She startles, then softens when she clocks me. “Sean, are you stalking me?”
I fall into step beside her, take the tote to ease her load. I would take the surfboard since it’s bulkier, but I have a feeling that would be a step too far. She lets me take the tote, and I count it as a victory. “Why—do you like it?”
The market behind us is a rib cage of shadowed stalls, a few vendors still packing up baskets that look like moon-colored rope. Somewhere a tour guide is explaining ghosts with too much confidence.
We pass through a gate of wrought iron that makes shadows like lace on her arms. I tuck my hands into my pockets so I don’t reach for her. I think I’d be allowed to reach for her, but I’m not positive about it. The rules are getting so foggy for me. “You eaten?” I ask.
“Does two benne wafers and a Coke count?”
“Not when you’re eating for four.” I hook my chin toward East Bay. “Let’s walk past the waterfront, see if we can find you something decent on the way.”
“You always ‘find’ things,” she says. “Like how you found my address without asking.”
“I have me ways,” I say mysteriously.
She lifts a brow. “Are ‘your ways’ Cheyenne?”
“All right, so I’ve one way,” I admit, bumping her shoulder with mine.
We hit the pineapple fountain, which is trying its best under a haze of gnats. A kidlegs itthrough the shallow water in his socks while his mother debates joining him. The harbor beyond is a dark sheet, the lights at the end of the pier smearing into the water with each small slap of a wave.
Willow breathes in deeply, and the deep line on her brow eases just slightly.
“You surf today?” I ask, nodding at the board under her arm. “Or just wishful thinking?”
She grins, the real kind, not the polite one saved for customers. “A tiny swell on Folly beach. Just enough to stand up twice and embarrass myself a third time.”
“I’m fierce jealous of you.” I tilt my head. “Would you chance teaching me sometime?”
“Something tells me you’re not a good learner.”
“Willow, after high school, I went to school for twelve more years.”
“Right, okay. But, you know, it’s personal when you…know your instructor.” She trails off, embarrassed by the verbknow. I can feel it. She wasn’t sure what to say there, how we know each other. It’s both intimately and not very well.
Somehow, I’m falling for her. Somehow, she’s a mystery to me. “I’ve got sound balance,” I say, just to say something. “I’m afraid of sharks, though.”
“We don’t have sharks,” she says, kicking a rock on the pavement.
“I didn’t know you lied so easily.”
“Okay, we have sharks,” she relents with a laugh. “They’re not interested in people, though, unless they get hungry enough. Then they’ll eat anything.”
“I identify with sharks that way, sure,” I tell her solemnly, steering us toward a window emanating a strong garlic smell. I pop inside and return with a paper boat of fried shrimp and a half loaf of bread I absolutely didn’t pay enough for.
We sit on a bench with the water performing its quiet tricks twenty feet away.
She tears bread, curls tucked behind one ear, wrist balanced over her belly without thinking. The movement is so natural, and something inside me is twisting watching her do it, but I pretend that it isn’t, diverting my eyes to the water.
“Cheyenne’s going to kill me for enabling your salt habit,” I say, passing her the lemon.
“She’ll forgive you when I share a benne wafer with her,” Willow says, mouth full. “The baby likes shrimp.”
“Which baby?”
“All of them,” she says, and something bright passes over her face—quick, tender, reverent. It makes me want to kneel and swear fealty to whatever god governs small impossible hearts.
“Do you ever think of them as three…little surfers?” I ask. “Like they’re just…bobbing in there, waiting for the set?”
