Page 24 of The Spirit of Love
“Never made the beast with two backs?”
“Not on a zip line.”
“Well,” I say, feeling my cheeks turn red, “I’m honored.”
“Me, too. I’m really excited to do this with you.”
I’m not used to guys like him, who speak so plainly, whose compliments don’t come out coded in self-protection and self-promotion. It makes Sam seem even younger than twenty-three. It’s like he hasn’t been hurt yet. Maybe that’s what makes him so sure I won’t be hurt today.
It’s contagious. He’s contagious. I put on the helmet and snap the chin strap in place.
“All you have to do is hold on to me. And lift your feet a little.”
“Unless I die of a heart attack.”
I grip the galvanized steel rope and stare out at my wide-open future. I wish I could call Edie or Olivia or Masha right now and have them tell me that this is okay. Or maybe I wish I simply could know all by myself that my intuition could speakup louder, more clearly, that it could guide me toward what I’m supposed to do.
“Now is all there is,” Sam whispers in my ear as he lifts me in his arms and puts his cheek against mine. He kicks off the platform, and we fly down through cedar branches, my boots barely clearing the boulders just beneath the platform.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” I scream.
I can feel Sam’s smile in my cheek. He’s got his knees up, making his lap a seat for me to sit in. His firm body presses hard against my back, my ass. When I lift up my knees to settle into him a little more, he groans.
I realize I’m riding an Adonis down a mountain. When the ocean bursts into view, wild and blue and endless, I become aware that I don’t want this to end.
This feeling alone is worth coming back from the dead for. I can see how albatrosses go years without touching land. I can see why stars stay in the sky. I want to do this every day.
We begin to slow naturally, and I look down and see a brilliant white blanket of ultra-secret beach. Sam and I jog together as our feet touch down on sand. Twenty feet ahead is a stately pine tree with a tire nailed to it as a cushion. We come to a stop before we need the tire, and I exhale deeply. I’m buzzing with adrenaline.
I gaze in wonder around me. This pristine beach is a tenth the size of Parson’s Landing. Whereas at my camp the shore was pebbly and strewn with boulders, this one is made of fine, white sand. Lizards dash here and there. Cluster lilies bloom. There’s even a C-shaped cove, shaded by boughs of pine that hang lowwith sap-heavy cones. This place is indeed a surprise, the best one I’ve had in a while.
“Did you love it?” Sam asks.
It’s a big word.Love. I try not to overuse it, but in this case, it applies.
“Yes,” I say. It brings out Sam’s dimples like morning brings out the sun.
“Good,” he says, “because there’s more. Come on!”
We kick off our shoes and bound toward the water with an abandon I haven’t known in twenty years. It’s like I’m eleven, and school’s out, and nothing stands between me and summer but a heartbeat and a smile. Sam stops at a wooden post tethering a canoe and what appears to be a tarp-covered Jet Ski.
“Are these yours?” I ask.
“Which one should we ride first?”
I run my hand over his canoe. “Nice gunwale.”
“You know your canoes.”
“I have one like this at home.”
“I take it out at sunset,” Sam says. “That’s when the whales sing.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever heard a whale in the canals of Venice.”
“What do you hear?”
“Families eating dinner. Teenagers getting stoned. Dogs chasing squirrels up palm trees.”
