Portion of the Sea

by Christine Lemmon

  One night, after the boys had deserted Fighting Conch, Jaden, his best pal Riley, and I stopped by the beach. After Riley threw a coconut into the Gulf, I laughed out loud and said, “I can throw further than that.”

  “You think you can do anything us boys can do, don’t you?” Riley asked as he jogged to the water to look for his coconut.

  I’d rather show my skills than tell all about them; so, I stretched my arm behind my head and threw my coconut with the same force as a shooting star. A second later there was a splash, a loud one, too loud to have come from the coconut and when the moon poked out from a passing cloud, we spotted Riley down in the water.

  “God almighty!” I cried as Jaden handed me his coconut and ran to lift his friend’s head out of the water. He pulled Riley’s body up onto the sand. “Did it hit his head?” I asked.

  “His nose. It’s a nasty one.”

  As the cloud passed and the moon beamed fully down on us, I covered my mouth with my hands. I had never made a person bleed before. He lay in Jaden’s arms, his eyes slowly opening, only to spin for a moment and then they scanned the beach from left to right before stopping on me like the eyes of a male panther on a kitten it’s planning to eat.

  “Forgive me, man,” Jaden quickly said, interrupting the way Riley was looking at me. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “I thought she did it!”

  “No way. Ava can’t throw that hard.”

  “The Hell I can!” I snapped, but when Jaden jerked his head toward me I added, “But I didn’t, not this time.”

  “That’s funny, because I swear I saw her raise her arm just before …”

  “She did, but so did I. She’s still holding her coconut. Hold it up, Ava. Show Riley you’ve still got yours.”

  I held up the coconut Jaden had given me to hold after I had thrown mine toward the water and hit Riley with it.

  “If my nose weren’t bleeding so bad,” Riley told Jaden as he stood up, “I’d throw you a hard punch. Instead, give me your shirt. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

  It was at that moment that I knew for sure Jaden loved me. A boy who lies to protect a girl almost always does it because he loves her. And as I watched him take the shirt off his back and hand it to his friend so that he could wipe the blood from his nose, I tried not to stare at his chest, which was strong as any conquistador. Instead, I tried focusing on how Jaden’s kindness made me feel. His fibbing to his best friend made me feel as important as that wounded pelican, the snake around my leg, and his crab getting personally trained. No one has ever made me feel that way before.

  When Riley’s nose stopped bleeding, we parted from him, and Jaden and I walked back to my parents’ property. It was then that I decided to surprise him with a second kiss. And this time, I’d kiss him like a hero ought to be kissed, not like the first kiss I had given him the night of the crab races. I was nervous that night and didn’t know what to do but had since gone over it a zillion times in my mind, rehearsing what one might say. I wasn’t nervous any more, and I felt embarrassed thinking back to that first night we kissed.

  “You’re shaking like a live starfish grabbed from the water,” he had said sometime after his crab came in first and mine second.

  “I am?”

  “Yes. Are you afraid to kiss me?”

  “No,” I lied. “But do you hear all those frogs quonking?”

  “Yeah. Male frogs. They’re calling for mates.”

  “How romantic,” I laughed. “But you’re only kidding. How would you know what they’re doing?”

  “I’ve watched them before. It’s true,” he said, softly taking hold of my chin and looking into my eyes, conquering my heart the way no boy had ever done. “And you know what else is true?”

  “What?”

  “I’m going to marry you one day.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “I’ve watched you tonight, and I just know certain things.”

  “You’re just saying that so I’ll hurry up and kiss you. I’m not so naive.”

  “I do want a kiss, but I mean what I’ve said. Just wait and see. One day, you and I will be married. I promise.”

  And then he kissed me, at first like a boy who wants to marry, but then like a conquistador going for gold, and all the time I heard the chorus of croaking frogs growing louder all around us. His kiss changed me on the insides and the flattering idea of him wanting to be with me forever made me want to do everything better—throw harder, run faster, shout louder, talk more interestingly, look more beautiful, and kiss better the next time—just so I could further impress him. His kiss sent me on a mini crusade in search of how I might attain for myself more beauty, intelligence, personality, and wit.

  His kiss made me overzealous in the weeks following, and it almost got me in trouble at home.

  “Ava,” Dahlia snapped at me one Monday morning. “You just swept that floor, scooped up the dirt, then dumped it back down again. What’s wrong with you, girl?”

  I stopped rehearsing my kiss with Jaden in my mind and began focusing instead on the look of bewilderment in Dahlia’s eyes. And I didn’t at all mean to dishonor her, but when I saw what I had done with the dirt, I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. There was a lot of it, and normally I never minded a bit of dirt on the floor. Dirt made me feel like I was outdoors, and I loved the outdoors, but this was too much, I had to admit.

  I had tears rolling down my cheeks because moments before I felt like I was standing in a room full of gold and silver, not dirt. That’s how thinking of Jaden made me feel. I bent over, trying to stop myself from laughing any louder, but then my mama entered the room and that stopped me abruptly.

  “Is there a boy, Ava?” she asked.

  “Ick,” I groaned. “You’re talking to me, Mama. You know I’ve never tolerated boys.”

  “You’re acting as if some boy is making your mind wander off.”

  My daddy had a way of showing up and shaking my jar of joy any time the word “boy” came up in our household. “Boys are dirty as the dirt on that floor, blossom. I’ve told you that,” he said and then walked out the front door. It made me mad that my daddy spoke willfully and then left without further conversation. They knew full well I loved a good debate. In fact, I craved it but could never get it, at least not to my contentment.

  As my mama watched me from the doorway, I tried one more time going after the same old dirt on the floor, and I know I did so in a way that reflected my views on dirt, that dirt would never truly be gone, for it was probably two-thousand-year-old dirt and the same dirt the Calusa Indians walked across. I could see from her face that my mama disagreed with my belief that dirt never goes away. It just finds a new place new to hide.

  “Okay, there is a boy,” I finally said when I knew she wasn’t going to leave the doorway. “A nice boy. In fact, he’s the one who prayed for Daddy that day in the periwinkles.”

  Abigail drew a blank look, and although she had said that day that a boy who prays is a good thing, I knew she no longer remembered her periwinkle ways so I decided to skip over that and get to our second encounter.

  “He was helping a hurt bird that day you and Dahlia gave me the morning to myself.”

  “See, Mother, why I don’t believe it’s wise to set a young girl free for a day?” Abigail said, raising her I told-you-so brow at Dahlia.

  “You can’t stop natural progression,” said Dahlia. “You can delay beach erosion, but sooner or later it’s going to happen just as a girl is eventually going to fall for a boy.”

  Neither of them thought to ask me how many times I have snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to go see him; so, I decided not to offer that information. They weren’t ready for me to fall in love. And I think it was because they still needed me. I was their only child, and they liked having me at home. And whenever Abigail started wilting, I was the only one she’d open up to slightly. She wouldn’t survive without me, I don’t think. And neither would Dahlia,
nor my father, nor Jaden come to think of it. Jaden made me want to live forever, not that I didn’t want to live forever before falling in love with him, but now my life here on Earth was appreciated by another person, and that felt good.

  “A boy that is nice to animals,” Abigail said, taking the broom from my hand, “is usually decent to women. But you should still stay away as your daddy warned. Now go start the laundry.”

  Lydia

  I closed the journal and thought about the ingredients that, according to Abigail, make up a good man—one that prays, and is kind to animals—and I realized something was missing in this recipe, a very important spice: A man who supports a girl’s ambitions. Josh was made up of all these things and he was like a cookie I had never tasted before. My father had me believing men rule the world and women clean it, but when Josh talked positively about my plans of becoming a journalist, I learned for the first time that there were men out there that truly do respect the individual minds and ambitions of a woman. And I wondered if maybe I was ready to let my heart try what hearts were meant to do.

  “Done reading?” Marlena asked, poking her head in the room.

  “No,” I said, jumping in my seat. “There’s more.”

  “The sun is about to set.”

  “It is? Then I’ve got to go,” I said, neatly setting the pages I had read atop the stack. “Can I come back and read more?”

  “Of course, you can,” she said. “But my agent has set up a few more auditions for me. I’ll be in California for about two weeks. Why don’t you come back after that?”

  “I’d love to,” I said, disappointed to wait so long, but I had made her wait a couple of years. Besides, I was thrilled that Marlena might become famous and I could say I knew her when. “I hope you get a role opposite Marlon Brando. He’s gorgeous, don’t you think?”

  She laughed and waved me out her door.

  My father was resting on a hammock under a palm tree when I returned to the cottage, and he had confessed that he walked to the store for a bag of basics, which would get us through the night. I felt concerned that he would do such a thing and risk his recovery, and I felt bad for having not taken care of him like I should have.

  We ate the snacks he bought and played cards out on the lanai until way past midnight, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I thought my yawns were going to kill me, but I didn’t want to say anything or let on as to how tired I was. I didn’t want our game to end. Time together like this would never happen back home, not when he had to be at the office by five in the morning.

  XVII

  I SPENT THE ENTIRE next day doing what women do on a regular basis. I skimmed through the pages of the Betty Crocker Cookbook, selecting recipes I would make for the week. Then I created a list, four pages long, of all the ingredients I would need for those, seven times three, twenty-one recipes, plus seven desserts equals twenty-eight. Doing all of this was like exercising parts of my brain I never knew I had. I found it excruciating.

  With my list in hand, I went to the island’s general store and shopped for over three hours, going up and down every aisle about eight times each until I could find what I was looking for. It was helpful to learn that the fruits and veggies were stocked together in one section and the meats in another. I had no idea there was organization to a store. Next time, I decided, it would be simpler since I knew where everything was.

  I hated to do it, but I called for a driver to pick me up and take me home. I then had him set all the bags outside. I wanted to carry them in myself, which I soon regretted, because it then took me another hour to do so and put it all away. I then collapsed on the sofa next to my father who had been reading a novel all day. He went ape when I handed him my grocery receipt. I had spent over one hundred dollars.

  “What do you mean, watch my budget, father? I didn’t know we had one.”

  “Yes, you should always look at the prices of things and try to pick the least expensive cheese, that is, without compromising quality. You didn’t do that?”

  “I was too busy finding things. If I sat there comparing prices, I’d still be there now. Grocery shopping is more time-consuming than I ever imagined.”

  “I hope you bought food that will go far,” he said.

  “I’ve got enough for twenty-one meals, plus seven deserts, so roughly, one week’s worth of food,” I said.

  “Damn, I better find you a wealthy husband.” He looked at his watch. “It’s nearly time for dinner. What are you going to make? I’m starving.”

  I spent the rest of the evening doing things I never thought I’d do. I chopped and minced and peeled and cried. I boiled and soaked and drained and shriveled up a few times mentally. I stirred, blended, mixed, and tossed my hands in the air with frustration. I dropped, spilled, and cracked eggs onto the floor, and even slid myself, landing beside a pile of breadcrumbs. I grieved over the fourth egg yolk dead on the floor.

  Dinner was ready by ten o’clock. But first, I had to set the table. If I had children, or a husband, I thought, I could make them do that for me. A man that sets the dinner table is—Abigail might disagree—another ingredient that goes into the making of a good man, I thought.

  “Did you buy any Scotch?” I heard my father call from the other room. “I’m ready for a glass with ice.”

  “No, father. I’m only seventeen. I can’t buy liquor.”

  “Damn,” I heard him say. “I’ll get it myself in the morning.”

  We ate. I don’t remember a thing about the meal. And that’s a shame. I went to all that work and don’t remember the meal. I did offer Lloyd seconds, which he refused. And I was glad, for there was nothing I wanted more than to dive into bed. “Good night, Father,” I said, pushing my chair away from the table. “I’m turning in.”

  “Lydia,” he said with a frightened look in his eyes. “The dishes. The mess.”

  I was so fatigued I forgot we didn’t pack our housekeepers and assistants in our suitcases. That meant there was only me to clear the table, wash the dishes, dry them too, put them away, and clean the stove and oven, cabinets and floor. By the time I finished all of that, my father was sleeping. I climbed into bed, but still my mind went on working, worrying about the kitchen corners I might have missed cleaning, places the ants might find. I tried falling asleep, but my mind had chased my body around in that kitchen all night, and now it didn’t know how to turn itself off.

  I had a new respect for my fellow women, for the wives and the mothers and the daughters who help their mothers and for anyone who had ever gone through the agony of preparing a single meal. I wanted to look up each person that has ever made me a dinner, whether in our home or in a restaurant, and thank them personally for their behind-the-scene efforts.

  I also wanted to sleep, but Mr. Sandman never came. Maybe he figured there was already enough sand on Sanibel. I felt mentally lopsided, and so I remembered the words of Ava and allowed myself to think of Josh. It was as if thinking of him inflated my heart, and I felt as if I were riding the peaks of the waves.

  I felt so ready to live and way too excited to sleep, and so I climbed out of bed and headed for the kitchen. There I pulled out the Betty Crocker Cookbook once more and flipped to the dessert section. I then took out sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, butter, one egg instead of two—since I dropped so many on the floor while making tonight’s meatloaf—and a bag of chocolate chips.

  As I watched the sun rising through my kitchen window, I also watched the cookies rising through the oven window. And I wondered, as I sat on the tile floor, which would rise first. It turned out that the good old sun defeated my cookies in many ways. The sun was beautiful, my cookies ugly. The sun continued rising, my cookies fell. The sun was only getting warmer, my cookies cold, by the time I scraped them off the pan and dropped them into a bag.

  “Oh well,” I mumbled as I headed for my room to get ready. “At least my cookies are comforting as the sun. I’m sure Josh will appreciate them.”

  I quickly g
ot dressed, not in my dungarees this time, but in a nice yellow dress with short white gloves. I then applied eyeliner to my top eyelid only and peeked into the room at my father. He was still sleeping and would be for hours. I would have just enough time to sneak over to the pier and find Josh and return home before he awoke. Ever since his heart attack, he had been sleeping way past ten o’clock. I never believed that was possible.

  XVIII

  JOSH, POLITE AS HE was, ate three, and the other men standing by us on the Sanibel Fishing Pier each took one, but a few minutes later I spotted large crumbs, chunks, and then whole cookies floating by in the water below the pier.

  “Are they that bad?” I asked Josh.

  “We’ll know in a couple of days if a bunch of dead fish wash ashore.”

  I punched him on his shoulder and laughed as I spotted one fisherman whipping his cookie across the water as if trying to skip a stone. It didn’t skip, but rather fell apart in mid-air. “Baking is not one of my strengths. It should be, I know. I am a woman, but I guess I find it rather …”

  “Where are your shoes?” Josh asked looking down at my naked toes. “What if you step on a hook out here?”

  “It’s a risk I’ll take,” I said, smiling. “There’s nothing better than the feeling of toes touching the ground. I want to feel grounded, connected, and in touch with the Earth, you know what I mean?”

  “You are unique.”

  “Thank you. That’s the second nicest thing you could say to me.”

  “What’s the first?”

  I looked down at my toes and thought about whether or not I wanted to tell him. I didn’t want to live my life confined within a limo or the walls of a house. I didn’t want a mansion to become my world. It’s why journalism continued to interest me. The stories brought me out there, into that world full of different kinds of people with different backgrounds and perspectives and quotes so unlike what I had been raised with inside the sheltered walls of the limo and mansion. I curled my toes along the splintery edge of the pier.