Moon Shell Beach

by Nancy Thayer

  “Well, you’re dating her…”

  “Not anymore.” He didn’t explain, but tilted the cup, sipped more coffee, then handed it to her. “You can have the rest.” He rose, brushed sand off his shorts, and walked down to the water’s edge, whistling to the dogs. He threw sticks into the water for them. They plunged ecstatically into the waves, lunging back out with sticks in their mouths, while Ralphie stayed on the shore, jumping up and down in her odd four-legged way and barking.

  He’s certainly good with dogs, Clare thought. He’s made himself a kind of family already with his dogs. And he’s not dating Melanie anymore. She wondered what that was about.

  And why did she care?

  A few hundred yards away, a group of energetic early-morning swimmers stalked through the sand to the sea. Clare downed the last sip of coffee, screwed the lid back on the thermos, and rose. She walked down to join Adam.

  “I’ve got to get back,” she told him.

  “Mmm, me too.” His legs were muscular, hairy, freckled with sand. The wet dogs shook themselves, spraying Adam and Clare with drops of cold water. “Now we’ll both need showers.”

  Clare thought of him in the shower. Naked. She thought of them both in the shower, together, naked.

  “I, um, my car’s parked up that way.”

  He pointed in the other direction. “My car’s up that way.”

  “Well, thanks for the coffee.” Why was she finding it so hard to pull herself away? “Maybe if you’re here tomorrow, I could bring coffee…” She wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about, what she was offering or what she wanted.

  His eyes were calm on her face. “Or not. It’s nice just to walk with you.”

  What if I jumped on you, wrapped my legs around you, and kissed you, would that be nice? Clare thought. Being in his presence was like being caught up in an undertow; it was taking all she had simply to breathe. “Okay, then,” she managed to say. Ralphie slammed into her legs, nearly knocking her over. She was grateful for the interruption.

  “Come on, Ralphie,” she said, and bent to clip the leash on her collar. “So, well, bye.” She didn’t quite meet Adam’s eyes. No more intense mutual gazes if she was going to walk off this beach.

  “Bye, Clare.” He clapped his hands and his dogs came to heel.

  Clare watched him for a moment. She felt unaccountably buoyed up. “Come on, Ralphie,” she urged, and ran along the beach, in and out of the waves, as if she were a child, and Ralphie, emboldened by Clare’s company, jumped and barked and ran next to her, bounding with joy.

  TWENTY-ONE

  In Lexi’s dreams, a man was kissing her. In the irrational way of dreams, the man was both Jesse and not Jesse. The kiss was compelling, intoxicating, surrounding her in an endless warm sea of pleasurable sensation.

  She woke, feeling relaxed and supple in her limbs. She stretched luxuriously, allowing herself to take her time rising up out of the dream. For a while she lay on her side, gazing at the strip of sun falling across the pine floor. She allowed herself to sense the day—it would be a good day, windless, bright, and sunny.

  Suddenly she was full of energy and plans. In a flash she was out of bed, pulling on her painting clothes. She made coffee and carried a mug downstairs, where she set it on a counter and began to organize herself to paint the cubicles. She taped plastic over the wood floors, pried the lid off the paint can with a screwdriver, set up her little aluminum ladder, and picked up her brush. Hours later, she remembered her coffee.

  By noon she’d finished painting. Her wrists and back ached from crouching and stretching to reach all the corners. She had to get out into the fresh day. Pulling on a sweater, she drifted out her back door.

  The bright light of the late-spring sun on the blue waters dazzled her, almost made her dizzy. She took a deep breath of the salty air. The tide was in, lapping gently at the rocky bulkhead. A pair of mallards floated idly past, and across the way, on one of the stanchions at the town pier, a cormorant stood with his wings spread. The tide had washed a line of dark seaweed up along the curve of beach. Several gulls waddled along, inspecting the tangled mass for any live shellfish. A man in a brilliantly colored wet suit paddled a kayak away from shore. She shivered. He’d be cold out on the water.

  A small figure sat very still on the end of the town pier, arms hugging her knees to her chest, facing out steadily toward the Brant Point lighthouse and the channel opening to the Sound. She seemed forlorn. Lexi walked over the low shelf of pebbles until she reached the beach, then she squelched her way over the sodden sand toward the town pier. The old weathered boards made a knocking noise as she went down the pier, passing rowboats, sailboats, and launches, all tied up, resting in the quiet water.

  When she reached the end, she saw that the girl was Jewel Chandler, the precocious child who had spoken to her at the concert.

  “Jewel?”

  The girl turned. An attempt had been made to tame her curly red hair into braids tied with green tartan ribbons. She wore cargo pants, a green sweater, and a fleece jacket.

  “Oh. Hello, Miss Laney.” She didn’t smile. Behind her tortoiseshell glasses, her eyes were very serious.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Okay.” Jewel looked back toward the water.

  Lexi sat on the cool splintery boards, folding her long legs Indian-style. “School’s out?”

  “Teacher’s meeting.”

  “Ah. So you’re here…”

  “I’m waiting for my father.”

  Jewel’s father—Tristram Chandler. The newspapers had reported that identifying numbers had confirmed that the boat washed up on a Maine shore was the one Tris was sailing. So far there had been no sign of the man’s body.

  “Jewel, I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be. I know he’ll come back. That’s why I’m here. Waiting for him.” The girl kept her eyes on the horizon.

  Lexi studied the girl’s face. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  Jewel flashed a quick, impatient glance at Lexi. “Of course.”

  “And she doesn’t mind? I suppose you know how to swim. I mean, what if you fell in?”

  “I’m an excellent swimmer. And I have no intention of falling in.”

  “How long will you sit here?”

  “Till dark. Then Mom says I have to go home.”

  “Won’t you get bored?”

  “Bored?” Jewel sounded incredulous. “No, I won’t get bored.” Her shoulders slumped. “I do get tired. I didn’t know that hoping was such hard work.”

  Oh, dear, Lexi thought, hadn’t anyone explained to the child how little chance there was that her father was still alive? “But it’s spring,” Lexi said softly. “Don’t you have things to do?”

  Jewel gave Lexi an indulgent glance. “I’m a child, not a brain surgeon.”

  Lexi grinned. “Still. Don’t you want to, oh, ride your bike? Build sand castles? Eat ice cream cones?”

  Jewel gave this some thought. “Yes. I would like to do all those things. But this is more important. When my dad comes home, I want him to see me waiting here. I want him to know we’ve always been waiting for him, every minute.”

  Admiration and pity twisted Lexi’s heart. “Well, do you like to read?”

  Jewel nodded, the first sign she’d shown of eagerness. “I love to.”

  “What are your favorite books?”

  “Harry Potter, of course. And anything by Madeline L’Engle. And I know it’s light, but I do enjoy Nancy Drew.”

  “Oh, I loved Nancy Drew!”

  Jewel nodded. “I guess I could bring a book. I guess that would be okay.” She sounded as old and jaded as Dorothy Parker. “I’ll have to think about it. I wouldn’t want to not be hoping.”

  The child was so vulnerable, so determined. Such a little girl, facing the mysteries of the sea. “Maybe I could help you hope.”

  Jewel looked surprised. “Really? That would be cool. I mean, my mom isn’t hoping, why should s
he, she’s got a new husband and baby.” She gave Lexi an assessing stare. “I don’t discuss this with just anyone.”

  Lexi bit her tongue to keep from smiling at the child’s solemnity. “I understand.”

  “It would be nice if you helped,” Jewel decided. She stared back at the water. “You could visit me now and then.”

  Lexi was flattered. “I could bring you an ice cream cone.”

  “Really? That would be awesome.” For just a moment, Jewel sounded like a child.

  A Boston Whaler chugged in toward the pier. A fisherman clad in waders waved at Jewel. So everyone knows about Jewel’s vigil, Lexi thought. Everyone will help look after her.

  “I’ve got to get back to work. My shop is right over there. Come by if you need anything.”

  Jewel nodded. “Thank you.”

  Lexi pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll see you soon.” She strode away, then turned back. “Good luck!”

  “Thank you,” Jewel said, tossing a smile over her shoulder.

  Lexi wandered away, down toward the salt marshes where the harbor dwindled into creeks and sandy beaches. Had she done the wrong thing, she wondered, offering to help hope that Jewel’s father was alive? Jewel was old enough to know about death. She was old enough to know about probabilities. She’d grown up on the island; she had to know that people drowned, that the sea was cruel and careless, that nature had no interest in any child’s hopes.

  And yet, how does anyone live without hope? Jewel was hoping for her father; Lexi was hoping to someday meet the love of her life. Would they be happier if they believed neither man would ever appear? The sea was cruel and careless, true, but it also was full of miracles. Sometimes, Lexi thought, you had to take a stand. Reality or hope. For today at least, she chose hope.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As Clare and the dog cut through the sand dunes along the path to the beach, the sun was rising. On this calm June morning she could feel the night’s chill vanish like popped bubbles as the sun warmed the air. The water rolled sleepily toward the shore, its lacework waves whispering “sea.”

  Clare sank down on the sand to enjoy the sky unfolding its colors, from dove gray to fire opal to a profound shining endless azure, the lavish, spendthrift blue of summer. She pulled her sweatshirt off over her head. No one else was around. Ralph was down at the water’s edge, frightening the waves.

  Carelessly, she palmed a handful of sand, enjoying the tickle as it trickled through her fingers until she was left holding only a small moon shell. This clever spiral calcium structure had once been home to a simple, rather unattractive creature, a gelatinous creeping mass. Who could explain why the whorls and stripes were so intricately, carefully, and exquisitely marked?

  She and Lexi had named “their” beach “Moon Shell Beach” because of the abundance of moon shells on the sand, but Jetties Beach had many more moon shells, and “their” beach had many other kinds of shells—periwinkles, scallops, razor clams, mussels. She supposed it was the romance of the word moon that entranced them. Back then, everything romantic, enchanted, and dreamy had seemed to be located far away, on another sphere completely from their common, infuriating homes.

  How fascinating that Lexi had traveled so far and chosen to return to the island. Somehow it made Clare feel just a bit better about her own decision to live here. She’d lived off-island during college and visited friends on the West Coast, but she’d never seriously considered living anywhere else. She loved Nantucket. She wasn’t crazy about living with her father in the house she’d grown up in, but rentals on the island were insanely expensive; she couldn’t have opened her shop if she hadn’t lived at home. And since her mother’s death, she’d been glad, for her father’s sake, that she still lived at home. She could only imagine what a wreck he and the house would have been without her.

  In the distance, a dog barked. Instantly, Ralph took off running down the beach toward the approaching figures. Adam, Lucky, and Bella. She rose and walked toward them. She was beginning to count on these casual morning meetings. Somehow they made her more optimistic about the future.

  But why, she wondered, did such a thought even occur? Did she need assistance being optimistic? She stamped on the vacant shell of a spider crab, pleased with the crunching noise. Adam strolled toward her, his family of dogs playing around his legs, and Clare thought how grown-up he seemed, so reliably connected to the world. In contrast, Jesse was about as stable as a windsurfer. His lightheartedness had always been one of Jesse’s charms, but sometimes Clare thought that asking Jesse to settle down and be part of a family was like cutting a bird’s wings. The creature would be alive, but the mysterious, essential self would be lost forever.

  That was the romantic way to look at the problem. A more realistic way, and one that she hated, was how often Clare felt as if she was more Jesse’s mother than his beloved.

  When she first fell in love with Jesse, back in high school, she’d been crazy for his good looks, but more than that, she’d been fascinated by his playful recklessness. It had appealed to her secret love of outlaws and rebels. Not that Jesse had ever been outright rebellious. He’d never been serious enough about any idea or cause to fight for it. He hadn’t cut classes or battled with his teachers or coaches or other guys. He just loped along through his days, having a good time, too relaxed and happy to remember to do his homework or study for a test. His grades had been abysmal. Obviously a smart kid, he could make the teachers smile even as he gave the wrong answer, and scraped through high school on his good nature. Which had been fine. He hadn’t wanted to go to college. For a while he was almost serious about getting together a bluegrass band, but even for that he couldn’t find the discipline to make himself show up at every practice.

  Now they were both adults, engaged to be married, ready to start a family, and Clare could sense a kind of tension in Jesse, an anxiety. In the past few weeks, he’d been more restless and ill-tempered than she could remember him ever being. One evening they’d had dinner at Penny and Mike’s, and Jesse had been as twitchy as if he’d just come down with a bad case of poison ivy. He’d held Little Mikey and said all the right things about what a cute baby he was, but Clare noticed how quickly Jesse handed the infant back to his mother. He didn’t share a look with Clare; he didn’t say, “We should get one of these.” She’d been hoping he would say that—how could anyone hold little Mikey and not want a baby?—but not then, or later as they drove home, did Jesse initiate the subject of a family.

  That didn’t mean Jesse didn’t want a family. And Jesse loved her. She knew that. She just had to go ahead into the future she wanted, and sort of seduce—or drag—Jesse along with her.

  And sometimes that seemed like a lot of work.

  “Everyone is eccentric,” her mother had advised her once, when Clare was feeling especially hopeless about Jesse. “Look at your father and me. We’re hardly normal, and yet we muddle along.”

  Clare’s mother had adored Jesse. He had always been able to make Ellen laugh. He often flirted with her openly and honestly, even occasionally causing her to blush. She had told Clare over and over again, Jesse’s a good man. Just give him time.

  She had given him time. She was still giving him time. But recently she was frustrated, thinking, why did she have to be the one to give him anything? Why did she have to be the one waiting patiently at home with milk and cookies for the errant wild child to return, abashed, even if charmingly abashed? So many times, especially after one of his episodes of straying, Jesse had told her, as they made love, that Clare brought out the best in him, that she made him “work,” that without her he was lost. She’d grown accustomed to the idea of being not just the woman who waited at home for him, but being his home itself.

  And just how would that work when they had a family? It seemed to Clare that the most magical thing on the planet was what everyone else called an ordinary family, and that was what she wanted. She wanted a chaotic kitchen with children covered with flour as they made birthd
ay cookies, and a big fat SUV full of baby seats, violin cases, and hockey sticks. She wanted to attend baseball games and swim meets, but first she wanted—oh, how she wanted!—to sing lullabies.

  “Good morning!” Adam held up two thick paper cups. “Lattes from Fast Forward!”

  “My hero!” Clare laughed. She accepted one, lifted the lid, and took a long sip of the sweet, hot, powerful beverage. “Wow. That’s the way to start the day.”

  They walked slowly down the beach, the three dogs chasing one another into the sand dunes and back down to the water’s edge.

  “How’s business?” Adam asked companionably.

  “Good. Really good. Not so many drop-ins—that will come in July and August—but lots of special orders. I’ve got Marlene on full-time now and two part-time girls, and this is the only time of the day I’m not moving as fast as I can.” She looked up at Adam. “You must be busy.”

  “We are. Summer residents are arriving with their pets, and tourists on mopeds are bringing in injured ‘bunnies’ they’ve found on the side of the road, and we have to educate them about contagious diseases from rabbits. We’ve got a new vet to help us out over the busy season.”

  “Oh? Where’s he from?”

  “She. Miranda’s from Georgia. She’s just out of school, and she’s got a delightful southern accent that charms all the patients and their owners.” He chuckled.

  Does she charm all the vets, too? Clare wondered, surprised as an unexpected blaze of jealousy shot through her. “Miranda,” she said. “Pretty name.”

  Adam nodded. “Pretty woman.”

  Clare spotted another crab shell and stamped on it with extra force. “I like to hear them crunch,” she explained to Adam. “It’s like eating popcorn.”

  He laughed. “Popcorn. My summer sustenance.”

  Clare glanced up at him quizzically.

  Adam explained, “Now that the town’s so crowded, I forget to buy groceries, and when I do remember to buy them, I’m standing in front of an empty refrigerator, too exhausted to consider making a trip to the grocery store. Plus, the thought of sitting in traffic after working all day makes me so tired I end up making do with a bag of microwave popcorn and a couple of beers.”