The shop owner was a jaunty bronze-skinned titan from Australia named Blake. As advertised, he offered a beginner’s course and a full assortment of gear rentals. Prominent on the wall behind his counter was a certificate that declared him an “official skyriding instructor” but failed to particularly impress or encourage Nimec. How, he’d wondered, did somebody become an official skyrider, instructor or otherwise? What standards were applied to earning a cert? And by whom?
Nimec hadn’t had the foggiest notion. On the other hand, Blake was enthusiastic enough and seemed to know his stuff. And Annie was determined to get Nimec airborne. Urged on by her along their way to the beach, he’d acquiesced to possibly scheduling a session toward the middle of the week, but as it developed Blake was booked solid — except for a slot which had opened that morning due to a sudden cancellation.
Not quite feeling ready, Nimec had started to decline.
Before he could, Annie accepted on his behalf.
Minutes later, Nimec had been rushed into a dressing room and suited up in a board shirt and shorts, water booties, a buoyancy vest, and an impact helmet with a molded foam liner that made it hard for him to hear his own grumbled complaints. A couple of hours and several dry runs over the sand after that, he was floating on his back in the warm ocean shallows with a harness around him, his feet in the straps of a plane board, and his hands on the control bar of the rig that connected him to a bright red-and-white foil hovering in the air overhead. And then the kite had scooped wind, and Nimec had been pulled to his feet by the tautened lines, and the next thing he’d known he was airborne, swept into an updraft, looking some fifteen or twenty feet down at Blake the Bronze astride the jet ski they’d ridden from shore.
Blake had shouted a few words from below and behind him that sounded like: “You’re blowing away!”
Asked about it when their session was over, however, he had only recalled praising Nimec for “doing great.”
Whatever he’d said, it had proven to be a lasting thrill for Nimec. Between the six or seven dunks he took — each of which had brought Blake to his rescue on the fleet little jet ski — he had spent about half an hour soaring above the flat blue water in defiance of gravity. Nimec would remember his periods of flight seeming longer, and the heights he’d reached feeling higher, than they actually were. He would remember having an incredible, dizzying sense of mental and physical lightness. Perhaps most of all, he would remember looking back toward Annie on the beach, where she had stood watching him ride the wind, repeatedly raising her arms high above her head to wave from the edge of the lapping surf. Though he hadn’t been able to see her face from his distance, Nimec had known she was smiling at him, felt her smiling at him, and taken an undeclarably boyish pride in having evoked that smile.
Back at the villa that afternoon they’d decided to scrub up, change their clothes, and then grab some lunch at a restaurant. As Annie prepared to run her shower, Nimec had found himself looking quietly out a large bay window at the exotic flowers planted one story down in the courtyard, cruising along in a carefree and contented mood that had seemed almost foreign to him.
“You know,” she’d said, poking her head through the half-open bathroom door, “that seat in the shower stall makes kind of a handy perch.”
Nimec had turned to look at her, noticed the swimsuit she’d worn to the beach dangling from a hook on the door. Then he’d noticed that faint sort of blush she would get above her cheekbones.
“Handy,” he’d repeated.
Annie nodded.
“Bet it would be sturdy enough for two,” she’d said. “The shower seat, I mean.”
Nimec had looked at her.
“I know what you mean, Annie,” he’d said. “And I’m getting lots of ideas.”
The color on her cheeks had spread and deepened.
“Me too,” she’d said. “Want to try some of them out together?”
Nimec had nodded that he did, and pulled shut the louvers, and they had spent a long, leisurely while trying out quite a few of their ideas, and coming up with some new ones besides, before finally driving off for a much heartier meal than either had anticipated.
Now, at half past eleven that night, Nimec was in the chair by the bedroom window again, his robe belted around him, wondering what had happened to the blissful guy with his face who’d sat in that spot not too many hours earlier. He’d tried referencing the various thoughts and events that had brought about his calmly untroubled state of mind, but they hadn’t helped him settle back into it. And, most irritatingly, he just couldn’t get any shut-eye.
Filled with tension, Nimec had briefly considered a stroll through the villa’s sculpted gardens, then decided against it — walking without a clear sense of purpose and destination never relaxed him. He thought about taking a swim in the big tiled pool across the grounds, but bumped the notion for similar reasons. The reality was he felt derelict. A splash under the full moon would only compound that feeling and frustrate him with more self-disapproval.
Nimec shifted restlessly, thinking he could use something to help him unwind. Roaming about downstairs yesterday on a minor expedition of discovery, he’d stumbled upon what he supposed was called an entertainment room, with a high-def flat-screen television and a wet bar. The bar had a refrigerator that he’d found stocked with beer, wine, and soft drinks. A beer would go down nicely, he concluded. If all the amenities went to type, there might be satellite TV feeds from the States. The difference in time zones between Trinidad and California made catching a West Coast baseball game a distinct possibility… some late innings, at least. Maybe the Mariners were pounding Oakland tonight. Or better yet, Anaheim. Though, given the injuries they always got from plowing into bases, walls, and opposing players like fools, Nimec figured it might be best leaving the Angels alone to pound on themselves.
He stood in the darknened room, turned from the window, and carried his chair over to the little table nook from which he’d taken it. Then, as he was starting toward the door, he saw Annie sitting up in bed.
Nimec looked at her with mild surprise in the moonlight coming through the parted blinds.
“Didn’t know you were awake,” he said.
She shrugged, leaning against a mound of pillows, her shoulders bare, the covers pulled just above her breasts.
“I haven’t been for very long,” she said in a quiet voice. “You?”
“Awhile,” he said.
Annie was watching him.
“I kind of guessed,” she said. “Can you tell me why?”
Nimec hesitated, produced a breath.
“You know,” he said.
“Work,” she said.
He nodded.
“I’ve been having a great time here, enjoying every minute of it,” he said. And paused. “I love you, Annie.”
She watched him another moment and suddenly chuckled.
“Something funny?” he said.
“Remembering our shower this afternoon,” she said, “I was left with the distinct impression that you might like me some.”