Julia hadn’t realized how heavy they were, laden with cool water. It was sweet and slightly fruity and like nothing she’d tasted before.

They sat in the sand, watching the waves and the kids with the kite, and talked about the places Blake had traveled and Julia’s other trips, up to the Wisconsin woods, east to New York City, long drives with Liz to Toronto and Omaha. She hadn’t thought about them as really traveling—not like what Blake was doing—but he hung onto her every word, interested in how vast and varied North America was.

“Did you ever think you’d be sitting on a beach in Rio, sipping from a coconut, talking with an Aussie?” he asked, tipping the coconut to get the last drops of liquid inside.

Julia shook her head. “To be honest, as soon as I arrived in Brazil I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. Walking around São Paulo by myself wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for.”

“What were you hoping for?”

She thought for a minute, knowing she could brush him off but wanting to give a real answer. Wanting to remember what it was she’d dreamed of when she clicked to buy her tickets. She’d never thought about traveling to Brazil before she saw the sale on an advertisement in her inbox and decided that a trip was exactly what she needed for her Christmas, her birthday, and her life.

“I don’t totally know. An adventure, maybe. Something different. Something I could do for myself, where I didn’t have to take care of anyone or look after anyone or answer to anyone at all.” She paused and winced. “I guess that sounds sort of selfish.”

“No,” Blake said slowly, mulling over her words. “That sounds like a very good idea.”

“I guess sometimes you have to step back and think about yourself before you completely burn out—or explode.”

She knew, though, that she’d never really explode in front of her friends or colleagues. She’d just keep plugging away like she always did, trying not to rock the boat, until she made herself so small she disappeared.

“You should be thinking about yourself. What you want, what you need. It seems strange that getting away helps bring us back to what we’re really looking for. I guess it’s like having a giant time-out from life.”

“Where you can sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done?”

“Something like that.”

“And what is it you’d done that you needed to think about?” she asked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, keeping her voice light and playful but aware that she’d slid from joking around into more serious territory.

The waves surged in and out, the ocean a living, breathing thing. Julia wasn’t surprised when Blake shrugged.

“Work, mostly,” he said. “Things got really crazy on set, and I felt like the screenplay and production were completely taking over my life. Which is what I wanted, obviously—I’m definitely not complaining about creating a popular show.”

Julia nodded. She suspected there was more he wasn’t telling her, but she realized this was the first time he’d really mentioned anything about his job. Or the fact that, from what it had sounded like from Chris and Jamie, he was a pretty big deal. “Just because you’re fulfilling your dreams doesn’t mean you don’t need to take care of the rest of your life,” she said, waving her straw at him as she lifted the coconut and tilted it back to drink up the last bit inside.

A thin stream trickled down her chin and Blake brushed it up with his thumb, cupping her jaw for a moment in his hand. “Insightful.”

“Normal,” she corrected him.

“No, some people seem to think that when you’re ‘famous’ or ‘successful,’” he punctuated the words in air quotes like he didn’t really mean them at all, “you have everything you could possibly want. Except for more fame and success, since, like money, one can never have enough.”

Julia had a definite feeling that “some people” meant his ex-girlfriend, whoever she was. She must have liked Blake’s popularity—maybe a little too much.

“And what is it that you still want?” Julia asked.

He looked over at her. Looked at her, looked past her, looked through her. Maybe even looked into himself. Finally he answered. “To be happy. Is that too simple? Or too hard? Too impossible to even think about? I want to write—I’ve always wanted to write. So I just want to do it. I want to write and create and make things happen on screen. Make sure my mom is taken care of—don’t laugh.”

Julia didn’t.

“And—” he looked away, gazing down the beach at the humpbacked dome of Sugar Loaf Mountain rising like a crooked finger where the line of sand curved away in the distance. “It’d be nice if there was someone else who shared that desire, who wanted something simple. Meaningful work, a close family, good friends you can count on, who like you when you’re down as well as up.”

“That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for,” Julia said, following his gaze down the beach.

He turned and looked back at her, squinting into the sun. “Doesn’t seem like it, but I haven’t had it so far. Maybe it’s time to revise my expectations.”

Julia shook her head. “Don’t settle for anything less.”

“See?” He smiled. “Insightful.”

“No. Just trying like everyone else not to fuck up.”

“Well, not everyone seems to be trying for that. So I’d say that, in and of itself, makes you a rare bird.”

“Do what I say, not what I do. I’m the one who spends more time at work than at home, and I can assure you that I’m not bringing in any more pay. I’m too much of a sucker to say no.”

Blake chuckled. “It sounds like you really care about your job, though.”

“I care about the students,” she corrected him.

“At least you always know why you’re doing it.”

Julia nodded. Sometime in the future, when she was grading tests on the weekends or trying to get through to a student who just didn’t care, she was going to have to remember those words.

He reached for her coconut and she passed it over, watching him stand and brush the sand from his shorts. He moved with such grace, so easy in his body as he slid his sandals on and walked back to the vendor. When he returned, he was holding the coconuts balanced in both hands, each one split open with a stroke of the vendor’s machete to expose the creamy white inside. He passed her a little piece of the coconut that the man had cut off, showing her how to use it like a spoon to scrape out the flesh.

It was smooth and slippery, firm yet soft, sweet with a distinctive flavor all its own. They sat for a while hacking at the pieces and slurping them up while Julia declared that she could never go home because now that she’d discovered eating coconuts on the beach, how could she return to a life without them?

Blake scooped up a piece with his little coconut-spoon. “Maybe you can start an import-export business.”

“Then I’d definitely know why I was doing it.”

“Yeah, purely selfish reasons. Making sure you have a constant supply of fresh coconuts.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of bringing it to the cold, deprived masses in Chicago. I guess they’re not as cold and deprived in Sydney.” She paused. “Or wherever it is that you live.”

“Sydney.” He nodded. “There are coconut palms in Australia, but Sydney is definitely not the same as Rio. I’d say we’re still just as deprived.”

“I’m not going to tell you what the current temperature probably is in Chicago with the wind chill because I don’t want to ruin my day by reminding myself of what’s waiting for me.”

“Good plan. All thoughts of home life officially banished today.”

“Deal,” she nodded, picking at the last scraps of coconut clinging to the inside of the shell.

“Good. Now that that’s decided, what’s on the agenda next?”

Julia looked down the beach, hugged by the mountains and the buildings behind. “Anything? Everything? You know what’s good here—I’m up for whatever you want.”