Ocean Waves

by Terri Thayer

  “Behold,” Cinnamon said. “In here,” she held up a black plastic bag, “is the magic fabric. It will take a snapshot of any object.”

  “Like sun printing?” someone asked. “Do you use special paints?”

  “Nope. It’s more akin to photography. Here’s one I’ve already started.”

  She lifted a piece of cardboard that had been covered in the lime green fabric. On top of that she’d laid shells, several round washers and a fern. “While you people were busy working, I was busy arranging my vignette.”

  She dipped her fabric square in a basin of water. She was wearing a bracelet of bright yellow plastic bangles that clicked together on her wrist as she swished the fabric around dramatically. The water turned green. She dunked the fabric a final time and wrung it out gently. “Now for the magic part.”

  “Voila,” she said, holding up the dripping piece.

  A scene had been printed on the fabric. The words “Positive/Negative” were written across the middle in a funky font. The words were bordered by sea shells and the round washers acted as circular polka dot accents. The fern’s feathery appearance softened the piece.

  “Wow,” the class said as one.

  Cinnamon grinned. “Pretty cool. Now, I hate to say this, but that’s the end of today’s session. Tomorrow you’ll get your chance to blueprint.”

  I was shocked to see it was nearly four o’clock.

  “Before you go,” Cinnamon said, writing on the white board. “Here’s your question for the night.”

  Cinnamon pointed at the words: “What would you be doing if you weren’t here?”

  “And one more thing,” she passed small sketchbooks around. “One of the best things you can do for your art is work daily,” she said.

  A groan went up from the group.

  “I know you don’t think that’s possible. It’s not always easy getting into our sewing rooms at the end of a long day. But we all can spend a few minutes with our sketchbooks each night.”

  Lucy nudged me. Cinnamon had passed around her journal. Lucy opened the book and together we looked at her pages. She kept a daily art book, with tiny pictures, and inspirational words. Each page was a work of art that captured a mood, a thought, a feeling with such skill and precision that it took my breath away.

  “I can’t do this,” Lucy said. I agreed.

  “I encourage each of you to begin a daily meditation page. If you do a small project each day, you’ll start to grow your inner artist,” Cinnamon said.

  The woman next to me guffawed. “My inner artist? I think she left town with my inner child. And they took my inner millionaire with them.”

  The whole class laughed. And Cinnamon, to her credit, smiled.

  “I know it sounds a little airy fairy, but you all have an artist within. The question is whether or not you do anything to encourage her. Do you paint? Draw? Take a photograph? Even notice when something pretty is around you?”

  She frowned as we all looked blankly at her. Clearly, our inner artists were starving for attention.

  Cinnamon nodded her head as though she’d made her mind up about something. “That’s it. We’re taking a field trip tomorrow. Did you all bring digital cameras?”

  That had been on the supply list we’d been sent beforehand. Everyone nodded now.

  “Bring them and meet me on the boardwalk tomorrow, right after breakfast. We’re going to be outside, so dress appropriately.”

  We walked as a group to the dining hall, laughing as though we’d known each other for years.

  The blueprint fabric and the idea of doing a daily sketch were on everyone’s mind. We chattered excitedly.

  Tony found me waiting in line on the porch. Flashing his badge, he cut in front of the women standing behind. They didn’t object. One middle-aged flirt checked out his butt. I frowned at her, and she shrugged. Her friends laughed.

  “Busted,” one of them said.

  Tony was oblivious. He’d have to get used to female attention if he was going to work here.

  “Dewey,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

  We stepped off the porch.

  “What’s new?” I asked quietly. “Did Paul Wiggins tell you that he thinks it was his wife?”

  “Yes, and the police want to talk to you about that.”

  “Any word from the Coast Guard?”

  He shook his head mournfully. “There’s no sign of a body, but the Guard says that’s not unusual.”

  I sighed. It was an unhappy ending to a miserable story. A woman like Ursula, battered and invisible in her adult life—now her body was just as battered and out of sight. Maybe it was just as well I’d never met her.

  The determined look on the woman’s face in the picture came back to me, though. She’d looked like someone who’d made a decision.

  I said, “Her husband really needs to see her body. I doubt he’ll ever accept her death otherwise.”

  “Do you know him? I thought they were from back east,” Tony said.

  “I met him yesterday,” I said, leaving out the real truth of our encounters.

  Tony took his hat off and scratched his head. His face was sagging a bit. The search and rescue had taken a toll on him. I wanted to send him home to bed, but I knew better than to try.

  “I heard he was a batterer. I don’t have a lot of respect for a guy who hits his wife. He was killing her slowly,” Tony said.

  I nodded. “From everything he says, she was behaving differently the last few months. She wasn’t as afraid of him. It sounded like she was standing up to him.”

  “Maybe it came from the freedom that she’d made up her mind. If she knew she was going to end it, then perhaps she was happier.” Tony shrugged. “We’ll never know why she threw herself off the cliff.”

  Suicide? Was it the ultimate in bravery or cowardice? Ending your life if your life was a constant hell? Was that wrong? I would have preferred if she had taken another path, a path that led her away from Paul Wiggins to a life worth living, but I didn’t have all the facts. She obviously saw no other way out. Maybe she was in a better place. I couldn’t know.

  “But why here?” Tony asked.

  I looked at him sharply. One look at his face told me he wasn’t worrying about his job, he was just puzzling out why Ursula had picked the here and now to end her life.

  “This is a special place,” I said. “I bet she was happy here once.”

  I had to think that she’d planned this. That my presence meant nothing. I wouldn’t want to think that I’d had anything to do with her choice to jump. I’d stumbled onto an act that was already in the works.

  Tony shook himself. “Have you heard from Buster?” Tony asked.

  I shook my head slowly. The absence of my cell phone made me ache. I wanted to talk to Buster so badly.

  “He’ll be down Wednesday,” I said. Tomorrow never felt so far away. “I’m sure he’d love to have coffee with you.”

  My group had moved ahead of me into the dining hall. I started to join them when I remembered I had a question for Tony. “Speaking of coffee, where were you yesterday? You never showed at Juice ’n’ Java,” I said.

  I could barely see Tony’s face, but I could tell he was trying to think up something to say.

  “Yesterday?” he said weakly. He was stalling for time. That made me more suspicious.

  “Yes,” I said. “Four o’clock. I risked my driving privileges coming to meet you.”

  Lost them, too, but that wasn’t due to Tony.

  “I thought we were supposed to meet at three,” he said.

  “No four. After my class.” I waited for more of an explanation.

  Finally, he said, “Sorry, I got tied up.”

  “With what? Work?”

  I gave him one m
ore chance to explain his whereabouts, but he didn’t take it. I remained quiet, just allowing my own silence to tell him I knew he wasn’t telling me everything.

  “Well, I’m going in to eat,” I said, finally.

  “Okay, I’m going to my place and crash.” His mind was clearly on the investigation.

  I joined the others at the table just in time for the tail end of the salad. We got in line for our entrée. Freddy and Quentin were already at the window, plates in hand.

  I was chatting with Nan and Sherry. As we got our entrée and moved back into the dining hall, Nan stopped short in front of me.

  I looked past her to see what the trouble was.

  Freddy had approached Mercedes and was right in her face, his thin body taut with anger. He was a couple of tables over, but we could all hear him clearly. He slammed the surface with his flat hand and leaned forward. I could see the spit gathering in the corner of his mouth.

  Mercedes stepped back.

  His voice carried. “All I want to do is borrow one of the sewing kits for a few hours. Just to draw the tools for a machine embroidery disc. I wanted to put one out that has the antique tools on it. My customers would snatch that up.”

  We watched Freddy warily. One of the rangers had her hand on her gun. I wondered if Freddy knew he was being viewed as a risk.

  “Nan was okay with it, but you said no, that they were too precious, that you were responsible and couldn’t let them out of your sight.”

  He turned to the ranger. “That was the end of it.”

  At the front of the room, a man stepped out from behind the half wall that hid the doors from view. My breath caught.

  It was Buster.

  His eyes raked the room, checking out the room of quilters. He had his cop face on. He must have been able to hear the angry words on his way in. He’d be unable to relax until he’d assessed the situation. Any new place needed to be vetted for possible threats. He was like a wild animal, alert to any danger at the watering hole.

  I left my uneaten dinner on the table. He caught sight of me and waved, his face lighting up. I skipped a step getting to him.

  The rangers had quieted Freddy and taken Mercedes and Nan out of the room, heading past the kitchen—probably to hash things out in private. Buster’s eyes followed them until they were out of sight.

  I flung myself into his arms.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked.

  “It’s just a bunch of quilters,” I said, teasing him.

  “And we know how harmless they are,” he said, reminding me we both knew better.

  “What are you doing here?” I said. And then I knew. “Tony called you.” Tony must have thought I needed Buster after this morning’s horror. My brother—always taking care of me. I’d have to thank him later.

  “How about a walk?” he said, nodding. “I’ve been in the car for two hours. Traffic on 101 was brutal.”

  “Where’s your bag? In the car?” I looked around for the duffel he used for overnight trips. “Don’t tell me,” I said gleefully, “you finally installed a shirt-hanging bar in the truck. I hear seniors get a great discount on those gadgets.”

  He nudged me. “Funny, girl. I don’t think you want to play the age card, do you?”

  Buster liked to remind me that he was two years younger when it suited him.

  We headed down the meandering paths that led to the beach.

  Buster held my hand, his fingers strong and playing with mine. I stuffed his hand in my pocket. The evening air was balmy, feeling warmer than it had this morning. The fog had dissipated. The sun was low in the sky, but it would be light for another hour or so.

  “Want to talk about what happened?” he said, his voice soft with concern. The reason Buster became a cop was because he was empathetic. He spent his life protecting people from getting hurt and stopping those that hurt others. I sometimes wondered if he had enough room in his heart for all the beat-up people in the world.

  Buster asked gently, “You saw her go off?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, I turned my head at the last moment, so I didn’t see her fall.”

  “Was she pushed?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “No one else was around. It was just me and her.”

  “Could she have slipped?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  He shrugged. “Suicides are unpredictable. Some people go deep in the woods so no one will find them. Others are suicides of opportunity. A person will be feeling down and the Golden Gate Bridge is accessible, so over the side they go.”

  “Whatever it was, it’s terribly sad.” I felt my voice catch, and brushed against Buster for a comforting second.

  “Once her body is found, and the police identify her, they might find the reason. She might have left a note for her family somewhere.”

  I nestled my head under his chin and pressed my body against his. I let his breathing steady me and forced all the images of Ursula out of my mind. There was no help for her now. I felt myself return to normal. I pulled back and looked in Buster’s eyes.

  “How about coming back to my room?”

  I could see he was frowning, his brows knitted. My heart sank. That was his game face, when he had bad news for me. “What?” I said. “Spit it out.”

  He squeezed my hand. “I can’t stay the night. I’ve got to be in court in the morning.”

  I walked a few steps away, rocked by the news. “Oh, Buster, come on.” I was so disappointed I couldn’t say anymore without crying. My hopes had gotten so high, then dashed. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I’d wanted to wake up next to him in the morning.

  He shrugged, his shoulders, wide in his sweatshirt. The man was smart enough to wear blue a lot. It was hard to stay mad at him when his eyes looked so good, true and clear.

  “Duty calls,” he said.

  I glanced at my watch. It was seven o’clock. “Let’s keep going.” I didn’t want to waste time being mad at him, but I needed to work off some of this resentment.

  “Let’s go see the golf course,” he said. “I scored a two o’clock tee time at Del Monte. For Saturday, after your conference.”

  My spirits lifted.

  “And I got us reservations at the Cypress Inn for Friday night and Saturday,” he continued. He was obviously proud of himself.

  The Cypress Inn was impossible to get into. I’d been wanting to go there for years. There was a hot tub for two that looked out over the Pacific.

  I decided to forgive him.

  “You totally rock,” I said, jumping on his back for a piggy-back ride down the street. Buster jogged along, hugging the side of the road and dumping me at the entrance to the walking path, a couple hundred yards away, the opposite direction that I’d gone that morning.

  We held hands and walked. His hands were large and I liked the way my palm nestled into his. I stroked it with my finger. There was no place I’d rather be than with Buster. I loved that he’d gotten us into a fancy hotel this weekend, but I’d have stayed in a yurt at Los Pinos State Park with him if he’d asked.

  The path led us through high bushes and onto a wooden bridge over a creek. Foliage filled the creek bed. Water trickled through. We couldn’t see the ocean from here, but its rhythms underscored our quiet. The deep call of sea lions sounded like a fog horn warning against the treacherous rocks.

  “There’s no place I’d rather be right now,” Buster whispered in my ear, echoing my own thoughts. We’d stopped at the bridge and he stood behind me, his hands gripping the redwood railing on either side of me. A frog croaked deeply and we heard a splash as it returned to the water.

  I looked up, and he kissed my outstretched neck. Sparks shot down my body, my toes lifted involuntarily off the ground. Buster leaned against me, his
whole body shielding me. I loved the hardness of his body against mine, and I turned in his arms as his lips continued their journey, reaching the vulnerable dip in my collarbone.

  Buster pushed his knee into my thighs, as though he could hold me up if I needed him to.

  And I might need him to.

  After a few minutes of this, I pushed him away. Buster’s hand was under my shirt, and he’d managed to get the top of my pants undone. I was breathing hard.

  “Hold on, it’s a long way back to my room,” I said. “If you keep this up, I won’t be able to walk.”

  “It’s completely private here,” he said. “No one can see us.”

  The bullfrog protested. I laughed. “He can,” I said. “Let’s just walk some more.” I straightened my clothes, and snapped my pants.

  Buster leaned off me and, taking my hand, led me over the bridge. He walked ahead of me several steps. I saw him adjust his pants with his free hand. Poor guy. I smiled.

  A few yards down, a golf hole appeared on our left, bright green. Buster stopped to study it, as though he could determine the best way to play an imaginary lie. I pulled him ahead.

  I wanted to see the water. Suddenly we were over a dune, and the ocean was in view. The beach was full of people. A dreadlocked girl was sitting on a piece of driftwood playing guitar. We heard snatches of “Sweet Baby James” before the wind shifted.

  The path curled around the golf course, giving us glimpses of perfectly groomed greens and raked sand traps. Beyond, high-rise hotels lined the distance. Asilomar was right next to million-dollar properties where the greens fees were over four hundred dollars and hotel rooms cost upward of a thousand dollars a night. I was paying a little over a hundred and thirty. With meals included.

  Thank you, State of California.

  We watched the sunset from a slight rise over the beach. The sky turned orange, then red, and back to orange. Buster pretended to hiss when the sun dropped below the horizon.

  Once the sun had gone down, the beach grew empty as people packed up their picnics and headed for home.

  We walked back the way we came. It was extremely quiet. Darkness had fallen quickly. We stopped at the bridge again.