Page 61 of Fathers of the Bride
None of that mattered though. From where I stood, I could see Miles’ head pop out of the water.
“Swim Miles, swim,” I yelled in case he was too stunned to know what—ah, he’d begun to swim. Well, sort of.
“Turn around and smile at everyone,” Raj said, but I pushed him off me and ran along the pier as Miles swam toward shore. Once I got to the entrance, I ran through the parking lot and down to the beach.
When I got under the pier, I couldn’t see Miles anywhere. I began calling his name again—but then I saw him clinging to a piling.
“Miles! Miles!”
I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Should I have called 911? Had anyone thought to call 911? Or were they too busy filming? I waded out into the water.
“Let go, you’ll be fine now,” I said, trying to take hold of him. But he wouldn’t move, he just clung to the algae covered piling gasping for air as the waves crashed by him.
Carefully, I detached him from the piling, saying, “It’s okay. Just breathe.”
Clinging to me, coughing, taking giant breaths. “Fall.”
“Yes, you fell off the pier.”
Then he turned his head to look up at me. He croaked, “En-gaged?”
“You saw that didn’t you? Look, I’m not going to marry Raj, but what could I say? I couldn’t turn him down while it was being livestreamed by half the people there.”
We were completely on the beach by then. At the water’s edge. Miles collapsed onto the sand. I lay down next to him, still holding him.
“Darling, this would be an appropriate time to scream. If you feel like it.”
He seemed to think about it but said, “No, I’m good.”
Taking a few more deep breaths, he asked, “You don’t love him?”
“No, I don’t.”
And then, I don’t know—maybe it was the lighting, or the sea air, or the possibility that he might have drowned, but I kissed him. There we were, laying on the beach, kissing, recreating the famous scene inFrom Here to Eternitywhere Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make out in the surf.
Unfortunately, it was not as romantic as it sounds. The water was frigid and the air was colder, we began to shiver. Water got into my ears rather quickly while sand managed to work its way into my underwear. Not to mention we nearly drowned twice when the waves engulfed us.
The kissing part, however, was excellent.
25
Miles Kettering-Lane
Above us camethe thunderous sound of the partygoers running off the pier—whether from the irritated elephant, the embarrassing theme, the awful marriage proposal or the crumbling pier itself, I wasn’t certain. It was clear that they’d run into a problem when they met the demonstrators. The clash was titanic.
Andy and I ran across the beach to the parking lot directly to his car. One of the things I’ve always liked about my husband is his ability to find his car, a very important talent in a city like Los Angeles. We jumped into the black C-class (a very common car in L.A., see what I mean? Impressive skills.) The silence inside the car was truly welcome.
I was chilled and waterlogged, and couldn’t wait to take a hot shower. Andy was wet too, though not as wet as I was. I shivered and quaked and chattered.
“Should I drive you to your car?”
“I don’t remember where it is,” I admitted.
“I’ll drive you home then. We’ll come back tomorrow to find the car.”
“Okay,” I said nervously as Andy pulled out onto Ocean Boulevard and then immediately turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard. His phone was pinging and dinging and trilling in his pocket. I tried to ignore the notifications, but it was a challenge. I was in this particularly hyperaware state.
Scientists will tell you that a man’s hormones naturally decline over time and his interest in sex can, well, wane. There were times in the last two years when I might have jumped to agree with that. Not anymore. Simply being there in the car with the man I’d been married to for more than twenty-five years and had just shared a romantic, if somewhat sandy, kiss on the beach was making me, um, very un-waned.
