by J T Kalnay
“I’ll bet he was,” Cara leers.
“Cara! Stop it!” Shannon says as they share a conspiratorial laugh.
“He said it was okay to buy him the surf lesson,” Shannon says.
“That’s cool. Can you do it online?”
“Yes. I’m going to look after it right now, and then give him the certificate when I go over for coffee.”
“You’re going over for coffee again? Right after you kissed him?”
“Yes. And after coffee I’m going to kiss him again. He’ll be ready for it this time, so we’ll get a much better read on the second one.”
“Yeah the first one can be awkward,” Cara says.
“How would you know?” Shannon asks.
“I don’t. It just sounded like the right thing to say.”
Shannon
I kissed him. I actually kissed him. That is not what I’m like. But, apparently it is what I am like. Because I kissed him. He didn’t expect it. And he didn’t know what to do. I didn’t really expect it either. But I felt so good from the miles on the beach, it just seemed right. He didn’t whine or cry about being left alone on the beach, and he was happy to warm up and cool down with me. And the way he was looking at me when I ran up on him after the second repeat. That look was filled with lust.
The kiss felt right. He feels right. Is it because I know I can leave whenever I want? Is it because I know he won’t come after me? That he is so tied to this place that he couldn’t possibly tie me down in any way? Is that why he feels right? Because I know his reach and dominion can never extend in to mine, and that he won’t be able to impinge on my habits?
Joe
She kissed me. She actually kissed me. I liked it, once I realized what was happening. I can’t believe I didn’t try to kiss her back. But then again she didn’t really give me a chance. Why would she kiss me like that? The day before she’s leaving. Is that it? Is it because she’s leaving? Or because she just ‘had to know’ what it would feel like to kiss me? Or was she able to kiss me with impunity because she knows she’s leaving and that it can’t possibly lead to anything. Her being a ‘Thursday’ and all? That’s got to be it, because she’s leaving, so she was free to kiss me just to kiss me. Not to kiss me to lead me on, or to kiss me out of some social convention, or for any reason other than she just felt like kissing me.
I think I will lean over the counter and kiss her when she comes in. Right off the bat. And then give her a cup of coffee and let her have the whole cup of coffee to think it over. And then, when she’s getting ready to leave, I will ask her if I can kiss her again. And if she says yes, it’s going to be a full on kiss. A hug and a kiss and a long time between breaths. Wow. Down boy.
She is wearing a different outfit, not the sundress. A skirt, just above the knees, and a blouse floating free, not tucked in. She looks good, still glowing from the run. I am wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Pretty slovenly, even for me.
“Is my coffee ready?” she asks, slipping onto the stool at the end of the counter.
“Almost,” I say. Before she knows what is happening, I lean over the counter and kiss her on the cheek.
“You are a cheeky man,” she says.
I am unsure whether she is upset.
Seeing my uncertainty, she stands and looks me in the eye.
“You missed,” she says. She walks around the counter, puts her arms around my waist, draws me near, and kisses me on the mouth. She pulls me closer, kisses me longer, and then releases me. She returns to her side of the counter.
“Here’s your surf lesson,” she says. She slides a printed page across the counter. “I arranged it all online, they will have the surf board and everything, you just show up. They said a rash guard or a tight fitting shirt of any kind is a good idea, and lots of sun screen.”
“Thank you,” I say. I look at the printed sheet. “There’s a mistake on here.”
“I don’t think so,” she answers.
“You paid for two lessons.”
“I know,” she answers.
“I don’t get it.”
“I thought I would join you for the lesson, if that’s alright,” she says.
I am unable to respond immediately.
“But I thought you were leaving tomorrow?”
“I think I’ll stay for a while. At least until Thursday. Look after getting my house cleaned properly, and then stay at my cottage.”
“Don’t you have to go to work?” I ask.
“Yes, but I can work on the computer while I’m here, I don’t need to be back at the lab or the digs until Labor Day. But then I one hundred percent have to be back at the lab. Even though I’m the boss, I do have to work, and lead by example.”
“I know how that feels.”
“So you’re the boss?” she asks.
“Everywhere except around you.”
The coffee is ready so I slide her cup across to her. She sips.
“It really is excellent coffee,” she says.
“Thanks. So, um, ah, while you’re here, can I see you?”
“Yes,” she answers. “I’d like that. I really enjoyed my workout on the beach this morning. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a good running partner. You were good on the warm up and on the cool down and you didn’t mind about the repeats. I like that. Everyone I’ve tried running with feels like they either have to try to keep up or has to talk incessantly or has to explain why they can’t keep up. It’s pretty tiring. I tried meeting a few partners through eHarmony.com and Match.com, but none of them worked out. All the guys who said they were ‘athletic’ were delusional, unless their sport was beer league softball. All the guys who said they were six feet tall were actually five ten, and all the guys who said they were five foot x were actually five foot x minus three or four or five. It’s not like I care how tall a guy is, but if he says he’s six foot tall and athletic and he turns out to be five nine and fat, that’s not really getting off on the right foot is it? So the few dates I’ve tried have all been running dates, which weeds out about 90% of the guys right away, and then no-one has measured up, so I am really happy that you are a good running partner.”
She stops. Takes a breath.
She realizes she has carried on a very lengthy soliloquy.
“Sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
“For going on and on like that,” she says.
“I always have time to listen to something that matters. And running and running partners clearly matter to you, so please go on.”
She searches my eyes, examines my face and posture, trying to decide whether I am for real, whether I really will have time to listen to things that matter. She has already mentioned that her ex never really listened, that it was very frustrating, because she would have to repeat things three or four times in different ways, and even then she was never quite sure he got what she was saying.
I decide to prod her.
“I rarely run with anyone. I like the quiet on the beach in the morning. So I like it that you don’t talk my ear off. And I don’t mind it when you take off for your speed work. It’s beautiful to watch, and really adds something to the morning. And then, if you’re going to kiss me after running, well, that’s just icing on the cake.”
She blushes.
“So you’d like to go running again tomorrow morning?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“It’s a date. My family will be gone and the house will be empty. It’s always a little sad for me to be left behind like that. So, after running tomorrow, why don’t you get cleaned up and then bring our coffee over to my house? I would like to walk on the beach and drink my coffee, after running.”
“See you tomorrow.”
She gets up, blows me a kiss across the counter, and walks back to her car.
Packing Up
Her sister Cara is OCD at the best of times, and never more so than when she is packing up for a trip. While there is a lot less to pack up on the return leg back to Ohio t
here is still enough to make whichever neurons are in charge of the obsessively compulsive fire obsessively and compulsively. Clorox wipes are passed over everything that is being taken home. And then the items are stored in Ziploc bags of all sizes and shapes, acquired for just this reason. The husbands and cousins take it all in stride, having witnessed it year after year, and loving her enough to accommodate her quirk.
A regular production line of rinsing and drying and wiping and packing has been organized and is making short work of the few remaining items that are to be returned. Each year the beach house has acquired more and more things that simply stay at the beach house. And Shannon refuses to allow Cara to clean those things.
“It’s my house, and even though you are my sister and I love you, I will not be told, in my house, what to clean or how to clean it,” she has told Cara.
And thus much of the house is off-limits. Which only makes those things that are on Cara’s list that much more precious for cleaning and receiving of much more focused attention.
All her workers were incentivized to move quickly because this year, during their last night bonfire, Cara has arranged for fireworks to be fired from the beach out over the ocean. She has invited a few of the North Topsail regulars, and has arranged for donations to be made to the police department, the fire department, the local clinic on the island, the hospital on the mainland, the coast guard, the turtle rescue hospital, the bird sanctuary, and to the dune preservation society. In short, she has greased every palm that needs greasing to make this once in a lifetime event happen. The police have strung hurricane fence from the water’s edge to the dune a couple of hundred yards on both sides of the house, and they have stationed a few reserve officers to move along anyone who tries to cross the barriers. The fireworks will be brief, maybe fifteen minutes, but they will be spectacular as only fireworks over water can be.
She has planned this as part of her campaign to make every July in Topsail unique and memorable in everyone’s minds. To help make the last day at the beach one that they will treasure forever. It is part of her theory that every day is pretty much like every other day and that all these similar days simply blend together into one forgettable montage or routine and that the things that we remember are the outliers, the things that are different. Too often the only things that are different are the profound and unexpected sadnesses. Car accidents, illnesses, divorces. And Cara will have none of that. She wants there to be spectacularly good shared memories in everyone’s minds.
Therefore every year at the beach house she tries to create a landmark event. And her theory has been proven correct. Part of the family lore and part of the family vocabulary revolve around how the different years are identified. There was the pig roast year, the sailboat year, the tree planting year, the deep sea fishing year, the paragliding year, and on and on. Each year has had its signature event. This year will be remembered by the entire family as the fireworks year. And this year will also be remembered by Shannon and Joe as the year that Shannon met Joe.
Cara thinks back to earlier that day when Shannon had asked her if it was okay if Joe came over for the fireworks. Cara recalled her answer that it was Shannon’s house after all and she could invite whoever she wanted to her own house. She had chosen the words carefully to parrot back Shannon’s words about not being told what or how to clean in her own house.
Her attempt at humor was met with a screeching cat noise accompanied by an imaginary swipe of an imaginary paw. It was their private code that had stopped many a fight before it had begun.
She recalled how Shannon had told her that she was asking because she wanted her opinion on whether Joe being there would upset the family and distract them from a spectacular fireworks show. Then Cara got what Shannon was asking. She thought back on telling Shannon that it might be confusing for some of the kids who had only known her ex in her life, and had known no other man.
“Maybe next year would be better,” Cara had said.
“I think you’re right,” Shannon had answered.
Joe
I am not invited to the bonfire and to the beach house for fireworks. Everyone in North Topsail, practically everyone in Sneads Ferry, and even some people in Wilmington know about the fireworks. I am not upset about not being invited tonight. I have been invited for tomorrow morning.
The rumor is that a senator or famous actor or someone “special” has been invited and that’s why there are going to be fireworks and security when there are never fireworks or security, except for when they are filming at the house with the green metal roof.
There is only one place where I have ever been completely at peace. It is on the beach, at sunrise. Not home alone like this, thinking about Shannon, thinking about how quickly I have come to know her, and how quickly I have come to miss her. Tonight I am alone again, and this time the alone is no good.
The alone was perfect when I was a child. Perfect on the long runs on the beach and the longer swims in the ocean. Perfect as the endless repetition of tides and sunrises rolled along beside me and washed over me and made me the boy and then man that I am.
The alone had been imperfect when I had gone off to college. And in these moments of imperfection that I count as moments of weakness, the absence and imperfection of the alone had led to Colleen. She was a mistake. There is no question about that now. My sister told me so before, but I hadn’t listened. Everyone who knew me as the child and young man on the island knew that she was a mistake for me. That she would ruin my alone. Because everyone knew that the alone is who I am. That I could intersect or overlap and revel in those rare moments of intersection, but that ultimately I am supposed to be alone, and that for me that was the right thing.
My alone had been good and then it had been not so good and Colleen had been a mistake. Our child had been the only good thing to come from that mistake. But our child had also been our tragedy. Through her terrible childhood leukemia, the days and nights in the hospital, the days and nights at home, the pain, the suffering, and the ultimate conclusion.
The alone had been nearly impossible right after my daughter Caitlin had died. And then completely unbearable after Colleen had taken her own life. So I filled the alone with my sister and with my business and with all the things that make alone not seem so alone. I moved out of our house and moved to a small quiet place on the sound, remote from town. My habits were honed and refined and ritualized and became like another presence, something that made the alone not so alone, and that made the alone first bearable, and then comfortable again.
Which had brought me back to the beach, to the Atlantic, the runs at sunrise, and thus ultimately to Shannon. Who was with her family tonight, and then who would be with me tomorrow morning. When she would be alone, the most alone, in the moments right after her family had departed.
Was that why she’d invited me for tomorrow morning but not for tonight? Was I supposed to be a replacement? I don’t think that she is looking for a replacement. I don’t think that she is looking for anything. And just when she had not been looking, I ran her over and spilled half her coffee and then poured out the rest of it.
But she said she had seen me earlier in the week, and the week before. So maybe she had been looking after all....
Fireworks
Shannon sits in the powdery sand surrounded by her family in the cool late evening breeze. The three foot tall sea oats on the dune sway gently behind them in their makeshift amphitheater. Cara is in her element, providing a never to be forgotten moment for her entire family. She rises to speak, and everyone quiets to hear her. Her voice barely carries over the waves, even as small as they are.
“Thank you everyone for another great July. We treasure that you are all able to come every year. We’ve never done fireworks before, so I don’t know what to expect, but I know that we’ll all remember our night of fireworks at the beach house.”
She signals to the volunteer firemen who are with the fireworks man who reminds everyone of a “carney�
��.
She moves quickly to sit beside Shannon, taking her hand in hers.
The show begins.
First one shell arcs up into the star filled sky and then another. After an impossibly long pause the shells burst, one white, one blazing red. Shell after shell reach up into the sub-tropical air that hangs pregnant over the nearly still Atlantic.
Their small group oohs and ahhs, never having seen fireworks so close.
The fireworks man finds his rhythm and range and adjusts the arcs after watching his first tentative ranging shots. Soon three and four shells are arcing up and bursting together. Then a different type of attraction, a brick of shells that fire one right after another sending a constant stream of smaller red, white, and blue blazes fifty feet into the air. Then there is a pause. The small group looks at each other, wondering whether the show is over.
And then they hear a deeper thump, then several more thumps, and crane their necks skyward to follow the paths of these different shells. While they watch, more and more thumps echo from the launching pad. Suddenly the entire sky is ablaze with fireworks of every color. Incredibly loud booms follow one after another. Cara turns away from the bursting shells to watch the faces of her family, seeing smiles of wonder filling every face. She lives for these moments.
Her eyes catch Shannon’s.
“I love you,” Shannon mouths.
“I love you too,” Cara says.
Joe
Like many others who live here on the island and who knew about the fireworks I have parked in the public access down the beach from her house and have walked up close to the security fence. I have brought a beach chair so I can sit and watch this unusual event.
