Can't Let Go by Jane Hill Page A

would introduce me in a way that was difficult to live
up to. 'Lizzie's a very promising actress,' or 'Lizzie is a
budding writer.'
    Was I? Had I given her any reason to think these
things? Or was she just trying to make herself feel better
about having a very ordinary teenage girl as her house
guest for the summer? I would have to spend the evening
talking to some skinny, intense guy who would later ask
me out, as if it were his duty. And the next day I would
meet him for lunch or coffee or to tour an art gallery or a
museum, and we would stumble through an awkward
conversation before saying goodbye, both of us
apparently relieved that the ordeal was over.
    Joanna was trying to find me a boyfriend (the generous
interpretation) or was trying to find someone to take me
off her hands. Having a guest is a chore, I'm sure of it. It's
like a ghost in your house who keeps popping up when
you least expect it. I tried to be self-sufficient, setting off
every morning with my public-transport map and my
guidebook, staying out all day sightseeing, or even just
sitting in cafes with a book. But every evening there I was,
back in her house, back in her kitchen, back in front of her
and needing to be fed and talked to and dealt with.
    I tell you all this so that you can understand why I
assumed that Joanna intended Rivers Carillo for me on
that first morning she introduced us. He smiled at me. I
blushed. Joanna frowned. He winked, and my heart was
his.
    'Where are you going today?' Joanna asked me that
morning.
    'Alcatraz.'
    'You'll have such fun,' said Rivers Carillo, winking at
me again.
    An hour later I was down at the waterfront. My boat
trip to Alcatraz didn't leave for another half an hour,
so I was killing time watching the sea lions. I wonder if
they're still there. I guess they are – one of the most
popular free attractions in the city. A colony of sea lions,
assembled on wooden pontoons just off the pier. Huge,
sleek, dark brown creatures, so fluid in their movements
that you'd think they didn't have bones. They would sun
themselves and then, bored, restless or hungry, plop down
into the water and another sea lion would take their place.
Fights would break out – spats over a female, or a prime
place on a pontoon – and the fight would end with one of
the animals sliding into the water with barely a splash
before finding another pontoon to rest on. It was difficult
not to anthropomorphise them, to give each one a
character and motives. I was riveted. I felt I could have
watched them all day.
    There was a lot of jostling for position, not just among
the sea lions but among the humans watching them.
People pushed and shoved to get to the front, to find the
best place to take pictures from. So when I felt a hand on
my shoulder I didn't think much of it. I assumed it was just
someone pushing me out of the way. The blowing in my
ear? That was a different matter. I turned, angrily, and
came face to face with a pair of dark, laughing eyes. Rivers
Carillo.
    'I was wondering if I'd find you here,' he said. 'I
thought you might want some company on your day out.'
    Alcatraz was awesome – literally, awesome. It was
forbidding and also beautiful: a cluster of dilapidated
buildings on a craggy island in the middle of a glistening
blue sea with matchless views of the San Francisco
skyline, which seemed almost close enough to touch.
Wild flowers grew out of the crannies in the rocks and
mortar. It was ruggedly beautiful, and I was there with a
ruggedly attractive man.
    There was a particular prison cell at Alcatraz in the
corner of the jail building that was nearest the city. They
told us that on New Year's Eve prisoners in that cell could
hear the parties on the mainland, the fireworks and the
horns sounding on all the boats out in the harbour. I
shuddered when they told us that. I squinted through the
tiny outside window in the cell wall and tried to trace the
well-known skyline. I felt a hand in the small of my back
and then Rivers