Work Text:
The sea came ashore in long, low folds of blue, each one brightening as it crossed the shallows and collapsing into white lace against the sand. Beyond the water, the horizon was clean enough to look freshly drawn. Nearer the beach, sunlight moved over everything without restraint, flashing upon wet shoulders, bottle glass, silver jewellery, the polished sides of fishing boats, and the broad leaves of the sea-grape bushes growing where the sand hardened into earth.
Marise Étienne sat beneath the uneven shade of a canvas awning whose faded yellow stripes had nearly surrendered to white. Her chair was low, made from wood smoothed by weather and use, and one of its legs had sunk farther into the sand than the others. She had corrected the imbalance by wedging a flat stone beneath it, then settled with the patience of someone who intended to remain exactly where she was until the sun had moved behind the palms.
She wore a plain coral dress over her bathing suit, the skirt gathered around her knees to keep it from dragging in the sand. Her sandals rested beside the chair, one lying neatly upon its sole and the other tipped onto its side. A narrow silver bracelet circled her wrist. Her dark skin held the sheen of heat along her forehead, shoulders, and collarbones, though the shade and the breeze spared her from discomfort. In her lap lay a shallow enamel bowl containing sliced mango dusted with salt and crushed pepper. She ate one piece at a time with a small fork, watching the beach with a calm attention that demanded nothing from it.
Two boys were trying to push a wooden boat farther up the shore before the next wave reached them. Their feet slipped repeatedly beneath them, leaving trenches in the wet sand. Each failure made them more determined. A little girl in a green bathing suit followed behind, carrying a single yellow sandal which belonged to neither boy and offering instructions they did not heed. Beyond them, a fisherman crouched beside a net, picking bits of weed from the mesh. Three women stood waist-deep in the sea, speaking beneath the constant hush of the water. Every so often one of them laughed, the sound carrying farther than their words.
Marise lifted another piece of mango. She had just brought it to her mouth when a cool shadow crossed her right shoulder.
Something touched her left.
It was not a hard touch. It was two quick taps delivered by the padded tips of carefully manicured fingers, polite in intention and confident in execution. Marise stopped with the fork halfway to her lips. She lowered it into the bowl, turned her head, and found herself looking at a young woman who seemed to have arrived on the beach already surrounded by her own weather.
The stranger was pale beneath an enthusiastic beginning of a tan, with broad pink warmth already gathering across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her blonde hair had been pulled high through a blue elastic, though most of it had escaped and now lifted around her face in the breeze. A pair of white-framed sunglasses sat upon the top of her head. She wore a turquoise bikini beneath an open linen shirt that reached her thighs, several necklaces of shells and bright beads, two anklets, a watch with a translucent plastic strap, and a pair of platform sandals that made each step across the sand appear both ambitious and uncertain.
A woven beach bag hung from one shoulder. A compact camera dangled from her wrist. Behind her stood another American woman of similar age, dressed in a yellow sundress and holding a second camera against her chest with both hands. She watched with an affectionate expression, already prepared to assist.
The blonde woman leaned slightly forward, her face opening into wonder as though Marise had just emerged from the sea in a shaft of light.
“Oh, my God,” she cooed, drawing the words out softly. “You are, like, so gorgeous.”
Marise regarded her.
The stranger’s smile widened. Her eyes were a clear, eager blue. Nothing in her expression suggested that she had considered any possible response except gratitude.
Marise’s gaze passed briefly over the woman’s shoulder. The friend in yellow offered an encouraging smile. Marise returned her attention to the blonde.
“Thank you,” she said.
Her English was measured and clear. The two words brought such delight to the American that she pressed one hand against her own chest.
“No, seriously,” she continued, speaking with the hushed intensity of someone entrusted with wonderful news. “You’re absolutely beautiful. Your skin is amazing, and your face is just so perfect, and that dress with the whole beach behind you is, like, incredible.”
Marise looked down briefly at the coral cotton gathered around her knees. A darkened spot near the hem marked where a drop of mango juice had fallen. She looked back at the stranger.
The American took half a step nearer. One platform sandal sank at the heel. She corrected herself with a quick movement of her hips and recovered without losing her smile.
“I’m Tiffany,” she said, touching her chest again. She then swept her hand toward the woman behind her. “That’s Brooke. We’re from California.”
Brooke lifted her fingers from the camera in a small wave.
Marise nodded once. “Marise.”
Tiffany repeated the name immediately, though she softened the final sound and stretched the first until it became almost musical. “Marise. That is so pretty.”
A gust of wind pressed Tiffany’s linen shirt against her side and sent the loose ends fluttering behind her. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. It sprang free again before her hand had lowered.
“Could I get a picture with you?” she asked. Her voice retained its cooing warmth, and she clasped her hands beneath her chin for a moment. “Please? The light is so beautiful right here, and you are just stunning.”
Marise looked at Brooke, who had already lowered the camera strap from her shoulder and was testing the advance lever with her thumb. Brooke glanced through the viewfinder toward the water, then moved two steps to her left to avoid placing the fishing boat directly behind Marise’s head.
Marise returned the fork to the enamel bowl and placed the bowl on the sand beside her chair. She brushed a grain of salt from her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, set both hands upon the wooden arms, and rose.
Tiffany brightened further.
She had expected cooperation, but the actual sight of it seemed to move her. She stepped backward to make room and nearly trod upon Marise’s sandal. Marise nudged it aside with her bare foot before Tiffany’s platform descended. Tiffany did not notice. She was already reaching toward Marise with the spontaneous familiarity of someone reuniting with a friend at an airport.
The arm went around Marise’s shoulders in one smooth movement.
Tiffany was a little taller because of the sandals. She drew Marise close against her side, her hand settling warmly upon Marise’s upper arm. The shell bracelets at Tiffany’s wrist clicked together near Marise’s ear. A cloud of coconut lotion, citrus perfume, and sun-warmed linen surrounded them.
Marise allowed herself to be drawn into position.
Brooke raised the camera and looked through the viewfinder. She shifted once more, bending one knee and leaning forward to arrange the photograph. Tiffany turned her body slightly toward Marise, pressing their shoulders together. Her smile was already fixed in place, bright enough to show every tooth. She looked toward the lens with the fulfilled radiance of a woman for whom the day had just produced its finest moment.
Marise’s face remained composed.
Then, without any gradual alteration, her entire face transformed.
Her lips opened into a broad, luminous smile. Her cheeks lifted. Her eyes shone. The reserve that had settled naturally over her features vanished so completely that she appeared delighted by Tiffany, the camera, the heat, the beach, and the existence of the entire visible world. She leaned the smallest degree toward the American woman, enough to make the embrace look mutual. Her shoulders relaxed beneath Tiffany’s arm. The smile held neither strain nor mockery. It was full, vivid, and entirely convincing.
Brooke responded with a smile of her own. “Perfect.”
She pressed the shutter.
The camera clicked.
Marise’s smile disappeared.
It did not weaken or retreat. It simply ended.
Her lips closed. Her cheeks lowered. Her eyes returned to their steady, neutral regard while Brooke’s finger was still resting upon the shutter button. Tiffany remained attached to her shoulder, beaming at the camera as though the photograph continued beyond the instant of its taking.
Brooke lowered the camera and looked down at it. Marise stood beside Tiffany with the serene expression of a woman waiting for a bus.
Tiffany turned toward her, still glowing. “That was so cute.”
Marise looked at her.
Tiffany gave her shoulder another affectionate squeeze before releasing her. “Thank you so much. Seriously. You’re amazing.”
“You are welcome,” Marise said.
Tiffany reached down and briefly touched the silver bracelet on Marise’s wrist with one fingertip. She admired it without attempting to lift it or turn it.
“This is beautiful too. Everything about you is so elegant.”
Marise glanced at the bracelet. It had belonged to her aunt and had acquired three small dents over the years, one from a dropped cooking pot and two from a metal gate whose latch had never worked properly.
“Thank you,” she said again.
Brooke wound the camera forward. The small mechanical sound seemed to assure Tiffany that the moment had been safely preserved. She adjusted the strap of her beach bag and stepped backward.
“We’re staying up near the hotel,” Tiffany said, pointing vaguely along the coast, though there were two hotels in that direction and another beyond the bend. “It is so beautiful here. Everybody is so beautiful. The colours are unbelievable. I keep telling Brooke that everything looks like a photograph.”
Marise’s gaze moved to Brooke.
Brooke lowered her eyes to the camera and checked the exposure dial.
Tiffany continued smiling. The fact that Marise had offered no reply did not trouble her. She took the silence as attention and seemed pleased by it.
“We were walking down there, and then I saw you sitting here, and I was just, like, I have to tell her. Because when somebody is gorgeous, people should tell them. Nobody should just think something nice and keep it inside.”
Marise listened. A strand of Tiffany’s hair had blown across her mouth and remained stuck there against the gloss on her lower lip. Tiffany spoke around it for several words before noticing. She pulled it free and tucked it behind her ear again.
The little girl in the green bathing suit passed behind them, still carrying the yellow sandal. She slowed to study Tiffany’s platforms and then continued toward the boat.
Brooke lifted the camera. “Tiff, there’s another one left.”
Tiffany looked at the frame counter and gasped softly. “Oh, my God. We have one picture left?”
“One on this roll.”
Tiffany’s face became grave for half a second, not with distress but with responsibility. She looked over the beach as though the final exposure had to be entrusted to something worthy. Her gaze moved from the sea to the palms, from the fishing boat to the three women in the water, then returned to Marise.
She clasped her hands again.
“Could we do one more?”
Marise remained standing.
Tiffany tilted her head. “Maybe one where we’re laughing?”
Marise looked at her for a quiet moment. Tiffany waited with open hopefulness, her hands folded at her waist.
Marise turned toward Brooke and stepped back into place.
Tiffany made a small sound of delight and immediately put her arm around Marise again. This time she drew closer, resting the side of her head lightly against Marise’s temple. The white sunglasses remained perched above her forehead, one loose blonde strand lifting and falling across Marise’s hair.
Brooke backed away several paces. “The light’s better from here.”
Tiffany adjusted herself, turning one knee inward and angling her shoulders. Marise stood without movement, her hands resting loosely at her sides.
“Okay,” Brooke said. “Laughing.”
Tiffany began to laugh.
There was no joke and no pretence of one. She simply produced a buoyant, breathy laugh for the benefit of the photograph, tilting her head and opening her mouth as though someone had just surprised her. It came easily to her. She glanced sideways at Marise with sparkling expectation.
Marise looked at Brooke.
Her expression transformed again.
A bright laugh opened across her face. Her eyes narrowed with apparent joy. She raised one hand to Tiffany’s forearm and leaned slightly forward, her shoulders lifting in a way that made her seem caught in the middle of genuine delight. Tiffany saw the movement from the corner of her eye and laughed harder, thrilled by what appeared to be a shared moment. Brooke smiled behind the camera.
The shutter clicked.
Marise stopped laughing.
Her hand fell from Tiffany’s arm. Her face returned to stillness before Tiffany had finished her own breath.
Tiffany straightened slowly, wiping the corner of one eye with the pad of her finger. “That is going to be adorable.”
Marise nodded.
Brooke lowered the camera and wound the film until the lever stopped. She pressed the release button on the bottom, opened the back, and began rewinding with careful turns. Tiffany watched for a moment, then faced Marise again.
“We’re getting them developed when we get home,” she said. “I wish I could send you one.”
Marise’s eyes rested upon her.
Tiffany opened her mouth, perhaps to ask for an address, but the thought became tangled with the practical distances involved. She looked toward Brooke. Brooke continued rewinding the film.
Marise waited.
Tiffany’s hesitation lasted only a moment. “I’ll remember you.”
Marise nodded again. “Enjoy your holiday.”
The words pleased Tiffany immensely. She pressed both hands to her chest as though Marise had offered a blessing.
“Thank you. You too.”
Marise looked at her.
Brooke stopped turning the rewind crank and glanced up.
Tiffany’s smile remained undisturbed. She lifted one hand in farewell. “Bye, Marise.”
“Goodbye, Tiffany.”
Tiffany turned and walked back across the sand with Brooke beside her. Her platforms left deep, blunt-edged impressions behind her, each one filling gradually as dry grains slid inward. She spoke immediately about the photographs, her voice carried back in pieces by the wind. She hoped her eyes had not been closed in the laughing one. Brooke assured her that they had not. Tiffany said Marise had looked like a model. Brooke agreed. Tiffany looked over her shoulder once and waved again.
Marise raised her hand.
Tiffany faced forward, satisfied.
Marise lowered her hand and returned to her chair. She shifted the stone beneath the short leg when the wood rocked under her weight. Then she picked up the enamel bowl from the sand, inspected the mango for any blown grit, and resumed eating.
A woman approached from the water, squeezing salt from the ends of her long braids. Her name was Solange Pierre. She had been one of the three standing waist-deep in the sea, and her wet bathing dress clung heavily to her legs as she crossed the sand. She stopped beside the canvas awning, looking first at Marise and then at the retreating Americans.
Marise speared another slice of mango.
Solange rested one hand against the awning pole. Water ran from her elbow and darkened the sand around her feet. She watched Tiffany step around a sleeping dog, lose her balance, regain it, and continue without interruption to her conversation.
Marise ate the mango.
Solange looked down at her. “What did she want?”
“A photograph.”
“With you?”
“With me.”
Solange turned her gaze toward the Americans again. Tiffany had taken Brooke by the wrist and was leading her toward a cluster of palms. The linen shirt streamed behind her, and the blue elastic in her hair had begun to loosen.
Solange’s attention returned to Marise. “Do you know her?”
“No.”
“Does she know you?”
“No.”
Solange nodded slowly. Nothing in her face suggested surprise. She drew a second chair away from the awning’s edge and sat, extending her wet legs into the sun. Marise offered her the bowl. Solange took a piece of mango with her fingers.
“She said I was gorgeous,” Marise added.
Solange ate the mango and considered Marise’s face with calm thoroughness. “You are.”
Marise accepted this with a small nod.
“She said my dress was incredible.”
Solange looked down at the coral dress. “Your hem is stained.”
“Mango.”
Solange nodded once more. “It is still a good dress.”
“She liked the bracelet.”
“That bracelet is dented.”
“I know.”
Solange reached for another mango slice. The two women watched Tiffany and Brooke reach the palms. Tiffany stood beneath one and gazed upward, apparently measuring the composition of another photograph before remembering that the roll had ended. She raised the camera anyway, looked through it, then lowered it with visible disappointment.
“She was kind,” Marise said.
Solange licked salt and pepper from her thumb. “She was.”
“She smelled like coconut.”
“She does from here.”
Marise rested the bowl in her lap. The fishing boat had finally been moved far enough up the shore to satisfy the two boys. The girl in green presented them with the yellow sandal. One boy took it, looked inside it, and placed it upright upon the boat’s bow.
A shadow crossed the sand again.
This time Marise looked up before she was touched.
A middle-aged man stood beside the awning with a straw hat in one hand and a camera in the other. His face was pink from the sun. His wife remained several steps behind him, carrying a canvas tote and wearing an expression of polite uncertainty.
The man smiled at Marise and Solange. “Excuse me. Would either of you ladies mind taking a picture of us?”
He held out the camera.
Marise looked at Solange.
Solange looked at Marise.
Marise placed the bowl in Solange’s lap and rose. She accepted the camera from the man, who showed her the shutter button and pointed toward the viewfinder. His explanation was unnecessary, but Marise allowed him to complete it. Then he crossed the sand to stand beside his wife with the sea behind them.
The couple arranged themselves. The wife smoothed the front of her blouse. The husband placed one arm around her waist. Both smiled toward Marise.
Marise lifted the camera.
She waited until a group of children had passed out of the background and until the next wave curled white behind the couple. Then she pressed the shutter.
The man called, “Did it take?”
Marise lowered the camera. “Yes.”
He approached and accepted it with both hands. “Thank you very much.”
“You are welcome.”
The couple walked away together. The man inspected the camera as though the finished image might already be visible through the casing. His wife took his arm.
Marise sat again and retrieved the bowl from Solange.
Solange was still watching her.
Marise selected a piece of mango.
Solange raised her eyebrows slightly.
Marise ate.
From beyond the palms came Tiffany’s voice, bright and distant, followed by Brooke’s softer answer. A moment later the two women reappeared, now walking back toward the hotel. Tiffany had removed her platforms and carried them by the straps. Barefoot, she moved with far greater ease. She turned once more in Marise’s direction, though she was too far away to determine whether Marise was looking.
She waved both shoes above her head.
Marise watched her.
Then she raised her hand and waved back.
Tiffany’s whole body seemed to brighten. She said something to Brooke and continued along the beach, swinging the shoes beside her.
Marise lowered her hand.
Solange looked toward Tiffany, then at Marise, then into the bowl of mango. She took another piece.
Marise’s expression remained neutral, though a faint warmth had entered her eyes.
The sea continued folding itself upon the shore. The boys climbed into the grounded boat and sat shoulder to shoulder beneath the upright yellow sandal. The girl in green pushed against the hull with both hands, straining to return them to the water. Neither boy helped her. Under the awning, Solange stretched her wet feet into the sunlight, and Marise ate the last piece of mango before offering her the empty bowl.