“Not at all,” I answered quickly. On the contrary, I was amazed and awed by her vulnerability, the lack of hesitation to discuss the pain in her life with someone who was virtually a stranger. When her eyes clouded again, her thoughts once more taking her to that dark place of grief, something stirred inside me, words pushing at the back of my throat. “Bevenny?”
“Mmm?” she whispered almost inaudibly.
“I think you made the right decision,” I said evenly, but with a firmness that surprised me.
She looked up, eyes searching mine. “What do you mean?”
“With Joey,” I clarified. “I think you made the right decision in telling him the truth.”
Bevenny stared into my face for an interminable minute. Her tawny eyes went still as glass, her expression inscrutable; it looked as if whatever lay beneath the creamy, freckled surface of her skin, was thrashing below in an effort to break through.
She blinked, and soundlessly she turned away from me, refocusing on the roving sea.
I regretted ever speaking.
Back in the parking lot with Bevenny, we hugged and went separate ways. I told her to call me if she needed anything and only hoped I hadn’t ruined everything for speaking out of turn.
I listened closely now as a very tiny woman in overalls and a pink and white kerchief around her neck started to talk to me.
“Foster, you should wake up,” she advised in a chirpy soprano.
“I am awake,” I replied, a warm wetness spreading from my mouth down the pillow.
“Mm-mm,” she disagreed superiorly. “You’re not, no. And you’re going to be late if you don’t get up immediately.”
“I still have time,” I told her, my voice groggy, and finding nothing bizarre about the fact that I was carrying on a conversation with someone less than an inch tall. “I just laid down. It’s not even half-past three yet.”
“You are going to be late!” she repeated, speaking through what sounded like gritted teeth.
Then suddenly her overalls and kerchief vanished, in their stead a hairy black and yellow body appearing. I saw myself in the reflective surface of her ocelli, losing track of her when she flew off my eyelids and settled in the awning of my ear. She then spoke to me, or as much as possible considering she was now a bee. Her angry buzzing was fairly easy to interpret. And thought I couldn’t be certain, as I did not speak bee, I thought I heard the same vociferation shouted over and over again.
“Get-up-get-up-get-up-get-up! GET UP!”
My eyes shot open and I propped myself up on shaky arms, searching for the persistent little bee.
It took a moment before the chimera of the dream began to drift away, and I could safely return to the pillow. Once more I shut my eyes, not nearly ready to wake up.
Something buzzed in my ear.
Slowly, I opened one eye and determined that yes, I was still awake. I pulled an arm out from beneath my pillow, tingling from lack of blood flow, and began reconnaissance for the source of the buzzing. It buzzed again, making it fairly easy to locate its whereabouts at my stomach.
Certainly not a bee, I flipped open my phone to see that I had received two texts; the first was from Emily, telling me that she would not be coming over to help me get ready for my date, because she hadn’t stopped throwing up since she got home.
Oh no, I gave her the flu.
“I’m sorry, Em,” I said aloud, something like a slap to the brain happening next.
Oh! My date!
In a tumble of arms and legs and hair, I was rolling onto my back, checking to see who the next text was from.
Counting down the minutes. See you in 30.
Just thinking of him brought a smile to my face, but a second brain slap occurred; I blinked at the screen, repeating the words silently to myself. Then, “Thirty what? Not thirty minutes . . .” I sat up, clicking the home button as I did. Louder than the bee ever was, time roared at me.
A ripple of adrenaline launched down my spine like an icy luge. In the fading light of my bedroom, a fuzzy fluorescent 6:32 shined back at me from the clock on the nightstand, corroborating my fear. I lurched for it, completely misjudging the proximity from bed to table, and toppled to the floor. On my knees, I clutched upward, hoping I had only mixed up the number in my mind. 3:26.
In my hands, the small black box bestowed no kindness on me. It told me the same thing my phone did: I had twenty-eight minutes until Dominic arrived on my doorstep.
~
My room looked like a tornado had swept down upon it—discarded clothes, wet towel, and sandals without their match—but I had succeeded with six minutes to spare.
Earlier that day, I had entertained thoughts of a last minute wardrobe change. In the end, though, thanks mostly in part to the time constraint, that decision had been made for me. The sleeveless, cornflower blue dress had been hanging ceremoniously on the back of my closet door for the past five days. That was the easy part. Not so easy, and what I hadn’t been prepared for, was the shower.
Standing under it, I released a scream of agony, certain someone had replaced the water with hydrofluoric acid.
“Foster! Are you okay?” I heard my mom’s shrill voice ask through the sliver of the open bathroom door.
“I’m fine, Mom, I—”
“Is everything okay? I heard a scream.” My father.
“I think so,” my mom told him, and louder to me, “Are you sure you’re okay, Fost?”
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” I hollered. “I just burned my head.”
“You did what?”
“Sunburn!”
I heard the collaborative ooo resound, then, “Sorry, baby. Use Aloe!”
After that, I was left in peace to nurse my burned and now scalded scalp, forgoing shampooing altogether. If I could have skipped the hair dryer, I would have. Every follicle felt like a popcorn kernel exploding from the inflamed nerve that was my scalp. When I could stand it no longer, I went to change, hoping the rest dried in time.
A few minutes later I was back in the bathroom, dressed, belotioned, and staring at my naked face in the mirror. My skin—usually a stark, unflecked white—had absorbed color today; mostly in the way of pinks and reds, but the overall tint was just a bit darker than normal—a muted peach instead of white linen. My eyes looked especially bright and green. I smiled tentatively at my reflection, looking away, embarrassed.
Remembering something, I jogged to my backpack, unzipped the small pouch where Emily’s coral lip gloss still was. I had meant to return it today and forgot. Pulling out the wand laden with bright syrupy substance, I carefully applied it to my bottom lip, swiping from side-to-side, tapping gently. I stood back from the mirror, assessing my appearance as I pressed my lips together to even out the color.
At 6:58 the doorbell rang, Rhoda’s pseudo-fierce bark echoing up the stairs. Turning off the light, I tossed the tissue stained with sticky gloss into the trashcan.
Dominic held a single rose in his hand at his side, the color of a flirty sunset. It had not yet fully bloomed, its petals still hugging one another proprietarily. For all its beauty, though, it paled in comparison to the eyes watching me descend the staircase.
Breathe, Foster.
Rhoda made figure eights around Dominic, looking for a rub. He seemed not to notice until my mother apologized on her behalf. Then he laughed and graciously bent over to give her a scratch behind the ear.
I used the moment to assess him appreciatively, taking in the fitted light gray slacks, the ironed white dress-shirt, rolled back to the middle of his forearms. His eyes flicked up a couple seconds later, and we smiled at each other, a timidity in both our expressions.
As I reached the bottom stair, my mother needed no coaching on standard first-date protocol. “You look beautiful, baby,” she said, her voice husky and tender. She leaned in for a quick kiss, eyes shining like brown tourmalines. “Have a wonderful time, you two. We’ll see you when you get home.”
I made to kiss my father
goodbye, as well, finding his face not at all like my mother’s—disconcerted and pained.
“So, um . . .” He pushed up the bridge of his glasses and cleared his throat. “What’s the name of the restaurant you’re taking Foster to?”
Dominic smiled easily, and I thought he might have been prepared for this question. “It’s called The Sandcastle.” He slipped a hand into his pocket, recovering a small piece of paper. “If for whatever reason Foster’s cell phone doesn’t have service, this is the number to the restaurant. The reservation is under Kassells.”
As the number exchanged hands, my father attempted a grateful smile the way a toddler attempts a graceful swan dive.
“Thank you,” he replied. Pensively, he stared at it as the three of us stared at him. My mother’s arm came around his waist, the slightest of pressure applied to his mid-section.
“Mm? Yes, okay,” he muttered, sticking the paper into his back pocket.
He smiled down at me, and I could tell that he saw not his seventeen-year-old daughter a few months shy of graduating high school, but his little girl, a facsimile of him in so many ways. He reached out and brought me in for a hug. “Have fun,” he said in my ear, “but be safe,” he added abruptly, a sharp glance at Dominic. “And be sure to have Foster home by nine.”
My mom worked to wipe her face clean of astonishment as she and I stared at him, both shocked and awed. A light chuckle escaped Dominic’s mouth, before he too realized that sadly this was not a joke. This being my first date, it was only my father’s lack of experience with curfews in the twenty-first century, and not an imperious display of authority.
“Sweetheart, it’s after seven now,” she informed him, her tone a perfect blend of affection and reason. “I’m not sure having her home by nine gives them enough time to eat. The driving alone will be forty minutes.”
He mulled this over for an interminable moment. “Right,” he acquiesced, though forgot to rescind his previous suggestion and present us with a new option.
“I think midnight is a reasonable curfew for this evening,” she offered, eyeing me from the side. I nodded my head surreptitiously. “Does that sound all right to you?”
“Yes, I, ah . . . yes,” he agreed begrudgingly.
This was as close to a blessing as I was going to get. I capitalized on the moment immediately. “Love you both,” I said, rising up on my toes to kiss my dad one last time.
Dominic moved in to shake my father’s hand, his expression earnest and avid. “I promise to have Foster back to you in no less condition than she’s in now. You have my word.”
Miraculously this avowal appeared to soothe my father’s hesitations. They had another word with one another and my mother suddenly opened her arms to me. Under the guise of hugging me again, she put her mouth next to my ear and whispered quietly, “Don’t forget to remember everything. You’ll remember this night for the rest of your life.” She pulled back, touching my shoulders gently. “I love you.”
~
The evening was brisk and scented with jasmine and honeysuckle. It flavored the air with a mouthwatering aroma of nostalgia and things very new. After we had passed through the gate and began the short walk toward his car parked in the roundabout, Dominic raised the arm opposite of me and smiled. “Oh, this is for you,” he said softly.
“It’s a beautiful rose,” I complimented, “thank you.”
“Careful of the thorns,” he advised, finding a bare spot for me to pinch. “And I am glad you think so,” he added, stepping in front of me to pull back the passenger-side door.
I peered down at my seat and gasped, absently raising the single rose to my mouth as I marveled at what looked to be its two dozen replicas.
“Because,” Dominic murmured quietly behind me, a smile in his voice, “there’s a few more in there that are also for you.”
I took a deep breath and spun around slowly to face him, not saying anything for a long time.
To my complete surprise, he began to fidget, a sweet shyness about him surfacing around his lips. He took the tips of my fingers in his hand, a bitten-back smile toying with the corners of his mouth. “What is it?”
I smiled, sighed, and lifted my shoulders wonderingly. “I’m just remembering everything.”
Dominic drove us through the cobbled turnstile, looking at me in short, expectant glances.
“I took a drive down here last week to scope the place out,” he said, letting the car idle in park at the curb. “I think you’re really going to like it.”
Dominic’s expression flooded my heart. I had seen this look, but never on a face posed toward me. My father—about to present my mother with a gift or surprise of some sort—always had this look about him just before the reveal; a mixture of false calm, hope, intensity, and panic.
“I’m going to love it,” I said certainly.
I gazed out the window, a burgeoning smile reflected back at me in the glass. Everything about this place felt warm and inviting. From the outside, the entrance resembled that of a cove; a cavern of stone and aging wood, where at the very front, a sign made of shining copper hung on two wrought iron hooks.
The Sandcastle
It swung back and forth in the breeze. The walkway—which was made of horizontally laid planks of wood, much like a pier—was lined with flickering votive inside glass. And just beyond the open doors and past the hostess desk was one of the most incredible views I had ever seen. The sky and ocean met in a fusion of color and textures, fighting for the spotlight at the flat, shining horizon. The sun spilled its soul in an echo of itself that the stretched up to the wet bank of the shore. Water that looked midnight blue, almost black, crested and peaked in slow intervals, decadent in the setting light.
“Don’t move,” Dominic said, and was outside the car before I had fully turned in my seat to look at him.
A teenager with shaggy blonde hair, dressed in black slacks and white tuxedo shirt, preceded him by seconds.
“Good evening, miss.” He flung the door back, flushed and panting a little. “I apologize for the wait. We’re kinda understaffed tonight. Welcome to The Sandcastle. ”
“Thank you,” I replied. He offered me his thin hand, but was replaced by Dominic before I could take it.
“I’ll help her out, thank you,” Dominic said politely but peremptorily.
Nearly half his size, the boy had to crane his neck to see him, but backed away immediately. “Oh, yeah, sure, dude.”
Dominic bent at the waist and extended a hand like rope to me, a gallant expression on his face.
“Mademoiselle?”
I laid my palm against his, smiling beatifically. “Merci.”
A breeze tinged with salt blew through the open windows of The Sandcastle. Sheer white panels trapped the air, expanding like swollen stomachs. Somehow—and not by accident I would purport—Dominic and I had been seated at a secluded table with possibly the best view of the phantasmagorical sun melting into the ocean. I ascertained that he had not only scoped the place out, but had coordinated our arrival to align with the sunset, and handpicked the table where we would watch it.
I gazed across the table at him and smiled, a tiny white candle flickering between us, dark panels of wood absorbing the candlelight and enlarging our shadows.
I was finally here—here with the most wonderful person in the entire world. I could hardly breathe. The love I felt for Dominic had grown to such large proportions, I sometimes wondered how I continued to fit its gargantuan entity inside the diminutiveness of my heart. The only answer I could come up with was that the heart must have a trapdoor, only accessible and opening in the face of real, true love. There beyond remained a place of infinite space, capable of accommodating a love that grows more every day.
“You’re busy in there,” Dominic mused, resting a chin above his knuckles.
I copied his posture, smiling. “I am.”
“Care to share any of those thoughts with me?” He raised an eyebrow, stealing a flutter from
me.
I slipped a finger from my closed fist and tapped my lips. “Is there something specific you would like to know?”
“Yes,” he said definitively. “All of it.”
I laughed, but it was a nervous sound that tugged on the edges of my stomach. I looked away briefly, out the window, breathing in deeply. I’m in love with you, Dominic.
When I turned back, his eyes were not the playful blue they had been a moment ago. They were astral, the color of a song, transparent and truthful and meant for only one person.
“Foster, I—”
“Good evening, and welcome to the Sandcastle.”
Dominic was cut short by our cheerful waitress, an attractive woman somewhere in her mid-thirties, with artificially fiery red hair pulled back into a French-twist. She smiled at Dominic, taking a breadbasket tucked beneath her arm and setting it between us.
“My name is Joan, and I’ll be taking care of you this evening,” she continued invitingly, positioning herself closest to Dominic and looking only at him as she spoke. “Is this your first time here with us?”
“For us both, yes,” Dominic answered politely, smiling at me.
“Wonderful,” she murmured in reply, a dusky tone in her voice. She laid a fuchsia polished hand on Dominic’s shoulder. “Well, I will be sure to go over the specials with you, but first, can I get you started with something to drink?”
I was just about to chide myself for this out-of-the blue jealously I was feeling, when Joan’s fingers suddenly began to knead at Dominic’s shoulder—the way you would test the softness of sheets. With more ferocity than I would have thought myself capable, I glowered at her hand, wanting to flick each finger until she was no longer touching him, and perhaps a few feet from the table, too—or the next room over.
“Why don’t you check with my girlfriend first,” Dominic suggested lambently, “while I take look.” At once, the angry breath I’d been holding inside whooshed from my mouth like a vacuum in reverse.
“Yes, of course.” Joan gave a kowtowing head-bob, releasing Dominic and angling her body toward me. Joan then looked at me for this first time since approaching our table, but her limpid blue eyes still reeked of hunger for something else. “What can I get you, sweetie?”
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