Page 49 of That Last Summer

We get to the beach and there are a lot of people there, despite the bad weather. In this town every plan is pretty much a beach plan, and much more in summer of course; it doesn’t matter if it thunders, rains or we have forty degrees and not a single cloud in the sky.

We find a place near the water and strip down to our swimsuits; despite the gray sky, it’s hot.

“Wow,” Jaime exclaims.

“Wow, what?” I ask, following his gaze to the sea.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Mediterranean like this before. It’s so rough.”

“You haven’t been in the Mediterranean much, have you?”

“Is this normal?” he asks, pointing to the swell and the dark color of the water.

“Yes. Some days it’s so calm, but others...”

“Can we swim?”

I look at the lifeguard towers and the people out in the waves. If swimming wasn’t allowed, we’d already know. Even so, you can see that all the lifeguards are close to the water’s edge. When the sea is like this and there’s a red flag, they don’t let swimmers go too far.

“It seems so, at least for now.”

“Well, let’s go then.”

We wade in and play for a while, pushing each other, jumping waves—which are gigantic. The sea is warm and looks worse and worse every minute; the tide drags us further from shore, out of our depth, so we decided to get out. And I thought I heard a whistle in the distance, which means the lifeguards are narrowing down the swimming area.

As we emerge, we almost collide with Alex. He’s doing one of his lifeguard patrols, yellow life-board at the ready, as if he were a law enforcement officer. He doesn’t even look at us. Not a single glance, like he doesn’t know who we are. Although I almost prefer that to the looks of hatred, the narrow eyes, the raised eyebrow, the sneering. He does smile at a lady passing by though. He even says hello. He’s not the warmest guy on Earth, let’s not forget we’re talking about Alex St. Claire, Mr. Silence-Is-Golden. But it does seem like the only person he clashes with is me.

“Hello, neighbor,” my friend says.

That’s Jaime. Never one to hold back.

Alex looks at him for a second and then looks away, but that moment is enough for Jaime to shrink. Yeah, he also clashes with Jaime.

I look at him as we sit on our towels to dry off. I don’t like what I’ve seen in his eyes. I can’t get used to Alex’s antipathy toward me.

“Fuck, he hates us to death. What have I done to him?” Jaime asks me, not caring that Alex can hear us.

“You mean other than teasing him with that ‘hello, neighbor’? The question is: What have I?”

The lady Alex greeted stops to chat with him about who knows what and, after her, two other women follow suit, which keeps him in front of us too long.

“Every single woman here is eating him with her eyes,” my friend says, looking around. “Clearly they don’t know him. Neither that amazing body nor the perfect face can compensate for that shitty character of his. I never guessed lifeguards could score this much. Maybe I should take a course or something.”

“By ‘course’ you mean shaping this body of yours in the gym?” I lean over and pinch the skin around his belly. It’s nothing, really, he’s lean, but since he’s sitting down it stands out.

“I don’t have a belly, you idiot.”

“We should cut here, and here... !” I tickle him, laughing at him, and with him.

“Stop!” he yells, bursting into laughter.

The sudden pii pii of a whistle puts an end to our fun. I lift my head and meet Alex’s scorching gaze. I turn away from Jaime and look around. Alex’s workmate is ordering swimmers to come closer to the shore, but there’s a group not taking any notice.

“Fuck!” Alex growls, pissed off.

He picks up his whistle and blows it repeatedly, then takes the megaphone from his workmate and yells through it: “Get out of the water!”

“I’ve been warning them for a while and nothing,” his fellow lifeguard says.