Текст книги "How to Fall"
Автор книги: Rebecca Brooks
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
“Everything good so far?” Suzi called, and Julia gave a breathless shout, her heart hammering in her chest, so giddy she wanted to scream and whoop and pour out her lungs to the rolling hills so small below her.
“Let go!” Suzy shouted up to her as she shifted to keep the glider from giving in to the wind.
“What?” Julia asked.
“Let go! You don’t have to hold on!”
Julia realized she had been gripping the handles behind Suzi so tightly her knuckles were white.
I can’t, she wanted to say, but the wind was in her face, wisps of hair from her messy bun whipping behind her, and she couldn’t make the words come.
Gingerly she released one hand and let it hover over the handles, testing out the feeling. Her upper body rocked a little, but the harness was secure and Suzi’s capable arms kept the glider steady. In one rushed move, before she could change her mind, Julia let go of both hands and spread them out to either side like she was flying.
“Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee!” she called, a deep shout that came from her toes and up through her belly and out her lungs with the force of the sun and the wind and the forest and the sea, something long dormant inside her snaking out and stretching, breathing, testing its new legs and then running, leaping, flying deep within her, soaring through her mouth and her heart until she was breathless, laughing, so exhilarated that she couldn’t stop. She heard Suzi laugh along with her, encouraging her to keep her arms out and soar, and she knew, too, that this was also why Suzi did this. Not just for her own jump, but because no matter how many times she did it, it would always be the first time for somebody else.
It was the same reason Julia taught, going through identical problems year after year after year, because every time she did it there was someone new who was seeing it for the first time, getting it for the first time, finishing it for the first time in their lives. Watching it click for somebody else never, ever got old.
“We’re currently flying over the Tijuca National Park, which is the green you see here.” Suzi lifted one arm off the steering bar to point below them, and Julia’s breath caught, but the glider held steady and she made herself keep from grabbing back onto the handles. They were useless, of course, except for giving her the illusion of safety.
And maybe she didn’t need to cling to that illusion anymore. Maybe nothing was as safe as she wanted it to be. But maybe the things she saw as risky weren’t as bad as she thought.
Or maybe they were still worth doing, despite the risk.
Because of it.
“It’s beautiful,” Julia said, marveling at how the forest stretched for as far as the eye could see, wrapping around the city that glinted in the sun, clusters of towering buildings nestled in among the rolling green.
“It’s the largest urban forest in the world. That mountain over there, with that pointy peak, is called Pedra da Gávea. Pedra means stone and gávea is like a kind of sail. Topsail, I think you call it?”
“The sail above the gaff sail,” Julia said.
“Gaff?”
“On a large sailboat, the gaff is the square sail, and then the topsail is the smaller, triangular sail on top.” Julia remembered how she’d lied about getting seasick so she could run off with Blake and laughed to herself.
“That’s what it looks like, you see? It’s 842 meters high and the largest monolith along a coastline in the world—that means it’s made out of a single rock, in this case granite.”
Even from this high above Julia could see how the elements had eroded the granite into a dramatic, smooth face that jutted up and out and then swooped down. It really did look like a sail stretched full in the wind.
“You know a lot about the area,” Julia observed.
“I’m a geology student when I’m not jumping. I’m a Carioca—someone from Rio. This city is in my blood.” Suzi shifted her shoulders so the glider swung right, closer toward the ocean, giving them another view of the face of the Topsail Rock, and Julia understood how being here could make someone so much more aware of the land and the water. Millennia of shifts had created this landscape. Julia felt impossibly small in comparison, and yet somehow a part of it all.
The more they hung in the air, the more the city unfolded to them. There were more sites to point out, more mountains and forests and tall granite peaks. Built up the sides of a hill was one of the country’s largest favelas, a slum that Suzi explained was being bought up by wealthy landowners. The corrugated tin roofs sparkled in the sunlight, and Julia wondered about all the lives being lived below her, the different heartbeats drumming around.
As she took huge gulps of the cool air rushing by, she felt her own heart begin to normalize and her breathing slow until the panic, panic, panic alarm ringing inside her was replaced with an exhilarated hum. The wing dipped and Suzi steered them toward the ocean. The white foam where the waves crashed looked like a thin broken line snaking along the shore.
The water came closer, the white sand beaches extending until the city ended in the point of the peninsula and curved around on the other side of the hills. It was a different feeling to be over the sea. Even though Julia knew the land wouldn’t protect her, it was scarier to have nothing below them but endless, unforgiving blue so bright it almost hurt, a light clear turquoise in the shallow parts toward land.
They circled over the water, slowly losing altitude, until after what felt like an eternity but also way too soon Suzi was telling her it was time to prepare to land. Julia had forgotten everything she was supposed to do, but suddenly there was no time. The glider was pointed out over the beach and heading straight down like it was coming in to a landing strip. The lazy circles were gone; every movement was purposeful as Suzi steered them in. The beach rushed up faster and faster until Julia could see the peaks and crests in the sand and the waves were no longer snakes of white but large breathing things that swelled and crashed beside them.
They were coming in fast, so fast, something had to be wrong—
“Lift up and run,” Suzi instructed, and before Julia knew it her body was swinging forward, pulled upright once again. When they touched the ground, she felt a little kickback from the glider but then she was running behind Suzi, and it only took a few steps for the whole thing to slow, brought in to such a smooth landing it seemed impossible that they’d been flying so fast.
Suzi unhooked her harness, asking how she felt. Julia was breathless and giddy and relieved and amazed, and all she could do was laugh and keep saying how great everything was. She had jumped, she had fallen, but instead of crashing and breaking into a million pieces, she felt more whole than ever before.
They moved out the landing area and Julia watched Blake’s glider circle overhead, so high she couldn’t tell it was him. She wondered if she had looked like that, a small dot suspended effortlessly in the sky. Then they circled down for their landing, and she spotted the sun-kissed curls and those tanned, strong arms she would recognize anywhere now.
They landed like she had done, coming in fast and then suddenly standing up, Blake shouting and cheering as soon as he caught sight of her on the beach. When he was unhooked he ran up and enveloped her in a giant bear hug, rocking from side to side and refusing to let go.
“How was it?” he exclaimed, brushing the loose strands of hair from her face.
“My legs are shaking,” she said, and it was true. She was trembling like she was even more terrified now that it was over because she couldn’t believe that she’d actually done that, jumped off the tall, sheer peak towering above them.
But she was laughing, too, and kissing him and so exhilarated she thought she might burst. From the beach they couldn’t see the rest of the city anymore. It was mind-boggling how much she might have missed if she’d stayed with her feet planted firmly on land.
They thanked their guides whole-heartedly, leaving generous tips and wishing Suzi good luck on her studies. Blake kept his arm wrapped tight around her shoulder as they walked along the beach away from the peak they’d jumped from, São Conrado, and the landing strip. Every so often they looked back to see the cliff as it faded from view and the gliders circling like birds in the sky.
“Are you mad that I took you there?” Blake asked.
“Mad?” she said, surprised. “I was pretty shocked, but definitely not mad.”
“You seemed really terrified.”
“I was really terrified!”
“I’d thought you weren’t afraid of heights.”
“I have a healthy fear of the insane, Blake!” she cried.
“But it was worth it?”
She linked her arms through his. The ground still felt wobbly and strange after being in the air. “Some day my legs will start working again.”
“You could have said no and that would have totally been okay,” he reassured her.
She stopped walking and faced him, taking both of his hands in hers. She could feel the sand solid yet shifting beneath them, the steady swish swish of the ocean all around.
She grazed his lips. “Sometimes don’t you have to take a risk and fall?”
Chapter Seventeen
Blake’s knees were still knocking as he and Julia made their way down the beach, splashing their toes through the water, marveling at what they’d just done. They were north of the more crowded city beaches. Here on the outskirts of the wealthy Barra de Tijuca neighborhood the sand was fine, the color of pale straw, and there was hardly anyone around. They walked hand in hand, laughing and breathless, hearts beating a mile a minute after such soaring sights.
“How on earth did you think of doing that?” Julia asked, still shaking her head from the rush.
“I’d heard of people doing it when I was here before, but it seemed, uh, a little crazy.”
“A little?”
“I was going to do it. Really. I was halfway down the street and trying to make myself hail a cab when I just…oof, I was chickenshit.”
“You?” Julia raised an eyebrow incredulously.
“Maybe if I’d had some peer pressure, but it was only me and I…I couldn’t.” Blake shrugged. He might not have wanted to admit to just anyone that his nerves had gotten the better of him, but Julia wasn’t just anyone. Seeing how scared she’d been made it easier to admit that it had felt like a risk for him, too.
“So you got your second chance,” she smiled.
“It’s your fault really.”
“Me?”
“If you hadn’t been talking about how badly you wanted to do something new and different and exciting, something you’d always remember—that is an exact quote, is it not?—then I might have let the whole thing go.”
“No way, you had this planned from the start. You knew you’d get your second chance in Rio, and this time you’d make me do it so that you didn’t chicken out.”
Blake lifted his palms to the sky. “Guilty?”
“It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone about failed attempt number one if you don’t tell them how loudly I screamed as we were taking off.”
“Deal,” he said.
They shook on it.
Julia was right, of course. As soon as she’d said she wanted to try something new and put the day’s plan in his hands, he’d known what to do. The whole thing had felt like a sign. Deciding to return to Rio meant he had the opportunity to do it over again, only this time better, deeper, without holding anything back.
Sometimes it’s good to get second chances, he reasoned, and then wondered if he was talking about hang gliding, or Rio, or perhaps something else altogether.
“Second chances, birthdays, the new year…” Julia mused. “Sounds like a time for a lot of new beginnings.”
“I was hoping that when you said you wanted to try something new, you weren’t talking about fresh pineapple juice or something.”
“Already tried it, so it’s not on the list anymore.”
“So what, now things have to keep getting bigger and better? Do I have to take you skydiving next?”
Julia planted her feet firmly on the ground and looked him square in the eye. “You have to let me catch my breath first.”
He laughed. “All right, I promise I’ll try to stick with smaller firsts.”
She started walking again and pulled her hair from its elastic. It tumbled over her shoulders, lifting in the breeze. He trailed his fingers over her back to feel the soft strands.
“I think I’ve made it clear that everything we’ve done together qualifies as new,” she said. “You could say we were going to sit and watch paint dry, and I’d think it was perfectly fine, as long as I was with you.”
“Well good, because I don’t know how you managed to guess what we’re doing this afternoon, but…”
She laughed and he did too, but inside his heart was pounding like he was standing back on the cliff, preparing to run. Was it Brazil or the beauty all around them or just her hair in the breeze that made this, this thing they were doing feel so right?
Or was Julia trying to say something else, that it was the two of them together? Would it be like this no matter where they were?
But she didn’t say anything else. Part of him thought it was the perfect opportunity to insert something about watching paint dry in Chicago for a little while—after all, he had the money and the time.
But he couldn’t. It was like the cliff was there but he couldn’t make himself run off it. Like he couldn’t make himself get in the cab and drive to the mountain the first time he’d thought about jumping.
And then the moment was gone, they were on a tangent about how to build so many houses right into the hills, and Blake was glad he hadn’t said anything. It would have been easy for her to broach the subject but she obviously hadn’t, and he intended to follow her lead. They had one more night together and it was the biggest night of the year, New Year’s Eve in Rio. He didn’t intend to ruin it by making things awkward for her.
He knew the problem with Kelley wasn’t that he’d let her go but that he’d pushed too hard, asked too much. Offered a life she didn’t want. Somehow he’d been completely unable to read the signs she’d so obviously given to him. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. He swore he was going to give Julia what she wanted, even if it wasn’t him. He would let her ask for her desires, and then step back when what he had given was enough.
They walked a long time on the beach until the mountain they’d jumped from was lost in the distance and the more familiar sights of the city came into view. Then they cut away from the water to find a café for sandwiches. They were strolling through the streets of Ipanema, window shopping, when something suddenly occurred to him.
“Are you ready for tonight?”
“If it doesn’t involve jumping, falling, or in any other way endangering life or limb.”
“How about drinking, dancing, swimming in the ocean, hanging out on the beach with two million of our closest friends, and heavy bouts of making out, if I’m lucky?”
“Sold,” she said, and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek.
“One thing Jamie was telling me about before we left, though, is that apparently everyone wears white. Do you have anything?”
Julia thought for a minute. “I have a white tank top. Maybe that’s okay with denim shorts?”
Blake remembered the outfit she’d been wearing when he first saw her standing by the front desk, waiting to be checked in. If she was wearing that flimsy shirt, there was no way he’d be able to keep his hands off her all night.
“Way too sexy, but I suppose it’ll have to do.”
Julia made a face. “What about you?”
“I have a white T-shirt, I’ve been wearing it to sleep in sometimes.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because pajamas are entirely unnecessary when it comes to you,” he said with a straight face, watching her blush.
“I know what you should wear,” Julia said, pointing across the street to a display window where a headless model wore white pants low on his hips. “No white shirt, just that.” She gave him an obvious once-over with her eyes.
“Well if I’m wearing that, you know what you’ll be in.”
“What?”
Blake jogged across the street, holding her hand and guiding her over to the display window.
“Oh very funny,” she scoffed, wrinkling her nose at the display. Next to her headless man in white pants was a female mannequin in a white shirt that could only be described as tiny.
“Come on, you’d look great,” Blake said, entirely serious about how well she could pull it off even though they were both joking. But Julia shook her head, horrified at the thought, and suddenly Blake felt like there was no reason for their impulsive adventure to be over just because they were back on land. “Yes, oh my God you should, you really should wear it.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, trying to pull him away from the window. But she was laughing, too, and Blake could see in the reflection of the window how they were both still flushed and giddy from the adrenaline rush of the jump.
“I’m serious! You have to get into the spirit of things.”
“I am in the spirit. The spirit of sane.”
“It’s not bungee jumping.”
“That’s no argument—that because it’s not an extreme sport it’s totally a good idea?”
“I don’t see a problem with that reasoning.”
“But I can’t.”
He folded his arms. “Why not?”
“Because!” she sputtered, then paused, clearly trying to think. “Because I can’t, that’s all. Because I don’t wear stuff like—” she gestured at the bare midriff of the mannequin, “that.”
“Mmm, why not?” he asked, this time genuinely curious. Why did she see herself that way, like there were things she “could” and “couldn’t” do? Like someone would come along and correct her if she stepped out of line?
Was she afraid?
“I just can’t,” she sighed, and Blake thought of what she’d told him about Liz and Mark, about what men did to women they thought they had a right to.
“You can with me,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear.
Her smile came back, even as she shook her head no.
The shopkeeper came out, a young, fashionable woman who must have seen them in front of the window.
“Can I help you?” she asked, looking at the display. “Are you looking for an outfit for tonight?”
“Why does everyone wear white?” Julia asked.
“It’s for peace and luck. Don’t forget to make an offering to Yemanjá, goddess of the sea.”
“See?” Blake said. “You don’t want to upset the goddess.”
Julia raised an eyebrow at Blake.
“Try something new?” It wasn’t so much about the outfit as about her fear. He wanted her to say yes to running, yes to jumping, yes to diving, yes to falling. He couldn’t bear the thought of her standing on the side.
“Only if you do it,” Julia said emphatically, but Blake didn’t have to think very hard about that. Experience was how he learned.
“Deal,” he said, and for the second time that day they shook hands while the shopkeeper laughed and went to get them their clothes for the night.
It was a costume, really, and hardly expensive since the stores wanted people to buy new clothes for the holiday. They walked away with a small bag containing the shirt and a white skirt for Julia and the long, silky pants for him.
“The goddess had better love us,” Julia commented.
“I’d say she already does,” Blake said with a wink.
New things. Blake had left Australia thinking that what he wanted was for things to go back to the way they’d been when Kelley was his girlfriend and Liam was his best friend and The Everlastings was just beginning and everything seemed possible and assured.
But maybe it had never really been like that, and he’d been so focused on what he wanted to see that he hadn’t paid attention to all the cracks in the surface he’d constructed. Kelley’s long silences; the clothes she started buying him after the show took off, saying “the creator” needed to look like one; the way Liam always seemed to be hanging around, so he could never just be with his friend or with his girlfriend because they were three, always three.
Until they were two, but it was the two under the camera lights, the two sneaking away to be alone. How had he missed so much that was right in front of his eyes?
Maybe things had never been as he’d imagined, and what he didn’t want was the old but something new, too, like Julia—the possibilities he’d never imagined, the dreams he’d stopped allowing himself to dream. In the warm sun and the rush of the jump still in his limbs, anything seemed possible. Anything at all.
What would he decide to do tomorrow, the start of the new year and the day that Julia left? He had no plans, no sense of which way the winds would turn. He could simply head to Buenos Aires and push his whole itinerary back a few days.
But the need to follow a schedule didn’t seem so important anymore. He would figure it out. For the moment, not knowing seemed okay. Because he had the rest of the day and the night and the following day with Julia. And if that was all he had before she took a plane back to Chicago and out of his life, then so be it.
“What’s your New Year’s resolution this year?” he asked as they headed back toward the hotel.
“Leave school no more than an hour after my students do,” Julia said immediately.
“I can tell you’ve been thinking about this.”
“It’s one Liz’s been trying to get me to do for years, but my heart wasn’t in it enough for the idea to stick.”
“And you think this year?”
“Consider it reflective of a larger change.” She grinned, her eyes alight and flecked with gold. “What about you?”
“Start my next project. Use the upcoming season of The Everlastings to transition the writing reigns to Anderson and then get a pilot up for this untitled thing I’ve been brewing.”
He hadn’t thought of it in such final terms, but now that he was saying it aloud he knew that was exactly what his plan was—and that he could do it. He didn’t need Kelley or Liam to make a show. People watched The Everlastings for the actors, sure, but everything started with the script, and it came to life through the producer. There was no reason he had to keep himself tethered to them when his whole imagination was wide open to new ideas.
“You’ll have to get a U.S. distributor, or however that stuff works, so that I can watch,” Julia said. “Are you on Netflix? Or Hulu?”
“I’ll send you links,” he promised. “I can usually get stuff before it airs.”
So that was it, then. He didn’t even need to ask what was next for them, because it was clear. Like Blake’s initial decision not to go to Rio, everything was decided without them saying a word. Their resolutions for the next year revolved around their jobs—meaning they’d be back to their regular lives, in Chicago and Sydney, moving forward and moving on, presumably trying to find someone who fit into the lives they’d already constructed in their respective homes. The real world was waiting, and while Blake had a few more months to be on the road, time was ticking down until Julia would be gone.
But he wasn’t going to dwell on it. Not now. They swung back to the hotel room to drop off the bag of clothes and changed into their bathing suits, a flashback to the first time they’d met and swum together. This time they would actually be swimming, since the beach was full of energetic crowds eager for the night’s celebrations to begin. They brought only a towel and enough money to buy coconuts and snacks on the beach from the vendors who came around with small portable grills, cooking skewers of meat and soft cheese. They talked with the vendors about the best places to go on the beach that night, but everyone said the same thing. They should just get out and cover the whole beach.
“Don’t forget to wear white,” one boy said as he pocketed Blake’s change.
“We will,” Julia said seriously, and then flashed Blake a grin. They were definitely getting into the spirit of things.
They spent the afternoon swimming and lounging on the beach. There was barely enough time to collapse in the hotel room for a nap with the windows open and an ocean breeze streaming through, and then they woke up and showered off the sunscreen and salt water and got ready for the night.
With a towel around his waist and water dripping off his hair, Blake pulled out their brand new, bright white clothes and tossed Julia her skirt and shirt.
“No peeking,” she admonished as she took the clothes and closed the bathroom door in his face.
Blake pulled on a pair of boxer-briefs and then the white pants, leaving a thin line of the band showing around the low waist where the pants hugged his hips. They were like dressy pajama pants, trim around his hips but with a loose, wide cut through the legs. He could easily get behind a New Year’s Eve party that involved being comfortable.
He debated whether he should wear his V-neck white shirt, but it wasn’t as new and bright as the pants. He decided to hang out shirtless and wait to see what Julia thought. What was taking her so long? It wasn’t like she had a lot of clothes to put on, what with how little fabric there was to that shirt…
He rapped gently on the door. “Everything going okay in there?”
“It’s a good thing it’s going to be dark when we’re outside,” she called back.
Finally she opened the door and Blake realized a major downside of his outfit: the fabric of his pants was so thin, there was no way to conceal the bulge that grew as she stood in the doorway.
She could see it and she pressed her lips together, trying—and failing—not to smile. “This will officially be the most naked I’ve ever been in public,” she said, running her fingers through her hair as Blake raked his eyes over her, trying—and also failing—to keep his hands and cock at bay.
“Hopefully it will also be your first officially fun all-nighter,” he said as he came toward her, brushing his hand down her side.
“To add to all the other new firsts.”
“Such as?” he asked, wanting to hear the list.
“Sex in a pool.”
“How about under a waterfall?”
“And don’t forget about hang gliding.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be sex on the beach, too,” he murmured, gathering her hands in his and pressing his body to her.
“With two million people around?” she giggled, rubbing a hand over the head of his cock where it strained up against his fly.
“We’ll have to find a quiet spot.” He was breathing harder now, his lips brushing hers, bringing his hands to her breasts to run his fingers across the thin white fabric doing nothing to keep her nipples at bay.
The fabric was cut low into a V that showed off her cleavage but then stopped, leaving the rest of her midriff bare. There were small capped sleeves over her shoulders and a full back as though it were a normal shirt with the bottom half cut off, so it covered her more than if she were wearing a white bikini top or something similar.
But it was still cut so low that the top of her bra showed through, and she must have been saving it because it was one that he hadn’t seen before. A pale peach, lacy thing that he hoped matched her panties, just enough of the delicate fabric peeking over the top to make him want to tear the whole thing off.
The skirt was short and hugged her hips, the bright white drawing out the glow in her skin, her stomach and hips, her long, long legs. He bent down before her and pressed his lips to the skin below her belly button, running his hands over her hips and the gorgeous crest of her ass.
She tugged at him to get him to stand and he took the opportunity to run his lips up her bare skin, skipping over the small clasp of fabric between her breasts and then kissing the exposed line of her chest where her bra and the fitted shirt pushed her soft curves out.
She put her arms around him and ran her fingers under the waist of his boxer-briefs. He was getting way, way too excited, but the sun was going down and they could hear the music coming up from the beach, a low bass drowning out the whispers of the ocean and the high-pitched swell of the gathering crowds. It was definitely time for them to get out there. He tried to make his cock behave as he kissed her warmly on the lips.
“All ready?” he murmured, unable to keep his hands off her ass as he leaned in to smell the soft, clean scent of her shampoo and the lotion on her skin.
“I want you to know that I’m only doing this because when else am I going to be on Copacabana Beach for New Years.”
Her stern resolve made him laugh. “So you don’t walk around Chicago dressed like this all the time?”
She shot him a withering look. “Very funny, hot stuff.”
“Should I wear this shirt?” he asked, motioning to pull on the V-neck to see if she thought it went with the pants, but she snatched it out of his hands.
“If I’m naked, so are you.”
“Fair is fair,” he grinned, and together they slid on their sandals and stepped out into the warm, electric night.
