James produced a permanent marker from his board shorts and offered it to Becca like he’d done with the rose. This time, she didn’t need to seek approval from friends before reaching out.
“What do you want me to sign?” she asked, uncapping the pen.
James put his arm out to her, inner elbow facing up. Becca signed her first name in swooping letters and gave the pen back to him. He approached the camera to show the dried ink on his skin.
“Thank you so much, Becca, it was so great to meet you. Will you take a bow with me?” he asked, backing away from the camera and spreading his fingers wide to take her hand in his. James raised their hands high above their heads, bending his elbow slightly to accommodate the height difference, and Becca followed suit, bending deeply as though giving a bow onstage to a standing ovation.
When they stood, James pointed to Becca’s forearm. “What’s that?”
“Oh my god!” one of her friends shouted.
James brought Becca closer to the camera to show that it was now his signature written on her slender arm, with his YouTube handle written beneath it.
“That’s so crazy,” Becca marveled.
“Becca, you’ve been such a good sport, thank you so much. Have you enjoyed doing this with me?”
“Yes.” Becca nodded, beaming.
“Is there anything that would make it better?”
“That you can do?” she asked.
“Get rid of these stupid bikes and make the drinks free!” one of the friends shouted.
“I’ll see what I can do,” James said, with a wink to the camera before reclaiming his phone.
He chatted with the women for a few minutes more as they examined his and Becca’s arms for signs that one of them wore a sticker or for anything else that explained his clear skin and the signature on Becca’s arm. Then, he made his way down the shore, taking two more videos of similar tricks—Becca’s was the best and he was unlikely to use the rest of the footage, but it was good to hang onto B roll for later, if nothing else.
After all that, it was late afternoon and too early to get dinner just yet, but too late to do anything committing if he wanted to get ready for that night’s show on time. He picked a spot near the water and stripped off his shirt to soak in the sun while it still sat above the trees and buildings.
James waded in, unfortunately within shouting range two men stood waist-deep in the waves and bikini-clad women sat on their shoulders, trying to force the other woman into the water. From the sand, their friends filmed the game on their phones. James noticed that the men on the shore were more enthusiastic about it than the women who sat a few feet away, also recording but looking put out. One of the women finally forced the curvier woman from the shoulders of her teammate and both losers fell sideways into the ocean. He kept his head from going under, but she emerged from the waves with hair plastered to her face and used both hands to part it like a wet curtain.
“Are you okay, Daze?” the heavily tattooed woman in the sand with the messy brunette long bob asked. The woman next to her dropped her cell phone and put a hand to her mouth, feigning shock but stifling a laugh.
The drenched woman opened her mouth in a wide O, sucking in desperately needed air after taking a fall she clearly hadn’t anticipated, and wiped salt water from her eyes.
“I’m okay,” she said after a moment and waded back to her friends. The winning team dismantled, high-fiving when they were both in the water. The men began a splash fight that James found himself in the crossfire for. He swam away from them and back to the shore where his stuff lay just a few feet from the group of women.
Daze laid on a towel, drying off her pale skin and blue bikini in the hot sun. Tattoos sat on her left and another woman with Dutch braids and oversized sunglasses sat on her right. Both women wore t-shirts and bikini bottoms, focusing more on their cell phones than the beach in front of them or their wet friend between them.
James watched the waves, feeling rejuvenated by the cool of the ocean and the bottle of water he drank. He started thinking about his trip around the island, all the buildings and the people, and his mind slowly began to wander as the crash and pull of the waves hypnotized him.
If I only saw a maintenance worker, why am I so bothered by it?He wondered.Something about the way it moved…
The screams startled him back to reality.
“What the fuck?” Dutch Braids shouted. White sand covered her head and shoulders and slowly poured out of her hair as she stood. Tattoos remained on the ground, trying to process why sand suddenly poured through her long bob, but Daze, who retreated to her towel to dry off from getting soaked, got it the worst. James turned just in time to watch her sit up, looking like some sort of beach creature from a B-rated horror movie. The sand clung to her hair and damp chest when she sat upright, and her eyes and mouth pinched shut to keep the granules out.
A man stood above the group and laughed. He held a red bucket loosely in his hand and didn’t even take a step back as Dutch Braids stepped forward, full of fury and swiping coarse sand from her skin where it stuck to her sunscreen and sweat. He just continued to laugh like an idiot, his ribs clearly outlined just beneath his pale skin with his irregular exhales. Dutch Braids probably had a good fifteen pounds on this scrawny asshole and could definitely take him, but James stood up, offended on behalf of the women. He knew who this man was—a teenager stuck inside the body of a 20-year-old man. They attained their fame on the same platform and some even considered them peers—or competitors. James never called them that, though. He insisted that they catered to distinct audiences; his magic videos were watched by men and women across all age groups, while prank videos of this nature appealed to a younger, predominantly male crowd. Ryan LeHane’s cameraboys, two more pale stick figures in board shorts with iPhones, stood a couple feet behind him and tried to keep him in the shot as they laughed.
Dutch Braids shoved Ryan with both hands, and only then did he finally take a step back and stop laughing.
“Hey, hey! It’s just a joke!” he said.
“Well, we’re not fucking laughing,” Dutch Braids said. Tattoos stood behind her now, but Daze remained seated, struggling to wipe the sand off her face.
“Oh no, did you get a little sand on you? At the beach?” Ryan mocked.
