by J T Kalnay
“What would you have done but worry? What could you have done except worry everyone? Why would I put the family through that?”
“You went by yourself?”
“No. I hired a nurse. After getting a second and third opinion. It wasn’t that big a deal. I was only in the hospital overnight, and then the nurse was with me and in a week it was like nothing ever happened. So no, I’m not pregnant.”
“You had cancer and you didn’t tell me?”
“I had a hysterectomy and I didn’t tell you. It’s different,” Shannon says.
“If you say so,” Cara answers. She can tell that the topic is closed, though she resolves to find the doctor and records and do her own investigation.
“Tell me more about Costa Rica,” Cara says.
Shannon describes the orchids that hang in the trees, feeding from the air. She describes the daily rain that runs off the cacao and vanilla plants to lie in candy scented puddles. She describes the toucans that hang upside down in the berry trees and clip the ripe fruit into their long beaks and always drop one or two pieces that crush on the ground to add their scents to the heavily infused air. She tells Shannon about the humidity and how it permeates everything with the scents of the beach and ocean and rain forest.
“Everything is scented. The moisture in the air gets into everything and carries all the smells from the sea and from the jungle into everything. Every sheet and pillow and book and piece of clothing smells like something. No-one has potpourri in Costa Rica because the air is already fruited and dusted with things that change every day and with the things that are always there. I’m thinking about buying a house there, and spending more time there.”
“A house? With Joe?”
“No. Joe doesn’t need to know about it. Joe is July and January and surfing and lighthouses. And maybe not lighthouses. I’m not sure. So no he doesn’t need to know about the house.”
“Can you afford it?” Cara asks.
“I can afford about a hundred houses in Costa Rica, and another hundred here, and then another hundred in another hundred countries. The natural gas deposit is huge. The oil deposit is even bigger. I’m going to sell it all, it’ll likely be worth five or seven or twenty billion dollars.”
“Billion?”
“Yes billion. I’m having a lawyer create a foundation for you, you’ll be the trustee of it. I’m going to give you a billion dollars to do research. You’ve always said you wanted to have a research center and stop worrying about fund raising. Now you’ll have it.”
Cara is speechless. Even she hasn’t truly understood the size of her sister’s wealth.
“I think you might need to get some security,” Cara asks.
“Security?”
“I think you’re one of the twenty richest people in the country and that might motivate people to do you some harm.”
“Okay. I’ll look into it.”
“And you certainly are going to need some security with you in Costa Rica,” Cara says.
“I don’t think so. I think Salvaro knows everyone and everything that happens there.”
“Salvaro?”
“The other man.”
“Oh. Then he will be your security?”
“I suppose he will. I will ask him though, ask him to maybe take a special care when I am there. I wouldn’t want his family or camp to have a problem just because I’m there.”
“Does Joe know?”
“What is it with you and Joe?” Shannon asks.
“What is it with you and Joe?” Cara answers. “You aren’t going to tell him about the house, and you aren’t going to tell him about being a billionaire. What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m going to tell him ‘hello’ when I see him and ‘see you soon’ when I leave him. I’m going to tell him to get naked when I want him and I’m going to tell him to wait for me when I run on the beach and he can’t keep up.”
“Is there anything else you’re going to tell him?”
“Like what?” Shannon asks.
“Maybe something along the lines of ‘I love you’ might be appropriate,” Cara says.
“I don’t love him. I like being with him, and I like how he makes me feel. I like that he accepts my boundaries, and I like that he is wealthy and doesn’t need my money. I like it when we’re together and I like it when we’re apart. I’ve told him all of those things, but I haven’t, and I won’t ever tell him that I love him.”
Cara stares at her sister.
“Is that how it was with Rick?”
Shannon reacts as though she has been slapped in the face. She takes a step back from her sister. She does not answer.
“Because if that’s how it ended with him, then that’s how it’ll end with Joe.”
Joe
“I love her and she doesn’t love me,” Joe says to Danny.
“I know how you feel,” Danny answers.
“What do you mean?” Joe asks.
“I mean I’m still in love with you,” Danny says. “And you don’t love me.”
Joe closes the distance between them, circles her waist with his arms and looks into her eyes.
“I’m sorry honey. We tried that. It didn’t work. I don’t know why, but we both know it didn’t work,” he says.
“I know it didn’t work back then. But people change, we’re both different people now. I think it would work now. We have so much in common, and we’ve been through so much.”
“But now there’s Shannon,” Joe says.
“You just told me she doesn’t love you,” Danny answered. “And when do you get to see her? In July? When her family is here? A family she doesn’t even want you to meet? And in January? For a month? And then a week surfing and a long weekend looking at a lighthouse? What kind of relationship is that?”
“It’s all she wants. It’s all she’ll give me,” he answers.
“I’ll give you more. I’ll give you everything,” she says. She pulls him close to him, speaks the next words softly in his ear. “I’ll give you everything, forever,” she says.
Joe does not know how to reply. He feels Danny in his arms and remembers their times together. He can’t recall why it didn’t work, but he can recall that it didn’t. Even with her pressed against him, with her soft words still resting in his ears, he does not want her in that way.
“I can’t give you what you want,” Joe says. “I can be your friend, your best friend. But I can’t give you the other.”
“I can live without it if I have you,” she says.
“No you can’t. I thought I could live without it, but I can’t. Not since Shannon.”
“Is that it? She’s pussy-whipped you? Is she so good that you’ll give up having me every day so that you can have her once in a while? On her terms?”
“I’m not giving you up. I want you as my friend, the way you’ve been these past ten years.”
“I don’t think I can do that much longer,” Danny says.
“Will you try?” Joe asks. “Because now I need you more than ever.”
“Because she gives you so little you need me even more?” Danny asks. “Is that it? You want me for what she won’t give you? Don’t you see how unfair that is?” she asks.
“I do see that it’s unfair. I’ve made an unfair bargain with her. And now I’m asking you to make one with me.”
“I do love you Joe. But I need someone to love me back. And if you’re going to love Shannon like that, knowing that she doesn’t love you back, then I don’t think you’ll ever be able to love me the way I need to be loved,” Danny says. “I don’t want to be filler for a missing piece.”
“Please Danny. Please be my friend,” Joe says.
“I can be your friend. But it’s going to be different,” Danny says.
“Different how?” Joe asks.
“Different because I think I might have to treat you the same way she does.”
“Now who’s being cruel?” Joe asks.
“I’m not bein
g cruel. You’re being stupid.”
Shannon and Joe
Shannon is seated at the counter in Joe’s coffee shop on her first full day at the beach house in July with the family. She has not slept well after the long drive from Ohio, a drive made longer by thunderstorms in West Virginia and traffic in Raleigh/Durham.
Joe knows how to read her morning body language, and this morning she is still in transition from there to here. She is still recovering from the drive.
“And how would you like your coffee this morning ma’am?” Joe asks softly.
“The usual sir,” Shannon answers.
Joe takes her mug down from the shelf behind the counter, rinses it, draws her coffee, and then slides the mug across the counter to her.
“It’s good to see you,” Joe says.
“It’s good to see you,” Shannon says. She blows on her coffee, sips, once again finds it is just the right temperature.
“I like this coffee mug,” Shannon says.
“It only gets used two months a year,” Joe says.
Shannon laughs at his little joke. Joe laughs along with her. But Shannon thinks she sees something in Joe’s eyes. Thinks that maybe the joke was both funny and pointed, or wistful. Thinks that maybe he meant to add ‘like me.’ Her mind instantly goes to what her sister said. That if she was being the same with Joe as she had been with her ex then it would end with Joe the same way it had ended with her ex.
At first she had resisted the comparison. She had convinced herself that Joe and her ex were such completely different characters that the relationships would necessarily have to be different. She recalled her wanton abandon in Costa Rica, and then the control she exerted after dinners with her newly discovered talents, and Joe’s inability to resist. She recalled the mornings and days in January, and thought she could see how Joe was different by the end than he was at the beginning, though she remained essentially the same. And then his joke this morning, on her first full day at Topsail for this July. There was something in that joke that she felt Joe wouldn’t have done or said in Costa Rica, or last January. He had changed, and it was only her first day here.
Am I doing it again? she thinks.
Whatever it was I did? Whatever my sister warned me about? Am I making it hard for him to communicate directly with me? To tell me what he’s thinking? What he wants? How have I done this? By only letting him write me letters? By being exactly who I am? A quiet person who likes to live alone and be alone except for these crazy intense weeks we spend together? Or have I picked a man that I know will take what I can give him, and leave me alone the rest of the time? I thought that’s what I had done. And that he was strong enough for that to be enough.
She drinks more of her coffee.
Joe, as he will do, stays silent while she thinks. He busies himself around the coffee shop, waits on a few more customers, and when not waiting on people, continually cleans or stays in motion.
She finishes her coffee.
“Thanks for the joe, Joe,” she says.
Again they laugh. This time there is no hidden message, no subtext, just a silly little pun.
“Would you like to walk on the beach with me this evening? After the kids have gone in? Meet me on my back steps around nine?” Shannon asks.
“I would love to,” Joe says.
“See you tonight,” she says.
“See you tonight,” he answers. He mimics pouring coffee on the ground.
Shannon
No-one will notice me sitting here on the steps waiting for my lover. My family are all inside, looking after all the things they look after and catching up on all the things they need to catch up on. My sister knows I am out here waiting for Joe. And she has let me come alone. She has not offered to sit with me until he comes.
My sister raised an eyebrow when she saw the remodeling I had done at the beach house. When she saw that I had made a separate set of steps directly to the sliding door to my suite.
“Yes, that’s what it’s for,” I had answered without her having to speak the question.
“Be careful,” she said. “It might confuse the kids, or scare them, if they see him and don’t know who he is, or what he’s doing with you.”
“I will,” I said. I am still unsure whether I will invite him in. There is so much commotion in the house, and I know we can be loud together. Yes it might be too much. But I know the steps are there if I want them. Maybe I will use them to leave and enter the house to visit him, rather than to have him come in. Perhaps I should have rented another house, or a little condo, somewhere we could have gone. But I didn’t.
I sit against the side rail, in the lee of the dune, sipping my merlot and waiting for my lover. I heard his joke over and over during the day. Replayed its tone, reviewed the look in his eyes when he said it, and have concluded that he meant nothing by the comment, at least nothing consciously, but that subconsciously he must have meant something. He probably doesn’t even know what he meant, but he meant something. And that something must be the inevitable gradual effect of our bargain. But I will not change the bargain. We are who we are, and we live as we live. I have my life with my books and research and family and I am unwilling or unable to change.
He is here right on time. I like that about him. He shows that he respects me by respecting meeting times. Nine is nine, not quarter after nine. I really like that about him.
“Hi,” Joe says. He sits down beside me.
“Hi,” I answer. I sip my wine.
“You look fit,” I say.
“I have been swimming a lot more, and doing light weights, not just running. My knees feel a lot better, and I’ve been able to move around a pound or two,” he answers.
“You look good,” I say. I am not flirting. I am simply observing, assessing. He looks no older, and he does look more fit, handsome as ever. The sea breeze has tussled his hair, which is longer, and needs to be cut. He has dressed up for our date, in khakis and a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He looks good. I shift on the step so that our hips are touching. I take his hand with mine and we sit listening to the waves.
It is as though not a day has passed since I saw him in Costa Rica. We settle into each other immediately. Instantly at home with each other, unburdened by any necessity to catch up on things to be caught up on, or to arrange things to be arranged. I love this about Joe. He is in the moment, and now he is in my moment.
We sit for ten or fifteen minutes while I finish my glass of wine.
“Would you like to walk on the beach?” I ask.
He answers by standing and extending his hand. I take it, rise, and we make our way through the loose wind-blown sand above the high tide line down towards the water and the wet sand that is more firm, more level. We turn towards the pier, whose lights can be seen in the distance, and we walk slowly. Like we have so many times on this beach we each get lost in our own thoughts, or simply get lost in the magic of the beach and waves and ocean and each other. Like we have so many times we go long periods of time without talking.
At the pier we stop, turn, switch hands, and head back towards my beach house.
Joe does not bother me with inane questions like ‘how was the drive?’ or ‘did everyone get in okay?’ or ‘did they clean the house right?’ or any of the dozens of questions that people feel compelled to ask even though they don’t care about the answer. These types of questions are for people who do not feel the connection and the closeness and the intimacy of their relationships. These types of questions are asked by people who cannot walk quietly with their lover on a moonlit beach and simply accept where they are and who they are and what they are doing.
As we approach my boardwalk I slow then stop. I look up into Joe’s eyes and he gently wraps his arms around me. There is no urgency, no rush. There is comfort.
“Wanna run tomorrow morning?” he asks.
“I thought you’d never ask,” I answer.
“Seven? Meet you at your back steps?”
“Six thirty?” I answer.
“Deal,” he says. He pretends to pour out a cup of coffee.
He kisses me gently and I return his sweet gentle kiss. This is a warm, summer evening kiss in the moonlight on the beach by the ocean. It is not saddled with passion, but rather is filled with caring and tenderness and a year of understanding between us. It feels like what I hope growing old will be. It feels like my favorite old quilt and a warm mug of coffee on a cool morning and everything that is constant and safe and lovely in the world. It feels like Joe, and it feels like me, and it feels like Joe and me on Topsail.
And yet I insist that I am not in love with him.
Joe
She was quiet last night on our date. I’ve always liked how she can be quiet. How she is comfortable with it. I don’t need to ask her what she’s thinking. If it is important to me she will tell me. Otherwise I can be quiet and be confident that she wants to be in that quiet moment with me.
I don’t need her to say she loves me.
Our kiss on the beach said more than anything she ever could.
We have a jogging date tomorrow morning. She may be surprised by how fit I am. I know I could never keep up with her. But I am more fit. She even noticed tonight in the moonlight. Tomorrow in my running clothes she may notice again. No-one else noticed because it happened so gradually and the people I know see me regularly and didn’t notice. But Shannon hasn’t seen me in a while, so she may notice the difference.
I haven’t done it for her. I have done it for me. I have changed my diet a little and changed my routine a little. Not for her. For me. I am almost fifty one now, and this is the only body I will ever have. I need to get a few more miles and a few more years out of it. And being more fit will pay additional dividends if we are going to have Januarys in Topsail and surf weeks in Costa Rica like we have had…
Shannon
I am waiting for him on the end of my steps. My mother is already out collecting shells. None of the kids are up yet, but my brother-in-law has gone past me and is jogging. It is painful to watch him jog up towards the pier, painful but inspiring. Jogging is his new hobby. He has gained five pounds a year for the past twenty years and now is nearly unrecognizable as the man who married my sister. She has given him orders to lose all one hundred of the pounds and thus he has started jogging and stopped drinking beer. Just these two things will let him lose twenty pounds a year and if he keeps it up for five years he may actually live those five years.
