One is black and white striped, like a zebra with gills, another is green and flat as a lily pad. They fin past me, undulating in the clear water. Pink and beige corals fleck the ocean floor. A cartoonish blue and yellow fish with bulging eyes loiters beneath a rock, its mouth puckering for invisible kisses. At the villa where we’re staying we bought a book with pictures of the fish and their names. I don’t remember any of them now.
I am submerged in a salty ocean bath, face down, breathing through a snorkel. I have spent my life swimming across lakes, floating in river currents, jumping from rope swings into water holes, diving under logs and peering through reeds in secluded ponds. But sea water is new. The taste and texture and endless stretch of ocean has opened a new world of water to me.
I expel my breath and kick for the surface, breaking the plane with a splash. I spit my mouth piece and raise my mask. I can hold my breath for almost ninety seconds. It’s one of those things you have to practice and time yourself at. I can take a long look at what’s down there.
Jane has been watching from the shore. She waves. She was in the water earlier, but did not stay long. The fish—shy as they are—gave her the creeps, swimming so close. She spun in anxious circles, trying to see behind her, what might be sneaking up. Now she is on our blanket, reading her third novel in four days.
This is the first time I’ve seen her with a tan. After one day in the sun her skin colored to an orangey-brown, and has deepened since, like well-oiled wood, but so much softer and creamier.
Each night and morning I thank her for bringing me here. I had almost said no to an all-expenses-paid trip to the healing warmth of the tropics, accompanied by a beautiful woman inexplicably in love with me. A man who says no to such an offer has blown a critical fuse in his wiring. He desperately needs the vacation he is refusing. If I had stayed behind, I would have tailspinned like a plane on fire. I had been ill like I have never been, my body afflicted with the ache of the elderly, my head listing heavily from side to side, my spirit charred. But my gut most of all. Who had put a screw to it? I lived on the precipice of vomiting, my stomach constantly on the verge of revolt.
I didn’t return to Martinez for the milky drink test, and to be honest I had no evidence he was making a move for Jane by finding a way to eliminate me, using knowledge he gained from me, against me: discovering the vulnerable spot in my relationship with her and turning it to his advantage. Thank God I didn’t quiz Jane about Martinez; she would have scorned me off the face of the earth. Of course she wasn’t collaborating with her doctor friend to get rid of me; she was trying to take care of me.
Those were the conditions under which I relented and let Jane treat me to the islands. Jane: the stabilizer in my life, my ballast. More than that: She is the great love in my life. Her support for me comes from all sides. When I told Jane about Dr. Abrams drowning, she said a memory like that is important—painful, yes, but if you acknowledge it, you can learn and grow from the experience, you can get past the trauma.
Not all memories are painful, I’m beginning to realize. Not all of them conjure images of dread and resentment. In fact, most of them support my theory that my father and I are nothing alike, to my great relief. Some memories are magnificent mysteries, origins unknown, or perhaps remnants of old dreams. There is a memory I’m experiencing now which I cannot place. As I float in the ocean and look at the trees, the water, the beach—all of it is as familiar as my own back yard, yet I have never been in the tropics. It’s like my experience of meeting Jane, lying on the gurney with my head throbbing and bleeding, awareness fading and returning, her face leaning over me, close to mine. I knew her. I’d seen her before. I already had her face memorized, a cherished portrait.
I have seen this: the way the palm fronds wave in the wind, the emerald and jade of the jungle, the hundred hues of turquoise in the water. I see as if from a distance, approaching from the sea, moving closer to shore. I do not believe in deja-vu. I do not believe in previous lives or lives to come. I believe this is my one chance, which is why wrecking it can be so lethal, and so I’d better not.
—
I sit cross-legged on the blanket next to Jane. There is no need to dry off. Not the slightest chill edges the breeze, even when the clouds clustering on the horizon march in for the daily afternoon showers.
“You stayed in the water a long time,” Jane says. “You must be waterlogged.”
“It’s so beautiful here, so comfortable. I can’t believe how great I feel. Have I thanked you for bringing me here?”
“Only a million times. It’s getting a little annoying.”
As for Jane, she needed this getaway as much as I did. She may not have been sneaking around with Martinez, but she was definitely questioning the wisdom and stability of her relationship with me, and battling emotions unfamiliar to her concerning the orphaned baby. Look at the way she fell into tears while holding him. Yet the tears weren’t concern for the health of the baby—Blair gets around-the-clock expert care and is thriving; otherwise Jane would never have left for this trip. He could be strong enough to go home in another month, except there is no home for him. The mother remains unidentified, stashed on a chilly rollout slab in the morgue. No relatives have been located by the police. If no relation shows up, it means foster care and eventually adoption.
We’re far down the beach from other vacationers at the villa, no one else in shouting distance. If you stay on the resort’s private beach you can use their umbrellas and beach chairs. Or you can sit in a pool with submerged bar stools and drink rum and fruit drinks out of hollowed melons. We haven’t been drinking or socializing with others. This vacation has been strictly private. Down here the beach is narrower, the vegetation dares within twenty feet of high tide. Raucous birds trumpet and flute in the thicket behind us.
Jane turns onto her stomach. I untie the top of her bathing suit and she pulls it from under her. I rub lotion between her shoulder blades. No scars or blemishes mar her back. A faint line of hair descends from her neck down her spine. I can feel it more than see it, soft as down, and I put my lips there and kiss. She turns again and now slips her bottoms off and leans back on the blanket, propped on one elbow with her chin up, naked and stunning.
I wipe my hands on a towel and take out my pad and charcoal pencil from our beach bag. I execute three quick sketches of Jane, two full length and straight on, and one close profile of her torso, where her arm hides the side of her breast. My hand is steady and fluid through every line. This is what I’ve been needing: to draw Jane. At home, I have entire sketchbooks filled with drawings of her, detailed face portraits and quick line drawings suggesting her shape. I have drawn her while she’s slept, while she’s read, while she’s taken a bath, while she’s sat in front of the TV. I’ve drawn her naked and clothed. From the front and back. Her angular features and ability to hold one position make her an excellent model. Her figure lacks pronounced curves, nothing like the voluminous nudes drawn and painted by the early masters of the form.
It took Jane a long time to get used to my pencil and pad. The first time I drew her naked was after the first time we’d made love; we had been out together only a few times and had taken a walk and gotten coffee one Saturday afternoon and then went back to her house and ended up in bed where we kissed for about an hour before starting to undress. The actual lovemaking part took much less time and when we finished Jane fell asleep with the sheets and blankets bunched like a pile of leaves around her feet. The fading light through the window cast a shadow over her figure. I took up the pen and pad of sticky notes she kept on her bed table to write herself reminders. It was a tiny sketch and she woke up while I was working on it.
“What are you doing?” Her natural reaction was to pull the blanket up, but I asked her to go back to the way she was. She protested at first, but I showed her the sketch and she relented, although on subsequent occasions, when I had my bigger pad, she was reluctant to pose and she teased me about using this technique to get all my women naked. “All” in this case didn’t amount to many, although it’s true I’ve drawn and painted other women, some of whom I’ve slept with. Eventually Jane got comfortable in her role as a model—as long as I promised to keep the finished works private—and she became skilled at taking her clothes off and letting me stare at her up and down. That takes confidence, that takes a bit of exhibitionism, and to my credit I’ve been able to capture her poise and self-assurance, along with a dark and sultry beauty beyond the persona she displays in everyday life.
I finish my drawings. I wrap the pad in a towel to keep the paper dry, and lie down next to her and hold her hand. The best I’ve ever felt in my life is after I’ve drawn Jane and before we’ve made love, a few minutes of suspended time electrified with exquisite anticipation. It would be perfect to make love right here, right now, on our private patch of beach under graceful fronds of palms. We could take a long time, blending and folding our bodies, finding a rhythm as endless and insistent as the tides caressing the sand.
We move our blanket out of sight under a stand of palms.
Excerpt from my upcoming novel.
