Savannah by the Sea

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “No, we’re squatty and stout.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “You know what I mean, Paige. So you need to start smaller and work your way up if necessary. Start with a wedge. You can balance yourself better. Trust me, I’ve learned that the hard way. Then work up to a smaller heel. But no matter how we start, we really do need to lie up the beach from the two of them.”

  “I agree. We don’t need to be too close for comparison. But we need something to eat first. Want an ice cream?”

  “It’s only ten thirty, and you just ate a huge breakfast.”

  “But my hips are hungry!”

  “Well fiddle-dee-dee.Then by all means, let’s eat ice cream.”

  Heavenly Shortcakes and Ice Cream wasn’t open at ten thirty in the morning. Apparently only Paige felt ice cream fit into the breakfast category.“It is dairy,” she told me. But we were forced to make our way onto the beach.

  “Yoo-hoo! Girls! Over here.”

  So much for lying upstream. Dad had already situated himself in a nice lounge chair and propped the latest John Grisham novel across his chest. Come to think of it, Dad and John favor each other quite a bit. Dad has acquired a few more gray hairs, but it really was quite uncanny. And I had never even thought about it until that moment.

  Mother was doing battle with her umbrella. Wasn’t quite sure why she needed it. Sister’s hat could protect a small settlement. Amber had chosen the chair beside Mother and reserved two more next to them for Paige and myself.We would have chosen the two by Dad, but People and Us Weekly protected our places.

  Paige laid her new wrap delicately at the foot of her chair, and I tried to ease out of my lime-green skirt, which matched my white two-piece with the small green leaves and pink flowers. The suit had been hanging in the window last year and caught my eye immediately. It fit perfectly, and I had worn it ever since. Good thing I loved it. Money (or lack thereof) would make it mine for another year.

  Paige and I plopped onto our loungers. I adjusted my straps to avoid tan lines. Every summer required the perfect tan. And the perfect tan required the perfect lotion and no strap marks. But the commotion next to us caused us to turn our attention to our beach buddies.

  First, Mother and Amber tugged on their loungers until they landed predominantly beneath the umbrella, as if any sun could actually muscle its way under their hats. As if that wasn’t enough protection, they slathered their bodies with SPF 80.Amber’s came in an orange tube. Mother pulled out a brown Tropicana bottle that looked very similar to my suntan oil. They both slathered themselves like chickens getting ready for the frying pan.

  “May as well get comfortable,” I told Paige. “Watching this could take up most of our morning.” So we turned over, and Paige laid her head on her arms, but I placed my arms to the side to make sure everything got equal exposure, and then we continued to enjoy the show. The panhandle’s hurricane season was about to start off with a bang. Two perfect storms had just landed at once on the beaches of Seaside.

  Then the two sorted their magazines and laid them neatly across the bottom of their loungers. They each retrieved a bottled water and finally, after they had straightened their towels twice, laid their bodies to rest. And in no less than ten minutes, each of them was fast asleep:Victoria sputtering, Amber downright sawing logs. And both of the bottom of their legs gradually taking on more and more sun as it shifted in the heavens. By now, even the sun seemed to move slower. I think they wore it out too.

  “Ooh, champ should cover his bum,” Paige said, caus-ing me to set Tolstoy aside on page one line one, again.

  I noticed the dark, leathery-looking thirty-something walking up the beach in a thong. The oil slathered across his body made every defined muscle scream out.

  Paige let her eyes rest on the top of her magazine. “Well, champ’s got a nice bum at least.”

  “You make it sound like you’ve seen worse.”

  “Don’t you remember that vacation I took with my parents to Europe? We went to the beach that turned out to be nudist? Honey, I saw things on that trip that shouldn’t have been allowed to see the sun!”

  Dad laughed from behind his book.“Girls, you are pathetic.”

  “Just don’t even think about it,” I warned him.

  “What? You don’t want to see your daddy’s pretty legs?” He yanked his shorts up to midthigh.

  “Stop it! That’s a visual a child should never have to endure.”

  Our banter woke the sleeping beauties.“Oh Lord,have mercy,” Mother said as she caught sight of the two cheeks sauntering up the beach.

  “That behind could win a beauty pageant,”Amber observed.

  Paige and I looked at her, puzzled. Well, I guess she would know.

  “Savannah wore a thong once.”

  “Paige!” I said, slapping her.

  “Well, you did.” She rubbed her arm.

  “I know you did not, Savannah Phillips,” Mother called.

  “So pitiful she put it on sideways. Didn’t even notice till it got wedged in the middle of the church service.”

  “That is what thongs do!” I said, slapping her again.“And you have just been completely barred from all of the remaining embarrassing moments of my life.”

  Amber found herself amused.“How do you put a thong on sideways?”

  “If it can be done, sister here can do it.”

  I picked my book back up to ignore them all. Until I caught a glimpse of a man with blond spiky hair and the petite brunette alongside him. “Oh my word, that looks like that singer. You know, the one I like, Jonathan Pierce.”

  Paige looked up.“No way. That’s not him.”

  “It is. I really think it is. That must be his wife?”

  Paige crinkled her eyes against the sun.“If it is, she’s a midget.”

  “You shouldn’t say that,”Amber scolded.“She’s petite. And he is fine.” She slid her Jackie O sunglasses down to the top of her nose.

  “I know. I was hoping he wasn’t married. But he is. I heard she’s a fiction writer.”

  Amber looked closer herself. “What kind of fiction does she write?”

  I squinted for a better look.“I hear they’re books about crazy people from the South.”

  Paige threw the towel over her head. Her voice was muffled through the cotton.“Well, don’t let her see us. She’d have enough stories to tell for years.”

  “I heard she writes about her husband’s music in her books.”

  Paige let the towel fall beneath one eye. “That is shameless cross-marketing.”

  “I think it’s charming.” Amber’s face contorted into a rather odd smile.

  They drifted up the beach, and our line of sight was overtaken by an eighteen-year-old with a perfectly taut teenage body in her little itsy-bitsy, army-green bikini.

  “Those were the days, weren’t they, sister?” Paige looked at the young girl with woeful countenance.

  “Yes, they were, my friend. Yes, they were.”

  “Girls, you are sad creatures,” Mother said.

  Paige uncovered the other eye. “I bet her boobs are fake.”

  “Paige! That’s horrible.” I turned to look for myself.

  “No. They’re not fake,” Amber said.

  Paige turned her eyes toward her.“And how, pray tell, would you know?”

  Amber rolled her eyes.“Paige Long, I have seen enough fake boobs in my life to know when they are and when they aren’t. Fake boobs sit high, like little balls in the top of your chest. Do you see hers? No ball. No sitty-uppy. Therefore, no fake boobies.”

  Had cameras been watching us, they would have caught four I-spiers flanking one fake boob expert turn their heads in unison like a bunch of Charlie McCarthy dolls. Well, if her assessment was correct, those were the real thing.

  We watched the woman continue her stroll up the beach, and her departure caused Paige and me to examine Amber’s boobies.

  “They’re mine, girls, all mine,” she said with extreme
satisfaction as she took a bite from a Snickers bar.

  We leaned to look over her in the direction of my mother.

  “Don’t you dare even ask me such a question.That is totally inappropriate,” she retorted.

  “All real,” Dad said with a shameful grin. “All real.”

  “Jake!” Mother said, slapping him with a totally enjoyable smile.

  “Sick!” Paige and I blurted in tandem.

  Amber crinkled her nose. “Oh, Mr. Phillips, that’s just not right. I’m certain that is not right.”

  Paige and I looked down to examine our own. “Where’d they go?” I asked. “Ooh, there they are.” That caused every one of us to laugh hysterically. I even think Jake had to wipe his eyes.

  Paige couldn’t let it go. She had one final assessment of our situation.“ Yep, no ball. No sitty-uppy. Perfectly real. Too bad for us.”

  “Look on the bright side, ladies,” Dad said.“You could look like that.” He nodded his head to the man walking down the beach with man boobs.

  For the first time in twenty-four hours, all women were speechless.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

  Happy “Ahh! Get off of me!” Mother screamed.

  “What is it now?” I asked, peeking over Paige’s red top, which offered little obstruction.

  “It’s those love bugs. Those nasty little horny creatures.”

  “Mother,” I said in mock shock. “You shouldn’t use such words.”

  “Well, they are. Have you ever seen anything so disgusting? That they’re bugs is bad enough, but to be attached by the tail is just . . . well, it’s just”—she shivered, very closely resembling her new pet—“it’s simply sordid.”

  She sounded like she was writing a tawdry romance novel. Wish I could read the novel I brought.

  “We studied them in my biology class once,” Amber said.

  For some reason that didn’t surprise me.

  “In fact, their whole way of reproducing is rather interesting.”

  “I’m certain we’re not interested,” Mother advised.

  Paige leaned over in Amber’s direction.“No,we’re interested.”

  “Well, let’s just say there is a lot of rivalry between males, and the women die quickly after they lay their eggs.”

  “Well, that’s the most wonderful and depressing thing I’ve ever heard,” Paige said, rolling onto her back. “You finally have men fighting over you; then they get what they want and kill you in the process.”

  “I told you that you didn’t want to know.”

  For the first time, Paige might have actually agreed with my mother.

  Mother had packed a masterpiece in that cooler. That was why Dad was so willing to carry it for her. Homemade chicken salad. And a perfectly complementary bean, onion, and tomato salad in a balsamic vinaigrette. And crunchy garlic melba toast bites to eat with it.

  “No Doritos?” Paige asked.

  Mother looked at her and smiled. Then she dipped into that magic bag of hers and pulled out a grab-size bag of Doritos.

  “I love you.”

  “I know you do.”

  The cabana boy in red trunks and wavy sun-streaked blond hair distracted all of the females’ attention. Paige stuffed her Doritos bag up under her chair while he settled the bill for the chairs and umbrellas with my father.

  “Hey,” I whispered, poking her. She wouldn’t turn back toward me. “Hey.” She still couldn’t exit her trance. “Hey!” This time all heads turned toward me. Even Mr. Cabana Boy’s. I smiled, trying to assure them I still had one leg outside of Kookooville. All heads turned back to their business, and this time I pinched Paige’s arm.

  She turned to me in disgust.“Wipe your mouth,” I said in my newfound whisper.“You’ve got nacho cheese dust all over it.”

  She wiped in panic mode without turning back to the visitor. Then she looked up at me for my inspection and approval.

  “Say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” she mouthed, and with that she stood up to flaunt her confidence in her “Body by Amber.” Paige’s little red and white striped skirt followed Cabana Boy back to his cabana, and they disappeared in a sea of red.

  The Gulf Coast hasn’t been called the Redneck Riviera for nothing. In fact, the actual definition of redneck descended the stairs from the East Ruskin Beach Pavilion about the time Paige made her exit. It was the bleached-blonde hair that vied for the color of mustard, French’s to be exact, with the year-old perm that stuck out from underneath the hot pink cowboy hat that gave her away. I could see the matching fingernail polish on her two-inch nails as they tugged at the front of her hat. But it was the black-and-white zebra-striped bikini with hot pink straps that wrapped the garland on the tree. How she managed to slather herself in oil without clawing her skin was indeed a feat.

  I was ready to swim. However, the gnawing fear that I would drown if I didn’t wait thirty minutes after eating had remained with me these twenty-four years. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t break the phobia that I would walk into the water and the load in my stomach would somehow drag me to the deepest floor of the ocean. So I decided to take a trip to the bathroom. That would occupy some time. No one wanted to join me, since everyone else had gone at different intervals throughout the morning. Amber Topaz and Mother multiple times.

  I noticed a familiar face walking into the surf store.“Adam!” He turned toward me, and his eyes rewarded me with immediate recognition.

  “Savannah. When did your family get here?” He walked over and gave me a hug.

  “We just got in yesterday. How are you?”

  “Doing pretty good,” he said, fiddling with the buckle of his belt awkwardly.

  “Well, I thought I might see you and Kate this morning. So how is she? Where is she? And the boys? How are they?”

  He raked his hands through his short brown hair.“Well, a lot happens in a year, Savannah.”

  I read between the lines. I had met Adam and Kate ten years ago. I was fourteen, and they were twenty-four-year-old newlyweds whose wedding gift from their parents was a home in Seaside. They took to me and I took to them. And each year we would catch up on the year before. And each year brought news of no children . . . until fertility treatments after seven years of marriage resulted in gorgeous twin boys. And Kate and Adam, as if they weren’t already a perfect family,multiplied their perfection with twins.“Yeah? What’s going on,Adam?”

  “Well, it’s too much to tell standing out here. But Kate’s at the house, so I’m sure she can fill you in, and I know that she would love to see you. I’m grabbing a few things for the boys before I go over and get them. She’ll be alone this evening, and I’m sure she would love the company.”

  “Why is she alone?” I prodded.

  “Savannah, really, it’s all for the best.”

  “If you’re trying to tell me that you two aren’t living together, then I don’t know how that is for the best of anybody.”

  “Trust me, Savannah, it is.” He fidgeted with his pocket now.

  “Best for whom?”

  His tone grew more frustrated.“Best for all of us.” He paused to settle his temper. “Now”—he took me by the arms—“you look beautiful. And it is wonderful to see you, as always. And please, go see Kate. She’ll love it.” He pecked me on the cheek. “I’ve really got to run.”And with that he slipped into the world of surfboards at Roxy. I stared at the door, feeling as if part of the earth’s spinning had just slowed down. Surely this all had a perfectly logical explanation that could be remedied. I just needed to find the logic.

  Lucy and Manuel were sitting at a small table outside Roly-Poly’s when I exited the bathroom. It looked like my story would be pretty easy to get after all. She had donned a hat befitting my beach partners. Vicky would love her all the more.“Good morning again, you two.”

  “Well, hello again yourself,Miss Savannah,” Lucy said, setting her fre
sh-squeezed lemonade to rest on the table. Manuel just smiled and pointed to his full mouth.“Want some?” She lifted her chicken-caesar wrap.

  “No. Just ate, actually. A few of us are about to go swimming. Maybe we could talk about New Orleans some. Would you like to join us?”

  “No, not today,” Lucy offered. “Today I am taking my Manuel shopping.”

  “Ooh, Manuel’s lucky day.” I eyed him with a wink.

  “Oh, yes. Lucky man am I.”

  The sight of Joshua and some guys coming out of one of the shops past Manuel’s head caught my attention.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked. She looked up to see the group exiting the store.“You know them?”

  I sat down quickly in their extra chair and rested my elbow on the table, using my hand to shield my face. “I know the one in the white shorts. Please tell me when they’ve gone.”

  “Okay . . . wait . . . one more minute, they’re looking in a window . . . Now they’re talking . . . Now they’re laughing . . . Okay, they’re moving . . . they’re moving . . .”

  “Lucy.” Manuel laughed.“You’re crazy.”

  “Okay . . . one more second, they’re about to round the corner. Whew.” She let out a sigh. “All safe.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Totally.”

  I looked up at the two of them smiling at me. “I’m an idiot.”

  Lucy reached over and patted my hand.“No, it’s precious. So, how long have you loved the man in the white shorts?”

  I looked up to make sure the guys were out of view and responded without thinking. I laughed.“Me? Love Joshua? Oh no, I don’t love Joshua. He’s just a guy who works with me. Who torments me. Who drives me crazy. I mean,my stars, he was just kissing some girl yesterday . . . no, I don’t love him . . . can’t even stand him most—”

  Lucy wiped her face calmly.“Savannah, you talk a lot.”

  “I know. I babble.”

  “But you do love him. It’s all over your face.”

  “No. It could be a bout of indigestion from Victoria’s chicken salad I had for lunch, but trust me, love for Joshua North it is not.”

  “Call it what you will. But don’t you agree, Manuel?”