It was impossible to feel self-conscious anymore. Everywhere she turned, people were laughing and smiling and having a good time. It wasn’t like being in a crowded club, where there were too many bodies pushing against each other and everyone was eyeing each other in judgment. Here there was such a mix of bodies and ages and people and outfits so that in the dark it was impossible to make out who was who or what they were doing. And besides, why would anyone care? The woman at the clothing store had been right—they fit in perfectly. It was nice to feel the ocean breeze on her stomach and to touch Blake’s chest, knowing he was right by her side. She needn’t have worried so much about what people would think; they were too busy having a good time to care about anything other than the fact that she was out there dancing and having fun, too.
“This is incredible!” she gasped when Blake pulled her out of the crowd so they could take a breather and buy some water from a woman selling bottles out of a cooler.
“I knew this was supposed to be a party, but I still had no idea it would be this fun,” Blake said, downing the water and then pouring some of it over his head and on Julia to cool them off. She laughed and took another swig.
“What would you be doing if you weren’t here?” she asked, imagining the celebrations in Sydney.
“I’d probably be by myself somewhere in Argentina, moping and thinking of you,” he said, flashing a grin.
“Not if you hadn’t met me.”
“I’d still be moping and thinking of you. It’d just be the you I’d wish I had met.”
“Yeah right, you’d be out dancing with some other girl.” She stuck out her tongue.
Blake pretended to shudder. “Perish the thought.”
“Come on, let’s walk down the beach,” she urged, skirting up the road that ran along the beach and trying to keep to the outside of the crowds.
“Something tells me you don’t spend New Year’s on the beach in Chicago,” Blake said.
“Polar bear swim!”
“You Yanks are insane.”
“I didn’t say I did it. I happen to like not freezing my ass off.”
“You also don’t jump off of cliffs,” he reminded her, and she had to acknowledge that he had a point.
“There are some things it turns out that I will, in fact, do. But swimming in Lake Michigan in the middle of winter still isn’t one of them. I think I’ll reserve the whole trying new things out for when I’m somewhere tropical, thanks.”
He laughed. “So you’re just going to go home and be boring?”
“I like boring!”
“You do not,” he smirked, and Julia had to laugh. Okay, maybe he was right about that. Did she really have to go home and be the same old Julia again, layered in sweaters in the middle of winter, staying in the classroom until nine at night because, let’s face it, there was nothing much calling her home and there was always more work to be done?
Could she be the person who jumped into pools, rushed down paths to waterfalls, hopped overnight busses, jumped off cliffs, danced in next to nothing with a crowd of strangers with the sand between her toes…even when she was far from here?
She tugged on Blake’s hand and pulled him through the crowd, this time leading the way instead of waiting for him to decide what they were going to do. Farther up the beach, they could look out and get a view of the crowds stretching all the way down the long crescent of sand, miles of revelers of every age and walk of life, the ocean bobbing with flowers and little wooden boats laden with wishes and prayers, offerings to the goddess of the sea.
Blake bought a bottle of champagne from a cooler for the equivalent of about three bucks, laughing that when in Rio, they’d better do as the locals did. Which, judging from the group they were watching along the shore, meant shaking the bottle and spraying everyone when they uncorked it with a pop as though it were a blessing to be shared.
Julia couldn’t stop laughing as Blake shook up the champagne. Whatever he said, she couldn’t hear it over a sudden roar of cheering from a nearby platform as a band took the stage. To a swinging beat that everyone started singing along to, she splashed her feet in the warm embrace of the ocean, letting the goddess Yemanjá take all her worries away.
Blake waded out to join her, pointing the bottle away so that when it popped the cork went somewhere into the water, their offering to the sea. It bubbled forth explosively and Blake covered the lip with his thumb, still managing to completely douse them both.
They splashed in the shallow waves as he poured the bubbles into her mouth. The bright fizz danced on her tongue. It wasn’t terrible, although most of it went down her shirt. Blake laughed and took a swallow himself, spilling more on his chin. A couple splashed by them and sprayed some champagne on them with shouts of Feliz Ano Novo, so Blake sprayed them back, and they cheered.
Everything buzzed, their skin soaked with sweat and salt and champagne. Swimming in their clothes under the darkened sky, watching the pulse of bodies writhe and sway in a dancing mass along the shore, the ocean felt like a vast, endless embrace. They swam parallel to the shore, keeping close to the beach but moving away from the crowds until an unexpected quiet filled them, so much more noticeable compared to the far-off thump of music and cheers from the beach.
Julia stopped swimming and stood up to her hips in the water. Blake grabbed her around the waist and softly bit the side of her neck as he pressed his warm, wet body against hers. Her hair was everywhere and she tried to knot it back but it was too wet to obey, so she let it go. She knew her white clothes were practically see-through now that they were soaked, but it was hard to care when she was in Blake’s arms.
A roar went up from the crowd as the first bursts of color exploded over the ocean. Neither of them had a watch, and Julia had lost all sense of time on the beach, but it must have been midnight because the cheering intensified along with the crackle and boom of the fireworks exploding overhead.
It seemed like the colors were raining down directly over them, spirals of orange and red and green and silver spreading wide, willowy arms across the sky. They burst and fizzled into darkness as the next round shot up. Julia dunked her head under the water and heard the boom reverberate in her ears. When she lay floating on her back in the waves, it felt like the colors were raining right on top of her.
There was so much cheering going on but in their own tiny bubble of the world they were quiet and awed. “Happy New Year,” Blake whispered, his wet lips against her ear, his breath making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
“Happy New Year.” She kissed him, tasting the salt on his lips and the champagne on his tongue, and that indescribable Blakeness that only ever seemed to make her want more.
And then his arms were around her, crushing her, holding her tighter, and they were kissing and kissing as the fireworks exploded and the ocean heaved and sighed. Somewhere there were other people on the beach, there was an enormous party going on, but all of that was distant when she closed her eyes and slid into his kiss. Then it was only the darkness of the night and the dark behind her eyes and his body strong and alive against hers.
They sank lower in the water, unable to stop kissing, legs intertwined, Blake’s knee pushing apart her thighs where the tight fabric of her skirt wouldn’t budge. His body responded instantly to her touch. She bit his lip harder than she meant to and opened her eyes to apologize, but the look in his eyes was so insistent that the words died in her mouth. There was no way she could speak, no way she could do anything except move with him in the water away from the crowds, until they were somewhere farther up the beach where rocks jutted into the water and they were alone.