“To Rio?” I giggled, offering my glass for a toast.
“To Rio,” he replied.
We clinked glasses and drank, soaking in the atmosphere and the music until it felt like a crime to stay seated.
“Dance with me,” I said.
“Clea,” Ben said, balking, “you know I can’t dance.”
I did know that. And I also knew Ben didn’t say no to me very often. I slipped off my bar stool and took both his hands, already sambaing as I carved out a path to the dance floor. It was crowded, but not painfully packed. Ben looked terrified. Clearly I was going to lead.
“Okay, what do I do here?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I just danced.
“What are you doing? I can’t do that. It’s impossible. My hips don’t go like that. How do your hips go like that?” He tried moving with frenzied baby steps, completely out of rhythm with the music.
I put my hands on his hips. “Slow down. It’s okay. Just relax, and let your hips go.”
“I am relaxed. My hips are very shy; they don’t like to go off without the rest of my body.”
I laughed, and we danced through the end of the song, then took off for the Sambadrome, home of the official Samba Parade. The magazine that had hired me for the photo shoot had gotten us tickets in a frisa, or front box, as close to the parade runway as we could possibly get. We arrived about a half hour before the parade started, and the sound of the crowd was deafening. I clung to Ben’s hand and my camera as we wormed our way through an endless sea of bodies to get to our seats.
As a rule I hated crowds like this, but this place trumped that rule.
Fireworks exploded into the sky to start the parade, and the Queen of Carnival led the first group of dancers into the Sambadrome. I was in heaven. Ben looked pained.
“How much would you pay right now for earplugs?” I asked him. This was so not Ben’s scene, but he was being great about it.
The parade transformed the street into a kaleidoscope of eye candy. Each group had hundreds of dancers and drummers, all in huge matching costumes with feathers, wings, mirrors, beads, bells, and more. They moved between massive floats that reached to the sky, and the floats themselves teemed with more dancers and musicians. It went on and on, with each group more over the top than the last. I wanted to look everywhere at once.
Ben and I stayed most of the night, dancing and taking pictures. By four in the morning the Sambadrome still raged, but part of my assignment was to cover things Ben and I stayed most of the night, dancing and taking pictures. By four in the morning the Sambadrome still raged, but part of my assignment was to cover things happening outside the Samba Parade, so we poured back into the city. It was more alive at this predawn hour than most cities at midday.
As the first shades of pink sunrise glowed in the sky, Ben and I made it to the beach by our hotel. Here, too, the party continued, with several lone drummers scattered along the sand, each one with a small group of people dancing around him. The atmosphere was charged but subdued—the final embers of an all-night celebration. Only one group seemed to still be going full steam—a crowd of what I pegged for frat guys who whooped and danced like the night had just begun. I snapped pictures of them and everything else happening on the beach, and then I was done. Work time was over.
I put my camera back in its case and breathed in the ocean air. My eyes were bleary, but I couldn’t imagine going to sleep. Instead I turned to Ben.
“Dance with me,” I said.
Amazingly, he did it without complaint, holding my hands and swaying to the beat of a nearby drummer. I kicked off my shoes to feel the sand on my toes, then closed my eyes, letting the music guide me. I let go of Ben and twirled around and around … until I lost my balance and fell. Ben caught me in his arms, then surprised me by spinning me into an expert dip.
I looked up. My whole field of vision was Ben. His face, so familiar, standing out against the early-morning sky. His rumpled brown hair, his nose just slightly too big for his face, his puppy-dog light brown eyes. A layer of thin stubble coated his chin, and I suddenly had the irresistible urge to touch it. I ran my fingers gently down his cheek. Scratchy.
“Clea.” Ben’s voice cracked a little on the word. He pulled me back upright, but he didn’t let go. I didn’t mind. I liked the feel of his arms around me. I remembered the night I came home from Europe, the way his damp tee clung to his chest. Without conscious effort, my eyes drifted down to the V of his blue button-down shirt, and for a wild second I imagined myself unbuttoning it, brushing my fingers against his skin as I did …
This was crazy. This was Ben. My friend.
I raised my eyes from his chest and looked at his face, but it was different from the face I’d always known. He looked serious, and sure of himself in a way I’d never seen. I liked it. He reached up his hand and pushed back my hair, tucking it behind my ear. Had he ever done that before? I didn’t think so. It felt wonderful.
“Clea,” he said again, softer this time. “There’s something I want to tell you—”
“WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
It was a stampede of frat boys, the rowdy guys I’d snapped earlier. They stormed down the beach, and people leaped to get out of their way. Ben and I tried to do the same, but we were split apart as the guys swarmed all around us and started dancing to our drummer.
“Ben?” I called. I couldn’t even see him through the sea of bodies.
“Clea?”
He sounded pretty far away. I started snaking through the crowd to find him.
“Ben!”
“Clea!”
Better. He was closer now. I peered through gaps in the mass of bodies, straining to catch a glimpse of him …
… when suddenly I froze, and the entire world screeched to a stop.
The man from my dreams was with us on the beach.
“CLEA!” BEN CRIED as he burst through the crowd to stand in front of me.
I didn’t even see him. My eyes were locked fifty feet down the beach, where the man stood alone, scanning the sand with a furrowed brow, as if searching for something he’d lost.
He wore jeans, a leather jacket, and a gray T-shirt.
Suddenly he lifted his head and looked right at me. It was the face I knew as well as I knew my own, and I watched as his eyes filled with a shock that exactly mirrored mine.
Then he turned away and fled down the beach.
“NO!” I shouted, and immediately took off after him.
“Clea?” Ben called, but I barely even heard him. I was focused only on the man. I couldn’t let him get away. I strained to catch up before he flew out of sight.
The man was fast, but so was I. I could easily clock a six-minute mile on the treadmill, and Krav Maga kept my endurance high. I chased him all the way across Copacabana Beach, dodging and darting around scattered knots of partiers.
When he reached Leme Hill, the jungly mountain at the northernmost end of the beach, the man didn’t stop. He plunged forward, eschewing the cleared dirt trail for the camouflage of the overgrown brush. I followed without hesitation, despite the fact that I’d left my shoes far behind. He had the advantage now, and I quickly lost sight of him, but he left a trail of trampled plants, and I plowed after him, my breath rasping in my throat as I pushed my legs harder and faster.
I never saw the knot of roots. One minute I was running my hardest, the next I was screaming at a searing pain in my ankle and landing face-first in the brush.
“NO!!!” I screamed, far more frustrated over losing him than any injury I might have. I tried to get up, but my left ankle wouldn’t take my weight, and I thumped back onto the ground.
“Shit!” I winced, shifting to examine my rapidly swelling ankle. “Shit-shit-shit-SHIT!”
I tried to stand again, gingerly this time, but my ankle wouldn’t have it, and I plopped back down.