The Lifeguard Stole My Bucket List

How it begins

Celia's bucket list returned with three spelling corrections and a warning about tidal currents.

She found it pinned to the beach-safety board beneath a photograph of a jellyfish.

The handwriting was hers. The red ink was not.

Number one: swim beyond the old breakwater.

Beside it someone had written, Absolutely not at low tide.

Number two: kiss a stranger.

Beside that: Ask first.

Celia took down the paper and looked around. A man in a faded rescue-service sweatshirt sat on the steps of the beach office, repairing a child's inflatable dinosaur. He held the dinosaur gently beneath its chin.

“Yours?” he asked.

“The list or the criticism?”

“Both are available.”

She had come to the coast to write an article about doing the things that frightened her. Her editor wanted sunlight, courage and a photograph in which she appeared to be enjoying herself. So far she had bought sun cream, missed two buses and lost the evidence of her own ambition.

The man tested the repaired dinosaur.

“You've planned six dangerous things and one perfectly ordinary conversation.”

“Which one is ordinary?”

“Asking for what you want.”

Celia folded the list.

“Are you always helpful like this?”

“Only when people advertise drowning as personal development.”

He introduced himself as Tomas. Former lifeguard. Current beach-safety instructor. Good at punctures, according to the dinosaur's returning owner.

Celia pointed to the breakwater.

“Would you come with me?”

His expression changed. He looked beyond the sheltered bay toward the darker water.

“Not there.”

She waited for the joke.

It did not arrive.

Tomas set down the repair kit.

“I can help you find a safe place,” he said. “But there are things I don't do anymore.”

For the first time since pitching the article, Celia felt interested in something other than how brave she would look in it.

She turned the list over.

“Then perhaps,” she said, “we need two columns.”