Portion of the Sea (41 page)

The outfit didn’t at all fit my mood, but when I packed, I did so with the expectation of hunting down Josh, and I wanted to look effortlessly good should I find him with a girlfriend, fiancée, wife possibly. I think walking away from the man you once loved while you’re looking your best is easier than walking away from him looking a mess, I told myself.

But I didn’t bump into Josh at the store. Instead, I saw his father. “Max, is that you?” I asked as I walked out of the store holding four heavy bags of food in my arms.

Max studied me for a moment, and I wondered whether he remembered me at all, and if he didn’t, then maybe Josh wouldn’t, and maybe my entire love for him had been a puppy crush, the kind that normally sane people forget about with time.

“Linda,” he said. “What brings you to Sanibel?”

“Lydia,” I corrected. “It’s Lydia.”

I didn’t want to tell him I came to pry my heart free from his son’s eternal grip. “My father passed away three years ago,” I said, and for a second wondered whether he, like Marlena, had assumed I was the recipient of a three-million-dollar will, which of course I wasn’t. I kept it my secret, even from her, that my father chose not to leave me a penny. Being left nothing only fueled me more to pursue all that I wanted for myself, and as I stood there small-talking with Max I wondered what it was that I had been working toward and what it was that my father had been working toward and whether or not that sort of work-like intensity is a trait that runs in families. What an inheritance, I thought.

“I am sorry to hear about your dad,” he said.

“Thank you. It feels good being in a place where the two of us once visited together. I’m glad he took me here years ago or I might not know about it today.”

“And where are you living now?”

“Chicago, working as a journalist. I cover issues of interest to women.”

“Good for you. And you’re here for how long?”

“A long weekend. I’m staying with my famous friend,” and then I coughed, for how dare I attach that superficial adjective with the word “friend”? Not that she wasn’t famous, but just that it had nothing to do with her being my friend, and she herself was uncomfortable with mention of it. “So how’d you fare during Hurricane Donna? You evacuated, I’m sure.”

“No. Josh and I stormed it out.”

“You didn’t,” I said, wanting to tell him the truth, that I kneeled beside
my bed and prayed a good hour, the first prayer I had sincerely said in all my life, just so the two of them might be safe during that hurricane. “Glad to see the island is fine. Good old Sanibel,” I said. “It’s a strong island. It’ll outlive us all, I’m sure.”

The bags were getting heavy in my arms, and I feared that any moment one might tilt too far, and then I’d lose everything onto the sidewalk. “I better get these groceries back to my friend who needs my help,” I said.

“I’ll tell Josh I bumped into you,” he said.

“And remember, my name is Lydia, not Linda.”

Just then my groceries all came tumbling out and onto the sidewalk, as I had feared they might. As Max and I both went to gather them up, I noticed my favorite cans of who,
what, when, where
and
why
rolling toward the street and if I didn’t ask my questions quick enough, it would be too late.

“How
is Josh?” I managed to ask.

“Great. Chartering by day, playing his music by night.”

“Where
does he play?”

“The Olive Shell.”

“When?”

Max stood up and helped me secure the bags in my arms. “Saturday nights.”

“Good for him,” I said, not needing to ask anything else. “It was good seeing you, Max.”

“You too, Lydia. Take care.”

“I will. Bye.”

I walked back to Bougainvillea, praising myself for changing my outfit before I went and for gathering all the information I needed concerning the topic of Josh. It was only Friday. I set Saturday night as my deadline. That was when I would go see Josh as he played his music. I would wrap it all up tomorrow night.

Marlena was standing in front of a mirror in the great room, dressed in a sheer nylon ruffles ’n lace party dress with a taffeta cummerbund when
I returned.

“Let’s go,” she said. “I’ve put so much energy into getting ready that I’m starting to feel fatigued like I want to lie down again and crawl back under that blanket. Let’s go now before I don’t feel like going anymore.”

“Wait a minute” I said as I dropped the bags onto the kitchen counter. “Where are we going?”

“To the show,” she replied. “It’s starting in about an hour. We can’t miss it.” I quickly put the food that needed refrigeration away, then left the rest for later.

“Marlena,” I said, when I returned to the great room. “What show are you talking about?”

She was standing in the doorway. “The sunset, honey,” she said.

“Oh.” I took her hand. “I’d love to see a sunset.”

I didn’t want to suggest that maybe her polka-dot playsuit would have been more appropriate and that her outfit was making me feel under-dressed. But I didn’t think it mattered. It was a big occasion for her going out, and my guess was she hadn’t been to any shows in a long time.

“Give me a minute,” I said, running back up the steps and into the house. “I’ve got sunset snacks,” I called out.

When we arrived at Blind Pass, her favorite spot for sunsets, I had hardly put the car in park, and she was already stepping out. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to get out of a car until it stops?” I asked.

“Watch it, young lady,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “She and I once watched a sunset on this beach together, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that. When?”

“You’ll read about it one of these days.” She headed for the beach, and I grabbed the blanket and the snacks and caught up with her.

“Here. Let’s take these seats, right here,” she said, bending over to pat the sand. “It’s amazing to think that tickets to a show like this are free. And we’ve got the best seats in the house.”

“We do,” I said, dropping onto my buttocks in my form-fitting skirt. I should have taken an extra second to change into my culottes.

“I’ve missed this,” she said. “To think, I used to come to the shows twice a day. The morning show takes place on the eastern stage, you know.
It’s the most sizzling performance of all.”

I enjoyed the drama returning to her voice. It was like the old Marlena was trying to come out again.

“I’m aware that at times my mind feels down and that my mother’s did too and that her mother’s did as well,” Marlena said.

“I’ve never told anyone this before,” I said. “But my mother experienced something similar shortly after I was born.”

“Yours?”

“Yes, only I don’t know much about it. I wish I knew more because it haunts me. She took her own life. I can hardly speak of it. You’re so fortunate to know about your ancestors and what they were thinking and feeling.”

“I’ve learned from them.”

“What have you learned?”

“See where the water is glistening from the sun?”

I looked out at the Gulf of Mexico and saw a perfect pathway on the surface of the water. I nodded.

“It’s there at night, too, from the moon. There are always steps we can take, no matter how down we feel or how bad things become, steps that will lead us to survival. After you left for the store, I called a doctor over in Fort Myers today. I made myself an appointment. I’m going to find help,” she said. “Making that call was my first glistening step. Getting out of the house to watch this sunset was my second.”

“I’m proud of you,” I said. “And I believe in you. I believe you’ll find the help you need. And I think I’ll store what you just said about that glistening pathway in my own jar of wisdom so if ever I need to, I can pull it out and apply it.”

She smiled, and so did I.

XXXVI

THE NEXT MORNING, IT
felt good to be sipping my coffee with Coke can-sized rollers still in my hair. Rushing off to work every morning back home never allowed me time to primp and pamper myself, and besides, no one cares what a newspaperwoman looks like.

I walked outside Bougainvillea and sat down on the front steps where nearby birds were singing and ruffling their feathers ready to mate. Their chirps were like nourishment to my soul, and I regretted having been so mentally focused at work that I never had time but to swear at the pigeons that pooped on me back in Chicago.

Allowing Josh to dig his claws into my heart all these years wasn’t good, either, and I could hardly wait to pry him loose and get on with my life. There had been men whistling at me back home and maybe after this trip I’d start paying them attention. They were many.

“You rolled your hair last night,” Marlena said when she joined me with her coffee on the steps.

“I want to look good tonight,” I said. “Josh plays over at the Olive Shell, and I’m going there for closure.”

“Why do you care how you look if you’re going for closure?”

“So I feel better when I walk away.”

There was silence but for the birds singing, and then, “Do you still love him?”

“After all this time? Of course not,” I said, ashamed that I had loved
someone for so long without seeing him.

“I still love someone I haven’t seen in decades,” she said. “But I only love him a little bit. I’ve mostly moved on.”

“Who? You’ve never told me. I never wanted to pry, but I’ve wondered.”

“I’ll tell you one of these days,” she said. “But not now.”

If she wanted to revisit that time and the man she once loved, she would have shared her story, and I would have given her center stage, listening attentively, knowing she wasn’t preaching or telling me what to do about Josh, but relating maybe, by telling me a story from her own life, a moment she felt like reliving. But she wasn’t ready or didn’t feel the need. I didn’t know which.

Shortly after breakfast I changed into my new hip-riding baby-doll bikini and walked to the beach, quickly learning from the humidity that rolling my hair the night before had been illogical thinking.

I spent a couple of hours sitting by the shore, allowing the sun to lighten the dark circles under my eyes and add color to my skin. I walked a little, watching for shells, and then down where the water could touch my toes. And when I returned to the blanket, I fell asleep, I think, or at least I entered a relaxed state. When I woke, I reminded myself why I came and what I had yet to accomplish on this trip. Closure.

Marlena helped me wash and roll my hair again, and then I sat for one hour under her dryer trying to relax my nerves. I had brought along a book,
Feminine Mystique
, and tried reading it. Shortly after my trip, I was scheduled to interview author Betty Friedan about what her book had done. Overnight, it had lassoed women into action, questioning why society had them giving up their dreams and quitting jobs they didn’t want, but jobs men allowed them to take, and once they got married, giving up all ambition outside of the home. Reading it now before seeing Josh, I figured, might keep me from giving in to his handsome charm. I knew it was important for me to read as much of it as I could before seeing him. But reading was difficult under the dryer. I had to hold my head upright, which meant I had to hold the book smack up to my face. I tried watching television, but couldn’t hear a thing. The monster dryer was loud as a
freight train.

“Do you happen to have any electric rollers?” I shouted to Marlena.

“No, they don’t give the poof you get from wet rolled and dried. Tonight is too important, babe.”

It had been some time since I last paid any attention to putting makeup on and styling my hair, and I had forgotten that I could look anything other than exhausted, overworked, and stressed. Marlena insisted on nothing but big curvy curls, so she criss-crossed my hair in front, pulled it behind my ears, and pinned it at my nape into flatteringly saucy, open curls and so on.

“Remember, I’m going for closure and not to get closer,” I reminded her.

“Of course,” she said. “But you’re going to walk away feeling like a million-dollar star. That’s all I’m trying to do here. Now what are you planning to wear?”

“I don’t know. I hate my wardrobe. It’s conservative and professional and boxy like a man’s.”

“Go look through mine. A movie star always has something to wear.”

And she did. Her closet was sufficient for Marilyn Monroe. I chose a daring dress with cutouts and vinyl, one that displayed the stilt-like legs I’d forgotten I had.

A couple of hours later I sat down at a small round table in the back corner of the Olive Shell, alone but confident, like a journalist surrounded in her mind by the questions she wanted to ask and the information she was collecting. I sat there with purpose. Purpose does keep one company. The lights were dim, and the waiter said the band had been on a ten-minute break and was just about to start back up again.

And, when it did, I sipped my martini and recognized features of the boy whose cheeks once puffed awkwardly out while practicing that day under the coconut tree a long time ago. A journalist is trained to see details. So I noticed his sun-drenched face. Oh, and the cleft in his chin.