"They went to the bar long go?" Marisa inquired.
"Almost an hour."
After a fleeting extroversion, Robert had recoiled observing the waves with a taciturn air.
"Everything okay, Robert?"
He emptied the bottle and dropped it on the sand.
"Eliana and I had another argument." Robert hesitated. "I assume Marco told you about our situation."
Marisa nodded and he went on: "It's getting harder to conciliate our differences. I have a gift and the obligation to alleviate the suffering of those who can't pay for medical care, but she won't accept that I devote myself to social projects."
"It was like that with Haiti?"
"It was like that with a number of things. Eliana doesn't understand me." Robert stood up. "Want to go for a swim?"
They waded into the sea and floated amid few words. Afterward the two stretched on their stomachs on the edge of the water with their elbows buried in wet sand and the waves licking their legs.
Robert broke the silence without looking at Marisa.
"Don't you think Eliana and Marco seem too close?"
"What do you mean?"
"I wonder if they were just friends in San Francisco. It's been more than an hour since they left. The bar is less than fifteen minutes away."
Robert had guessed her thoughts and, nevertheless, she opted to dismiss his question. The answer disturbed her. Marco and Eliana's delay haven't gone unnoticed to her and it occurred to Marisa a progression of conjectures she was trying to keep at bay. Marco and Eliana in a lively conversation, stares, smiles, maybe a joke serving as an excuse for a dissimulated touch. Or something slightly different: the two of them deep in the forest, kisses, caresses underneath their swimsuits, body fluids.
No, absolutely not. Marco wouldn't do that, he himself had said he didn't tolerate betrayal. It was true that, when passion shot up to the brain, ethics and moral principles sank to the ground. At that point of her reasoning, Marisa rebuffed firmly: "Marco wouldn't lie to me."
"I'm not saying he and Eliana have necessarily lied," Robert clarified after a moment. "Sometimes people omit certain things to avoid problems. That's the reality of life. Imagine if in the past their bond went beyond friendship. Now they meet again and the situation has changed because each is in a relationship with someone else. But it may be that the attraction persists. In that case, the natural reaction is to omit their former relationship to avoid friction with you and me."
There was no way of refuting his logic. Marisa's apprehension elided into an inexplicable embarrassment at his gaze.
"Those are just conjectures, Robert. Instead of making suppositions, it would be more productive if you spoke to your wife and dealt with the facts. Everything's gonna be all right."
Marisa added the last sentence to comfort him, even though she knew it wasn't more than a commonplace emptied of meaning by repetition. She scooped a heap of damp sand, sifting it between her fingers. A form began to take shape—the tower of an awkward castle.
"My relationship with Eliana has been alternating highs and lows, but crisis became the rule, not the exception. I gave it a lot of thought and concluded we've never had anything in common. Why did we get married? This is what I've been asking myself."
"Things happen for a reason. They happen because we need to learn something."
Her intonation, overly assertive, was intended to end the discussion. Marisa didn't want to listen to Robert questioning his marriage, for that forced her to question her own relationship with Marco.
But he carried on.
"I agree, Marisa. However, now it's the time to rewrite this script and stop going through the motions just for the sake of habit and accommodation. Now I know exactly what I want."
"And what do you want?"
"You know the answer."
Robert poured more sand onto the tower. It oscillated.
Marisa sensed she was entering an increasingly unstable terrain. She pressed the sand hard. Her heart beat fast in the same rhythm of her hands. Determined, Marisa grabbed another handful of sand. It would be a tall tower, she decided. A tall and strange tower, with its surface covered in bulges like a baroque pearl. It would be...
The tower collapsed.
"I'm in love with you, Marisa."
Robert's irises scintillated and enveloped her in a diaphanous caress. His body seemed to vibrate with the force of a want that found resonance in hers. Confused, Marisa straightened herself to rinse her hands and concentrated on brushing the fine sand from her bikini. Robert ran his fingers on the red strap dotted with white grains, lingering on the bowknot that covered the rose tattoo on Marisa's neck. Her skin stroked by the sun bristled. Time stopped and soared, soared in suspension. Then his words deafened her, hurling her into a vertiginous kaleidoscope. Marisa and Marco. Marco and Eliana. Eliana and Robert. Robert and Marisa...
She made a motion to touch his face and test her own reaction. She wanted to feel Robert's warmth—to make sure it was real.
The sound of footsteps hindered her gesture. Marisa shrank away, coldness surging from her fingertips to the depth of her chest. She feared Marco and Eliana would witness the scene, but it wasn't them, it was Zoe and Jean-Philippe loaded with seashells. The two sat with them on the sand and, shortly, Marisa discerned in the distance the familiar figure of Marco in his black trunks carrying two plastic bags. Eliana walked beside him by the water. As they approached, Marisa noticed she had a wildflower in her hair, the same yellow as the print on her bikini. It wasn't there before.
"Sorry for the delay. We were watching a show," said Marco. "Now let's cut to the chase. We brought cold beer and freshly made fries."
"Which show?" Marisa asked.
He didn't reply straight away, and the void that ensued was filled by Eliana and an uncertain smile: "I think it was the Heaven Haven. It's hard to remember the names of so many bands."
"What's their style?" Marisa pressed on.
Behind their shades, Marco and Eliana exchanged a look. Marisa intuited a silent communication of discomfort.
"The Heaven Haven won't play on the island," Jean-Philippe clarified. "They have a show tonight before us."
Zoe pointed unceremoniously to the bag in Marco's hand.
"My tongue is already glued to the roof of my mouth. Are you going to keep chatting while the beer gets warm?"
Marco distributed the cans he had brought, and a large bag of fries passed from hand to hand. The group resumed their lazy conversation from that morning. Zoe and Jean-Philippe made plans of dancing at the Moon Rock Club after his presentation, Eliana appeared distracted and Robert uttered clipped comments. Marco put his arm around Marisa's shoulders and whispered an apology for not returning to the waterfall. She pretended to be hot and extricated herself.
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The plot thickens... What's next??? Thanks for reading. xoxo