Naked in Grandma’s Footsteps

“Your grandmother had her arm around a friend, not both hands on her,” Luka called from behind the phone. This was unhelpful, because I was naked, Petra was still holding my shoulders, and I had just discovered that being comfortable on a naturist beach did not prepare me for being this close to her. We had met that morning. Now I could barely remember how to let go without making it awkward.

Petra glanced at my hands, which were planted firmly on her arms. “Are we waiting for instructions?” she asked. I released her so quickly that she laughed. Behind us, the phone kept taking pictures. I had spent the morning wandering between our picnic blanket and the sea without a second thought about clothes. Suddenly I wanted pockets. Not necessarily trousers. Just somewhere sensible to put my hands.

We were supposed to be copying a photograph taken at this cove almost fifty years earlier. Luka had brought it in an envelope: six naked adults by the water, including my grandmother Eva and his grandmother, all laughing with their arms around one another. The same split rock stood behind them. Petra, Luka’s friend and apparently a woman incapable of leaving a ridiculous idea alone, had looked over my shoulder and said, “We have the rock, we have the beach. Seems rude not to.”

There were only three of us, so historical accuracy was already suffering. Petra appointed herself a substitute for one of the missing friends, while Luka propped his phone against a beach bag. Our first attempt captured him crouching. In the second, I was asking whether the timer was on. For the third, we started together at the blanket and hurried into position. Petra went left; I went right; we both corrected at precisely the wrong moment. She caught my shoulders before we bumped heads, I grabbed her arms, and Luka arrived beside us shouting, “Stay there!” Apparently a near-collision was the natural expression he’d been after.

When the phone finally stopped, Petra loosened her hold but didn’t immediately move away. “All right?” she asked, quietly enough that it was just for me. I nodded. That should have been the end of it, but she smiled and I stayed where I was for another second. I could feel the breeze across my back and the warmth of her hands on my shoulders. Then Luka announced that we had produced either a family keepsake or evidence, and I bent over laughing.

We inspected the pictures sitting on towels, the old print safely tucked back into its envelope. Most were dreadful. In one, Luka appeared to be arguing with the sea. In the best, he was grinning at the camera while Petra and I looked at each other, visibly distracted from the entire purpose of the afternoon. “That one,” he said. “Eva will love it.” I reached for the phone. “Eva can have the one where I’m facing forward.” Petra leaned against my shoulder to see. “There’s one where you’re facing forward?”

At the picnic, she sat beside me with a plate of tomatoes between us. We talked easily until I caught her looking at me and lost track of what I was saying. I lifted my cup, discovered it was empty, and put it down again. Petra politely watched this performance. “Forgotten something?” she asked. “Apparently the rest of that sentence.” She laughed, then admitted, “I wasn’t listening very well anyway.” This time I held her gaze instead of searching for something useful to do.

Later, we walked down to rinse our sandy feet. Without the camera or Luka giving directions, I felt oddly more nervous beside her. Our hands brushed once, then again. On the third occasion I took hers. Petra looked down at our hands and squeezed mine, and we carried on into the shallows like that. When a small wave splashed higher than expected, I flinched and she laughed. “Very dignified,” she said. “Please don’t tell my grandmother.”

Before we packed up, Luka offered to try the photograph one last time. I asked Petra to stand beside me and put my arm around her waist, deliberately this time. She settled against me while Luka checked the old print. “Technically, there should be more space between you,” he said. Petra raised an eyebrow at me. I kept my arm exactly where it was. “We’ve already disappointed history,” I told him. “Take the picture.”