The Topsail Accord

by J T Kalnay

  They turn the final corner and the finish line is in sight. The boy does not pull away. Shannon asks, but her body does not respond. They cross the finish line the same as they have run the last mile, with the boy a half a step ahead, and Shannon attached to his shoulder.

  “Nice race,” he says. “Could you have pipped me?” he asks.

  “When I was your age,” she answers.

  The boy finally looks at her, sees that she is twice his age.

  “Dude,” he says. He shakes her hand, then walks back to the finish line to wait for his girlfriend who has been left behind while he ran with Shannon.

  “There you are,” Joe says. He is fresh from the shower, shaved, cologned, dressed in khakis that the hotel has pressed and in a blue oxford from his business. He looks like exactly what he is, a wealthy man on a meaningful weekend who has just seen the love of his life.

  “How was the race?” he asks.

  “I lost,” she answers.

  A follow up question forms in his mind but he stifles it.

  She heads to the shower without saying another word.

  While she is in the shower, room service arrives. He has ordered two of everything, and a pot of coffee. He was unsure what she would want, if anything, after running a race.

  “What’s all this?” she asks.

  “It’s breakfast,” he answers.

  She lifts the lids, looks at everything, finds the coffee, and pours a large cup.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

  “I’m forty. He was twenty one. Twenty years ago I’d have won.”

  “I hope so. Because if he’s twenty one now he would have been one back then and you damn well better have beat him, or whoever would have been pushing his stroller. Did they have jogging strollers back then?”

  Shannon looks at him. Astounded and angered at his smart ass answer. A sharp rebuke forms in her mind, and like he had previously, she stifles it. She tries not to laugh, but then is unable to stop herself as he continues to make funny faces and pantomimes pushing a stroller while pretending to be confused with trying to answer his own question about the baby stroller.

  “You bastard,” she says. She bursts into a belly laugh and before they know it they are both laughing so hard that tears are running from their eyes. While she laughs her night gown falls open and he drinks in her nakedness. He responds and they rush to the bed. Their lovemaking is short, energetic, nearly primal and desperate in its intensity.

  “I am leaving this afternoon,” she says.

  “Not tomorrow?” he asks. “It’ll be dark when you get home.”

  “I’m going to drive half way, or until it looks like it’s getting dark. Then I’ll stop. And I’m going to drive the rest of the way tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” he says. He knows she has never split up the drive before. Wonders why she is leaving a day early, if it has anything to do with the race she ‘lost’. He has learned she came second to a local twenty one year old college runner who finished in the top ten in the NCAA cross country championships. He wonders if she is leaving because she didn’t win.

  “And I’ve made up my mind about surfing and lighthouses,” she says.

  He waits. Dreads the answers.

  “I’m sorry but the answer is no,” she says.

  He takes it like a man, clenches his jaw, narrows his eyes, refuses to show any more reaction than this to his profound disappointment.

  “Can I ask why?” he asks.

  “Because I like you and I like us just the way we are,” she answers. “I don’t want anything else.”

  “Is this how it’s going to be then? You and me in July and January, two months every year? If that’s all I can have, I’ll take it,” he says. “I agree to the deal.”

  “That’s not fair to you,” she says.

  “Isn’t that for me to decide?”

  “Yes I suppose it is,” she says.

  He waits. Fears the answer to the question he is about to ask. Tries to stop himself from asking but cannot.

  “Is there someone else? Someone in Ohio?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want there to be? Is that why we can’t have anything else?”

  “No, there’s no-one else, and I don’t want anyone else, and I don’t want anything else. I’ve told you what happened with my ex. He wanted what he thought he ‘should’ have. But ‘should’ isn’t real, it isn’t what is. You and I are Topsail in July and Topsail in January. We don’t even work in Wilmington. What would happen somewhere even farther away?”

  He has no answer. He feels the pain begin, the pain that will grow and grow through February and March and threaten to overwhelm him until April and May give way to June and then finally hope that July will arrive shortly and he could be whole for the minutes and hours she will give.

  “Won’t you just try it?” he asks. “Try it once. One April, one October. Or even just one April? If you don’t like me in April in Costa Rica you can ditch me. I’ll make sure you can have your own place. And why don’t you make the reservations for the October lighthouse? Just tell me what airport to arrive at and when. You can make reservations for separate places. So if it isn’t working, if we don’t have there what we’ve had here or something worthwhile then you can ditch me. But I really do want to try. And I want you to try.”

  “We won’t have there what we have here. We won’t have anywhere what we have here. Don’t you get it? Here is here. There is there. Even here isn’t here. Here is Wilmington and sick kids and Danny and losing races and over-solicitous hotel people and not knowing what you want for dinner or breakfast and not making love at night because we don’t know how. We know who we are at Topsail. Individually and together. Maybe it’s the island, the beach, the ocean. I don’t know. But we don’t even know who we are here in Wilmington. It’s only thirty miles away and we don’t work.”

  “I know who we are here,” he says.

  “Who are we?” she asks.

  “I’m a man in love with a woman who’s in love with a man but can’t accept it.”

  “Is that what you think? That I love you and I can’t accept it?”

  “Yes. Because you’re not even willing to entertain the possibility that maybe we can have something somewhere else.”

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll go surfing with you in April, you arrange it, send me a letter with the details. If I change my mind and I’m not there you’ll just have to accept that. But I will commit to considering it. And I’ll make plans for a lighthouse tour. I will write you and tell you when and where. With the same condition. That I might not show. In fact I might even tell you in April that it isn’t working and that I won’t see you at any lighthouse and that I don’t even want you to see me in July or in October or in January. Are you willing to accept those terms? To risk July and January on April? That you might end up somewhere without me? Or that somewhere else might end us? That you might end up at a lighthouse without me? That you might never see me again? Because I don’t know that I can change that much. I truly don’t know. I have done some things that are unfair to you. But you say that it’s your decision. So here’s some more things. I will commit to trying, but with the understanding that I might not show. Is that a deal?” she says.

  “Deal,” he answers.

  “Deal,” she repeats.

  They shake hands.

  She walks over the room service cart, pours coffee into two cups, hands him one, then pours hers out on the carpet. He pours his into the growing stain.

  Shannon and Joe

  Her car is running. The weak winter sun has melted the dusting of snow and the ice has turned to cold isolated puddles. The exhaust from her car is leaving a low-hanging fog in the parking lot. He has loaded her small bag in her trunk and is standing by her door. She has the window down to say good-bye.

  “I liked your letters. So please only write me letters,” she says.

  Joe is unsure how to answer.

  “No texts, or email
s, or calls. I don’t want that,” she says.

  Joe still doesn’t know how to answer.

  “It would be too immediate, too much in the now. Having chosen to live the way we are going to, having made our arrangement, our bargain, our deal, any email would be an instantaneous demand to write you back in that instant without thinking. Your letters are tangible, but they’re not demanding. They do not call for an instant reply,” she says. “They are something I can tolerate, something I can accept, something that fits into my world.”

  Joe begins to understand. Once again it is about demands, and freedom from demands.

  “I can think about what I want to say, or not say, and how I want to say it, or not say it. I can pick it up and put it down, know that it will be there the next day and that my pen can add words to my letter in my time, at my pace, as the thoughts appear and as I find the words to express them,” she says.

  Joe could see Shannon sitting with pen in hand, thinking on her words. He could not see her in front of a computer responding to some spur of the moment inane email.

  She continues. “I know you are there, and I’m here. It’s the deal we’ve made. Letters keep you here, emails and calls and texts make you too much where I am. A letter leaves you in your place and me in mine with a distinct boundary between our places. Skype is the worst idea ever. I don’t want that little of you, those horrible teases. I only want you when I can have you, and even then only some of the time. So the letters are the right thing. And our visits, and our trips of course. That’s who we are,” she finishes.

  Joe takes her hand in his. Raises it to his lips, kisses it gently.

  “It’s who we’ve chosen to be,” he says.

  Shannon

  “You agreed to what?” Cara asks Shannon.

  “I think you heard me,” Shannon says.

  “Julys and Januarys on Topsail? Then a surf week in April and a lighthouse week in October?”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’s not going to be coming to the house and seeing the kids and everybody during July is he?”

  “No. It’ll be like this July. Run or walk on the beach in the morning. Then meet him at his shop for coffee.”

  “Coffee?”

  “It’s a public place,” Shannon says.

  “So you’re telling me that you’re going to be able to see him every day in July and not have sex with him? After what you just told me you did all January?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you just said it’s a public place.”

  “I think we’ll figure it out...”

  Joe

  “You did what?” Joe’s sister asks.

  “We made a deal,” Joe says.

  “A deal I’m sure I’ll never understand. Won’t that deal insure that you’ll never find anyone else?”

  “I have found someone else. I found Shannon.”

  “You know what I mean,” his sister says.

  “You’ve been my sister for a long time. You knew me with Danny and you knew me with Colleen. How would you compare me now to me with either of them.”

  His sister looks him up and down. Drinks from her coffee. Then looks out the window and seems to focus on a place a long way away. She takes another drink from her coffee.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Joe asks.

  “You’re right. And I can’t figure it out. But then I never could figure you out,” she says.

  “Join the club,” Joe says.

  Shannon

  Dear Joe,

  If I had any doubt in my mind about visiting a sunny and warm location, this winter in Cleveland has removed that doubt. This has been a viciously cold winter, with day after day when the sun refused to shine.

  So, I am definitely coming to Costa Rica, for warm temperatures, warm water, sunlight, surfing, and of course to see you. I have no pre-conceived notions about what we will be like in Costa Rica. We might not work there like we didn’t work in Wilmington. It might not be like our January on Topsail. I just want you to be prepared for that to be the case.

  I have done some reading about surfing in Costa Rica and apparently you have chosen very wisely. The instructor and his camp have been very well reviewed by a large cross section of visitors, from absolute newbies to experienced surfers.

  I am a little concerned about some of the descriptions of Costa Rica (e.g., increasing drug use, not-illegal prostitution, unfinished projects) but am encouraged by the consistently warm water temperatures and the amount of sunlight.

  Life in my Coast Guard station is so very interesting. First there were the storms of November, and then the cold of December when the inner harbor started to freeze. Lake Erie was completely frozen over when I got back from our January in Topsail but then during a big wind storm the ice broke up and now there are patches of open water. The ice chunks (floes?) made an extremely loud noise as they crashed and ground against the break wall and against the base of my house. I guess I know why they built twelve feet of concrete at the base of my little tower.

  So I’ll see you in Costa Rica.

  Shannon

  p.s., who is going to be in charge of coffee???

  Joe

  Dear Shannon,

  Thank you for your letter.

  That is excellent news that you will be coming to Costa Rica.

  Yes I understand that we might not work there, but I also understand that we might work there. In fact, given that it will be sunny and warm and that we will be surfing and that there will be all types of new experiences around I am confident that we will work there. The place will be different from everywhere else we have been together but we will still be us. There will be surfing and sun and sand and beaches to walk on.

  The Atlantic has had an odd March, with the Gulf Stream running in closer than normal. This has led to some unique experiences this spring. There have been dense fogs and there have been spring thunder storms. And there has been excellent fishing. You remember Mike? We’ve gone out sport fishing on his boat a couple times and caught some tuna, some Mahi Mahi, and even a Wahoo, and we were only about two miles out. Usually you have to go out about twenty miles to catch anything here. I don’t usually like to go fishing on the ocean because it takes two hours to ride out to the Gulf Stream and then you get sea sick fishing out there and then it takes two hours to get back and you usually never catch anything. But this March has been truly unique.

  Of course this unique March is going to be followed by a truly unique April in Costa Rica.

  I’ve been running.

  I park where I normally park and run where I normally run and the memory of us together is still here on the beach, here on Topsail, just like you wanted it to be. We’re here together every day, and it’s so good. I see what you mean about keeping things good where they are good. We are good here, even in March.

  I hope we will be good in Costa Rica in April, but if we aren’t we aren’t and I’m not going to try to force something that isn’t there. Our January together here on the beach is still so now and vivid for me that it can be enough if Costa Rica doesn’t work out. Joe.

  Costa Rica

  I have arrived a day before she is scheduled to arrive. In her last letter she wrote that she was still coming. I will ride with the surf camp van to pick her up at the airport, even though she will be tired and will be adjusting to the heat and the humidity. I thought about letting her arrive here on her own terms. I thought about giving her the evening and night to acclimate and then seeing her in the morning. But then I thought she might wonder why I wasn’t there to meet her.

  So I have decided to meet her with the van. Which gives me the rest of the day to get the lay of the land.

  Already I can tell that this place is unplugged. There is no phone or television in my room. There is a small AM radio that I have not yet turned on. This place is really unplugged. It revolves around the tide, which makes sense because I am at a surf camp. A surf camp with a large main building at the bottom of a steep hi
ll and with a series of bungalows dotting the hillside from bottom to top.

  The main house has a deep porch on the three sides that will face the tropical sun. The doors and windows are open, and there are no screens. Which surprised me because I assumed there would be biblical amounts of mosquitoes. But so far I have seen none.

  There are three or four small, lean dogs that alternate between lazing in the shade and patrolling the grounds that have recently been tropical rain forest and that could return to rain forest at any moment. I get the feeling that if I closed my eyes or simply didn’t pay attention for a while that the rain forest, which is a polite word for jungle, will quickly reclaim these grounds. But what appears to be perpetual landscaping and perpetual house cleaning is keeping the jungle at bay. Men with machetes and mowers move relentlessly along the grounds.

  The main house has a twenty foot high peaked ceiling, with a small legion of geckos clinging to the undersides of the high ceiling. Perhaps this explains the absence of mosquitoes, but I am so new to the tropics that I am unsure. Actually this is not the tropics, this is the equatorial region. But I can’t stop thinking ‘tropical paradise’.

  I am sitting at a table, which I have learned is a ‘may-sa’ and am sitting in a chair, which I have learned is a ‘see-ya’. I have learned this from a slender young boy who I thought was seven but who turns out to be twelve. It seems that the Costa Ricans are shorter and leaner than we gringos. I am a fit gringo, which makes me stand out in two ways. I am thinner and more lean than the other gringo guests, but thicker, less lean, and taller than the Costa Ricans.