of how much time could pass before she leapt out of the hammock and ran for the door. “In Cancún. At the pool.”
“I have something for you. A gift.”
She took the package as slowly as if it were a bomb about to blow. “Feliz Navidad? Um, it’s not my birthday. “
“Open it.”
She unwrapped the paper.
“My Murakami book?” She flipped a few pages. “Jesus, what the hell did you do to it?”
“This is kind of a long story,” he said. “But to understand how funny it is you have to know that I hate swimming. I really hate it.”
She looked at him, her eyes slightly narrowed, the look of someone worried they’re going to be asked to buy trinkets or sunglasses.
“I can swim,” Reed continued. “I just, I don’t know…there’s something about it, about the water closing in around me that makes me panic. Even though I can keep my head above water I’ll do anything to stay out of the pool.”
“And this relates to your stealing my book, um, how?”
“Because I didn’t steal it!”
“I’m listening.”
“So it turns out my wife and I kind of had a fight,” he said, recounting the events of how he’d found the book. “It was floating there like a dead opossum.”
“How dramatic.”
“I just couldn’t live with myself thinking you’d forever and ever remember me as a book thief.”
“I forgot and forgave. Mainly forgot.”
“I didn’t. And it killed me that I never got to even know your name.”
Reed felt his knees shaking and leaned against the smooth coconut palm to steady himself. He became aware of the sounds of conversation in the dorm rooms, of the whoosh of a car driving by outside. A light wind crackled the palm frond leaves. The k-k-k-k of a gecko kissing the dusk. His hearing widened, deepened, until he could hear, far away, the crash of waves colliding with the shore.
The girl held up the warped book, looking at it as if it had started to smell, shaking her head a little from side to side. But she was smiling, too. A page fluttered to the floor like an oak leaf in autumn.
“I’m Clione,” the girl said. “It’s a shame you’re so scared of the water. Because I’m going diving tomorrow and if you weren’t such a fraidy cat about it, I’d invite you to come along. There’s nothing more beautiful, nothing more magical than floating weightless over a coral reef. You should experience that sometime. Add it to the bucket list.”
Clee. Oh. Nay. Clee. Oh. Nay. A heartbeat, a rhythm in the darkness. He felt a wave of panic wash over him. Suffocating. He couldn’t breathe.
Another wave, a silence, a wave.
“I’m Reed. I can swim. It’s not like I can’t swim. I just don’t like…the open water. Maybe I was a minnow in a past life? Retained that little section of DNA that says ‘Be afraid of the water. Be very afraid.’“
“So come, then. If you don’t face your fears you’ll never get over them.”
“I thought I was facing them. You know how scary it is to bring a total stranger a book they dropped in a pool?”
She laughed. “Why? You’re also afraid of women? Do we bite?”
“Pretty ones, yes. Sometimes.”
There was a pause. He took a deep breath and dove in: “Can I take you to dinner tonight?”
She pulled her head back, crossing her arms.
“Wow, I was not expecting that.”
“Sorry,” Reed felt the blood rush to his cheeks. His ears stung. “I’m not sure why I asked that.”
“You were facing your fears?”
He tried to laugh.
Clione cocked her head and pointed at his left hand. “It’s okay with your wife?”
“I don’t think she cares who I eat with,” Reed said, then paused. For all the frustrations, he suddenly missed her. She might have even liked Tulum. It was all so stupid, the fighting, the differences. And here he was, talking to a beautiful stranger. “But I’m not sure of anything these days.”
“I’m not looking for anything,” Clione said. “Not with a married guy. Or anyone else for that matter.”
“I’m not looking either. Just dinner.”
She looked down at the book. Reed could feel her thinking, weighing the fathomless options that swirl around an invitation from a total stranger.
“Eight o’clock?” she said. “I know an Italian place.”
* * *
In the darkness of the bungalow Reed lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and looking at nothing at all. Each detail of their conversation burned into his brain, each lilt in her voice, each flawless half-smile, that amazing conversation that contained her magical name.
Eight, he mused. A bead of sweat tickled his forehead, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. Talk about facing his fears. Swimming was nothing compared to the terror of asking a beautiful girl for a date.
Clee.
Oh.
Nay.
The syllables felt like drops of cool water on his tongue.
Reed couldn’t remember ever hearing so lovely a name.
Entering the Water
“So, okay,” Sharon said, pouring herself a third glass of the Montepulciano. “We’d
