Page 50 of The Librarians
Yes, she thought of him on that climb. But she wasn’t too sad. Her mother had put her in therapy for two years. She knew it was okay to wish that he was still around, that he could have shared this trip with her; it was also okay that he wasn’t and couldn’t.
Such was life. Life had never been unfair to her parents or herself. Life was simply like video games: It was normal to try hard and fail spectacularly; it was normal to invest untold hours only to realize that the game itself sucked; it was normal to love a game to bits and still, with the passage of time, never go back to it again.
Here is another certainty. At forty minutes past nine that morning, she turned around and took several panoramic photos: ocher roofs and white walls amidst subtropical greenery. The pictures failed to capture the vertical nature of the vista or its sweeping expansiveness. Looking at them in the years since has always felt like listening to someone talk about a movie whose original footage has been lost.
And then what happened? Flower petals, doves, and scarves streaming as if on a soundstage, with wind machines whirling just outside camera range.
She doesn’t even remember what he wore.
Okay, not entirely true. She definitely remembers the canvas deck shoes, which she thought to be a fashion affectation, until he told her that he’d come to Madeira as a cabin boy on a sailing ship.
Because she remembers the deck shoes, she also recalls bare ankles and long, shapely calves. But not his knees. Was he wearing something three-quarters length?
And his T-shirt, what color was it? Blue, gray, faded indigo? The only thing that really comes to mind is the small hole in the left shoulder seam. He tried to do the gentlemanly thing and walk on her outside to protect her from traffic, but she didn’t like to be hemmed in and insisted on walking on the outside. So every time she glanced at him, the little aperture was always in her line of sight, tempting her with a hint of very light freckles underneath.
Hi. Excuse me, I’m completely lost. Are you by some chance also headed for the botanical garden?
She was texting her mother. She looked up to see a cute boy standing a few feet away, a hopeful expression on his face.
He might be hitting on her, but she didn’t mind the possibility. They walked around the Jardim Botânico together, admired its famous green-and-oxblood parterres, which overhung a panoramic view of the island, and shared beverages at the Jardim’s café.
It was while she was drinking her can of sparkling water that she learned he was only nineteen. Or rather, not even nineteen.
I’ll be nineteen in three days, he said, chugging down black coffee as if he worked three jobs.And how old are you, if you don’t mind me asking the same question?
Me? Twenty-three next month.
He appeared delighted.We’re the same age, then.
A twenty-two-year-old woman and an eighteen-year-old boy are not the same age.
Ouch, he said—and laughed.
He had dimples and spectacularly clear skin. His dark hair was thick and wavy. He spoke with a British accent and was most likely some sort of Eurasian mix, the kind who looked like he could hail from 60 percent of the world’s land area.
You’re not going to try to persuade me otherwise?she asked, not sure why she was hanging on to the subject.
He shook his head, a mischievous look in his eyes.No. What if you like boys who aren’t the same age as you?
She’d snorted—and laughed too.
After refreshments at the café, they took the cable car across a deepcanyon to a place called Monte, and there rode a toboggan launched down narrow, steep streets by two local experts—even though he admitted to not enjoying that sort of rushing, descending motion. Then, on their way back to Funchal, they stopped by a roadside eatery and had lunch.
One hears a lot about photographic memories. What Hazel would have liked is a phonographic memory. They spent close to five hours in each other’s company and talked for most of that time. But though she retained a fair amount of information—he just learned to make Bolognese sauce from the ship’s cook; the espresso machine on board, prone to blockage, was the bane of his existence; it took his vessel five days to sail from Gibraltar to Madeira, relying solely on wind—she could recall only a few snatches of conversation in their entirety.
If those five hours were an archaeological dig, they would be akin to a site with a handful of well-preserved artifacts, the rest only shards and weathered foundations. She could still generate a floor plan and maybe even a forensic blueprint for how the villa must have looked in its heyday, the gardens here, the baths there, a lovely pergola for the occasional alfresco dinner. But mostly, just a lot of rubble.
Sometimes a night watch at sea feels as if it will never end. But there are also times when all the stars are overhead and it’s overwhelmingly beautiful. Times like that I’m almost sad that this won’t be my life forever, that I will go back to land, to people, traffic, a desk job.
They were waiting for the cable car to Monte, standing atop a terrace with magnificent views.
You don’t like normalcy?she teased.
Oh, I do. If I ever get to live in a full-size room again, with internet on demand and a shower that’s wider than a telephone pole, I will cry.I miss those amenities so much that I have to remind myself nobody forced me to sign up for the mariner’s life. The opposite: I fought hard for an opportunity to sail the seven seas.
He turned and smiled at her. Those dimples again. She felt covetous.
It’s a good lesson. It tells me I can never have everything—not at the same time, in any case. Adventure has its costs; stability has its own costs. And I should stop thinking about what I don’t have.
