15. The Man in Red
The Man in Red
SAM
FIFTEEN MONTHS AGO
The first thing I remember seeing was red. Then black again. I couldn’t breathe. Then I was coughing. No, throwing up.
Both. Water ejected itself from my mouth. My esophageal muscles squeezed, causing a chain reaction all through my body. I curled up like a comma, coughing until I couldn’t anymore. Then I sucked in a long, sharp breath.
Something hit me in the back. It had been hitting me the whole time. Someone’s palm.
People spoke over me. Two voices, speaking low.
I opened my eyes to see sand.
“You okay?” the voice asked. A man. He had an accent. German, maybe?
“He doesn’t look okay!” A woman, almost whispering.
“He’s breathing. That’s the important part.”
I coughed again, spitting onto the ground. Shit. Maybe that was rude. But fuck. I was breathing in short shuddering breaths, adrenaline waking me back up. I lifted my head to see a man and a woman.
The man was wearing a red t-shirt. The woman smiled, though her eyes still looked concerned. Alarmed even. It was the woman who’d checked me in. She had long dark hair. The man was the guy who’d been sitting with her. He was blond with deeply tanned skin. He’d been the one slapping my back.
They looked at each other over me, exchanging some silent communication. The man smiled softly at the woman. Reassurance, I thought.
“I’m okay,” I croaked.
“Good,” the man said. He was wet, I realized, the red shirt clinging to his lean frame.
I blinked again, then looked out at the ocean, at the waves still crashing against the shore.
“You pulled me out,” I said.
The man grinned. “Thought you were dead.”
When I flopped back onto the sand, he belted out a laugh. He had a funny laugh. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll bring you a beer.”
Fifteen minutes later the three of us were sitting at one of the tables on the deck of the restaurant.
I’d thanked the man—Ulli, he said his name was—so many times that he told me to stop saying it, then let out that distinctive laugh again.
It was a little sharp and high pitched, but not unpleasant.
It made the woman smile each time he did it. At least, once I was sitting up.
Her name was Mirabelle. She was the woman who’d checked me in. She was shy compared to Ulli, but friendly. She had a scar I hadn’t noticed on her cheek. It was mostly hidden behind her hair but visible when she turned her head a certain way.
They asked me where I was from. I told them. Ulli asked if I’d ever surfed before.
I’d gaped at him but he’d let out that laugh again. “I’m just kidding. You’ve got to be more safe though.”
“You’ve got to be safe too,” Mirabelle admonished him. Her voice was so quiet, it was hard to hear her.
Ulli didn’t seem to have trouble, though. He grinned. He had a good smile. “I’m always safe. For you.”
She tsked and rolled her eyes, but I caught the way she smiled to herself when he looked over at me.
When Mirabelle got up to check on something in the back, Ulli leaned in and whispered, “One day, I’m going to marry her.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” I asked.
“Not yet.” He was working something around and around in his hand. “She will be though. But I need to move slow. In her time.”
He told me he drove a delivery truck; that he came by here once a week with food for the restaurant. But now he came by on his off days too. “Every day,” he said, “Because of Mirabelle.”
The guy practically had hearts in his eyes.
“That a ring?” I joked, looking at his hand.
He opened his palm. In it was a toy. A little doll the size of an acorn, with pink skin and blue hair that stood up on end.
“Better than a ring.” He grinned. “She likes the movie this came from.”
Seemed like she’d like a ring more, but what did I know?
I was pretty sure I’d loved my sixth grade girlfriend before she dumped me for my best friend.
And I’d been into other girls before. Some more than others.
One recently—for one unforgettable weekend—an alarming amount.
But none of them were permanent fixtures in my life.
I didn’t know how to conceive of the kind of life I knew Ulli was picturing.
“Does she feel the same way about you?” I asked, worried about the intensity of this guy’s feelings.
“I don’t know,” Ulli said, with surprising honesty. “But it’s good when I can be a hero rescuing a brainless tourist trying to drown himself.”
I laughed, and he did too. We kind of harmonized in a weird way, which only made us laugh louder. I loved that sound. Until I heard it echoing in my nightmares.