Wash Ashores

by Anne Fall

  Rather than going back to Ella, she found another bonfire and stood near it, drying herself in the heat. The wind felt cold now, and she wanted to go but how? Nearby, a boy with dark hair stood smoking a cigarette that glowed as he approached her.

  "Go for a swim, did you? I'm David." Sylvia extended her hand. Heated by the fire, his hands felt so warm.

  "My first one since I've been here. I'm Sylvia."

  "You vacationing up here?" David turned back to face the fire, and he took a long drag on his cigarette.

  "I'm staying with my aunt and uncle for a while. My parents are having a divorce. I'm from Virginia." He turned toward her, smiling easily.

  "That explains that accent." His features were almost undistinguishable.

  "I didn't know I had one." It pained her. Of course, she had an accent. How could she not know that?

  "You do. It's soft.”

  "Do you live here, then?" Realizing his eyes were on her, Sylvia thought of how she must look, standing there drenched and dazed from the beers.

  "Yeah, all year round. I'm a fisherman. I work with my dad." With that remark, David turned and looked toward the sea as if facing a requirement.

  "It must be nice, to be out there on the water. I've never been on a boat." Nonsensically, it had not occurred to her that people fished in the ocean here, but of course the ocean was a livelihood as much as a pleasure.

  "I'll take you, if you want me to. Tomorrow or the next day.”

  "I don't know. I might like that." Keeping her response as calm as she could, Sylvia tried to remain self-possessed.

  "Tomorrow night or the next, my family has a boat. We'd be out there alone. There's nothing like the night sky out there. You can't imagine it until you've seen it. Just you, the water, the sky."

  "What's it like here in the winter?" The cool wind that was chilling her now must be spiteful in winter.

  "The winter." He lit another cigarette, cupping his hands over and over until the match caught. "It's an entirely different world. The whole downtown closes, maybe a couple restaurants stay open for the locals. School is in session, and it's sweet to see the little kids lined up in their new fall coats. A few tourists still come through and see the leaves, walk the beach, but they usually look lost. The town is so changed by then. The fall, it still feels open but when the snow comes, there's just more and more of it. Deep snow too, the kind you possibly don't have in Virginia. You can shovel and shovel for days, and it keeps coming. A lot of people just hole up, wait it out. I don't. This beach? If you could see it in January—there's nothing but white, and it matches the white of the surf. Right along the edge of the shoreline, the waves lick up the snow and show the sand." He held out his arm, grazing his fingertip over the distance of the shore. "There's a long strip of sand that stays uncovered when the tides roll in and out. When you walk down the shore, it's twice as hard. Sand and snow both slow you down, and by the time you reach the water? You're hot and exhausted, covered in sweat and stifling in scarves, gloves, and coats. You want to take off your clothes, dive in, but it would be madness, crazy. Still, some people do. The walk back to your car makes you feel like a fool. It makes you wonder why you did it. But a few more days in the house…you remember." He was looking at her intently, and Sylvia regarded his face in the contrast of the pale moonlight and orange firelight. His hair color was undistinguishable other than dark, and she could not tell how dark. The bridge of his nose was crooked, like he had been in a fight too young. He was tall and thin, like a sapling. How did he survive the winter? How did any of the townies?

  "I need to get out of here." Her voice surprised her. "I don't like it here, this party."

  "You want me to drive you home? I have a motorcycle. It's not much of a motorcycle at all. Have you ever been on a motorcycle?"

  "No, never. Should we?" Her skirt hung heavily around her legs, sand and seawater making the folds rough against her legs. They had already begun walking away from the firelight, and the darkness cheered them, the distance from the light.

  "Yeah, why not?" Sylvia couldn't think of why not, but she knew she should try and recall. Still, the two of them climbed up the towering grey staircase, and Sylvia walked barefoot through the parking lot without feeling any sense of fear or concern. The moonlight burned brighter, clearer from this height. Above the fog line, they both paused to look out on the beach, the sea, and the horizon beyond.

  "I've never seen anything like it. The sky is so big, open." Sylvia and David stood touching, shoulder to shoulder.

  "It is. Come on, my bike is over here. Where do your aunt and uncle live?" The jacket he wore hung just above his waist, and when he walked away, there was something in his stride that reminded her of a dancer. He had such a balance. Was it from working on boats? Sylvia gave him Vivian's address quietly, expecting a response where there was none. He was taking off his jacket, and at first she couldn't imagine why.

  "Here, wear my jacket. The wind is going to be rough." He slipped the still-warm jacket over her shoulders. He looked naked in just his shirt, but he did not seem cold yet. It made her consider the cold he had survived, and she shivered.

  David climbed on the motorcycle first, and Sylvia sat behind him, spanning the motorcycle with her damp sand-scratched thighs.

  "You'll have to hold onto me. It's okay. It still runs." Loosely she put her arms around him—there were his ribs and the movement of his breathing. "Here we go, hang on." He started the bike, and they were off. She buried her face against his back and clung to what little there was of him against the night. The wetness of her dress soaked his shirt and the inside of his jacket.

  The road poured out under them. She watched it speed below with fear beginning. She could imagine her body hitting that surface, crumpling and bleeding. David drove quickly, easily; he knew the roads of the town well. She felt he was taking a detour, but she couldn't be sure. Maybe he knew another way. Downtown passed in a too-fast rush.

  When they reached her aunt's, David knew to stop a distance from the house. The rushing wind had taken away her breath, and she climbed off the motorcycle and almost stumbled. Her legs were shaking. Pine trees stood all around them, whispering in the wind like an audience.

  They stood upon the precarious pinnacle of their youth. They were intoxicated by it, looking down into a world of small people and small dreams.. It was the desperate height all who grow old have stood on and fallen from with shades of possibility splintering against the ground of realism. No matter what you manage to accomplish, it is never enough. But they had not yet fallen, and there was no way they could know that they would. Like most people, they thought they were different and destined for more.

  "I'll be here, the day after tomorrow, at eight o'clock. Can you meet me here, at this spot?" David's words were perhaps practised.

  "Yes, I'll be here David, if you come." How she liked his very name, how it beat in her veins so quickly. Was this the beginning of her story? A story with her as the main character? She did not even know him, and it did not matter. "Goodnight, David, goodnight." Sylvia ran barefoot up the driveway to her aunt's house. On the porch, she heard the sound of him on the gravel turning before he hit the pavement.

  The porch was silent, but Sylvia could smell the cigarette burning. Walking toward the scent, she made out Catherine in the shadows.

  "Vivian asked me to stay up and wait for you. I see you've made a friend. A friend with a motorcycle, of course." Catherine's laugh mocked her playfully.

  "I have." Sylvia spoke the words clearly, straightforwardly as she sat down next to her. "You won't tell Vivian, will you?"

  "Of course, I won't. The sound of that motorcycle made me want to be young again. I wouldn't deprive you of your youth." Catherine spoke softly, almost sadly.

  "Where's Eric?" Sylvia remembered Eric in a sudden rush of guilt, her hero misplaced.

  "He's working. He always works at night, despite what Vivian thinks about the windows and sunlight. She doesn't understand him." Cather
ine paused, lifting a glass with the sound of ice clinking against crystal. "He's painting a portrait of a young blonde girl on the beach. It worries me, Sylvia. Should I be worried?" Catherine's voice turned more cruel, sharper around the edges.

  "Worried? I don't know what you mean."

  "Ah, I see. I'm sure your boy on the motorcycle would know what I mean. Perhaps he will show you." Sylvia stood up at the vulgarity of the remark. Why did it have to be so dirty?

  "Actually, I do think I know what you mean, or at least I am learning, but not from David—from people like all of you." Sylvia gestured toward the house.

  "Sylvia, I'm sorry. Please, Sylvia. Forgive me." The sound in Catherine's voice made Sylvia feel miserable, like she had inflicted a wound on a child.

  "Catherine, he loves you. He told me how beautiful you were, that day on the beach, the picnic."

  "Did he?" Catherine laughed. "He used to adore me. All his paintings were of me, it was an act of worship. It's been a long time since he has painted me." Catherine spoke, not to Sylvia, but to herself in long slow sounds.

  "He will again." Sylvia took her hand and kissed it. "I need to go to bed, Catherine.”

  "Before you do, tell Eric to come down to me. You know where to find him.” The challenge in Catherine’s voice could not be ignored, and Sylvia accepted it. She would tell Hanna to do it.

  In the kitchen, Hanna was not to be found. She searched the first floor, and then the second. It was left to her then. Fine, Sylvia thought, fine, damn them anyway. I will do this.

  She stood for the first time on the third floor. "Eric?" Louder this time, "Eric?" There was no response, so Sylvia traveled down the hallway of the third floor. "Eric?" Her voice called out bolder this time. Sylvia could hear music, and she followed it to the door with the light underneath it. "Eric?" She heard movement within, and he came to the door. She realized she should have woken Uncle Adam, sent him.

  "Sylvia? What are you doing here?" She had finally surprised him.

  "Catherine needs you. She asked me to come get you. She's on the front porch." She looked around him and into the room.

  The bed was rumpled like it had not been made in days. The curtains were drawn, and the candlelight surprised her. Surely, it was madness to paint by candlelight. All over the room, canvases were angled and faced the bed. Most of them featured the grey deep blues of the sea, sand brushing the waves in white contrast. The sky was predominately featured in them, expansive and silent. Several paintings of the evening sky faced her, translucent blues speckled with the white light of stars. In the corner, nearest to a series of candles, stood a painting of a girl in a white dress. Sylvia examined it in the silence, seeing herself.

  "She told you to come up here? Of course she did." He rubbed his temples. "You should not be here."

  "I know. I am sorry." Hands were on her shoulder now, and he pushed her toward the staircase.

  "Go to bed. We'll talk in the morning. Go to bed, Sylvia, and do not come up here again, not even if Catherine asks you to find me." He closed the door against her—the soaked clothing, the sandy bare feet, her shivering. She walked down the staircase to the second floor and locked her bedroom door for the first time since staying here.

  CHAPTER 5

  The next morning at breakfast, Sylvia sat at the table watching the four of them. They looked older, all of them, in the early morning light. Their potential, their moment, seemed to have passed. Vivian questioned Sylvia on her night out, and Sylvia responded quietly, explaining that she and Ella were becoming fast friends.

  "We're going out again, Aunt Vivian. It's so good to have a friend." At this remark, Catherine lifted her coffee cup and sipped, regarding Sylvia in a new light.

  Sylvia did go downtown with Ella that night. Ella had called in the morning to ask in an angry tone where she had disappeared the previous evening. The conversation was brief and tight, but it was agreed that they would go out again. They were each other's excuse for leaving their homes. It was practical, if nothing else.

  Downtown splayed out in front of them in neat concise New England lines. It looked like a model of an earlier time, rather than being charming; it struck Sylvia as a falsehood, a Christmas song in the spring. Lights glared around them. The streetlights glowed dimly, and the passing cars thrust a spotlight over the crowds of pedestrians. Youths littered the steps of the library, shops, and churches. Each area had a place for a certain crowd. None of them changed positions; their situations and arrangement in society were fixed, stationary for the duration of the summer.

  They passed the candy store, and Sylvia realized that candy stores and childish whimsy were not allowed on this night. She and Ella sauntered past. The candy store stood behind them, twinkling in the darkness, almost appearing sad to see them go.

  Finding their place among the others on the steps of the library, Ella introduced Sylvia. Sylvia smiled and nodded, looking at the passing people. Ella, immersed in a conversation with another girl, forgot about Sylvia.

  "So, she actually did on the second night?" The girl questioned Ella, agreeably shocked.

  "She did, but, what can you expect? My grandmother says her mother works all the time, never has an eye on her." Sylvia wondered what their own mothers did. Surely they must spend their time somehow?

  "What does that matter? Most mothers have to work." Sylvia instantly regretted speaking

  "It matters a lot in a beach town, Sylvia. There's no one to watch out for her." Ella had a too deep, or perhaps too shallow, understanding of the events and people on Cape Cod. It was a cruel ruthless insight to the class structure there. There were the townies that worked and lived there, and the summer girls and boys: the ones who would leave after the fireworks while the rest stayed. Was David like that? Was she just a girl who would leave? Someone he could safely love without responsibility? Nothing in her upbringing had prepared her for the impermanence of a beach town in peak season.

  Watching the crowd, Sylvia tuned them out. Sitting with her chin resting on her hand, she looked up into the night sky above downtown. It was remarkably the same here as it was everywhere. The crowds bustled past. People carried large shopping bags and pulled exhausted children behind them. Someone behind her passed around an engraved flask of Scotch, surely belonging to one of their respective parents. When it reached her, she shook her head and pushed it away. Ella laughed and took it.

  "Easy on this one, she's still a baby." The people on the steps behind Sylvia laughed with Ella, and Sylvia blushed. In the crowd, Sylvia all at once saw David, walking with a trio of boys.

  "David!" Sylvia called out to him, happy at the sight of him.

  "Hey!" His unhurried smile moved over his face and eyes. Sylvia swung the length of her body down the remaining steps and walked toward him. David took her hand in his and introduced her to his friends who watched her warily. The group on the library steps grew quiet and regarded the scene below them with eyes like the gods of Mount Olympus.

  "What are you doing here?" He pulled her away from his friends and whispered low to her.

  "Just socializing, meeting people." David lifted his chin up and scanned the group. They all sat with their elbows on their knees, looking down at them from time to time, hunched over. The steps were concrete and grey. There was a spill of some sort on the middle that they all avoided. The effect was that they were waiting for someone important to come, sit with them in the middle as their center.

  "Be careful, those aren't good people, you don't know them." The warning was low and too late. Ella came to her side, hissing.

  "What are you doing talking to him?" Sylvia whirled around, facing her.

  "What do you mean? I met him at the beach party. He's my…my friend, the one who drove me home." David stiffened next to her and remained silent.

  "Your friend?" Ella laughed gloriously, the lamplight turning her into a titan beauty, a vicious mermaid with a song to sing. "That's rich. You think he's your friend."

  "He is my friend. What a
re you laughing at?" Sylvia's voice became softer, defiantly refusing to add to the scene.

  "Did he tell you about Elise? Good God, I bet he didn't." Ella glared at David, her face contorted with a sneer that was too old for her face.

  "Elise's parents won't even let her come back up here. He got her in trouble, a good bit of trouble. He's no good, Sylvia."

  "I didn't know it was common knowledge." David grated the words out, and Sylvia could feel him pulling away towards his friends.

  "Don't you know, Sylvia, everything that happens here is common knowledge? You should remember that, especially if you're going to be friends with David. That's spectacular, friends." Ella walked away, in her slow cat-like manner. "Wait until your aunt hears."

  Running through her veins hot, Sylvia's anger leapt to her tongue.

  "She better not, Ella. I'll know where to look if she does." The two of them stood at odds with each other, fighting over some line that was barely distinguishable but present.

  Sylvia turned away and left with David. His friends drifted a distance away, laughing and kicking a rock down the sidewalk to the dismay of the crowds. The two of them stood under a lamp post. The families brushing past barely noticed them. He stood close to her, leaning against her, his chin on the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her.

  "It's not going to be easy, you know."

  "I don't care." Did she care? She couldn't tell. It didn't feel real. It felt rehearsed, a play. "The driver won't be here to pick Ella and me up until ten o'clock. Do you want to take a walk with me?"

  "Yes." David pulled her further away from the library steps, and they walked through the downtown district like young secret lovers will, daring the world to recognize them in plain view.

  Every few blocks or so, there would be a staircase leading down to the lower levels of parking lots and shops. They walked either down or upstairs often—going away and coming back to the main street. The lower portions of downtown were faced by the back of many weathered buildings and had the feel of a courtyard without the beauty. There were often trash containers behind the many restaurants that smelled of fried things, fish, and decay. The summer heat pulled the stench out of them. Sylvia thought to herself that even here there was garbage to be dealt with, maybe even more than elsewhere, the gluttonous leftovers of luxury.