Chapter 35
The four of them stood shoulder to shoulder on the crest of the ridge.
The ocean.
There it was—breath-catching in its wide, shimmering blue.
Sheltered by sheer-sided mountains was a sugar-white beach. It stretched into a crystal-clear bay, the water an otherworldly arctic blue. It was like no place she’d ever seen.
Joni stood rooted to the spot, heart lifting. “My God!” Her blood fizzed with a pure energy. A fresh breeze, kissed with salt, brushed her neck like a lover.
Beside her, Liz shaded the lowering sun from her eyes, head shaking slowly. On her other side, Helena tipped back her head and laughed.
At the far end of the wide beach, Blafjell mountain rose high and vast in stoic shades of gray, guarding its jewel-blue secret. A lone red fishing boat was leaving the bay, a white wake all that was left as it disappeared in the lee of the mountain.
The trail down to the beach descended through a series of switchbacks, zigzagging steeply. Joni let the natural angle of the path tip her forward, propelling her into a run. She forgot about her aching muscles and the weight of her pack, leaning into the delicious momentum.
She heard the others follow, whooping and hooting as they bounded toward the waiting sea.
The hard-packed earth gave way to wind-sculpted sand.
“Not a footprint!” one of them marveled.
Wordlessly, packs were dumped, boots were unlaced, damp socks were removed.
Joni shimmied out of shorts, a tank top underwear. Her skin was hot, cloaked in sweat. She tugged free the bandanna knotted at her head and ran naked toward the glittering blue, called by water, salt, wind.
She felt the smack of water against her legs. It was startlingly cold. She ducked under, the sea sealing above her briefly before she surfaced with a whoop of delight. The sea felt like an ice-cold drink quenching a deep thirst.
She shook the water from her hair like a dog. She turned to see Helena running into the shallows, arms clamped to her full white breasts. Then Liz followed, rushing into the water, naked and lean, strap marks from her pack leaving red indents on her shoulders.
Maggie hesitated on the shoreline, only her boots and socks removed.
“Come on!” Joni called.
Helena yelled, “We need you, Mags!”
She froze for a moment, uncertain. Then, with a shrug, she peeled off her remaining clothes and tiptoed, squealing, into the icy water, her gorgeously curvy body jiggling, auburn hair trailing behind her.
Here they all were with their beautiful, real bodies, in the middle of nowhere! Blistered heels. Bloodstained knees. Dirt-encrusted nails. All of it!
Joni dived, sweat and dirt sluicing from her skin. She flipped onto her back, breasts to the sky, staring at the cloudless blue.
She filled her lungs, tasting the salted clarity of the ocean, tinged with forest and the thin bite of mountain air. Each breath felt purifying.
Liz swam over, grinning, her face washed clean, eyes glittering. The relief of being weightless and present and together was almost overwhelming. They trod water, looking out over the empty horizon. Nothing between them and Greenland.
The evening light softened the lines of Liz’s brow, her expression open and clear.
Joni suddenly understood why Liz had brought them out here.
If there had been a road to this beach, if they’d stepped out of a car, their pleasure at reaching this place would have been diminished.
Joy was the reward that followed a struggle.
Joni felt the thought broaden, clear something in her mind. Wasn’t it that joy and struggle were so deeply enmeshed that you couldn’t experience one without the other? She’d been taking shortcuts. Blocking the harder feelings with drugs and drink and the clamor of other people.
She reached for Liz’s hand, lacing their wet fingers together. Her black nail polish had chipped, the bolt of lightning fading to a golden crack. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Liz looked at her, head tipped to one side, wet hair pasted to her head.
Liz had always been her person—there throughout Joni’s wild highs and her crashing lows.
She understood Joni’s need to disappear, to go into herself, and then emerge when she was ready.
She championed Joni’s songwriting, not her fame, and had carried her during the dark months after she lost her grandmother.
And here she was now, leading this trip, fulfilling a promise they’d made to each other about one day coming to Norway.
“Thank you for bringing us all here. It doesn’t matter that we won’t climb Blafjell. We came for this.”
Liz’s eyes sparkled as she nodded, water beaded on her eyelashes.
The tour she’d left behind, the threat of legal action, her mistakes . . . it all felt so much further away. Maybe she could let it go. All of it. For a beat, she felt hopeful. Lighter. She let herself picture a simple cabin, a guitar, a notebook gradually thickening with lyrics.
Joni dived, kicking toward the seabed, until the undulating contours of sand grazed her naked belly, and she hung there, suspended, weightless.
When she broke through the surface, the first cloud had appeared in the wide sky, casting a long shadow over the beach.