Part 2

Adrian stared into the water with his thick legs planted. The wind cut into his eyes and waves roared forward onto him and pressed him onto the shore. The sea didn’t really want him there. His body was thick muscle padded with a layer of fat. His hairline was thin and his tan uneven – red, purple, and brown, with the Wisconsin white left in the armpits still. He stood firm against the coming wave. It struck against the scar tissue beneath the t-shirt he never removed, hiding that tear, that dirty scab jagging his body and never healed. His knees buckled and dull pain spread throughout.

He thought about his last patient – a root canal that would not last a year. He shuttered the office in Marshland the minute the patient left, and he fled alone to Mexico ahead of a Colorado Low. He couldn’t take more winter’s assaults. And here he stood now. Stranded in paradise thinking about his dental failures, and winter, and driving the ice-covered car under the fast translucent clouds in the blue sky and the frozen road between swaths of earth’s snow-whitened cheeks and two suns: the first above those clouds and the second lying in the fields, reflecting off the snow that lay in the cornstalk stubble.

The lifeguard’s whistle blew. Teenagers turned. The whistle blew again, and the lifeguard pointed them toward the sandbar so they wouldn’t get caught in the rip and carried out to sea for drowning and hence ruining the lifeguard’s afternoon. Teenagers rolled their eyes and moved.

Adrian stared into the waves. In front of him, he caught a glimpse of a girl, her sun-bleached hair shone like silver and copper, her perfect height, square shoulders, curves hammered into perfection, muscles like steel cables, legs springing toward the horizon. She jumped through one wave and then the next, and then she dove, and Adrian saw her body, legs, and feet disappear in that turquoise wave. Another wave rolled into him and hit him squarely in the groin. The nauseating pain circulated. “Maybe the purpose of life is to enjoy beauty even while taking a hit in the groin.” Once again, a wave hit him, and his knees buckled, and he folded into the wave inhaling water.

***

Tamara felt his cold, salty tongue as a red-feathered serpent creeping into her mouth and then deep into her throat rippling, undulating, and gagging her. Then their lips separated, and while Adrian retched seawater Tamara gagged and gasped for air spitting red feathers, and in that breathless desperation she saw a blurred approximation of the cardinal chirping in the sand.

“I’m sorry,” exhaled Adrian, and reached out toward her but collapsed into the sand and retched again.

The lifeguard helped him up and blew the whistle waving at a medic. “Vámonos. ¡Apresúrate!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Tamara vomited feathers and forced a laugh without words. She reached out to him but rolled back onto the sand with exhaustion. She lay in the sand and the medic walked Adrian to the hotel.

***

“I saved someone from the sea,” said Tamara serenely.

“What?” Mother raised herself on the blue beach lounger and Tamara handed her a vodka tonic.

“I pulled a guy from the sea.”

“Why?”

“He was drowning.”

“I thought that’s the lifeguard’s job.”

“I was there. Just at the shore. The guy lost his footing and got swept under.”

“Are you okay?”

“I am very okay. It made me feel so good.” Tamara smiled.

“Still. You shouldn’t get involved.”

“I know. But I saved him.”

“Anyone could have.”

“I know,” capitulated Tamara.

“I have a man interested in you. He owns a car repair shop outside Minneapolis. I think you will be a good match.”

“Thank you, Mama. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just do better. I beat cancer twice. You can beat this silly ‘mind problem.’ One day I’ll be gone, and we need someone to look after you. You are soft like your father. That’s why he ran away on me and it’s also why I have everything, and he’s got nothing – he lives in an apartment taking extra shifts while I’m here at this beautiful beach with my baby girl drinking vodka tonics in the sun. Cheers.”

She lifted her glass in victory.

They drank.