Page 52 of The Circle

CHAPTER NINETEEN

TODAY. AFTERNOON.

Watching the girlssplash in the water is something I can’t take my eyes off.

Because they’re both about thirteen and they’re playing and laughing without a care in the world. When I was thirteen, I was… not. I was doing very, very different things with my time.

It’s fascinating how much we’re shaped by the experiences we go through. I’m no sociologist, but in the whole nature vs. nurture argument, I’d put my money on nurture kicking nature in the balls every time.

“Excuse me? Are you Christine?”

I turn to see a nice, polite-looking American couple approaching from the side. They haven’t declared themselves to be American, but it’s obvious. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they’re dressed exactly like Americans dress when they come to the Cook Islands. Which is to say they work incredibly hard to attire themselves the way they think they’re supposed to. Kind of like they believe they’re in an American Express commercial or something.

The guy always has on a chambray shirt—usually gingham, but could also be some kind of patchwork/color-block deal—and khaki pants that he has rolled up to just below his knees. The woman is dressed similarly, except her shirt is white linen. She has it unbuttoned and thrown over the top of her bathing suit. She wears shorts instead of rolled-up pants. They’re both attractive in a complementary way.

But it’s not the curated appearance or the obviously neutral American accent that tips them off. It’s the way they say, “Excuse me.”

It’s neither polite nor impolite, a question nor a statement. It’s just a sense of assumption that whatever they’re about to ask is something to which I’ll have the answer. That they should have absolutely no misgivings about approaching a stranger on a beach in a country in which they do not live and asking them a question just because they want to know.

That may sound like a judgment, but it’s not. It’s envy. It’s a hint of jealousy over the fact that these two people, whoever they are, have managed to go through life so unbothered that engaging a stranger in a strange land is something they feel free to do without any thought as to who that stranger might be or if talking to them is a good or bad idea.

I wonder if I was ever like that. I wonder if I ever felt like it was okay to trust people.

Before, I mean. I can do it now. Now, I feel a sense of openness that I didn’t feel for so many years. But it took an awful fucking lot of not feeling that way to arrive here. I wonder if these two have also been through things that have delivered them to this place inside themselves or if it’s just how they are naturally oriented. Did they help each other come to a sense of comfort? Or did they each enter into their relationship—whatever that relationship may be—already grounded in that natural ability to be open and unassuming?

I know I didn’t arrive here without help from a lot of people. A lot of people. Some of them incredibly obvious and some… less so.

Nurtured. By them all.

These two may not have been born with it either. They certainly may have learned to be this way. I’ll probably never know, but there’s such a purity to it that it causes me to think they’ve always been like this. Never really scared or anxious. Life set out in front of them and well taken care of from the start. But, even then, I suppose they had to get their heads around the fact that that was going to be their life.

In any case, however they came to be the way they are, it bubbles up through them when I answer, “Yeah, I’m Christine.”

“That’s our daughter over there,” the woman says, pointing at the freckle-faced girl in the polka-dotted swimsuit playing in the waves. “She says you’re having a bonfire?”

They’re referring to the massive pile of wood and shit stacked on the beach that reaches up well above my head and could not possibly be for anything else other than a bonfire. Which, for some reason, makes me like them more. I wonder how they’d react if I told them, “No, we just lump crap on the beach sometimes, take it down, then build it back up again. Local custom. Our version of a sand mandala.”

“Um, yeah. It is.”

“What time does it start?” the guy wonders aloud.

“No specific time. Just sometime after the sun goes down.” I don’t add, “Because time is an illusion and you would do well to just be here now, my brother.” But it would be kind of funny if I did.

“Cool,” the guy says.

There is an awkward pause. I have no idea why it’s awkward. There’s no reason for it to be, and I don’t feel awkward, but they seem curiously out of comfort. I think they’re waiting for me to volunteer more information. When I don’t, the woman finally asks, “Do they do it every night?”

“No. It’s a special occasion thing.” And requires a lump of payola to the town council, but they also don’t need to hear that part.

“What’s the occasion?” the guy asks. Yet another thing that tips them off as Americans. Unrelenting inquisitiveness. It’s cute.

I could tell them. I could absolutely explain why we’re having a bonfire and what it marks and how we got here and all the whats, whys, and wherefores. I could most certainly do that. But I don’t. Because of course I won’t.

“Feel free to stop by,” I say as I start to make my way back to the house. “We’ll probably be out all evening.”

If the fact that I choose not to answer and am now indicating the conversation is over bothers them at all, they don’t show it. They remain as guileless-seeming and doe-eyed as they likely are most of the time as I turn to head back inside.

“You live here? On the island?” the woman lobs out, almost like a fishing reel, trying to keep me locked in conversation. Not out of any real desire to keep talking, I don’t suppose, but because somewhere along the way in her life, someone who nurtured her to become who she is also taught her that things should get wrapped up in a bow. Have closure. Be cordial, convivial, complete. She wants to end our conversation—if you can refer to it as one—on a polite note. She wants to say something nice. She wants to let me know how she feels.

That’s fine. It’s a tiny kindness I can offer in this moment. A small gift I can give that lets both of them have an experience they don’t even know they want. And gift-giving seems appropriate. So…

I smile. Nod. “I do.”

“Wow. That’s amazing,” she says. “It looks like paradise.”

I take a deep breath, let the sea air fill my lungs, and reply, “It’s not bad.”

She looks around and emphasizes her point by telling me, “You’re so lucky.”

I look around as well, taking in everything—every grain of sand, every ripple of water, every splash by the girls playing and laughing in the surf—let my smile widen, and tell her in return…

“You have no idea.”