Spring Tide

by K. Dicke

  Derek strode up by the shallows, sat to my right, and looked at my book. “Holy crap, you’re reading about small business.” The smile on his face was classic. “I knew you’d come around.”

  “How in the world do you enjoy this? It’s dry, like Sahara-death dry.”

  “What are you doin’ with it then?”

  “Trying to find a solution to Deborah’s predicament. The Bakery’s been in the red for a while and she’s got way bigger problems than getting new display cases. It seems it all comes down to collateral—”

  He took my book and threw it down the beach. “If you’re talking about your insurance money—”

  I gasped. “That’s a library book! Go get it!”

  “You can’t put up that money!”

  “I wasn’t even thinking that!”

  He took my hand. “Look, I know something’s been wrong, more than wrong.”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “I’m fine, everything’s fine, I’m okay. That’s what you say when—”

  “They’re just words. How are you? I’m fine. How’s it goin’? Everything’s good. Words.”

  “Did you think Sarah wouldn’t mention that you’ve cleaned every square inch of the condo the last few weeks, did Nick’s laundry and washed your car and hers almost daily? You’re acting exactly the same as when your dad … you’re acting like every day is business as usual but working your ass off day and night to cope—”

  “Don’t.” My face turned to stone.

  “Edwards—”

  “I don’t wanna talk about him.”

  “And you don’t wanna talk about this either. Why do you want to help Deborah? She’s a big girl.”

  “I need her to reopen.”

  “Why? It’s a peon job for Christ’s sake.”

  “You would say that.” I yanked my hand from his. “No big checks or influence involved in being a stupid bakery clerk. This is how we’re different. You see food as something to eat. I see food as something to be invented, reinvented. The Bakery has been a whole new culinary experien—”

  “Spare me.”

  “Screw you.”

  He rubbed his eye and spoke softly. “Why in God’s name would you want to go back there after what happened?”

  “What does it say about me if I don’t go back? It says I’m bowing to fear and I won’t let anyone have that kind of power over me. I refuse to live my life down on my knees.”

  “You got beat up. How is that—?”

  “I’ve taken worse.” I turned my head to the side, my body followed, and I went to the water where all I could hear was its symphony.

  He stood behind me, massaging my upper arms. When things were bad at home, I’d always told myself that it wasn’t the end of the world, that I was okay, that everything was fine. And over the last few weeks, I’d been allaying my anxiety with the same phrases. Pressure gained behind my eyes and I concentrated on the sound of the ocean.

  He turned me around and put my head on his shoulder, his arms crossing my back. “Please talk to me.”

  “It wasn’t the assault.” I took a deep breath and blew it out. “It was the three minutes before, the sounds I heard that won’t go away—footsteps, papers, the clock. Every little noise wakes me up and I can’t sleep. It’s making me crazy, making me wonder if I’m hearing things. And I’m so tired. If I could go back to work for a week or even one shift I could get past this.” I pulled away so I could look at his face. “If she doesn’t reopen I’ll never get the chance. I need to know that those sounds don’t mean that someone’s gonna come out of the dark and throw me to the ground. I didn’t stop my life when dad was coming down on us and I can’t stop now. I have to work it out.”

  “No you don’t. You have control this time. You can leave it all behind.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “No you’re not.”

  I wiped my nose on my forearm. “I’m not gonna cry.”

  “You already are.”

  “I hate it when you do this.”

  “Do you think I like this, like being the asshole that makes you talk about him? I don’t. I really, really don’t. But I do because I care about you. A lot.” He brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb.

  “I love you too. Go get my damn book.”

  Derek was the only person, other than Mom and Brad, that I ever really talked to about Dad. Sarah was a wonderful friend, but she was more about comforting than getting into the ugliness. Both she and Derek had known what was going on, but Derek understood how the stress made me act.

  _______

  I stopped at Jericho’s after work. The day was almost over, the earth’s revolution taking away the light and warmth of the sun. It was apparent in the first few weeks of dating him that he felt an affinity for the ocean. I always looked for him on the beach first and nine times out of ten that’s where he was. He meditated there and I could relate. I often went to the water to think about my life or say grace for my blessings. And there were times when we were together and it was quiet that being with him felt like the movement of the tides, a gentle rolling.

  He was sitting in the sand. His body was still and his face looked tired or worried. I came within a foot of him and he didn’t notice me. I turned my eyes to where his were fixed and watched the water spread its foam across the shore, bubbles holding onto damp sand until the next wave arrived to replace them. The sun had started to set, copper beams turning to lavender. Pretty.

  “Hey.” I sat down beside him. “Exhale. You breathin’?”

  He puffed out a big breath and slightly smiled. “Hey hey.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, just thinkin’ about things.”

  “Me?” I hooked my elbow around his knee.

  “All the time.” He put his arm around my waist. “It’s work related. What’s goin’ on with you? You’re tense.”

  “I’m having a problem, need to ask a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “Can I stay the night? I need to veg, hear the water, and that can’t happen on the fifth floor.”

  He pushed my hair over my shoulder. “You wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  He rose and pulled me up. “You can sleep here anytime you want. C’mon.”

  We went inside. His room was entirely pale blue: the carpet, the walls, the bed, and a sailfish that was hanging over the bed, staring at me with its dead eye. His desk was arranged such that everything had its place. The bookcases were filled with odds and ends, things from all over the world, lined up neatly. I reviewed the few photos on the shelf. One picture, I assumed, was of his parents and there were two of Donovan and Julia, and others of him with waveriders, including a very cute brunette.

  He dimmed the lights and cracked the exterior door, filling the air with the sound of the surf. “You know what really helps with any problem?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Surfing.”

  “Wrong.”

  He pulled off his shirt, folded it, and placed it at the foot of the bed. “You like to be near the ocean.”

  “I like the noise it makes.”

  “Is that the only reason you came?”

  “It’s part of the reason.” I crawled in next to him. “Ever since Joshua I feel safe with you, feel like nothing’s gonna happen to me.” No matter what I think I hear.

  “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

  I rolled toward him and kissed the side of his mouth. “Night.”

  “Night.” He held my gaze.

  Warmth rippled over me and there it was, that feeling of him, his devotion for me.

  “Do you feel that, our connection?” he whispered.

  “For quite a while now.”

  I stared into the glittering blue of his eyes, the affection streaming between us so strong that I instinctively brought my face to his. At the same time he rose up onto his elbow and kissed me, his mouth opening to mine for the very first time. M
y hand came up his chest and fell over his shoulder to his back. I tried to bring him closer but his kiss and touch were restrained as always. And like every other time, his body hovered above mine like I was a china doll that could be broken. I didn’t want that. I was tired of feeling fragile. In a moment of frustration, I took hold of his hips and pulled him down to me.

  The contact of his body overcame my senses; everything that attracted me to him was magnified by a hundred. There was no thought in my mind, only an all-consuming desire to be with him, have him against me. My hands roamed over his body uncontrolled, touching and grasping. If he moved slightly, my body stayed with his, not wanting interruption. I knew it wasn’t real but I felt skin on skin. I smelled ocean air. I tasted a hint of salt. But the rapture only lasted a few precious seconds before I was plunged into the ocean—drowning.

  My cell phone rang from inside my bag and the heaviness he created rolled from my mind, down my spine to my feet. My eyes opened.

  “Kris?”

  I breathed deeply three or four times, slowly ascending above the waves and back into his room.

  “You can’t pull me to you like that.” He combed my hair from my face. “I can’t compromise you. I won’t.”

  The phone stopped ringing.

  “Compromise? What does that mean?”

  “I meant that I need to take my time. You’re not just some girl.” He lay down on his side, his arm circling my middle. “You’re the girl.”

  I relaxed into him, let my thoughts fade into the sound of a deep blue sea, and was asleep within minutes, my back to his chest and his fingers woven with mine.

  I slept at his house for almost a week. Derek had made me admit to myself that I was struggling. Jericho enclosed me in his solitude, the fear of unseen sound ebbing with each night we were together. I wasn’t used to sharing a bed with anyone, but lying next to him felt normal, as though we’d been together for a long time.

  However, on the fourth night, I had a dream that electricity or energy channeled between us like a laser lightshow. It was so sharp, so demanding that my muscles ached.

  “It’s just a dream, sweetheart. Go back to sleep,” he whispered.

  But his eyes were burning with blue light and his breathing was faster than mine. I dozed off, my body and mind taxed from the vision.

  Then, on the last night, he was gone at four and back in bed with me before six.

  “Where were you?” I asked him in the morning.

  “Takin’ a walk. I do that sometimes if I’m restless. No I wasn’t. I was eating a sandwich on the deck. Didn’t wanna wake you.”

  “Really? Must’ve been a big sandwich. Your skin was awful cold when you came back to bed.”

  “It was a hoagie.”

  Whatever it was he’d been doing, he obviously didn’t want to tell me. “My man, I’m getting way too comfortable in your house and your bed. I gotta go back to the condo. It’s not fair to Sarah.”

  Before I left for work, he gave me a key to his pad, accompanied by a long, slow kiss at the front door. I was six minutes late.

  I didn’t end up using the key because he unexpectedly left for Maine six days later.

  _______

  Jericho brought me to a room next to the garage that was full of surfboards, gear, wax, and stuff.

  Unreal. “Dude, how many boards do you need?”

  “Call them sticks.”

  “I will not.”

  “This is my quiver and I can see you’re hugely impressed. I need different boards for different conditions.” He stroked a shortboard. “Got her from the shaper yesterday. We haven’t had a first date, but I’m gonna take her on a trip she’s never gonna forget.” His tongue glided over his bottom lip. “It’s gonna be so good.”

  “You’re creepin’ me out a little. Want some time alone with her?”

  “You’ll understand someday.”

  I doubt it.

  He took a board from the end of the rack and handed it to me. “It’s not a foamie ’cause I don’t believe in ’em, but it’ll work for you.”

  It wasn’t the shortest or the longest board in the room, but was mongo to me at eight feet and was designed for chicks as seen in its coloring—pale green with blue flowers down the center. And it had been freshly waxed, little bumps of goo covering the surface.

  I put my hand on his bicep. “Tell me you didn’t score a board for me. I really don’t want you buying me things.”

  “You need your own.”

  “Need?”

  “Let’s run through the basics again real quick. Leash goes on and comes off at the shore, else you’ll look like a tool. Don’t drydock if you can help it—”

  “What was that?” I couldn’t remember all the rules.

  “Don’t ride all the way up onto the beach. Bail, fall backward before it’s too shallow. Front foot’s the gas, back foot’s the brakes. And the big one—”

  “Never turn my back on the ocean unless you got me covered.”

  I was given a short lecture on types of boards: thrusters, fish, guns, eggs, and my board, a funboard. “Funboard” was brilliant marketing, creating the illusion of good times until you fell off and died. As for the rest, they all looked kinda the same, except the guns which were ginormous. I wasn’t even going to ask why some had no fins or one or two or three.

  He put the funboard under his arm, walked me thirty yards down the beach to where the waves were smaller, and stared at the horizon.

  I stood next to him quietly for three minutes, bobbing my head with the song in my mind. He was doing the same and I wondered what he was gettin’ down on.

  “What’re we doing?” I said after another minute.

  “Checkin’ the waves.” His index finger and pinky directed my sight to where swells were forming in the distance and the direction the waves were moving. “You’re gonna be great. Let’s go.”

  He waited for a lull and then led me to the zone past where the waves were breaking, chest deep. The Velcro bracelet tugged on my ankle. Physically, I had no problem with the leash, but mentally it was uncomfortable, tying me to a big piece of fiberglass that could be taken out with a current. Pointing the nose of the board toward the beach, he moved my attention to the waves that were building behind us.

  “Go ahead and lie down. Start paddling when I say go, really dig in. When you feel a push, give three or four hard strokes then pop up.” He held the board in place so I wouldn’t float away. “Scoot back a touch. Good. Oh, and if you’re on a collision course with a swimmer, look somewhere else, not at the person. The board’ll turn.”

  “Huh?”

  “Not yet … go.”

  I paddled, the wave started to move me, I popped up and was immediately pitched forward into the soup. I came up and sneezed. It burned and I sneezed again.

  “Too much gas. Bless you.” He put the board back into position.

  Naturally, the next five tries I overused the brakes. I knew because all momentum died and there was nowhere for me to go but down.

  I waited for him to say go, paddled until I felt my speed increase, popped up, and was thoroughly surprised that I was still upright, the wave carrying me. Big fun!

  He smiled. “There ya go. You got it!”

  I did it a bunch more, watching him and the waves, asking him why he was picking certain waves and not others, and how I would know when to go. He said it would take some time, but I would get a feel for it. Yeah, right.

  Oh my God! I was flat on the board in a second, not letting any part of my body touch the water. Jellyfish surrounded me, thirty or forty big ones with floating tentacles of tortuous horror and gray, gelatinous bodies. Jericho said my name three times. I couldn’t answer because I was calculating how long it would take for the ocean to drydock me.

  He touched my back. I glanced at him.

  His eyes glowed blue. “There’s a lull. You can paddle in; you won’t touch them.”

  “No way! I’m allergic. I’ve been stung six times in five year
s. They love me.”

  He made a small movement with his hand and as if he were Neptune, they dispersed. I paddled extra hard. Near shore, I yanked the leash from my ankle and ran for it. He chuckled and brought the board in.

  “Close one. Neat trick.” I gave him a towel.

  “What?”

  “How’d you scare ’em away?”

  “How’s that?” He pulled seaweed out of my hair. “You paddle really well when you want to. I can’t believe you’re petrified of jellyfish, but make ridiculous noise about going back to a job where you were beaten and nearly killed.”

  I tilted my head. “Nearly killed?”

  “Well, your hair looked like hot death.”

  _______

  The next morning, Sarah marched me out the door for girl time. I couldn’t have cared less about a pedicure, but then had pretty toes and she couldn’t have been more delighted. Over brunch, she expressed her annoyance with her man’s immature behavior, commenting that he had taken to wearing thongs to combat SBS (Sweaty Ball Syndrome) and to provide him the support he so needed. I mentally added this to my running list entitled “Weird Shit Goin’ on This Summer.”

  She went to see Boy Wonder and I went back to the condo. I didn’t see anyone in the lobby, but Sylvia’s boyfriend, Joel, was there on the other side of the door two feet away, his gray hair melding with the glass. His eyes cut through the pane and I reared back. I took a step to the left for him to come out. He didn’t move. Is he waiting for me to put in my code? What’s he waiting for? Stop looking at me like that! Upon hearing the tick of the door automatically unlocking, I pulled it open, a blast of cold air escaping. He stood his ground.

  I turned sideways to slip past him. “Excuse me, please.”

  His face remained forward, but his eyes tracked me. I quickly escaped into the elevator.

  _______

  I went to Jericho’s to beg off of a surfing lesson. After the last one, I had saltwater coming out of my nose in little gushes for about ten hours. That day, I wanted dry sinuses. Julia was sitting at the dining table writing in a book that was bound in worn brown leather, its pages a heavy parchment that were yellowed on the edges. A calligraphy pen was in her hand and a bottle of cabernet was on the table.