The ferry is beginning to move, and a gust of wind makes me close my eyes and put my hand in my hair. When I open them again, Javier has raised his glasses to look at me. “That is a little happy. Not big, not the kind that fills you up and makes you want to laugh.”
“Yeah, I don’t know that I’ve had that.” It’s unnerving to realize it, unnerving how much I’ve revealed to this man. And yet I can’t stop. Something about him—his kindness or his warm voice or something I can’t even name—softens the carapace I’ve carried around for so long.
He asks, “When you fall in love?”
I shrug. I don’t want to say aloud that I don’t do that, because then he might think it’s a challenge, and it isn’t. I just don’t want all the drama.
He inclines his head, puzzling over me, then captures a lock of my hair and tucks it behind my ear. His mouth turns up on one side, activating that ridiculously charming dimple. “Now I am convinced that you have not known the right men.” He settles his beer on the ground, then takes mine. “I have been thinking today about kissing you.”
“I’ve thought of that too.”
One hand runs up my arm, and he follows the motion with his gaze. “I thought of it in the bookstore, when you looked so sad, but it was not quite right.” His hand moves over my shoulder, up to my neck. “And as we came out of the café, you smiled up at me, and your throat looked long and golden.” His fingers alight against my throat, slide to my clavicle. All the nerves in my body rustle to life, and yet I’m enjoying the slow caress.
“When you leaped over the railing, my heart squeezed so hard I could not breathe, because what if”—now he touches my ear, my temple, my wet hair, and pulls me closer—“what if I had lost the chance?”
I lift my face, and he cradles my head as our lips join. And then I forget to keep my guard up or shield myself with cynicism, because his mouth is as lush as plums, and he shifts slightly to fit us together more perfectly. My head is in his palm and the front of my knee against his thigh, and it’s like a fragrant smoke surrounds us, makes me dizzy. Behind my eyes, the world is faintly rose. I reach out a hand to brace myself, holding on to his upper arm, and as if I’ve asked permission, he opens his lips slightly and invites me in, and I go, I go, reach for his tongue and it reaches mine, and then I’m lost in it, a kiss so perfect it might be a poem, or a dance, or something I’ve dreamed.
With a little gasp I pull back, covering my mouth with my hand as I look up to his dark eyes, eyes that crinkle a little at the corners. He smooths back my hair from my forehead. “Is that happiness too?”
I let go of a soft laugh. “I don’t know. Let me try again.” And I pull him closer, lean back, and invite him to press into me as the ferry chugs across the water and the family nearby shrieks over raindrops that start to fall. I’m aware of a big drop that splashes on my forehead and a pair that plop on my hand, but mostly what I’m feeling is Javier’s mouth kissing me; and Javier’s body close to mine; and Javier’s graceful tongue, which I want on me everywhere; and Javier’s back, which I want naked.
And it doesn’t matter when there is more rain, a slow, soft patter that falls on us all the way to the CBD. We only press closer and kiss more. I taste the salt on his lips from the sea and the rain, and we’re soaked and kissing and lost.
And I don’t even think for a moment to consider this might be dangerous. That I might—that I have let down all my guards.
I just kiss him. In the rain. On a ferry halfway around the world. Kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him.
Chapter Twelve
Mari
I met Nan years ago in Raglan, a town on the central coast of the North Island known for great surfing. I was waiting tables in Hamilton and had only just begun to allow myself to surf again, fearful of running into someone I might know. Raglan was only a few miles away, and I drove out there on the weekdays, when the crowds were small and passionate, to ride the left-breaking waves.
By then it had been nearly two and a half years since I’d fled France on the passport of a dead girl, and I had since discarded that identity too, to become Mari Sanders from Tofino, British Columbia. I found a guy to make me the papers I needed and trashed the original passport, scattering it from Queensland, where I first arrived, all the way north.
I had not had a single mind-altering substance, not so much as a mouthful of beer, in 812 days. It was the thing that made the rest worth it and the only thing I believed would save me: to be sober, I had to leave the wreck of my old life and make a new one. Never look back.
On the beach the first day, I met Nan. Tall, skinny, black-haired, she was a law student at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, and had grown up, as I had, surfing. We clicked, respectful of each other’s chops. Within months, we lived together in Hamilton and surfed every time we could manage. I worked in a café and enrolled at Wintec, the equivalent of community college. I started in cookery and hospitality, thinking of my family’s restaurant, but it was a hard-partying group, and I found myself struggling against the wave of their happy drunkenness.
I made friends with a woman in landscape design and construction and made the switch. Much to my surprise, it was a perfect fit. I liked working outside, loved working with my body, and once I started to understand the basics of horticulture with a range of plants I’d never seen, I fell in love.
Nan finished her law degree a year later and moved to Auckland, but I stayed in Hamilton, surfing Raglan on the weekends, making a life for myself. We kept in touch, and when Simon, an Auckland native, wooed me north, our friendship took up where it had left off. Once or twice a month now, we meet for dinner near her law offices in the CBD and catch up.
Tonight I find parking almost immediately and walk down to the Britomart and our special restaurant, an Italian one that reminds us both of childhood. Nan stands in front, sleek and skinny, her hair swept up in a French knot that suits her cheekbones. “They’re having a special event,” she says. “We’ll have to go elsewhere.”
“No worries. Any preference?”
“Mind walking a few blocks? There’s a Spanish guitarist at the tapas place. Everyone is talking about him.”
“Sounds great. Let’s go.”
She takes a few steps, then halts. “Oh, wait. The girl wanted to talk to you.”
“The girl?”
“Yes. The pretty one with all the hair? She said she wanted to see you when you arrived.”
“About?”
“I don’t know.”
We both half-heartedly peer into the busy restaurant. “I’m sure it will wait,” I say. “I’m starving.”
“Me too.” She links arms with me energetically, and we stride up the hill, exchanging small bits of news. A case she’s been working on has come to fruition at last. She knows about the house, and I tell her about the day with Rose, checking things out.
At the tapas bar, we settle outside on the bricked alleyway, away from the crowds standing three deep at the bar, mostly made up of well-dressed millennials from the local offices. “Popular,” I comment.
“It’s Friday night.” She orders a martini for herself and sparkling water with lime for me, and we start with roasted Padrón peppers and stuffed olives with bread. Overhead, the sky among buildings is a golden spill of light, bright with distant rain. I feel myself relax. “Tell me,” I say. “Do you have a theory about who killed Veronica Parker?”
“The Maori actress?”
“The one who built Sapphire House.”
“Right. She was also Maori. It’s one of the things that set her apart.”
“I remember.”
“She’s a fascinating figure.” Nan pops an olive in her mouth, eyeing a man in a very formal suit. In general, people dress well for work here, unlike the more casual United States. “I don’t know why someone hasn’t done a big book on her by now. New Zealand girl makes good in Hollywood, falls in love with another native New Zealander at the Olympic games. They have a mad love affair for years, and she’s murdered.”
“Don’t forget he died too.”
“Right. It was only another year or two, right?”
“Yeah.” The peppers are small and mild, my favorites in all the world, and they’re perfectly roasted and salted here. I nestle one into an envelope of soft bread and take a bite. “Maybe it was his wife?”
“They cleared her almost immediately. She was with her family or something. I don’t remember exactly.”
Gweneth is a fanatic for the history of Auckland, and the three of us have speculated before, over book club snacks and various meals. I was grateful that the two of them liked each other. My two best friends, and as close as I could get to replicating the experience of being a sister.
“Not the wife. Not Veronica’s sister,” I said, ticking them off. “Not George. Then who?”
Nan lifted a shoulder, skeptical. “My money is still on George. They never found any evidence, but he was notoriously jealous. In the case of a violent death at home, it’s nearly always a loved one who did it.”