Biting Winds

by Shawna Ireland

  “No sharks are going to eat you Jess!”

  “To be honest, it’s not the sharks I’m worried about,” Jessie shuddered. “It’s the jellyfish. I’m petrified of getting stung. I’ve never walked the shoreline of a beach and found a shark, but I’ve also never walked the shoreline of a beach and not found a dead jellyfish.”

  “You’re afraid of the jellies?” Dave laughed. “I can get you a wet suit?”

  “How about I pass, and take pictures of you riding the waves in instead? It would be a shame not to put such a thoughtful wedding gift to its full use.” Jessie held up her new Nikon Rebel, a gift all her coworkers pooled together to surprise her with at her wedding shower. “Plus, I can get our picnic together.”

  “I could have sworn you said you loved the ocean.”

  “I do! I love the rolling, crashing, spraying waves! I love the way the sun reflects across it for what seems like miles. I love the white tops of breaking waves in the distance, and I love the-”

  “Got it! Got it! Save it for the poetry convention.” Dave pushed the rim of Jessie’s pink bridal ball cap down to cover her eyes in a playful gesture.

  “Oh, I could go on forever,” Jessie teased back as Dave hiked his surf board under his arm and headed for the ocean. “Like how the tide erases your footsteps, and how the beach is littered with rainbows of smooth sea glass, and the broken rocks look like they are packed with diamonds. “Hey, where are you going?” Jessie escalated her laughing voice to follow her husband towards the ocean. “I’m not done. There’re the emerald clumps of seaweed, and broken clams and crabs.”

  Jessie stopped when she noticed people were looking at her, shaking their heads.

  “Hey, it was that, or he was going to drag me out to sea,” Jessie said. She winked at the elderly lady who smiled back and decided Jessie may be smarter than she first gave her credit for.

  Jessie snapped endless pictures of Dave, some where he looked like a model surfer, perfectly balanced with the sea, and the sun gleaming off his tanned, muscular body. Most though were Dave mid fall, and some you could see only his feet sticking out of the waves.

  Jessie moved her photography session on to the driftwood, sea urchins, piles of pebbles and glass, newly erected sandcastles, as well as the half-destroyed castles melting with the teasing licks of the changing tides. She took pictures of dogs, babies, bird fighting over crabs, and seagulls diving into the ocean looking for their next meal.

  Finally, Jessie found herself stealing snapshots of happy couples scattered through out the beach. Some slept, rubbed sun block or baby oil, played Frisbee, pointed and laughed, swapped binoculars, grilled hotdogs or slapped sandwiches together, poured wine, guzzled beer, or silently walked hand in hand into the distance.

  Normally, Jessie would smile. Today, however, Jessie found herself wondering if they were all actors as she was. Was it possible that she was the only person on the beach grasping at straws trying to put her marriage into perspective? She found herself looking at the women closer, inspecting them for bruises, or expecting their smiles to fade when they didn’t expect anyone to see them. She looked closer at the men, to see if they had malevolent flashes in their eyes when their wives looked away. Or if they winked at each other, thinking they had the ladies duped with their attentiveness.

  Jessie shut the camera off when the low battery warning angrily blinked at her, and headed back to the blanket and unpacked the picnic basket. She made sandwiches, and heaped Dave's plate with the homemade potato salad she made early this morning, when she found herself too achy to sleep. She left the beer in the cooler, not wanting it to get warm while she waited for Dave to come back in from surfing.

  Jessie changed the battery out for the extra one her coworkers provided. Nurses! They always thought ahead about batteries, since they were such a vital component of running a hospital. Electricity could only be depended on for so long, but a strong storm or a hot summer could create a black out in a second, wreaking havoc on the patients. With a fresh battery, Jessie decided to scroll through the pictures she took, and was shocked to see that her coworkers had fun of their own with the camera before they wrapped it up for her. If people could see how immature the men and women that were in charge of their health could be, they would probably leave the hospitals with ulcers.

  Jessie laughed out loud as she saw her coworkers, who had become her close friends and second family since they spent most of their waking time, and some of their sleeping time together, in the most compromising positions. The things they could do with ballooned gloves, bedpans, iodine, and bottles of saline. The places they could stuff cotton balls, and the crevices that could hold tongue depressors. Jessie had seen numerous women try to make wedding dresses out of toilet paper at wedding showers, including her own. However, she was immensely impressed with what they could do with the rolls of paper they used to keep the patients operation tables sanitized, and the extra fashion accents they created with rolls and squares of gauze. She laughed so hard she almost spat on the camera when she saw that the head surgeon fashioned his own bridesmaids dress from the blue chucks.

  “I’m afraid to ask.” Dave slammed his board into the sand to keep it upright before plopping down on the blanket.

  “You should be,” Jessie laughed. “I swear, these pictures will make us a fortune in blackmail one day.”

  “Let’s see!” Dave held his hand out, but Jessie pulled the camera back.

  “You’re dripping wet. Let’s eat and then I’ll show you,” Jessie offered.

  “You’re the boss,” Dave said dryly, but when Jessie looked at him he was smiling. “Am I dry enough for a beer?”

  “Here’s an ice cold one!” Jessie popped the top and handed him the beer, looking deeply into his face to see if she was going nuts, or if he had really sounded upset.

  Dave let the beer slip from his hand, dropping it directly on to the camera, and spilling beer all over it.

  “Oops!” Dave winked. “Looks like it got wet after all.”

  Jessie didn’t have to see his eyes to know that this was no accident. She hurried and cleaned off the camera, hoping that she had ejected the SD card and cleaned it before any real damage could be done.

  Dave demolished his sandwich while he shared stories of the awesome waves he mounted, and then finished off Jessie’s sandwich after watching her pick at it before pushing it to the side.

  “Can I see the pictures now?” Dave asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Jessie wanted to say no, she wanted to give the camera more time to dry out, but she pictured Dave chucking the entire camera into the ocean if she suggested waiting. So, she slipped the SD card back into the camera, scrolling back to the pictures her coworkers snapped for her amusement.

  Dave rolled away from Jessie with the camera, laughing at the pictures. However, his laughter wasn’t lighthearted as had been Jessie’s. His laughter was full of sneers as he occasionally commented on the pictures.

  “What a fag,” Dave laughed. “And who the hell is this idiot? Jessie, seriously, here are our tax dollars hard at work.”

  “What has come over you?” Jessie was baffled. She had never heard Dave speak like this.

  “I’m just calling it like it is Jess! What can I say? I see a man in a dress, and fag comes to mind. It’s natural,” he laughed as he reached over and gave Jessie’s bruised leg a firm squeeze.

  Jessie winced, and immediately jerked her leg back in pain as he ignited a fire in her fresh bruises.

  “What the fuck!” Dave startled. “You act like I’m going to hurt you.”

  “It hurt. It’s bruised,” Jessie said in almost a whisper as she wiped a few escaped tears from her eyes.

  Dave lifted the hem of her shorts a little higher, revealing the fresh black and blue bruises clumped into a giant cluster.

  “What happened there?"

  "Are you kidding me?” Jessie fought the urge to pour her beer over him.

  “Oh give me a break. Jessie, please tell me righ
t now that you are not going to blame every fucking bruise you get camping on me! Please tell me that. If I did that to you, you would know it. That’s not from me.” Dave shook his head. “You must have bumped into something.”

  “Yeah.” Jessie said, wondering if Dave believed his own lies. “Must have.”

  Chapter 10

  “Jess!” Dave jogged into the campsite. “Guess who I ran into at the liquor store? The creepy guy from the campsite over there. Remember?” Dave pointed down the hill towards the campsite she was plenty familiar with.

  “I sort of remember you had talked about him.” Jessie tried to hide her peaked interest.

  “Yeah, well, not so creepy! More like a godsend. He was at the liquor store buying Chivas Regal Whiskey, and I asked him when the party was,” Dave laughed. “Turns out, he has a party of one, but he was willing to come, with his expensive whiskey of course, to our party tonight.”

  “Our party?”

  “Yup! Last minute party of me, you, him, and Chivas,” he boasted. “So, we have a couple of hours to get some snacks and cards together, and get your bras off the clothes line." Dave smacked at her dangling bra.

  Jessie’s heart was beating ten times faster than it should have been, and she was irritated with herself for feeling this way over a man she had barely met if you could even call their encounter a meeting. It was more like an embarrassing moment that she would love to forget. She was a newlywed for crying out loud.

  It had been a week since Dave had hit her. He had gotten mad a few times, but Jessie was smart enough to read his body language to calm him down and keep him happy, as exhausting as it was.

  Within an hour, Jessie had the campsite cleaned up, bras hidden, and the picnic table was set with chips and dip, popcorn, sandwiches, beer, dominoes, and cards with poker chips.

  Jessie was sitting by the fire reading a novel when Dave’s guest arrived. Still mesmerized by the sight of him, she looked down into her book, focusing on her breathing, and pretended not to see him. This bought her a few minutes to regain her composure as she was sure he was more striking than the day she first met him.

  Dave rushed past Jessie to greet his guest. “Sangio, my man! You made it!”

  “Sangio.” Jessie breathed his name so quietly no one should have heard it, so she was taken off guard when Sangio’s eyes darted in her direction, smirking, the second his name rolled off of her tongue. Just as quickly, Sangio returned his eyes to Dave’s happy gaze.

  Jessie heard Sangio speak for the first time in a week, and his voice was richer and more charismatic than she remembered. “Thank you for the invitation.”

  Sangio walked past Dave, extending his gloved hand toward Jessie. “You must be Jessica. Congratulations on your wedding. Dave told me all about it at the bar this evening.”

  “The bar, huh?” Jessie raised a questioning eye to Dave, immediately regretting it as she watched controlled anger cross his brows.

  “Never mind that,” Dave laughed cynically. “You go ahead and finish your book while the men play.”

  “Nonsense!” Sangio insisted. “Certainly I cannot take a man from his bride on his honeymoon. Jessie, you must join us.”

  Taking the lead from Dave’s searing eyes, Jessie declined, fixing her eyes to the little pit her toes were digging in the sand. “Thank you for your offer, but Dave is right. I’ve been dying to finish my book.”

  Jessie never turned the pages of her book as she sat by the fire, fuming. Tears of anger and humiliation threatened to spill from her eyes, blurring the pages before her.

  As if mocking her agony, Dave looked over his hand of cards and winked at Jessie as he slid the last of his whiskey down his throat, bringing his glass down with a bang on the table.

  Despite Jessie’s best intentions, this caused her to flinch, and brought open laughter from Dave.

  Sangio, never taking his serious eyes off Dave's beaming face, generously refilled Dave’s glass for the third time that evening. This time, to the brim.

  Jessie wrapped herself in a blanket, grabbed a lantern, and excused herself. She headed down the hill towards the bathroom.

  “We meet again,” Jessie sarcastically says to the stranger staring back at her from the camp mirror.

  She used to be the happiest person she knew, just a week ago. Her mother used to tease her about being unnaturally energetic when Jessie woke up with a smile on her face and a bounce in her step morning after morning. She was constantly playing practical jokes on her coworkers, and always went the extra mile for her patients at the hospital, whether she was an hour into her shift, or at the end of a double. In the women’s locker room, they had a tally board set up for who received the most offers for marriage, and Jessie always took the lead in tallies for how many dirty old men proposed to her, making her the winner of the penny jar every week. Lately, less and less of her coworkers put their pennies in the jar, knowing they didn’t have a chance at winning it.

  “Nobody should be this happy,” her coworkers said.

  “We should start drug testing,” another suggested.

  “Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s all natural,” Jessie joked back.

  Now she was a stranger, looking at a stranger, and married to a stranger.

  Jessie spat on her reflection, banging her fists on either side of the mirror, and then laughed because her situation was far too serious for tears.

  Chapter 11

  “Jessica.”

  Jessie heard the familiar voice as she exited the bathroom, causing her to jump back into the bathroom door.

  “I’m sorry! I have frightened you.” Sangio stepped forward from the shadows of the trees.

  "Sangio!” Jessie steadied herself, holding her heart as if to steady it as well. “You just took me off guard. I thought you were a bear.”

  “You never know what's lurking in these woods." Sangio found his own private joke to be distasteful, but slightly amusing, knowing his own nature. "Let me walk you back to camp.”

  “Thanks Sangio. I think I’ll hang out here a little while. I’m not quite so eager to head back.”

  “I must apologize again. It appears I may have refilled your husbands glass one time too many. He presented himself as the sort who enjoyed fine labels, though his tolerance proved him otherwise.”

  Jessie snorted openly. “It wouldn’t be the first time he presented himself otherwise. You, Sangio, may have made the understatement of the year.”

  With that admission, Jessie plopped herself on a wooden bench outside of the bathroom and pulled her blanket tighter. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said that. Dave must be waiting for you to come back. You go ahead. I’ll be up shortly.”

  “Perhaps I was not clear, Jessica. In his high boasting, yet low tolerance for my Chivas, Dave passed out on the table, unable to be stirred. I assure you, he will not wake before the sun.” Sangio held out his gloved hand to Jessie. “And since you are not ready to go back to camp, and I have lost my company to intoxication, I would love to show you a view I discovered a couple of nights ago. Will you come with me?”

  Jessie hesitated for a minute. She didn’t know this man, but then again, she didn’t know the drunken man back at camp either. Taking a chance, she reached up, took Sangio’s gloved hand, and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

  Slowly, but purposefully, they walked towards the distant sound of crashing waves, and the aroma of brine and seaweed from the salty ocean breeze. Jessie looked down at her feet and walked as if she were weighted with a ships anchor. Sangio did nothing to encourage conversation, and lead with graceful steps to the edge of a cliff.

  Jessie looked down into the ocean, obviously mesmerized by its beauty, and released her blanket to absorb the crisp wind that made her feel alive again.

  “Jessica,” Sangio called her attention. “Do you mind if I call you that? I noticed your husband called you Jessie.”

  Jessie cringed hearing him reference Dave as her husband, despite the fact it was true. "Eithe
r is fine."

  “Thank you, Jessica. I love coming here during the day to admire the ocean as it is full of crashing waves, moss, sea foam, and driftwood, and can hold your attention for hours. However, I have brought you to the edge this evening to show you the sky.” Sangio pointed up.

  Jessie lifted her gaze above the waves and fog, and looked into the magical skies, soaking in the colors and shimmer that would be hard to capture with simple words.

  The intensity of twinkling lights cracking from the sapphire backdrop of the night sky were a mere portion of the splendor. Light and wispy, mostly transparent clouds scattered across the view. Where one may expect white fluffy clouds, these were not. Streaks of pastel blues, pinks, and reds outlined the translucent billows as they drifted ever so leisurely across the heavens, in no rush to hang about or depart. The whimsical movement of the clouds created an overwhelming demonstration of the asymmetrical ebb and flow of color, texture, and progression. The moon was larger, and more defined than Jessie had ever witnessed, and though she never believed in the man in the moon, she was sure she could distinctly see him, smiling on the brilliant manifestation, just as captivated as she.

  Unable to speak or break her stare Jessie sat down on a bed of grass, soaking the sky in with awe, unaware of Sangio beside her, for the longest time. And for the longest time, Sangio was captivated by the magical shimmer and dance of the stars in Jessie’s golden eyes.

  It was Jessie who broke the silence. “He hasn’t always been this way, has he?”

  Sangio was quiet, knowing the question was not for him.

  “I mean, tonight, he was so demeaning to me. Go read my book? What was that?”

  “Was he always a gentleman in front of your friends Jessica?”

  “Yes,” she answered, but immediately recanted. “Well, I thought he was. Come to think of it, we spent a lot of time alone because we never saw each other very often. Dave always said my friends had me all the time so when he flew in he wanted our time to be special.” Jessie looked down at her hands for a moment before continuing. “But we were always alone. Even when he popped in for a visit. He would joke around and say that he was making sure I wasn’t out with other guys.”