Water's End

by Jessica Deforest

  Mrs. Hawkins ran to the house and came back with a blanket to wrap around the man, who was shaking like an off-balance washing machine. Once they brought him to the porch and gave him hot coffee, he soon was smiling and chatting as if nothing had ever happened. After resting for a few minutes, he insisted that he was all right and left, thanking them profusely.

  That night, Anne had David's bed, and David was to sleep on the couch in the living room. Before she sank into bed, she wandered about David's room, which was full of books, records, and pictures of friends. His surfboard stood in the corner. Feeling more a part of him than ever, she ached for him.

  His pillow smelled like him, and she breathed in his familiar scent. It was the first time she would sleep where she could hear the sound of the ocean, and she loved its constant voice. After a while, she drifted off to sleep, only to awaken sometime before dawn when David crept into bed with her. They made furtive love, and he sneaked back into the living room just as the sun was coming up.

  The next day they went to visit his grandmother Hawkins, who lived close by on Lido Island.

  "You'll probably like the old girl," he said, "and I know she'll love you. She's rich as anything, and she recognizes quality. Has a house full of antiques she hauled out here from Connecticut."

  They drove across the causeway and parked behind a strikingly modern house that was all angles, glass, and wood, where David rang the bell. An elderly woman, leaning heavily on a cane, opened the door. In spite of David's description of his grandmother, Anne was not quite prepared for the elegant old woman who held out a slender hand to her.

  "I'm Carla Hawkins," she said. "My dear Anne, I've heard so much about you," she said, leading them into an expansive living room with a wall of glass that faced the beach.

  Chippendale chairs, a camelback sofa the color of sherry, elegant Queen Anne tables, and a fine Windsor rocking chair clustered about a vivid Persian carpet, relieving the stark lines of the house.

  David's grandmother was beautiful, with steel-gray hair swept into a large bun on the back of her head. She had strong features and a cameo profile. Although Carla was probably in her late seventies, her skin was virtually unlined, and her large blue eyes held wit and intelligence. She sat upright with the posture of a ballet dancer or a princess.

  Anne thought the woman probably could be intimidating, but she reminded her of her own grandmother, so she was comfortable with her.

  "How long will you be with us before you have to go back?" Mrs. Hawkins asked.

  "We have several more days here, but it's not nearly enough time. I wish I could stay forever." Anne looked around. "Your antiques are beautiful."

  "Thank you. I've loved them my whole life. Many of these things belonged to my parents and their parents before them. I'm told that pewter teapot over there came on a ship from England with one of our ancestors. Some say it was on the Mayflower. Depends on whether you're talking to our snooty relatives or not."

  Anne laughed. "I like antiques too. In fact, my grandmother left me a few things: her rice-post bed and some wonderful wicker. They're not as olds, but I love her things. She was a member of the DAR and used to talk a lot about our ancestors and how they came on the Mayflower, too. She said one of them fell overboard in a storm but hauled himself back on the ship. Of course, I don't know if it's gospel, but she was a truthful woman, so I guess it's for real.

  "The other side of the family is the opposite," Anne said. "My grandpa, mama's dad, was half Choctaw Indian. He always said my dad's people may have come over on the Mayflower, but his folks were already on the shore, waiting for them."

  Mrs. Hawkins laughed. "That explains your dark eyes and high cheekbones. But you're so fair, and that red hair."

  "The other parts are pure Scots-Irish, with a little German thrown in for restraint, so I come by the fair skin naturally. The hair comes from a bottle."

  "David tells me you're a model too," Mrs. Hawkins said.

  "I do a little fashion work on the weekends, but I don't much like it. Bores me. It's been a good way to earn money for college, though."

  "What will you do when you graduate?"

  "I'd like to write a little. And teach," Anne said.

  "She's had some stuff published already," David said. "Had a piece in the local newspaper when she was twelve, and her first poem was published when she was in high school."

  Looking over at him, Anne laughed. "And I've probably collected more rejection slips than anybody I know. Enough to paper this whole room."

  Mrs. Hawkins shifted in her wing chair. "Send me some of your work, young lady. I love poetry. And don't ever give up your dreams. I expect great things from you."

  She gestured at David. "Now you two youngsters run off somewhere alone together. You shouldn't be indoors in a stuffy house with a dull old woman on a day like this. Go off and have fun."

  Taking her advice, David called his mother to let her know they wouldn't be home for dinner, and they put the top down and drove around, exploring Lido Island.

  "Look, there's Rock Hudson's house," David said.

  All she could see was a wall. "Where's the house?" she asked.

  "It faces the water. We'll see the front when we get off the island. And this is where Jane Wyman lives."

  Another high wall blocked their view. "I suppose that one faces the water, too."

  "They all do, for the view."

  From Lido they drove to Laguna Beach to walk along the beach and watch the sunset. Afterward, they went to a restaurant overlooking the water and stuffed themselves on rockfish and shrimp.

  Later that night, lying in bed, Anne hugged her pillow and thought she had never been so happy. It felt good, being accepted by a loving family and treated as if she mattered. Her family was splintered, like defective glass, probably because her mother was so fragile emotionally.

  When her dad died, there was nothing to hold her family together, and now there certainly was little evidence of love when they all got together. She thought David's folks were a perfect family, in a Leave it to Beaver sort of way. Anne was thrilled they liked her, because she found herself falling in love with them all.

  David and his mother woke Anne up the next morning, bouncing on her bed like two-year-olds, beating her with pillows and calling out, "Slug-a-bed, sleepy-head, time to get out of bed."

  "Go away," she said, trying to stop the pillows with her arms. "You people are crazy," Anne said, but the harder she protested, the more they bounced, until she finally joined in their laughter.

  "Come on, hon," David said. "Today's the day we're going to play tourist. Mom will be our tour guide. She knows everything about Hollywood, and she won't charge us a penny."

  "Yes, it's off to tinsel town," Angela said. "Let's take the usual tacky bus tour of Beverly Hills and have lunch on Hollywood Boulevard."

  David said, "And don't forget Grauman's Chinese Theater."

  Their day in Hollywood was all that David promised. At last she saw for real the places she had only read about in movie magazines. She stared wide-eyed, first at the famed Hollywood sign when it came into sight, and then at the Capitol Records Building, just off Hollywood Boulevard.

  "It's round," she said. "I've never seen anything like it."

  "It was the first circular office building in the world, I think." David said. He craned his neck. "Look up top, There's a red light up there that blinks out Hollywood in Morse code. You can see it better at night."

  They drove past the Beverly Hills Hotel, dozens of restaurants, theaters, and bars. The streets teemed with tourists. They did some serious people watching as they ate lunch at a burger joint on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Afterward, the three of them took a bus tour of the stars' homes, winding through the lushly landscaped streets of Beverly Hills. She was surprised, though, because the houses they saw didn't look that fancy to her.

  As if reading her thoughts, the bus driver said over the public address system, "Folks, these houses may not be all that
big, but keep in mind that this is some of the most expensive real estate in the world. A house that sells for $25,000 in your hometown would be worth several million if you could move it out here and set it down in Beverly Hills. And Bel Air? It's even more expensive. That's where the real money is."

  Later, they lingered outside Grauman's Chinese Theater, where she and David's mother giggled as they tried to fit their hands into Marilyn Monroe's handprints in the cement. They all stared at the exhibit inside that contained Judy Garland's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

  Reluctantly, they headed back to Newport Beach early to avoid the rush-hour traffic. She enjoyed having David's mom along. Angie looked and acted more like a teenager than a parent, always ready with a joke or a laugh.

  When they told her of their plans to ride up the coast to Santa Barbara and the little Danish town of Solvang, David’s mom refused to go with them, even though they begged her.

  "No way," she said. "This is your vacation, and I'm not going to spoil it for you by tagging along."

  The next day they left at daybreak for the three-hour drive to Solvang. For miles they rode alongside the ocean, watching the landscape grow rockier and more mountainous as they went farther north. "We'll stop in Santa Barbara on the way back," David said, driving on past the town and turning inland on San Marcos Road.

  They passed several wineries as they wandered through the Santa Ynez Valley, and she wished they had time to stop and visit one, but they couldn't do everything.

  "Where shall we live when we get married?" David said.

  "California."

  "But where?"

  "I don't know. We'll think of that when it's time."

  Married? He actually said married. Maybe that's why he wanted me to meet his family. Is he going to propose to me? She was so happy and excited she could barely keep her composure.

  In another forty-five minutes they were in Solvang, a Danish-style village in the rolling hills of the wine country. From the looks of things, it would be easy to believe they she and David had been transported to Europe. Half-timbered houses with thatched or slate roofs lined the streets, and a gigantic windmill dominated one thoroughfare.

  Holding hands, they looked in gift-shop windows, each hung with different Danish lace curtains. When at last they could walk no farther, David pulled her toward the Brass Lion. "Come on," he said, "time for borgasmord."

  Anne laughed. "What did you say?"

  "It's kid-language for smorgasbord. It's what I called it when I was little."

  They sat on high-backed wooden benches at a trestle table and ate cold salads, potatoes, pickled fish, and a lot of dishes they couldn't name, from the buffet.

  As David promised earlier, they stopped off in Santa Barbara on the way home to visit the art museum and Mission Santa Barbara, the queen of missions. Anne loved the art museum, but it was the huge mission church that amazed her the most, with its vivid colors and high ceiling.

  Before they got back in the car and turned south, they strolled the broad sidewalk along the beach, looking in shops and stopping to eat tacos at a Mexican restaurant with a view of the ocean

  On the Fourth of July they didn't leave the house at all but ate lunch on the patio and basked in the cool ocean breezes. The beach was so jammed they would never have been able to get anywhere.

  Cars were parked on every available inch of the street, including in front of the Hawkins's garage doors in spite of the Private Property, No Parking sign. David’s parents often had to call the police and have a car towed just to get out of their own garage, even when it wasn’t a holiday. Since they weren't going anywhere, they ignored the cars that blocked their driveway, thinking that the police had enough to do that day.

  In the evening, they had a barbecue on the patio, and then watched fireworks light up the sky and the sea before them. Anne could hardly wait for David to come to her bed that night so they could make some fireworks of their own.

  The next two days they spent lolling about on the beach or the patio. As she packed the night before they left, Anne thought how she hated to leave, and she wondered if she would ever come back to this magical place. One thing was certain. Not only had she fallen in love with David's family, but she was in love with California.

  Once again, David stole into bed with her during the night, holding her close, pulling her on top of him so that her hair hung down around his face like a curtain as she kissed him. "Mmmm, like the willow tree," he whispered to her.

  Saturday morning they were up before daylight, driving as far as they could before the desert got too hot. As they crossed one seemingly endless stretch of barren sand, Anne said, "Where are we?"

  "Looks like the backside of the moon. You suppose we've driven too far?"

  "Verrrry funny," Anne said, giving him a poke in the ribs.

  They arrived back in Kansas in twenty-two hours, whipped-horse tired but happy. David claimed the drive back took less time because it was downhill, but Anne suspected he drove faster when she slept.

  Connie hadn't made the return trip with them but planned to stay with her family a few more days and fly back. Anne's mother didn't need to know they drove back unchaperoned, any more than she needed to know how many nights David slept in her daughter's bed.

  When at last they pulled into Anne's driveway, they didn't even bother to unload their suitcases. Instead, they showered and staggered to bed, sleeping the afternoon away.

  Around eight o'clock in the evening, David shook Anne. "Come on, come on, wake up. I have a surprise for you." He was already dressed.

  "Okay, okay. What's so important?"

  "Come on, we'll miss sunset."

  "Have you lost your mind? What's the big deal about sunset? Besides, there's no hurry. It's summer, and the sun doesn't go down until almost nine o'clock anyway."

  "Just stop your fussing and come on," he said, kissing her all over her face.

  Then he started tickling her, so she had no choice but to jump up and slide into shorts and a tee. She just had time to grab a bag of potato chips and a couple of bottles of soda before he started the car.

  "Why all this mystery?" she asked, sliding in beside him.

  "Shh, you'll see."

  Before he even pulled out of the driveway, she knew where they were headed. They munched on the chips as they rode along, washing them down with root beer. When they got to the lake, he grabbed the army blanket out of the back seat.

  The sun was just starting to set, turning sky and water coral, pink, and lavender. They walked across the little bridge to the willow tree, where he pulled her beneath its shelter onto the blanket and kissed her long and hard.

  "Now stand up," he said.

  "What?" Anne wondered what he could be up to.

  He kissed her lightly and said, "Please stand up."

  So she stood up just out of curiosity, and when she did, he shifted to one knee, drawing something from his pocket.

  "Now put out your left hand so I can kiss it," he said.

  Puzzled and feeling silly, she did as he asked, but instead of kissing her hand, he slid a ring on her finger. It was a perfect fit.

  "Will you marry me?" he asked.

  She felt faint. "Of course. I mean yes," she said. "Yes."

  Once again they made love beneath the willow, as she wept happy tears. It wasn't until they were back in the car, more than slightly disheveled, that she even thought to look at the ring he had placed on her finger. They stopped under a street lamp so she could see it.

  "Oh, David, it's gorgeous," she said. The big diamond solitaire flashed as she turned her hand from side to side. "But when did you have time to buy it? You've done nothing but work and travel for the last month."

  "That's one of the reasons we went to California. It's Grandma Hawkins's ring. She wanted you to have it."

  "You mean she knew you were going to propose to me?"

  "They all knew. And they all approved."

  Chapter 12

  Something was
wrong. Like the weather, there was a chill between David and her. Since their engagement, he had become increasingly distant. As summer blazed into autumn, he spent less and less time with her, claiming he had to help get the barracks ready for inspection or go on a shoot after work. More often than not, when she did see him, he made some excuse not to spend the night.

  Days stretched into weeks, and the whole month of September she hardly saw him. She begged him to tell her what was wrong, but he insisted she was imagining things. More and more, he had a faraway look in his eyes. There had been no arguments, no big disagreements, just this increasing silence. By mid-October, they hadn't made love in two weeks. It was like a replay of her life with Joe.

  She couldn't understand what was going on. He told her he loved her, he made love as if he meant it, he took her to meet his family last summer, and he gave her his grandmother's engagement ring.

  She loved his mother and father, adored his two grandmothers. Meeting them, she felt as she did when she met David, as if a missing part of her had been found.

  Yet she felt that David was gradually drifting away from her. They had talked about setting a date, or rather, talked around and about it, but that was all there was, just talk.

  A couple of times in her life she had thought she was in love, but those romances had not even come close to David. Anne knew this was the love she dreamed about as a child, the once-upon-a-time promise that would grow stronger and stronger with time.

  David Hawkins's soul fit with hers the way his body did. She wanted his children, wanted to feel their love growing in her body, under her heart. But she feared it would never happen.

  Finally, one evening after a silent dinner, she begged him to tell her what was going on. "Please, please, tell me what I've done," she said. But he didn't answer her.

  In desperation, she gave Grandma Hawkins's cherished diamond back. "I don't know what’s wrong," she said, "but until you tell me, I'm not wearing this."

  To her astonishment, he took the ring without saying anything, turned on his heel, and left.

  She was dying inside and wished she hadn't pushed him. After that he stopped calling. What made matters worse was that she still saw him at work every day, and he acted as if nothing had happened, chatting, smiling at her, and sometimes even flirting.