Page 41 of High Season
Hannah tried to hide the way her mouth lifted into a smile.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she said. “You have to practice first.”
There was a natural salt pool close to the beach, only a few feet deep. It was designed for children to paddle in, the water always warm and still, a contrast to the cold, unpredictable heave of the sea.
They practiced in the lagoon-like basin, Hannah showing Blake how to breathe and demonstrating the tricks they taught in classes—removing and replacing his regulator while submerged, clearing his mask. It was dusk by the time they took the boat out, the sun low, the sea bronzed with its reflection. Blake had been eager to move their lesson into the deeper waters, and on the boat he made a big performance of checking his equipment the way Hannah had showed him.
He’s trying to impress me,she thought, but then batted the idea away.
“Are you ready?” he asked, as they trod water next to the boat.
And Hannah ignored all the things she knew about diving, all the times her parents had told her not to leave the boat without someone on board, all the times they had told her not to take somebody out alone.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”
And together, the two of them plunged beneath the surface.
Hannah loved diving when it was almost night. Perhaps it was because evening was often the only time when she could actually dive for fun. Not assisting a group dive, shepherding beginners on shallow descents, spending more time adjusting equipment than beneath the surface.
Or perhaps it was the fact that the sea seemed to come alive at this time, creatures emerging into the half-light. Octopuses and luminescent jellyfish. The water a deeper, darker shade of blue. The glow of her flashlight stretching far out ahead of them, reminding her of the vastness of space around them. Making her feel like they were the only people alive.
They descended slowly, using the rope as a guide. Hannah knew that a first dive could be disorienting. That without the gravity of the world above, you could lose your bearings, forget which way was up. She signaled to Blake.
Are you OK?
He nodded. Shot her theI’m OKsign that she had taught him back at the salt pool.
The water darkened. Hannah flipped on her head torch, and theworld around them illuminated. A shoal of fish darting past, their fins an electric blue. A field of bright green sea grass. A plume of red coral, its arms extending out like the branches of an aged, underwater tree.
The beauty of it never failed to shake something within her. Being beneath the water, for Hannah, was always like coming back to life.
She started to swim from the rope, kicking slowly. She only got a meter away before a hand closed around her arm. When she turned, Blake’s eyes were wide behind his mask. Panicked. He tapped at the plastic, a foggy sheen misting the surface. Gestured wildly.
It’s OK, she signed to him. Pointed at the surface.Let’s go back up.Her hand against his to reassure him.Slowly.
They weren’t particularly deep, and it took them just seconds to ascend. Still, when they did, Blake tore off his mask, gasped for air.
“You did it!” Hannah said. “Your first dive.”
He shook his head, tossing his wet hair out of his face, his bravado gone.
“Are you kidding?” he says. “I completely messed up. I panicked.”
“No way. Most people don’t manage to get into the sea on their first lesson at all.”
She was lying, but it felt like a kindness. His face was flushed, salt-burned.
“You want to try again?” she said.
He looked out to sea, toward the orb of the sun, now so close to the horizon that it looked huge and blazing.
“Nah,” he said. “I think that once was enough, for now.”
“OK, let’s go back to the beach.”
He shook his head.
“Let’s stay out here, for a bit? It’s nice. Peaceful.”
