Gwen opened the middle drawer of her desk and saw box after box of tea jammed one next to the other. Some were decorated in pastels, others in bright reds and yellows; some featured drawings of animals or pastoral scenes, and all were frightening. Like a banner strung from the tail of an airplane, the drawer’s contents revealed an unmistakable message: Her life was pathetic.
Each tea had become for her like prayer beads to a Tibetan monk. Waking up would be impossible without Morning Thunder or Earl Grey. In the afternoons, Red Zinger and Cranberry Cove offered temporary refuge from boredom; Tension Tamer helped on stressful days—every day, really—and, after all was said and done, Sleepy Time took her through twilight and into dreams.
This addiction had snuck up on her. But was it just tea or was it more? Tea and work, she realized. Because if not for all the work, if not for the hours measured in profits gained for Marshall Stevens Investments, Inc., the tea wouldn’t be necessary. Ten minutes sipping tea before the morning commute to convince her that life was not without rewards. Tea sipped in the afternoon, with her assistant Mary, to make them both believe that work was something more, that friendship existed; tea taken to make meetings bearable, or sipped as a reward when her IRA statements arrived, a reminder that one day retirement would come and life will be full. And the worst realization of all—tea to make pee, so that all that water and rose hips would facilitate a delicious moment of release: Tea to produce this most pathetic form of pleasure, because there was so little of it in her life. Tea to hide the truth.
Gwen put the ball of her forefinger against the phone’s intercom button and listened to the sounds of Mary typing madly, beautifully, like the most passionate of pianists. She thought about inviting her, then realized that Mary, like everyone else, would have to wait for her own epiphany.
“Mary,” she said, “I’m going to the beach.”
“What?”
“I’m going to the beach.”
What is the opposite of Earl Grey, Gwen asked herself. Tanqueray. She drove to the overpriced Beverly Hills deli down the street and bought a bottle, cups, three limes, some tonic, and a bag of ice. Then she ordered the most fattening sandwich she could imagine: salami on egg bread with avocado.
“Avocado’s not like you,” said Erica, the sandwich maker, pushing forward the lovely concoction, bundled tight in white butcher paper. Once a doctor’s wife, Erica had recently been dumped “for a girl with fresh ovaries.” She wore her bitterness like the mustard and avocado stains covering her apron.
“Today’s different,” Gwen said and put five dollars into Erica’s tip jar.
Cutting through side streets to get to the freeway, Gwen drove fast along roads covered with fallen jacaranda leaves, sending thousands of bright purple petals flying behind her in a tornado of beauty. On the sidewalk a pair of Latina nannies stopped pushing their perambulators and watched her pass. Gwen beeped her horn and threw her fist through the sunroof of her BMW, enjoying this moment of false but intense solidarity. The women waved.
Forty-five minutes later, Gwen arrived at her favorite beach on a stretch of Malibu far from the movie star homes and surfer boys. Matador, it was called, which in Spanish meant either “bullfighter” or “killer.”
Gwen stuffed her food, her drinks and a bright yellow bedsheet into her backpack and started down the trail along the cliff.
What a view. To the right, boulders the size and color of elephants jutted out of the water, sheltering tiny coves that on weekends were considered ”clothing optional.” To the left lay a long, pristine stretch of sand in the middle of which sat a cluster of beach houses. On a weekend day Gwen would have gladly joined the many naked and semi-naked people sitting towel to towel in the cove area, but on a quiet weekday, with not a soul in sight, the beach seemed safer.
About a mile down the shore, just before the group of houses, Gwen spread her yellow sheet, stripped off her clothes, and lay down right in the center, beseeching the sun to sink its teeth into her. After a few minutes, she felt moisture begin to form on her upper lip, between her fingers, between her breasts.
She turned over on her stomach, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. The sheet had been in the laundry pile for two weeks and smelled—not badly, but with authority—of her life. Before she could stop herself, Gwen moved her face to different spots, searching for a familiar cologne or perfume. She found none and realized that it had been months since anyone, male or female, had left even the faintest of fingerprints on her life.
She sat up and decided to pour herself a drink, fully realizing she was using alcohol to mask her sadness, but feeling only gratitude for its existence. She chopped the limes—not easy to do with a plastic knife—and squeezed each segment into a glass, adding gin, ice, and tonic. Perfect.
As she sipped her drink and ate her sandwich, Gwen’s thoughts wandered. She eventually had a memory of a Texas woman she’d met in Puerto Vallarta, who lived in a thatched roof hut, on a beach accessible only by boat. The woman, who had the blond good looks and genteel manners of a former prom queen, had told Gwen that she’d been living for twenty years in her hut, which was built for her by Mexican Mormons.
“I was so lucky to find Mormons,” she’d said, her Texas drawl still thick. “They don’t drink, so my house was built in two weeks.”
Could she do the same? Gwen now wondered, and looked up to see a man walking toward her, far down the beach. She watched the man until he was close enough that she could see he was naked.
That’s all right, not a problem, she thought, although her own nakedness did make her a little nervous. It felt somehow different, no longer hers, or a liability. She considered putting her clothes back on but decided she didn’t want the man to think she was dressing for him.
She watched until the man was some twenty feet away and slowing down, just as she’d feared.
“Hi there,” he said, waving awkwardly.
She nodded and kept her eyes narrow and tough, the sort of eyes one might see on an old, fat dog with a terrible temper or on a naked woman with cellulite on her ass but a black belt in karate.
The man walked past her. She relaxed and watched him saunter down the beach. He was tanned the color of bittersweet chocolate. Even his posterior had been toasted dark brown. Wide and curved, it reminded her of a heart or a woman’s ass. The rest of his body seemed fairly manly—muscular back, thick calves, hairy legs. On his back he carried a light-colored backpack. From a distance it made it look as if he had a wide, gaping hole in the middle of his torso.
She watched him walk past the fourth, or possibly fifth, beach house, then she settled back down on her sheet and sighed.
“That’s fine,” she said aloud and considered dressing, in case another man came by. The next one might bother her, try to sit down, maybe even play with himself. She’d seen that before, on a beach in Santa Barbara. But back then, she was stronger, faster, angrier. She’d thrown rocks at him until he’d gone. Why, she wondered, had she never learned karate?
Or Portuguese, for that matter? Why had she not traveled to Venice? Why had she never had a child or a husband or even a wife?
Gwen considered pouring another drink, but the idea angered her. Alcohol, supposedly so powerful, but never, ever able to protect her from certain thoughts. No wonder the Mormons didn’t drink. She inhaled deeply. Who had been the last? A man from work? A lawyer from the fourth floor, or the fifth? Or was it Janey’s cousin Kate, experimenting sloppily with women in the aftermath of a divorce? Maybe the delivery boy from Pink Dot? Who knew?
Gwen put one hand under her cheek and licked the knuckles, which tasted of lime. The last two years had been soul numbingly predictable.
There was work and work parties, sometimes at classy places with recessed lighting, sometimes hotel bars done in eighties purple, every once in a while at a blues joint, where behaving carelessly and making out in the smoky corners was okay. She never met anyone who was still …what was it? Intact. It was as if their need to couple up had replaced the desire to be something special. The desire to be loved, it seemed to her, had eaten away at them like an acid, erasing everything wonderful and lovable.
“Stop thinking that way,” she could imagine her sister Margaret saying. “Thinking that way will make it impossible.”
“Make what impossible, Margaret? Make what impossible?”
Gwen rolled over and sat up, then decided to go for a walk down the beach to see if the man was there, maybe offer him a modest smile or a quick wave, some small gesture with which to make amends for her earlier rudeness.
She studied the beach houses as she passed—glass with steel beams; dark wood, a deck full of chimes (how do they sleep at night?); Spanish style in overly pink adobe; Spanish style in normal adobe. Four houses. Just as she took her eyes off the last empty terrace, she saw the man—or a man’s legs peeking out from under a light-colored tent, sitting just at the foot of the cliff. This is crazy, she thought, but changed her mind.
What was crazy about walking on a beach, naked? Nothing. Being afraid of walking naked on a beach was the crazy thing.
He was sitting, she realized, under a tiny wooden structure made of what looked like bamboo or possibly driftwood, over which he’d draped a piece of material. The structure made Gwen think of the Puerto Vallarta woman. This was a good sign, she decided.
“Hello,” she called out. She waved but kept walking.
“Howdy,” he called back.
She allowed herself to look up again, quickly, but didn’t have time to notice much, other than the fact that the man had a Kentucky Fried Chicken box sitting next to him. A man who brings fried chicken to beach is interesting, she thought. Again, the darkness of his body tugged at her eyes. That man spent a lot of time sitting on a beach, naked.
She walked as far as she was willing—a long stretch away from him but not so far that she was nervous—then turned around to see him standing about thirty feet from her, his hands behind his back.
“Oh, hello,” she said.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
“Immensely.”
“Don’t you swim?”
“Sure,” she said, “I just haven’t yet.”
The man allowed his eyes to travel up and down her body. She decided to do the same, just as she did whenever someone ogled her breasts. Focusing her gaze in an exaggerated manner on a man’s crotch had an uncanny ability to take his focus off her chest.
She noticed he had normal arms, not cut, as her male friends would say, but nice. His chest was well shaped and covered in sun-bleached hair, which pleased her immensely. He was brown and gold, a gilded man, she thought. His hips were wide—which was expected, given his generous posterior——and his maleness, she noticed, was nicely proportioned.
He was smiling, having apparently enjoyed her inventory taking.
“Want to swim?” he asked.
“I’m a floater,” she said.
“I thought you said you swam,” he said.
“Did I? I meant to say that I float.”
“I’ve always wanted to try that,” he said and smiled. “Would you hold me up?”
“Would I hold you up?” she said.
“Sure. Water makes everybody light. Even me.”
“You don’t seem terribly heavy out of water,” she said.
They both looked down at the sand. If they were younger, they might have blushed.
“Thanks,” he said.
They walked into the water a few feet apart, not looking at one another. Though it was only June, the previous three weeks had been sunny and hot, so that the Pacific, normally so cold, was nearly warm. She walked straight in, letting herself wince once, but not noticeably. He did what she expected a man to do—at the sight of the first big wave, he dove under, his arms outstretched, as if planning to grip the wave and pull it back all by himself.
Of course he says he wants to float but he doesn’t, she thought, and lay back in the water. He wants to swim away. The houses looked totally empty—no fathers barbecuing, no kids flying kites, no mothers watching them, no maids sweeping.
The man must have swum away, Gwen thought and stood up to see. As if sensing her doubts, he popped up, closer to the shore, so far in that when he stood, the water was at his hips.
He waved at her—one of those backward “come back” waves a father might offer the kid he loves. She started swimming toward him, her eyes closed. What if I swam right into you? She thought. Just hit a wall of your flesh and came up knowing where I belonged?
She didn’t, though. She swam about five feet from him and stopped, pulled her head up, and pushed back her hair. The salt stung her eyes, but the coolness felt good against her skin.
“Were you serious about floating?” she asked.
He nodded yes and put his arms out, a California Jesus waiting for his cross.
“Lay back,” she said, and he did, so slowly she felt like a minister presiding over a baptism. When he was far enough back, she put one hand under his back and the other under his legs. She held him that way for a while, looking at his face. Perhaps he was pretending—forehead furrowed, eyes shut tight, the eyelids gently fluttering—yet he seemed to be nervous and actually trying.
“I won’t let you go,” she said.
He smiled and she noticed that his chin was shiny. Kentucky Fried Chicken. The dark gray razor stubble on his cheeks seemed soft. He probably shaves every day, she thought. His lips were nice—big and full and soft looking, as if the flesh below their skin would be as juicy and sweet as the meat of a pink grapefruit.
“You’re doing well,” she said and allowed her right hand to slide up, from his legs to his ass, which she rubbed, slowly, deliberately. If he felt it, his face betrayed nothing.
She moved her left hand down to the middle of his back and removed the other one. Still he floated. They both smiled. She felt like a famous magician, holding a man in one hand, the other hand in the air, indicating this newest stunt. “Voila,” she wanted to shout.
This is the ultimate trick, she thought, to hold someone, just to hold them like this, in water, or air, or on land or in a bed. Just you, strong enough to hold an entire person.
People are happy when you hold them. And then they’re not. Morning always comes, and, happy as they were, they want something else. “Don’t we,” she said, aloud, accidentally.
“What’s that,” the man asked.
“Don’t we?”
He gave her a big, sincere smile and opened his hands so that fists became open palms.
“Yes, we do,” he said.
He is so sweet, she thought, and imagined kissing him. Then she did. She leaned over and kissed those lips, which kissed back softly, gently.
She continued holding him for a minute then slipped the last hand away and watched eagerly to see if he would float. And he did. He kept floating.
“You’re doing very well,” she said again. She sank into the water beside him, and then swam under his body and to the shore. She walked—not slowly and not fast—down the beach. Before picking up her things, she looked back to make sure he was all right.
She climbed back up the hill and walked to her car, put her things in the trunk and got into the driver’s seat, but didn’t turn the key. She would go home now and do things differently than she would have if she’d spent the day at work. That was a fact. She would lie around in shorts and read magazines, her skin warm from the sun. She’d play old jazz music, from college, and maybe even barbecue. She owned a barbecue, didn’t she? She’d call Janey to share dinner or maybe someone who wanted more than friendship.
Tonight someone would leave a fingerprint. Tonight, she was certain, would be different, yet tomorrow would be just like all the other days. One day, though, she would wake up in Puerto Vallarta, in a house built by Mormons or Pentecostals or just regular Catholics, telling tourists a story for a round of margaritas. Not her story necessarily, but a story. And they would laugh, and so might she.
