Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans

by DeMaio, Joanne

  Until Jason Barlow suggested they hang on the beach when he drove her home last night. Summer will be over before you know it, he said. And so they took a lazy walk on the sandy boardwalk, talking easily as twilight closed in.

  Until he took hold of her hand, steering her off the boardwalk toward the water’s edge. They walked slowly, and she noticed he kept to the firm, packed sand as they followed the high tide line before them.

  “Sometimes,” Maris said when they stopped at the end of the beach, “it feels like I left behind a shadow of myself here a long time ago. And on nights like this, maybe I came back to connect with it.” They were standing near the rocky outcropping, watching the waves break on the ledge. Jason didn’t answer. Instead he took her hand again and they walked back down the beach.

  All Maris knows about his shadow comes from what Eva told her earlier in the summer. Seven years ago, Neil and Jason rode together on Neil’s motorcycle, a Harley Davidson he’d bought. They’d been involved in some horrific crash that ended up taking Neil’s life. She pictures the two of them, Neil driving, Jason hitched behind him on a hot summer day, two brothers about to meet their fate.

  “Good God,” Maris says to herself on the porch, imagining what might have followed. It isn’t the beautiful day or family distractions that keep her from working this morning, from focusing on design. From adding diagonal texture with a white pencil, before drawing the gold stitching with a gel pen. Illustrations give the illusion of reality, but some realities are too authentic to ignore.

  Saint Bernard’s cedar shingles are weathered driftwood gray by Long Island Sound’s damp and salty air. The bottom third of the stained glass windows tilt open so that the sea breeze might visit upon the warm Sunday masses. Maris arrives as the entrance hymn begins, choosing an empty seat in the center aisle, several rows down. Holding the opened missal, she scans the church for Jason and Paige. The pews are full, and Matt, Eva and Taylor stand near the front. A light tap on her arm startles her and she turns to see Paige slipping in beside her.

  “Where’s your brother?” Maris whispers.

  “I thought he’d be with you.”

  “With me?” Maris looks from Paige to the altar. They bless themselves as an elderly priest leads the parish. His deep old voice moves slowly.

  “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

  “Amen.”

  “He never showed up at the house,” Paige says quietly. “It’s a good thing I had my old set of house keys. Vinny and the kids are there now.”

  “May the peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all.”

  Maris turns back toward the altar. Rays of morning sunlight shine through a stained glass window above it. A bank of flickering candles glimmers to the right. Ceiling fans paddle the warm air and the simple wooden pews feel cool to the touch. The scent of the sea comes through the opened windows.

  “Jason does this sometimes.”

  Maris tips her head closer to Paige to hear her hushed words as they sit for the Readings. “Does what?”

  “Disappears. Most years he shows up, but others he vanishes. He must be having a hard time this year.” Paige glances at her, then scans the church before shrugging and turning to face the front.

  Maris thinks that at this sad mass, on this sad day, Paige looks accepting. The loss of Neil has become a part of their family. Her hair is brushed back and she wears a blue sundress. She sits straight, her hands folded in her lap, and her face wears the calm, knowing expression that comes only with motherhood. Her children aren’t with her, though. She came here strictly for her two brothers, dead and alive.

  “Coffee later?” Maris asks, leaning close. When Paige nods yes, Maris gives herself over to the mass, to its words and music, to the Gospel and the prayers, to the reality of why she is here.

  “For all of our departed brothers and sisters who have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again, especially today for Neil Barlow, for whom this mass is offered, we pray to the Lord.”

  Neil Barlow. Two words that make the death real. Hearing them spoken by a priest at the altar, she understands how the reality of that very sound might keep Jason away.

  On the August day of Matt and Eva’s wedding, Maris hugged Eva for a long moment before she and Matt left for their Cape Cod honeymoon, and before their car pulled away, Matt had to hit the brakes. Maris trotted along close beside the car, and when Eva rolled down the window, she leaned inside and hugged her again, holding Eva’s hand in hers and saying how much she would miss her. No one ever left her again without a goodbye after her mother died.

  Late August endured its own partings. Its autumn-tinged air bid farewell to the tired summer cottages closing up for the season; reluctant families retreated to their work-a-day lives; summer itself relaxed its hold. That year, late August became the roll of credits at the end of a long, wonderful movie about two friends coming-of-age. Even Maris would stay only for the weekend before leaving for campus Sunday night.

  That evening after the wedding, the tide was low and she walked alone, barefoot in cuffed jeans, along the cool, packed sand just below the ragged line of seaweed at the water’s edge. Neil apparently had the same pensive idea.

  “Walking the driftline?” he asked as they crossed paths.

  “The what?” The word sounded dangerous, like she walked a fine line drifting between danger and safety.

  “The driftline.”

  Maris looked at Neil, thinking he would never leave Stony Point. He seemed so beach bum. His hair was wavy in the late day sea dampness and he still wore the formal, now wrinkled, wedding shirt from earlier in the day, over a pair of jeans. He stopped and pointed down the beach toward the rock jetty. “See it?”

  The low setting sun had swirled a soft pink light on the expanse of sand before her. What Maris saw was the dark, tangled line of seaweed meandering the length of the beach.

  “The seaweed?”

  “That’s the driftline. Kyle told me he read it in a book on beach life.” They walked alongside the seaweed then, weaving right along with it. “But it’s not only seaweed,” he said. “It’s all the other stuff the tide brings in with it, too.”

  He stopped and crouched down. With a stick of driftwood, Neil lifted the damp seaweed, exposing pieces of pastel sea glass and one perfect, white clamshell. A hermit crab in a periwinkle snail shell scurried for cover.

  “See?” Neil asked. He looked up at her. “Everything’s connected.”

  Maybe it took this long to see it. Maybe she really didn’t get it back then. Because aren’t they all connected here, in some sort of driftline of their own? When she thinks of Eva and Matt and Jason and Lauren and Kyle and Paige and Vinny, and Neil, always Neil too, isn’t it the same?

  The feeling has her glance around the church and when she looks over her shoulder, she spots Jason in the far back corner. While others sit, he kneels, his elbows on the pew in front of him, his head bent low. He wears a navy suit, perfectly tailored, with a pale yellow shirt and silk tie knotted just so. Only the very best, Maris sees, for his brother.

  Maris turns back and starts to stand. “Jason’s here,” she whispers to Paige, carefully passing in front of her and walking up the aisle to the back of the church. Jason still kneels as she hurries behind the rear pews and walks down the side aisle, then quietly kneels beside him.

  Jason looks up at her. His face is clear, there are no tears. But you can see when someone is straining to hear; she’s done it herself, listening, listening in the wind, at the water’s edge, in a song, to hear her mother’s voice. He’d been talking, in thought, to Neil.

  “Pray brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father.”

  When they stand in response, Maris takes his hand. Comfort sometimes comes from the slightest gesture. He stands so very still beside her, she notices the calm, the steadiness of his stance, the slow rhythm of his breathing. When it’s time to offer peace to one another, she takes his sh
oulders in an embrace, pulling close. “Are you okay?”

  She feels his hand rise to her head as he bends low near her ear. “I’m all right, sweetheart,” he assures her, then backs up a step as his hand briefly touches her face.

  And that is the last she hears from him. Returning from the communion procession, when Maris steps backs into her pew it takes several moments to realize that he hasn’t followed behind her. At first she thinks that maybe other parishioners moved in front of him until she finally realizes he has left, has received communion and walked right out of the church without saying a word.

  An hour later, Maris sits in her kitchen surrounded by country baskets and dried flower arrangements, blue china plates displayed on the pine wall shelf behind her.

  “This kitchen is divine.” Paige sits at a breakfast stool. Sunlight streams in through the white window shutters. Dried flower bunches hang from the painted ceiling beams. “You must be loving your summer here.”

  “I am, in a way,” Maris begins, holding the coffee decanter aloft to fill their mugs. “This beach just gets more beautiful with age.”

  “You sound like my brother.” Paige adds cream to her coffee. “He was never happy being away from here.”

  “Neil?”

  “No.” Paige shakes her head. “Jason.”

  Maris sips her coffee. “I thought it was Neil who adored this place. He obsessed over every detail, studying the old cottages, the landscape.”

  “Only because his big brother did. That’s such a misconception people have about Neil. More than anything, he was Jason’s biggest fan. He copied everything about Jason.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  Paige considers Maris. “In the past seven years, you ended up being the best medicine for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s really had a difficult time since that wreck. It’s taken everything out of him just to put himself back together. First there was depression, and later he was practically dependent on pain medication. I mean, it really got out of hand. But he’s clean now, has been for a couple of years.”

  “No way. I can’t even imagine it.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. He really wasn’t easy to be with, so you’re like this beautiful breath of fresh air in all of our lives. But mostly his. He started to come around after he got his second prosthesis, but I think you’re his magical cure.”

  “Wait. A second prosthesis?”

  “The first one wasn’t a good fit. It didn’t have the technology this one has either, and its limitations were such a reminder of the accident. Once he got his natural gait back, the best he could, he reached for all the other pieces of his life, especially architecture. Barlow Architecture is his real strength now.”

  “He mentioned he tried corporate work, right after the accident?”

  “He did. It’s only been two years that he’s back to the cottage designs. Before that, he worked with large firms in Hartford, which didn’t really suit him. But his head was still messed up too, so it served a purpose, giving him time until he could get back to where he and Neil had left off. They were quite a team.”

  “Only now he’s flying solo.”

  “Not really. Neil’s influence is in all his designs, so on some level, they’re still together. I think that’s what brought him back here, that connection.”

  “A good sign?” Maris asks. “He’s facing things?” She pulls warm cinnamon rolls from the oven and sets them on a blue china plate between them.

  “I thought so, until he pulled that disappearing act this morning. Even though I’m sure it meant the world to him that you were at the church.” She reaches for a swirled roll. “Yes, I really think you’re his reason for coming back to life this summer.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  Paige runs her tongue over her teeth, collecting a sweet bit of the roll’s curlicue of icing. “Listen, for the past seven years, he completely indulged his guilt. And he never thought he’d meet someone who could get him past that, until he saw you again.”

  “I really can’t take that credit. I’m not sure you’re right.”

  Paige plucks her sticky fingers from her mouth before wiping them on the napkin. “Oh, I am. I’ve heard all about things. The carousel? Mini-golf? The Sand Bar?”

  Maris tips her head. “He told you about all that?”

  “In passing. The thing is, you haven’t seen how self-absorbed he’s been all these years. His world shrank to his injury and Neil’s death. Period. You mean a lot to him.”

  She looks at Paige, then turns away, uncertain. Her eye catches a glimpse of the sketches she’d set out earlier in the dining room, one of a leather jacket with denim details at the collar, in the side inserts, in the lining. It still needs work, the final layer. Leather sketches have to be rendered in layers to see the dimension of the material. White paper comes first, showing through the initial color to give it highlights, then darker tones to illustrate the nap, followed by an extremely soft layer of black pencil over the whole thing, to pull all the colors together. It is a beautiful sketch, and almost done. She thinks it one of the best pieces in her new line and had been anxious to finish it this morning. How easy it would be to turn her back on all of Stony Point, on the quirks and accidents and friends and familiarity and happiness and problems and just sink into her designing, sink so deep she couldn’t find her way back. To have an important meeting to get to, one where trend reports would be reviewed. To get on a plane for the summer textiles trade show, where she’d lose herself even more in the fabric samples needed for this line, awash in deep sea blue denims. To return to Chicago to oversee the final prototypes of her fall styles, and see them fitted on models so she can make final adjustments. Or to settle in Manhattan. After all, the design firm there wants to talk to her asap about their brand aesthetics and conceptual development and international travel balanced with telecommuting as they entice her with their job offer. Where else could she work from home and travel abroad?

  “You know, that accident took Jason’s life, too, for a long time,” Paige is saying when she turns back. “And I’m not sure if he’ll ever get over the guilt.” She stands and straightens her dress. “Please, give him a chance Maris, before you go back to Chicago. Just a chance.”

  “Wait. Guilt? Why is he guilty?”

  Paige offers a sympathetic smile. “I’ve said too much, because that’s really his story. I’m sorry, but he’s got to tell you himself.” She reaches for her handbag from the counter. “And I’ve got to get back. The kids’ll be anxious to get on the beach.”

  “Maybe Jason’s there at the cottage?”

  “I doubt it. But if he is, I’m kicking him out and sending him straight here.” She walks through to the porch, pulling her sunglasses from her purse and setting them on her face. “We’ll save a chair for you on the beach, if you decide to come.”

  Before getting back to her sketches, Maris brings her laptop onto the front porch to check her email and a few design sites. She opens an email Scott sent this morning, asking her to come home for only a weekend, to talk with him in their old familiar places, the tiny restaurant they love, the gazebo in the park. She reads the email again wondering if maybe she should, then opens the attachment he included, smiling at the photographs he took of the gazebo beside the flower gardens, of her empty seat at their kitchen table. They’d been together for a long time now, and he’d proposed, after all. Maybe a visit would give her definitive answers. Her hands hover over the keyboard, ready to hit Reply, when she notices her empty ring finger and so goes up to her bedroom and puts on the refitted ring. Returning to the porch, she turns her hand, watching the diamond catch the light and getting an idea to incorporate a star stud on the leather jacket she is designing. She sets the open laptop on the porch table and goes in to the dining room, to her sketches laid out.

  Inspiration comes like that, suddenly, from something as seemingly irrelevant as a sparkle from a diamond. But in that sparkl
e she sees starlight. After pouring a glass of wine, she begins sketching various gold studs with star cutouts that can be incorporated into the leather jacket. She tries a few variations, on the denim, on the leather, unsure of just how to showcase this particular star feature.

  And all the while, she knows. She knows what Scott wants with her in Chicago. It is a nice life, actually, that anyone in their right mind would find hard to leave. They live in a lovely townhouse, she’s climbed to the top of her career, and Scott is a good man who wants her back. Chicago is safe: financially, professionally, emotionally.

  Yet she is having a hard time extricating herself from Stony Point where she lives essentially unemployed, homeless and single. And a part of a certain, struggling driftline.

  Picking up a bronze color gel pen, she varies the color of the stud to better show the diamond cutout, when she hears the slow, crunching sound of tires on the gravel driveway. Give him a chance, before you go back. She sets the sketches aside and stands on the porch, watching as Jason parks and gets out of his SUV. When he steps down onto the gravel, he favors his prosthetic leg, though she wouldn’t have noticed the falter if she didn’t know him. He still wears the morning’s suit, but the tie has been loosened, the top shirt button undone and the jacket hangs casually open now.

  Madison’s tail swings like a slow pendulum as she stands at the screen door. Jason laughs a little when he turns to see them both looking at him. “Maris,” he says through the screen.

  “It’s open.” Her fingers lace around the wine glass she holds. He comes inside and gives Madison a good scratching on her neck. “Are you okay?” she asks, thinking he looks tired now.

  “I will be. If you’re not busy this afternoon.”

  She sets the wine glass on the table alongside the laptop. “No, I’m not. What’s up?”