Chapter Nine #2
With ease, the sloth climbed down. By now, they could make out the bearlike features: the wide eyes and what looked to Lulu like a gentle smile.
Lulu’s gaze hooked on the sweet-faced baby clutching its mother’s chest and felt a pang of missing Zoe.
In a visceral instant, she felt the sloth mother’s tenderness for her baby.
That sort of love, Lulu imagined, must be universal.
An invisible bond between all living creatures, be they the child or the parent.
“Take a good look at her hands,” Karina suggested.
Craning her neck, Lulu tracked the sloth’s steady climb down the tree.
“This is a three-toed sloth and her baby. Usually, we see sloths resting, but today we are lucky. Sloths use their food so efficiently that they come down to the forest floor only once a week to poop.”
Lulu stifled a laugh. Then the sloth spotted the tourists and suddenly halted her approach.
For a long, silent moment, nobody moved.
Lulu held her breath. The sloth’s face, so expressive and intelligent, grew curious.
She studied the humans, and her baby did the same, equally intent on studying this strange, hairless life-form.
Then, deciding they were harmless looky-loos, mama sloth returned to making her way down the tree trunk.
Exhaling, Lulu’s feet grew roots as she planted herself more solidly. Using only her eyes to track the sloth, she watched, spellbound, as the animal stretched like a sci-fi alien, crept off the base of the tree onto the leaf-covered earth, and disappeared into the bush.
Amazed and speechless, the group remained frozen to their spots, each of them reliving the rare and mesmerizing event.
“That’s so cool,” Tyler whispered.
Lulu, too, felt cocooned in the wonderous residue of the moment.
“But do you think we’ll see a peccary?”
A puff of laughter escaped Lulu’s nose. Karina, however, gave Tyler a look so steely it could have scraped charcoal off a barbecue.
Lulu tugged at her long sleeves, sweating in the heat but grateful for the protection from the sun and the bugs as they explored the jungle along the sandy trail.
Karina and Ariana led the way, chatting together in Spanish, keeping their conversation low so as not to startle the wildlife.
Quick-stepping, Tyler caught up with her. “Can I walk with you?” he asked.
“Sure.” Lulu turned, and when she looked at him, she noticed he was glossy-eyed. “You okay?” she asked.
Hastily, Tyler blinked and flicked his expression into an easy smile. “Fine. I’m good.” He swallowed and nodded toward the path. The others had wandered ahead, so they were alone when Tyler asked, “Are you glad you decided to stay?”
“Yeah, I am. That sloth was amazing.”
“Yeah. And that baby…” There was a tight hesitancy to his voice. He kept walking, but Lulu could tell he was holding something back. At last, his footsteps slowed, and he turned his head to her.
“You’re lucky to have Zoe.” He sighed. “I wish…” Tyler began, and then shook his head at the ground.
“Do you ever think about that time after the homecoming game, when we made popcorn and hung out in your basement? We were talking about…about how strict your parents were for not letting you go straight to pro tennis before you gave college a shot?”
So much of the remembrances of the months just before her parents’ deaths had disappeared from her thoughts, but now that memory tightened into focus.
Cuddling on the sage-colored fraying couch, wrapped in his arms, surrounded by boxes marked for giveaway and old exercise equipment, stored downstairs because nobody wanted to throw the stuff out.
And he was stroking her hair while they grumbled about how they would parent differently when they were in the position to make the rules, and imagining it, really imagining a future together, with all the naivete and bravado of two young adults teetering on the cusp of grown-upness.
He had always wanted to be a dad. And if she were honest with herself, her motherhood had been a long time in the planning, too.
“Yeah,” she said. “I remember.”
He looked at her then and his cheeks lifted, happy enough to have her company in a shared memory.
She would be lying to herself if she said that joined remembrance didn’t touch her, too, and those long-ago moments took up residence in her core again, more palpably than any nostalgia for her youth.
The sensation of being transported in time felt so visceral.
And here, walking with him through this humid jungle, the shared memories stitched the past to the present, and she felt a connection again.
They meandered, stopping frequently to admire leaves as wide as umbrellas and vines that trailed down the trees like Rapunzel’s hair. As they strolled, Lulu drew in a whiff of the thick air that smelled of seawater and decaying leaves.
Without warning, Tyler halted and swiveled to face her.
“Did you see something?” she asked, stopping short, her brain leaping immediately to a poisonous snake.
“No,” he said, plunging ahead. “It’s just…I’m really glad you decided to stay. It’s nice to have someone to share this experience with, know what I mean? Not just someone,” he clarified. “You, Lu. It’s nice to share this with you.”
And then he turned back to the trail.
In a surreal transition, the group emerged from the dense shadows of the jungle, and Lulu’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the impossible turquoise of the sea. She squinted at the white light bouncing off the sand.
Low waves lapped along the shoreline, and Lulu wasted little time stripping off her sweat-dampened clothes to her bikini beneath.
She spread her towel next to Ariana’s and lay down in the sunshine.
Running her fingers through the fine, warm sand, she wished she could take this feeling home with her in a box.
Lulu smiled to herself, imagining opening up the beach on a rainy December Seattle day.
The heat of the morning intensified, and the salt air collected on her warm skin.
With a sudden impulse, Lulu sat up and brushed the sand off her fingers.
“I’m going in,” she told Ariana, and she skipped toward the crystal Caribbean, running on her tiptoes across the hot sand.
Lulu plunged in, letting the water envelop her headfirst. She came up splashing and refreshed.
The water was as warm as a child’s bath and as transparent as glass.
She could see straight down to her toes.
Where something big moved. She jumped with a squeak.
Ariana raced down the sandy bank, and at the sight, she began to laugh. Right behind her, Karina skidded to a stop on the shoreline. “Baby stingrays,” she said.
At that, even Bill loped toward the water, his face alive with childlike glee.
Five rays, each the size of a large pancake, squiggled along the sea floor, moving in their eerie, undulating way.
Now that she understood the large mass was actually separate creatures and not a gray shark hunting in the shallows, Lulu watched them, mesmerized.
The rays glided in a line, trailing the shoreline.
It seemed to Lulu that the young rays were curious; when Lulu stepped in deeper, the rays did, too.
When she waded up onto the too-shallow water, they hovered, as if waiting for her return.
Assured that the playful creatures were not a threat, Lulu went in up to her shoulders and sank down, relaxing flat on her back.
Tipping her head, she looked at the upside-down green palm fronds painted against the bright blue of the sky.
Between the light rocking of the waves, the soothing view, and the warm sunshine on her face, Lulu’s limbs hung limp with total relaxation.
When she righted herself, she dug her feet into the soft, sandy sea floor. Lulu’s gaze flicked toward the shore, where Tyler was tugging his shirt over his head.
Oh. That was not good. Her eyes were helpless against the assault.
Look at him! Just look at him. She tried not to stare, really she did.
But no, not really. She did not try at all.
Because she was staring, slack-jawed, at his cut torso, his tanned skin, the arty tattoos looping his biceps.
Unbidden, her long-subverted horny brain made an unwanted appearance and served up a split-second fantasy: her tongue tracing that tattoo, his fingers tugging at her hair—
Stop, stupid subconscious, Lulu scolded. Stop. It was very hard to think “friend” when that was staring her in the face. Very hard. And stop thinking “hard,” Lulu.
Tyler flung himself into the ocean with a half twist.
“That’s hot!” Gwendy called, lumbering into the sea in Tyler’s wake.
“Hot, hot, hot.” The older woman dunked herself like a dropped stone into the water.
Coming up for air, Gwendy blinked away the salt water and shook the water from her hair.
“What are you all looking at? Them’s the hot flashes, bitches. ”
By the time the rays disappeared to deeper water, Ariana had commandeered an old surfboard that had been leaning against the snorkel equipment shack run by the parks.
She lugged it into the water and, with ease and style, rode the low waves that broke in neat lines.
Offering Tyler the board, she gave the pro a few tips and left him to it.
Tyler surveyed the board. He searched the water and when he spotted Lulu, he called, “Keep an eye out for me, will ya?”
The ocean was calm and warm, but it pleased her that he asked. Lulu had always been more at ease than Tyler in the water. She nodded her agreement, the mutual trust they used to share so easily falling into place again.