Moonglass (3 page)

She would have said it wasn’t a great piece, because of the broken edge.

I liked the ones with the chips in them, though, where you could see what the piece looked like bare and pure, before the ocean had tumbled it around and worn it down. The beauty of a piece like this was that after it had been worn down, something had happened to crack it open. Something big.

I curled my fingers around it and ran the rest of the way back, switching it from hand to hand and feeling like I had found a small treasure.

By the time I stood stretching in the sand, the beach was alive and the sun shone brightly as families lugging umbrellas and sand toys staked out their spots. The unmistakable smell s of syrup, coffee, and bacon wafted over, drawing me up the beach to where I could see small groups of people milling about. Out in front of what must have at one time been another cottage, a sign read THE BEACHCOMBER. The deck was packed, and the sounds of clinking plates and happy Sunday morning chatter almost drowned out the waves. The people waiting stood by in sunglasses, smiling and laughing while their kids played happily in the sand. It was definitely a different set of people from what I was used to seeing up north, and it was exactly what I’d expected here. The people dressed to impress, even for breakfast at the beach, which made me feel distinctly out of place in my sweaty shorts and sports bra. Actually, I would have felt out of place in this crowd no matter how I was dressed. I watched a moment longer before turning to head for a shower.

“So. Do you always run that fast?” a voice behind me asked. I turned around and saw a tiny blond girl in a long sundress, heeled sandals, and sunglasses the size of her face. She shifted the giant bag on her shoulder, and a fluffy white dog poked its head out.

I glanced around. Nobody else she could be talking to. “Uh, no, not always. Why?” I couldn’t decide if I was suspicious or annoyed.

“Well, I never ran, because I always heard it shortens your muscles, but I was watching the Olympics this summer, and all of the runner girls are really skinny, but not too muscley, kind of like you, and so I decided to do cross-country this year. You know, running on a team.” She blinked a few times, waited for a response, then clarified, “To lose some weight.”

I looked at her tiny, perfectly tanned frame, trying to figure out if she was serious. She didn’t seem to notice, and I let her go right on with it.

“Anyway, it starts tomorrow, and so I told my dad that this would have to be our last breakfast down here, because the only thing I like to order is the macadamia pancakes, and they’re
totally
fatty.”

I had to say something. Anything. “Huh. I don’t think I could swear off pancakes.” Lame, but what did she want me to say? tell her that she clearly didn’t need to diet? That lugging that bag around with her dog in it was probably workout enough for her skinny arms?

She looked me over, then smiled sweetly. “Well, could you imagine what you would look like if you ran
and
watched what you ate? My mom is, like, the queen of working out
and
dieting, and she hasn’t even had to have lipo yet or anything. well, besides Botox, but she’s almost
forty-five
. Can you imagine?” She smiled, clearly proud, and a little breathless. I pursed my lips together, hard, trying not to smile. She was actually serious. She went on. “So are you here on vacation or something?”

“Actually, I just moved here. Last night.”

She stuck out her tiny French-manicured hand. “I’m Ashley Whitmore. I would have been the sixth if I was a boy.” I shook her hand and was surprised that she had a good, firm handshake. I half-expected her to curtsy or something.

“I’m Anna. Ryan.” We stood for a moment, looking out toward the water, and I felt totally justified in my earlier assumptions about the people I’d be going to school with. I wished Shelby and Laura could meet this girl, just to see that people like her really existed. Maybe I’d call them later.

I turned south to hide my smile, and something caught my eye. It was a man, and he was …
crawling
? I shaded my eyes and squinted down the beach at him, trying to make sense of it or see if I was wrong. I wasn’t. He was an old man, bear-crawling on the tips of his fingers and toes toward us. I watched, waiting for him to stand up or sit down or something, but he just kept … crawling. Ashley sidled up to me with an easy friendliness that made me feel a little guilty.

“So. Where are you going to school?” Only half-listening, I squinted at something that swung back and forth from the man’s neck.

“Oh, um, I’m going to Coast High.” As he crawled closer, I could make out several things hanging from his neck. I could also see that he had his ankles wrapped in white tape that stood out against his taught, thin legs. Ashley put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

“
Serious?
That’s where I’m going! I’m transferring from private school because my parents say I need a bigger taste of the ‘real world.’” She chewed her gum thoughtfully, and I wondered how “Real” Coast High, in the richest part of Orange County, could actually be. “I don’t really mind, because I
hated
our uniforms. And the girls there could be kind of catty.” I caught a whiff of watermelon as she turned to me, cracking her gum. “We should maybe stick together—so we’re not, like, alone at first. I don’t know anybody who goes there.” She took a breath, and I could see that a new thought had come into her head. “Hey! Why don’t you run on the cross-country team with me? It could help us both out.” I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know, you’re all athletic and pretty in a strong sort of way. You kind of have a surfer-girl thing going for you, with your brown skin and the wavy blond hair and all. If you join with me, you could help me run fast, and I could help you diet and totally perfect how pretty you already are!” I’d been watching the crawling man approaching the sand in front of us, but now three of the four things she’d said processed, and simultaneously I wondered if I needed to diet and whether or not she had ever been punched. Then I wondered if she was this friendly with everyone. She was smiling, like she’d thought up the greatest idea ever.

I cleared my throat, stalling for an answer she wouldn’t be able to argue with. “Um … I usually just like to run by myself. And I think I’ll be fine without a diet.

Besides, don’t you think junior year is a little late to start a new sport?” The crawling man was directly in front of us, and I could now see that the things hanging from his neck were crosses of different sizes. They swung heavily, making his unnaturall crawl look even more painful.
What in the world?
People here were turning out to be all kinds of crazy.

Ashley breezed on. “Oh, I don’t care about doing good in the races or anything. Besides, you looked fast. And if you’re starting out in a new place, at least you’d have something to be, so you don’t end up just lost in the crowd, because there’s
nothing
worse than being alone while everyone else is part of something.” She moved her hand from my shoulder down to my arm and squeezed again. “Come on, Anna. It’ll be fun.” I decided I was entertained by Ashley. My friends and I were nice people, but I didn’t think any of us would have befriended a perfect stranger so breezily. And with such seemingly good intentions that came out so, so wrong.

It was strange, but also kind of nice, considering. She did have a point about the lost-in-the-crowd thing. I had a feeling she probably made friends with people pretty easily, and that could be a good thing for me too, since I’d always been a little on the reserved side. She probably had offended a lot of people too, but maybe they all just overlooked it, as I was finding it surprisingly easy to do. She seemed genuinely oblivious to the fact that anything she said could be potentially insulting, and for some reason that made it kind of forgivable.

“Maybe I will,” I said, already resigned to what I was about to say. “Join the team, I mean.” She squealed and hugged me, which again seemed strange and not, at the same time. As she started to lay out a plan for what it would be good to wear to the first morning practice, the crawling man passed us, and I saw on his sweat-soaked T-shirt a single word. REPENT. Ashley interrupted herself midsentence.

“Isn’t he sad? He does that every Sunday. Everyone call s him ‘the crystal Crawler.’ My dad thinks he’s just some old crazy, but I think he must feel really bad about something and he’s doing his punishment, or repenitance, or whatever.”

“You mean ‘penance’?”

“I guess. I don’t know. I’m not Catholic.” We both watched as he crawled slowly on, seemingly oblivious to the kids darting in and out of the water in front of him. His calves were balled up tight, and the muscles shook with the effort of each step. I wanted someone to go take his arm and help him up.

“How far does he crawl?”

“I think he does the whole beach. He does it all day. usually, after breakfast on Sundays, my dad goes back home to work and I stay down here awhile. I was here all day last weekend, and I saw him go by three times.” She looked at her watch. “Anyway, we’re supposed to meet at school tomorrow at seven thirty for our first practice. I’ve already met the coach. Do you have a ride?”

“Tomorrow?”
I hadn’t expected to have to subject myself to her perkiness so soon. I wasn’t even sure I’d actually agreed. Ashley was looking at me expectantly. “Yeah, I guess.” I watched the hunched figure for one more long moment, then turned back to her, resigned. “I’ll be there.”

“Good.” She smiled. Her phone rang. “Oh, hang on a sec.” She rummaged in her bag, around her little dog, like he was just another item in there. He didn’t seem to mind. She pulled out a bright pink phone with a crystal-encrusted
A
on it, and I almost laughed out loud.
Of course
. “You’re already there?

Yeah, okay, I’ll be right up. I’m coming right now…. I’m walking up there. The air is on, right? It’s getting hot. Okay.
Okay
. Bye.” She tucked the phone back into her purse and smiled.

“Someone picking you up?” I asked.

“Yeah. I gotta go, but I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, Anna. And don’t eat breakfast before we run. That way your body will burn whatever you eat today, you know?”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing, then forced a bright sunshiny smile to match hers. “Thanks. I’ll try to remember that.” She smiled and gave her shoulders a quick shrug. “No prob.” With that she turned and made her way through the sand to the trail, surprisingly quick for a girl in heels. When she got to it, she stopped and reached down to dig some sand out from her shoe, then waved happily. “See ya!”

I waved back, then turned once again to go home. This had to be a joke. And now I was joining the cross-country team? Possibly a whole bunch of Ashleys?
Tomorrow?
So much for settling in.

I kicked a rock and watched as it bumped over the wet sand, coming to rest just as the crystal Crawler put his hand beside it. He looked up, and our eyes met. His didn’t look crazy at all. They were stark blue and somber. And resolved.

For a brief second I thought about kneeling down next to him. To ask what he felt so bad about.

Instead I offered a quick apology and walked a little faster.

I had just settled myself comfortably on my beach towel, sun soaking into my back, the smell of sunscreen drifting by, when the low hum of an engine got my attention. I lifted my head just enough to see a lifeguard unit approaching, a dark-haired youngish guy at the wheel. As it passed, I smiled from behind my sunglasses. The guard nodded his head, smiled back like you would at a waving toddler, and kept driving. Vaguely disappointed, I lay my head back down. He had probably been “Warned” by my dad. I wouldn’t have put it past my dad to give all the seasonal guards pictures of me and then make them sign a contract saying that they would refrain from any sort of interaction with the supervisor’s daughter. I figured that one of these days that might actually work in my favor—the whole forbidden thing. So far, though, it hadn’t really panned out. Back at home they had all been too scared of him, which struck me as funny. Of course he had to be different at work, but I couldn’t picture him being scary. Distant, yes. But not scary.

I went back to feigning sleep but watched through my sunglasses as a pair of guys, definitely younger than me, tossed a football back and forth. Almost imperceptibly they tromped nearer and nearer with it. I knew this game and was annoyed that in a minute that football would “Accidentally” come sailing in my direction. I sat up and scanned for older, better-looking options. Problem was, not many guys went to the beach just to sit around. Not the kind I was interested in, anyway. The tourist boys who came over from the inland wearing white puka shell necklaces did, but I viewed them with a disdain that bordered on contempt. They were the football throwers. The ones I wanted sat out in the water atop surfboards. Or in lifeguard towers.

There was one just to the north of me, too far away for me to see any detail, but the guard who stood in it looked like he was young. The fact that he stood the entire time meant he was probably in his first year. I watched as he scanned the water with his binoculars. He stopped abruptly at a point in my direction but beyond me, then set his binoculars down, grabbed his buoy, and hopped down into the pile of sand at the base of his tower.

I turned my attention to where he was running. Two kids had picked their way out onto the rocks, just south of where I sat. I looked out to the water beyond them but didn’t see any waves coming in. The lifeguard sprinted past me, and I could see he was young, close to my age. And good-looking. And pissed off. When he got to the rocks, he put his hands to his mouth and yelled something at the boys, who didn’t notice. I couldn’t see any danger to them really, but he bounded over the rocks like he could do it in his sleep, and stopped right in front of them.

He didn’t look like he was yelling, exactly, but he pointed out to the water, making a crashing motion with his arm and pointing to the rocks. The boys looked down at their feet, which had been outfitted in aqua socks by a concerned parent, and shrugged before making their way back over the rocks to the safety of the sand. The lifeguard jogged ahead of them, and looked back once before making his way to his tower.