Seven Tears into the Sea Read online

  “Sesame Street!” Roscoe yowled.

  “Yeah? You really got off on that baby show, Jess?” Perch asked.

  “Couldn’t get enough of it,” Zack said, and then his lower lip protruded. “He was always too good to sleep over, too.”

  Living on a boat would be cramped. The television would be jammed between stacks of unpaid bills and a microwave oven. Food wrappers would be strewn over fishermen’s boots and slickers, and it would be dark and smelly. Where would you do your homework?

  And Zack’s dad was rumored to beat him. I imagined Zack as that little blond kid I’d known, looking up as heavy feet crossed the deck overhead. He’d try not to cower.

  Weak things aren’t safe around him, Thelma had said, but she’d been talking about Zack.

  “I don’t sleep indoors.” Jesse’s matter-of-fact tone snapped me back to my sunny yard, but his thoughts had flowed in the same direction, because next he asked, “Does the old man still discipline you?”

  Roscoe shuffled back from Zack. Perch licked his lips and gave a nervous laugh. Anyone could see this was something Zack didn’t like to talk about.

  “Discipline” was an odd word for what must have happened on that fishing boat. Making low wages, drinking too much—after all, Red O’Malley’s bar hadn’t stayed open all these years because tourists dropped by for cocktails—maybe “discipline” was what Zack’s dad had called it.

  “He hasn’t tried for years,” Zack said as his eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’d like to.”

  Roscoe elbowed Perch as if they were gonna have some fun, now.

  But Jesse missed the dare. “Why? Have you done something?”

  “Not yet,” Zack said. He looked up as a shadow flitted overhead. “Hey, what’s that?”

  It took me only a second to notice the mother swallow duck into her nest.

  With a cruel smile Zack crossed my yard and stood under the nest. I heard rustling, as if the swallow was sheltering her young.

  It was easy to understand why he was acting this way. Who’d protected him, after all? Now he was tough and determined to prove it. But his memories of me were making things worse. I was the one—the girl—who’d hammered him with her fists and chased him up to the road.

  Perch crowded close to the nest. Rising on his toes, he curled one hand as if he’d flick the brittle mud nest, but Roscoe shouldered him aside. He reached into the pocket of his baggy jeans.

  “Gwennie?” Jesse stood tall and tense, but I wasn’t going to urge him into a fight he might not win.

  I heard the snick of a match being struck and smelled sulphur. Roscoe tossed the match toward the entrance to the nest and missed.

  Enough. I stood up.

  Be cool, I told myself. Get hysterical and all of this stuff quaking under the surface will erupt.

  “I know you’re not setting my house on fire, Roscoe.” I got right in his face, and he backed up a step then looked at Zack.

  Zack glanced toward the Inn. My front porch was visible from there, if anyone was looking.

  Without his go-ahead, Roscoe wasn’t sure what to do, and then Zack just wandered away. He walked on the deck around the side of my cottage.

  What was he doing? It took me a few seconds to decide, but then I followed in time to see him looking up under the eaves over my kitchen window. He must be searching for another nest, but I couldn’t help thinking of my first night in the cottage.

  What if the movement at the kitchen window hadn’t been just my reflection?

  Roscoe came around the corner with another lit match then swore and dropped it when it burned his fingers.

  Dumb as a rock, I thought, and this time Zack agreed.

  “Put ’em away,” he said, jostling Roscoe’s arm.

  Then Zack spotted my spider’s web. For a minute it looked like he was just going to drag his fingers through the sticky strands. And I’d let him. He wouldn’t try to touch her, and she could rebuild her web.

  But just as I started to breathe, Zack took the matches from Roscoe.

  She was just a spider, but I wouldn’t let him burn her alive.

  Through his black shirt I saw Jesse’s chest rising and falling. He kept cocking his head to the side, trying to see my eyes.

  I didn’t believe he could read my mind through them, but just in case, I kept my back to him. I couldn’t let him know I was scared. If he didn’t notice how my hands were shaking, everything would be all right.

  “Hey,” I said, before he struck the match. “You know how Thelma and my grandmother are. They’re watching me night and day. If they see fire here, they’ll call out the volunteer fire department.”

  Zack shrugged as if he didn’t care, but he shoved the matches into his pocket.

  I thought they’d leave then, and they might have if Jesse hadn’t come to stand beside me. I welcomed him, even wanted to lean against him, but I didn’t. Zack’s stare told me that would only cause more trouble.

  Neither Zack nor Jesse said a word, but Roscoe scented trouble.

  “Haven’t seen you around much, Jesse,” Roscoe said.

  “Oh, Jesse?” Zack pushed a clump of shaggy blond hair back from his eyes. “He’s a ladies’ man now. Oh yeah,” he said. Glancing at me, he must have seen I thought he was talking about Jesse and me. “Saw Jesse and Jade just the other night goin’ at it.”

  And then Zack did this gross thing, grabbing the air in front of him at hip height before thrusting his hips forward with this disgusting, grinning grimace.

  Jade? Jade, pierced and pink-haired, and too cool to sell me her earrings? That Jade? I turned my head slowly to stare at Jesse. He had the nerve to smile.

  “Speakin’ of cows, you shoulda seen the one we found out on the beach,” Perch said.

  I assumed Perch was talking about a woman, until Jesse got mad.

  “At the cove?” Jesse asked, and then I knew they were talking about a sea lion.

  You can’t feel another person get gooseflesh, but Jesse was standing close enough that I swear I felt heat ripple over him.

  Zack sensed it too, and he was smart enough to rescue Perch.

  “She was already dead,” Zack said.

  Jesse’s shoulders sank away from his black hair, and his muscles relaxed, I could imagine every one of those muscles, since he’d held me against them last night.

  “I guess you don’t remember, Jesse,” Zack said.

  He must have noticed my jealousy fading before he was through working on my feelings.

  “I bet he hasn’t told you what kinda here-today-gone-tomorrow guy he is.”

  “No, and I really don’t care,” I told him.

  “This is boring,” Roscoe said, looking around at my cottage.

  Perch was going back for another look at the swallow’s nest when Roscoe stuck out a leg and tripped him.

  “Spaz,” Roscoe laughed, but then Perch grabbed his ankle, jerked, and Roscoe lost his balance too.

  “That hurt, man,” Roscoe moaned.

  Would they ever leave?

  Every ounce of will I had was pushing them away. I think the only thing holding them there was Jesse. They didn’t want to hang out with me, but they didn’t want to leave me to him.

  Once Roscoe and Perch stood up though, Zack started moving toward the driveway.

  Gumbo picked that moment to jump up inside the window ledge and growl. All four guys turned.

  Amber eyes glittering, she growled as she had our first night in the cottage. Black, orange, and white, back arched and fur fluffed, she was impossible to miss as she fixed them with a glare.

  “What’s that?” Zack asked.

  “My cat,” I said. I didn’t try to make him feel dumb for asking. I didn’t even want him looking at her.

  “Does it come out?” Roscoe asked, rubbing his hands together. “Let it out.”

  “She’s a house cat,” I said. “And she bites.”

  Zack was grinning as he pushed Roscoe and Perch back down the path to his truck. Then he loo
ked back and blew me a kiss.

  We watched the green pickup drive out of sight.

  “The girl named Jade,” he began.

  “I don’t care,” I told him.

  I just wanted my cottage to myself. I wanted him to go, so I have no idea why I asked, “Do you want to come in for a soda?”

  “I’ll come in and see your cat,” he said.

  “Okay, but she’s not very friendly.”

  Jumping down from the window and pattering straight to Jesse, Gumbo proved me a liar. She rubbed her side against his jeans then arched her back for his touch.

  “She’s a nice cat,” he said reproachfully.

  I opened the refrigerator, took out a cold soda can, and popped the top, then looked back.

  “Sure you don’t want one?”

  Jesse shook his head then made himself at home. I’d never had a real boyfriend, but I didn’t think they usually sprawled on your couch the first time you invited them in.

  Still, I liked it. Gumbo leapt up beside him. He stroked her throat while she closed her eyes in ecstasy.

  I could hear her purring from the kitchen, and I wanted to do the same thing.

  Jesse’s quiet strength had kept me calm out there. And if I’d whimpered even once, he would’ve beaten Zack bloody. I just knew it.

  As soon as I raised my focus from the hand stroking Gumbo to Jesse’s eyes, I saw him watching me.

  “Come swim with me,” he said.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Does your leg hurt? Do you have to work?” He teased me with my own excuses, and I guessed he didn’t have to be a mind reader to know I was lying.

  “I’ll go tomorrow, I promise. I’m just not ready today.”

  He laughed.

  You don’t always notice the first time for things. Or the last.

  Just as I couldn’t miss our first kiss though, I couldn’t miss the first time I heard Jesse laugh.

  His full-out, rolling laugh reminded me of a wave smacking the shore then chuckling over small, rounded rocks. Suddenly it was my favorite laugh in the world.

  I couldn’t stay away. I meandered toward the couch and looked down at him.

  “You’re always ready to swim,” he said, struggling to sit up without displacing Gumbo. “You don’t have to do anything!”

  “Tomorrow—”

  He took my hand and pulled me toward him. I bent from the waist until our faces were just inches apart.

  “Why would you put it off, Gwennie? If you wait another day it could be foggy. It could rain. There could be a red tide.”

  What was a red tide, anyway? Some kind of plankton die-off?

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said, shaking my head hard enough that the braid I’d pinned up for work came bounding down and grazed his cheek.

  “I could be gone.”

  The power trip, I realized, had just changed from mine to his. I didn’t want him to leave, and he knew it.

  “It’s just swimming,’ he promised.

  Oh my gosh. His voice was like melted chocolate. So were his eyes.

  I waited for him to kiss me, and then I thought maybe he’s waiting for me. But the moment had spun out just a little too long. Nervous, I bit my lip, and the movement was enough to make my braid wag. Gumbo took a swing at it.

  I heard my own uneasy laugh as I stepped back.

  His eyes still clung to me. There was time to save this moment if I only knew how.

  “Where do you live?” I asked him.

  Jesse’s eyes turned wary.“Offshore,” he said.

  “Like, on an island? On a yacht?”

  In one fluid movement he put Gumbo aside and stood. This time when he wrapped his arms around me, I was too aware that I came just up to his shoulder. Too aware that we were in my cottage alone. Too aware that I’d said no to swimming only to maintain a bit of control.

  Jesse sighed like he was about forty years old. He flipped his black hair back from where it had fallen across one eye, and his jaw tensed as he gritted his teeth. Then with one arm still around me, he reached into the pocket of the faded black shirt.

  He handed me a shell. I’m not sure what kind, though I’d once had a collection of hundreds. Hinged like angel’s wings, it was cream-colored. Inside, a rosy flush was mirrored on each half.

  As I stared he stepped away from me, then pointed at it with both index fingers.

  “What?” I said.

  “That’s a double sunrise,” he told me. “It says when we’ll meet for our swim. Can you be ready?”

  I would have kissed him then, but he didn’t wait. He stroked Gumbo down the length of her spine, opened my door, and jumped off my porch.

  I rushed to the window and stared after him. Most guys would have turned back, would have checked to see if I was watching. But Jesse never would be most guys.

  Sand crunched as his long strides took him away. His bare feet pounded the hot white sand as he headed toward Sea Horse Inn. Then, as I knew he would, he turned left down the path to Mirage Point.

  He was out of sight before long, but I stood there wondering. Did he scramble down the rocky path to the cove or jump the wooden fence and dive into the sea?

  BRIDESMAID DAISY(Centranthus ruber)

  Providing masses of color with a light and airy feeling, the Bridesmaid’s cheeriness can be almost overwhelming to the onlooker. Still its petals are useful for plucking in romantic “loves me, loves me not” tradition, and dreams of daisies bring good luck. The bridesmaid daisy self-sows with abandon, and though its wild profusion is short-lived, it delights the eye while it lasts.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Of course I couldn’t resist going down to the cove before I went back to work.

  I told myself it was because Zack had been here. Even unspoken, his threat to the sea lions scared me.

  The path down wasn’t damp as it was in the morning, so that made the footing easier. There was still that one slick spot, but I knew to watch out for it.

  Seven female sea lions in shades of dark brown, auburn, and blond, lay on the sandy beach, pups dozing beside them. The big bull was there today. His battle scars and the pronounced crest on his forehead made him look fiercely prehistoric, unlike the females, whose eyes touched mine with empathy.

  They accepted the bull’s bluster because he arrived with them in May and helped protect their pups until he left. His departure could come in June, July, or August. Only he knew when the time was right.

  I still hadn’t seen that big black sea lion who’d given me a hard-hitting rescue. For some reason, though I only glimpsed him, I’d thought he was a young male. If so, Bull had probably driven him off.

  “Looks like you guys are doing fine,” I said, and ran off to the Inn to face a full house.

  Thelma greeted me with an accusation.

  “The sugar bowl and the tongs have black spots,” she said as soon as she saw me. “Do you know why?”

  “Bubonic plague?” I asked, tying an apron over my shorts.

  “Shoddy drying of the sterling,” she corrected. “They’ll need repolishing straightaway. Like this.”

  I got after it, soaping the pink sterling polish on an ornate knife with a firm, circular motion, just as Thelma had shown me.

  She poured boiling water in each of three teapots, swirled it around, then dumped it into a spotless sink. She measured six teaspoons of three different teas into each.

  “Slip into your dress while the tea steeps,” Thelma instructed when I’d finished polishing, and then, pouring hot water over the leaves, she lowered her voice and began muttering.

  I passed pyramids of green linen napkins bound with shell rings on my way to change. Nana had set out the cream-colored china.

  As I breezed back into the kitchen, Thelma was still talking to herself. This time I caught a few words:

  “…then will they offer bullocks upon the altar!” she said with a concluding nod.

  “Are you reciting something?”

  This
wasn’t the first time I’d noticed her doing it, just the first time I’d been bold enough to ask. It sounded like a Bible verse or Shakespeare, but I couldn’t relate either one to brewing tea.

  “Yes, and it would do you good to memorize it as well. Psalm 51 is precisely five minutes long, the time this tea needs to steep.”

  “The things you learn,” I said as I carried the first tray into the parlor.

  Sea Horse Inn had a younger crowd today. Five Tolkien fans from Portland, Oregon had come for the summer solstice. Three guys, two lanky and long-haired, the other a little pudgy, bespectacled, and paired with a girl who might have been his twin, and her sister.

  From wisps of their conversation, I learned they’d pooled their money and were running this trip on a very tight budget.

  The hungry eyes they cast on the tea table told me they planned to make dinner of the orange layer cake, the chocolate candies fashioned to look like turtles, and the tiny triangle sandwiches made of crabmeat and Swiss cheese.

  I refilled the sandwich tray twice to make sure they got their money’s worth, and Thelma supported me.

  “It’s nice to have some young people visit,” Thelma said as I refilled the teapot. “This isn’t Middle-earth, but the next best thing. Make sure they get more cake, too.”

  As I poured tea, Nana told stories, gently separating strands of popular mythology from Celtic tales.

  I also met the Whartons, an older couple who listened as intently as the college students.

  They were all having a good time, looking forward to twilight on the widow’s walk with more stories, and no one made a mess, so I was happy.

  I had a quick supper with Nana and Thelma in the kitchen while we planned Midsummer festivities. Nana got out another of her notebooks, which listed everything we’d do, starting the day after tomorrow.

  I felt a little fidgety as I listened. I couldn’t believe I’d turned down an afternoon swim with Jesse. In fact, I’d made a mess of the whole encounter. I’d done well enough with Zack, I guess, but I wish I’d made a plan to meet with Jesse tonight.