He asked what had taken them so long and they said they’d been searching for him on the north side of Miami Beach. Then they’d realized he’d given his position wrong—the lighthouse was ten miles northwest of him, not the other way around. I look out there and I think, how could he make that mistake?”
I followed his stare into the thick blue distance, bare of markers or guides. It would take an enormous act of faith, I thought, to trust the jittery needle of a compass. “I can see how a person might get confused,” I said.
I don’t think Dennis meant to kiss me. He was leaning in to hear me, and when I turned our noses and cheeks met and—this amazes me still—neither of us backed away. Our mouths were uncertain. We kissed without embracing. We kept our eyes open. We could feel even then that we were at the beginning of something, I think—something that might go on and on before it ended. After, we faced each other.
“We could go skiing, if you want, before dinner,” he said. He reached toward my face. His fingers found my earlobe.
“I haven’t skied since college, and then it was in a lake.”
“It’ll come back to you.”
I could feel the warmth from his body and I could smell his clean, sun-soaked smell.
“If we’re going to go we should go,” he said, “or we’ll miss the daylight.”
I nodded. He stepped from the ledge onto the bottom floor of the house, then reached for my hand and pulled me over the gap. I walked ahead of him up the stairs, and as we went he kept one hand on the small of my back, the gentlest suggestion of a rudder.
The sun was easing toward the horizon by the time we headed off. We took Dennis’s father’s boat because it was more powerful and because, Dennis said, the hull of Marse’s boat was painted blue, which was bad luck. This was mariner lore: the sea might confuse the boat with itself and drag it down. I stood by while Marse affixed a towline and Dennis started the engine and Kyle handled the lines. The channel was dark and choppy and wide. Marse handed me a lumpy orange life vest and I tightened it at the chest and waist, but Dennis loosened it again. His knuckles brushed my stomach through the swimsuit. “It won’t come off,” he said, “but you don’t want it too tight.”
Our kiss rose in my gut. “I’m ready,” I said, and because the lie was so obvious, we both laughed. He went to the console and put the boat in gear. I stumbled when the boat moved. When I regained my balance, I noticed Marse watching me.
We agreed that Kyle would ski first, then I would ski, then Marse. Kyle rose on skis as if from land, as if the baton were a sturdy hand. I recollected all I knew about waterskiing: Treat the water like a chair. Bend your knees. Let the towline pull you up. Lean back. Relax. Kyle skipped over the waves, and the boat rounded the mouth of the channel and returned, passing the stilt house, before he fell. I don’t think he fell, actually—he threw his skis to the side and skidded, sending up white spray, then let go of the line. When we reached him, Marse asked if he wanted to go again, but he said he was wiped out. He climbed into the boat and took a beer from the cooler.
Dennis gathered the skis from the water—they were wooden, with a yellow stripe painted down the center of each. “Kyle will be your lookout,” he said to me. “He won’t take his eyes off you.”
“I’m an ace lookout,” said Kyle. He’d wrapped himself in a towel.
“Just don’t leave me there,” I said to Dennis. “When I fall, come right back.”
“I will,” Dennis said.
I slid into the water, avoiding the stilled propellers. I struggled with each ski, then stretched my legs in front of me, drifting from the boat. The water cupped and jostled me; I tipped and righted. Dennis gave me a thumbs-up and I returned it awkwardly, and then the line spun out and I started to rise. Halfway up, I shifted and wobbled, and then I was hunched with my elbows over my knees. I straightened as much as I could without losing my balance. Kyle stood at the stern, watching me. Beneath my skis, the water whitened with friction and speed.