Page 41 of California Waves

She got up, walked around the island, and then kissed him. “I have never watched anyone make an omelet so beautifully.”

Now the worry turned to bashfulness. “I like to cook,” he admitted.

“And I like to eat,” she replied.

While they sat side by side, the sides of their legs touching, she asked, “What foods did you miss most when you were in space?”

“Fresh fruit and vegetables, for sure,” he said without a hint of hesitation.

She looked thoughtful. “What do you eat up there, anyway?”

“Packets of freeze-dried stuff. They’re marked beef stroganoff or chicken curry, but really it’s space food. Keeps the body nourished and going, but it’s nothing to write home about.”

She tapped her glass. “I guess there’s no wine.”

He shook his head. “There’s tubes of things like orange juice, but you have to be careful. Because there’s no gravity, if the liquid gets away from you, it floats away.” He got out of his chair and mimed a drop of liquid and him chasing it as though it were a butterfly and his mouth were a net. His reward was Mila’s gorgeous laugh, so carefree and infectious.

He sat and finished the last of his omelet. By the time he looked up at Mila, he sensed her mood had changed.

Licking the last of the melon juice from her lips, she said, “So, you’re good-looking, great in bed, you can cook, and you have a pretty interesting job. Why aren’t you married?”

He felt his face fall, and he knew he’d have to explain. “I sort of got close once, a long time ago, but it didn’t work out. And now I’m glad it didn’t, because I never want to leave someone I love behind when I go into space, knowing I might not come back. I’ve never wanted to leave behind a widow or orphans. My work is too risky. I can’t have a wife and kids and then disappear into the stars one day… and never come home.”

He hoped she’d understand him a bit better now.

Quietly, she said, “Is that why you told me this could never be anything serious? Because you’d be afraid to leave someone you loved behind?”

He nodded solemnly. He hoped that she would know now that it wasn’t about not wanting her permanently in his life. It was that he didn’t feel he could have anyone permanently in his life.

She looked sad and a little baffled too. “But there are all kinds of people who have dangerous jobs in this world. They get married and have families. Cops, firefighters, anybody in the armed forces. Hersch, life is risk. You could have the most boring job in the world—I don’t know, an accountant in a shoe factory—and somebody could fall asleep at the wheel and run you over.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right. But I don’t think I could do it. I think if I had a wife and family that I loved very much, I might have to give up my job.”

She looked stunned. “Why does that have to be your choice?”

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t the woman who loves you get a choice in whether she’s willing to take on those risks too?”

He’d never looked at it that way. Could he maybe have a relationship with Mila because she’d lived with risk every day of her professional life as a surfer? She might be one of the few people on the planet who could handle his career.

“How about you?” he asked. “You’re beautiful, funny, an excellent Realtor, great in bed—which maybe I should have said first—and you’re single. What’s your story?”

She pushed her plate away and sipped champagne to give herself a moment. “The truth is, I haven’t truly trusted a man since Travis.”

Herschel reached out and touched her hand, feeling like the biggest klutz in the world. He’d known that Travis had left her after her accident. Of course she felt she couldn’t trust men. “Some men can be trusted. Just saying.”

Her eyes flickered up. “I know. I have a feeling I can trust you, can’t I?”

As always, he tried to give an honest answer. “You can trust me to treat you right and do the right thing, but you can’t trust me not to go off on a dangerous mission and die. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but there it is.”

She bridled a little and retaliated by saying, “And you can trust me to be faithful as long as we’re together, always up for a good time, and if either of us decides it’s time to move on, there won’t be any recriminations or tears. But you cannot stop me from going out on my surfboard whenever I feel like it, no matter how big those waves are, and maybe one day I won’t come back. I like risk. I love that feeling of being in control, but only just, and of always knowing that I can ride the waves, but I can never control them, and they can turn on me at any second and swallow me.”

“Okay,” he said. “We have a deal.”

“We do? What deal?”

“We’ll enjoy each other until one of us can’t do it anymore. How does that sound?”

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