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The guy looked down at me. He squeezed the turtle in his fist.
‘That was cool,’ I said quickly. ‘That thing is really, really cool.’
For some reason, I couldn’t sit back up or roll over. The guy was sweating even more. He reached for his walking stick and I thought he was going to leave. I really wanted to sit up but I couldn’t. I felt the curve of my back in the sand. I crossed my hands over my chest. I thought my bum might actually be like those college girls’, the way I felt it right now underneath me. It was stupid what I’d said, so stupid that I’d said his playing was cool. I wanted to just get up and go back to our motel but I had to pee so badly that I probably would’ve started to run and I didn’t want to run away from this guy. I didn’t want him to think I was scared.
I stared at the guy’s feet where some sand bugs were crawling. He looked like he had an extra knuckle in each toe – the big toe was the worst, cracked in the pattern of a star. I was feeling too hot, too stiff, getting burnt at my knees. The guy was staring at my lying-down body. He had his hand over his eyes to see me better.
‘Would you like to try this? Yeah?’
The guy laid the little clay animal on the crease between my thighs, right at the top. My ankles twisted around each other. I didn’t want the turtle to drop on the sand.
‘Come, come on. Try.’
The guy’s lips broke for his teeth, which were white on top, kind of yellow on the bottom. I finally sat up. The head of the turtle was dark, a little wet.
‘Put it at your mouth.’
I felt dizzy from lying down, from the sun. ‘If I blow on that thing, nothing’s going to come out.’ I laughed then and said sorry, even though I didn’t mean to. I was just hot. The sun was too hot.
‘It’s called an ocarina, okay. It’s got sacred sound. You put it at your mouth and blow.’
‘Okay ... ’
‘Try it.’
‘No, it’s okay ... ’
The ocarina was warm. I tried to give it back. But the guy put his hand on my hand, led it to my mouth. ‘Everyone can play music,’ he said.
Then he sat there watching me decide if I was going to blow. I felt my scalp sweat. I wished he hadn’t moved his hands from my hands.
‘Go ahead, go.’ The guy was stroking the sand with his fingers, raking it, making it deeper and dark.
My lower jaw moved around a little. I let my lips part and my tongue touched my teeth. The mouthpiece smelled like caramel. I finally put it in and tried to blow a bit. My first sound was like a twig being snapped. I tried to blow differently, harder, but it was nothing like when the guy had played it. I couldn’t make my sounds sound right. There was a sudden cramp in my gut and I stopped.
‘I told you I wouldn’t be able to play anything,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
‘You weren’t bad at all. You have to give a first try, right?’
The guy winked at me. His eyes were glassy and big.
When I handed the ocarina back, my fingers touched his again. The guy held me there for a second. His tongue licked his lips. I looked down. I felt a smile in the middle of my throat. Is this how you really meet a guy?
Then, I think be
cause I had to go to the bathroom so badly, I flopped back down on the sand on my back, pretending that I was getting some sun. I knew he was watching me, waiting for something. I put my arm over my eyes. I felt him stare in my bathing-suit holes. My armpit was a little nude crease that was opening.
‘The sounds you made were sweet,’ the guy said. ‘You’re just a little bit shy. You’re a shy girl, it’s okay.’
The sounds I made were not sweet, I knew that.
‘Come now for a walk,’ the guy said.
This guy maybe thought that I wasn’t with my family on a family vacation. Maybe he thought that I was a college kid, that I was more than sixteen. I never thought I was shy, a shy girl. It was like he was waiting for me to say yes. To say yes as if I knew what I wanted.
‘I understand. It’s okay,’ the guy said. ‘I should leave you be.’
But he still didn’t get up, even after he said that. He started pushing his finger towards me through the sand. I felt like I wanted to laugh. But I was squinting and licking my lips continually.
