Sanibel Scribbles

by Christine Lemmon

  Gazing out the bus window, she didn’t want to leave. She felt like a potted plant turned upside down and getting hit. She wasn’t ready to be repotted. There was still room to grow right here. She’d rather sit outside the local bakery on Butler Street early in the morning and read the paper with the other locals. Then again, with the businesses sold and her parents gone, she could no longer classify herself as a local.

  She watched Saugatuck, with its mammoth, rolling dunes to the west and the rich hues of the orchard country to the east grow smaller. She noticed her memories growing larger as she left behind the place where she grew up, the place she called home. Just a half a mile south, the bus entered the village of Douglas, and she caught a glimpse of the S.S. Keewatin, a passenger steamship that once sailed the Great Lakes, before it became a floating maritime museum. She longed to stay anchored there with the Keewatin.

  She didn’t want to leave the Great Lake State, the eleventh largest in the country. She loved Michigan. The Great Lakes formed most of its boundaries to the east, while Ohio and Indiana bordered the south and Wisconsin bound the west. She didn’t want to leave her hometown. It was like a mitten on the map. The mitten felt cozy and comfortable to her now. She didn’t feel like taking it off.

  Should she have stayed? Should she have talked longer with Rebecca’s mother? Would there be a funeral? Of course there would be, and she would miss it. She had no choice, like a dislodged plant. She had a flight to catch in Chicago. If she could have hopped into the ice cream freezer and numbed herself for a few hours, she would have.

  As she boarded the plane, she imagined the way her good-bye with Rebecca was supposed to have happened.

  “Hey, I want you to do something,” Rebecca would have said, standing in the gate area. “I want you to give me that good-bye wave sort of thing you said your grandmother always did.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It was the last thing I saw her do before she died.”

  “Please, por favor. Give me your grandmother’s good-bye.”

  “Okay. Here it goes.”

  Vicki would turn her back to her friend, kiss her forefingers, extend her arm backward and wiggle her fingers. Just like Grandma, she would never look back, since that would break the rules of the backward good-bye wave. Her tears dripped shamelessly like drops of melting ice cream as she walked down the long hallway, not looking back, as if doing so might turn her into stone.

  On the flight to Florida, she pulled her credit card out of her purse and picked up the phone attached to the seat in front of her. She would call Till Midnight to see if someone had saved the tablecloth with the scribbles on it. How ridiculous! She chided herself, especially with all the chocolate stains. No doubt the waiter had dumped it. She put the phone back.

  She opened her purse and pulled out an envelope addressed to a woman living on Sanibel Island in Florida. Vicki had kept this particular letter in her purse for months now and didn’t know what else to do with it, so she flipped the long letter over and started writing on the back.

  Dear Grandma,

  You once told me that the letters I wrote kept you up late at night, more so than any of the books in your paperback collection. You said my lengthy, embellished letters added spice to your life and that they kept you going. Well, I wish you had been more patient because my last letter simply got lost in the mail without a stamp. You should have waited a couple more days, and it would have arrived.

  I promise to keep you going. That’s why I’m writing, to keep both you and me going.

  You won’t believe this story! A twenty-one year old and a seventy-four year old, both full of life, both now dead from attacks in their sleep just a couple of months apart. My mind watches reruns over and over again-episodes of the younger one, and of the older one. In my imagination, I talk to them both as if they’re still alive, and they talk to me.

  I can hear the one named Rebecca warning me that we spend half of life counting down to a long-awaited event, and the other half looking back, remembering. I hear the feisty grandmother reminding me not to worry about things I cannot control. I got so upset that time I visited you on Sanibel, and it rained every day. Now I’d give anything for a rain-spent day inside with you, Grandma. No, we cannot control rain or death. I guess this all means there will be no more summer nights of eating Heavenly Hash ice cream with you, Grandma, and, now, no sipping espresso in Spain with Rebecca. And Grandma, just before you died, you told me you had discovered the recipe to instant gratification and that you were going to send it to me. Now I may never know what you were talking about.

  P.S. They say you’re not “dead.” You’ve simply “crossed over,” I know it’s true, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me.

  She folded the letter, then opened it again. She had to write about the time Grandma walked the streets of Saugatuck in her pink, fuzzy robe and slippers. She had to write it down because someday, when she would be rocking back and forth with a box of tissues, freckled arms and purple hair, she’d at least have her letters to Grandma to comfort her. They would describe the details her mind might forget, and they would keep Grandma alive forever.

  Dear Grandma,

  Remember the time city cousin Michelle from Chicago spent the entire summer scooping ice cream in the shop? We were short employees and needed the help, and besides, Michelle loved you and wanted to spend time with you. The three of us night owls teased each other. Michelle and I used to call you “sexy woman,” and you’d blush, saying, “Now, now girls.” One night Michelle and I worked until midnight in the shop. The tourists kept coming, and I stayed open an hour later because it was the family business, and because I felt we could rake in extra cash. One of the bars at Coral Gables had closed, and crowds were migrating from that bar to the Sand Bar. Luckily, our shop was situated right between the two. We were nice when we scooped ice cream, and that night we got so many tips that, when we finally did close down, we decided to hang out for late-night, thin-crust pizza across the street at Marro’s.

  It was then that we heard loud pounding on the window near our booth. We looked out, as did everyone else in the restaurant, and to our shock, there you stood, Grams, with your pink robe and pink slippers. You were waving your forefinger at us, and pointing to your wristwatch. We should have told you we were going for pizza that night. You were up and waiting for us in your little apartment behind the shop. We should have told you. You probably would have liked a pizza and beer yourself. I know you only drink beer with pizza and would not eat pizza without a beer.

  Oh, Grandma, your refrigerator stored nothing but Kit-Kat bars, Swiss cheese, ham, butter, and thinly sliced rye bread. As for Rebecca, I haven’t meant to ignore her in this letter– well, she kept our apartment meticulous. She alphabetized her books and fed her plants a weekly dose of Advil. They were gorgeous plants, growing out of control. Rebecca spoke Spanish to them.

  P.S. And to think, Rebecca is now speaking with God. I wished she were here speaking with me instead.

  Vicki folded the letter, then closed her eyes. She felt butterflies flapping about in the pit of her stomach, their wings—normally used for courtship, regulating body temperature and avoiding predators—now entangled and crumbling apart. They had danced about so many times through her life that she knew their choreography by heart. At times, they made her nervous for no good reason at all. She often feared they might be bats, but how ridiculous!

  CHAPTER THREE

  VICKY HAD ARRIVED AT Fort Myers International Airport many times during her life, always to visit her grandparents, who spent their winters living on Sanibel Island. After Grandpa died, she visited even more. She didn’t know how she would like Florida now that one of its most treasured seashells, her grandmother, would no longer be found on its beaches.

  “Well, she should stop searching for seashells on the Sanibel seashore,” she slurred silently as she stepped off the plane. She was in no mood to recite silly little tongue twisters, but two little girls seated in the row in front of her
had been tongue twisting for nearly the entire second hour of the flight, and as hard as she tried not to become infected, everything was more contagious on a plane.

  “She should instead safely start the summertime stingray shuffle near the Sanibel seashore,” she said slowly as she stumbled over someone’s small suitcase in the gateway and stopped. She said it again, faster. “She should safely start summer’s stingray shuffle near the Sanibel seashore. Sea should shave … she should safely shart … shit … stop saying such silly stuff,” she said. “So shut up.”

  There is nothing worse than a perfectionist tongue twisting, she thought as she spotted her parents standing in a crowd, everyone’s faces bronzed and looking quite relaxed as if the entire crowd had just finished a great game of golf. “Great game of golf on gorgeous green grass … great game of golf on gorgeous green grass … gate game of goof … get off it!” she scolded herself. “You can practice later.”

  “Practice what?” asked her mother as she threw her arms around her.

  “Golf,” she rapidly replied, noticing how much younger her parents looked, since relocating to Florida several months ago.

  “We’ve been playing every morning, and we’d love for you to join us,” said her father, joining the hug.

  “Did I say ‘golf?’ I meant ‘goof.’ What a ‘goof’ I feel like with my ears popped. I must be shouting right now,” she said, and then forced a wide yawn, hoping that might help.

  Could Florida, or golfing, actually take years off a person’s life? Maybe, she thought, as she hugged both her mom and dad together, noticing a fresh glow to their skins and natural highlights in her mother’s hair.

  As she and her mother waited on the curb for her father to pull the car up, Vicki noticed a group of women standing around them, looking as if they were linen hung to dry in the scorching sun a bit too long. And, as quick and fleeting as a hummingbird’s presence, a moment of déjà vu fluttered through her mind. Suddenly she could predict exactly what her grandmother would be about to say at this exact given moment were she still alive and picking her up at the airport for her annual visit.

  “Sunscreen is the Fountain of Youth,” Grandma would say before pulling a brand-new bottle of lotion from a drugstore bag stuffed in her large straw purse. “I’m only going to warn you once on this trip. You don’t want alligator skin.”

  “Thank you, Grandma, but wrinkles are not something I need to worry about now. I don’t care what I look like when I’m older. I only care about now.”

  But now, like never before, she did care about wrinkles, aging and even death. She reached into her bag and pulled out sunscreen she had bought at her layover. She rubbed it into her arms, legs and face, then, fearing that SPF 60 might not be strong enough to protect her from the sun’s deadly rays, she reapplied a second, and then a third coat.

  In the backseat of her parent’s tiny white car, with the air-conditioning not working properly, Vicki felt as if she were sitting in a sauna, ready to exit, but unable to do so. The door was stuck. She felt a kind of panic she had never felt before, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes and tried to inhale deeply, but there didn’t seem to be anything for her lungs to inhale. She tried convincing herself that a few more minutes of socializing in the sauna would be nice. She and her parents had much to catch up on as they drove west on Daniels Parkway, then made a left onto Summerlin Road and followed the signs toward Sanibel Island. Like private cramps deep within her gut, Rebecca’s death agonized her, yet she didn’t want to make it public news just yet. She chose to suffer alone, like someone choking silently, dying unnoticed during a wonderful dinner with family. Several minutes later, they passed billboards that teased travelers with painted glimpses of paradise ahead. She still couldn’t properly catch her breath, but like the man standing knee-deep in the water out her left window, she wouldn’t give up. She had to catch it just as he had to catch his fish.

  “Oh, thank God. The bridge is going up,” said her father. “That means we’re forced to stop and wait.”

  “There’s no place I’d rather be stuck then here on this bridge,” added her mother.

  “I’m getting sick. I’ve got to get out of this.”

  Vicki waited as long as she could, then, as soon as the car stopped, she opened the door like a person escaping a burning house and rushed over to the side rail of the bridge, as if she might throw up, but then she couldn’t help but notice the water below her, looking so clear. She glanced up and saw giant brown pelicans gliding overhead like creatures one might see in The Wizard of Oz. One lunged downward and caught a fish, and carried it toward land. She couldn’t arrive on Sanibel carrying the heavy news of her friend’s death alone. It would sink the island. Laughing gulls swirled around her as well, but she couldn’t hear them.

  As she watched a sailboat to her left with two—no, three, no, four—bottlenose dolphins riding its front wave slowly approaching the bridge, she noticed her parents getting out of the car to join her, and she knew she needed to share the weight that was pulling her down. She had finished telling them how Rebecca died by the time the sailboat finally showed up under full sail on the other side of the bridge. Grateful for their comfort, she stood embracing her parents and watching the pod of smiling dolphins now leaping through the air, weightless and exposing their pink stomachs behind the boat.

  She took a deep breath and got back into the car, looking ahead toward Sanibel and Captiva Islands, the most amazing islands in Southwest Florida, surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico.

  At the first stop sign on the island, they headed east down Periwinkle Way and drove another couple of minutes to the condominium where Grandma and Grandpa used to spend their winters, two birds of paradise—the Great Egret and the Snowy Egret—as they used to call themselves.

  “Mom and I say it every day, honey. We still can’t believe the timing of it all,” her father said as he opened the door of the condo. “We sold the businesses and the house, and planned on moving here to be closer to Grandma.”

  “And now, the loss of your friend,” added her mother. “There’s so much in life we can’t control.”

  “They both left at horrible times,” said Vicki. “I just can’t believe it.” That evening Vicki wanted a break from the morbid thoughts that raced through her mind. She wanted to forget that her friend had died, to toss the incident into her Sea of Forgetfulness. Her parents suggested they stay in for dinner, but she insisted they go out so they went for all you-can-eat shrimp-and-crab platters. Vicki’s parents tried urging her to return to Michigan for the funeral or to make phone calls to friends or send flowers. She appreciated their concern and their support, but still, as she spoke of it all, she felt like a dolphin tossed into a lake. Come morning she would be back in the ocean again, where everything made sense.

  She could only talk so much about it all and, instead, wanted to enjoy the feelings that came from being reunited and sharing a dinner with her parents. They were a close family after years of mopping floors, cleaning toilets, waiting tables and horseback riding together through the woods at her father’s ranch, the last of his entrepreneurial endeavors. Since the sale of the businesses and the southward migration a couple of months ago, they had only spoken on the phone and they had much to catch up on.

  After dinner, they returned to the condo, and Vicki went for a quick swim in the pool. It felt good, hiding from the humidity that had clung to her ever since she stepped foot off the plane, but she felt guilty, as if she should be around people who knew Rebecca and were mourning her death. She should be walking up to the open casket at a funeral, not splashing around in a solar-heated pool! She didn’t dare to smile because she should be wiping her eyes with a white handkerchief, not drying herself off with a beach towel. Instead of wearing a pastel-colored bikini, she should be wearing something dark, solid, and solemn. She didn’t want to cry because that would only rub in a fact she couldn’t accept: her closest friend had actually left this life without finishing anythin
g she wanted to accomplish.

  Oh, why didn’t she just skip her flight and attend the funeral? How could she have made such a rash decision? She blamed it on shock. It had to be shock, because it all happened so fast that she didn’t know she had any options. Then again, she had to leave. Her hometown would always stay where it lay on the map, between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, but everything comforting about it had changed. She felt a chill and missed the cozy mitten.

  That night in bed, minutes, perhaps hours, had passed when Vicki saw a woman sitting at the end of her bed. It took a moment for her eyes to focus and, like an Etch-A-Sketch filling itself out in midair, she gradually saw more detail: Rebecca’s long dark hair, tinseled in silver, then her royal blue eyes.

  “Hola, Vicki. I’ve got a Heavenly secret to share with you. Dreams not fulfilled on earth can still be fulfilled,” echoed her friend, and then, in an instant, as if someone shook the Etch-A-Sketch, she vanished.

  Vicki sat up in bed, staring at the foot of her bed like a magician staring confidently at her magic hat, awaiting the reappearance of a rabbit. “Rebecca,” she called out. “Please come back. Don’t go. I heard what you said, but tell me more. I need to hear more. I’m scared. My grandma died, and now you. Does death really strike in threes? Who next? Could it be me?”

  She waited and listened, realizing no magic word would make Rebecca reappear. As much as she did or didn’t believe in what she had just seen, she still felt thrilled to have had the perceived, and perhaps real, experience of seeing her friend moving and talking once more. She felt honored and wanted to memorize everything she had heard and seen. How could it be? Had Rebecca really visited her there in the room? Had she crossed the life-death barrier just to deliver that message?