Sacrifice (15 page)

“I guess it’s dinner at the Venetian,” he mumbled.

The bell for class rang. Katy kissed him and dashed off down the hall.

Jeff stood stunned in the hallway, oblivious to the mass of bodies that rushed by him. A movie of his upcoming prom night played in his head. It was not rated “G.” He floated off to class and was only three minutes late.

He didn’t remember a thing anyone said the rest of the day. When school was out and he went to his part-time job at Radio Shack, his dreamy attitude made the boss ask him three times if he was on drugs.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“You really call this a job?” Dave said. It was after school and he’d tagged along with Paul to work. He shaded his eyes as he looked up at Paul on the Sagebrook Beach lifeguard stand.

Paul looked down at Dave over the tops of his sunglasses. “Hell yeah.”

“The water is waist deep,” Dave said. “A dwarf couldn’t drown here.”

“The water’s a lot deeper than that at high tide,” Paul said, “and the channel current is quick out past the safety rope.”

“Well, I’m going to go catch some rays,” Dave said. He grasped the blue beach towel around his neck with both hands. “Wake me if you do something heroic.”

Dave walked a dozen yards down the beach and laid out his towel. Paul was glad for the distance. He was going to have to ask Dave to give him some space anyway. Dave might not have thought the part-time lifeguard job was serious, but Paul did, and he needed to focus on his work.

Paul pushed his sunglasses back up on his nose. From the top of the elevated lifeguard’s stand he could see from one end of Sagebrook Beach to the other. That wasn’t saying much since the beach was about a football field long, but when you were king you didn’t complain about the size of your kingdom.

The “beach” wouldn’t pass muster on the Long Island’s Atlantic south shore, but for the north shore against Long Island Sound, it wasn’t bad. Ice Age glaciers had left the narrow strip carpeted with pebbles rather than sand and only the heartiest of beachgoers went barefoot. Settlers had built a breakwater a few hundred yards offshore to shelter the harbor and its long-gone shipyard. Silt had widened the breakwater and now it stood sentinel over the town beach and provided a placid swimming area south of the channel. It was no Jones Beach, but if you wanted to skip the crowds and the commute, it would do in a pinch.

The town staffed the beach with lifeguards on weekends and weekday afternoons until school let out. Paul had trained in the basement pool of Whitman High for a year so he could hire on at the minimum age of seventeen. His mother said protecting others must have been in his genes.

The crowd was thin this brilliant Wednesday afternoon. Terns screeched from their precarious nests on the breakwater. The air was warm but the water was still cool. It would be the end of the month before it stopped sending a shiver up your spine when you dove in.

Dave had taken residence near the cattails at the beach’s marshy edge, a study in pale skin and pale hair. Nearby, a couple lay on lumpy blankets. At the water’s edge two little boys scavenged for snails. Septuagenarian Morty Klein sat in a lawn chair on the beach’s tree-shaded southern edge. His pasty, thin legs stuck out like two musician’s drumsticks from his green Bermuda shorts. His oversized golf hat rested on the rims of his wide sunglasses. He read the
New York Times.
There wasn’t an afternoon that Paul didn’t see Morty out here reading the
Times
. He wondered if the old man braved the elements all winter.

Paul had passed through several part-time jobs between football seasons. Two months in the Village Green Inn’s kitchen. A winter stint delivering pizzas. Pumping gasoline. Being a lifeguard didn’t pay much better than the other jobs, and it wasn’t any more of a career, but it was Paul’s favorite. The position had a feeling of authority about it and a sense of true responsibility. When he looked out across the beach for the four hours he was on duty, these people were his. He would keep them safe. The thought made him feel powerful.

Of course he hadn’t saved any lives yet. Hardly anyone had taken to the water on his watches. But he was ready when they did. Paul couldn’t string a paragraph together in English class without having his mind wander off, but he had no problem maintaining a focused vigilance over his beach-bound charges.

There was just one boat in sight. Two guys in a rowboat puttered up the channel offshore. The tiny engine strained against the rush of the outgoing tide, and a spray kicked up from the bow out of proportion with the boat’s forward movement. A trolling rod hung off aft. Its line tugged at the water in the vain attempt to lure in one more fish.

Paul was wondering how long the men had been out in the hunt for the elusive fish when a girl walked to the base of his stand. She wore a red bikini with a halter top that perfectly showcased the curve of her breasts. Her brown hair danced across her tanned shoulders in the light offshore breeze. She looked up at Paul with a dazzling smile.

Paul smiled back. She was his age, but he’d never seen her at school. Probably one of the founder’s girls from old Sagebrook. They mostly went to private schools. Private
girls’
schools. Schools that generated a certain naïveté about the opposite sex. Paul’s grin amplified to ultra charming.

“So how’s the water?” she asked. She leaned up against the side of the stand, and Paul received the gift of a perfect cleavage shot.

“A bit cool,” Paul said. “You’ll need something to warm you up when you get out.”

She gave a little laugh. “I’ll let you know if I do.”

She walked to the water’s edge with the grace of a runway model. She kicked off her flip flops and waded in. When the water reached her knees, she looked at Paul over her shoulder. She grabbed her elbows and made an exaggerated shiver. Then she laughed and dove into the water.

Paul stayed glued to her every move. She swam underwater and broke the surface halfway across the roped swimming area. She splashed on the surface towards the northern boundary rope and its chain of white Styrofoam floats. The sun sparkled off her arms with each stroke.

She reached the boundary rope and Paul’s captivation became concern. She surely would know to stay within the ropes. A few yards north of it, the outbound current through the channel would grab her, and she’d be halfway to Connecticut just in time to drown. He gripped the arms of the stand.

The girl paused at the rope and treaded water. Paul relaxed. She took another look back at Paul. Their eyes met. Then with a dolphin’s grace, she dove over the boundary rope and swam north.

“No!” Paul shouted as he leapt to his feet.

The people on the beach all looked at him and then followed his gaze out to sea. The wife of the blanket couple asked her husband a question with a quizzical look. He shaded his eyes with his hand and shrugged.

The girl made a beeline for the breakwater, propelled by strong, confident strokes.

Paul’s heart thudded hard enough he could hear it. He pulled off his sunglasses and dropped them on his chair. Maybe the current wasn’t as strong as…

He didn’t even complete the thought before the sea swept the girl sideways.

“Holy shit,” Paul gasped.

Her head broke the surface, and her eyes were wide with panic. She spun to swim against the current but it pushed her on her back. A wave filled her mouth full of water and choked her scream for help to a muffled gargle.

Paul’s shirt tore as he yanked it off over his head. He leapt from the chair and landed hard on the stony beach. Pebbles flew as he raced to the water. Three splashes into the Sound, he dove into a small wave. His heart stopped for a second as he hit the cold water. He shuddered and started to swim. His knees scraped the rocky bottom as he powered from the shore.

In a few strokes he was at the boundary rope. He paused and looked across the water for the girl. Her head bobbed mid-channel, running hard to open water. She saw Paul and flailed her arms in the air. Paul swam in pursuit.

No surge of adrenaline could keep the water’s cold at bay forever. Paul’s muscles tensed as his skin started to chill. He hit the channel current and it yanked him right. He turned down current and swam with it.

He raised his head to check for the girl. She was no closer. She slipped below the surface and then returned with a choking sputter. Paul dug into the water with powerful strokes.

After a dozen yards he checked for her again. Still no closer. He was swimming with the current, she against it or at least floating in it. How could he not be closing? His shoulders started to ache.

He wasn’t breathing right. He wasn’t focusing on the swim. He’d blown off every bit of his lifesaving training, rushing to save that girl. His chest heaved with each breath, like during wind sprint drills. For the first time, he didn’t worry just about her.

He looked for her again. He still hadn’t closed the gap. His flesh was a mass of goose bumps as the cold chilled his burning muscles. His right leg shuddered and then it hit.

Charley horse.

Paul rolled on his back in pain. “Damn it!” he yelled. He reached to massage his rock-hard calf and immediately sank into the murky water. He flailed himself back to the surface and gulped in air. His cramped leg locked at a right angle. The edge of the breakwater zipped by. He was in open water.

Two tired arms and one leg couldn’t fight the current. Paul slipped below again. The surface world became muffled. The water, black as midnight, froze his skin to an icy sheen. His lungs burned for oxygen and threatened to burst through his chest.

I’m gonna die
, he thought.
Please God don’t let me die.

He fought to push himself back to the surface, but his arms had nothing left to give. The sunlight faded. His body went limp but his mind still raced.

God, no…

Something jabbed his back. He jerked and on the second attempt it hooked him under the arm. It yanked him from the water like a snagged fish. Daylight blinded him and he spit a mouthful of water into the air.

Four hands grabbed him under the arms and pulled him across the gunwale of a rowboat. It was the two men he saw heading up the channel earlier. The beefier, bearded one wore a red flannel shirt and still held the gaffing rod in his hand that had saved Paul. He gave Paul an unnecessary slap across the face.

“You OK?” he said.

“Yeah,” Paul managed between deep, heaving breaths of air.

“What the hell were you doing?” the man said.

Paul remembered the girl. “The girl! She was swept out ahead of me.” Paul sat up and looked out across the bow to an empty sea.

“There was no girl,” the fisherman said. “Just you. We watched you dive into the water and start swimming for Bridgeport.”

“We didn’t think you’d make it,” the skinny fisherman said. He slapped the engine left and the rowboat turned to shore.

“No,” Paul said, confused. “She wore a red bikini. I followed her…”

As the boat approached the shore, the blanket couple was at the water’s edge, their children tucked between their legs. Morty had abandoned the
Times
and even dropped his sunglasses a few inches for a better look. Paul looked past them all for what he prayed would be a confirmation of his sanity. He was not rewarded.

There was no pair of flip flops at the water’s edge.

Dave stood thigh deep in the water and caught the nose of the rowboat as it stopped just shy of the beach. Paul waited for some smart-ass comment, but for once Dave knew to shut up. He helped Paul out of the boat. Paul’s thighs felt liked they’d been tied in knots. Paul shivered so hard water splashed at his knees. He draped an arm over Dave’s shoulders and the two limped ashore.

“You saw her, man?” Paul said under his breath. “Right? The girl?”

“What girl?” Dave said. “All I saw was you hit the water like the beach was on fire.”

He remembered Ken’s story about watching Josie Mulfetta at the Village Green and he knew who the girl in the red bikini had been.

The Woodsman.

And unlike the rest of the Half Dozen, Dave couldn’t see him.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Order up!”

Just after Dave helped pull a chattering Paul ashore, Bob was slinging hash at the Parkview Diner. He slid a turkey club with fries into the pickup window. This afternoon, he got a temporary promotion to cook. Of course there wasn’t much cooking. Dinner wasn’t served until five p.m. and the post-lunch menu was sandwiches, burgers and fries. But it beat doing dishes.

Scarlett appeared through the window. The waitress was on the far side of thirty with short, permed brown hair. Her Southern accent poured like honey when she spoke. Bob knew she was from Georgia and wondered what twists in life got her way the hell up here. She’d adopted the Scarlett name to bump up tips, but her real name was a mystery. She looked over the turkey club with an approving eye and nudged the pickle spear a shade to the right.

“Mustard instead of mayo on this one, Bobby?” She was the only one in the diner who called him Bobby.

“You asked for it, you got it,” Bob said.

Scarlett smiled. “Y’all are getting the hang of this short order. Careful now or you’ll become indispensable.” She stretched out the syllables of the last word as if it was a mile long.