Page 4 of Beach Bodies

‘Here for business or pleasure?’

Ah. He’s one of those guys who has a single pickup line.

‘Definitely business,’ she says, standing up and showing off a trim, muscular body in Lululemon leggings and a strappy crop top. She’s petite, so as she reaches for her own roller bag overhead, Kyle says, ‘Let me,’ and takes it down for her.

‘Thank you, that’s so sweet,’ she says.

I wait until the last few people are struggling with their bags down the narrow aisle, then edge my way out of my seat and grab mine.

‘Thanks for flying with us,’ says the pilot, an older woman with a silver bob, as I reach the door. I’m the very last person to leave the plane. ‘Enjoy your stay.’

‘Thanks,’ I say.

The second I step over the threshold of the airplane, a wave of Caribbean heat hits me. I pause at the top of the steep metal stairway that leads straight down to the tarmac, pull my sunglasses from my oversized purse, and slide them on. My roller bag bangs against my ankles as I descend. At the bottom of the stairs, I stop for a second to breathe the island air.

Every year it’s the same; the smell brings the memories.It smells so different here– densely alive, with a sweet and salty edge that lingers in your mouth and nostrils. The smell is objectively lovely, but it’s also sending me back five years to the first time I set foot on this island at twenty-four years old, with two bikinis, a couple of battered paperbacks and a heart full of dreams. That Lily had nothing– but she had everything.

I don’t know if it’s the mostly sleepless night or the vodka, but I walk in a slight daze down the demarcated path towards the terminal, dragging the roller bag behind me, its rattle filling my brain with noise, feeling the heat press down, feeling the memories press down. For a second, I could almost be that twenty-four-year-old girl again right now. I could probably even fit into the same bikinis, if I’d held on to them…

Whoosh.

The sliding doors open before me and I’m in the terminal. I’ve done this often enough that my feet automatically take me to the line for Immigration, which is moving slowly in corridored zig-zags, with only two officials to handle the planeload of people. I can spot Kyle down the line, absorbed in his phone, shaved head gleaming in the overhead lights, and I have to suppress an eye roll.

I take my place at the end of the line. The air conditioning crawls in chilly tracks over my skin, and I shiver. Forget the bikini. I’d kill for a sweater now.

Hot and cold. Twenty-four and twenty-nine. The Lily with her whole future ahead and the Lily with her future behind… All of a sudden, my heart starts racing. I have an extra hair elastic around my wrist; I snap it against my skin. One thing that’s not helpful at all? Getting in my own head.

The line shuffles forward. I rub the goosebumps off my arms.

Why do you keep going back to that place?my friend Nate asked at Murphy’s two nights ago, my last hangout with the gang before leaving Cincinnati.Isn’t the pay shit? You’re missing peak summer fun! All the singles mingles…

‘You’re forgetting all the rich resort singles I’m going to meet,’ I said with a grin, and my friend Phoebe laughed, slinging her arm around me.

‘Now we’re getting to the bottom of this weird-ass summer job you’re so obsessed with!’

I sipped my drink and played coy as they tossed around jokes about trophy wives and gold diggers, and tried to convince me to catch up with the podcast they’re all obsessed with.

They’re not a bad crew, Nate and Phoebe and the rest. They’re doing their best to navigate the world they live in, swiping left and right, expecting with a kind of sweet naivete that things will be different with their next match. Listening to true crime podcasts to add excitement to their doldrum days. Hoping for that next promotion at the shit company they don’t even want to work at; dreaming of that bigger apartment, that next vacation… Coasting on all the mediocre wins that drive their lives forward.

Wow. Harsh much?

They’re doing their best, I remind myself quickly. It’s not like I think I’m better than them. But we are different at a really fundamental level, and it’s impossible for me to spend time with them and not feel that difference. They’re still walking through life in a kind of daze; nothing that bad has happened to any of them, whereas—

‘Purpose of your visit?’

I jolt my head up.

Speaking of walking in a daze, I don’t know how long I was in la-la land, but I’m now at the immigration booth, face to face with a man with bags under his eyes and an excitable-looking moustache. His accent sounds mildly French.

‘Oh, um– the resort. The Riovan.’

‘So you’re a guest there? How long will you be staying?’

My heart chooses this moment to start drumming so hard it’s like someone is playing techno against my chest. I snap the hair tie against my skin. The drumbeat slows.

‘Sorry– no. I’m working there. Four weeks. Lifeguarding. I have a visa…’ I indicate the passport, which he’s paging through. The temporary visa is affixed inside somewhere. I’ve done this every year, but still, the person behind the desk holds the power of the stamp. I’m acutely aware they could deny me entry for some obscure, official-sounding reason.

The official frowns. Frowns deeper. A little fizz of adrenaline worms through me.Maybe turning around and going home wouldn’t be so bad…

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