Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans

by DeMaio, Joanne

  Most prompts are easy to answer.

  You are the? Adoptee.

  Searching for? Birthparents.

  Your date of birth? 2-11-1981

  Other prompts she can’t know the answer to. Birthparents’ Names, Hospital. She checks her watch and glances out the window at the night. Will Matt really mind if she tests the waters? She doesn’t have to tell him if she just dips the paddles and sets her search sailing, like a little rowboat moving through time. She won’t let it get to her like before, bringing her down. And what if all her answers come with this one online search? Knowing has to be better than wondering.

  The air is calm outside her window and the distant sound of waves breaking on the beach reaches her, as it often does on still nights like this. She glances at Lauren’s rowboat painting, picturing the old boat bobbing in the gentle waves.

  And quietly, so quietly, she begins to type.

  Chapter Five

  Eva reaches for the pendant Maris wears. The etched star hangs on a braided gold chain and has a way of catching the light. Maris’ name is inscribed in cursive on the back. “You still have this? I remember you wearing it back in high school.”

  “I’ve never really stopped wearing it. It came in the mail a few years after my mother died,” Maris says, biting into the last of a devilled egg and wiping her hands on a paper napkin. “It’s from her sister in Italy. She actually moved there after studying abroad in college.”

  “Is she still there?”

  “I don’t know. I used to ask my dad, but some bad blood came between them after Mom died and he wouldn’t talk. I’m surprised he even gave me the necklace. There was a letter with it, telling me sweet things like how my mom loved to walk on the beach in the evening.”

  “So that’s where you get it from.”

  “Maybe. I guess she and Mom were really close and she hoped when I looked at the stars over Long Island Sound, I’d think of my mother looking at the stars, and of her too, across the Atlantic. It would be nice to talk to her, but whenever I Google her, I can’t find anything.”

  “Sometimes I wish Taylor had a sister, someone to be close to. If I ever had another baby, they’d be so far apart in age now.”

  “Age doesn’t matter. If you’re in that sister club, nothing can come between you. Not even the Atlantic Ocean. Or time.”

  “I suppose I could have a sister and not even know about it.”

  “What?”

  Eva walks over to the stove and lowers the flame beneath the corn on the cob to a simmer. “Want to know a secret?”

  Maris reaches out her hooked pinkie and catches Eva’s, remembering the time Eva made her Promise, promise, pinkie swear not to tell anyone their first secret, that Theresa and Ned had adopted her. The salt water spun their tubes languidly that long-ago afternoon and when they drifted too far apart, their arms would reach for the other, pulling back close again while imagining the royalty, or celebrities, who might be Eva’s birth family.

  Eva glances out the window at Matt and Kyle setting up the grill for barbecuing. Maris moves beside her and sees Taylor and Lauren busy at the badminton net with Lauren’s kids. “What’s up?” Maris asks quietly.

  Eva looks to Maris then. “Follow me,” she says, leading her to the office in the front room, locking the door behind them and sitting at the desk.

  Maris had snagged another devilled egg off the kitchen table and now watches over Eva’s shoulder while her fingers fly over the keyboard. Lines of text scroll down the computer screen. Finally, Eva pushes her chair back. “There I am.”

  Maris finishes the egg and reads the highlighted lines.

  Date of Birth: 2-11-1981

  Springfield, Massachusetts or Hartford, Connecticut

  I was nearly one year old at adoption. Adopted family relocated from Mystic Connecticut to Stony Point Connecticut. I have auburn hair. Eva is searching. Date posted 7-4-2013.

  “You’re looking again?” Maris asks.

  “Just a little, here on this site.”

  “Have you heard anything?”

  Eva shakes her head no. “I only registered a few days ago. Today’s actually the first day it’s posted online.”

  “I thought this got you all stressed and you weren’t going to search anymore.”

  “I wasn’t. It’s kind of because of Taylor that I am. She’s a teenager now and I see so much of myself at that age in her. And that whole mother-daughter recognition, well it makes me wonder about my own mother.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Honestly? What I’m sure of is that the wondering never really goes away, and if I don’t do something about it, it drives me crazy.”

  “What does Matt say?”

  “He doesn’t know yet,” Eva says. “And for now, what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Little secrets between friends are one thing, but Matt should know. This is big. What if, like, your mother responds?”

  “Then that’s when I’ll tell him.”

  “Oh, I hate surprises.”

  Eva turns back to the screen and Maris recognizes the look, the familiar obsession. Over the years, it rose to the surface in the current of Eva’s life, significant times when she deeply missed her real mother’s presence: Christmases when you want to look up from opening a gift and see your mother’s teary eyes; walking down the aisle in a white gown, seeking a glimpse of your mother’s assuring smile; a quiet summer evening when all that shapes the day is warmth and a lone robin’s song and all you want is to be sitting on a front porch with Mom; times when the phone rings and you just wish to hear that voice. Heidi is searching. And Birthmother was very young. And I have red hair and blue eyes. Her friend’s eyes stay glued to the screen on some solitary, enduring hunt. Private adoption through Catholic charity. And Birthmark on my right forearm.

  “Don’t you see?” Eva asks as she continues to read. “I belong to this. Here on this site. No one else has as little as we do.”

  “Wait. Excuse me?”

  Eva turns quickly. “What’s wrong?”

  “We should go,” Maris says then, turning to the door. “Your guests are waiting.”

  “Whoa,” Eva answers. “I thought you’d be excited for me.”

  “I’m not, Eva. I’m sorry, but I’m actually not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” she asks. Maris opens the office door and grandly sweeps her arm to all the life outside it. They hear Taylor calling for her mother. Fourth of July peals of laughter and voices come in through the open windows of Eva’s old beach home as the barbecue gets underway. Thin white curtains fill with a sea breeze. Yellow sunlight pours into the big kitchen and the scent of cooking food hangs in the air.

  Maris turns back to Eva. “I never had a mother to speak of. My father just died. I have no family except for some distant aunt somewhere in Europe, and I have no marriage, no children. Seriously, Eva. No one else has as little as you do?”

  “Maris, wait! That’s not what I meant,” Eva says as she logs off the site and clears her toolbar history. Then Taylor interrupts to tell them that Matt and Kyle need more hamburger buns to toast, and Jason’s sister Paige comes in, asking what she can help carry outside, and Theresa pokes her head in the office, saying they need the serving utensils.

  Maris gives Eva a long, piercing look before heading to the kitchen to lift the steaming corn out of the pot.

  What are photographs, really? The merest memories we put corners on and paste into an album, one whose pages we slowly turn and brush a finger across in wistful moods. We are driven to hold some memories in permanence, but isn’t that like trying to pin down a spirit? To trap some ethereal feeling that has a way of slipping by, just out of reach, ever elusive? That’s what Lauren thinks by the day’s end, with Eva’s camera still clicking. She had photographed the whole reunion barbecue, from the grilling to the badminton to everyone eating at the picnic table. Not a moment missed that roving lens. He
r camera seemed to be mining their histories in search of friendships from nearly twenty years ago when every summer day was spent together hanging on the beach under the sunny sky, every night on the boardwalk beneath the stars. Funny how Lauren’s thoughts page through a different sort of scrapbook. Doesn’t Eva know that memories can be photos enough?

  “Let’s take out your boat,” Kyle said, holding a bunch of bottle rockets. The sun had set and the beach was crowded with Fourth of July revelers walking along the high tide line. “Less people in the way.”

  “It’s too small for all of us,” Jason answered. “We’ll never fit.”

  “And the gas tank’s empty,” Neil added, picking up a flat stone and skimming it out over the dark water. His jeans were cuffed and he waded in the shallows.

  “We’ll take another one then.” Kyle turned to face them, walking backward in the dark, the waves breaking at his feet.

  “What. Like steal one?” Eva asked, her thumb linked through Matt’s belt loop as they lagged behind.

  “More like borrow one,” Kyle suggested. “You know.”

  “Right,” Maris said, bending to pick up a small conch shell from the high tide line. “Because if we’re returning it, it’s not stealing?”

  They all quieted then, but somehow their ambling at the water’s edge shifted up toward the boardwalk and the boat basin behind it, filled with moored, idled boats.

  Lauren hung back, unsure about liking the subtle shift happening, the change beneath the surface of the night. “You guys are crazy. We’ll get arrested if we get caught.”

  Neil turned to her, smiling in the moonlight. “Get caught?” He shook his head and jogged up to Vinny then, putting an arm around his shoulder. “Hey, Vincenzo. Your old man got any brews around?”

  “Let me run back to the cottage and see what’s there. He won’t know the difference.”

  “Hurry up,” Jason called after him, squinting into the darkness to survey the pleasure craft docked in the marina. They followed the circular walkway around the boats, quietly arguing the possibilities until deciding on a small cabin cruiser docked near the entrance. One by one, while Neil kept watch, they jumped aboard and headed down inside the cabin, calling out to Vinny when he trotted back with a six-pack in a paper bag.

  “Shit, you guys.” Vinny climbed aboard, tripping on the dockline and nearly falling over until Jason caught his arm. “Do you know whose boat this is?”

  “What difference does it make?” Paige asked.

  “A ton. It’s Lipkin’s.” Vinny pulled the beer from the bag while watching Kyle hot wire the ignition at the helm. “The Beach Commissioner, guys.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth when the engine kicked on and Neil whooped and took the wheel. He backed the boat out of the slip and very slowly, with the engine quietly chugging, maneuvered through the shadowy marina out into the open water.

  “I want to get off,” Lauren whispered, watching from the cabin as the empty slip faded away.

  “Shit, this is crazy, man,” Matt said, snapping open a beer as he left the cabin and sat in an upholstered rear seat with Eva. “Crazy.” He took a long swig and passed the can to Eva before joining Jason at the wheel with Kyle and Neil.

  Maris and Lauren emerged from the cabin and sat with Eva, sharing another can of beer. Lauren looked out at the Sound, as black as the sky, the only difference being the motion it brought beneath her. She’d never been on the night water and tipped her head back, feeling the rise and sway of the sea, seeing the black sky above unfurl as vast as the water below. The immensity of it all made her own self seem diminutive and she thought that all the blackness could swallow her whole.

  Paige stepped out from the cabin with a bottle of wine and a few cups. “Lucky us, the fridge is well stocked.”

  “Par-tay!” Eva called out, holding her beer up in a toast to the holiday night as Paige opened the wine and poured herself a cup.

  “Cheers, girls!” Paige tipped her cup to their beer. “To another amazing summer together. Bottoms up.”

  Lauren poured herself a cup of wine, glancing at Neil as he carefully steered the boat out to the open water, headed toward the Gull Island lighthouse. Feeling the boat rise and fall over the Sound’s surface, without actually seeing the water as it blended with darkness, unnerved her. The murky sea slapped against the side of the boat, their voices were quiet. Kyle was on the bow of the boat with Vinny, the two of them plotting something together. “I don’t like this, Maris. Don’t you think we should go back?”

  “Let me see what the guys are up to.” Maris went to the helm and Matt moved over to let her have a look. When he did, he caught Eva’s eye behind him and motioned for her to follow him into the cabin.

  “All right,” Eva whispered. “A little bit of heaven down below.” She took her beer and disappeared into the cabin with Matt.

  “Whoa,” Lauren said. “This is getting out of control now.” When Neil told Maris to take the wheel, Lauren reached for the wine to refill her cup. “My parents will kill me if they find out about this. If I don’t get lit, I swear I’ll have a panic attack.”

  “Wait,” Paige said, pulling the bottle back, spilling some of the wine as she topped off her glass. “Me, first.”

  “You ever steer one of these before?” Neil asked Maris. Jason reached past her and turned the wheel, adjusting the boat’s direction.

  “No!” Maris answered. “Is this safe? I can barely see where I’m heading.”

  “Just take it real easy, no sudden turns. Move the wheel in the direction you want to go, and keep it smooth.” From behind, Jason steered with her. “Let’s head her toward the beach.” He pulled back on the throttle as they began to turn parallel to the shoreline. Together they navigated the vessel to a spot just beyond the big rock that vacationers liked to swim out to.

  “Easy does it,” Neil said. “Slow her way down now.” He turned back to Lauren. “You want a turn at the wheel?”

  “Shit, no,” Lauren answered, downing her wine and standing to look out behind them at the sea. The sky above was heavy with thousands of stars and a nearly full moon painting a swath of amber light across the water.

  Once the boat stopped, Neil threw the anchor over and nodded to Kyle, who kicked off his sandals and dove right in.

  Lauren yelled out, racing up to the bow, then carefully walking alongside the cabin, holding onto the rails and following along as Kyle swam. “What the heck are you doing?”

  Kyle headed for the rocky outcropping, then called out for Neil to throw over the bottle rockets. “Fireworks, Ell. On the water. Just for you.”

  “Let’s get this show started,” Vinny said from the bow. He peeled off his shirt and dove in too, making his way over to Kyle with an empty bottle to set the rockets in. They lit off three, one by one, streaming them high into the night sky.

  Floating on Long Island Sound this summer night, and floating in time, Lauren thought it’s all the same somehow. Both give a sense of unseen motion moving them along together. The rockets’ reflection illuminated the still water beneath the anchored boat, doubling the red, green and gold sparkles until they were surrounded by trails of color wavering in the sky and sea.

  “Hey!” A voice rang out at the same time a spotlight beam caught them in its path. “You kids, what are you up to over there?”

  “Shit,” Kyle said, jumping off the rock into the water as Vinny lit another rocket. “Let’s get out of here, man,” he called out as he swam back to the boat. The smaller boat with the light approached theirs so quickly that Kyle barely made it aboard before Neil took the helm, opened up the throttle and ripped through the open water.

  “Hey man, Vincenzo’s not back!” Kyle called to Jason.

  They all turned to see Vinny treading water in the dark. “What’s going on?” Matt asked as he climbed out of the cabin, Eva trailing behind wearing his long sleeved denim shirt over her tank top and shorts.

  Matt and Jason leaned over the side of the boat
watching Vinny, while Kyle, dripping seawater all over the deck, walked closer to Neil. “Quit horsing around and go back,” he said.

  “And get busted?” Instead Neil tossed Kyle a life ring. “Throw it to him!”

  “What? You’re crazy! He’s in the water!”

  Neil steered the boat a little closer to Vinny. “Throw it, Kyle. Now!”

  As Kyle flung the life ring, Neil turned the boat away and expertly gunned it, slicing through the water faster than the small boat in pursuit, quickly losing it behind them.

  Lauren looked at Paige when she began laughing on the bow of the boat. “You think this is funny?” she asked.

  Paige’s laughter grew until she doubled over with it, then leaned over the side rails with a groan. “Oh, I’m not feeling too good now.”

  “I knew this would happen with all that wine. What a mess.” Lauren looked from her to Matt and Jason sitting on the rear seats, snapping open cold beers and leaning back without a worry. “And what’s wrong with you guys?” Lauren asked. “Vinny will drown out there.”

  “Someone had to be sacrificed,” Jason answered in the dark, looking out in the direction of Vinny.

  “Neil!” Lauren called. “Go back!”

  Kyle took over the helm and Neil headed to the cabin, emerging in a minute with two shot glasses and a pint of tequila. He poured a shot for Lauren. “Here. Drink this.

  You’ll stop worrying fast.” “You’re kidding, right? I mean, Paige is sick, and what about Vinny? If he drowns, I swear, Neil.” She took the shot glass from him, ready to toss it overboard.

  “Hey, it’s all right. Vinny’s the friggin’ captain of his swim team. He’s just at the rock and can make it to shore in five minutes, no problem. Relax.” He touched his glass to Lauren’s and downed his shot, holding her gaze until she did the same. “Cheers,” Neil mouthed, raising his hand to her hair, tangling his fingers in it for a long moment before turning back to the helm.