chopping and prepping things for whatever menus he was preparing for lunch and dinner.
I followed Dauphine out onto the back deck and did a double take when I saw a large inflatable slide had been fastened from the deck past the lower platform to the water. “Wow,” I said, stopping.
The sun sparkled across the water. The boat rocked gently, and Dauphine clapped her hands in delight when she saw that Rod had unfurled and inflated the long slide off the side of the boat.
I leaned over the railing. “Well, that looks a little daunting.”
“We need to be wet first.” Dauphine raced down toward the back deck in order to jump in.
“Wait,” I called and hurried after her to the edge of the lower platform.
Below us the water was like a jewel. I could tell it was deep, but it was so clear and translucent it was almost like looking through a kaleidoscope made up of turquoise, vibrant greens, and dark blues. “This is amazing,” I said.
“We count, yes?”
I laughed. “Sure,” I said. “One, two, three!”
We both leapt.
The water exploded upwards, cool and sharp against my skin as we plunged in. It sucked the breath from my chest and loosened my worn bikini top, which I quickly held on to with my free hand.
Dauphine’s small hand left mine as the weight of my body drew me deeper, and my feet caressed eddies of even colder water. With my eyes closed, I reveled in the feeling of the quiet. Already I could sense the saline on my lips and teasing at the seam of my eyelids. For a moment I fought the urge to kick straight back up, eking out a few more precious seconds of the novel feeling. Had I ever plunged into an ocean without fear of the unknown, the unseen? I felt a swell of water and knew Dauphine was treading water nearby. With a kick I rose easily and burst through the surface with my face turned to the sky. Salt hit my tongue as I opened my mouth to drag in a breath. I wiped excess water from my eyes and opened them to meet Dauphine’s rapturous smile.
“Fantastique, non?”
I laughed, unable to contain my joy at this simple pleasure. “Yes. Amazing. It’s chilly at first.”
“Yes. It is wonderful. Papa says in one more month it will be too warm. Now it is parfait!”
“Perfect,” I said.
“Perfect,” she mimicked. “Now we do the slide. Me first. You will wait for me here?”
“Sure. Go on ahead.”
She turned and moved toward the swimming deck and ladder, and I kicked my legs as I tightened the bikini strap around my neck. The navy hull and bright white of the yacht decks made a sleek and majestic picture against the cloudless blue sky and perfectly unmarred horizon. It took up almost all my view. To think, this time last week I’d been sitting at my little cubicle desk at the back of a building in downtown Charleston, my eyes straining over numbers, angles, sketches, and budget spreadsheets in the harsh fluorescent light. For the first time since my world had turned upside down, I felt a sudden rush of relief and escape. I didn’t know what that meant practically because I loved architecture and buildings. But I hung on to the lightness in my chest. Somehow in the arduous trek toward trying to get promoted, I’d gotten a little burned out.
I turned, treading water, and looked toward the gray rocky edges of the bay and up at the few mansions from modern to old-worldly stone that clung to its edges. Here and there steep steps were carved in stone among rugged green brush. I imagined the feats of engineering architects of old had to devise in order for these palatial cliff-side dwellings to stand the tests of hundreds of years. I wondered if the more modern ones would have such longevity. If we were still anchored here later, I’d love to sketch the houses. I hadn’t quite broken the habit of carrying a sketchbook with me everywhere I went that had been drilled into me by one of my first drafting professors.
I heard Dauphine call out to me.
I turned in time to watch her settle herself at the top of the slide, and then push off. She screeched the whole way down, her small body dumping into the water in a splash of gangly limbs. She came up gasping, making us both laugh.