The Topsail Accord

by J T Kalnay

  “So I’m guilty by association?”

  “Are you?”

  “He was asking me which day of the week you were going to sleep with me,” Joe confesses.

  “Is that a big sport around here? Figuring out which day of the week you can plug the renter?” she asks.

  “For him it is.”

  “And for you?”

  “No.”

  She looks directly in his eyes, searching him, waiting for him to flinch, or make some other show that he is lying.

  He holds her gaze. Doesn’t flinch. Knows that this is a crossroads at a very early point in their relationship.

  “Why not?” she asks. “You’re a good looking man. You’re not married. There’s a lot of lonely women, divorcees, people who want to get away for a while. So why not?” she asks.

  “It’s not me. Not who I am. Since my wife died there’s only been a couple of women, and I’ll admit that both of them were renters.”

  “Since your wife died?” Shannon asks. “I’m sorry. But is that something you tell someone on their third date? That your wife died.”

  Joe jerks his thumb over his shoulder at where Karen and Cara are still talking.

  “It was twenty years ago. And if I know my sister, she’s telling your sister everything she knows about me, about my wife, about our daughter, about everything. I don’t know why she does it. In some way she thinks she’s protecting me. I can’t stop her, so I’ve stopped trying.”

  “Is that why you told me to bring someone?” Shannon asks. “To backdoor information to me?”

  “No. You looked like you didn’t want to come by yourself. So I figured my choices were either to encourage you to bring someone, running the risk that my sister would spill every bean she could find, but by doing so increase the chances that you would come over this morning, or risk not getting to see you this morning.”

  “But you wouldn’t change Friday from picking trash to jogging?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even to see me?”

  “Nope. Two reasons why. First, these are my people and this is what I do on Fridays. I like you, but I just met you, and this Friday morning group has been together for over ten years, give and take a few additions and no-shows. Second, you asked me not to pretend. Or maybe you told me not to pretend.”

  Shannon considers his answer. She picks up her pace and moves a half step ahead of Joe. She looks back over her shoulder.

  “For future reference, you can tell Mike I’m a Thursday.”

  “Thursday? But today’s Friday! And you’re going home soon.”

  “Just wanted to let you know,” Shannon says.

  “Damn,” Joe says.

  Shannon winks at him, whacks him in the butt with her garbage picking tool, and when he acts shocked, she winks again, more dramatically, nearly striking a pose.

  “Definitely a Thursday,” she says.

  Shannon

  “I’m going to stay for a little while,” Shannon tells Cara.

  Cara says nothing. Arches her eyebrow, sucks in on her cheek.

  “I think I’ll stay here a day or two to supervise everything getting cleaned up just the way I want, and then I’m going to stay in the cottage.”

  Cara still says nothing.

  “I’m not going to lie to you. I want to see where, if anywhere, this is going. It sounds like he’s pretty attached to here, and you know I am completely attached to our family, so I don’t really know that it can go anywhere. But it might be fun for a little while. He’s interesting, and we can talk.”

  “Shannon, he’s damaged goods,” Cara says.

  “What am I?” Shannon asks. “What is any single person in their forties?”

  “You’re my sister, and I love you.”

  “But if I wasn’t, and you had to describe me, like you just felt compelled to describe Joe, wouldn’t you have to say that I was ‘damaged goods’ too?”

  “No.”

  “Really? Because I’ve got to tell you that sometimes I feel like damaged goods. It’s not my fault that things turned out the way they did. Not completely. But that doesn’t mean I’m not damaged.”

  “Shannon. Come on,” Cara starts.

  Shannon cut her off. “And Joe’s easy. He says what he means and means what he says. I’m hoping he’ll go jogging with me a few more times, and have some more coffees with me. And maybe I’ll even go and pick up some more trash with him next Friday. But I don’t see it going much beyond that.”

  “So what’s the point of staying another week to go jogging and to pick up trash if it isn’t going anywhere?” Cara asks.

  “Because I’m fine with it being right where it is. Do you know how long it’s been since I had a decent jogging partner? Or someone I could just talk to over coffee?”

  “You mean other than me?”

  “You’re great over coffee, but when it comes to running...”

  “Shannon, I’m only going to say this one time. You’re a fully grown woman. You’re my sister. I love you. I don’t want you to get hurt again. You know I would do anything to protect you.”

  “Do I need protection?”

  “From Joe? While you’re here? Actually no. So this is going to surprise you, especially coming from me. You’ve convinced me, so I’m going to agree with you and actually push you out of the nest a little. You’re right about Joe. He’s intelligent and witty and a good conversationalist. He treats you like an equal, he treated me like an equal. We don’t have a lot of that in our lives because we’re both in charge. So don’t stay for a week. Stay for a couple weeks, or a month. If you’re serious about finding out where this is going, really find out. Don’t limit yourself to jogging and coffee and picking trash. Don’t make any rules. Ask him to go paddling with you. Ask him to walk on the beach with you. Buy him that surf lesson you were talking about and then go surfing with him. Make up a new thing. If you want to get him naked, get him naked. This is the first real chance you’ve had since it ended. So I’m with you on this one. Try it on for size. You never know. If it ends or doesn’t go anywhere that’s okay. You can have some fun, or some nice jogs, or some more excellent trash picking.”

  Shannon walks over and hugs her sister.

  “I love you,” she says.

  “I love you too,” Cara answers.

  Joe

  This will probably be our last jog. It’s Saturday, and I know they are heading back to Ohio tomorrow. No-one goes for a jog on the morning that they have a twelve hour drive. Maybe they go for a ten minute walk, but they don’t go for a half hour jog. They are getting ready to go.

  So why is she jogging with me again today? Am I that good a jogging partner? At fifty? Well still forty-nine for a few more days. I guess she just wants to go jogging. I can see that about her. She’s going to do what she wants to do. And you can come along or not. I don’t think she cares either way. Maybe because of her ex. It sounds like she put her life on hold for him. I’m surprised that her sister told my sister that her ex has been an issue occasionally. But, I can see why someone would have a hard time letting go of Shannon. I think with Shannon there’s no half way. You’re in or you’re out. I am perilously close to being in. Maybe it’s a good thing that she’s going home tomorrow.

  Thank God my knees don’t hurt today. Nothing hurts today. I guess it’s because I just walked yesterday morning doing the trash detail. Maybe a few more rest days in between my jogs would be a good idea? Or some swimming? Or a few more miles on my bike and not as many on my feet? Something that doesn’t beat up my knees and hips and back so much? No, that would be way too smart and no-one has ever accused me of doing the smart thing.

  Like this jog with Shannon this morning.

  It’s Saturday, and she said she’s a ‘Thursday’, which made it clear that that isn’t going to happen. Well, pretty clear. I mean why would you bring that up the day before the day you’re packing up to go home? Maybe it was on her mind? But probably just because Mike brought it up. Thanks
a lot dude.

  But I am really happy that my knees don’t hurt. I might be able to keep up a little better today. She’s a really good runner. Olympic trials? Yeah she’s a good runner. So why did she go so slow with me? Because she chose to I guess. Yeah I can see that. She might choose to slow down just to have someone to jog with on the wet sand near the warm ocean where a flaming red sun is just rising over the weathered pier. Someone to run with who, like her, is moved by the smell of the salt and the calls of the gulls. Who will change direction to follow the sleek black dolphins as they work their way along the sand bar fishing.

  Is she lonely? Is that why she slowed down? Because she’s lonely? Because she wanted someone to talk to? We didn’t even talk that much. Which I like, I don’t really like talking a lot while jogging, especially when the air has been scoured by the morning breeze and the astringent salt is cleansing my lungs. And we didn’t talk very much. So why did she slow down? And why did she ask me to jog again this morning? This is all very confusing for me. It’s much easier running my coffee shop and my coffee business. We buy the beans, we grind the beans, we brew the beans, we sell the coffee. We buy the real estate, we put in the equipment, we open the franchise. It’s pretty straight forward. Not like Shannon.

  Okay that’s not fair. She’s very straight forward. I don’t mean simple or stupid or innocent. I just mean she is what she is. She told me not to pretend when I ate the berries even though I didn’t like them. She wasn’t offended that Mike was talking about sex. She’s straight forward. I think she says what she means, means what she says, does what she wants, and wants what she does. I guess she would have to be to make it as a woman in geology, which has to be a pretty male dominated world. Her geology papers and research are written in such a Spartan style that I can practically see her reading the papers in her quiet, thoughtful, no-nonsense voice.

  There she is, jogging down to meet me, closer to where I parked. She isn’t waiting for me in front of her house.

  Shannon and Joe

  “Let’s go this way today,” Shannon says.

  I turn around, put my back to her house and the pier beyond it, and fall in beside her.

  “Okay,” I say. “I resist the urge to ask ‘why’? I resist the urge to ask anything.

  Five minutes turns to ten without a word being said.

  “I’m going to pick it up for a mile or so. Don’t try to keep up. Just keep going your pace, or walk, and I’ll pick you up on the way back okay?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I say.

  She pulls away easily, effortlessly. I slow down and watch. One of my favorite things is to watch people who are really good at something do that something. I don’t care what it is. Shooting baskets, pulling weeds, running, painting a house. I don’t care. I love mastery. And she is a master.

  Watching a master is how I learned to make coffee, from watching the man who used to own the coffee shop.

  She must be going at about a five thirty per mile pace. A speed I could match on my bike. Maybe.

  I slow to a walk and watch her already small frame grow smaller and smaller as she pulls farther and farther away. I am reminded of what I was just thinking. That she will do what she wants, when she wants. I like that, even though it has left me walking alone on the beach where millions of tiny shells were washed ashore in the overnight high tide. Shells that crunch underfoot and remind me how the beach is never the same on any two mornings. You never walk the same beach twice. Sometimes I sift these shells looking for fossilized sharks’ teeth. Other times I wonder why there are three drift lines. I can figure out that one is from the last high tide and that one is from the last really high tide but the third drift line eludes my meager intellect.

  I am walking alone, waiting for her to return. Knowing she will pick me up on her way back.

  I see her slow then turn in the distance. She walks for a hundred yards, and then starts running again. And this time she is really running. Faster even than on the outward leg. I can see how fluid her motion is, how there is no wasted energy, how every moving part is doing exactly the right thing to propel this forty year old beauty towards me at an Olympic trial pace. Before I know it she is back beside me.

  “Nice,” I say.

  “Not bad,” she answers. She is breathing hard, sweating freely, and unashamed about her effort or sweat.

  She walks along beside me while she catches her breath.

  She breathes in the salt-tinged humid breeze coming in off the sun-flecked ocean. Sweat runs off her face and drops into the sand to join the salt from the reaching and receding waves. Dolphins cruise past us very close in to the shore. They are fishing in the early light, right on top of the sand bar. So close I can make out individual features on their fins.

  “They’re so beautiful,” she says. “I always think about swimming out to touch them.”

  “Yes they’re beautiful,” I answer. “But swimming out there to touch them is a bad idea. They will bite your finger off if they think it’s a fish. And while you can see the dolphins fishing, you can’t see the sharks that are following right behind them and that are fishing too. Everything likes to fish in the morning light and the evening dusk. So swimming out there to touch them would be really dangerous.”

  “I’d still love to wade out there once, or swim out there, and feel them brush by. Even if there is some danger. Some things are worth a little risk.”

  “Yes they are,” I say. Her eyes stay fixed on the dolphins, my eyes stay fixed on her.

  “What about in a kayak?” Shannon asks.

  “Much better,” I say.

  “So you shouldn’t go surfing at dusk or dawn then?” Shannon says.

  “Nope. Full daylight,” Joe answers.

  “I would like to buy you a surfing lesson for your birthday,” Shannon says.

  “I’d like that,” Joe says.

  “I’ll buy it online, and tell you the details when I come over for coffee this morning,” she says. “Which day next week would be best for you?”

  I am glad, and not surprised, that she asked me first about buying the gift, and about scheduling the lesson.

  “Thursday will be best for me,” I say.

  She laughs out loud at my blatant flirt. Smiles at me, and starts jogging. “Come on,” she says. “I said a surf lesson...”

  We are getting close to where I parked, and she can see the public beach access steps coming over the dune. She slows down and begins walking to the steps. I follow along beside her. We stop at the bottom of the steps.

  “So you’ll have my coffee ready for me at nine?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “That’s something I could get used to,” she says.

  My mind races. I’ve never been hurt by a renter. By a visitor. And after just three days I am going to be hurt terribly by this visitor who is no renter.

  She climbs the first step, turns back towards me, puts her hands on my shoulders, draws me towards her, and kisses me. It is the softest kiss I have ever experienced. And my first real kiss since I can’t remember when. I can taste the salt from her run, and feel the lean muscles in her arms.

  “I could get used to that too,” she says. “See you at nine.”

  She steps past me, heads back towards the firm sand near the water, and starts jogging up the beach towards her house.

  My head spins, the taste of her salty kiss still fresh on my lips.

  I am in deep trouble.

  Joe

  “Good run?” Karen asks.

  “Yes. She can really run.”

  “You didn’t try to keep up did you?”

  “Wisely no. She warmed up with me, then did a couple of mile repeats really fast, then cooled down with me.”

  “So she’s really that fast?”

  “Yes. You should see her form. It’s perfect.”

  “Taken out of context you may have just asked me to go lesbian,” Karen says.

  “Shut up,” Joe says.

  They share
a laugh.

  “She kissed me,” Joe adds.

  “What?” Karen says.

  “She ran back to the steps with me, then she kissed me. I was totally not ready for that.”

  “But don’t tell me you weren’t thinking about it,” Karen says.

  “I wasn’t thinking about it. Not right then. I was just liking being out on the beach with her, and thinking about how she’s heading home tomorrow. So I wasn’t thinking about it at all.”

  “How was it?”

  “Salty,” Joe says.

  “Nice,” Karen teases.

  “She asked if she could buy me a surf lesson for my birthday.”

  “She asked?”

  “Yeah. I thought it was very good form to ask like that. First, that I wouldn’t be weirded out by getting the gift, and second, whether I really wanted the lesson. She’s different like that.”

  “Yeah she’s different. And rich.”

  “Rich? What are you talking about?”

  “She struck oil. Literally. Right after she struck natural gas. So she’s rich.”

  “Exactly how do you know this?”

  “Google. Her sister said you Googled her, and found out about her and her sister. So I did the same, but apparently more extensively and then I actually read the articles instead of just looking at the pictures.”

  “Did you have to?” Joe asks.

  “No. But I love you and I was curious. Do you want to know how rich?”

  “Could I stop you?”

  “No.”

  “Alright then. Is she richer than me?”

  “If we are going to calibrate our scale by saying you are rich, then on that same scale she is filthy rich,” Karen said.

  “Wow. Well at least that solves that usual problem.”

  “I’ll say,” Karen says.

  Shannon

  “I kissed him,” Shannon tells Cara.

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did!”

  “How was it?”

  “He wasn’t ready for it. I took him by surprise. So, he was kinda stiff.”