22
The breeze sluices over me, running warm hands through my hair and tugging my shirt behind me. I speed down the hill, my bike tires hissing through the sand. Overhead the elegant casuarinas bend in the breeze, casting shadows across our path. McCormick and I slice through the shadows, and the light and dark flicker over us as fast as the turning spokes of my bike wheels.
I grin over at McCormick as we sail down the hill. The wind whistles nimbly, my stomach rises at my speed, and I feel just like I did as a little girl on a playground swing, kicking my feet in the air, suspended over the earth, my pigtails flying behind me. This is that moment, the exuberance of free fall, where you let yourself go and trust that when you hit bottom you’ll spring back up to the sky.
A laugh is pulled from me. I haven’t felt so free in years.
We’re at the highest point on the island, a seventy-foot rise on the eastern edge. Laid out before us is the entirety of the island. It’s a green pearl rimmed by lustrous white sand, set in a flat turquoise sea. Four square miles—tiny—with a long, thin strip of sand off the northwestern edge.
McCormick claims the thin strip of land connected to the circular island made explorers name this place Frying Pan Island.
Far off, toward the southwest, there’s a coral reef off the shore. The waves hit and then crest in white froth. The water is indigo-blue until it reaches the reef, and then, with the calm, it settles into a gentle translucent green-blue. I think I’d like to create a watch dial enameled that exact shade.
Past the reef-calm beach, on a half-moon of sand, the cottages line the sea. I can pick out the white and turquoise of our cottage and the salmon-pink, sea-blue, and coral-orange of the others. They sit under waving palms, their porches facing the sea.
Then, through a stretch of green, along a snaking yellow-sand road, the little beach runway and the congregation of marigold-orange and goldenrod-yellow concrete buildings glimmer in the sun. That’s the town, and it’s just as small from above as it is down below.
Beyond that there’s only green. Vibrant, jewellike, lush, leafy green. It’s the dark green of the mangroves, filled with life and deeply shadowed mysteries. It’s the lime green of the palms, their narrow leaves flipping in the breeze like the fluttering of a hummingbird’s wings. It’s the rosemary green of the casuarinas, coolly elegant and noble, sending hints of evergreen and Christmas pine through the air.
I take a deep breath of it now, pulling in the subtle pine scent. The speed of my bike slows as the slope evens out then crests into another rise. I pedal, pushing to climb the small rise. Needles from the casuarina trees—the whistling pines—crackle under my bike tires. The path narrows here and my bike bumps over the shallow root system of the pines.
A drip of sweat trails down my neck, then down my chest, pooling under my breasts. My cheeks are hot—pink, I’m sure—and a line of sweat beads my forehead. My heart pumps from the effort of the climb, and I drag in another pine-rich breath.
At the top of the hill, beneath the dappled shade of a tall, wide-limbed casuarina, McCormick pulls to a stop.
His skin gleams with sweat and his black hair is messy from riding through the wind. His sun-dark cheeks are pink from the sun and the heat, and there’s a happy “just sped downhill with the wind whipping around me” contentment radiating from him.
I wheel beside him, setting a foot in the sand to prop my bike upright beneath me.
We stand quietly for a moment, our breath loud, the wind whistling through the needles overhead.
A dove-gray bird with a white-striped tail perches in the boughs overhead. It lets out a melodic song and then launches from the limbs, its wings flapping loudly, seeking another spot to shelter.
My heart rate has slowed and the shaded breeze sends a cool hand over my prickly-hot skin.
After I showered and ate a quick bowl of porridge for breakfast—made by McCormick—we kissed Sean goodbye and thanked Amy for babysitting. She promised to enthrall her baby brother with poetry and then visit their Great-Grandma Essie for lunch.
McCormick pulled two bikes out from behind the cottage. They were old beach bikes with dented frames and sun-bleached seats. But the tires were thick for pedaling in the sand, and when I rode the hills it flew, and when I braked it screeched to a stop.
When I first saw the bikes I laughed and asked where the car was, and McCormick gave me a funny look and said, “There aren’t cars on island,” so I said, “Remember, we’re pretending I’ve never been here. You have to tell me everything.”
So while we biked along the sandy gravel road that circles the island, McCormick pointed out the large rectangular metal generators that power houses and businesses (they don’t always run—often the islanders go without power), the large circular cisterns that collect rainwater, the vegetable gardens growing glossy peppers, sweet potatoes, clusters of dangling green bananas, fat mangos, and papayas. The names of trees—ironwood, casuarina, silver palm—and the names of the beaches—Moon Beach, Bloody Bay, Turtle Grass Beach—as well as the name of the town—Charlestown—and the names of the people—Junie and Jordi, Essie, Maranda and Dee, Robert, Frank, Erol, Aldon, and more—and it all whirled around me like the wind kicking up behind us.
And while McCormick pedaled next to me, his low voice rising and falling with the wind, I fell a little bit in love with this island. He had a story for every tree, every bend in the road, and every person who sat in the shade of their porch and waved as we pedaled past.
It would be so easy to fall wholeheartedly, completely in love with this place. Not just a little bit, but totally in love.
I watch McCormick as he sets his bike against the trunk of the casuarina. He turns to me then, the shade splashing over him. He runs his fingers through his hair and gives me a soft smile.
He has quite a few different smiles. I haven’t been able to catalog them all. Not yet. But already, I’ve learned a few.
There’s his hesitant smile, where his lips barely turn up at the corners. He gives me that smile most often. Then there’s his wary smile, where his mouth is flat and his eyes hold his emotions back. There’s his laughing smile—the one he gives Amy when she pokes at him with perfectly timed sarcasm. There’s the eye-crinkling, dimpled smile he gives Sean when he picks him up for a cuddle. There’s the soft smile he’s giving me now—the one that reminds me of cool water running over hot skin. And then there’s his teasing grin, the flash of levity, where he’s laughing with me. And finally, there’s the soft parting of his lips, the relaxing of his mouth into a soft curve, right before he bends down to catch my lips with his.
I like that smile best.
But the soft smile, the one he’s giving me now—I’ll take that over wary or hesitant.
I roll my bike through the sand and prop it next to his. Then I turn to look through the swaying pine needles at the island below.
“It’s beautiful.” I look at him and find he isn’t looking out at the green and the sea but at me.
“You never much liked it before.” He studies me, curious but not judging. He’s waiting for me to explain.
I can’t.
I run my fingers over the cracked blue vinyl of the handlebar. My pointer finger bumps over the hot vinyl and then hits the metal.
“I think,” I finally say, “it’s easy to dislike something you don’t understand. Sometimes you have to see something through the eyes of someone who loves it. And then you can love it too. Or at least you can see how someone else would love it. Then it’s very hard to dislike it. You can’t anymore. I think you loving the island made me love it too.”
He stares at me, arrested by the light and shadow flicking over my face. “You’re different.”
“You’ve said that.”
“I mean it. I don’t know what to trust. My head telling me this isn’t real or my heart telling me it is.”
It’s funny. I’ve wondered the same thing. He’s a dream. He isn’t real. My head knows this. My mind tells me this. But my heart has something completely different to say.
“When I’m different than I am now, what am I like?”
McCormick studies me for a moment as if he’s trying to decide if this is a trick question. The breeze tugs at his hair, brushing it over his forehead. He pushes it aside and then says, “You’re Becca. You’re the same Becca you’ve always been.”
“Yes, but what does that mean?”
He frowns, considering my question. Then he smiles. “When you were seven you organized all us kids and made us build you a castle from driftwood and dried seaweed so you could be the sea queen. The whole summer you ruled over us, making everyone bring you shells and sea glass. And we did it, because you’ve always been able to make people want to make you happy. When you were fourteen and said you were going to live in Miami and become famous we believed you, because you were you.”
McCormick’s brow furrows and he looks at me to see how I’m taking this.
“And?”
He shakes his head. “And that’s it. You’ve always known what you want. You wanted to live in Miami or New York. You wanted more than this life. You were always too big for this island, and you were always determined to do whatever it took to leave it.”
“But not anymore?”
I think about Robert then, him pressing me against the cool wood of the cottage, kissing me and promising that soon we’d leave the island, the kids, my husband, and make our life in New York.
“I don’t know,” McCormick admits, looking out over the island. Then at the melodic call of the dove-gray bird, lonely in the breeze. He looks back at me. “You haven’t said. Do you want to leave?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He smiles at that. His soft smile, hinting toward wary. But then he turns away from me and scoops the pack off the back of his bike. He packed the canvas bag with a blue-and-white-striped cotton blanket, two bottles of lemonade, a large red-and-green-fleshed mango, homemade tortilla chips with black bean and mango salsa, and for dessert thick slices of homemade banana bread.
He spreads the blanket then, next to the trunk of the giant casuarina tree. The blanket billows out in the breeze, a parachute ballooning to the shaded, pine-needle-covered sand.
“Hungry?” he asks, and when I nod he pulls the lemonade and the food from the pack, setting the dishes in a small circle in the center of the blanket.
His head is down and he concentrates on his task. His movements are quiet and efficient. I’ve noticed he doesn’t waste movement. Everything he does is purposeful. It makes me wonder again what he does, who he is, what he wants.
I sit on the edge of the soft cotton blanket and fold my legs under me. Closer to the ground, the scent of crushed pine needles floats up.
When McCormick finishes setting out the food he leans back against the craggy trunk and gives me a smile.
I take that as my cue and pull open the lid of the black bean and mango salsa. When I do, a bright, tart lime-and-mango scent greets me. I glance up at McCormick. “Who made this?”
He flashes his grin. “You did. Friday.”
I nod. “I thought maybe you did.”
“You’ve never shared your secret recipe.”
And I’m not about to start now, seeing as I don’t know the recipe.
I take a chip and scoop up the salsa, catching black beans, cubed mango, the bright confetti of red and green peppers, and sprigs of cilantro. When I bite into the crisp tortilla chip I close my eyes at the burst of flavor. There’s the brightness of lime, the subtle sweetness of sun-ripened mango, the umami of black beans, the astringent tartness of cilantro, all dashed with sea salt, and finally, a warm heat from the peppers that grows and grows until your mouth, your whole body, is glowing with it.
I open my eyes to find McCormick watching me with a hungry look on his face.
“It’s delicious,” I say, pushing the container toward him. “Have some.”
“You’re enjoying it.”
I nod. “I don’t get to enjoy food often. Meals are rushed or skipped. And when I do sit down, it’s usually fondue, because Mila?—”
I cut myself off at McCormick’s confused expression.
“I mean, I don’t often take the time to just enjoy.”
Because McCormick’s still looking at me strangely I grab another chip and scoop up more of the salsa. I close my eyes and enjoy the experience. After a moment I hear him shift, take a chip, and then join me in feasting.
It doesn’t take long for us to finish the salsa and chips. The crumbly sweetness of the banana bread follows, and then the fresh mango.
McCormick pulls a knife from his pack. He holds the mango and slowly scores the fruit, slicing the orange flesh into perfect cubes waiting to be plucked free. Juice runs over his fingers. The heat has lulled me, the gentle breeze has soothed me, and I have that floaty feeling that arises when you’re full and content.
McCormick holds a mango half out to me, and our fingers tangle as I take the slick fruit. Then, smiling at him, I bring it to my mouth and pull a square free. The juice coats my tongue. It’s warm and sweet and tastes just like a lazy afternoon under the hot sun, ocean waves cresting at your feet.
I look at McCormick to see if he’s enjoying the fruit as much as I am. His lips are glossy and he takes a final bite. Then, without knowing I’m watching, he licks his fingers, taking up the last of the juice.
My heart crashes in my ears like the roar you hear when listening to a conch shell. The world is ultraviolet bright, all the colors more saturated than real life. My skin tingles and prickles, and all I want to do is crawl across the blanket and taste his lips.
He looks up then, alerted maybe by the shuddering sound of my exhale.
“Becca?” When he sees the expression on my face he stiffens and leans forward. “What?”
It’s the “Becca” that does it. A cold splash hits me and I tumble down from the high. I want to kiss him. Desperately. But then what happens when I stop dreaming? Will I hurt him again? It’s not fair to pull him in one direction and then push him in another.
So instead of running my fingers across the dark stubble lining his jaw, I scoot across the blanket and ask, “Can I lean against you?”
He considers me, and then he leans back against the tree and opens his arms.
I settle against him, cradled between his legs. Then I drop my head to his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. After a moment he drops his arms around me and begins to stroke my back.
“Tell me about you,” I say, listening to the drone of a dragonfly flitting overhead.
“What do you want to hear?”
His deep voice rumbles over me and I tuck myself closer.
“Start with when you were born and end with today.”
“That’s a long story.” There’s humor in his voice. “And you know it already. You lived it with me.”
“Pretend we just met. Remember?”
His fingers drift through the ends of my hair and kiss over the back of my neck. My hair curls there, damp with sweat from the heat. He rubs the silk of my hair between his fingers. All the while his other hand strokes slowly over my back.
I float in a haze and my eyelids flutter, pulling me into a dream sleep, where he begins in a lulling voice, “We moved back to the island when I was seven. It was because of me my family left, and it was because of me we returned.”