The Buoyancy of Sharks

It ends like this: the waves lap over her ankles, the retreating water pulls sand beneath her sinking foot; she lifts her soul and takes another step forwards as a wave pounds her thigh. In the previous scene a lifeguard blew his whistle declaring that a shark had been spotted. Swimmers and surfers rush out; her character takes another step in.

It’s a low budget artistic movie about abortion called “Shark Week”. Her character misses her period; she faces pressure to keep the baby from parents and her church, the boy who impregnated her leaves like a bomb planting terrorist.

Julie thought the script pretentions and too clunky with the symbolism. She didn’t feel passion for the project but was happy for the work. It did feel nice to beat out hundreds of other hopefuls for the role, even if the movie didn’t pay her well, it’d likely not make much, or be seen by anyone, except, went her motivating dream, some girl in Ohio maybe whose life could be changed by it. Filming started in nine days.

Coincidentally her boyfriend of two years, Trevor, also booked a role in a Shark themed movie to be filmed at the same time as hers. His was a low budget silly sci-fi about mutant sharks that fall from the sky like meteors. Julie wasn’t sure if Trevor understood that it was one of those ‘intentionally comically bad’ movies.

The two sat on a grassy cliff in Point Fermin Park in San Pedro overlooking palm trees and the ocean. Julie sipped organic orange mango juice from a pink straw. Trevor ate a salami and tomato hoagie sandwich. “Silver Linings” by Rilo Kiley played from a parked car.

“I haven’t heard this song in forever,” Julie said.

Trevor nodded. “It fits the scenery.”

With all its faded glitter like dirt on snow, the weight of crashing dreams and desires like suffocating smog, raging fires, Sana Ana winds and earthquakes, the land that surrounded Hollywood still produced magically calming beautiful moments. Moments stunning in their simplicity, especially when contrasted against the chaos of the city and its dreamy dwellers, frenzied by the hustle, tired from the chase, desperate for lives and successes big enough to fill their imaginations as expansive as deserts and oceans and the dream of America.

Jamie and Trevor could not afford to go to aquariums to look at sharks. They both had been before and walked through glass tunnels to look up and see the underbellies of sharks glide above them as smooth as black ink spilling over white marble. “Once you have that memory you don’t really need it again,” Trevor had said. “It’s amazing to be so close to sharks, but then the amazement wears off into dullness after awhile or too many repeated encounters. It’s nice but becomes kind of dull.”

The sun hung low. The “Silver Linings” song ended. Squawking seagull, waves meeting rocks with soft splashy violence, the subtle yet powerful white noise roar of wind and ocean waves filled the audio void.

“Do you see any sharks?” Trevor asked.

Julie turned towards him. “What are you thinking of?”

He looked back at her and squinted. “Those videos of surfers catching an endless wave as dolphins leap in and out of the surf.”

Julie laughed a little. “What makes you think of that?”

He tilted his head. “I’m just in a contemplative mood I guess. That just seems like it’d be the ultimate Zen moment. Just gliding on water while dolphins rhythmically leap around you, like you’re one of them. Jesus, that’s so beautiful.”

He finished his hoagie and held a Corona same as her. He took a swig.

“And then the moment ends,” Julie said. “The Zen feeling of timelessness only a delusion.”

“I think it’d be like skiing,” Trevor said. “When you’re in a fast glide but it feels slow. You surrender to the steepness of the slope and in the surrender you achieve total control.”

He shifted his head and intensified his gaze over her. Her beauty still shocked him in random surprising moments. He cherished these jolting reminders of just how powerful the beauty of nature can be and how both cruel and lucky fate is. The world is cruel, he thought, because someone as stunning, kind, smart and talented as she is would have to struggle; the world is lucky, he thought, that he could witness both her beauty and struggle so intimately. “You ever felt that way?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really like how you explain it. I suck at surfing. The dolphins would probably want to knock me over.”

He smirked. “Nature loves you, what are you talking about.”

“Nature hates me,” she half jokingly retorted. She put the neck of the bottle to her lips and leaned her head back.

He turned to look at the ocean. “It takes work to get good at surfing. Or skiing at expert levels. Or anything really. But then only with the work put in can you reach those truly transcendent moments.”

Julie shrugged dismissively. Trevor chuckled in response. “Not in the mood for profound thoughts, huh?”

Julie didn’t look at him. Her lips tightened. She hardly ever thought his “profound thoughts” were really all that profound.

Trevor scratched his nose. “What inspiration would we have found to help our acting if we had gone to the aquarium anyways?”

“Neither of our movies are really about sharks,” she said.

“What do you think my movie is really about?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

He laughed and took another swig of beer. “Nothing huh? Well shit.”

She smiled. “I didn’t mean it as a diss. Your movie is about trying to make people laugh.”

“Is it?” he asked. “I thought it was kind of a horror.”

Julie laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Your movie is going to change the world though huh?” Trevor sarcastically teased.

“No, sadly not,” Julie answered.

Trevor looked at a bird floating stationary as wind pushed against its outstretched wings. “Everything is always about sharks.”

Julie cocked her head. “How so?”

“Sharks always have to move forwards. If they lose forward thrust they lose their buoyancy and sink. So they’re always moving ahead.”

Julie smirked and rolled her eyes. “To you reality is always symbolic of reality.”

Trevor laughed. “Not sure that makes sense sis. You don’t like contemplating life?”

She shrugged.

“The unexamined life…” he began but then stopped himself. He pulled out his phone and started thumb punching it.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” Julie said, her eyes still looking out at the ocean as the clouds turned deeper shades of pink and purple. “It’s Socrates.”

Trevor stopped thumb punching his phone. He looked at her. “I think therefore I am.”

“If that were so then you’d be nothing,” she teased.

He faked a laugh and turned his attention back to his phone screen. “Fair. But what are you really thinking about?”

Julie pressed in her lips, knowing that she really wouldn’t tell him. She thought of their last few sexual encounters. The paradox of the extreme closeness of flesh into flesh contrasted with the growing sense of emotional separation she felt towards him. How even when you’re as close to a person as is physically possible you’re still so inside yourself. How she liked the physical feeling of that but not the emotional realization of that. How it used to be fun and amazing but then it became kind of dull and complacent, how he had described seeing sharks close up in an aquarium. Not just the sex but everything about him.

She wondered where and why this feeling of further separation from him had come from. Was it a gradual falling out of love? There’d been no big fights or extreme disappointments or trust betrayals or deceptions, beyond all typical harmless deceptions inherent in every romance. He hadn’t really done anything wrong, except for perhaps remaining the same person who she thought she had maybe fallen in love with. She recalled him telling her that she’s perfect and he never wants her to change. He told her as he laid in bed observing her in a doorway as she had paused in a morning brain haze that he wished the image of her like that could be saved and savored forever and if it could it would be heaven. He was dopey with lust afterglow and had called her hard candy that he wished he could suck on and savor the flavor forever.

“We’ll make it work right?” he said. “You in Atlanta, me here. Just two weeks.”

She didn’t answer.

He shoved her shoulder playfully. “No serious, what are you really thinking about?” he asked. “Just be real to me for once, little miss brilliant actress.”

She stared out into the ocean, not meeting his eyes. “The buoyancy of sharks,” she said.