“You know I grew up on a yacht, right?”
“I didnotknow you grew up on a yacht.”
“I did, and my dad and I sailed all over the world. He’s got money. Smart tech investments. He always said nature wants you to look at it, not touch it. No snorkeling off the boat. No swimming with the dolphins. We went to gorgeous places, but sometimes we were far off the grid. He knew it’d be fun to swim off the yacht in the middle of the ocean, but if your eight-year-old kid gets stung by a jellyfish or hits her head as she’s jumping off the boat, nobody can get there in time.”
Sullivan looked like she was impressed by Kia’s adventuresome childhood. It made Kia want to tell Sullivan more stories.
“Nature was like a fairy-tale house that’s made of candy. You want to eat it, but it’ll kill you. And sea snakes.” She gave a dramatic shudder to illustrate the horror. “The Dubois’ snake. The spiny snake. The yellow-bellied sea snake just drifts around in the ocean its whole life waiting to eat human children.”
“How big is it?”
“Like two feet!”
“How big are the children?” Sullivan’s smile said,I really am sorry this scares you, and also you’re funny, and I’m trying not to tease you.
“This ismyphobia.” Kia gave Sullivan’s arm a little slap. The gesture felt natural. Exactly what you do when your friend teases you in a way that doesn’t hurt. “Small enough to eat.”
“I’m sorry,” Sullivan said more seriously. “Stuff like that can be terrifying when you’re a kid.”
“It was worth it to get that life. Sometimes the ocean was so blue. Sometimes we’d see dolphins. Fish of every color. If we were married for real, I’d take you sailing.” That sounded way too romantic. She pivoted. “We always had spaniels. My dad got them life vests in their own tartans, and he taught them to poop in a composting sandbox.” She counted on her fingers as she listed offthe names of her favorite dogs.
“What did you do on a yacht for all that time?”
“Read. Talked. FaceTimed my cousin when she wasn’t dancing. Wherever we landed, my dad got someone to teach me something. His friends are expat drag queens mostly. They taught me chess, Spanish architecture. And sometimes he’d get an old abuela to show me how to make tortillas.”
Kia could almost see the setting sun stretching shadows over a chess board.
“It was an anchorless life. I don’t know if I have a high school diploma. I took some tests for homeschooled kids. I might have failed.”
Sullivan shrugged and bumped her shoulder against Kia’s.
“My grades in high school sure wouldn’t have gotten me into Harvard, but look at us now. Total rock stars.”
Kia loved the way Sullivan lumped them together, like they were real friends. She was probably being kind because Kia was just a few minutes past a snake-induced panic attack, but still… it was nice.
“My dad said I knew everything I needed for a good life,” Kia went on. “My aunt got me some sort of international student’s high school equivalency paperwork so I could get into culinary arts school.”
“I wasn’t great at school, not the books and computers part,” Sullivan mused. “I love audiobooks, but reading on paper…” Sullivan winced as she crumbled the parchment sandwich wrapper into a ball. “Dyslexic.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Why did you think I memorized all my recipes instead of reading them on my phone?”
“Because you were brilliant?”
“Thanks. And my folks and brother are all professors. They didn’t put me down, but it was my grandpa who showed me there are a lot of different ways to be good at things.”
“Is it weird that we went to school together and we don’t know this stuff about each other?” Kia asked.
“It kind of is. I like knowing that you grew up on a yacht. Do you live in an RV because you’re used to living on a yacht?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you like it?”
“Moving around? Absolutely. I read Sappho off the island of Lesbos. Who doesn’t want that?”
Feeling her ass going numb from sitting on a rock, Kia shifted. The movement settled her hip firmly against Sullivan’s. She felt Sullivan’s warmth. She didn’t imagine it this time. Sullivan leaned into her.
