Whole Latte Life (43 page)

After lunch, Rachel separates the edge pieces from a jigsaw puzzle box Michael set on the porch table. She leans over, intent on pressing together the pieces. Outside, the mid-day heat settles. “Why don’t you change into your bathing suit?” he asks. “I’ll bring the umbrella down to the beach and meet you back here in a while.”

She does, slipping into a black tankini and filling a canvas tote with sunscreen and visors and her sketch pad. She pulls her hair into a messy bun, folds the local newspaper into thirds and slides it into a side pocket, then throws in a couple peaches. And doing all that, she sees it. The flashlight in each room, the new fire extinguisher, the shrubs trimmed back from the cottage so prowlers can’t hide, his obsession with sitting with his back to the wall in public places, his covering the windows at night. Two cell phones. His living in a way of “just in case.” And she wonders if this is what she wants, this constant monitoring for safety. This inability to ease up; this inability to get out of one night. It’s not good.

When Michael returns, he waits on the front porch, perspiration lining his forehead. “It’s hot on the beach. You’ll need your sandals.”

But
that
she loves about him. Loving concern, the way he worries about little things like the sand burning her feet. How do you distinguish between the two, obsession and care?

She hikes the nautical tote over her shoulder, Michael carries two sand chairs and they walk side-by-side in the heat of the day. There’s a simplicity here she likes: footsteps gritty with sand on the beach road, bees bumbling a little slower, green lawns giving way to mid-summer brown, hushed cottages, the sun high in the sky.

“Where you headed?” Rachel asks when he takes a left through the parking lot where he should turn right. “Aren’t we set up on the other end of the beach?”

He turns back to her. “Any certified beach bum knows this is the way to the ice cream truck.”

Okay. Something’s going on here, but she’s not sure what. “Of course,” she says. “What was I thinking?”

They stand in line watching kids hop from one burning foot to the other on the hot pavement. Bathing suits drip, wet hair lays flipped back, dollar bills hang limp with salt water as the kids study the menu pictured on the side of the truck.

“What do you want?” Michael asks.

“Well.” She looks at the pictures on the menu. “Candy Center Crunch. How about you?”

“Nascar Sundae.”

In the center of the boardwalk stretching along the beach, a wooden canopy provides shade from the glaring sun. Usually grandmothers and hot babies in strollers, their equally hot mothers rolling the sandy wheels back and forth, line the shade. But on days like today, everybody crowds under. They find a seat and Michael stands facing the marina, one foot up on the seat, his elbow resting on the top plank, working on the fudge and nut encrusted sundae. He surveys the boats below in the boat basin.

“Would you ever want a boat?” he asks.

“I’m not really into that.” Her hand is cupped beneath the dripping vanilla ice cream.

“Me neither. But if you had to pick, what boat would you choose?”

Many of the slips are empty on a hot day like this, so the selection is meager. She decides on a white cabin cruiser. “It’s small and sleek, with that shiny chrome. I’ll bet it runs smooth.”

Michael considers her choice. “Not bad. But I’d pick that one,” he says, pointing in the opposite direction.

“Which one?”

“The green one.” Her gaze moves past a Boston Whaler to an old wooden fishing boat with flat wood plank seats framing the back end, a higher post for the captain in the center.

“A fishing boat?” She looks up at Mr. New York City with his dark hair curling out of his Yankees cap, his face touched by scars and a shadow of a beard, his eyes street-wise. “You?”

“I’d find a little cove,” he admits. She hears something, a realization that he has to change, to contemplate his stress disorder, like he might on that old boat, “throw out the anchor, set out my fishing line, lay cushions down on those planks in the back and take a nap under the sun. Hidden in the marsh grasses. When I woke up, I’d tell everybody about the one that got away.”

“Oh.” She considers his boat and pictures him sleeping on the water, his Yankees cap pulled over his face. “Maybe I’d sell my boat if you’d take me for a ride on yours, Skipper.”

“We’ll see,” he says, picking up the two sand chairs. “Gilligan.”

They near the end of the boardwalk and step onto the sand. “Is that our umbrella there?” She points to the green and yellow striped umbrella at the water’s edge. “The one with the tubes around it?” Two inflated beach tubes, one metallic blue, the other electric pink, encircle the umbrella pole.

“That’s right.”

She smiles. Which she gets the feeling is fully his intention.

They open the sandchairs in front of the umbrella and Rachel gently massages sunscreen onto Michael’s shoulder. Though five years have passed, the skin there still seems tender. Maybe it always will. Or should, she thinks, keeping her touch soft. Michael takes her hand in his and they settle in their low chairs. Sitting at the water’s edge, the sun’s hot rays pulse. Eventually he pulls off his cap.

“Race you?” He looks from her to the water.

“Sure.” She takes off her sunglasses.

“Do you need a head start?”

“A head start?” she begins saying, which gives him enough time to jump from his seat and run into the water, Rachel close on his heels, splashing him when he breaks through the water’s surface.

“Hey,” he laughs, running his hand through his wet hair.

And they never leave the water the entire afternoon. Sitting back in their tubes, the current carries them along the length of the beach, their relaxed arms dipping into the water, their feet submerged.

Rachel knows what he is giving her: One of those days that you recall for years to come, during really hot summers, growing old together. This crystal day that shines forever. At times, Michael reaches over and pulls her a little closer, the two tubes gently bumping close, then separating.

“This is better than my overstuffed recliner.” His eyes are closed when he says it.

“Any beach bum knows that,” she agrees after a few moments, giving herself a slow spin. “I think it has something to do with the surroundings.”

“Probably,” he finally adds, stealing a look at her from behind his aviators.

Every minute passes in such a way that Rachel finally asks him if this perfect day can actually be his secret plan.

“You ask too many questions.”

For dinner, he takes her to a local seaside joint where they carry cardboard pails of clams and red and white checked trays of French fries outside to stone tables overlooking saltwater tributaries running through a lagoon. They swap bellies for strips, share a cup of tartar sauce, count herons and kingfishers.

Afterward, he gets a Frisbee from the pickup truck. Rachel sidles up behind him, slipping her arms around his waist. “What else is hidden in there?”

“Never you mind,” he tells her as he turns and kisses her. “Just never mind.” He hands her the Frisbee then, and walks her back to the beach.

Rachel always thought of herself as an independent thinker.

She prides herself on being not easily swayed, confident in her convictions. But the next day, she wakes up thinking that if indoctrination is this life, these two days, she’ll gladly follow Michael’s ideology. He walks into the room showered and dressed in his swimsuit, untucked navy top, boat shoes, and two cups of coffee. Rachel sits up in her nightshirt and props the pillow behind her.

“Good morning,” Michael says. “Sleep well?”

“Yes.” She gladly takes the coffee from him. “How about you?”

He sits alongside her facing the far window. “Great.”

She cups her lighthouse coffee mug. “You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Too perfect of a morning. I went for a run.”

A run. This is new, and she knows it’s part of his therapy, exercise instead of worry. She tastes her coffee, then inhales deeply. It smells so comforting, coffee grounds, the salt air, summer. “Let me shower,” she says, throwing back the sheet and swinging her legs over the bed. “Then I’ll make French toast.”

“Sounds good.”

She wraps her robe loosely and leaves the room, smiling because he definitely has something up his sleeve. Some summertime, beach, cottage doctrine. It drives her crazy, wondering how else he plans to win, or steal, or borrow her heart with his own personal ideology. At the same time, she wonders about his silent, unspoken efforts to change, if they’ll work, or if he’ll tire of them and stop.

Their day takes serious shape after a second helping of French toast. Rachel hears snipping noises while drying the dishes and sees him setting small pieces of rag on the Newport table beside the couch before taking it all out to his truck. Finally, when she’s back to the jigsaw puzzle, he turns the corner with his Yankees cap pulled low, carrying a big black bat kite in one hand, its wide orange eyes peering skyward. The kite tail is made out of the rag strips, hanging limp. His other hand grips a large spool of string.

On the beach, she runs with the kite while Michael manipulates the string, unwinding it as the bat climbs into the pale morning sky. Hundreds of feet above, it pulls and dips in the air currents. Occasionally Michael passes the spool over to a curious onlooker, letting them wind it in a little, then set it free, like reeling in a fish. Late morning, they pull the kite carefully in as it swoops and dive-bombs in its descent, then spend the rest of the day lazy on the beach, playing cards, reading, the waves and surrounding voices conducive to half-dozing.

But it is the shimmering summer heat which helps cast Michael’s spell. In the warm sunlight, veils of responsibility and worry and schedules all drop off. Strangers nod at them and say hello. In the heat of the afternoon, having an ice cream on the boardwalk, a group of teenaged girls watches them from their blanket, laying flat on their sleek, tanned stomachs, propped on elbows. Wishing only this for themselves some day. Only having a great guy and an ice-cream and the summer beach in their lives.

Rachel and Michael make it seem like enough.

After a grilled steak dinner with salad and corn-on-the-cob, Michael pulls two paddles out of his trunk. The day winds down as he leads Rachel on a well-worn path that curves behind a row of cottages down to a lagoon. Anchored in a bend, floating alongside the banks of marsh grass, she sees the rowboat.