Sara sits on the rocks and glares at the other sunbathers from behind big black sunglasses. Look at all that bare flesh being exposed to the harsh sun. She shudders and hair tickles her shoulders through thin white cotton. Under her tint-red mane she gathers resentment. Her target at the moment is a Blonde-American tourist. Sara may be American, but at least she doesn’t wear it like a bad swimsuit threatening to slip off with every unsure blonde-step taken towards the water. Sara focuses the raw resentment through the tensed muscles of her pale cheeks and steadily sets it loose from a pout full of lips.
She refuels the process with a drag of nicotine and scans the rocks. Who’s Next? She feels herself sweat under the long sleeves of her shirt – Jean’s shirt actually. Jean’s white, button down oxford dutifully covers her pale skin. His long wiry body sits beside her and his tired eyes roll over a newspaper. His gray hair looks whiter against the blacks and browns of the rocks. Body, hair, rocks: he’s all hers. Not one God damned person in this cove, hell none of the so-called-lovers here in these five towns, have anything like what we have. Just coming here doesn’t make it love. Romance on the Riviera alone can’t cut it. Sara’s had other romantic spots before her eyes but only living here, with Jean, does she finally understand. She finds herself amazed that it’s taken her this long, all her twenty-five long years to understand. Twenty-five wasted years. Thank God Jean appeared to show her the difference. He really is a saint.
She locks on to her new target: three young women hardly wearing bikinis and talking in loud Italian to an older man in bright green bathing trunks. The girls laugh when one takes a photo of the other two on either side of the old man. Sara’s cheeks flex. The old man is talking about making someone jealous. Sara pouts. Jealous. Ha. They don’t know the meaning of the word.
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