See Me (13 page)

“How’s your balance on the board?” he asked.

“Pretty good. Why?”

“Because I packed a small cooler,” he said, gesturing at it behind him. “I was wondering if you’d be able to put it on your board. I’m not sure my balance will be good enough at first.”

“It’s not that hard,” she said. “You’ll get the hang of it. But to answer your question, yes, I can put the cooler on my board, and actually, that’s perfect, since it will give me a place to put the towels. I hate wet towels.”

Opening her door, she reached for both her camera and the carrier straps for the boards, consciously trying not to stare at him. She laid out the carrier straps, then hooked them to the boards, knowing Colin was watching her and liking the way it made her feel. When she was finished, he grabbed his backpack and both boards. Maria picked up the towels and cooler as they started toward the point. “What’s in the cooler, by the way?” she asked.

“Snacks, basically. Fruit, some nuts, a couple bottles of water.”

“Healthy,” she commented.

“I’m pretty strict about what I eat.”

“And the backpack?”

“A Frisbee, a Hacky Sack, and sunscreen. If we hit the beach or whatever.”

“I’m not very good at Frisbee. And just so you know, I’ve never touched a Hacky Sack in my life.”

“Then we’ll both be trying something new today.”

On the beach, the sand glowed almost white in the sunlight. Aside from a man tossing a ball to his golden retriever in the waves, the beach at this end of the island was deserted. Maria raised the cooler in the direction of the inlet. “That’s Masonboro Island,” she said.

“Until you mentioned it last night, I’d never heard of it.”

“It’s rustic. There are no roads or picnic areas. In the summers, a lot of boaters go there, but lately, I’ve had the place to myself. It’s quiet and beautiful, and it’s a great way to kick off my week, especially one like this one. My partner has a trial later this week, and I’ll probably be working late every night to make sure he has everything he needs. I’ll head in earlier than usual, too.”

“That’s a lot of hours.”

“Gotta get ahead, you know,” she cracked.

“Why?”

“If I don’t do my job, I’ll get fired.”

“I wasn’t asking about doing your job well. I understand that. I was just wondering why it’s important to you to get ahead.”

Maria frowned, realizing that he was the first person who’d ever asked her the question and she was at a loss. “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “I guess I’m just wired that way. Either that, or it was all my parents’ fault. Isn’t that what people say in therapy?”

“Sometimes. And sometimes it’s even true.”

“Don’t you want to get ahead?”

“I’m not sure what getting ahead even means,” he said. “Bigger house? Better cars? More exotic vacations? My parents have all those things, but I don’t get the sense that either of them is really happy. There’s always something more out there, but where does it end? I don’t want to live like that.”

“How do you want to live?”

“I want balance. Work is important because I have to support myself, but so are friends, health, rest. Having the time to do things that I enjoy, and sometimes doing nothing at all.”

The cooler thumped gently against her leg. “That’s very… sensible.”

“Okay.”

She smiled.
I could have predicted he was going to say that.
“You’re right, of course. Balance is important, but I’ve always liked the feeling of succeeding at something difficult, whether it was grades when I was a little girl or a well-written brief now. Setting goals and then reaching them makes me feel like I’m not just going through the motions of life. And in the end, if I do it well enough, other people notice, and I get rewarded. I like that, too.”

“That makes sense.”

“But not for you?”

“We’re different.”

“Don’t you set goals, too? Like finishing college or winning a fight?”

“Yes.”

“Then how are we different?”

“Because I don’t care about getting ahead. And I generally don’t give a lot of thought to the way other people define it.”

“And you think I do?”

“Yes.”

“Care to elaborate?”

He took a couple of steps before answering. “I think you care deeply about the way you come across to other people, but to me, that’s a mistake. In the end, the only one you can ever really please is yourself. How others feel is up to them.”

She pressed her lips together, knowing he was right but still a little taken aback that he’d simply… say it. Then again, he was forthright about everything else, so why should she be surprised?

“Did you learn that in therapy?”

“Yes. But it took a long time to embrace it.”

“Maybe I should talk to your therapist.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, and she laughed.

“Well, just so you know, it’s not all me. The fact that I need so much external validation
is
my parents’ fault.”

When he arched a skeptical eyebrow, she nudged his shoulder playfully, the gesture strangely natural. “I’m being serious about this. I might have been born with drive or ambition or whatever you want to call it, but they definitely nurtured it. Neither one of my parents went to school past the eighth grade, and they had to sacrifice for years before they could start the restaurant. They had to learn a new language and accounting and a thousand other things from scratch when they were adults, so to them, a good education was everything. I grew up speaking Spanish at home, so right from the start, I had to work harder than the other kids because I didn’t understand anything the teacher was saying. Even though my parents were both working fifteen-hour days, they never missed a meeting with my teachers, and they made sure I always did my homework. When I started to bring home good grades, they were just so proud. They’d invite my aunts and uncles and cousins over on the weekend – I’ve got a ton of relatives in town – and they’d pass around my report card, going on and on about what a good student I was. I was the center of attention and I liked the way it made me feel, so I began to work even harder. I’d sit in the front row and raise my hand whenever the teacher asked a question, and I’d stay up until the middle of the night studying for tests. As a result, I was pretty much a total nerd all the way through high school.”

“Yeah?” He wore that amused expression again.

“Uh… yeah,” she said sheepishly. “I got glasses when I was eight, these brown-rimmed monstrosities, and I had braces for three years. I was shy and gawky and I actually
liked
to study. I didn’t go to a prom until I was a senior, and even then, I went with a group of other girls who didn’t have dates, either. I never kissed a boy until the month before I started college. Trust me, I know what a nerd is, and I was one of them.”

“And now?”

“I’m still kind of a nerd. I work too much, I don’t visit my friends as often as I should, and I don’t really do anything on the weekends except paddleboard and spend time with my family. On Friday nights, you can usually find me reading in bed.”

“That doesn’t make you a nerd. I don’t go out much anymore, either. If I’m not working out or competing, I’m usually listening to some tunes or studying or hanging with Evan and Lily at the house.”

“Lily?”

“Evan’s fiancée.”

“What’s she like?”

“Blond. About the same size as you. Terrific personality. And very, very Southern. She’s from Charleston.”

“How about Evan? Is he anything like you?”

“He’s more like you, actually. He’s got his act together.”

“You think I have my act together?”

“Yes.”

“Then why doesn’t it feel that way?”

“I have no idea,” he answered. “But I think most people would say the same thing about you as I did.”

She squinted over at him, liking what he’d said. By then, they had reached the shoreline, and she slipped off her sandals, focusing on the water. “Okay, this is good,” she declared. “The tide’s going in, which makes it easier. If it were going out, we’d have to launch from down there,” she said, pointing over his shoulder. “You ready?”

“Almost,” he said. He put the boards down and shrugged off the backpack, storing his flip-flops and removing a bottle of sunscreen. He pulled off his shirt, tucking it away in the backpack as well, and her first thought was that he looked almost sculpted. His chest and stomach were a landscape of contours and ridges, every muscle sharply defined. On his chest, a colorful dragon tattoo wound its way over one shoulder, intertwining artfully with a Chinese character. He stared toward the water as he began to apply the lotion. “It’s gorgeous out here,” he observed.

“I agree,” she said, trying not to ogle.

He squeezed some more sunscreen into his hand before offering her the bottle. “Do you want some?”

“Maybe later. I put some on earlier, but I don’t generally burn. Latin skin, you know.”

He nodded, slathering some on the fronts of his legs and then turning around. “Would you mind putting some on my back?”

She nodded, her mouth going slightly dry. “Sure.”

Their fingers brushed as she took the lotion. She squeezed a dab into her hands and slowly ran her hands over his back, feeling the interplay of muscles and skin, trying to ignore the strange intimacy of what she was doing. Serena was going to love hearing about this.

“Will we see any dolphins or porpoises?” he asked, seemingly oblivious to her thoughts.

Running her hands over the cords in his back, it took her a moment to answer. “I doubt it. At this time of day, they’re usually on the ocean side.” Then, feeling a pang of disappointment, she finished and closed the cap. “All right, you’re done.”

“Thanks,” he said, putting the sunscreen away. “What’s next?”

“We’re almost ready.” She unhooked the carrier straps and handed them to Colin to store in his backpack as she grabbed the smaller of the two boards. “Can you follow me out with the cooler and towels? I’ll show you how to get up.”

She waded into the ocean with her board, and when she was a bit more than knee-deep, she lay down on it, pulling herself along its length until she was centered. She set the oar perpendicular to the board, then held it fast as she first went to her knees, and then finally stood. “Ta-da… And that’s all there is to it. The key is to find your sweet spot, where neither the nose nor the tail is underwater. And then, keep your knees bent – it’ll help keep you upright.”

“Got it.”

“You can put the cooler behind me, and then stack the towels on. And would you hand me my camera?”

He waded into the water, following her instructions. She draped the camera strap around her neck as he retrieved his own board and repeated her movements. When he was standing, he shifted his weight, the board wobbling slightly.

“It’s more stable than I thought it would be,” he remarked.

“Now when you turn, you can either paddle forward for a wide, slow turn, or you can paddle backward for a tighter turn.” She demonstrated the first, then the second, rotating in place, moving a bit farther from shore in the process. “You ready?”

“Let’s go,” he said. Within a few strokes he’d caught up to her, and they began to paddle side by side until they reached the fertile, still waters of the marsh. Above them, the blue sky was limned with thin cirrus clouds. Discreetly, she watched Colin taking in everything, his gaze lingering on the brown pelicans and the snowy egrets, or an osprey that passed overhead. He didn’t seem to feel the need to break the silence, and she thought again that she’d never met anyone like him.

As her thoughts continued to drift, she turned her attention to the island, noting the gnarled remnants of tree stumps, gray and salt-coated, their roots twisting like frayed yarn on a loosely twined ball. Curving pathways cut through the saw-grass-speckled dunes, shortcuts to the ocean side of the island, and driftwood, stained black from the marsh, collected at the water’s edge.

“You’re thinking about something,” she heard him say. Without her noticing it, Colin had moved his board closer to hers.

“Just how much I love being out here.”

“Do you come out every weekend?”

“Most weekends,” she said, keeping her strokes steady. “Unless it’s raining or the wind is gusting. Strong winds make it feel like you’re not getting anywhere, and the water can get kind of choppy. I made that mistake once when I brought Serena out here. She lasted about twenty minutes before she insisted on heading back, and she hasn’t come out ever since. When it comes to the ocean, she’s more of the lay-out-in-the-sun or relax-in-the-back-of-the-boat type of girl. Even though we’re close, we’re not that much alike.”

The curiosity in the way he watched and listened urged her on, and Maria drew her paddle through the water. “Serena has always been more outgoing and popular than I ever was. She’s had one boyfriend after the next and has a zillion friends. Her phone never stops ringing, people always want to spend time with her. It wasn’t like that for me. I was always quieter, shyer I guess, and I grew up feeling like I never really fit in.”

“You don’t seem shy to me.”

“No?” she asked. “How do I seem to you?”

He cocked his head. “Thoughtful. Intelligent. Empathetic. Beautiful.”

The certainty with which he spoke – like he’d reviewed the list beforehand – made her feel suddenly self-conscious. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That was… sweet.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard it before.”

“Not really.”

“Then you’re hanging out with the wrong people.”

She adjusted her feet on the board, trying to mask how flattered and flustered she felt. “So no girlfriend for you?”

“No,” he answered. “I wasn’t really boyfriend material for a while there, and lately I’ve been pretty busy. You?”

“Still single,” she said. “I had a serious boyfriend when I was in college, but it didn’t work out. And lately I’ve had a tendency to attract the wrong kind of men.”

“Like me?”

She gave a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t thinking of you when I said that. I was thinking about the managing partner at my firm. Who happens to be married and has a family. He’s been hitting on me and it’s been making work pretty stressful.”