Sea Stolen

Chapter 5 - Becca

Becca curled all her dreadlocks up onto of her head and stuck a hair stick and some pens in to keep the whole thing in place. A few loose dreads swung about her face. She swatted one aside as she circled another mention to “the call of the sea” in her latest mythology tome. Mermaid mythology to be precise. This text was on water spirits in Asian cultures, but was currently revealing no earth shattering new information. Well, an insight into the Japanese art of storytelling, and ancient deities in the east. But, little she hadn’t already read.

“Are you still procrastinating on marking those essays?” shouted Jack from the kitchen.

“Yes,” she called back, “I’m putting off having my faith in education crushed by yet another bunch of eighteen year olds not knowing how to use spell check or research past google.” She set her book down and evaluated the stack of essays her TA position required her to mark.

“That sounds like us all through first and second year,” said Jack, wandering back into their living room/dining room/study to set their little table with a couple of lizard patterned plates. Their little flat was filled with art and dented wind chimes. All of Jack’s paintings were stuck up on the wall along with the defected wind chimes he couldn’t bear to get rid of from his job. You could barely move without knocking into something with twinkled or jangled. Any spare surface had photocopied history book pages pinned up on them or like the fridge door was covered in free hand doodles. Becca always said they were a vegan diet away from being completly stereotypical, artsy, student hippies.

“Yeah, but we were smart enough not to reference Wikipedia.” She picked up the first essay, “Mythology is sad often. First sentence. That’s as much an understatement as it makes everything grammatical cry.” She dropped it back down, “Nope, I’m doing these Friday night when we get back from that pub crawl with Biscuit, Perran, Mya and all your art mates.”

“Why that’s when I’m beginning my thesis outline,” said Jack, “Great minds think alike.”

“Great minds would be smart enough not to pursue degrees in History and Art History during a recession,” Becca shouted back as he grabbed dinner from the kitchen.

“There’s always grad school.”

“Aka. more debt,” said Becca, stretching then moving to sit at the table.

With oven mitted hands Jack set a casserole dish between them. It was their usual variant of “student stew”. A dish made up of potatoes, tinned tomatoes, vegetable stock and then whatever the discount section had.

“I found a bag of prawns that went out of date yesterday. Tonight we dine like kings,” said Jack, ladling half onto her plate then the reminder onto his.

“Mmmm, seafood stew with questionable safety,” said Becca grinning as she chowed down, “You know I love to live on the edge.”

“Will today be the day we get food poisoning, or will we live to bargain buy again,” said Jack in mock drama, he leaned in close, “Only time will tell.”

She laughed pushing him away with her hand. He kissed her fingers before retreating.

“How did your parental meet up go today?” she asked.

“Well . . . they still believe I’m selling out my soul by studying art’s history instead of making it. They still can’t comprehend that I like studying it more than painting. The last thing my Dad said was “don’t follow the money”, I told him art history is where money making goes to die,” said Jack, sighing and resting his head on his hand, “Maybe one day they will accept my academic life choices.”

Becca raised her glass, “To parental acception.” They clinked glasses.

Becca hadn’t always loved Jack. Not in the sense of falling straight in love with the usually barefoot student. They’d met in their first year, but she felt nothing remarkable about him till the very end of the second term. His art society and her mythology society happened to be at the same pub at the same time on the same night. All were reeling from just finishing exams, and all were well on their way to black-out stupid-drunk. The two groups had mingled under the grounds of all being students finally set free, and several drinks later a chunk of them had decided to roll down the sand dunes of the nearby beach. They’d all been lying at the bottom in a big, dazed pile when someone had the idea to swim in the sea. Everyone but Becca and Jack had tottered off to follow. They’d lain in silence, and then they began to talk. Nothing type talk, drunk “wow, stars” and “sand feels so . . . sandy” type talk. But they were still talking as the sun rose and they sobered up. And Jack just became the most interesting, and beautiful person she’d met all year.

A hundred or so dates, drunken escapades, summer adventures, midnight essays, a thousand or so talks and they were here. Last year of university and sharing a flat.

“Hey, you disappeared for a second,” said Jack, waving a hand in front of her face, “Where did you go?”

“Just thinking about how pretty you are,” she replied.

“I am very pretty,” he said, brushing a dreadlock behind her ear and letting his hand slowly caress its way down her neck, “And since you have me here all to yourself, and I am so very, very pretty . . .”

She grinned, leaned over the table and kissed him. “I think we should ignore academia for tonight.”

“For the whole night?” Jack replied.

“Definitely the whole night,” said Becca.

“Now that is an excellent idea.”

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