"YOU TWO BEHAVE YOURSELVES, now, and have a good time. We'll be back around 4:00." I looked back at Mrs. Beckendorf as if to say What? or beg for further instruction. Surely there was some mistake. They didn't trust me that far, did they? I tried to peer in through the smoked glass of the Mercedes sedan for any kind of sign from the rest of the kids, but none—they drove off. I turned back to see Essi standing behind me in the doorway beside some awfully gorgeous flowering tropical shrub, last night's moonlit smile still flickering bashfully about her lips.

"Beach?"

"Um, yuh, sure."

"I'll meet you at the path in ten minutes." She seemed as confused as I was. If the whole thing were some practical joke she didn't appear to be in on it. I went to my room to wash up, desperately trying to fend off the monstrous arousal that had awoken and was beginning to crash around in my libido. It was a simple trick, I told myself—just think of nothing, nothing at all the whole time, and everything would be fine.

One exited the house through a shaded back alley, ducked under the low-hanging boughs of a big-leafed tree and skipped across a hot blacktop road to a hole in the wall of dense underbrush. Essi was there, still smiling, in a skimpy bikini I forced myself, with an Alfalfa gulp, to ignore.

"I burned the crap out of my feet!"

"I know. Me too. Come on." She led the way down the dark, sandy path, and I watched her bare feet as they flew like clues away from me into the past. Now that I came to think of it, Essi had been there watching me throughout my life, and snapshots of her pretty, freckled face, previously taken but never developed in the darkroom of my soul, were now passing rapidly through the solution of the past week's events and materializing in a kind of involuntary slideshow. That time we were—what, 11, she 7?—playing War, and we'd called her stupid when she'd pretended we'd killed her and she'd wanted us to bury her; and earlier still, that famous incident when at 8 in a primordial rage I had whipped it out and peed on her sister Elena. I now recalled that the five-year-old Essi had witnessed the whole thing, and a wave of shame darkened the underbrush around me. I called out—

"This path is so damned long!" My voice muffled beneath the blanket of brush.

"I know, but it's really cool when you get to the end and come out on the brightness of the beach."

"You're right, it's like blinding. Instead of your eyes getting used to the dark, they have to get used to the light. It's totally heavenly." I said this last phrase in the mock dopehead tone the Beckendorf kids always used when we were joking around, and Essi laughed, her voice fluttering like a bird among the landscape of my imagination: She had always been there and I had taken her for granted. Now here she was, large as life, the fantastic foundations of her figure rising and falling before me like two bouncing volleyballs. I looked away and told myself the underbrush was poison ivy.


AS IF ACROSS the glassy pink surface of a giant conch shell we felt the familiar roar of the surf seeping up into us and stumbled, squinting, onto the shore. It was a stage with no audience other than Mother Nature herself, who looked on us with the same critical eye, perhaps, as had the creator upon his first two rash attempts at perfection. Essi ran away from me with long strides straight down to the brilliant blue surf, her blonde hair blown back by the stiff headwind, the contours of her fabulous figure fading as she receded. She danced through the shallow water, then dove into the great, curled lip of the first big wave. For a moment she was gone, then up popped her head, her first thought to look back, find me still standing dumbstruck in my spot, and wave enthusiastically for me to join her.

The reader will forgive me if I pause for a moment to catch my breath and calm down. Where the Beckendorfs have always been Teutonic Titans, great strapping examples of humanity, with well-formed limbs and plenty of beef upon 'em, I have somewhat paled by comparison, being a bit of a wimp. Therefore it was with an uneasy sense of my own physical inadequacy that I presumed to follow her, and ran unsteadily on my spindly legs, my otherwise asthmatic chest beginning to heave, down the beach to join her—a Caliban to his Miranda.

Fortunately the headwind did not lift me up, as I ran, and blow me away like some wayward Monarch butterfly, but I strove well enough against it, dove into the wave, and came up face to glistening face with Essi Beckendorf. She was flushed with exertion, refreshed. The full, red blush of youth suffused her handsome cheek. She was breathing hard, her mouth wide open as she gasped, spitting out mouthfuls of salt water and laughing through serried rows of bright white teeth. I dove deep down into the Davey Jones Locker of my libido, unlocked the several doors I had previously slammed on the beast, unleashed and let him go.

"Essi!" I shouted. "You still have your freckles, and you look so goddamned gorgeous right now I—I can't believe it!"

"Stay back, you beast!" She screamed, jumping back like a threatened octopus, aggressively treading water. She scowled, pouting, as I remembered she always had, and I shrank, thinking I'd blown it. Then she threw her head back and cackled—

"You're pretty cute yourself, Aikie. You know I've always had the heaviest crush on you." She stared back to see my reaction and slowed, allowing the current to drift her back closer to me.

"Why did your parents leave us alone together today?"

"I guess they think we're an item."

"And they know if I dared try to touch you you'd beat the shit out of me."

"I would never beat the shit out of you, Aikie, you're way too sweet. Stay back!" she shrieked, laughing, and repeated her octopus move.

"So are we an item?" Really it seemed odd that we weren't—"After all this time?"

"It's something I always dreamed about ..."

"I never did, until now ..."

" ... in a prince and princess sort of way. I thought about it for so long I really started to believe we might be married some day."

"Stay back, you beast!" I mocked her, imitating her octopus movements. She laughed.

"I think we both know it's not really happening."

"It could. I mean we could try. God knows I'm hot as hell enough for you." She was about to repeat the sentiment, but held it back.

"You guys are all the same. But there's some other, different girl out there for you, Aiken."

"And lucky the guy that gets you, Essi." She looked back at me with big, swimming-pool eyes that asked—Do you really think so?—and we shared a profound moment of mutual respect, bobbing up and down in the choppy swells like two tingling, goosepimpled, boy and girl buoys.

"You see that island out there?" I turned to look in the direction she was pointing and saw a small body of land, topped with traces of vegetation, about three quarters of a mile out.

"I'munna swim there. You coming?"

"Um, I ... yes." Before I could say any more she was gone, swimming like an Olympian, and I set off slapping gallantly after her. The swim was going to be a stretch, I knew, and it didn't help much each time I paused to assess my progress, to see that Essi was the only one making any. About halfway I had something of a panic attack. This was no backyard suburban swimming pool, but the vast and unforgiving sea. I envisioned sharks circling deep beneath me, fought a current that pulled inexorably leeward, and labored against the onset of an overwhelming fatigue. I was a fool to have followed her, and now was going to suffer for it. I clenched my teeth, left the world behind and fought for my own survival. As if out of a dream some ten minutes later I looked up to see a vision of Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Essi standing on the island, not twenty yards away. My foot touched bottom, I stood trembling up, staggered to the shore and fell, exhausted, on my back.

After my ears had ceased to ring, and I'd regained an acceptable level of consciousness, I realized that Essi was sitting next to me, quietly giggling. I looked up at her enquiringly as, holding one hand over her mouth in a gesture of irrepressible mirth, she pointed directly at the center of my blue-and-white flower print jams. I looked down in dismay and acknowledged the ridiculous tent—

"I got a wicked case of the Blue Harpoon"—this in our favorite dopehead drawl, which absolutely made her bust a gut, bawling out in shrieks of laughter, doubled up, holding her belly and rolling in the sand. After a moment she managed to shout—

"I—I thought it was your rudder!"—which set us both back off, roaring, with cramps in our stomachs, catching our breaths until we finally calmed down and she leaned over suddenly and kissed me, full on the lips, with the fresh, awkward clumsiness of eager inexperience. Then she jumped up and scampered away.

We spent about an hour leisurely exploring the island. Essi had been there before, was familiar with its many wonders, and led me through the adventure. We tiptoed around the circumference, lingering over the extremities, where here some rock formed a ledge, or there a small cove had developed, filled with shimmering minnows. Moving inland our fascination grew as we climbed up into the rougher hills, where the sun had baked the sea spray into a salty dust that sifted over the surfaces of rocks worn smooth by erosion. At the top we pushed our way through the few scratchy scrubs of vegetation that had managed to cling to the surface, and discovered a still, small pool of warm water that had formed in the cavity between two boulders. A slimy moss had formed all around its rim, and marveling at our own reflection we touched and poked at its tiny inhabitants with rapt fascination. Essi indicated silently that the ultimate surprise was just a bit farther on. I climbed up onto the summit of the promontory and we looked over a steep cliff to the roiling sea below.

The island had a jagged cove cut out of it like a massive slice of pie. Into and out of this magnificent natural formation seawater heaved and receded, climbing fifteen feet up the mussel-studded walls, then dropping dizzily beneath us as the water ran seething off the living cliffs. We had arrived at a relatively calm moment, but soon realized that the frequency of the wave was widening, the water churning with each assault higher up the rock, and falling ever lower, until the very ocean floor was exposed beneath the overhanging cliffs. A huge air pocket suddenly formed, and when the mass of water returned there was a spectacular, earth-shaking explosion that sent with a deep thud and whoosh a great flume of spray fifty feet in the air, soaking us both in a scintillating shower of joy. The phenomenon repeated itself several times, each with lessening intensity, until it was gone.


JUDGING BY THE POSITION of the omnipresent sun, the day had slipped into early afternoon, and it was time for us to return. Essi asked if I thought I could make it, considering our previous exertions, and I assured her uneasily that I could, as long as I took my time. She stayed with me as we kicked and struggled and laughed the long way back to the mainland, the vast expanse of the ocean adding an infinite poignancy to our sense of parting and loss. I was strangely invigorated, endured the marathon well, and it was with an Odyssean weariness that we re-ascended the Aruban beach, wound our way back up the path and went to our separate rooms in the still empty house.

A few hours later the balance of the Beckendorfs returned, chafing one another regarding the weakness of their games, until the moment we were all together again and the attention turned to their youngest and her guest. Of course it was Elena who popped the question, with all the sarcasm of her twenty-one-year-old soul—

"So Essi, what did you and Aiken do today?"

"Nothing. Went to the beach."

"I hope he didn't try anything funny."

"If he did, I would have beaten the shit out of him," she said, looking fondly at me as the rest of them gaped.

"Watch your language, Estelle," said Mr. Beckendorf, and that was the end of it. Needless to say I slept very well that night, resting assured, as I drifted off, that reality would always pale by comparison to the place I'd been that day.


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