Page 89 of Death of the Author

“You’re not gonna go in?”

He shook his head. “I’m not a good swimmer.”

“So?”

“So people die out there,” he said pointedly.

“What about you?” she asked Hugo.

He shrugged and looked sheepish. He was wearing khakis that covered his prosthetics, a T-shirt, and gym shoes. “Nah,” he said.

She took a deep breath. Didn’t matter. “So which beach are we going to?” she asked.

“What of Tarkwa Bay Beach?” Uchenna asked. “I heard that one is quiet and relatively clean.”

Zelu had never been to a beach in Nigeria. Other than her father, her family had never taken an interest in swimming the way she did. She couldn’t wait to see what it was like.

“Okay, let’s go to that one,” she said.

They took an Uber to where the Internet said they should go. When they got there, they learned that they had to take an additional boat ride to get to the swimming area.

Zelu was annoyed. She hadn’t anticipated squeezing into a boat with a ton of locals. “Rather find a different beach,” she said. “I don’t want to—”

“Zelu, let’s just find out first,” Hugo said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry until you have to.”

“I don’t want... it could be embarrassing,” she said. She looked back.Their Uber had already left. Shit. They always left so quickly. She glanced at Uchenna. He had his phone out and was typing on it, probably cataloguing her exos’ response to the sandy concrete. “Uchenna, stop using me as research.”

He shrugged. “Youareresearch.”

She groaned and turned back to Hugo, but he was already walking to the boat booth. “Oh my God,” she muttered. “Whycan’t anything be simple?”

“Excuse me,” Hugo said to the man in the booth. He appeared to be in his early twenties and had the biggest smile Zelu had ever seen as he looked down at Hugo. “Can I help you, sah?” he asked.

“Hi, how much is a boat ride to the beach?”

“How many, sah?” Still grinning, the man glanced at Zelu.

She turned around and looked toward the water where the boats bobbed. The sky was cloudy and it looked like there was a storm on the horizon. Not the greatest day to go swimming, but she was here in the moment, in Nigeria, Lagos. Oh yeah, she was going to swim here. They were heading to the southeast in two days. This was her best chance.

“It’s fine,” Hugo said behind her.

She jumped at his voice. “It is?”

He nodded, holding up three tickets.

“Did they recognize me?” she asked.

“Yeah, we just had to pay three times as much for you.”

“Ugh,” she scoffed.

“Think of it as paying for the exos. If you’d been in a chair, they’d probably have charged extra, too.”

“Isn’t that disabilities discrimination?” she muttered.

“Yep.” He shrugged. “You’re cranky today. Wanna leave?”

“No. Let’s do it.”

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