accent was Midwestern. Everett realized now that they were buildings. She put her pencil in its case, closed her sketchpad, and started back toward the hotel.
Face burning, Everett started after her, then turned the other way and walked quickly for a time. “What a fool I am,” he thought.
When he returned to the hotel, the row of glass doors to the dining room stood open, the long sheers fluttering in the ocean breeze. At the end of the row was the small wooden door to the bar, now propped open.
Inside, it was cool and shadowy, empty except for the big guy he’d seen earlier. He sat staring at his drink, a rolled towel on the zinc bar top.
“Another Pernod,” the big man muttered in English, and the barman brought a bottle over and filled his glass. “Pour one for him too,” he said, and then turned to Everett. “I’m going back.”
“To the States?” Everett sipped the dark drink cautiously. It was bitter. The bar was cool, with a good view of the ocean. In the dining room next door Everett could hear the waiters chatting pleasantly as they set the tables for lunch.
“To Paris. Back to my wife.” The big guy downed half his drink and slid off his barstool. “Happy endings all around.”
“Me, I want to see the world,” Everett told him. “I’ve got no wife waiting.”
The stranger picked up his glass, drank it down, then stood studying it. “See the world,” he mused. “I’ve seen part of the world. Been in a war. Been in love…got married.” He scowled. “Best thing I ever did,” he said darkly.
“You don’t sound so sure of that,” Everett said.
“…Jake and Brett live happily ever after,” the guy muttered, ignoring Everett. “That’s what everyone wants, right?” He flexed his elbows like he might let loose with a punch at somebody. But instead he turned and stomped out of the bar, leaving Everett with the bill.
Everett drank as much of his drink as he could stand, then left pesetas on the bar and went up to his room.
In his room, the balcony door was open. Everett kicked off his shoes, lay down on the bed, and tried to think about all the things he could see in the whole wide world. But what he saw was the farm, the house he would build, the wife he would have. The future he wanted stretched out ahead of him straight as a furrow. But then he saw the girl on the beach turn away from him.
He lay there for a time, listening to the rustling of the hibiscus, then dressed and walked briskly up the cobbled street beside the hotel. Shops were closed for siesta, the café chairs stacked on tables. Cats meandered here and there. He slowed down as he remembered the sun and humidity of summer back home, the feel of new-turned earth in April, and the first snow in October.
He stood stock still, his hand on the white and green bark of a tree. “Sycamore,” he said out loud.
“Are you talking to the tree?” It was the girl from the beach, sitting by herself at a table in the dappled shade. Her sketchpad was in front of her on the stained wooden table along with a red velvet pencil case. “At least you’re polite to trees,” she continued, in a tone that was not scolding at all.
“No. Yes, I was just…I was remembering,” Everett said. He jammed his fists into his pockets and looked around the silent street as though seeing it for the first time. “Everything’s closed.”
“Yes. Siesta,” she said.
“Sorry about what I said when I saw you on the beach,” Everett said, glancing at the sketchpad. “You’re an artist, I’m not. I shouldn’t have criticized.”
She laughed. “You were right. The perspective is all wrong.” She had blue eyes, red-brown hair, and a light complexion with fewer freckles than he would have expected. Her smile made her beautiful.
Everett sat down on a wooden chair. “Can I see your work?”
She slid the sketchpad toward him half an inch. “Don’t expect much.”
Everett flipped back a couple of pages to the drawing he’d seen that morning. “When I checked in at the hotel yesterday, the guy at the desk told me there’s a raft out in the bay. So people can swim out to it. Maybe from there you’d be able to see all this better. Then you could draw it better.” He closed the sketchpad. “You can swim can’t you?”
Her smile reappeared. “I bet I can out-swim you. On the farm where I grew up, we swam in the pond every summer afternoon. What’s your name?”
“Everett Crafton. I’m from Miller County in Missouri.”
“Jan Sorensen. I’m from Des Moines.”
“Good farming country,” Everett volunteered. “Corn country.”
“God country too,” she muttered, but Everett didn’t catch it.
“You came to Europe to be an artist,” Everett said.
“I came to Europe to get away from the church. I love God but I don’t love the church. After dad died, mother insisted I study to enter a convent. I’ve been studying now for a year, but…last month I told her I had to be a painter instead. Go to Paris, study art. But I’m not a painter. I love the colors of nature, but I find them best when I’m in the garden. That’s where I feel closest to God too.” She blushed and ducked her head. “I shouldn’t be telling all this to you.”
“That’s all right.” Everett didn’t know where the conversation was going, but he wanted it to go on a long time. For the first time since he’d left Missouri he felt relaxed. “I think I know what you mean. All this year I’ve wanted to get away from the farm, from Miller County. I told my brother I was going to Paris. I was going to see the world. Since my dad died, my brother and I each own half of the farm—half the land, half the stock, half of the equipment. My brother is married, one kid two years old, another on the way.” Everett shrugged. “They’re good people and I love the kids, but I want a house of my own. I’ve sat under the oak tree on the little rise above the hayfield many times, dreaming about having my own house, right there. I told them I was leaving. Going to see the world. But what I really want is…” his voice trailed off.
She laughed a good-natured laugh. “A house of your own, a wife of your own, a family of your own?”
Embarrassed, Everett looked into her blue eyes and shook his head. “I want to farm. That’s what I want.” He looked away. “And maybe the other things too.”
The leaves overhead made moving patterns of light and shade on the stained wooden table. “I want to feel close to God,” Jan said. “But not in a church.”
A man opened one of the wooden doors under the sign that said Café Marinas. He latched it open, then the other one.
Jan turned a bright smile on Everett. “Let’s go swimming.”
Everett picked up her sketchpad, but she took it away from him and marched off down the cobbled street toward the hotel. He caught up with her and fell in beside her. Close, but not too close.
At the hotel, he rolled his bathing suit in a towel and went out onto the veranda, down the steps, and across the hot sand to the row of changing cabanas. Jan was waiting there. They chose cabanas at each end of the row, changed into their swimming suits, and immediately plunged into the water, embarrassed to be seen with so few clothes on.
She was a strong swimmer and beat him to the raft. He followed her up the wooden ladder and waved his arm around the curve of the bay. “Here’s your drawing.”
But she wasn’t looking. She lay down on the warm boards and closed her eyes. “The sun will warm us up.”
Everett thought her solid body looked beautiful, even in the heavy black wool bathing suit. He dove into the dark water and swam down until he was near the bottom, then let himself drift back up toward the sunlight and the shadow of the raft. He climbed out and dove in again, going deep, swimming down hard, following