Portion of the Sea (23 page)

My mouth fell open.
“What?”

“Josh and I had a nice discussion.”

“Where
?”

“The pier.”

“When?”

“About two weeks ago.”

“Why?”

“I’d have to give an entire presentation, slides and all, to get you to fully understand my perspective on why I went to talk to him,” said Lloyd. “But I’ll try to sum it up. You’re my only daughter. You’re all I’ve got. I’ve put all my hopes into you.”

I pushed my chair away from the table and stood up. I wanted to leave. Then I sat back down again. I wanted to throw a tantrum. I wanted to pick up a plate of food and throw it across the room like a child, but also like a woman I wanted to calmly discuss and persuade my father over to my point of view. I looked at him as he continued chewing his steak as if nothing had happened and I wanted to hate him. But I loved him.

“Daddy,” I said. “I’m a woman. You can’t tell a woman whom to love.”

“True, but you’re also my daughter.”

“You shouldn’t have interfered in something that wasn’t your business like that.”

“If you marry a man who can’t provide for you, it’ll become my business. Believe me. When you come crying home for money and I start writing him checks, it’ll be my business all right.”

“Money!” I shouted and the ladies at the table next to us gawked. “Is that everything to you? I’ll bet my mother got sick of hearing you talk about money all the time, too, didn’t she?” I shouldn’t have said it, but I did.

“Your mother was too busy doing her duties to get mad and opinionated like you all the time. She was a good woman and a good wife and would have been a great mother. She knew her place and she loved it. It’s where she wanted to be.”

“Really? If it’s where she wanted to be, then why’d she …?” I stopped there. I couldn’t go on. And I knew it had nothing to do with it. There was no connection whatsoever and I was trying to make one that wasn’t there. I felt bad.

I picked my napkin up and tossed it like a parachute across the table and then I left. I hurried outside and down the sandy street like a journalist
who had just gathered most of the information she needed but still had one more important source to talk with. Josh. I had to find him. I didn’t know exactly what Lloyd had said to him, only that it probably wasn’t true and it definitely wasn’t nice. I went to the pier, but he wasn’t there. They told me he might be at the marina. But the people at the marina said he left to get a beer at the bar. I gathered all kinds of information at the bar, most of which I didn’t want or need, but then someone told me he left for his place over an hour ago. That source was very valuable and gave me directions as well.

And there, I knocked and knocked aggressively on his door, proud that I was no longer acting like a proper lady. And when the door opened and I saw Josh, as well as a beautiful woman behind him, I felt stupid for being anything but.

XXI

“LYDIA,” HE SAID, WHEN
he opened the door. There was a bottle of wine in his hand. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Thought I might never see you again.”

I looked past him at the woman sipping from her glass. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” I said.

The woman turned and smiled at me. I noticed her brown eyes. They were dark against her blonde hair, and she and Josh made such a couple. They were a perfect, matching pair.

There are advantages and disadvantages to having a journalistic mind. It’s great when you’re trying to find out clues as to where someone might be. But it’s bad when you assume every situation is potentially a major story when maybe it’s no story at all. But it’s great when you’re so observant of details that you quickly put things together.

“Your sister?” I asked.

“You could tell?”

“You two look like twins. Are you twins?” I said, walking over to the table and holding my hand out.

“No. We’re a couple of years apart.”

“You had me fooled in more ways then you can imagine,” I said, grinning.

“Hi, I’m Lydia. So nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she said. “Would you like to join us? I’m sure Josh wouldn’t
mind.”

“Oh no,” I said. “Thank you, but I’ve got to get going.”

The table was set for two and the platter of roast beef was steaming and there was a plate of freshly steamed vegetables and a bowl of mashed potatoes.

“How long are you here for?” I asked her.

“I’ve been here a week already. I fly out in the morning.”

“She lives in California,” said Josh. “Northern.”

“It’s nice she cooks like this for you, Josh,” I noted. “What a sister!”

“I didn’t cook it,” she said. “Josh did.”

I swore a wave slapped me across the face and stole my breath. “Did you say …” I was choking on my own words. “Josh, you cook?”

And all this just when I was about to surrender, to take up cooking again, and reconsider my plans of going to college and pursuing things that typical girls don’t pursue, I was hit with the news that Josh cooked this Norman Rockwell-looking dinner. I’ve never heard of a guy cooking before. He must be the only one in the world capable. But it reinforced something for me. If a guy could cook, then a woman can do whatever it is a man does outside of the home.

“Do you cook often?” I asked him.

“Every night. I’ve done it since I was a kid. I love it.”

Wow, I thought. A male who cooks is a good thing, another trait added to our list of good-man qualities. I’m sure Abigail would have agreed.

“How’s your father?” he asked seriously.

“You tell me,” I said. “Sounds like you two had a talk. I don’t know what he said, but …”

“He said that if you and I spend any more time together, he’d take away your finances for college.”

I felt like I was drowning as I gasped for air. “Is that what he told you? Is that why you haven’t come looking for me?”

“I’m not getting in the way of your plans. I know how important they are to you.”

It was then that I broke every etiquette rule in the book “What are you doing tomorrow night at around ten o’clock?”

“Are you asking me out?” He looked at his sister and smiled. “Do women do that?” She shrugged her shoulders. “Ten o’clock is a late start for a date, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but my father falls asleep at nine-thirty.”

“I’m asleep too at nine-thirty,” he said rolling his eyes. “I do get up to fish at sunrise, you know.”

“Do you want to or not?”

“I do,” he said. “But I’m not crazy about being your little nighttime secret. Maybe for a short while, I can play along sneaking out at night to meet up with you, but sooner or later you’re going to have to tell your father. Is that something you’re willing to do?”

“Of course,” I said. “Just give me a little time.”

“I can do that. Now which window is yours? What side does it face?”

“The west.”

“Leave your bedroom light on, and I’ll come knocking tomorrow night at ten o’clock. It’s a date.”

“I look forward to it.”

“So do I. I’ll see you then.”

XXII

I WAS IN A
carnival-of-a-mood when I started knocking on Marlena’s door. It was July and one of those mornings where the sun coats the clouds with pink, blue and streaks of purple, turning them into puffs of tasty-looking cotton candy. My knocking turned into a song, and I actually enjoyed standing out there thinking about the times Josh and I had been enjoying.

As I crawled out my window each night, I entered a whole other world, a simple one I never knew existed. We’d walk beneath the moonlight to the dock behind his house, our hands interlocked like the roots of a mangrove, and from there we’d leave on his boat. Some nights we fished and other nights we sat quietly in each other’s arms until the gentle laps of water would rock us to sleep. He always had me back through that window by sunrise, although a couple of times we came close to getting caught with the sun at our heels, and those were the mornings he introduced me to the herons, ibis, and other characters nesting along the coast.

When staying out all night started making us both tired out during the days, we changed our routine and started meeting up in the early evenings, just after I finished dinner with my father. We spent the month of June bike riding through the refuge and swimming in the Gulf. I shuffled my feet, paranoid at times that my father might be lurking nearby, and if he found out what I had been up to, he might sting. It would be a nasty sting. I couldn’t imagine not going to school in the fall just as I could
hardly think about leaving Josh. Running off with him was like leaving all my worries behind and entering a sanctuary where there was nothing but peace and beauty.

When my knocking song on Marlena’s door ended, I pounded a few times more with all my force, as if I were playing to win the stuffed-animal prize at the carnival. It hurt my knuckles, but the door opened and there appeared a sad, sick creature peering out. Her poodle cut, glamorous two weeks ago, now looked a wild mess and in need of grooming. Her eyes were red and puffy.

“Is this a bad time?” I asked, wondering whether I should have given up my knocking and moved on ten minutes ago.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine. Why?” She looked at me as if she was a blue crab and I had trapped her.

“I don’t know. You look tired today.”

“I’m fine,” she said in a monotone. It sounded nothing like her typical dramatic tone, the one of an actor.

“Is now a good time for me to read more pages? I can come back.”

“It’s fine. You know where I keep them.”

“Thank you,” I said, walking toward the yellow room. Her home smelled like the interior of a seashell might if the mollusk inside dies without draining out. “It’s dark in here,” I said, turning to look at her. She was still standing in the doorway. “Were you sleeping? Did I wake you?”

“No. I’ve been up. Make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you,” I said, looking around the yellow room for a lamp. The shades were down and the house was dark and Marlena looked like she was sickened and dying. I opened the window, hoping the life outside might fly in. I then pulled out the pages from the top right drawer and stared at them, but I was too concerned about Marlena to start reading.

“Marlena,” I called out. She didn’t answer. I stood up and glanced down the hall. “Marlena?” Again there was no answer. I quietly crept back into the great room and there she was, sitting on the couch with a martini in hand, her eyes open but looking full of debris like the gulf does
after a windy storm. I tried looking deeper, but I couldn’t get past the surface layer. I wanted to scrape the soot away and see the color once more but I didn’t know how.

It spooked me, so I tiptoed back into the yellow room and sat down, hoping that Ava might provide some insight into all of this.

I began to read:

SANIBEL ISLAND
1894

Ava

There are those times when a woman fears that she is on the brink of extinction or that the dreams and wants she had for her life are endangered. It is then that she must declare herself a refuge and take whatever measures to preserve her natural elements
.

Whoever says there are no seasons in Florida? There are, they’re just subtler, and there are moods to go along with those seasons. When the shorebirds returned, I felt like cheering and clapping my hands at this year’s opening sight of spring, but instead I hopped out of bed and went for a walk.

How could I not go out and greet the return of the migratory birds? But as I stepped outside to welcome them back, I wondered where Abigail had gone. Back in Kentucky spring was the season that sent my mama blooming again after her long winter doldrums. Here on the island, she remained full of color all winter along, but in recent days she started pulling a disappearing act. Sometimes I found her still in bed, like yesterday, and other days sitting on the wooden floor of the kitchen. And when she finally did stand up or speak, let’s just say she wasn’t trying to please or entertain any audience. I was as worried as a ringleader when he suspects his top lady of deserting the act.