Novic Sara - Girl at War

“Which is?”

“Absolut,” Luka said, then, more to me than the guard, “It’s the name of her dog.”

“She named her dog Vodka?” I said, and Luka shushed me.

“I’ve got the key,” he said, and held his house key up to the guard’s flashlight. The guard, who was now more confused than authoritative, was checking boxes on his sheet.

“Sign here.” He passed the clipboard down to Luka. Luka scribbled some illegible signature — his handwriting had always been atrocious — and handed it back through the window.

“We hope you enjoy your stay at Solaris,” said the guard, sounding almost defeated. He pressed a button that rolled back the gate, and we drove through.

“Amazing, right?” said Luka. “Her family’s always in Italy this time of year.”

“I can’t believe she named her dog Vodka.”

“Oh, come on. What’s your problem with her?”

“I just—” But I could not think of a reason to dislike her beyond the annoying way she touched Luka’s arm when she talked, so I didn’t finish the thought.

Inside the resort we parked and took the blankets from the trunk. Along a path of brick pavers we passed a restaurant with a crystal chandelier and fancy liqueurs lined up across a mirrored bar, and a wood-paneled hut labeled SAUNA. On the opposite side, yachts and boats bobbed beside the dock. Some had lights in the windows, but most were dark shadows atop the black water.

“Where’d Danijela’s family get their money?” I said.

“They owned a lot of seafront property and sold it to some German investment bankers who built a hotel on it.”

“Which one is her boat?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then where are we going to sleep?”

“Here.” We came to a black wrought-iron fence encircling a swimming pool and a cluster of plastic lounge chairs, the gate padlocked shut. Luka slipped one foot between the stakes on the bottom crossbar and jumped over with ease. I handed him my blanket and followed in an unsteady copycat.

We set up camp on the chairs. I lay on my back to look at the sky, black and varnished with more stars than I’d seen in years, even more than I could see from the back field in Gardenville.

“Wow,” I breathed.

“Perks of being in the middle of nowhere.”

“New York doesn’t really lend itself to stargazing.”

“Neither does Zagreb.”

“I guess not.” I remembered nights Luka and I had spent on the balcony of my flat, searching relentlessly for Orion, which we’d deemed the best constellation because he had a sword. Now it seemed more likely we’d just been looking at airplanes or Russian satellites.

Luka didn’t say anything for a while, and I assumed he had fallen asleep. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, too, but I was keyed up, images of the forest and our break-in and Danijela all looping through my head. “Good night,” I said.

“I would kiss you,” Luka blurted.

“What?” I turned to look at him but could only see his outline in the dark.

“I’m not going to,” he said. “It’s not a good idea. But I thought you should know. That I would kiss you.”

“Why?”

“Well, you’re attractive and we’re sleeping outside together under the stars—”

“I mean,” I said, glad the darkness covered my blush, “why is it a bad idea?”

“Because I mess up relationships. Because you’re going home at the end of the summer.”

I thought of Brian and wondered if he had emailed. “ I mess up relationships,” I said. “I basically broke up with my last boyfriend because he was too nice.”

I considered what it might mean to be with Luka, whether it was even something I wanted. Was the envy I felt at every mention of Danijela a sign that I had feelings for him, or simply a longing for the way things used to be, when we were young and each other’s whole worlds?

We hadn’t talked much about my plans beyond the summer, and in more whimsical moments I’d considered staying — I could transfer to the University of Zagreb, teach English afterward. Deep down, though, I knew I’d return to the States to finish school, go back to my family. I let the question float out to sea, and we lay still, comfortable as we always had been in one another’s silences.

“Besides,” Luka said eventually, as if he’d continued weighing the pros and cons of our potential relationship in his head. “You know too much.” But I couldn’t help thinking as I hovered between waking and sleep, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

I resurfaced a few hours later; it was still dark and my feet had gone numb. Once in New York water had seeped into my snow boots and frozen between my toes, but I still couldn’t remember a time when I felt this helplessly cold. Covered in gooseflesh and shivering, I unrolled the jeans I’d been using as a pillow and pulled them on over my shorts.

“Luka,” I whispered. “It’s so fucking cold.” Luka stirred, and I hoped he’d wake up, but instead he mumbled something that to my best guess was “socks” and turned over. My thoughts felt slow, my limbs weighted. I inched my chair closer to his.

Hours later I felt the sun on my face, first pleasant, then hot and pulsing. We died , I thought. Then a jagged pain tore up the length of my leg. I sat up, shielding my eyes against the morning and saw the outline of the fake policeman, now striking Luka with his nightstick and cursing.

“Derelicts!” he yelled, along with insults about our mothers’ relationships with livestock. “You tricked me! Get the hell out of here!”

“We can’t walk when you’re smashing us in the legs!” I said. He stopped for a moment, as if to consider the argument, and Luka and I took off over the fence, trailing the orange blankets behind us.

We pushed through thick sea grass toward the public beach. The air was salty-sweet, a seawater and pine mix that had in my childhood signaled the start of summer vacation. It was still early and there were few people on the beach. I slipped off my sandals and was met with the stabbing pain of tiny pointed rocks.

“Jesus,” I said, jumping back into my shoes. “They’re so sharp.” I had grown used to the less spectacular but sandy coastline of south Jersey.

“Yeah, you’ll have to work on your calluses.”

At water’s edge Luka dropped his blanket and pants and ran into the sea. “It’s warm!” he called and dove beneath the surface. I stripped to my bra and underwear, then immediately felt embarrassed. I’d studied Luka’s shirtless physique back in Zagreb; it was only natural that he might examine me in my adult form, with hips and breasts. I wanted him to like what he saw. I looked down at my thighs, adjusted my bra strap. I wished for a towel. Nothing to be done about it now, I thought, and ran awkwardly into the sea until I was deep enough to swim, eager to cover myself and lift my smarting feet from the rocks.

The water was calmer than I remembered, nothing like the constant fight against tide and undertow that came with swimming in the ocean. Looking down, I was surprised to see my own legs, unobscured by the swirling sediment of the mid-Atlantic. I put my head back and succumbed to the bobbing rhythm of the not-quite-waves. Just when I’d begun to wonder whether one could sleep that way, something slick and powerful gripped my ankle and pulled me downward. I screeched and kicked until the thing released me and Luka appeared beside me in hysterics.

“God, you’re evil,” I said.

We were treading water, and our legs brushed one another. Luka ran his hand through his hair. “Come on. We better go if we want to get to Tiska before dark.”

We jumped the fence back into Solaris to retrieve the car. We sat on the hood and downed half a bag of muesli and a box of UHT milk, and afterward I changed my clothes in the backseat. The guard gave us the finger as we sped through the exit, and we returned to the main road.