Page 7

Seagulls cry overhead, and a gentle salt breeze teases my hair as I slide on my sunglasses and step on to hot sand, flotation device tucked under my arm, whistle around my neck, dressed in the high-cut red bathing suit.

My skin is tacky with suntan lotion and the ocean waves are languid, relaxed.

It’s a relief to be out of the hotel room and the pool of grief I sank into there.

Being on the clock is just what I need to get my head in the game, so covering for my absentee roommate is probably a blessing in disguise.

It’s going to force me to pull it together and stay sharp, which is extra important today of all days, especially considering what’s on the docket for tonight: breaking into Vic’s office.

The beach is pretty crowded, and a string of yachts bob out beyond the swimming line, wafting party music.

It’s mostly resort guests on the beach– you can identify them by their resort-branded white towels– but not exclusively.

The resort also sells day passes to people who want to enjoy the beach or the spa.

The day trippers come over on the morning ferry from Saint Vitalis, usually rich party girls looking to detox after a rough weekend at the Mambotel, which you can see at night from the Riovan beaches, a blinking dot in the black ocean.

The scorch of sand on the soles of my feet tempts me to sprint towards cooler sand, but I force myself to keep my pace slow, steady. It hurts now, but in a few days, I’ll have my beach feet back. No pain no gain, right?

I pass a long row of lounge chairs filled with women in bright scraps of designer swimwear, out for their afternoon tanning session. Two of them are chatting in low voices.

‘… and then suddenly after the last round of quads, I’m puking my guts out on the gym floor.’

‘Hey, if it works…’

‘Yeah, well, I prefer to do that alone in the bathroom, not in front of a celebrity trainer—’

They stop talking to look at my ass. They’re not the only ones. I grimace. It’ll take a few days to get used to that again, too.

Snatches of conversation float past me as I plough across the sand towards the lifeguard chair where I’ll be spending the next three hours.

… fine, but I’m telling you, intermittent fasting didn’t really work for me…

… who cares if he’s crying now? It’s called a revenge body for a reason!…

… yeah, she thinks I’m at a work conference in Tampa…

… wait, pounds or kilos?…

Yep. Definitely at the Riovan again.

Part of me wants to look; to link the voices with the faces like a game of matching and start making my longlist. But I force myself to keep walking.

Better to wait until after the break-in.

It’s more efficient that way– and I have an entire week to identify the person I’m here to find.

Normally this first day is all about recovering from travel, anyway.

‘Halle-fuckin’-lujah,’ says the male lifeguard I’m replacing when he spots me. He looks college-age, with reddish hair, lean musculature like a dancer’s, and freckled shoulders. He immediately starts to climb down. ‘I was burning to death up there.’

There’s a small umbrella angled above the high, white lifeguard’s chair, but I know from experience that even in the shade it can be brutal up there, especially in the afternoon as the temperatures climb.

‘I’m Jason, by the way,’ he says, swinging forward a hand. ‘Don’t think I’ve met you.’

‘Lily. British?’ I take his hand and we have a friendly shake.

‘Yep. London. American, I take it?’

‘Cincinnati.’

He gives me a vaguely confused look, which I’m used to.

‘Skyline Chili? Cincinnati Reds?’

‘Sorry …’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Ah. Well. See you around then.’ He starts to go, then turns back. ‘Hey, a bunch of us are going over to the Mambotel Friday night.’

‘Already heard.’

‘Should be a fun night.’ He points both fingers like little guns. ‘You’re coming, yeah?’

‘We’ll see, Jason.’ It’s my polite version of no. I have no desire to get drunk with a bunch of college kids. Though I wish them all the best.

He signs out of the clipboard affixed to the chair, then lopes off in the sand.

After signing myself in with the barely functioning ballpoint pen, I climb up.

The seat is warm, and not that comfortable, which is probably good, because lifeguarding is all about keeping alert.

When you’re comfy, it’s so easy for your attention to slip…

especially after my breakdown in the room, which eroded the little energy I had going into today.

Still, for the next three hours, I have to stay sharp.

I re-angle the umbrella, then set the timer on my resort-issued waterproof watch. Fifteen minutes up here, then I walk the shore, then back up. At the hour and a half mark, I’ll switch places with the lifeguard on the other end of the beach.

I start my methodical visual sweep of the beach. First, the swimmers who are out the furthest, most of them churning out furious laps. I count the bobbing heads; fifteen. A few swimmers are cooling off in the shallower water, and a few more are standing ankle deep, conversing with one another.

All adults. No little kids here. This isn’t exactly the kind of resort you bring your family to. In fact, Skylar, the teen in tie-dye, is probably the youngest person I’ve ever seen at the Riovan.

Ugh. The memory of her mother and the way she talked down to her…

it makes my blood boil. I’ve dealt with her kind before.

If I had a little girl, I would make sure she knew she was beautiful to me.

Period. And if anyone ever made her feel less than– well, I would know just what to do, wouldn’t I?

Never let anyone treat you like that again, Lily.

I shake my head quickly, because being filled with rage, no matter how justified– and I don’t think I’m crazy to say that some of it is justified– isn’t exactly a good state of mind for lifeguarding.

I take a few deep breaths and sweep my eyes over the water again, feeling its cooling effect almost as if I were physically skimming it with a palm.

The world is full of injustices, like that mother chipping away at her daughter. Like Kyle, thinking he had some kind of a right to me. Like the residents of Calumet Heights, who only called Mom a slut because they were jealous of how goddamn gorgeous she was.

You can’t miss it, the injustices happening all around all the time, from bad parenting to misogynistic assholery all the way up the ladder to racism, war, genocide.

The way I see it, there are two types of people: those who turn a blind eye to injustice, and those who can’t ignore it.

The passive observers and those who refuse to be complicit.

And, yeah, I’m the second type.

I adjust my sunglasses and start to sweep the water line again, in the opposite direction. Swimmer one, check. Swimmer two, check.

All these people are here for different reasons.

I know that. To unwind, to soak up the sunshine, to get that killer beach body– but they all want to be here, at some level.

What would it be like to come here because I actually wanted to?

With Jess. We’d be celebrating an anniversary, for example.

Getting away from the kids– we’d have one by now at least, maybe two.

We’d be saying things like, Oh God, I can finally hear myself think!

and You think the kids are OK? Is it too soon to text your mom?

(In this world, my mom is still alive, though she sometimes says, But I’m too young to be a grandmother!

and we all laugh.) Jess and I would lounge on the beach and enjoy the spa, and the scent of lemongrass and coconut would bring back visceral memories of hot sex on the delicious Riovan mattress.

But that’s not what I got.

Flecks of brightness burst from the water as it moves, and even with the protection of my sunglasses, I have to squint as I scan. Just a couple more minutes and I’ll climb down for my walk along the shore, flotation device under my arm, ready to save whoever might need saving.

It’s tedious work, lifeguarding. You have to hone your attention like a knife even as summer heat radiates up, tempting you, always tempting you, Relax, just for a minute… let your eyes slip closed…

My watch beeps. Somehow these fifteen minutes have felt like five times that. Time moves differently when you’re waiting for something to happen.

I climb down the chair and make for the cool, firm sand at the shoreline, my eyes tracking over the swimmers, relishing the feeling of movement in my limbs. I count them again, one to fifteen, then again backwards.

Did you know that drowning happens quietly?

People think that a drowning person will be easy to pick out.

Shouting, thrashing, making a scene. But in real life, they’re docile.

Mute. There one minute, then they quietly slip under.

It doesn’t even look like they’re struggling, until suddenly, they’re gone.

Jess went down quietly, too. So gently and so quietly that by the time I woke up to what was happening, it was too late.