2. 9
So in mid-June, he took his first-ever road trip, solo on his motorcycle, all the way to Santa Barbara. He rented the cheapest motel room he could find, and waited all day until she finally finished her work.
He brought her back straightaway to the motel. Closed and locked the door behind them, then went to stand in front of her. Lifted her face to his.
She couldn’t hide her uneasiness from him. He let his eyes do the apologizing. Then he put his hands on her, and in spite of herself, she felt the tension drain from her body.
The next day, he brought her straight to the motel again. But this time, the tension didn’t leave her body when he touched her.
She looked up at him. “Is this all we’re ever going to do? Is this the only reason you came down here?”
Reluctantly, he let go of her and stepped back. “What do you want to do?”
“Does it matter? I’ll know it’s not what you really want to do.”
“That’s not true. I want to do whatever will make you happy.”
She thought about it for a moment. To her dismay, she had no better idea of how they should spend their time together. She reached up, pulled his face down aggressively to hers in a kiss. Unbuttoned his shirt halfway, then ripped it the rest of the way off of him.
“Wow. What was that?” he asked afterward when he could talk again.
She swung herself off of him, retrieved her bra from the floor. “One more for the road.”
“I’ll be here one more night.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to have to work very late tomorrow.”
He was still panting from the sex, and the smile left his face. “So this is it, then? Until September?”
She nodded.
He sat up and looked at her, considering. “Can’t you ask for a little time tomorrow? I’ll take you out somewhere.”
She shook her head. Wriggled herself into her bra, and fastened the clasp at the front. She knew from the look on his face that he knew – she didn’t really have to work tomorrow. She was just ready for him to leave.
But he didn’t ask any more questions. “I wish I had known that this would be the last time I would see you for three months.”
She reached for her T-shirt, pulled it on over her head. Stepped into her jeans.
She felt his hand on her arm and turned to meet his sober gaze. Touching the ring on her finger, he said, “It isn’t just about sex, for me. Remember?”
She looked down at the ring, her eyebrows knitting together. A look of horror swept over his face.
“Do you still want to wear it?”
“Of course,” she said immediately. “But I need you to understand how important all of this is to me. The work I’m doing here, as well as you.”
“Is that what this is about?” He pulled her to him in a hug. “I do understand. I promise.”
She slept with him that night, and he dropped her off early the next morning at her dorm.
“I guess I’ll see you in September, then,” he said.
“Yes,” she said vaguely.
“I love you,” he added.
She hesitated. “I love you, too.”
But as he drove away, she turned in the direction of the laboratory. She hoped Kevin would be there so she could get back to work. He would be pleasantly surprised to see her.
“I seem to be always making mistakes,” Julia confessed over the phone to William one day in August. “Recently, I almost put a specimen into the wrong holding tank. Kevin caught me just at the last minute; otherwise, the specimen would have contaminated the entire tank. He saved my ass completely.”
William pointedly didn’t respond to the part about the heroic Kevin. Slowly, carefully, he said, “You always used to say that what you really enjoyed was just going out and looking at the wildlife.”
She could feel the annoyance welling in her chest. “Okay.”
“Have you ever considered changing your focus just a little bit? Maybe away from strict science, and more toward something like being a naturalist? You know, like being the person who talks to people on board whale-watching expeditions?”
The annoyance overflowed its confines and spilled out through her mouth. “Okay, I get it. You’re a guy. You have to try to fix things.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I was really just wanting someone to listen. Maybe reassure me a little bit.”
“Well… I am trying to reassure you. Maybe scientist isn’t in the cards for you, but naturalist is.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “I mean, since you said yourself once that what you really enjoy is looking at the animals.”
“I don’t want to be a naturalist. I want to be a marine biologist.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth.”
“I don’t want to sit around talking to people all day about animals. I want to get out there, touch them, get my hands dirty. Help save them.”
“That’s very noble. I think you should do that.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
He laughed ruefully.
She said, “You just want me to drop out so I’ll come home.”
“No. I want you to be happy.”
She felt her chest deflate. “I’m sorry.”
To her own shock, her voice was breaking. Except for when her uncle died, she had never cried in front of him before.
Gently, he said, “Hey. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m just afraid you’re right. This has been my dream since I was twelve years old. I’m not the kind of person to just give up on my dreams without a fight. But no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work at it, I’m just failing.”
There was a long pause. “I don’t know what to say to help you. I just really wish I could hug you right now.”
But he had hit on exactly the right thing to say. “I wish you could too.”
He thought for a moment. “When’s the very first day that you’re getting back to Santa Barbara?”
“September 15 th . Why?”
“Oh, no reason.”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
“Who says I’m coming?”
She laughed. “Okay. I won’t see you on September 15 th , then.”
Late on the afternoon of September 15 th , Kevin escorted Julia back to her dorm. As they approached Anacapa Hall, she smiled brightly and said with forced cheerfulness, “Well, it’s been great working with you!”
But Kevin read between the lines. “Don’t worry about it, Julia. You did fine. And you’re only a freshman. There’s always next year.”
“The way this year went, I’m not sure there’s going to be a next year. And if I can’t get any more internships or a good recommendation, I’m not sure I’ll be going to grad school.”
“But you have to,” he said with a vehemence that startled her. “You can’t let yourself give up that easily.”
She considered a moment. “I’m going to stay the course. If it doesn’t work out here, I can always apply to another marine biology program.”
“Good for you. Don’t second guess yourself.”
They stood on the sidewalk in front of Anacapa Hall now, and Kevin startled her again by gathering her into a long hug. When he pulled away, he held her by the shoulders a moment. He had a strange look on his face, but he only said, “See you tonight at dinner.”
A sudden loud roar assailed them. From the opposite curb, a motorcycle spun around in a U-turn and screeched to a halt right beside them. Julia jumped backward, and then the driver lifted the helmet from his head.
“Will!” Julia’s face lit up at the sight of him, but he didn’t notice because he was too busy glaring at Kevin.
William swung off the motorcycle and came to stand in front of Kevin, a little too close for comfort. At the look on William’s face, Kevin shrank back a bit, glancing back and forth between Julia and William. People walking nearby stopped to stare, anticipating a fight.
“Um… I think I’d better go now,” said Kevin.
“Yeah. That would be a good idea,” William replied.
With one last wary look at William, Kevin walked as fast as he could in the other direction. Slowly, their disappointed spectators dispersed.
Only then did William turn to glare at Julia. “Where have you been?” he demanded.
“What are you talking about?”
“You told me you were getting back to your dorm at noon. It’s four o’clock. I’ve been waiting here since 11:30. ”
“How was I supposed to know that? I thought you were coming tomorrow. That’s what you told me when we talked last weekend.”
“So,” he said, ignoring her answer. “Who was that?”
“That was Kevin,” she replied, a note of strain in her voice.
William was shaking now. “I knew I should have trusted my instincts. But I didn’t want you to think I was a jealous prick.”
Julia scowled at him, and refused to answer.
“So it’s dinner with Kevin tonight?” He nodded down at her ring. “Why are you even wearing that thing anymore?”
“Will.” Her voice trembled with barely-contained fury. “I’m late because I was at the bank, trying to get the ring back from the safe deposit box. I didn’t want to damage or lose it during my internship. Oh, and by the way – when we disembarked, we got a visit from Kevin’s fiancée, Nicole. Trustee of a little affair out of New York called the De Smet Family Foundation. It was a grant of theirs that made our research possible this season, so we all figured the least we could do was have dinner with her tonight.”
She waited until it sank in. Waited for the evidence to show on his face. Then she turned and ran into the dorm. Too late, he ran after her. The door locked behind her.
She froze in horror, watching through the glass as he pounded on the door and shouted her name. A small crowd assembled behind her, staring, whispering. Julia jumped as a resident assistant put a hand on her shoulder.
“Do you want me to call the campus police?”
Panic squeezed the breath right out of Julia’s lungs, like a bellows. She ran to her dorm room and locked the door behind her. But she could still hear him banging on the entrance to Anacapa Hall, until a campus police officer made him leave.
A few minutes later, the phone in her dorm room rang. She snatched the cord out of the wall.
Unable to eat or sleep, afraid to even plug the phone back in and call Kevin, she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
Finally, at midnight, she reached into the drawer of her dorm room desk. Inside, wrapped in a handkerchief, she found the smooth, flat circle of stone. It had a pink inner section, surrounded by a circle of white, surrounded in turn by an outer ring of green. Just like a slice of watermelon.
“I don’t ever want to see you settle for anything less than everything,” Uncle Rob had told her. “Just do me a favor, and believe that you deserve it.”
At ten o’clock the next morning, she went outside and froze when she saw him waiting there on his motorcycle. When he saw her, he tentatively clambered down from the seat and came halfway up the walkway toward her. He looked as if he hadn’t slept much more than she had.
“I just want to talk,” he pleaded.
“Then you’re going to have to do it right here, in a public place.”
He looked aghast. “I would never hurt you.”
“I don’t know. They say it only keeps on escalating.”
“I would never, ever hurt you.”
“You looked pretty hell-bent on hurting someone yesterday.”
“I could have hurt him, if I had wanted to. But I didn’t.”
She had no response for that. After a moment, she came down the walkway toward him. “How am I supposed to face Kevin or anyone at my dorm again, after the way you embarrassed me yesterday?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Kevin is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He’s the only person down here who gets me, who likes me exactly the way I am. All these people down here? I’ll never fit in with them. The other people in my internship? They think the only reason I lasted at all is because I’m sleeping with Kevin. Which I’m not, by the way, so don’t even start.”
“I know that.”
“You need to get a life.”
His brows knit together. “What?”
“You always have some excuse for why you can’t do the things you want to do. You can’t make a living as a fisherman. You don’t have the personality to be a photographer. You’re not good enough to be a poet or a songwriter. All just excuses, so you don’t have to try and then maybe fail.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if you found something besides another person for your life to revolve around, you wouldn’t freak out when you see me with someone who happens to have a Y chromosome.”
She could tell that she had smitten his pride. That it wanted him to be angry, to tell her how presumptuous she was, assuming that his life revolved around her. That he wasn’t sure whether to let his pride or his humility win, until he saw her coming toward him, wrestling the ring off of her finger.
“No,” he said, springing forward, trying to stop her from taking it off. She wrenched herself away from him. Glared at him, and took it the rest of the way off. Held it out to him.
“Please, let’s go someplace private to talk,” he whispered, conscious of the people walking past who either stared or tried not to stare. “We can’t talk about this here.”
“What’s the matter, too proud to say it in front of everyone? You didn’t have too high an opinion of my pride yesterday.”
“Please,” he begged her. “Just come with me. You have to know I would never hurt you.”
She said nothing, just held out the ring.
“I’ll take it, but only if you come with me and let me talk to you. If you still want me to keep it after I talk to you, I will.”
Anger, fear, and compassion waged battle within her as he continued to beg her, “Please.” Finally, reluctantly, she nodded. He took the ring, put it in his pocket, and led her to his motorcycle. She put on her own helmet and refused to let him help her onto the back.
He drove her to the motel. Let them both inside his room and invited her to sit in a chair. Knelt in front of her on the floor, and put his head in her lap.
“My life doesn’t revolve around you,” he said, “but you’re the most important part of it.”