“An osprey. It’s breeding season. I was hoping the nests would still be here.”
“It’s really beautiful,” I said. Bird sanctuary. Of course. A moment later, the osprey’s mate joined him at the nest. I listened hard for the sound of cheeping, but if there were any babies in the nest, the wind carried their voices away.
We sat in the sand and watched the birds in silence for a while longer, and then Poe said, “So that’s the last thing there is to do on the island. You can swim, hang out in the rec room, or see the birds.”
“That seems like plenty to me.”
“Come on, Amy, don’t kid yourself. You’ll go as stir-crazy as Darren in a matter of days.”
“Then it’s good I’m only staying a week.” I watched the osprey make another trip to the water, looping in wide circles for a long time before diving again. Imagine being as comfortable both in the air and in the water as this creature was.
Poe seemed to tire of antagonizing me. “Did you talk to Salt yet?”
“He’s pretty interesting…gung ho.”
“That’s a kind way to put it.” He stretched his legs out in front of him. “Couple years ago he wanted to chop down the trees, chase off the ospreys.”
“Why?” I asked, stricken.
“Nesting pairs like this are quite the draw to bird-watchers. The last thing he wants is trespassers on Cavador Key.”
“So he mentioned.”
“Funny thing is, the folks who’d come for the ospreys couldn’t care less about the society. They really, truly just want to watch the birds. Wouldn’t even get near the compound. One group sent all kind of letters to the Trust promising as much. Said they’d stay right here on this beach.”
“What happened?”
“TTA let them on. Three weeks later, a conspiracy-theorist group showed up, dressed as the bird-watchers, and broke into the main house.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Yeah, they stole some photo albums and some of our other stuff. Ever since then, Salt’s been pretty militant about not letting anyone on the island, no matter what they said they were here for.”
“What a shame.”
“You want to see them?”
“The bird-watchers?”
“No, the conspiracy nuts.” He stood, brushed sand from his shorts. “They’re camped out on the next island over. Always are around this time of year, since they know Spring Break is high season. I bet there are even more of the campers this year, watching for the Gehrys.”
We picked our way across the beach until we reached a small cluster of mangroves. Poe claimed you could see them better from the far beach, at the tip of the island.
“Yeah, but won’t they be able to see us?”
“Like I said, there isn’t a whole lot to do around here. One night, we’ll amuse ourselves by playing dress-up and giving them something to actually look at.”
“How very John Fowles of us.”
We moved inland around the mangroves and spilled out onto another beach. This one was shaped like a large, open crescent. On the far side of the lagoon, I saw a tiny sandbar, and beyond that, the expanse of the sea, with a view of another island in the distance.
“You can’t really see,” I said, shooting Poe an accusatory glance.
Poe was taking off his clothes!
“What are you doing?” I asked, as his T-shirt hit a rock.
“You have to get out to the sandbar to see. Take your shoes off.”
I shook my head violently. “What is this, an ambush?”
“Amy, it’s not deep. You can wade.” He pulled off his sneakers, then his socks, laid them side by side on the rock.
How could I make this any clearer? “I don’t like the water.”
“And I don’t like that you almost drowned yesterday. Let’s see what we can do about those things, shall we?”
“No thanks.” I turned, fully prepared to storm back into the woods, but he grabbed my arm.
“You wanted to know who I’m angry at?” he asked. “I’m angry at you.”
“What!” I whirled.
“It’s unbearably stupid that you don’t know how to swim. You have no excuse.”
“I have a phobia.”
“You’re too smart to have phobias.”
“You’re too smart to think you can get away with telling me what to do!”
“No,” he said. “I know that really well. You’ve made it perfectly clear since the moment we met. The most I can hope for is convincing you to listen to reason.” He let go of my arm, appeared to wrestle with himself for a moment, then spoke. “I didn’t mean to scare you so badly, Amy.”
What?
He ran a hand through his hair, looked everywhere but at me. “That night, at the tomb. I didn’t know how bad it would be.”
At the initiation, when he stuck me in a coffin, flooded it with a Super Soaker and threatened to dump it in a pool. “That was ages ago.”
“Didn’t seem like it yesterday. You looked just the same. Terrified.”
“A lot wetter.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t see you—you can’t imagine how I felt on that boat. Like I’d made it worse for you.” His eyes were filled with guilt, and all of a sudden I understood that it wasn’t just me he was angry at. My going overboard was a reminder of how he’d hurt me last spring. “You want to thank me for jumping in after you yesterday? Do me a favor and take off your shoes.”
Damn him. I took off my shoes. Poe was down to his bathing suit, but I hadn’t worn mine. Not that it would matter if all I was doing was wading. My shorts were of the gym variety. I glared at him through the sunlight and reached up to tighten my ponytail. Thus girded for battle, I stood. “How deep is it?”
“Depends on the tide. Your clothes are going to get wet.”
Well, I wasn’t stripping down to my panties! I pulled my shirt off, hoping that the gray sports bra wouldn’t turn translucent in water.
“Would you feel better holding my hand?”
“Over my dead body.”
“Suit yourself.” I watched him walk down into the water, all black hair and broad, winter-pale shoulders. He still wore the tiny sack-turned-backpack, suspended from those shoulders by two small straps. This was the worst date ever. I considered shouting that to him and taking off for the forest.
But instead, I followed him into the water. The sand shifted and squished below my feet, and the water was still plenty chilly. A few feet out, I was only up to my knees, but the ground fell away swiftly after that. “P—Jamie!” I called.
He waded back toward me. “I’m starting to think my name is Pajamie.”
“Your name should be Pajerky. You said it wasn’t deep.”
“Pajerky?” He gave me a skeptical look. “That’s Pathetic.”
“We’ll see how smug you are once I’m on dry land.”
He took my hands in his wet ones, started walking backward. “Come on. I got you.”
The water rose over my thighs and crept up the hem of my gym shorts. It slipped over my crotch and I rose onto my tippy-toes, but still, Poe drew me forward.
“Slower,” I said.
“Slower is harder,” he said.
“Do you say that to all the girls?”
He ignored that. “You feel the cold more.”
“And again I ask…”
We were more than halfway to the sandbar by this time. The water lapped against my stomach, then my rib cage. I got another shock when it hit my elbows, and tightened my grip on Poe’s hands, sliding my fingers up his forearms. Two steps later, it covered my breasts.
“This is deep enough,” I said. “I can’t go any farther.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll rest here a minute.” And true to his word, he stopped. I spent the time trying to slow my heartbeat. He watched me, his face calm and inscrutable. (This wasn’t doing anything for my heartbeat.) Standing as we were, with Poe in deeper water, we were the same height. The tips of his shoulders peeked above the surface, giving him the appearance of a classical statue bust. Several times I almost said, Take me back. And several times I stopped.