by Roy Freirich
“Importance of excellent bud, right there.” Little snorts of laughter escape him, until he lets it all go and collapses twitching on the sand, helpless, with little yelping howls, tears starting from his eyes.
A strange spasm-like wave contracts her stomach and then her chest and throat, rising and bursting out of her in laughter, too. Spinning now to fall beside him, their shoulders touching as they writhe.
When did they stop laughing? How long ago? Did it just now happen? Why does it matter anyway?
The sky is a white bowl, upside down, split by a green stalk of seagrass.
The black strands of Tay’s hair shine and leave a shadow on his forehead in a jagged, perfect sharp row. The surface of his forehead smooth brown like wood with no grain in it, just smooth, deep color. His lips are darker than his skin; his teeth are even and white as the white in his eyes, which have gold flecks in the irises like cats’, as they search hers with a question and must see the answer there, even before she knows it though she has always known it, of course, because his lips are softer than she thought and their touch lighter and warm and alive.
What is more alive than the warmth spreading lightly through her from him, which becomes more touching, of everything at once as they lie against each other, pressing gently? The salt sweat smell on damp skin and the sweet taste of smoke still in his mouth?
Quicker heartbeats, shallower breaths begin, and their hands become more questions. Strange, beautiful joy curves her lips against his, but his fingers tracing the curve of her hip move inward and downward to her thighs, stroking and teasing the edge of her shorts.
From somewhere her voice is asking, though not aloud, what girl am I? And then, which boy is he? It’s a thought, only, that can disappear the way it came, as quickly and needlessly, but it won’t, because his fingertips feel too urgent, pressing and somehow pulling harder and moving over her more quickly now, until her lips part from his with a soft gasp and she hears her own voice, hoarse and sleepy, “Uhh . . .. hey.”
Surprise stops them and they lie there for a still, stunned moment, staring up and catching their breaths.
He turns his head to blink at her, confused. And she shouldn’t, she knows, but she can’t not, so she laughs—even though she’s sorry to—she laughs, climbing to her hands and knees and up, swaying to stagger as she giggles at him staring and at herself, so ridiculously, pathetically afraid.
“No, no, I’m sorry . . . not at you . . . me, me . . . Prude-ster, pathetic. Me!” Too stoned, tears streaming.
But how long has this other noise—no, it’s her ringtone, the tinny urgent blare of it—been happening?
She pulls out her cell and looks wide-eyed down at the caller ID. Why now, when she’s breathless and at the edge of everything at once, this voice again, nagging like doubt, demanding to be answered?
She takes a deep breath, like a swimmer preparing to submerge, and clicks through. “Mom, hi, yeah. No. I’m . . . babysitting. For that lady, I told you? That I met at the . . . market? No, I know. Ummm, two . . . hours? I just said, babysitting. How long? Hello-o-? At the market. Two hours. Two hours, I said. No, Mom, there’s nothing weird about the ocean. Take a nap.” She glances at Tay, makes the crazy sign next to her temple.
Tay sighs and lies back as Cort’s cell buzzes again: a text from Jane Felsh:
u quit u lose where r u
She flicks up her page and her thumbs fly over the keys:
fu – up 28 str8
She sends, and suddenly Mom’s voice startles her, still alive from her cell, crackling out, trying to find her: “Cort? What is going on? Hello?”
3
Chief watches the emailed pictures of the lost Boy jerk and slip from his printer. A little blurry, but who isn’t? At 86K, it’s an emailable file size in today’s instant world, and it’s the trade-off that goes with.
In this dank garage for his and Pines Beach FD’s Jeeps, his out-of-date color inkjet and desktop computer sit against the back of a rusting tool chest, where he’s taped snaps of his girl and wife to bring something of home. Sweeter images, old school, pre-digital, from the days when you dropped your little film cartridge at a counter and picked up your envelope an hour later.
With a beep and a sigh, the print run finishes. The Boy is facing the camera full-on, with a veiled look to his eyes that bends the chief curiously closer, and closer still, but to see what? The Boy’s gone mute on a bet, maybe, a dare. It’s a game gone too far; kids now get their ideas from reality TV, where ruthlessness rules: “in it to win it,” “who’s your daddy,” “make you my bitch”—it’s all ugly meanness and profane taunts now, and maybe even a seven- or eight-year-old like this one has crossed a line no one ever showed him. Little sociopaths are everywhere—habitual liars, shoplifters, animal abusers. Or maybe the parents put this kid up to it, like the Colorado couple who stuck theirs in a balloon basket, sent him up, up and away, and called the news looking for a reality show of their own. Probably, though, nothing near as nefarious.
Chief glances at the door to the utility room, where the auxiliary guys have stretchered in the suicide couple, today’s new problem, and packed them in ice. He’s called the mainland, the Suffolk County Coroner’s office, where they’re slammed and glad to accept Sam’s prelim for the death certificates, if Chief can alert next of kin and keep the bodies cold for a few days, maximum, until they can spare an aide and send out an ambulance boat.
Chief puts these calls off for now; better to get pictures of the Boy handed out and a parent found, fast, before Sam loses the kid, or the kid loses himself, and everyone has too much explaining to do.
He arranges the twenty-five pictures, printed on 8-1/2 x 11 laser bond, in a stack, slips them into a manila folder, and climbs into his Jeep to head back into town.
−−−
Between Hardy’s Marine Supply and Pines Beach Sundries, there’s a rectangle of water-stained concrete, a pair of straight-backed benches, and a kiosk with a glass pane over share rental and lost pet notices. It’s Pines Beach’s town square, if any place is.
Chief has his Jeep pulled up and a gaggle of tourists blinking up at him and back down at the pictures he’s handed out. These look like Yonkers or North Jersey types, young marrieds partying before the wife gets pregnant and on the wagon, and dad needs to clock in overtime to stay even; the women wear big jewelry, the men wear Hawaiian shirts over wife-beaters and cargo shorts stuffed with small bills and receipts.
Toward the back of the small crowd, there’s a foursome who look German, or Swedish—lanky, pink blondes with a fanny pack and a map. One of these women studies the picture and starts to sob, inexplicably, “I’m afraid of losing my child, too. It can happen to anyone. Anyone.”
Chief fights the urge to roll his eyes. “Look, I just need to know if anyone recognizes him.”
Everyone looks at everyone else. Nobody speaks up.
“Okay. Can I ask you to show this picture around? This boy’s folks are missing, and we don’t even know his name, or where he was staying.”
A new-agey looking Five Towner, probably an ad guy, speaks up, squinting, “Didn’t you ask him?”
Chief gives the man a showy, cold smile. “He’s not communicating, we don’t know why at this point . . .”
Another genius pipes up, “Who do we show it to?”
Chief hesitates. Is it stupid pills in the water? “Everybody, okay? We need to figure out who this boy is.”
Another tourist, gold chain flashing: “Everybody? How do we show it to everybody?”
Hungover, they’ve got to be. Maybe Clam Shack ran a well-drink special too late last night, and these vacationers have simply been on a bender and temporarily murdered their minds. “Jesus. As many as you can, okay?”
The tourist hesitates, and then actually shows his copy of the Boy’s picture to another standing next to him, already studying his own.
But not as weird as what he thinks he sees now, at the back of the crowd: a middle-aged, silver-haired guy, gleaming eyes observing all from behind pricey wire-rims, holding one of the Boy’s pictures. His eyes meet Chief’s with a sharp, appraising curiosity.
The crowd murmurs and shifts, blocking Chief’s sight line. He steps sideways, but the man is already wandering off behind the Germans, and some sunburned muscle-head has stepped up, actually wondering, “Is there a reward?”
4
“It’s just hard to imagine,” Kathy pitches her voice low and hopefully out of earshot of the Boy beside Sam, as they walk Sam and his bike along the boardwalk into town. “They seemed cheerful enough. Spry. Had to have some money, for that much boat. How do two people like that decide to just call it a day?”
A list presents itself: a diagnosis, a death, a scandal, creditors? “It is hard to fathom.”
These deaths have shaken her, of course. Add their unanticipated guest, and no doubt she’s seeing the program threatened, too—her summer free of responsibility fading—and is worried that it’s just the beginning. It’s not what she signed up for since their night five or six weeks ago, when the sex and the wine and just enough of a good joint had him in an expansive mood, and he suggested she quit the Coffee Spot and take the summer off, sharing his stateroom cabin, “such as it is.”
She cuts her eyes at him, nodding toward the Boy, nearly whispering, “Any advice for me?”
“You did some babysitting in high school, didn’t you tell me?”
“And since.” Her mouth forms a slight, girlish smirk, beguiling Sam momentarily, until he hears her tease, “Could say I’m used to it.”
Surprise slows him. Already? It’s subtext he’d expected a month or so from now, maybe, but not today, and he’s got no argument ready to hand to counter the sly inference: that he’s in an indecision period, like some college freshman with his head in the sand, unwilling to look at or make the hard choices. But is she really any different? Weren’t they both willing to coast through an easy, low-stress summer, taking their pleasure where they found it? Swimming, lobster rolls, some slow dancing after beers at the Clam Shack? To wherever it may lead?
He gives her a long, slow look. “Do we need to talk?”
“Oh, god no. Later, maybe, if then.”
“Yes?”
They peer at each other as if through a haze, both a little confused. “Sure, or not. Later.”
He slows, watching her. She stops and slaps his shoulder, like a frat buddy. “Just go on. Me and Blue Streak will figure it out.”
−−−
Sam pedals along, zigzagging between dawdling bunches of weekenders staring dully around themselves, and a few small knots of murmuring locals who look up and nod. It’s already hot, with a punishing, resolute heaviness that enervates; he fights back, sweat trickling down his back.
Up ahead, there’s a good-looking middle-aged couple, dressed upscale but understated—down from Connecticut, probably—smart suburbanites laughing at something one has just said. They trade a nod and easy smiles with Sam, and if the morning were more leisurely and less portentous, Sam would add a pleasantry. But when he glances back as he whirs by, their smiles are gone, their faces taut, angry, as if he has interrupted a spat. What vacation doesn’t feature one?
In the square of a peeling motel room window, paleness hovers, and just as Sam realizes he’s glimpsed a naked elderly man, the man is gone—someone who’s forgotten to pull their shades and stepped quickly out of sight, probably mortified.
More strangeness nags at him: two pre-teen girls who should be giggling and playing, gone still and silent, staring out to sea. A middle-aged man on a bench, plucking OCD-style at his tee shirt, as if at bugs.
−−−
Striding into the clinic, Sam’s just a few minutes late, but he doesn’t like to leave too much to Paula, or the summer’s new aide, Andrew, always eager to feel exploited and aggrieved at any request that doesn’t fit his contracted hours or job description to the letter.
A few feet into the waiting room, Sam slows, seeing a waiting tourist looking straight at him, and then hugely, convulsively yawning. Beside him, another stares at the ceiling with unblinking eyes.
He rounds the admittance counter with a brusque, unanswered “hey” to Andrew, and finds Paula a few steps further down the hall between exam rooms. She greets him with a wry, raised eyebrow. Are all women annoyed at him today?
She pitches her voice low. “Got a couple hasn’t slept in two nights.” She nods toward an exam room. “In Two.”
5
Kathy’s the only local at the laundromat today, and must look it, since the women this afternoon are a clique of big-haired Bridgeporters in cruise wear, all little short shorts and gold and silvery kitten heel sandals. They flash Kathy their best quick smiles as they take in her jean cutoffs and faded tee, her tattooed ankle bracelet of thorns and her deeper tan, but they trade sideways looks when they see the Boy in one of Sam’s old tees down to his knees.
Kathy had finally got at him with a washcloth, so at least he looks less feral; he cringed at first, moaning and rolling his eyes, but she just overrode him with cheerful, nonstop chatter. Sweat forms its own dirt if left long enough, flakes of dead skin gone dark and stuck to newer pink layers beneath, and these came off in swaths beneath the rough nub of the cloth as she scrubbed. Laughter worked, too; the sound of hers quieted him, as if a sound from long ago he couldn’t quite place, an echo of another, happier time. He closed his eyes, finally trusting, as she pulled his tee up and over his stiffly upheld arms, the neckline catching on his chin and making her own eyes fill, to think anyone could abandon this sweet frightened boy.
Even more frightened now, no doubt, with all the ugly commotion this morning.
He still clings to his little game, and he had cried when she tried to take it from him while she tugged Sam’s tee on him. Now he stares blankly as she piles his things into a washer, and then he turns slowly in place, eyes finding clothes in a front-load dryer, tumbling past the glass, as if underwater, or falling from the sky.
A voice rises suddenly above the creaking and gushing of the big machines, and Kathy turns to see another young suburban woman in huge sunglasses and fluorescent beach wrap, just arrived with a full plastic laundry basket under an arm and a picture of the Boy in her other hand. “Oh my God! It’s him!”
She sets her basket down and points at the Boy, her pink fingernail glinting, glancing at the others for corroboration. They crowd in, staring down at the picture as she brays, “So they found you! Thank God!” One actually aims her cell, snaps Kathy’s picture, and begins texting.
Kathy almost laughs, “Oh, no, I’m not his mother, I’m just . . . keeping an eye on him for my . . . for Dr. Carlson, who runs the clinic.”
“You’re Mrs. Carlson? So—”
“No. Not wife, not mother, okay?” Kathy puts up her own chilly smile.
The woman blinks at Kathy sympathetically. “Sure, sweetheart, I understand.”
The other whispers back, too loudly, “I heard he was a big time shrink in Boston. Some patient killed himself, family sued. Why he’s here.”
The woman with the picture shoots this one a warning look, and they all glance at Kathy.
Kathy almost feels sorry for them, these gum-chewing creatures of mindless domesticity, desperate for drama. She stares right back, her face stony: “No dirty laundry of your own?”
They blink, understanding slowly, these cows. With elaborate dignity, they raise their eyebrows, purse their lips and turn back to business.
Kathy glares after them, and slowly her baleful look turns curious. Are they just dumb, or in a sort of daze?
One loads dry dirty clothes into a dryer and dumps in detergent with a flourish. The fabric softener vendin
g machine completely stymies a third, who tries to wedge a quarter into the bill slot. Past her, out the big front windows, a group of tourists has stalled, and stands looking around as if lost.
Kathy goes still, too, as it hits her: the fog everybody’s in seems like nothing so much as lost sleep, weird. And it’s bound to make some slow, some mean, and some both, nothing weird there.
−−−
In Exam Room Two, a wide-eyed middle-aged Massachusetts school board comptroller and his wife present as hyper-aroused, even slightly breathless. The man interrupts his wife often and pedantically, correcting her with finicky details. She falls silent during these interjections, annoyed, smiling apologetically at Sam, who finds her vaguely familiar: someone he chatted with online at the Coffee Spot, or at the grocery checkout? Had she been in before, another complaint? He glances at the chart, but she preempts:
“The second night, we felt tired, of course—”
“—well, you more than me—”
“—but neither of us as tired as the couple next door who left. Thin walls. Heard them complaining about it. Nonstop.”
“But, it was around midnight, I guess—”
“—not quite, I think—”
“—when we each realized the other was still up—”
“—well, I think I saw that you were still awake and I asked you—”
Sam interjects, impatient with the wandering, pointless narrative, and begins a Q & A, hoping to rule out, narrow down, and finally achieve some sort of diagnosis. “Had either of you had any alcohol?”