Just Like Real Water

cw: language, nudity, graphic skin-related injuries

Nathaniel gets out of the water, and the sun blankets his bare back like a fluffy bath towel, still warm from the dryer, that Mother Nature has lovingly wrapped around his cold, trembling shoulders, as if he were her little boy.

His wife Charlotte lies off in the sand, stomach up like a dead fish, in the strappy American flag bikini Nathaniel tried to sneak into their donation bin last winter. Her belly piercing glints in the sunlight, depending on which angle you look at her from.

From where Nathaniel stands, it glints. It glints as if they were actually on the beach in Santa Monica. As if today were actually the Fourth of July and not Christmas, Charlotte's favorite holiday.

Nathaniel hates how happy Charlotte gets on Christmas. How everyone loves her cookies. How he’s invisible to the world when she wears this bikini.

Even Gus, their three-year-old son who Nathaniel insisted on naming Cornelius, gets more attention than him. According to every passerby, he’s so cute . So handsome. Almost every single time Nathaniel’s in a hurry, someone stops him on the street to inform him of just how amazing Gus is. Then Gus will start speaking, and they’ll start going on about how intelligent he is, completely oblivious to the fact that the man holding him once authored an online article titled What Chess Taught Me about Leadership. That he creates gravity-, texture-, and color-accurate simulations of the most sought-after vacation destinations in the world.

When he gets out of the water, Nathaniel's proud of how accurately he programmed the buoyancy. He goes to sit on the blanket next to Charlotte and Gus, but gets back up when he feels sand scattered across it.

“What’s the water like?” Charlotte asks.

Nathaniel says nothing, plucking the grains of sand off the blanket one by one.

Charlotte props herself up with her elbows behind her. “Hello? Do you not hear?”

“Just calm down.”

She sits up completely. “You’re ignoring me.”

He collects more grains, sprinkling them carefully into his cupped hand. “You got sand all over this thing.”

“I asked a simple question.”

“Char,” Nathaniel says, butchering her name in half the way he knows bothers her. “Just be happy. Look around you. Sun’s out. It’s a beautiful day. Stop complaining.”

Charlotte rubs her eyes under her heart-shaped sunglasses, defeated. “What’s the water like?” she asks again.

“Cold.”

He plucks more sand off the blanket, and Charlotte quietly amuses herself knowing he’ll never get it all off. “I meant more, like, does it feel like regular ocean water?”

“Just like real water.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. Who do you think created it?”

“You didn’t create it,” she corrects him. “You helped work on it.”

“I have a master’s in physics. Em’s an engineer and Daniel’s just a coder.”

“Just a coder?”

“It was my vision, Char. Come on now. Think about all the gas and flight money I’m saving. And hotel money, too.”

“Don’t you think there’s something better about the real thing?”

“Yeah, I do.” He dusts his sand-filled hands together over Charlotte’s bare chest, large and perfectly shaped, until it’s freckled in sand. “Are those real?”

She stands up fast and aggressively dusts off her chest. Livid tears form under the heart-shaped shades she bought three years ago for the sole purpose of hiding those tears from Nathaniel. Not because he’ll feel sorry for her, but because he’ll feed off them — grow even stronger the more he drinks. The less she cries, she’s learned, the more dehydrated he becomes.

“Can you please not clean yourself on the blanket?” he says, infuriatingly composed.

She grabs a cherry cola from the cooler and escapes to the ocean. He goes back to his hyper-focused sand picking.

“Happy Fourth of July to you, too!” he shouts after her.

At the shoreline, Charlotte hesitates. What if this water didn’t work like real water? What if the physics weren’t coded to follow real-life physics?

On some level, this was Santa Monica. It just wasn’t Santa Monica-Santa Monica, a clarification Charlotte had to make whenever Nathaniel talked about going somewhere — to see whether it was the simulation or the real thing.

“Are you going to Miami or Miami-Miami?” she had to ask him just the other day.

“Miami.”

“Why not Miami-Miami?”

He sighed without looking up at her and added beard oil to his online cart. “I’d rather not spend my money.” The on you was silent.

Out of all the trips he’d taken, this was the first trip he’d brought her and Gus on. All the others Nathaniel either traveled solo or with his mother, who loved reminding Charlotte of how lucky she was to be married to the smartest, most handsome man alive. If only she and her could trade places, she'd say, then it would be her and not Charlotte who was married to the smartest, most handsome man alive. This makes Charlotte sick.

From the sand, the smartest, most handsome man alive watches her. Not in the way a husband watches you but in the way a lifeguard watches you. Supervising. Observing. Intensely.

The only difference is that if she drowned, he wouldn’t come to get her.

At that moment, Charlotte loses her balance. A wave knocks her over and she swallows ocean water. She chokes on it, coughs it up, salty, like the taste of a repressed cry.

She stands back up. To her disappointment but also relief, the physics of her fall were fair. Had that same wave hit her in Santa Monica-Santa Monica, she would’ve fallen in the exact same way.

As the waves continue, Charlotte gets back in the water. The fizz of the cherry cola she brought with her burns in her nostrils like the real thing. This isn’t Santa Monica, she reminds herself, and today is Christmas.

She looks down at the simulated version of the American flag swimsuit that fits her so well. The stitching, faded print, and loose threads, all true to the one she owns in real life. She can’t remember why or even when she threw it in the donation bin.

Next to his dad, Gus wears matching American flag trunks, packing wet sand into a turtle mold, unaware of the world quietly unraveling behind him. To him, the wet sand looks like the brown sugar his mother would normally be happily mixing into the gingerbread man batter on this day back in the real world. He takes a bite and spits it out. Sand crunches between his budding molars.

“Cornelius,” his father says to him. “Don’t put that in your mouth.”

Knee-deep in the water, his mom drinks soda. Soda, his dad always preaches, slowly kills you. That means you fall asleep. Forever. The waves crash against her legs and she takes another sip of the bad liquid. If it’s so bad, Gus wonders, why isn’t she on the sand, sleeping forever.

Gus' skin is starting to itch. A woman who his dad says isn’t real, like an imaginary friend, tells his dad that Gus is as cute as a peach.

“She’s not real,” his dad reminds him. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. If anything, she says you’re a peach because your skin is pink.”

Gus’ skin feels itchier now. He scratches it, and leaves small red fingernail marks that upset his dad. “Don’t do that. Scratching isn’t good for your skin.”

But he can’t help it. He scratches again and his dad holds his hands together to stop him. “I said that’s bad for you.”

His mom comes back from the water, sweat soaked, and slams her empty soda can down. “I’m ready to leave. Like now." She rolls up Gus' fleece blanket.

“We can’t leave yet.” His dad looks at his watch. “Not for another twelve minutes.”

“Why exactly twelve minutes?”

“I set the duration to three hours, and we have twelve minutes left. You can’t change the duration or anything once you’re inside. Only if you’re outside the machine.”

His mom throws the blanket she just rolled up back on the ground and sits on it. She wipes the sweat off her forehead. “It’s hot. I want to go now.”

“It’s only twelve minutes.”

Charlotte pulls Gus on the fleece blanket next to her. She goes on about how no one else celebrates the Fourth of July on Christmas.

She starts up on a second point, but then stops short. “Nathaniel. Look at this.” She runs her hand along Gus' small back. “Why’s he peeling?”

His dad rubs his forehead the way he does when he’s stressed. “You could’ve put sunscreen on him.”

His mom laughs. “I thought this sun wasn’t real.”

“It isn’t. The laws of physics are the same. I told you.”

“Well, I gave you the sunscreen.”

“Why is it my responsibility?”

His parent’s voices get sharper, pokier, and Gus feels his lip curl into itself.

“Cornelius, stop crying,” his dad says, abruptly.

“His name’s not fucking Cornelius.”

“He’s my son. I can call him whatever I want.”

“You’re confusing him. Gus, baby, it’s okay.” His mom pours a water bottle from the cooler over his back. “Your name is Gus, and we’re going home very, very soon.”

Four minutes go by, and, for one of the few times in their marriage, Charlotte sees Nathaniel slowly break the false indifference he so infuriatingly wears whenever he sees everyone else around him falling apart.

“Why’s it so hot?” she says, fanning Gus with People magazine.

“I don’t know,” he says, his head between his knees. “There’s a glitch. Some idiot didn’t program it right. I set the dial to low ‘80s before we went in.”

“What idiot? I thought this project was all you.”

“I told you. I helped on some parts. A lot of people were involved. If it were just me working on it, this wouldn’t be happening.”

Charlotte groans.

“Calm down. It’s a sunny, beautiful day, Char,” he says, cocooning himself against the sun. “Just ride it out.” He pours a bottle of water from the cooler onto his head and then another into his mouth, crushing the plastic into a ball once it’s empty. There’s only one left, and both him and Charlotte reach for it at the same time.

“It’s for Gus,” she reasons, both their hands holding onto it.

“I grabbed it first,” says Nathaniel.

Charlotte pulls it toward her. “You’re fourty-eight. You already had three waters. You wasted the first one pouring it on your head.”

He pulls it back, harder now, and unscrews the lid. “Don’t curse.”

“Look at him! He’s panting!”

“I heard you.”

“So pour it in his stupid little cup.” She grabs a plastic cup from the backpack covered in smiling giraffes and elephants holding yellow balloons. “Right in here.”

She waits, cup outstretched, and he sits on his knees, then lifts the bottle. Nathaniel brings it to his lips, emotionless now, and starts to gulp, the little ball in his throat bouncing up and down.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Nathaniel squeezes out the last few drops into his own mouth. The plastic crunches, now partially melted in his hand. “I said don’t curse in front of Cornelius.”

By now, Charlotte can’t tell whether the warmth in her face is from the environment or from her emotions. The perspiration on her forehead has changed from light beads, like the delicate condensation on a can of sparkling water, to a mascara-streaked film glistening over her entire body. Her skin peels, layer by layer, in a way she’d never strip for Nathaniel back in the real world. She pulls off her top and wrings the sweat out of it over Gus' red, crying face.

“Put that back on.”

“No,” she says. “I’m dying.”

She takes off her sunglasses — two large heart-shaped tan lines circling her eyes, like when cartoons fall in love.

Sweat-drenched hair sticks to her neck. Gus' curls are now matted down. The air is hot, thick, and Charlotte imagines if this is how the gingerbread cookies she bakes every Christmas feel in the oven. She doesn't understand why Nathaniel doesn't let them celebrate Christmas.

“Five more minutes,” says Nathaniel, spreading out like a starfish under the small patch of shade from the umbrella. “And with you topless, it’s going to be the best five minutes of every man on this beach’s life.”

“They’re not real.”

Nathaniel scoffs, choking on his own sweat. “Trust me. I know.”

“I mean the people. They’re not real.”

“Yeah,” he says, dismissively.

“Look,” she says, pointing to one of them. “They don’t feel the heat.”

In the water, people swim. The ocean bubbles, people smiling as they wade through the boiling cauldron of marine life and bright yellow floaties.

“Help us,” Charlotte cries, even though she knows they cannot understand her.

A woman strolls past them, lemonade over crushed, unmelted ice in hand. She moves through the hot, sticky air, unaffected, and smiles at them. “Such a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Charlotte grabs the cold glass of lemonade from her, but it bursts when it touches her hand. The lemonade stings her open wound, and a blister bubbles on her left thigh. Gus cries.

Four minutes feel longer than four minutes. Every second, her thighs stick more and more together. Gus lies motionless now, yellow blisters bubbling on his back like the balloons the giraffes and elephants on his cup are holding. That cup is melted now. The sand burns her feet, but there’s nowhere else to put them.

For the last minute, Nathaniel is half conscious. She is, too. She wonders if she’s hallucinating and dreams of ice cubes, glaciers, department store AC, and freezer-cold sodas from the gas station as she watches the heat move in slow, lazy waves over the sand.

Then the blister bursts, and she feels the plastic headset around her face. She rips it off. The AC blows against her skin and, shakily, she unbuckles Gus from the prototype.

Nathaniel sits in the chair across from her and removes his headset, too.

“Before you say anything,” he says, defensively holding up his hands before she can speak. “I’m going to fix it.”

“As if we’re doing that again?” she shouts.

“Next Christmas. By then, all the kinks will be smoothed out.”

She takes off Gus' headset, his face matted in cold tears but not sweat, and holds him against her chest. She feels her skin, then Gus' skin, blister free and cool to the touch from the lab’s AC.

“No,” she says, laughing without smiling. “No.”

“It’s not like glitches are logistically fatal.”

“Logistically fatal? Talk normal.”

“It’s just misfiring somewhere along the line. If I fix it, free vacations for life.”

“We’re not doing that again.”

“Then you’ll never leave Missouri again.”

“I can buy my own plane ticket,” she says curtly, getting Gus a water bottle from the mini fridge in Nathaniel's lab.

“Planes, statistically, are more dangerous.” He tinkers with the machine. Unplugs it and looks at random wires. “By next Christmas, it'll be fixed."

For all of January, Nathaniel locks himself in the lab attached to their living room.

Charlotte can hear him while she’s watching TV or helping Gus finish his math homework.

“I know it’s not Valentine’s day yet, but I have a surprise for you," Nathaniel says all of a sudden one day in early February, emerging in the living room.

“I’m not getting back in that thing. And believe it or not, I don’t like Santa Monica.”

“We’re not going to Santa Monica.”

“Then where are we going?”

“You’re not going to like it, but hear me out. Pismo Beach. Just for a week. I need a vacation after all that work.”

“What was the problem, anyway?”

“It’s hard to explain. You need a background in physics to understand.”

Charlotte rolls her eyes.

“It’s going out to the general public in a year, so I need to find a way to make it more user-friendly.”

“Are we talking Pismo Beach or Pismo-Pismo Beach?”

“Pismo Beach. Clearly.”

She turns on the TV as Gus colors a page on the floor in his bedroom. “Well, have fun I guess.”

“You’re coming, Char. The glitch isn’t there anymore.”

“Gus has school.”

“Cornelius can take a week off.”

Charlotte takes a day to think about it, then another and another until finally she approaches Nathaniel. “Just for an hour.”

“An hour,” he assures her.

Charlotte composes herself. “Okay," she says, confident now. "Gus, come here.”

“An hour," she repeats firmly.

***

As soon as they enter the lab, Gus starts to cry. “No,” he says. “I don’t want to do that thing again.”

“It won’t be like last time, Cornelius. I promise.”

“Gus,” Charlotte says when he continues to cry. “It’s just for an hour. That’s less than a day at school.”

Gus grabs his mom’s leg and buries his wet face into her jeans, his tears soaking through the denim.

Nathaniel straps Gus against his will into the machine and covers his face with the headset. Then puts on his own until all he sees is a blank screen.

“Ready?”

“I don’t know,” says Charlotte, hesitant now. “I’m scared.”

“Just put your headset on. Okay?”

Charlotte inhales deeply. “I–I’m ready.”

Nathaniel presses the button to lock in, going quiet as the floor turns to sand and the sun warms his face.

“Gus?” Charlotte says sharply. She unlocks Gus’ headset and holds his tear-matted face against her sweater.

"You didn't put your head thing on," he says in his tattle-tell voice.

“Dad actually needs some alone time.”

“When’s he gonna be back?”

Charlotte looks at the control panel. It’s more intuitive than Nathaniel made it out to be. Duration. Destination. Weather. She turns the weather dial to 115°F, and Nathaniel clutches his knees.

“How about till the end of the year,” she tells Gus. “After Christmas."