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“Jeez. They’re expecting you to be the photographer as well. What kind of magazine is this? Bargain Basement?”
“They’re sending in a professional, but I wouldn’t mind some candid shots of my own. So, how are you?” I ask.
“There’s good and bad in every day,” she says. “We all just need to spend more time focusing on the good and leave the bad to deal with itself.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you should write a self-help book?”
“I could call it ‘The YOLO Way’,” she says.
“It would be a bestseller, babe.” We grin at each other, the distance between us feeling small, but as a loud wave crashes next to me, I’m drawn back to my present situation.
“I’ll send you that picture as soon as I’m brave enough to get them to pose for me.”
“You’re brave enough,” Dawn says. “Remember when you wrote that article for your university newspaper that exposed teacher bullying and unfairness? That was crazy brave.”
A shiver raises the hair on my arms as the memory of how close I came to being kicked off my college course floods through me. “I remember,” I say. “But to be honest, I’d rather forget.”
“That was one of your golden moments.” Dawn nods her head, and in the background, I hear the rumble of men’s voices.
“What’s a golden moment?”
“One that you’ll recall on your deathbed with pride. A moment when you did the right thing, no matter how serious the consequences might have been for you.”
I inhale a deep breath to squash the rush of emotion my friend’s words have elicited, the realization that I’ve been more than the person I am today filling me with a longing that’s hard to take.
“I’m not going to look back at this stupid article with pride, Dawn.”
“Maybe not,” she says. “But maybe this is something you have to do to learn what your true path really is.”
The dreams I’ve had for where I want to go with my career flutter forward in my mind, but I stuff them back down and close the door on them again. I might want to break out of my current situation, but there are too many reasons to stay on this path and too many risks involved in breaking out.
I glance up at the house and find Russell by the gate. His blue baseball cap is pulled down low over his aviator sunglasses, so it’s impossible for me to see what he’s looking at. Maybe he has a hankering for the ocean like me, or maybe he’s standing there watching me.
That should feel creepy. He’s a stranger, after all. But despite that, Russell exudes that kind of solid quality that makes people feel safe. He’s the rock of the group, I think. The anchor.
I wave in his direction, and he nods once, stoic even in his acknowledgement.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell Dawn. “I have many rubber dicks to peruse.”
“Now there’s a sentence that has probably never been uttered by another human being,” she laughs.
“And probably never will be again.”
“You live a weird and wonderful life.” Her smile is broad, as though all the craziness I share with her enriches her life somehow.
“And that’s coming from a woman who shares a bed with nine men.”
“We’re weirdo partners in crime,” she says.
“And will my weirdo partner be okay with answering a few questions about whether size matters for my article?” Kirsty’s insistence that I must have enough friends to comment on this question is fresh in my mind.
“Of course.” Dawn shoots me a filthy grin and a wink. “Although you might never be able to look me in the eye again after.”
I laugh and we say our goodbyes as Russell begins to make his way across the sand towards me.
RUSSELL
The beach behind this house is a slash of pale-yellow sand against a frothing turquoise ocean that fills the air with white noise. Allie stands in her bright two-piece, her hair blowing like glossy ribbons around her pretty face, laughing at the person on the other end of the phone, and my stomach tightens at the thought that it might be a boyfriend. Then a woman’s voice cuts through the space between us, and I breathe a surprisingly long sigh of relief.
