The Topsail Accord

by J T Kalnay

  I recognize nearly all the people here, and I recognize my friend Bill the policeman. I can see that he is not too busy, that the small crowd is well behaved and that the row of chairs has added an extra layer to his security fence. So I walk over and shake hands.

  “Quite a show,” I say.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “I know the two women who are putting on the show,” I say.

  “I know the homeowner, and I’ve met some others in her family. They seem like a nice family. And the homeowner, well, she’s something special.”

  “Yes she is,” I answer.

  Bill detects the change in tone in my voice.

  “Oh?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well then,” he says.

  I detect the change in his voice.

  “She has quite a following,” Bill says in his professional voice.

  Now it is my turn to say “Oh?”

  “Yeah. There was a man here earlier asking about her.”

  “A man?”

  “Big guy. Ohio plates. Kinda felt like a stalker.”

  “Wow. You know she’s rich right? I mean richer than me?”

  “No shit?” Bill asks.

  “Yeah. She’s a geologist and she literally struck oil on her dad’s farm, and a couple of other places too.”

  “Maybe I ought to put a watch on that guy’s plates?” Bill says.

  “Might not be a bad idea. Cause she’s going to be alone here for the next week or two.”

  “Completely alone?” Bill asks.

  “Mostly alone,” I say. “I don’t know. We’re not there yet. And I don’t even know if that’s where we’re headed. But we’ve been walking and jogging and having coffee. So who knows.”

  “It’s about time Joe,” Bill says.

  I consider my friend, and feel the friendship in his voice that had momentarily been tinged with something when we first started talking about Shannon. Maybe Bill had a crush on her? It’s understandable, I feel like I have a crush.

  “Thanks Bill,” I say.

  After the fireworks are done, Shannon takes her sister’s hand and starts walking up the beach with her. The husbands and cousins know that this also is a tradition, the sisters going for one last walk, by themselves, on the night before the family heads home.

  Shannon

  “It was so beautiful,” Shannon says.

  “Thanks. I had no idea it would be so loud,” Cara says.

  They both laugh.

  “I think everyone loved it,” Shannon says.

  “I do too,” Cara agrees.

  “And we were right to not have Joe here,” Shannon says.

  “Yes,” Cara agrees.

  “I’m going to run with him tomorrow morning, and then have him bring coffee over to the house,” Shannon says.

  “Will that make the house seem less empty?” Cara asks.

  “Yes. And it’ll make it different.”

  “I won’t even ask whether you are going to have him over to your cottage,” Cara says.

  “I won’t be inviting him there. Not ever. That’s my place.”

  “That’s why I didn’t ask,” Cara says. “Are you sure you’re going to be alright with this? With him?”

  “No. But I’m liking it and I’m liking him, so I’m willing to make the effort.”

  They walk the rest of the way to the pier and back in silence, bathed by the glistening full moon rising over the flat Atlantic. Rising right out of the water and so close it seems to be as close as the dolphins in the morning, so close, so unusually close. Shannon wonders about the tide that moon will produce. Wonders how closely these two planets will come, and what furies they will exert on each other.

  Shannon

  My house is empty but my heart is full. Full of love for my sister and mother and everyone. While I am sad that they are on their way back to Ohio, I am also happy to know that I will have the cottage to myself for a while.

  I am unsure about Joe, but am interested in this experiment in feeling again. I am also very nearly interested in sex again. He is a handsome man. Though at nearly fifty years of age I wonder if he can even do it. Is he a Viagra man?

  Yes this is a very interesting experiment in feeling again for me. I have not had these thoughts in so very long. I don’t think that this is what falling in love feels like. And I doubt that love for me would resemble a love that anyone else would recognize. I am cool, I am distant, I like to be alone. I know all these things and I accept all these things. So far he does too.

  How far will his acceptance reach? Would he accept me as just a running partner and just a coffee partner? Will he accept just the occasional kiss? Or the occasional coupling?

  How far will his acceptance of my solitary life extend? More importantly, how far do I want it to extend?

  Do I want a running partner? A coffee maker? A kisser? A lover? A confidant? What do I want? And why do I want it?

  I have my life, my books, my lab. I have my family and my routines. My daily routines and my annual routines. My life has its rhythm. Is there room enough to balance Joe into those rhythms?

  Well that’s why I am still here, at the beach house, after everyone else is gone. I am here to see how, if at all, Joe will fit into my rhythm.

  Joe

  I am nearly fifty. I can stop measuring now. I can begin to take each day as it is. I no longer have to compare this day and the next day to all the days before. I no longer have to wonder what I will be ‘when I grow up’. I no longer have to seek the approval or avoid the censure of my elders. It is liberating.

  And now there is Shannon. She is waiting at her house for me. In her empty house, with her family returned to Ohio.

  They have driven west over this bridge and I am driving east. I have driven over this bridge thousands of times. But never with this exact expectation and feeling. I have always known what has been waiting on the island for me. But this morning I am unsure.

  I almost didn’t come. But now I am here on the bridge, and she is waiting. At least I hope she is waiting. I hope she has not returned to Ohio with her family. I hope she has not locked the door and left the light off wishing I would not come. I hope she has not moved to her cottage to be completely alone.

  I hope she is there, ready to run, and that she will kiss me again soon. Even though I know, I know for sure, I know with a certainty that I have rarely felt that her kiss will hurt me. I am ready to accept that pain because of the promise of the infinity of this anachronistic woman.

  Shannon

  I see his car pull into my front drive. He is here. He has not stood me up.

  Why is he here? What does he want? What do I want? I shift my focus from tomorrow and next week down to the next hour and to this minute. I want to run. Far and then fast. I want to run with him and then I want to be alone.

  Joe

  I am here. She comes out the front door to meet me. She does not invite me in. She is tiny in front of this imposing house. Tiny but still all powerful. In charge. She looks like she knows exactly what she wants. And at this moment she wants to run. I can see the pent up energy and the tanned sleek muscles about to expend that energy. I have been at the Kentucky Derby and seen the thoroughbreds in the gate before the race. She reminds me of their barely harnessed abandon just waiting to burst out.

  She is wearing tiny black Lycra shorts and a brilliant white jog bra. I am breathless. Which will make running difficult.

  “Ready?” she asks.

  “Ready,” I answer.

  She leads me around the house, past the pool, up the steps to the board walk that leads over the dune and to the steps down to the beach.

  She sees me readying my watch.

  “Can you leave that here? On the steps?”

  “Why?”

  “Because this run isn’t about the watch. It isn’t about time.”

  “What’s it about?” I ask.

  “Something else. But it’s certainly not about the watch. So co
uld you please take that off? Leave it on the deck?”

  I remove my watch, feeling somehow naked without it. Yes I am fifty, and yes I can stop keeping count. But I never have, until now.

  We set off down the beach, into the wind, the rising sun at our backs. What feels like ten minutes pass, and then another. Before I know it we have gone what must have been an hour.

  “I need a break,” I say. “And I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it back without walking.”

  She slows, stops, turns back towards the sun, which is now a few hands above the horizon, so yes we have been out a least an hour.

  “Meet me back at my house, I’ll have coffee ready,” she says.

  She kisses me on a sweaty cheek and then is gone. Our conversational pace has been her warm up. Our hour out will be her half hour or less back. And it will be at least an hour for me. More likely two. With plenty of walking. My knees will be screaming at me tomorrow. I won’t even be able to ride my bike. Perhaps I should head up across the dune and try to hitch a ride back, or at least walk on the firmer, flatter surface. I decide to walk.

  Two hours later I arrive at the steps up to her house. I can barely move.

  “There you are,” she says. She hands me a water bottle. Clearly she has been waiting for me.

  I take the bottle, can barely speak.

  “You could have warned me that you were going to ditch me in the next county,” I say.

  “Sorry. I didn’t plan it. It just happened. I felt like running far, and then I felt like running fast.”

  “I would have been better off on my own this morning,” I say.

  “Me too,” she answers. “At least for second part. I really liked the first part though.”

  “Maybe in the future you can let me in on your plans? So I can be ready? Plan my week? Give my doctor a heads-up?” I say.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do or how I’m going to feel,” she says. “I don’t plan runs anymore. They just happen.”

  “I can see why you’ve had trouble with running partners,” I say. I mean it as a joke, but she takes it as a criticism. Her eyes squint and her nose pinches. She takes a step up the stairs towards her house.

  “Take it or leave it,” she tosses over her shoulder.

  And there it is. She has said it. She doesn’t need me and won’t adapt for me. She is who she is and she will not change, she will not yield. I knew her kiss would hurt. But not quite this soon, and not quite so much.

  I take it. Because leaving it, or leaving her, is nearly unthinkable.

  I start up the steps behind her, taking them one at a time, stepping both feet onto each stair as I go. I am happy for the handrails on the boardwalk.

  Shannon

  “Here’s your coffee,” I say.

  “Thanks,” he answers. He is clearly suffering from the lengthy walk.

  Why did I do that to him?

  “That’s not bad,” he says.

  “Thanks. I’ve been making coffee for decades, and people seem to like it.”

  “You’re not going to open up a competing coffee shop here are you?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “I am returning to my home and to my lab in Ohio, although I will be visiting here during my annual January and July visits.

  “I hope I’ll be able to see you,” he says.

  I wait, consider what he has said. Consider whether to castigate him about thinking so far ahead. Consider telling him that I hope I can see him too, but only during the visits. That I don’t want him to visit me in Ohio, or to even think about me in Ohio. It’s not what I want. Joe is from here. To the extent I want to think about him, I want to think of him here.

  “I’ll let you know after paddling tomorrow and after surfing on Tuesday,” I say.

  “Is it a test? What do I have to do to get a good score?” he asks.

  “It’s not a test. It just is what it is. I like you. You’re a good running partner, you make a nice cup of coffee, and you don’t mind drinking my coffee. So who knows? It might work. But it’s too soon to tell,” I say.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  “For what?” I ask.

  “For telling it like it is.”

  “Most people don’t like that,” I say.

  “That’s their problem,” he answers.

  We spend the day together, mostly sitting, sometimes wading in the ocean, sometimes sifting through shells to find fossilized sharks’ teeth. I educate him about how the sharks’ teeth came to be on the beach, after spending anywhere from five to twenty five million years encrusted in the continental shelf.

  I can see that he is sore from the run. He has slowed down from the morning. I remember that he is fifty, and although fit, he is still fifty. I think ahead to this week. Trying to figure out whether he’s up for all of it. I simply decide to ask.

  “So you are okay with paddling tomorrow? And surfing on Tuesday?” I ask.

  “As long as you’re okay with paddling with a sore fifty year old man and surfing with a sore fifty year old man I am totally up for it,” he answers.

  “Good. Because before you know it, it’ll be Thursday,” I say. I am a shameless, brazen hussy for teasing him like this, for promising this.

  “Thursday?” he asks.

  “Thursday,” I say. I toss forward a bony hip and a tanned shoulder. I give him a look that explains at a glance what I mean by ‘Thursday’.

  “I can hardly wait...” he breathes.

  Shannon and Joe

  She arrives at the put-in under the bridge first. It is a calm morning, hot already, and threatening to be the hottest day of the summer. There is no ocean breeze on this lee side of the island, especially at the put-in under the bridge. She applies another layer of sunscreen as she waits.

  He arrives five minutes later.

  “Morning,” he says.

  “Morning,” she answers.

  He hands her a to-go cup of coffee.

  “Thanks,” she says. She sips, looks over the brim of the to-go cup at him. Her eyes thanking him for his thoughtfulness.

  They both drink their coffee, unencumbered by the need for trivial morning conversation.

  The kayak delivery service arrives right on time. There is a bright yellow tandem sit-on-top kayak, four paddles, and four life jackets in the bed of the truck.

  They pick paddles and life jackets that fit while the deeply tanned man lifts the kayak down out of the truck and puts it at the edge of the water.

  “Have you been paddling before?” he asks.

  “No,” he says.

  “Yes, a few times a year,” she adds.

  “Usually the better paddler sits in the back,” the kayak man says.

  She positions herself in the back.

  “You might want to adjust the foot rests before you go,” the kayak man instructs. He shows them how to get them just right, so that their feet are braced and so that they are low to the water with their backs supported, without their knees too high where they would make them unstable.

  They pull out from under the bridge, feeling their way.

  “Let’s go up this side for a while, until we have a feel for it,” he suggests.

  She agrees, sees that they can go half a mile up on the ocean side of the Intracoastal and stay out of the wind and little waves that they will have to cross to get to the canals on the other side. The canals where she has seen the birds every time over the bridge.

  A snowy egret takes wing twenty yards ahead of them. It crosses the Intracoastal in a few dozens of seconds, flying mere feet, maybe inches above the water.

  “I love the birds,” she says.

  “I love shooting birds. Ducks off the water and wild turkeys over in the hills.”

  “You’re a hunter?” she asks. The disdain is obvious in her voice.

  “I’m a southerner, it’s what we do,” he says

  “Are you defined by where you were born? Or are you able to reason for yourself?”

  “I am defined, in
part, by where I live, because of the things to which I was exposed and grew to love as a child. I hunt because I like to hunt and because I like the taste of game birds, not because I’m a southerner. But I suppose I grew up learning to hunt and loving to hunt in part because I am a southerner.”

  She considers his answer.

  “Well. It’s legal, and you like it, and you’re not asking me to go hunting with you...” she says

  “I’ll only go hunting while you’re in Ohio,” he says.

  “And you don’t have to tell me about it,” she says.

  “Deal.”

  After twenty minutes paddling into the little breeze that is fetching up the Intracoastal they are far enough from the bridge that all the car sounds are gone. The only sounds are their dipping paddles and their breathing. She picks an angle for crossing the two or three hundred yards of Intracoastal so that the little wind and little waves will be on their quarter, not completely on their beam.

  “Let’s pull hard to get across quicker,” she says.

  “My heart and lungs and mind are ready and willing, but I don’t know about my arms, back, and shoulders,” he says. “I don’t spend all that much time with a shovel like you do,” he says.

  “I think you shovel it pretty good,” she teases.

  They pull harder and are quickly across the deeper water and into the first of the shallow canals. Their kayak is so low to the water that the marsh grass and the sparse five foot pines and spruces tower above them. Though only a half an hour from the put in, and though less than a mile from the bridge, they have entered a different world. A world filled with ospreys, egrets, great blue heron, green heron, tri-colored heron, kingfishers, and gulls. A world where the muddy banks of the canals are crowded with biblical numbers of nickel sized crabs. A place where mud that has recently been underwater on the high tide is pungent with rotting vegetation and scraps of fish left behind by the wading birds and otters. A watery world where entire schools of shiny fingernail sized fish riffle up out of water and burst ahead and left and right of the kayak. A world where dragonflies shoot and dart like hummingbirds, inspecting the kayak, then dismissing it and flying away.