When We Believed in Mermaids(23)

“Once. Now I’m an ER doctor, back in the States.”

“Good work. You probably saved his life.” He takes over holding pressure, and they load him onto a stretcher.

I stand up and knock the sand off my knees, and a group of people starts clapping. I shake my head, wave a hand dismissively, and look for Javier, who is standing to one side with my dress and shoes in his hand. I take in a breath and blow it out, hands on my waist. It’s a classic calming pose. As he reaches me, I glance down at my ordinary bra and panties. “Glad I wore the good underwear.”

He smiles, offering me my dress. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” I tug the fabric over my head, my heavy wet braid knocking to one side.

“You disappeared before I—”

“Instinct. I was a lifeguard for a decade.” I smooth the dress down. The panties will dry soon enough, but the underwire on the bra is going to be a misery. For a moment, I wonder if I should walk up to the ladies’ room and delicately remove it, but the entire beach has seen me half-naked already. “Give me some cover, will you?”

He glances over his shoulder, still holding my sandals, and moves his body to block me from view. The seawall is behind me. I reach beneath the dress, unhook the bra, and tug it off my arms and wad it up. “Is my bag anywhere?”

“Here.” He’s looped it over his shoulder so it’s hanging down his back, and now he slides it down to give to me.

I toss the bra inside, take one shoe and brush it off, slide a foot in, do the same on the other side, then pull out a bottle of water and take a long, lukewarm swallow.

Only then do I inhale deeply and let it out in a slow breath, looking up at Javier. I’m used to emergencies, but this came out of nowhere, and I’m a little giddy. “Are you impressed?”

He lifts his aviator glasses and licks his lower lip, reaching out to brush my cheek. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He takes a breath now and lets it out, throwing an arm around me. “You frightened me. Let’s find a drink, hmm?”

“Great idea.”

We settle on the top of the ferry again, toward the back against the rails, and Javier leaves me to go down to the snack bar. In his absence, I watch the vast sky. Clouds are gathering on the horizon, moving like they’re on fast-forward, and before he returns, they’ve rushed over the sun, bringing a pearly gray light to the scene.

He’s carrying two beers when he returns, and we clink bottles. I’m unsettled and restless and conscious of his body alongside mine. The beer is cold and delicious. Refreshing. “Thank you.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Yes. ER in Santa Cruz.”

“ER?”

“Emergency room.”

“Ah.” He sips his beer and watches a family of tourists settling on a row of seats, and I watch too. The mom is hassled, directing her three kids to put their hats back on, to stop tossing a ball among them, to sit down and stop leaning over the rail. The dad is bent over his phone. “That would account for your speed.” He makes a soft sound, looks at me. “One moment you were standing beside me, and the next you were in the water.”

“Here’s the thing—it wasn’t really that sudden. I was worried about those boys, and you’ll notice I was in place when one fell.” I smooth a hand over my thigh, which feels restless. “I’m a surfer, and I was a lifeguard, and you see the injuries in the ER all the time . . . so while all of you were enjoying the spectacle of youth and energy, I was imagining all the things that could go wrong.”

For a moment, he looks at me, his sunglasses hiding his eyes. “Will he be all right, that boy?”

“I don’t know. He hit his head pretty damn hard.”

“Does it make you afraid, knowing what you know? Stop you from doing things?”

I settle sideways so I can look at him more easily, leaning my back against the railing. “Not physical things.”

His eyes glitter. “What things, then, hmm?”

I look away, over his shoulder, thinking of my rules about men, my lack of travel, the empty spaces in my life, and suddenly feel a welter of tears at the back of my throat, which is not me at all. I feign nonchalance with a one-shoulder shrug. “I already knew bad things could happen.”

“Ah, the earthquake, yes?”

“Among other things.”

“Is that what led you to the emergency room?”

“Maybe? Probably.” I pick at the label of my beer. “I always wanted to study science in some way, but that was a big event.”

He touches my forearm with one finger. “Were you injured?”

“Scratches and bruises. Nothing much.” I feel suddenly breathless at the pressure of so many memories rising up after so long. My sister, Dylan, the earthquake. I lift a hand. “Enough. Your turn, Señor Velez. I’ve been talking about myself all day.”

He smiles. The wind blows his hair over his forehead. He’s such a masculine man. European, so polished, but so very male. His big hands. His broad shoulders. His strong nose and intelligent brow. “I am not as interesting as you are.”

“That is not true.” My body is starting to relax a little after the adrenaline rush. “Tell me why you really came to New Zealand.”

“Not just to visit?”

I shake my head, go with a gut feeling. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re right.” He looks out toward the horizon, back to me. “A very good friend of mine, one of my oldest friends, killed himself.”

Damn. The lake of my memories ripples, threatens to spill. A flash of Dylan’s dead, still self washes out of the lake, but I’m a master at ridding myself of those images. I sit up straight, taking refuge in my professional training. “Javier, I’m so sorry.” In compassion, I wrap my hand around his. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

He turns his palm upward, captures my hand close. “We had been friends since we were small. Very small. I felt I should have seen. Done . . . something.” His face darkens as he focuses on the horizon. “I just . . .” He sighs. “After, I found it difficult to take up my work, and Miguel invited me to come here for a time.” He brushes his thumb over my fingernail.

“Suicide is especially difficult for survivors,” I say, and it’s too much my ER voice. I force myself to be more human. Personal. “You must miss him terribly.”

“I keep wishing for it to make sense.”

“It doesn’t, always.”

“I suppose you see it often, in your work.” He gives me a sideways look, still holding my hand.

I swallow back another confession. “Yes.”

“Is it difficult?”

He’s raw and seeking a comfort that doesn’t exist, at least not a comfort I can offer. “It’s unsettling when a person dies violently in any form.”

He waits quietly, and I have opened the box, this heavy box I’ve been dragging around with me. “Drugs and alcohol. The stupid, stupid things people do.” I shake my head. “So many kids. And gangs. Good God, sometimes they’re so young they don’t know how to kiss, and they’re carrying guns.”

“Mm.” His thumb edges over the top of mine.

Into the quiet, I say something I have only thought, never spoken aloud. “I’ve been thinking about leaving the ER. It’s wearing me down.”

“What would you do instead?”

I focus on the shape of his fingers, the tidiness of his nails. Well-tended hands. “I have no idea.”

“Something else is calling you.”

“Maybe. My interest as a teen was in marine animals, but it might be too late to return to that. I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t even the job as much as the place. Maybe it’s time to escape Santa Cruz.” I feel disheartened, as if I’ve wasted a lot of time. “Tell me about your friend. If you want to.”

He takes a breath, lets it go. “It’s all a tangle still. It hasn’t been very long, only a month. He had a bad time. His wife left him, and he was drinking too much, and—” He shrugs. “There are seasons of darkness, yes? Loss and sadness all around.” He tightens his grip. “But if you are patient, the circle turns, and then there is happiness all around, everything good, everyone happy.” He flings a hand out, palm up, as if scattering glitter. “My friend, he just forgot that happiness is part of living too.”

“That’s a lovely thought.” I smile sadly. “But I’m going to admit something terrible”—and I know I am doing this to skirt around the other things I could be spilling—“but aside from when I was a child, I don’t know that I’ve had those happy times.”

“Never?”

I run through the years of my life mentally, trying to find a cycle that was particularly outstanding. “Not really. I mean, I was glad to get my degree and get out of school and go to work, but . . .”

A small frown wrinkles his brow. “Perhaps we are not talking about the same thing. I mean those times when your family is well and you have work you love and maybe you fall in love and feel good. Those times.”

“I’m happy right now.” I sip my beer, look at the water. “I’m in this beautiful place and enjoying the company of an interesting and”—I raise one brow—“quite good-looking man. I’m not dealing with work or my mother or any of my daily things. That’s happiness, right?”