What Lies Beyond the Stars by Micael Goorjian

Author:Micael Goorjian [Goorjian, Micael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2016-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

THIS IS NOT AN ORANGE

A pair of orange butterflies floated along the edge of the bluff, dancing around the rocks and shrubs that stood guard over the otherwise unprotected 100-foot drop. Below lay a crescent-shaped beach cluttered with driftwood and tangles of reddish-brown seaweed. In a few places, the wood had been piled into barricades against the wind and the remains of a beach fire could be seen.

“Hey!” Adam called down.

Beatrice looked up from the spot where she had just dragged a surfboard-shaped piece of driftwood.

Adam help up a large, white paper bag. “Ham and Swiss! Macaroni salad! Root beer! Sound good?”

Beatrice gave a thumbs-up. “And here we have our picnic table!”

“I like it! How do I get down there?”

“Jump!” Beatrice said, deadpan.

Adam shook his head, smiling. “Funny!”

“Over there!” She pointed to a spot where precarious wooden steps zigzagged down to the beach.

They had spent the morning out on the bluffs, walking the paths and exploring the cliffs. Searching through tide pools for sea anemones, Adam proudly identified most all of them. As Beatrice had suggested, there was no serious talk, and no mention of the night before. It felt awkward at first, pretending like nothing had taken place between them, and Adam even wondered if he had made more of their sexual encounter than he should have. But then he caught Beatrice looking at him with a glint of longing in her eyes and he understood, she was protecting them both against the moment, very soon, when they would be saying good-bye.

As the minutes and hours slipped by, they slowly found their way back to that friendly banter they had forged on the boat the night before—teasing each other, joking, arguing playfully—and by lunchtime all awkwardness had dissolved.

“I can’t believe you went to the Galápagos Islands and didn’t go on a single nature tour.” Adam wiped away bits of sand and macaroni salad from the corner of his mouth; it was by far the best macaroni salad he had ever eaten, sand or no sand. “Did you even go to any of the nature reserves?”

“Afraid not.” Across the surfboard table, Beatrice struggled to keep from eating her hair along with her ham-and-cheese sandwich. The wind on the beach had picked up.

“Did you see any blue-footed boobies?”

“Sorry, missed the boobies.”

“What the hell did you do there? Don’t you remember anything? Come on, you’ve got to give me something.”

“Well, let’s see.” Beatrice closed her eyes. “What I remember most about the Galápagos Islands . . . the aquamarine-colored toilets at the Barranco Bar on San Cristóbal Island.”

Adam stopped chewing his sandwich. “Toilets?”

“I got smashed on some cheap rum with this wannabe pirate named Guillermo—he had a parrot and everything. I ended up getting horribly sick.” Beatrice shrugged and took a sip of root beer.

“You don’t understand how much I love those islands. For months I was obsessed. I watched every National Geographic special, every documentary, every YouTube video. Oh, and there’s even this great virtual tour thing where you can scan around each island.

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