Page 47 of That Birthday in Barbados
“Here you go,” he says, returning to hand me a white T-shirt with Sandy Lane Barbados scripted across the front in pink. “A friend of mine left it here after a visit. She’s notas small as you, but it should do.”
I take it, thanking him, resisting the urge to tease more information out of him regarding the friend.
He has changed his shirt and shorts and is now dry except for his damp hair. “You can change in that bathroom,” he says, pointing to the one in the foyer.
I close the door behind me, flicking on the light and studying myself in the mirror above the sink. One thing is for sure. Wet hair is not my friend. I run my hands through it, trying to revive its lift and then decide it’s a lost cause. I pull off my wet shirt and replace it with the dry one.
When I return, he’s in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge. “Beer? Bottled water?”
“Water’s good,” I say, not yet able to tolerate the idea of alcohol.
He hands me a cold bottle of Evian. I twist off the top and take a sip.“Do you miss anything about your old life?”
“Sometimes. I miss how exciting the city can be. But then I remind myself I live in a place people dream about vacationing in. And too, living there meant doing something I no longer want to do every day.”
“Working in a job you hate?”
“I can’t sayI hated it. But it owned me. I don’t want to be owned anymore.”
I nod, wishing I didn’t understand exactly what he’s saying. But I do.
I’m quiet for a few moments, and then, “When you were younger, chasing after all that, did you ever imagine you’d feel that way?”
He laughs a dry laugh. “No.” He shakes his head. “No. I wanted to make a life I could call my own. Prove that I could be somebody worth keeping.”
A little wave of shock ripples through me at the raw truth exposed in the words. He realizes he’s revealed more than he meant to and brightens his expression.
“Whoa. Didn’t mean to go there.”
I reach out and cover his hand with mine. “I’m sorry those things happened to you.”
“It’s okay-”he starts, but I stop him again.
“It’s not,” I say, squeezing his hand, and then pulling mine away under the increasing intimacy between us.
“I didn’t tell you about my childhood to make you feel sorry for me,” he says, again attempting lightness. “It was what it was. And I try to believe that we are who we become because of every single thing that happens to us. My goal is to keep heading for a better place.”
I glance around us at the wonderfully comfortable home, at the beckoning blue ocean beyond its glass doors. “I think you have certainly done that,” I say softly.
The rain has stopped, the clouds lifting as if they know they’ve exceeded their allotted time, and the sun makes a welcome reappearance. I shake my head a little, and say, “Here, the rain ducks in for a few minutes, and then it’s gone again.”
“Yeah. Unlike New York where gray needs to be a favorite color, right?”
“The winter is when it gets to me. I’m told I have seasonal affective disorder, so I’ve had to find ways to lift the winter blahs.”
“A change of locale would do it,” he says, leaning a shoulder against the door frame and throwing the solution out as if it’s an actual possibility.
“As part of the IPO, I agreed to five years as acting CEO. I owe them two more.” I hear myself saying this as if it’s actually a consideration that I might leave. When had that thought planted itself in my mind?
“Do you intend to stay on after that?” Anders asks quietly.
“I’ve never really thought about doing anything else. I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design. That’s where I had my original ideas about ActivGirl. There were times when I would stay up all night sketching designs. I had no idea how I would get the money to start my own company, but I knew I would someday. I wanted it that much.”
“And now?”
“The company isn’t really the same since we went public. Being accountable to other people means editing decisions for reasons I might not have before.”
“Has that been hard for you?”
