Page 33 of The Location Shoot
“Holy shit! Look at them running,” Michael said, his eyes popping out of his head.
Finn laughed. “You really do have a one-track mind.”
“Come on,” Ella hollered, waving them over, and they both darted to the water.
The women were splashing around. Finn ran right over to Ella, knee-deep in the gulf. He picked her up in his muscular arms and teased, “I think you need a good dunking.”
“Oh, no, please don’t,” she begged, giggling hysterically.
He gently put her down and slipped his arms around her waist. They stared into each other’s eyes and he asked, “Is this okay?”
She leaned onto his chest, warm from the sun, and curled against him. “No matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night,” she whispered. They stood holding each other and smelling the briny sea air until Willow came over and splashed them, igniting a water fight between all five of them. They were laughing hysterically, the summer sun beating down on them all.
Mid-afternoon, Willow wanted to look for seashells and beach stones, and she asked Charlotte to join her. After they strolled off together, Michael winked at Finn and said,“I could use a workout. I’m gonna go for a swim,” as he headed toward the water.
“Alone at last,” Finn said.
Ella smiled, got up from her beach chair, and unfurled a towel on the sand. She grabbed her book and looked at Finn. “Care to join me?”
He grinned and spread out a towel beside hers. He grabbed two more towels and folded them into makeshift pillows.
“Thank you,” she said.
“My pleasure,” he replied. They both lay down, side by side, facing one another. “What are you reading?” he asked.
“It’s a poetry book, an anthology of the Romantics—Wordsworth, Keats, Baudelaire, Dickinson. They’re my favorites. They tapped into so much emotion, imagination, and of course they loved nature. I think they deeply understood something about our relationship to the natural world and to each other. When I want to let go and get lost, I read poetry.”
He smiled. “That’s beautiful.”
“Do you like poetry?”
“Very much. Early in my career when I was learning how to memorize lines, I used to practice by memorizing poems. I figured if I could master that, dialogue would be easy.” She smiled and he continued, “Like you, I especially love the Romantics. May I read you something?”
She nodded and handed him the book. He flipped through it and said, “Ah, good. It’s in here. When Albie was telling us about how he fell in love with Margaret, I started to think about how difficult it must be for him to be away from her and how much joy they’ll feel to be reunited. This short poem by John Keats came to mind. It’s called ‘Sweet, Sweet Is the Greeting of Eyes.’
Sweet, sweet is the greeting of eyes,
And sweet is the voice in its greeting,
When adieus have grown old and goodbyes
Fade away where old Time is retreating.
Warm the nerve of a welcoming hand,
And earnest a kiss on the brow,
When we meet over sea and o’er land
Where furrows are new to the plough.
“Keats wrote that for George and Georgiana, his brother and sister-in-law, but it made me think of Albie and Margaret’s grand love.”
Ella smiled. “That was lovely.”
“Here,” he said, handing her the book. “Read me one you like.”
They went back and forth reading poems aloud. Eventually, Finn put the book down and they stared into each other’s eyes, a magnetic pull between them.
