by Ash, Lauren
“Excuse me.” Jenny stooped and climbed into the passenger seat.
“Well, you folks enjoy Rocky Shores.” Leaning forward, the stranger put a hand on the roof and closed Jenny’s car door for her.
“Sure will,” Ron said, revving the engine. The man pulled his hand off the car as Ron let out the clutch and accelerated away.
“You told that guy our plans?” Jenny could barely contain her fury.
“No! Of course I didn’t”
“Mamma, man?” said Kip, pointing out the window.
“How did he know, then?”
“He probably saw our suitcases in the trunk. I mean, come on. There’s beach stuff back there and this is the main road out to the coast. Anyone can tell we’re on vacation.”
“He was looking in our trunk? He looked totally psycho. How do you know he isn’t going to follow us?”
“He was just curious about Charlie. He didn’t mean any harm.”
“How do you know that? I have a bad feeling.”
“No, you don’t. Don’t be silly. I’ve been checking the rearview mirror. He’s not following us. People ask about Charlie all the time when we’re out, and you don’t bother with them.”
“Can we please not stop again? I just want to get there.” Jenny put her sunglasses back on and turned to check the mirror on her side.
“Yes. I’ll speed the whole way.”
She frowned at him. “Not with Kip in the car.”
“Okay, okay! Hey, can you open my candy bar for me? I’m driving here.” Ron tossed her a Milky Way bar.
“Sure, may I have a bite?”
He laughed. “Now you want a bite?”
“Just a little one, please?”
“Okay.”
One bite turned into two.
“Come on! Come on!” Ron snatched it back.
* * *
They neared the ocean, billboards pointing the way to The Blue Sky Motel or recommending a spot for ice cream or kayaking. Under the cloudy sky, nothing looked appealing.
“You don’t think it’ll rain, do you?” She pulled her sunglasses off, folded the arms in, and placed them in the glove box.
“No. The forecast yesterday said partly cloudy and sunny.”
“Weathermen,” Jenny scoffed, “you know they’re only right half the time.”
“He’s half right. There are clouds.”
The billboards became even more worn as they drove on. WHALE WATCHING blared at her. The bad image flashed again—a huge mouth opened, lined with pointed spears of teeth which formed around the road ahead, fading in and out even as Jenny shuddered and closed her eyes to avoid entering the malevolent maw.
“What?” Ron asked.
“Uh … just relaxing.” She fought the image away. One of her hands crept to her belly.
“Look!” Ron pointed ahead to a sign that read ROCKY SHORES. “We’re here!”
“About time.” Jenny perked up. “I’m hungry again. I wouldn’t mind another smoothie. Can we drive-thru some place?”
“Sure.”
There was no line this time. Jenny gulped down the thick strawberry ice. “This is good—just what I needed.” She scrunched up her nose, feeling the numb pain of an ice headache. “Maybe too good.”
The beach house cowered at the end of a long strip of road. It felt like an hour passed as Ron slowed down, crawling along to look at the other beach getaways, all different shapes, heights, and colors: yellows, creams, blues. Wooden sculptures—mostly seagulls, seals or ships—sat sun-bleached out front. Fences were made of buoys with rope. Old ship steering wheels studded the lawns. Most homes looked serene, as if they hadn’t been used in months, but a few teemed with people and cars.
“Aw, look at that one.” Jenny pointed to a circular, domed house.
“That’s a geodesic.”
“A geo what?”
“Geodesic—its shape and style.”
“Oh.”
“That one there is a partial spherical shell. See all the triangles.” He pointed. “Stress is distributed across the entire structure. What’s neat is it encloses the most volume for surface area. Although there are so many edges that sometimes they leak.”
“I’m lost.”
“The edges of all the triangles.”
“Oh.”
“They’re expensive to build, that’s why you don’t see very many of them. They look awesome.” Ron’s voice deepened.
“I’d like to go in.” Jenny wriggled in her seat, turning back to look at the geodesic house as they passed by.
Ron laughed. “Speaking of going in, do you have the key to the beach house?”
Jenny fumbled around in her pockets, her purse, under the seat. “Oh no,” she said, checking her pockets again, and then her purse—this time dumping the contents everywhere. “I don’t have it.”
“I don’t either.”
“Ron!”
“I was too busy looking for Charlie.”
Upon hearing his name, the dog barked.
“Me too. I was distracted.”
“Now what do we do?” Jenny asked, hands in the air. “We’ve come all this way. I don’t want to go back now. Jesus … and … well … crap!”
“Calm down. I’ve got this.”
“What? What are going to…?”
Ron wrenched the wheel into a fast, sharp right and the car coasted down a pebbled drive and slid to a halt in front of the beach house. He flung open the car door and hurried up the narrow grey wooden steps, almost tripping before steadying himself on the rickety rail. Kip still napped in the back of the car, open-mouthed, head slumped to the side.
I can’t leave her in here, Jenny thought. No longer able to see Ron, Jenny hastily unbuckled her and scooped up the sleeping child, letting Charlie out of the back as she exited the car.
“These steps feel like they’re going to cave in any second,” Jenny called out to Ron, concerned.
There was no reply.
The dachshund whined at her feet. She looked up to see the tall, four-story beach house, topped with a hexagonal lookout, towering over her and a single imported palm fighting the winds. “Neat. Ron, where are you?” Hearing a commotion brewing nearby, she followed the sounds.
The home was due for a paint job—overdue. Grey paint peeled off like the scales of a gargantuan fish, more so on the deck than on the rest of the house. Jenny stopped to peel off a piece, flicked it away, and then stepped up to the newly blue-painted front door, deciding to try the silver knob—no luck. After rubbing a clean spot in the glass with one hand, she stuck her nose up to the small hexagonal window near the entranceway and looked in. She could see a hardwood hallway and a small white sign on the pale-blue wall. It read: “Fishermen are like the sea, rough around the edges, salty, and deep.”
“That’s adorable,” she said to herself, and then called out, “Ron?”
A gust of wind curled around the corner.
“Brrr!” With one hand, Jenny pulled up the hood of her grey sweatshirt, whipped the zipper up, and tried to snuggle Kip onto her chest a little more. The child stirred, waking.
“There you are.” Ron padded along the deck to stand beside her. “I’ve tried every door, every window, the garage doors. I’ve looked under any places a spare key might be hidden. Nothing. Nada!”
“So we go home?” Jenny asked bleakly.
“No! Are you kidding? We break in. It’s going to be our place anyways.”
“What do you mean?” Jenny peered in through the porthole-sized window near the door again.
“My mother doesn’t want it.”
“Rachel doesn’t want it?”
“No. Nana Gerry is leaving it to Mom in the will, but she’s very old now.
She’s in a nursing home. It’s fully paid for, except for property taxes. I suppose the taxes could be a lot, since it’s on the coast. I’m not sure.”
“Just like that, no strings attached?” Jenny quirked up one eyebrow.
“Not exactly.
”
“See! I knew it. Nothing is simple with your mother.”
“Hey, come on now. She has offered to sell it to me, to us, at way below market value.”
“We still can’t afford it. Do you know how much these beach houses cost?” Jenny said, as Kip moaned and wriggled to be let down. Sliding the child down her body, Jenny folded her arms in front of her.
Ron moved closer and hugged her. “What I haven’t told you is … I’m getting a big raise! A very big promotion.”
“You are?” She couldn’t keep the strain of uncertainty from her voice.
“I was going to tell you later; you know, a special moment ... some wine, aperitifs, lobster,” he whispered through her hair, his breath warm on her throat just below her ear lobe.
“You…” Jenny squeezed him tight and lifted her face to kiss him.
He held her chin there, letting her lips go slowly, gazing down at her until she pulled back and exhaled.
“There’s a catch,” he said.
“What?”
“More travel.”
Letting go of their rare embrace, she turned and ran—back down the stairs, the devoted dog scurrying behind her.
“Jenny...?” Already she could hear Ron coming after her.
She fled to the back of the SUV, leaning against it, facing the sea and rubbing her belly for comfort. “There’s already too much travel,” she said despondently when he caught her up there, leading Kip along after him. He tried to move in close again.
Backed up against the dusty car, she turned her face away.
“Honey, the money is too good,” he said. “I couldn’t decline. Plus, I will get bigger bonuses—every quarter. I’ll have more clients, more responsibility, more control. I will have the final decision. It’s what I’ve been working towards, you know that. Can’t you understand?”
“I know. You remind me all the time. It’s all I hear.” She faced him shaking her head. “I just wish there wasn’t so much travel. I’m tired of it. Every two weeks you pack, you unpack. Time flies when you’re home—it’s great, we’re happy. But you go and time slows down for me. My days are long, my nights, lonely. I know we talk, but...”
“You could come with. You and Kip.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Yes, you could. We’ll be able to afford it. Some trips I’ll be gone a few weeks at a time. We could go out in the evenings, explore, see the sights on the weekends, and go other places. I’ll have a rental car at my disposal, in fact a very nice rental car.”
“Really?”
“Do you like convertibles?”
Jenny’s face brightened. “No way.”
“Yes way. You know you could do it. You’d enjoy it.” Ron tilted his blond head, his hair already mussed by the salty wind. “It’ll be an adventure. Come on?”
“I wouldn’t want to impose on your work schedule.”
“You wouldn’t. Some nights I’ll have to work late, or take clients out to dinner, but you can be my arm candy.”
Her face lit up. Finally, she gave him the big smile he had been waiting for the entire trip out to the beach—the smile she used to wear every day when he came home from work. The smile she wore when they got married. It had been hiding too much lately.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
Ron slipped his arm around his slim wife.
“Did you forget?” she laughed.
“Oh yeah—no key. Time to break in.”
* * *
Hundreds of sparkling slivers of glass soon punctuated the classic wooden floor.
“Our new home away from home!” Ron proclaimed. “Well, not quite yet. Our wannabe broken-into home away from home.” He cautiously stretched one arm in through the broken window, trying to avoid the jagged shards still stuck in the pane. At first, he couldn’t reach the deadbolt.
“Careful, honey.” One hand over her eyes, the other clutching Kip’s hand, Jenny couldn’t help but peek a little through the gaps between her fingers.
“Ouch!”
“Ron.” She pressed her fingers more firmly over her face, not looking at all now.
“There we go.” There was a stiff click. “I got it. Scrape free.”
Excited, Ron pulled at the door, only to have it open a crack and slam shut. “Oh hell! Catch chain. What?” Puzzled, he stood back. “Seems whoever was here last left through the garage, and I have no garage door opener. Is this overly complicated, or is it me?” He kicked the door as hard as he could; it thundered back angrily. “Fine.” Ron said smashing the window. The catch was unreachable so he finally kicked in the door.
“Mamma.”
“There, there.” Jenny calmed Kip. “It’s just Daddy, making a mess. Come on now.” Jenny picked her daughter up and carried her through the wreck-of-a-front door.
Glass crackled under her blue canvas shoes. “Honey, can you clean this up? We could get cut, Jes—”
“Yeah.” His voice carried from somewhere above.
Jenny glanced back to the door: wood ripped apart, brass hardware hanging, the chain still intact. “Our new home.” She sighed. “We’re off to a bad start.”
“Mamma, snack.”
“Soon,” she soothed. “We have to unpack first. Let’s go look about, come.” She led Kip around the first floor. The kitchen had dark blue accents and opened into a dining room and a small living room with a back patio. Everything was blue or white. White curtains, blue sofa, white lamps, blue ornaments. It was quaint, but there was an odd smell Jenny couldn’t quite place. “Ron, where are you?” At the very end of the room, she turned a corner to find a set of dark-blue, carpeted steps.
“Just come up. Hurry! You’re missing it.”
The second floor Jenny only glanced at—a family type room and some smaller bedrooms. On the third floor was a luxurious master bedroom with a hot tub en suite and a perfect view of the ocean. “You here?”
“Keep going, honey.”
Trekking up to the fourth level was slow. Pregnancy made her more puffed than usual as she climbed the white-paneled staircase. The occasional family photograph created a friendly feel. Near the top, she noticed a black-and-white photograph of a young woman standing on the end of the jetty, her back to the photographer. It gave her a chill: so isolated, so forlorn.
“You made it, finally! Come see. Look.” Ron pointed. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
They stood abreast before the large window that spanned ceiling to floor, wall to wall, in a hexagonal shape. Beyond, the ocean was grey, ragged in the wind. Waves crashed boundlessly upon the ashen sands. From off the sea, a storm was raging towards them, pressing against the glass, the wind echoing through the room.
“Wow.” It was depressingly beautiful. Jenny felt the dynamism, the force of the water, the flimsy shelter of the beach. Rocky Shores, she thought. She looked left, all the way down the beach to where the black jetty jutted into the waves like a long, crooked finger.
“Did the rain just start?” she asked.
“Yeah, suddenly. As if it knew we’d be up here to see it.”
“There goes our romantic walk.”
“It’ll calm down. It does this.”
Jenny just watched in overwhelmed silence, her family by her side.
* * *
“Are we done?”
“That’s the last of the suitcases.” Ron washed his hands under the kitchen tap.
“I finished unloading the cooler. We have enough food for a few days, but then I’ll have to go into town. What would you like tonight?” Jenny opened the fridge and scanned the shelves. “Frozen sausage and pepperoni pizza, or frozen lasagna?”
“Hmmm. How about pizza? That’s quicker.”
“I was in the mood for that, too. I don’t know what it is about frozen pizza—totally disgusting, but great at the same time.”
“I know. I could eat a whole one. In fact, I’ve eaten two myself before.”
Jenny pulled the pizza from the cardboard box, cut the plastic
wrap off, and put it on a cookie sheet.
“In college; I was drunk,” Ron continued. “It was the Super Bowl. I got a little carried away. Couldn’t go for days after it.”
“Ah!” Jenny giggled. “That’s horrible.”
The pizza went down well. Kip ate her chicken nuggets—her main food group—and Charlie scampering under the oak table, snapped up however many Kip tossed to him.
“Nice.” Ron jumped up and opened the blinds to the patio. “The sun is out; I can see it through the clouds. I told you it would come.”
“You do know this place, don’t you?” Jenny smiled.
“I do. We used to come here often. Lived here awhile too. I have so many memories. Like this patio, the barbecues, the s’mores—sticky melted chocolate, mmm. Then the long grass: my legs would get scratched up from running through it as a teen, but I didn’t care. It was all about getting down to the beach as fast as possible. My sister would walk through it so slowly—hated it. She had allergies, still does. Then, once I got to the beach, the water. Didn’t matter how cold it was. It’s always cold. God, it was good.” Ron leaned up against the wall, casting his mind back.
“Yet your mother hates this place?”
“Yes. I never knew why, never asked her. Maybe I didn’t care. I remember being mad that we had to go. Something happened. I don’t know really. One day that was it: we packed, we left. Never came back. This is my first time back in years.”
“I wonder…” Jenny didn’t pry.
“Are you finished? I have to go down there.”
The grass was dirty yellow, tall, waist high and bisected by a narrow path so overgrown that Ron had to cut through the vegetation with a rusted machete he’d found in the garage. Jenny jumped with each whack. What was it with that sound? It made her feel anxious, tense. Sweat beaded her brow as she followed—ever the good wife.
Charlie weaved in between them; his tail wagging faster and faster, as if he knew something exciting was coming. They reached the edge of the sandy dune to find a four-foot drop to the beach. Ron jumped. Charlie followed. Jenny took Ron’s offered hand down, helping Kip last.
“We’re on the beach!” Jenny pointed.