Barefoot Beach

by Toby Devens

  I’d always been a sucker for Celtic charm, my dad’s and Lon’s, but there was something appealing about the sturdy Dutch personality. And I had to admit Dirk was good-looking. Tall, broad shouldered, and though not film-star handsome, he carried enough eye-stopping features to make him interesting looking. His expression gave off intelligence. There were the lupine irises and the eyebrows, dashes of gold. The hair on his arms, thick and pale, like the pelt of a rare blond monkey. Oddly, his legs below the retro madras Bermuda shorts were hairless, glossy, and knotted with muscle. I wondered if he shaved or waxed. Some surfers did.

  Jack caught me staring and detoured his monologue to say, “Incredible legs, huh? He runs ten miles most days. Or swims laps. How many, Dirk?” Who didn’t answer, just dispatched a mildly embarrassed smile to me. “Whatever. And that’s after a full day at the hospital, where he’s on his feet most of the time. Like in the OR. And teaching.” Jack shook his head in disbelieving admiration. “You should see him on the board. Perfect balance. It’s in the quadriceps.”

  It occurred to me then, as I studiously avoided looking at Dirk’s thighs, that Jack was going on a little too long about legs. Was this some kind of limb-comparison game? Was I supposed to think, wow, this guy has two really incredible legs and, hmmm, whom do I know who only has one? The owner of that techno leg had called late afternoon to say hi and wish me a good time that night even if it wasn’t with him.

  I attempted to cut Jack off by tapping my watch face. “Getting late. If we’re going to make our reservation, we’d better hustle.”

  Dirk laid a halting hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Let’s talk about dinner and see if your mom’s on board with the new plans.”

  Jack explained that indoors, with waiters and all, seemed so formal after a day on the waves. Plus, the Flying Jib specialized in seafood and they’d demolished two dozen crabs at lunch, so that was also a turnoff.

  They’d stopped off on the way home and picked up some steaks (which, Dirk interjected, they’d stashed in the garage fridge on their way in and could be frozen for some other time if I preferred to stick with the original agenda). I, Jack resumed, wouldn’t have to do a thing. The men would grill. They’d stopped at a roadside stand for local Sugar Queen corn, which he could throw on the grill. “And we have Coneheads ice cream in the freezer for dessert. All you have to do is take it easy. How does that sound?”

  I said, “Like a good idea,” though the restaurant with its hustle and bustle might have filled any lulls in the conversation.

  “Great. Okay, I’ll fire up the grill and you two can have drinks in the living room and relax.”

  Uneasiness clouded Dirk’s eyes. Then the left lid twitched. He and I must have been thinking the same thing. That Jack was playing Noah again, matching us up as if we were a twosome made by biblical injunction.

  “Scotch, gin, vodka,” I offered him. “Bourbon. Beer?”

  Beer was his choice. I wanted something stronger. I splashed vodka over ice. Jack, refusing help with the grill, promised to call Dirk if he needed a consult. He grabbed a Coke and headed out to the deck with a full tray. A few seconds later, he discreetly closed the sliding glass door behind him.

  Dirk and I carried our drinks into the great room. I sat on the chaise end of the sofa, expecting him to plant himself in a far corner, but he put only about a foot between us on the cushion and then he leaned in.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  Whoa. I tried to rein in what Josh called my tendency for catastrophic thinking. As in Dirk was having second thoughts about his connection with Jack. I couldn’t hear Jack with the sliding glass door between us, but I saw him wrapping corn for the grill and his head rocking a rhythm, lips pursed. I’d have bet he was whistling, and put money on the song: Here comes the you-know-what. Maybe he’d overdone the son part today and spooked Dirk into retreat.

  “I’ve got some news to deliver that Jack probably won’t like. I hate to disappoint him.”

  My heart lurched, but my brain, for once, didn’t lose its balance. I made myself listen to Dirk saying, “He’s a smart kid. He told me about dean’s list. But as important, maybe more so, he’s got an engaging personality. Very open. He’s a natural storyteller. Over lunch, he shook the family tree. I heard all about his grandfather, his grandmother the Broadway dancer, and his uncle Mick. Jack London. Someone named Claire and another girl back at Duke.”

  I’d love to know that story, I thought. But for now, I said, “The gift of gab he gets from my dad.”

  “And from his own dad, of course,” Dirk said kindly. “Certainly not from my gene pool. I was an introverted kid, then a geek before it became fashionable, and I’m a private man. To be honest, when the fertility clinic phoned, I was pleased at the prospect of meeting Jack. But also concerned about how I should deal with it. With him. And you. I didn’t want to get it wrong.”

  Here we go, I thought.

  “I knew what I could give. But I wasn’t sure what he wanted. Or how you felt.” He shifted nervously on the cushion. “I think it’s worked out well. What do you think?”

  I nodded dumbly. Worked, he’d said. Past tense.

  “I’m afraid, though, I haven’t given him the complete picture. I didn’t want to flood him with a lot of information at first. But now it’s definitely time. It’s become clear from some of his comments, and his actions . . . He wants to . . . He has this fantasy of . . . us. You and me, getting together in a romantic way.” He paused, licked his lips. “I can understand it. You’re a very attractive woman, Nora. Your son says you’re a great catch.”

  I felt a blush surge. “Subtlety isn’t Jack’s strong suit,” I said. Was this a come-on? Now, that could complicate things, depending upon how it was handled. I reached for charming but, I hoped, not encouraging. “And you’re a very nice man,” I responded. “Any woman would be lucky to . . . you know . . .”

  “But.” We said it simultaneously. Mutually startled at our duet, and as if it had punctured a bubble of anxiety, we simultaneously expelled a gust of relieved laughter.

  “I guess that’s settled, then,” I said, thanking God that was all it was, and thinking it was just as well it was out in the open and Jack could stop with the matchmaking craziness.

  “Not quite settled,” Dirk said, and I sucked in a fresh breath of disquiet.

  He took a long draught of beer. “There’s a wonderful woman in my life and has been for a while. I knew Victoria was special almost immediately, but the scientist in me—well, I tend to overdissect things. My ex-wife and I divorced four years ago. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and I didn’t want to repeat it. I wanted to be sure as I could be about Victoria and me.”

  “And now you are.”

  “The talks with Johns Hopkins gave me the push I needed. Victoria’s an ophthalmologist with a well-established practice. She loves her work and her patients. She can’t take a year off to move to Baltimore, and the thought of all that time away from her, of how much I’d miss her, made it clear to me. I want us together. Permanently. So”—he hoisted his bottle of Sam Adams in a toast—“as of last week, we’re engaged. Ring and all.”

  I lifted my glass. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful news.” Better than what I’d anticipated.

  “Hopkins suggested a compromise. I’ll lecture four times a year at the medical school, but I’m staying out in California. And now it’s past time to tell Jack. You’ll help me if I get in trouble?”

  “I have your back. But he’ll be fine with it.”

  “I hope so. He was looking forward to me being in Baltimore. In closer proximity to you. Preferably, side by side walking down the aisle.” We both laughed at that.

  Over steak, corn, and Brownie Bash ice cream—the Dude was a chocolate kind of guy—Dirk talked about the Johns Hopkins compromise, about Victoria, and handed around her photo on his iPhone. Jack sat quietly taking it in, h
is face a kaleidoscope of emotions.

  When Dirk had finished with the announcement of the engagement, my son, so much like his father—Lon’s disappointment wouldn’t have interfered with his natural graciousness—said, “Hey, congratulations. I’m happy for you. Really.” Then a pause before a question. “Does she know about me?”

  “Of course. Victoria’s looking forward to meeting you. You come with good references. The girls think you’re very cool.”

  “I think they are.” A pause. “You and Victoria going to have more kids?”

  Dirk darted me an amused smile. “She’s four years older than I am with a son at Cal Tech. She’s finished. And I’ve done my part, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, thanks for that,” Jack said.

  “Right,” I chimed in. “More than you know.”

  Then Jack asked the question that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow myself to ask, though I was burning with curiosity. “Why did you do it? The donor thing. That’s a big deal.”

  “Well, son,” and I didn’t flinch this time—Dirk knew who he was and we knew who he was—“I was up to my neck in medical school bills and I figured that money would help me pay them off. I’m a practical man.”

  Jack’s smile began to fade.

  “But I’m also am idealist,” Dirk continued. “Those two motives sound mutually exclusive, but they’re not. I guess the same thing that drove me toward being a doctor played the biggest part in this decision. I wanted to help people. I figured folks who went to a sperm bank really wanted a baby. They’d do what it took to have a child. If I could make that happen, it seemed the right thing to do. And I have no regrets, especially now that I know you, Jack. And your mom. And though he’s not with us, I think I’ve come to know your dad as well, rest his soul.”

  Which was a great exit line.

  Dirk had originally planned on staying in Tuckahoe another night, having Sunday brunch with Jack, and heading back to San Francisco that afternoon. But tomorrow’s forecast had been updated from cloudy to dicey. Thundershowers were predicted all along the East Coast starting midmorning, with high-wind warnings and heavy rain for the beach area on their tail. Dirk wanted to get out of town before the storm hit. He changed into slacks and a sport shirt in the downstairs bathroom and grabbed his suitcase from the back of Jack’s car.

  Jack had wanted to, but Dirk wouldn’t hear of him driving the long trip to the airport. So this was good-bye, but just for now. He wasn’t sure yet of his lecture schedule at Hopkins, but maybe when he knew, they could arrange a meet for dinner between Durham and Baltimore. The girls and Victoria agreed the Farrells had to come west for a visit. “And, of course, we’ll stay in touch by email and Skype. Everyone will be busier than we were over the summer, so it might not be as often, but Jen is counting on you to help her get through statistics, and you and I need to talk about the Blue Devils versus the Denver Pioneers on defense.”

  The limo driver honked from the curb. I got an arm around my shoulder with a final squeeze and then Jack and Dirk maneuvered a handshake that swiveled into one of those backslap hugs men choreographed.

  Jack and I stood at the door and watched the Donor Dude walk down the path and hand his bag to the driver. He got in and waved from the backseat. The wave was more a salute, as if we’d all fought a battle for the same cause—Jack’s happiness—and we’d all won.

  What welled up in me at that moment wasn’t relief that the man I’d thought of as an intruder was on his way home, but gratitude, a flood of it that brought a surprising blink-back of tears. Gratitude to Lon, who’d gone with the donor-bank plan twenty years ago and had, from all the donor dudes, pushed for this particular one—my husband had always displayed impeccable taste and a novelist’s eye for character. And back then, when I’d wondered aloud if in the future we should support Jack’s meeting his sperm donor, Lon had let me know he’d have it no other way. So thank you, my lost love, wherever you are. And there was more than enough gratitude for Dirk, who turned out to be both more than I’d anticipated and less than I’d feared. And for Jack, who had done us all proud.

  The visit could have gone so badly. It went so well.

  “He’s a good guy,” my son—Lon’s son—said, as the cab pulled away. “We’re really lucky.”

  “We really are,” I said.

  An hour later, I was upstairs answering emails on my laptop when Scott unexpectedly Skyped me from Bethesda. He was checking in to arrange our lunch date in Tuckahoe for the following day. But first, he wanted me to see an apartment there he was considering. He walked his smartphone through a highlight tour of the place: nice-sized kitchen, walk-in shower with multiple body jets, great view of the downtown Row with its art theaters and outdoor cafés, and, he made sure to note, the rooms were flooded with light. He was telling me that he’d leave Bethesda early morning and swing by for me around noon when I looked up to see my son at the door, ready, I thought, to say good night. Then I realized, no, something more. He had trouble peeling his stare from the screen even after Scott had signed off.

  He finally made eye contact. “Mom, I know Dirk is out of the picture, but please don’t rush into anything else. This is probably not politically correct, but I’m going to say it anyway because you’re my mother and I love you and I don’t want you to make a major mistake.” He hitched his neck toward the blank screen. “You can do better. You know what I mean, right?”

  Anger percolating, I began to inform him what I thought about what he meant. He backed away, hands up, palms splayed. “Okay, okay. Just saying.”

  “No, you’re not just saying, Jack. You really believe it. And you’re wrong. I wish there were something Scott could do to show you what he’s made of.”

  “He’s made of titanium, at least in part,” my son muttered, then added, “That wasn’t a dig. It’s the truth.”

  “What you don’t see is that he’s perfectly capable.” I was barely containing my frustration.

  “No, Mom, what you refuse to see is he’s not perfectly capable. Not perfectly anything. You’re crushed on him. I get it. You’re all impressed by the hero stuff, but check out this scenario. I’ll bet he goes to sleep without the leg on. No, don’t tell me if I’m right.” He shuddered. “Really. I don’t want to know. But say he does. So there’s a fire in the middle of the night. He can’t rescue you. He can’t even rescue himself on one leg. You’ve got to drag him out, because what’s he going to do, hop down the stairs?”

  “He keeps a crutch on the side of his bed.”

  “TMI. Jeez, Mom. Way TMI.”

  “Jack . . . ,” I began, then faltered as he shook his head sadly and said, “I worry about you.”

  I’d been his only parent for eight years. I was all he had left in that department. Of course he worried.

  When he was a kid and about to throw a tantrum I’d tell him to use his words. Now he said, “I’ve used all my words. I’m done,” and, shoulders slumped, left the room.

  Still at my computer, I turned back to the laptop screen where Scott’s image, like one more ghost, lingered on my Skype page. I leaned away in my desk chair; then I hunched forward, but I couldn’t get comfortable in any position. Something painful was going on in my rib cage. What happens, I asked myself, when your heart is pulled in two directions? Does it stretch or does it break?

  I should ask WebMD. I laughed, but laughing was painful too. I clicked off.

  chapter thirty-five

  Sunday dawned weepy, a melancholy drizzle drifting down through ominous skies. The morning weather forecast predicted a squall hitting the beach midafternoon, so Scott had brought Sarge along for our lunch date. If the storm rolled in with thunder, he didn’t want the dog to be alone.

  Sarge had returned from Iraq with a mild case of PTSD. “Yes, dogs get it too, believe it or not,” Scott told me in the car on our way downtown. “In Sarge’s case, he was spooked by loud noises
. Understandable since he was in the thick of it over in Iraq. You can’t imagine the noise level in firefights, and when explosive devices detonate it sounds like the end of the world. The exchange that killed his handler and wounded Sarge lasted a full five minutes.

  “Back here, he went spazzy over thunder booms and freaked out over the Fourth of July fireworks, which are way up the beach. Even a car backfiring sent him running for cover. It killed me to watch him whimper. So last year, I signed us up for a session of retraining with a search-and-rescue police team in Philadelphia and they got him used to it by randomly firing blanks while he was doing other tasks. Eventually, he could tolerate the noise.”

  “Aversion therapy,” I said.

  “That’s right.” Scott gave me an impressed nod. “He’s pretty cool with noise now. But I still like to be around during thunderstorms, just in case. I hope you don’t mind an extra guest at lunch.”

  I was always glad to have Sarge along. From the beginning, he’d picked up on Scott’s emotions and adopted the only evaluation he trusted, that of his alpha man: I was one of the good guys. And he became more comfortable with me as Scott and I drew closer. Now on the dog-friendly patio of the Turquoise Café, its outdoor space sheltered from the elements by a paisley awning, the shepherd sprawled under the table, resting his chin on my shoe. We were pals.

  But his instincts and training always hovered beneath the surface. He gave off a growl as Selda strode over to take our order, then quieted at the brisk baritone “Stop” command from above. Selda squeezed out what passed for a pleasant expression for Scott. I was served a smile approximately the thickness of the flatbreads of the Turkish pizzas she’d just added to the menu. She slid a look at Sarge, her forehead working hard to suppress a scowl. According to Emine, Selda detested cats and dogs, but business was business. “And for the hound,” she said, “we have grilled Turkish sausage. Called sucukizgara.”