“Yeah. Me too,” Hollis says. It sounds strangely genuine. But before I can question if he means it or if his sarcasm tuner’s just broken, he pushes play.
Key West, Florida
New Year’s 1944/1945
It was Elsie’s idea to spend New Year’s Eve at Boca Chica Beach. “It’s quiet and beautiful,” she said. “Best of all, there won’t be pickled petty officers making passes at us all night.”
“Should we invite some of the other girls?” Rose asked. She had been trying to spend more time with Elsie in a group instead of just the two of them, theorizing that the other women’s presence would keep her from acting on the intrusive thoughts that were becoming increasingly explicit as her and Elsie’s emotional connection grew.
She watched familiar lips stretch ever so slowly into a sly smile, and suddenly the past weeks of not allowing herself to hope—of brushing off Elsie’s compliments and suggestive jokes as within the realm of normal female friendship, of telling herself that her desire was as one-sided as it had been with her best friend back in Oshkosh—all disappeared as reality transformed into the dreams Rose never believed could become anything more.
“I was hoping to ring in the new year with you,” Elsie said. “Only with you.”
Here was Elsie, with her sultry mouth and her chocolate-brown eyes that traveled conspicuously over Rose’s body. It seemed impossible that Elsie had never looked at her this way before; the heat in her gaze was too familiar. Could it be because it mirrored Rose’s own so exactly? It was like waking up and finding herself not in her cot on base but floating among the glimmering incandescence of a thousand stars.
At midnight, stretched out beside each other on an olive-drab Navy-issue wool blanket, Rose discovered that Elsie’s mouth was salt and sun. It kissed her in sweet, lapping ripples and great crashing waves. Did all mermaids taste so deliciously of the sea or only hers?
“I have wanted to do that since the moment I saw you here, sitting so primly in the sand,” Elsie whispered. “And I’ve wanted to do a lot more than that. Lately, I’ve thought of little else.”
Joy and desire allowed Rose to smile, but her nerves reminded her that her knowledge of “more than that” was relatively limited. She had given her virginity to Dickie before he left for the Air Force—a hasty affair in his grandparents’ hayloft, “like some sort of country girl cliché,” she’d later joked—but that must be different than this. “I’ve never with a... I don’t... You’ll have to show me what to do,” Rose said.
Elsie kissed her again, and Rose lost herself in the way the wet heat of their mouths matched the sensation between her legs.
Later they would laugh together at the way Rose made love as if training one of her birds—slow movements, touches both gentle and firm, ensuring she had documented every detail beforefinally allowing release—but in that moment, Rose felt much more like the pigeon: at peace in Elsie’s embrace yet yearning for flight. Every touch lifted her higher into the air, urged her to take to the sky, to soar. And when her limbs grew heavy and her heart satisfied, she returned to the place—the person—she knew instinctively as her home.
As the sunshine unfurled from its slumber, shooting sparkles over the undulating sea, Rose and Elsie strolled along the beach, hand in hand. Rose never cared much for the way people spoke about New Year’s. The passage of time didn’t work so precisely, so tidily; a celebration couldn’t do anything to prevent the problems and sorrows of the previous year from rolling over into the next. Yet on New Year’s Day 1945, the air itself felt different. The year seemed alive with possibility and clarity in a way that all of her previous years on earth had not. Love surged through Rose’s blood like a drug that made even the most absurd fantasies feel within reach. Maybe this year the war would end. Maybe this year would be the beginning of her new life—one with Elsie always by her side.
11
•••••
I am highly suggestible when it comes to dreams, so it’s not exactly unexpected that I’m dreaming about playing Penelope again, but as an adult. And instead of my companion in my time-traveling escapades being a CGI lizard named Newton, it’s a sentient crown of broccoli. We are touring the Alamo. Considering I’m lying beside him and wearing his T-shirt, I was kind of hoping to dream about Hollis. But you can’t win them all.
Except now I’m not dreaming about anything, because I’m suddenly awake thanks to a loud boom. As my sleepiness recedes, I become aware of sheets of rain smacking against the window like someone pleading to be let in. The boom must have been thunder. What time is it? It seems way too dark in here for it to be morning, even with a storm raging outside. There’s an alarm clock on the nightstand, but its digital display is black. Power must be out.
I roll over as lightning flashes, lighting up the room in time forme to see Hollis close his eyes and grip the edge of the comforter tighter.
“Hollis?”
“Hm?”
“You okay?”
I can just make out his eyes opening cautiously, as if unsure what might await him. “Everything’s fine,” he says. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
Another deafening clap of thunder. It’s so powerful the whole house trembles. Hollis’s eyes snap shut again as he flinches. I lay my hand on his arm under the covers, and the tension in his muscles makes it feel like he’s turned to granite.
“Hey, tell me,” I whisper.
“Ahh,” he says as if he’s not sure he wants to say anything at all but it’s coming out anyway. “I don’t like thunderstorms at night. But it’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s sleep.”
“Is it the noise, or...?”
Hollis shakes his head. “When I was ten, our house was struck by lightning during a late-night storm like this. Whole place went up in flames.”
“Oh god. That’s terrible.”
“Everyone made it out, but we lost almost everything. So I just have some... residual anxiety. About... about that. It’s not a big deal.”
