Sleeping Beauty (18 page)

He stops writing. “Oh, so
that’s
why,”

“What’s why?”

“‘Lost Point.’ That’s why you found three of these in ten minutes. No one ever comes here, do they?”

My ear-to-ear grin is answer enough. “There’s no safe boat approach to the island near here. The only way to get to Lost Point is to get permission from the Navy, anchor at Pyramid Cove, and hike through the bombing range.” I point to the abalone. “Look at these. Aren’t they great?” I’m practically drooling in anticipation as I run the zip lines through the tag and around each of the shells.

Brendan looks skeptical. “I’ve never had abalone before. Are they like oysters?”

“More like crab or shrimp. They’re actually big snails.”

Now he looks even less enthusiastic.

“They’re
delicious
,” I say. “Look, I’ll crack them open, gut them, and do all the filleting and pounding. All you have to do is eat.” I grab my t-shirt off the sand and pull it on.

“We’re still talking about the snails, right? Because for a second there you sounded like a serial killer.”

“You’re the one putting people’s brains in the freezer, Dr. Lecter.”

“It’s
skulls
going in the freezer, but fair enough.” He leans down and gives me a quick kiss, which is enough to reset my Hierarchy of Needs back in the proper order.

“We’d better get back to the lagoon and set up camp before you get sunburned.” I say.

He twists his arms counterclockwise, looking down the back side of each of them. “We haven’t been out here long enough for an albino to get sunburned.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just saying that to be polite.”

“As opposed to saying what?”

I nudge the bag of abalone with my foot. “Mollusk slime doesn’t acquire a better smell with the passing of time.”

He cocks his head, wrinkles his nose, and looks at me funny, like he’s not sure I haven’t just dropped another accidental double entendre such as “fish taco,” “crotch mackerel,” or “lap flounder.”

I can’t help it, I really can’t. I break into hysterics and almost collapse onto the sand. He stands there and watches me, like he’s trying to dredge up anything from his psychiatry rotation that might help here.

He grabs his shorts off the sand, his face still scrunched up in the same
pee-yew
expression. “Mollusk slime,” he says. “It’s what’s for dinner.”

I pick up my shorts, but I’m cackling so hard I can barely get my legs through the holes without falling over. Once I’ve gotten fully-dressed and I have the bag of abalone slung over my shoulder, I’ve resigned myself to an occasional giggle here and there.

Up until now, Brendan has just watched me go unhinged, and smiled like a tolerant asylum warden. He snatches the water bottle off the sand and says, “My gut is telling me not to ask, but you’re killing me here: What’s so funny?”

Just the question sends me into a brand new cycle of hysterics. We’re halfway back up the hill before I can manage a response. “Trust me: Go with your gut.”

*****

Back at Goat Rock we start descending into Lost Gorge by grasping the vegetation bursting from the rocks, using a hand-over hand method, and taking small steps sideways. “The trail never gets any wider than this,” I say. “It just kind of wraps around the gorge like a corkscrew. Watch out for loose dirt.”

Thirty minutes later, we’re standing on the loamy bank of the lagoon that covers the base of the narrow gorge. “Will you set up the tent?” I say, pointing to a spot near a rocky overhang that provides nice protection from the rain. I take the mesh bag to the water and drop it in, holding it in place with a heavy rock. “I’ll set up a fire and get everything prepped for cooking.”

“What are you going to start a fire with? The last tree I saw was back by the marina.”

I pull a curtain of vines away from the rock wall, exposing a hollow of rock still filled with the driftwood I’d collected with West and Davin a few months before. “You doubt my fire-starting abilities, Grasshopper?” I say, tossing pieces of wood over my shoulder onto a nearby charred patch of soil ringed by rocks.

“Wait,
I’m
the ‘Grasshopper?’” He spreads the pieces of the backpacking tent out on the ground. “I’ve always felt more like Mr. Miagi. You know…catching flies with my chopsticks and all that.”

“Like being a pediatric neurologist isn’t overachievement enough? Fine, if it makes you happy you can be Mister Miagi.”

He peers up the sun. It’s not directly overhead, but there’s still enough hitting the bottom of the gorge to make it ninety degrees in the shade, and most of the campsite is definitely not in the shade. He looks down at his exposed arms and legs. “I’m actually more like Mister Me-Whitey. Where’s the sunscreen? I’d better get some on.”

I glance at the top of the gorge. “Probably won’t have to wear it for long. We’ll be back in the shade in about an hour.” I jump across the fire pit, and cross the gorge to where my pack sits. Brendan removes his shirt, and when I hand him the sunscreen he starts slathering it on his stomach and chest.

I keep my eyes averted, rooting around in my pack until I find it. “There you are,” I say, pulling a zippered plastic bag from one of the pockets.

“What’s that?”

Can’t really answer him without looking
. I turn around and hold up the bag, trying to focus on his face. “Laundry lint,” I say, my fingers squishing the gray fluff through the plastic.

“For…?”

I squat next to the fire pit. “Perfect fire-starter, less dangerous than lighter fluid.”

He snorts. “Lighter fluid sounds pretty benign when you consider we just strolled through a bombing range.”

I dump the lint into the pit and weigh it down with kindling and larger pieces of wood. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“When I’m back at the marina with all my organs and limbs where they’re supposed to be, I’ll let it go. Deal?”

“If you’re going to be such a whiner about it, you don’t have to come here again. Jonathan’s been begging me to bring him.” My back is to him, so he can’t see that I’m biting my lip to keep from cracking up.

Brendan can’t get over the fact that I’ve accepted Jonathan Varner’s tongue in my mouth, or that I’ve lain partially-clad with him for hours at a time, as part of my job. He gets all butt-hurt over the mere mention of his name, probably because I’ve gotten naked
er
with Jonathan than I have any recollection of being with him. When I get the call lists at night, Brendan would look them over. If it looked like there was going to be any physical contact whatsoever between Jonathan and me during the next day’s filming, he would beg off coming to the set, making up any ol’ excuse: he had to work, had to clean the hair out the shower drain, had to count the grains of sand on the beach, whatever.

“Only if I get to lead the way through the unexploded ordnance,” he mutters.

I stand up and smack the back of my shorts. “Okay, that’s done.”

“We’re going to light a fire now?” he says, snapping a sleeping bag out to its full length. “Seems like a waste of wood.”

“No way, it’s too hot. We’ll need to go back up for more driftwood tomorrow morning, then one more time before we leave. I like to leave it stocked for the next person. And remember that it’s going to be dusk down here in about an hour. By seven o’clock you won’t be able to see your hands in front of your face.”

He gets on his hands and knees, pushing our sleeping bags into the tent while I dig through my backpack for the shampoo that doubles as body soap. When he backs out of the tent and stands up, I’m staring at the water, feeling suddenly timid. I nod towards the lagoon. “I think…I mean, I’ll probably go for a swim first, you know?”

He smacks the sand off of his hands, never taking his eyes off me. This is only the second time in my life that I’ve staged a seduction. After the first disastrous outcome in my bathroom, I’m definitely feeling way out of my league here. I step out of my shorts and walk to the edge of the water.

“With the snails?” he says, finally.

My god,
I think.
I’m trying to throw you a crumb, and you just won’t bite
. “Don’t answer this if you don’t want,” I say, my voice reflecting my frustration, “but do I already know what a little coward you are?”

“I think it was
you
who almost blew chunks in the middle of the ICU, wasn’t it?”

I feel nauseous just thinking about it. “Ugh, you win. So I’ll never be a world-renowned brain surgeon, what can I say?”

“You should think about ruling out Candy Striper while you’re at it,” he says. “In fact, I don’t even think you should play a doctor on TV.”

Thigh-high in the water now, I point across the lagoon “See that over there? The water circles through the pool and goes underneath the rocks on the far side.”

“Then where?”

“To the ocean. Stay up-current over here and I’ll do what I can to fight off the man-eating gastropods.”

Before he can answer, I duck under the water to wet my hair. When I come up, he’s still standing on the shore. Not only that, but he’s putting his shirt and shoes back on.

“Going somewhere?”

He holds up his pack. “I emptied this out. I figured while I was still sweaty and dirty, I’d just go get the driftwood while you relax.”

“Oh.” I’m already wet, otherwise he’d probably notice the tears of mortification welling in my eyes. I splash water on my face just in case.

“It was all over the shoreline where the abalone were.”

I swallow, nodding, stalling for a few seconds to get myself together. “Yeah, that’s a good spot.”

“I have a flashlight just in case it’s getting to be dusk.”

He shoulders the empty pack. “So I’ll see you in about an hour?”

“Sure.” I stand there, watching him ascend the narrow path until he’s up and out of sight, knowing that there’s no way he’ll be back here before dark.

Once I’ve lathered my hair and all the extremities I can reach, I float on my back, letting the gentle whirlpool action of the water rinse the soap off. Then I watch the clouds float by overhead as the afternoon sun slips over the edge of the gorge, covering the lagoon in shadow. Every minute that passes, with me bobbing there like a pool toy, I feel more rejected by him and more pissed at myself.

You’re
the coward
, I think. I mean, I’ve read the lusty emails, the steamy text messages from my “missing” four weeks. Patching together the facts related to me by Davin and West, and the slivers of memory I
do
have, there’s no doubt that I was in love with Brendan Charmant. I’m talking the “madly in love” variety.

Are
madly in love
, I correct myself.
Not “was.”
Are
.

And that’s the problem. There’s overwhelming evidence of the Brendan and Claire who spent four weeks in a committed, and apparently consummated relationship (even if it was just one satisfying night). Now there’s the Brendan who is still committed, but who won’t do much more than hold my hand, kiss me, and hold me while we sleep. To top it all off, the here-and-now Claire is rapidly becoming emotionally exhausted trying to live up to the person he’s so obviously in love with already.

Not that he ever says this though: “I love you.” Ever since that day in his car (I flinch, remembering his words: “I never would have fallen in love with you”), it’s just another thing we pretend hasn’t happened, like the intimate text messages and emails, and our night of passion-filled nakedness. The divide between what I’ve been
told
is true, what I’ve
read
is true, and what I’ve
seen
is true since I “woke up” is like the distance from my house to the moon.

No doubt another four weeks trapped together in my apartment, a sort of “Get To Know You” crash course, would probably go a long way towards smoothing out the awkward edges. Unfortunately, filming on
Evensong
has continued six, sometimes seven days a week since the day he showed up in the “Boston ballroom.” Since I’m in almost every scene, I have to be on set for, on average, fifteen hours a day.

Most of those hours are downtime, waiting in my trailer for the crew to set up for the next shot, but Brendan works long hours too, usually coming to the set straight from work (still in those sexy scrubs if I’m lucky), and camping out in my trailer until a scene wraps. With both of us at the limits of sleep-deprivation, we’re more likely to find the other out cold on the fold-out couch in the trailer than not. So, I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping
next to
him and none at all sleeping
with
him.

What is
wrong
with you
? I think to myself.
You brought him all this way…to do what? To play summer camp?

I don’t have any idea how to seduce my boyfriend
, I explain.

Wow
,
that’s just as pathetic as it sounds,
I shoot back.
Had your chance back in the shallows, you should’ve taken it.

It’s not my fault!
I think, trying to defend myself from myself.
I’ve never had to be the, er, aggressor in any of my other relationships
.

Except when you’re trying to sexually assault a man at the beginning of An Episode,
I remind myself.

I stand corrected.

Why not try something like that?

That would be a great idea…if I ever remembered how I did it
.

Good point.

In a smaller mental voice, I hammer the nail in the coffin:
It doesn’t matter…I’m too chicken to try again
.

I get out of the water and towel off. It’s too hot to wear a bra, so I skip it, shrugging into panties and a white cotton sundress instead. While my hair is still damp, I French braid it so that it’s out of my face while I cook.

It’s already getting dim here at the bottom of the gorge. I crane my neck, looking for any sign of Brendan descending. I consider climbing up to find him. After a moment’s thought, I remember that he purposely (and rather obviously) left to get away from me.