It’s my wife who makes the announcement. She says the word just as I turn a page in the book I’ve been hoping to read a good portion of on our quiet day at the beach.
“Nipple.”
She speaks low so only I can hear, says it matter-of-factly, the way some people say “cows” while driving by a pasture, and I assume she’s speaking of the woman to my left. The beach isn’t very crowded yet, despite the blue skies and sunny, eighty-two-degree weather. When she says it, I reply with just a nod and continue to read, for there’s a significant difference between looking out the window at a cow and looking at the exposed nipple of a woman I don’t even know.
Fifteen minutes earlier, we’d picked our spot on the hard-packed sand just north of the pier on Tybee Island, unfurled our beach mat, staked the corners, spread our towels, and settled in about twenty feet away from the next couple over.
The woman—late twenties, in an olive-green two-piece, with her light brown hair secured in a messy top bun and flowering vines tattooed up and across one thigh—sat quietly, scrolling through her phone as her boyfriend played an intense, seemingly high-stakes game of solo paddleball. He was maybe a few years younger than her, with a trim, wiry build, light blue board shorts, and, of course, that backwards, flat-brimmed baseball cap that would leave a ridiculous tan line across his forehead had he not already a solid tan to begin with.
He tapped the ball high into the air, spun in a full circle, then tapped it successfully again. “Yo, check it out,” he said, with the energy and excitement of a five-year-old. Then he pulled off the spinning move a third time. She flashed a smile, feigning interest, and continued to scroll. He pleaded with her to play along, and after a few minutes, she reluctantly tucked her phone under a towel, grabbed the second paddle, and joined him in swatting the ball back and forth.
“There it is again,” my wife says, a few moments after her initial announcement. “Every time she moves, it pops out.”
I’m curious, but I don’t know how much attention my wife has drawn in our direction, and I have no desire to be caught looking. Yet, I somehow feel I’m being instructed to at least survey the situation. I turn my head, first right, counterfeiting a neck stretch as casually as possible, then left to catch a glimpse of the scene during the inevitable counter stretch. I see nothing. Nothing unordinary, that is. The boyfriend continues to jump around, practically diving for the ball even when hit directly at him, and the woman is just a normal looking woman looking normal on the beach, putting up with the childish antics of the man she’s chosen to spend her life with, or at least her day in the sun. She’s tugging at her suit top, which I realize doesn’t fit her quite right—maybe she’s lost a little weight recently, I think to myself, or gained a little and moved a size up; I don’t know, and I really don’t care—but she seems to have things under control. I assume my wife has hyperbolized the situation and turn back to my book without comment, leaving the couple to their own devices.
A few minutes later their game intensifies, becoming more difficult to ignore. I hear the woman’s footsteps padding heavily in our direction and look up to see her reaching for an errant volley. She stumbles; her top shifts to one side; and the pink crescent emerges. When she catches her footing and straightens back up, the top betrays her completely.
“See what I mean?” my wife says. She’s been watching this whole time, not only them, but me as well, waiting for my reaction.
“I did,” I say, not really sure where to take this.
The boyfriend picks up the ball and rattles off some nonsense about a club he wants to go to later that night. Across from him, the woman stands, listening, paddle dangling from one hand, the other hand resting on her hip, apparently unaware of her current exposure.
“What an asshole,” my wife says. “He’s looking right at her. She has no idea, and he’s not saying a word.” She leans in my direction and tips her head forward, sliding her sunglasses down just enough so she can peer over the top and look me straight in the eye. “If you ever did that to me, that would be the end of us.”
I nod in agreement, turning back to my book. If I had anything remotely in common with this boyfriend, if there were a single moment in our relationship that this incident resembled, I’d have taken her warning to heart.
Later that night, we get changed and head out for dinner, one last chance for some local Georgian fare before we fly back home to New England the following day. At a red light, I turn to look at my wife and notice a fleck of mascara resting on her cheekbone. Part of me would like to tell you I say, “nipple,” and she suddenly knows to check herself in the mirror, that it becomes our code word for such an occasion, and that we laugh and laugh each time one of us says it to the other. But no, we don’t decide to make a long-running inside joke about that poor woman whose boyfriend was an even worse fit for her than that bathing suit top. I simply let her know about the fleck. She thanks me and fixes it before it becomes an issue, before it gets smudged across her face or falls on her dress, ruining an otherwise lovely evening. I think back to that couple at the beach, hoping the woman has given herself a good once over before they go to that club, for if anything is out of place, she is surely on her own. I take my wife by the hand, and as the light turns green, we drive into the night.
