Page 67 of Playworld

“The Portrait of a Lady,”she said.

He said, “Hemingway loved Captiva, didn’t he?”

“That was Key West,” Mom said, “and this is Henry James.”

He sang a few notes from his new musical.

Mom said, “Why don’t you go get your tape recorder and flash cards. You can put on your headphones and learn your songs.”

Dad said, “Think I’ll go for a walk instead.” To which Mom, resting her open book on her belly and folding her hands over it, said, “Why don’t I join you?” To which Dad said, “You stay.Relax.”

Then he marched down the beach until he was inches tall, until he disappeared. He stayed gone for a while. Then I saw him returning, his mite-sized silhouette growing like Ant-Man. When he got back, he said, “Fabulous shells,” and then fell asleep on a chaise with a towel over his face. When he woke, he said, “Think I’ll go back to the room and check my service.”

“What are you going to do if you get a booking,” Mom said, “fly home?”

My father shrugged. “Think I’ll go for a drive then,” he said.

“Why don’t I come with you?” Mom said.

“Get some reading done. Enjoy yourself.”

“Why don’t you take a ride with your father?” Mom said to me.

“I’m gonna find Oren,” I said, and hurried after Dad, who was trudging across the sand to the resort’s parking lot. He didn’t notice me until he was in the driver’s seat of our rental car.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” he asked.

I told him no thanks and went exploring.

It was midday and the tennis courts were being watered.

Our room, whose terrace curtains ballooned in the warm breeze, was chillier because of my sunburn.

The fishing boats had long ago abandoned their slips for their day trips.

Neither Oren nor Frazier nor Regina were anywhere to be found.

Over those several days, when I wasn’t dreaming of Regina (as we sailed on a catamaran, when we caught a sailfish, when we went to a clam bake, when I bought her a necklace with a diamond-studded dolphin pendant), I stalked her all over the resort. I followed her if I saw her headed somewhere. I sometimes ran around buildings so that I might walk directly toward her and catch her eye. When I did, I’d nod. If she nodded back, which she did, occasionally, and giggled, I figured maybe it was because there was an attraction, but it also could’ve been my zinc-slathered face. Either way, I was encouraged. I spied her once leaving her room, which was, to my surprise, in the Sea Grape, which had a view of the Gulf but was also right on the road. Once I saw her and her mother exiting the spa—a typical rich-girl thing to do. It was on this occasion that she looked at me and really smiled, and when I told Oren about it that night he said, “I don’t believe you.”

“Why?”

“You’re not her type.”

“What’s her type?” I asked.

“Not sunburned,” he said.

And on these recon missions I often found Oren and Frazier doing everything Oren had hoped to on vacation. From the room’s walkway, I spotted them jet-skiing on Roosevelt Sound. I could hear Oren scream, “Woooohooooo!” as the machinepunt punt punted atop the water. Howdid he get so good so fast? And it was amazing to watch Frazier balance on the machine, his hand like a trained pet riding alongside him, while he used the other to clutch the handlebars. In my broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses, my long-sleeved shirt and sweatpants, my socks and laceless sneakers, my nose and lips zinced, I might stop by the courts to watch Oren and Frazier play tennis. Frazier’s forehand was a cannon. His one-handed backhand was a thing of beauty too, finishing his swing with both arms outflung. When he served, he pinched both the ball and racquet handle in his good hand and, with the wrist of his bad one, brushed his bangs from his eyes. He tossed the ball in the air, and as it hung above him at its arc’s zenith, he readjusted his grip, twisted with all his big-bodied torque, and sent a kicking serve into Oren’s court. Somewhere, somehow, and without my knowledge, Oren had managed to learn to hit very respectable strokes in return. He and Frazier could not kayak, but they did take out a catamaran, which Dad had said he knew how to sail but maybe next year. And on the second-to-last day, just when my burn had healed enough that I could wear shorts and short sleeves and hang with my brother, Frazier and Oren departed at the crack of dawn for an all-day deep-sea fishing trip with Frazier’s father.

That was when I got the note from Regina.

I was applying sunblock in the bathroom. Mom was out collecting seashells. Dad, who was listening to the music for his show’s songs and singing the verses, stopped and said, “This came for you.” It was a pink ’Tween Waters Inn envelope with my named double underlined, and inside, on ’Tween Waters Inn stationery—also pink—in a bubbly, girly-girl script of fatg’s andb’s and hearts dotting thei’s, read:

Dear Griffin,

Your brother and I go to the same school and he suggested I write. I have a tennis lesson at ten this morning but was thinking you could meet me when it’s finished and we could take a walk down the beach? Maybe go for a swim? Explore Manatee Cove? I’ll wear my bathing suit underneath my skirt. Maybe you could bring the towels and the tanning oil?

OXOXOX,