She sets down her fork. "My life isn’t that free, Tyler. I mean, I love that you want me to, but you have to know I can’t just leave my job and follow you to Peru. My job is pretty awful, but I have a life, too."
I hope I’m not blushing. Stupid. “I’m sorry, Kiera. See? I put my foot in my mouth, too. Of course you have a life. Friends, family.” Her face drops. Crap. "No, no! That’s not what I mean. I didn’t mean that to sound like ’Oh well you have a family, lucky!’ I just meant it as Of course, I wasn’t thinking of you, I was just thinking of me. I would really like to have you with me. And to know you aren’t in a job you hate."
She smiles. “Thanks. You know, when I go out with guys in DC, none of them cares if I like my job. None of them cares if I have friends and family. So thanks. But yeah, I can’t just pick up and go, appealing as it might be. Also, I get a little sea sick.”
I grin at her, “We could fly. I know how.”
"All right, mister, what can’t you do?"
“Turn a cartwheel. And…no, that’s about it, I think.”
"Well. Good to know I have one up on you. Man, this food is heavy. Tastes good, but it feels like a brick in my stomach."
“Mmm, I know, so yummy, and you don’t have to eat again for days. So appealing to orphans.”
She kicks me under the table again. “You’re terrible.”
“So, this precious family you can’t abandon to go surfing with me? Tell me about them.”
“I have an older sister, Maya. She’s two years older than me. She teaches sociology at American. She has a perfect marriage and one perfect child. She hosts fabulous dinner parties full of the very smartest people and thinks of me as a screw-up because I haven’t made partner at 27 and I’m not married. She manages to work”Kiera, don’t you think it’s time to grow up?" into almost every conversation."
She sees my raised eyebrows and quickly adds, “But I love her and we’re really close. We talk or text a few times a week and I babysit Omari when I can.”
“I can’t pretend to understand sibling relationships, but I gotta say the babysitting part sounds nice.” She cocks her head in a non-committal way. “I’m a little older than you, I’m 35. Starting to think about what my life would look like if I started a family of my own.” I’m treading lightly. I know the “I’d like kids” discussion can either be catnip or poison to an early relationship. And this is really early. “I’m not interviewing candidates or anything,” I say with a laugh, "but it is a thing that comes to mind now and again. ’Cause, you know, I’m an orphan."
Kiera laughs and jabs my leg with her foot. “That’s losing it’s effectiveness, buster. Yeah, I’m sure I’ll want kids some day, but now is a terrible time. Brad, my boss, is famous for not promoting women if he even thinks they’re thinking about getting pregnant.”
“Seems like shaky ground for a lawyer.”
“I assure you, he’s careful. There’s always some other reason he can claim. But none of the partners are women and no one comes back from maternity leave.” She eats the last bite on her plate and leans back. “I can probably move on in a couple of years. I hope.”
“See that you do. I think you’d make a great mom. And if nothing else, you’re too smart to stay in a job you hate just for the money. And I say that aware that it’s easy for me to say.”
She gives me a warm smile and says, “Thanks, that’s sweet. Look, do you think it’s safe to walk around here? I could really use some fresh air and exercise. I need to move that wheel of cheese.”
“Crazy low crime rate on the island. We’ll be fine. Plus, I’m a black belt.”
“Of course you are.”
“Nah, I’m not really. I never got into martial arts. But we’ll be fine.” I smile as she laughs. You know how you’ll read that someone has a musical laugh and you’ll think “that’s stupid”? She does, though. Her laugh is like music. To me, anyway. Might sound like a donkey braying to you. Your loss.
I pay the check–tipping generously, of course–and we go out into the night, Fredo’s pleas that we have dessert following us out the door.
Away from the coastline, the trade winds aren’t as strong. The air has that soft, tropical humidity. We walk quietly for a while, past the little cinder block and stucco houses, each a different color from the one beside it.
“This has an appeal, you know?” Kiera says as we pass a pink house with a low orange wall around its little yard. “Just a simple life. Low expenses, a job that you just do for 8 hours or whatever and then leave it behind. Come home to your family, dog, goat or whatever. Party with the neighbors on the weekend. Never worry about the loans or making partner or who will be the next Supreme Court justice nominee.”
“Do you think you’d really like it?”
She laughs, “For about a week, yeah. But maybe if it’s all I knew…”
“That’s the thing, isn’t it? Hard to keep ’em down on the farm, now that they’ve seen Paree.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” she asks.
“Eh, an old song. From a World War, I think, once they’ve seen Paris, the boys won’t want to stay on the farm. Maybe the people in that house long to see DC.”
“Yeah, I guess freedom to do both is idea. So how’d you do it, orphan boy?”
“Right place at the right time, mostly. The thrill-seeker in me was well suited to start-ups, so I worked at a lot of them and got good experience. Then I made an app for skaters to share pictures and videos with each other. It wasn’t going to dethrone any of the giants, but it managed to get a little buzz right at the time Google was buying up anything they might want or that might become a threat. So they offered me 15 million dollars. I, of course, took it. Since then, I’ve had good luck with investments. Being a venture capitalist was almost as exciting as skating and start-ups. That’s when I got introduced to surfing, too. It’s pretty popular with people that seek risk in business.” I paused, hadn’t really made the connection until talking it out here. “So’s heroin, in a slightly different sort. I guess we’re all junkies, seeing that rush. Luckily, mine came from waves and investing instead of shooting up.” I smile at her, “Probably wouldn’t have met you in an opium den.”
She snorts. “No, not unless I’d found a LivingSocial deal for a two-for-one. And now you just sail around looking for a bitchin’ wave? Why were you here, you said it wasn’t much of a surf spot.”
“There’s a poker tournament in town. I sometimes like to play–that rush again. I’m not super into it though, so really, it’s odd that I came in for this one.” I take her hand and stop walking. “I’m glad I did.” I don’t say what I really think–that it was some kind of weird fate thing. I was supposed to come here to meet her. I know it would freak her out. And I can see I’ve freaked her a little already.
She does smile and gives my hand a squeeze, but her eyes dart away when she says, “Me too.”
We walk on quietly again.
When we make it back to the jeep, I ask, “So, will you come back to my place? It’s been a good day, I don’t want it to end.”
“Oh, Tyler,” my heart sinks, I know what’s coming, "I don’t think so. Dinner is still weighing me down, I’ve had too much wine, and I’m still so tired. But really, it was a very good day and I’d like to see you tomorrow. But I need to sleep in my own bed," she grins, “alone tonight.”
I smile back at her and start the jeep. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, around 10? 11? Want to catch the low tide for practice, right?”
She laughs and it seems real. “Right. See you at ten.”
The kiss she gives me before she leaves the jeep seems real, too. Delicious. It’s really hard to let her go. But I get to watch her walk away, which is also nice.
At the front desk the next morning, I ask them to buzz Kiera’s room.
“Oh,” the receptionist says with a rueful smile. “Miss Simpson had to check out early. But she left you this.”
My heart feels cold as I take the envelope
from her. My stomach is a knot as I open the note to see her neat handwriting and read:
I’m sorry to have left without saying goodbye. I’m just no good at them. I found out the Donmesco trial is starting a week earlier than we thought, so I really need to get back and get to work. My boss is going to be a monster as it is. Thanks for a wonderful time. I really had fun. You were the highlight of my vacation.
Well, crap.
*****