Page 46 of Making the Save

“What is happening right now? Is he attacking her?” I asked, my neck bent to get the right angle.

They were kissing on the sand.

“Is that consensual?” Wyatt asked.

“I can’t tell.”

“This is from the film,From Here to Eternity,one of the most seductive movie scenes of all time.Thisis the feeling you want to evoke for anyone watching the two of you. The white hot heat of new love.”

Wyatt and I looked at each other.

White hot heat?I mouthed.

“Something has happened to your witch,” Wyatt muttered, as Beatrice tapped her screen and replayed the scene.

He might be right. I watched Beatrice watch the scene again like she herself was falling in love.

“So let me get this straight, you want us to make out on the beach in front of the paps like we’re putting on a damn play?” Wyatt asked.

“No, of course not,” Beatrice told Wyatt. “I simply want you to show everyone how very real your attachment is. Physically and otherwise.”

“Got it,” I nodded. “We go swimming. I come out of the ocean panting a little, he tackles me to the sand and we make out while the water rushes over us. I think we’ll get too much salt water in our mouths if we do that though. Don’t you?”

Wyatt was looking at the video again. “Fuck, I don’t even know how they’re breathing through all that water.”

Beatrice snatched up her phone as if offended by our lack of reverence for the most seductive movie scene of all time.

“Sydney, you’ll wear a bikini. Mr. Locke, you’ll wear the swim trunks I bought you please. No more underwear. Nothing too revealing.”

“You know you can call me Wyatt,” he told her, and went back to eating his eggs with hot sauce.

“I won’t know you long enough for us to become informal with each other,” Beatrice said, and picked up her now empty shopping bags. “Don’t answer any questions. That’s the key. Justlooklike two people in love. But keep your mouths shut.”

“I’ll try,” Wyatt said.

“You ready?”Wyatt asked as I closed the sliding glass door behind me. The camera flashes went wild and the questions were a wall of noise. It was enough to make a person want to go back inside. Hide from the world.

It didn’t make me want to pretend to frolic in the waves.

“We’re going to be okay,” Wyatt said.

“Just saying it doesn’t make it so,” I told him and he laughed.

“My brother says that to me all the time. But I’ve got a pretty good track record of speaking things into existence.” He held out his hand, and for the first time in all my many fake relationships, I didn’t feel quite so alone.

I slipped my hand into his. It was big and warm and rough and I loved it.

He bent to whisper in my ear and it probably looked terribly romantic to the people taking pictures below us, but all he said was, “Sorry about the calluses. Occupational hazard.”

I didn’t mind. I liked them.

“That’s not your white bikini.” he said.

“My white bikini would not survive this scene we’re about to perform.”

“I loved that white bikini,” he said.

“Well, this is what you get, today.” It was a black two piece, but it covered more of my body and would withstand frolicking, tackling and making out in waves. “Is it okay?” Maybe I should have picked something sexier?