I began to hum.
"Shh," she said, gently kicking her feet. And we continued to drift.
Carried along with the current-my foot still hooked in the loop-I refused to peek, sing, or hum anymore. Instead, my mind wandered off great distances, to possible landfalls of nautical surprise-Caribbean isles with pristine beaches and waters of clear aqua, where natives with cool Jamaican accents would greet us with broad grins and tall glasses of coconut concoction; or Key West, where a weathered man with a weathered guitar would throw out a line, pull us to his dock, and serenade us with ballads of tropical leisure; or the breezy Copacabana, to be welcomed by Lola, that showgirl with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there. Or if we caught the Gulf Stream tides just right, maybe we could pull a reverse Columbus and cross the great Atlantic till we reached the Mediterranean, then over to Spain where Spaniards lounged graceful and cosmopolitan on the sun-drenched shores of Barcelona.
A splash in the face woke me from my dream.
"Look how far we've drifted!" she said, raising her head to stare. "There aren't any more houses on the beach."
"Sorry, but you said ..."
"I know, but can we paddle that far?"
We stroked into a firm current but gained little. Bravery and panic duked it out inside my head, one whispering to impress the girl, the other hinting at watery graves. I dismissed them both when I spotted a sliver of sand, even farther out to sea but lying directly in our path. "We'll run into that sandbar if we keep floating east."
"Then let's keep floating east," she said, now on her stomach and kicking her feet.
Far to our left, the last oceanfront house bobbed up and down, up and down. Exhausted, we stopped fighting the current, but with its help drifted farther out, right into the shallows of the sandy sliver.
We canoed our flimsy floats on the bank. "Two handfuls of wet sand and maybe they won't blow away," she said, scooping down past her wrists.
And two handfuls it was, plus one extra scoop from me to her light blue feminine float, just to be gentlemanly.
"Tired?" I asked.
"I'll make it," she said, dunking her hands before wiping wet hair from her eyes.
We hiked across our private sandbar to admire the refuge: the soggy fragments of driftwood, the stringy clumps of kelp, all peppered with a random collection of shells left drying in the midday heat.
A lone blue crab looked surprised to see us, and it scurried to safety.
"Is this low tide?" she inquired, gazing back across the bar.
"Doubt it. But I'm from Dallas, so ..."
"You wanna know why I love doing mission work in the jungles of Ecuador?" She seemed rejuvenated now, relishing her new status as castaway.
"I've been wondering."
She turned her back and started searching for something. "Because it feels like this sandbar, remote and unspoiled."
And in the center of our moist, remote sliver, Allie Kyle grabbed a splinter of driftwood and began carving words in the sand. She backed up as she wrote, bent over and oblivious to me, the ocean, and everything else.
"Is this a message for God?" I asked, backpedaling to follow along.
"Nope. I just enjoy writing poems in the sand."
"I bet he reads it anyway."
The letters were huge, and from the first verse to the last, her effort covered thirty feet. At one point she stopped and frowned, rubbed out a line with her foot, and revised it. Finally satisfied, she dropped her stick and proceeded to dot all the i's with seashells. Then, with hands on hips and only a hint of pride, she asked me what I thought.
"What's the title of it?" I asked, impressed with the style of this missionary poet, this brown-eyed, food-chucking missionary poet.
Home on Furlough,"' she said, using her toe to initial her work. "I wrote it yesterday on the drive down. Lime convertibles inspire me ... especially at ninety miles per hour."
I walked back to the far end of the sandbar to the first stanza and backpedaled again.
Wet sand clung to her hands and knees. Her smile was neither proud nor sexy but the smile of contentment. Out there on that sandbar, remote and unspoiled, she seemed half woman, half child. From ten feet away, I could do nothing but smile back.
"So, you like it?" she asked, wiping wet grains from her hands.
"Not bad, but America might roll your yard."
"My yard is a long ways away."
Standing on our sandy seclusion, a long ways from shore, I felt a load of insecurity welling up. "There's a nonmaterialistic bent to your words, Miss Kyle. Do you have, um, a general disregard for stockbrokers?"
She gazed out across the waves before answering. "Not in general; there's opportunity to bless others in any occupation. But I see lots of greed and selfishness back home. It's like a microcosm of the whole country."
"It's not that bad."
"Ha! It may be worse."
I walked between her third and fourth stanza. "So, can missionaries date nonmissionaries?"
"Will you stick to the subject?" she protested, grabbing one last shell to dot luscious.
"Okay, Allie, if the U.S. gave all its money to a poor country, don't you think they'd end up just like us-devout, free-spending consumers?"
She brushed sand from her knees. "I don't think so. The difference is that we're raised in it, we expect it, and we wallow in it. A people who have learned to value humanity over wealth would be much slower to change."
"You really believe that?"
`Jay, America is so jaded from prosperity that it boggles the mind ... and my mind is not easily boggled."
I laughed at her turn of phrase. "Can I borrow your pen to write my own verse?"
"Can't wait to read this," she said, handing me her driftwood stick.
I peeled off a splinter to gain a sharper point. "First, a confession-my rhymes are usually limited to parodies of Dr. Seuss, though they only seem to pop up in pressure-packed situations."
"Your attempt to match my poetry isn't cause for pressure?"
"Nah, no problem."
At the far edge of the sandbar, with water lapping over my toes, I began to carve.
"What's this called?" she asked.
I had to pause to think of a title. She stood beside me with arms crossed, her head cocked to one side.
Immediacy,"' I replied.
"Don't quit your day job," she said, stepping on my first line. She used her toe to scrawl a big X through my feeble effort but made no attempt to answer the P.S. Such matters would have to wait, for the current really did be strong.
With her first verse melting, we launched from the sandbar, separated from the beach by waves both taller and grumpier than when we had arrived.
"I'm thirsty," she said. And we bobbed over the next crest.
Invisible sand scratched my stomach; tiny grains wedged between flesh and float.
"Useless," said Allie, slapping at the water in frustration. "We aren't gaining any ground ... I mean water." Another slap. "Our dumb idea."
"Our idea? You suggested this blind flotilla."
"Okay, my dumb idea. But you agreed to it."
"You're just tired," I said. "Grab hold of the back of my float, and I'll get us in."
Getting us in took longer than I'd thought. After fifteen minutes of paddling, we were drifting farther north on flimsy floats. Then the waves got bigger, man was I thirsty, the sun scorching, arms aching, and it looked like a deserted beach shrunk there on the shore, and wow, we really were gonna visit Barcelona.
"Are you still paddling?" she asked from behind me, gripping my ankles like a lifeline.
"I need to rest a minute." The condos of a distant beach were visible again, and I remembered seeing a long pier somewhere. Where are you, long pier?
"You can't rest," she said, tugging my foot.
"Maybe the current will switch, and we'll get pushed in."
"I'll be a fried old maid by then." Her hands forced blood to my toes.
"Oka
y, I'm paddling."
"You paddle and I'll pray."
"Pray harder, Allie."
"Shh, you're messin' up my prayer."
"Sorry," I said, deciding to make any progress I could, toward any piece of accessible dry land, forgetting where we'd launched from and willing to settle for a buoy, a marina, even the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which was now a distinct possibility considering the angle of our drift.
Far in the distance, a jet ski was heading in the opposite direction, bouncing over breakers, salt spray exploding with each descent. I doubted anyone could see us, and if we'd had a flare gun, I would not have been proud-I would have shot it and shot it high and sworn never but never to drift blind ever again.
`Jay," said Allie, her voice cracking, "I'm getting scared."
"Me too."
"You aren't supposed to say that."
But the current was steadfast, unyielding. My mouth was dry, and as far as I knew, three days and we'd wash up in Africa.
"Maybe someone will see us," she said.
"Yeah, maybe. Kick your feet." With energy depleting, I pictured us as salmon leaping against rapids.
We continued to drift and paddle, paddle and drift, past a stretch of undeveloped oceanfront, its high dunes staring back, long whiskers of sea oats waving in the wind.
"Aren't we getting closer?" she asked, her voice weakening.
"Maybe a little."
We were floating off to Barcelona, and like corks in a river, we toiled against a stronger will. And then she started praying again.
I stopped paddling and turned to face her. "Allie, I sure hope that does us some good."
She whispered a soft amen and said, "Surely someone saw us out here."
"Yeah, surely," I said, licking yet another salty drop.
A curious gull swept down, saw we had no food to offer, and banked toward land. For the first time in my life, I wished that I was just a dumb bird with the gift of flight. Or a dumb fish with the gift of swim.
"When's the last time you prayed, Jay?" she asked, still clutching my ankles.
"Three seconds ago."
"What if we really were to drown?"
"I wouldn't have to worry about my career anymore."
"I mean, are you prepared to die?"
"Not at twenty-seven, I'm not."
"That's not what I meant."
"I think the current is shifting."
"We need to talk."
I had a clue what she meant, knew that she was only being true to her vocation. Oddly, though, I was thinking about my own job-how some people lose their jobs to layoffs, or bad economies, or poor performance. But me, I'd lose mine to the cruel tides of the Gulf Stream. My career would be gurgles; gurgles, my career.
Corny as it sounds, I decided then and there to be a nicer person if we were allowed to live.
Five minutes later we were allowed to live.
I was making hard strokes through the ocean when she jerked my left foot.
"I hear a motor," she said.
"Yeah, I hear it, too."
A loud voice from a megaphone ricocheted across the waves. "BEACH PATROL. STOP PADDLING AND WE'LL PULL UP BESIDE YOU."
"Thank God," she said.
"Great praying."
She sat up on her float and grinned. "My pleasure."
The two men on the yellow jet ski had official-looking yellow shirts that read "Beach Patrol" in big black letters. The squatty one-the ridermotioned for us to grab hold of a towrope. He threw. We caught. The nylon rope had twin rubber handles split off at the end, and between two rolling waves, Allie grabbed the starboard handle with both hands. I settled for port.
"We'll go slow," said the driver. "You two gotta watch those currents a lot closer. A man disappeared off that sandbar last year."
"But we were gonna visit Key West," I countered, salt spray sloshing across my face.
"Sir, you would've been fish food by nightfall."
Bouncing along the waves, we made the request to be dropped off at the deserted beach, well out of sight of our friends.
"Yeah, sure," yelled the driver, turning sharp toward shore. "We get similar requests on a daily basis. Nobody wants the embarrassment of getting towed in by Beach Patrol."
After stopping in the shallow breakers, the two men cautioned us, then warned us. We stood waist deep, nodding and saying yessir and thank you gentlemen, no, we're staying two miles down the beach, and yes, we'll try to be more careful.
Allie waded over and hugged the driver's neck. He blushed.
I was not about to hug either of 'em but did offer to send a cash reward.
"Fuggetabout it," said the rider. "The Patrol is in control."
I thought him an even worse poet than me, but considering the fact that he saved us, I wouldn't have cared if the young man had performed a rescue rap song, right there in the Carolina surf. They motored away, bright yellow bouncing across breakers, and I sent up a silent but sincere, Thanks, God.
"We were really dumb to do that," said Allie, who sat down in the sand and began searching for the nozzle on her float. She paused and looked up at me. "Really dumb to just float off and drift blind and not peek at least once to see where we were."
"Total morons," I said, spitting out the last remnant of seawater. "But 1, uh ... did peek."
She pulled wet strands of hair from her lips, then raised her palms skyward. "Heavens, Lord, he peeked but stayed silent!"
"Sorry."
"But you did like my poem?"
"Yes. But use paper next time."
Sitting on the shore of a deserted beach, salty and private, I sensed rolling waves of woozy passing through me. I felt, well ... wooziferous.
I lay back on hard sand, spread-eagled. "Allie?"
"Yes, Jay?"
"I feel wooziferous."
"Me too," she said, acting dizzy as she struggled with the nozzle. "I'm a lava lamp, without the lamp."
What remained now was just a long walk back on the shore, so we proceeded to squeeze and squash the air from our floats. Very stubborn, float air. It likes to stick around, like in-laws after a good dessert.
Allie tried a primitive, foot-stomping method; I preferred the bear hug. But as I leaned over to squeeze the life from my orange plastic, she threw a mud ball.
I did not see it. Only felt it.
Jay?"
"Yes, Allie?"
"You'll never make it as a Presbyterian."
I looked up from the nozzle, brushed mud from my rear. "And you, Miss Kyle, will never make it as a boat captain, what with that closed-eye navigation technique."
"Ha!"
I squeezed my float even harder. "And if you really do go back to South America, you had better travel by plane, else no one will ever hear the gospel."
"Double ha!" And she stomped her float for emphasis.
On the walk back down the beach, I tried to hold her hand, but she said, "You can hold this," and handed me her deflated gob of gaudy blue plastic.
We were still a long way from home, wading through ankle-deep surf, when she asked if we could stop to look for shells. "You don't mind?" she asked.
"Guess not," I replied, dropping our shriveled floats on the shore.
Authentic manhood probably precludes shell hunting. But like the need to look joyful on Sunday morning, one can always fake it.
Allie examined two shells, then discarded them both, jabbering all the while. "That jet-ski driver was nice ... and kinda cute, too."
"He was a yellow-clad know-it-all ... and his buddy stinks at poetry."
She turned to wash a shell in the surf. "I bet those two have to work on Sundays and rarely make it to church, and did you see that barracuda tattoo on his back, that was the ugliest thing ever, and, oh yeah, you shouldn't have offered to send reward money."
I tossed my ugly shells away. "And why not?"
"Because you never have to pay for grace."
I wasn't sure what she meant by that. And I was too proud to ask.<
br />
We continued combing the shore. Allie found a perfect sand dollar, plus two small starfish dried burnt-orange, left to perish by a previous tide. I found some cool-looking seaweed and a disposable lighter.
"Trade you my seaweed for your sand dollar."
She dunked her starfish and inspected the legs. "Jay, do you like the little Hershey's dark chocolates, the ones with the gold wrappers?"
"Yes," I said, now on my knees and sifting fragments. "They're my favorite."
She backed into the water and continued her search. "We could never get those down in Ecuador. That's the only thing that really stunk about being a missionary."
"That's it?"
"Well, that and dancing. I haven't been dancing in two years."
"You like the oldies? Disco stuff?"
"During high school I had a mirror ball in my room. My brother broke it."
"Too bad."
She continued to gather only perfect shells, discarding the flawed. "Yeah, too bad. Say, if I do go back down to Ecuador, could you pledge to send dark chocolates, too?"
"Sure. But for now, I'll trade you this lighter for one of your starfish."
She considered my offer, then considered her starfish, then turned and flung them, like pointed Frisbees, back into the sea.
Draped in the scent of sunblock and seawater, neither Nancy nor the Numericals had anything cold to drink. Warm Coke in a can was all that was left, and muscular Number Eight said we could finish hers if we really were that thirsty.
We really were that thirsty.
Warm Coke in a can, however, is the very definition of gross.
Allie wiped sand from the opening, spit out the first sip, and said, "Let's go over to the volleyball court and visit the Bud guys."
I followed close behind her, curious. "You're not gonna ask for-"
`Just follow me," she said, sand squeaking beneath her feet.
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 7