Whole Latte Life

by Joanne DeMaio

  But that she loves about him. Loving concern, the way he worries about little things like the sand burning her feet. How do you distinguish between the two, obsession and care?

  She hikes the nautical tote over her shoulder, Michael carries two sand chairs and they walk side-by-side in the heat of the day. There’s a simplicity here she likes: footsteps gritty with sand on the beach road, bees bumbling a little slower, green lawns giving way to mid-summer brown, hushed cottages, the sun high in the sky.

  “Where you headed?” Rachel asks when he takes a left through the parking lot where he should turn right. “Aren’t we set up on the other end of the beach?”

  He turns back to her. “Any certified beach bum knows this is the way to the ice cream truck.”

  Okay. Something’s going on here, but she’s not sure what. “Of course,” she says. “What was I thinking?”

  They stand in line watching kids hop from one burning foot to the other on the hot pavement. Bathing suits drip, wet hair lays flipped back, dollar bills hang limp with salt water as the kids study the menu pictured on the side of the truck.

  “What do you want?” Michael asks.

  “Well.” She looks at the pictures on the menu. “Candy Center Crunch. How about you?”

  “Nascar Sundae.”

  In the center of the boardwalk stretching along the beach, a wooden canopy provides shade from the glaring sun. Usually grandmothers and hot babies in strollers, their equally hot mothers rolling the sandy wheels back and forth, line the shade. But on days like today, everybody crowds under. They find a seat and Michael stands facing the marina, one foot up on the seat, his elbow resting on the top plank, working on the fudge and nut encrusted sundae. He surveys the boats below in the boat basin.

  “Would you ever want a boat?” he asks.

  “I’m not really into that.” Her hand is cupped beneath the dripping vanilla ice cream.

  “Me neither. But if you had to pick, what boat would you choose?”

  Many of the slips are empty on a hot day like this, so the selection is meager. She decides on a white cabin cruiser. “It’s small and sleek, with that shiny chrome. I’ll bet it runs smooth.”

  Michael considers her choice. “Not bad. But I’d pick that one,” he says, pointing in the opposite direction.

  “Which one?”

  “The green one.” Her gaze moves past a Boston Whaler to an old wooden fishing boat with flat wood plank seats framing the back end, a higher post for the captain in the center.

  “A fishing boat?” She looks up at Mr. New York City with his dark hair curling out of his Yankees cap, his face touched by scars and a shadow of a beard, his eyes street-wise. “You?”

  “I’d find a little cove,” he admits. She hears something, a realization that he has to change, to contemplate his stress disorder, like he might on that old boat, “throw out the anchor, set out my fishing line, lay cushions down on those planks in the back and take a nap under the sun. Hidden in the marsh grasses. When I woke up, I’d tell everybody about the one that got away.”

  “Oh.” She considers his boat and pictures him sleeping on the water, his Yankees cap pulled over his face. “Maybe I’d sell my boat if you’d take me for a ride on yours, Skipper.”

  “We’ll see,” he says, picking up the two sand chairs. “Gilligan.”

  They near the end of the boardwalk and step onto the sand. “Is that our umbrella there?” She points to the green and yellow striped umbrella at the water’s edge. “The one with the tubes around it?” Two inflated beach tubes, one metallic blue, the other electric pink, encircle the umbrella pole.

  “That’s right.”

  She smiles. Which she gets the feeling is fully his intention.

  They open the sandchairs in front of the umbrella and Rachel gently massages sunscreen onto Michael’s shoulder. Though five years have passed, the skin there still seems tender. Maybe it always will. Or should, she thinks, keeping her touch soft. Michael takes her hand in his and they settle in their low chairs. Sitting at the water’s edge, the sun’s hot rays pulse. Eventually he pulls off his cap.

  “Race you?” He looks from her to the water.

  “Sure.” She takes off her sunglasses.

  “Do you need a head start?”

  “A head start?” she begins saying, which gives him enough time to jump from his seat and run into the water, Rachel close on his heels, splashing him when he breaks through the water’s surface.

  “Hey,” he laughs, running his hand through his wet hair.

  And they never leave the water the entire afternoon. Sitting back in their tubes, the current carries them along the length of the beach, their relaxed arms dipping into the water, their feet submerged.

  Rachel knows what he is giving her: One of those days that you recall for years to come, during really hot summers, growing old together. This crystal day that shines forever. At times, Michael reaches over and pulls her a little closer, the two tubes gently bumping close, then separating.

  “This is better than my overstuffed recliner.” His eyes are closed when he says it.

  “Any beach bum knows that,” she agrees after a few moments, giving herself a slow spin. “I think it has something to do with the surroundings.”

  “Probably,” he finally adds, stealing a look at her from behind his aviators.

  Every minute passes in such a way that Rachel finally asks him if this perfect day can actually be his secret plan.

  “You ask too many questions.”

  For dinner, he takes her to a local seaside joint where they carry cardboard pails of clams and red and white checked trays of French fries outside to stone tables overlooking saltwater tributaries running through a lagoon. They swap bellies for strips, share a cup of tartar sauce, count herons and kingfishers.

  Afterward, he gets a Frisbee from the pickup truck. Rachel sidles up behind him, slipping her arms around his waist. “What else is hidden in there?”

  “Never you mind,” he tells her as he turns and kisses her. “Just never mind.” He hands her the Frisbee then, and walks her back to the beach.

  Rachel always thought of herself as an independent thinker.

  She prides herself on being not easily swayed, confident in her convictions. But the next day, she wakes up thinking that if indoctrination is this life, these two days, she’ll gladly follow Michael’s ideology. He walks into the room showered and dressed in his swimsuit, untucked navy top, boat shoes, and two cups of coffee. Rachel sits up in her nightshirt and props the pillow behind her.

  “Good morning,” Michael says. “Sleep well?”

  “Yes.” She gladly takes the coffee from him. “How about you?”

  He sits alongside her facing the far window. “Great.”

  She cups her lighthouse coffee mug. “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep. Too perfect of a morning. I went for a run.”

  A run. This is new, and she knows it’s part of his therapy, exercise instead of worry. She tastes her coffee, then inhales deeply. It smells so comforting, coffee grounds, the salt air, summer. “Let me shower,” she says, throwing back the sheet and swinging her legs over the bed. “Then I’ll make French toast.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She wraps her robe loosely and leaves the room, smiling because he definitely has something up his sleeve. Some summertime, beach, cottage doctrine. It drives her crazy, wondering how else he plans to win, or steal, or borrow her heart with his own personal ideology. At the same time, she wonders about his silent, unspoken efforts to change, if they’ll work, or if he’ll tire of them and stop.

  Their day takes serious shape after a second helping of French toast. Rachel hears snipping noises while drying the dishes and sees him setting small pieces of rag on the Newport table beside the couch before taking it all out to his truck. Finally, when she’s back to the jigsaw puzzle, he turns the corner with his Yankees cap pulled low, carrying a big black bat kite in one hand, its wide orange ey
es peering skyward. The kite tail is made out of the rag strips, hanging limp. His other hand grips a large spool of string.

  On the beach, she runs with the kite while Michael manipulates the string, unwinding it as the bat climbs into the pale morning sky. Hundreds of feet above, it pulls and dips in the air currents. Occasionally Michael passes the spool over to a curious onlooker, letting them wind it in a little, then set it free, like reeling in a fish. Late morning, they pull the kite carefully in as it swoops and dive-bombs in its descent, then spend the rest of the day lazy on the beach, playing cards, reading, the waves and surrounding voices conducive to half-dozing.

  But it is the shimmering summer heat which helps cast Michael’s spell. In the warm sunlight, veils of responsibility and worry and schedules all drop off. Strangers nod at them and say hello. In the heat of the afternoon, having an ice cream on the boardwalk, a group of teenaged girls watches them from their blanket, laying flat on their sleek, tanned stomachs, propped on elbows. Wishing only this for themselves some day. Only having a great guy and an ice-cream and the summer beach in their lives.

  Rachel and Michael make it seem like enough.

  After a grilled steak dinner with salad and corn-on-the-cob, Michael pulls two paddles out of his trunk. The day winds down as he leads Rachel on a well-worn path that curves behind a row of cottages down to a lagoon. Anchored in a bend, floating alongside the banks of marsh grass, she sees the rowboat.

  “You have a boat?” Rachel asks as Michael helps her in. The rowboat is old, painted white with a brick red bottom. Its benches are unpainted, the color of beached driftwood.

  “No.” He lifts the oars, the salt water dripping, then dips them again. “I have connections.”

  Long Island Sound feeds the lagoon, filling it with gently flowing tidal tributaries. They pass a great blue heron standing statuesque along the banks. Schools of minnows idle in place before darting off in another direction. Kingfishers swoop and another heron flaps its mighty wings over head. They paddle into the center of the lagoon, where the water spreads out lake-like, the green grasses a velvet carpet curling through the pool. Michael drops anchor and pulls chilled wine from a small cooler, along with two glasses.

  “A toast,” he says, handing Rachel her glass. “To you, sweetheart.”

  She touches her glass to his, then listens to his stories about Anchor Beach. Of how it hasn’t changed in the past twenty years. The charm of the old cottages grows simply more beguiling, the weathered boardwalk more inviting, the sea more mysterious. Anchor Beach saved him the summer after he’d been shot. He spent a lot of time here, in between bouts of serious drinking and finding bar fights. But in the end, it became simply him and the beach, considering a new job with Maggie.

  “What if you ever want to stop patrolling?” she asks. “When you’re older, you know? You already have an Associate’s Degree, two years from a Bachelor’s.”

  “Why would I want to stop? I love what I do.”

  “I’m just saying. In ten years, what if it gets difficult riding a horse every day? Don’t you at least want options?”

  “Options? I make my own. And besides, I could never sit in class with a bunch of twenty-year-olds. And there’s tuition, and time commitment.”

  “Wouldn’t the department pay?”

  “Rachel, we already discussed this, and my answer is still no. I have no intention of going back to school.”

  “And I’m not trying to push you. But listen, you always worry about when Joe and Lena sell the deli. What if you wanted to take it over? Shouldn’t you have a business degree?”

  Michael looks long at her. “What is this really about, Rachel? Do you need a pedigree?”

  “How can you say that? I’m worried about you. I’ve heard all your talk about your grandfather, and Pop. Your life is rich with story and I don’t want you to lose it. Sometimes it seems like this place you’re at right now overshadows everything else.”

  “This place. Meaning that I’m still dealing with a violent day in my life.”

  “Yes. And maybe a change would be good.”

  “Listen, you’re right. I love what my family stands for. They really were a part of building a great city. And I used to feel that I was honoring them somehow, keeping an eye on their efforts while I patrolled.” He lifts the oars and paddles silently through a bend surrounded by tall marsh grasses. “And then I screwed up.”

  “What? Screwed up?”

  “No one else pulled that trigger. Only me. And I’m not sure Pop would understand that decision. So I’ve tarnished his name and now I’m trying my best to fix that. To get back out there and restore myself on his streets. To get back into good graces.”

  “Michael, first of all, he’s gone. And you never fell out of grace. How can you think that?”

  “I’m talking about Summer’s grace, about what kind of rich story I’m living for my own daughter, for God’s sake. One of a murderer who turns his back on the experience, and on everything he stands for? That’s not me, and I think you know it. So stop asking.” He looks long at her and says nothing more. He’s going to stay exactly where he’s at.

  Rachel looks away, toward the distant Sound and the evening horizon. Michael knows there’s something about that place where sea and sky meet, and all that passes in front of it on shore. Time and life and sadness and clarity. There’s more to the beach than Rachel’s ideal of star-wishing. There’s truth, and the beauty and pain that comes with it. That’s where she is, right now. In that pure, difficult place.

  “What does Maggie do while you’re on vacation?” she finally asks, not looking at him.

  He pauses, then dips the paddles slowly back in the water. “She is too. The hostlers groom her and put her out in the corral behind the stable in the afternoons. That’s her vacation: standing in the sun, kicking up her feet a little bit. Maybe rolling on the ground.”

  She doesn’t respond and he starts to row back, dipping the oars again, before nightfall. The sky shades to a royal violet in the east. The birds quiet, the insects chirp louder.

  But the thought doesn’t leave him. She wanted more. Education. Possibility. And he gave her his version of it. As he rows, he never stops watching Rachel. She sits with her knees drawn up and hugged close, gazing at the sky. She is barefoot, wearing khaki Bermudas and her black ribbed tank, a gold chain around her neck.

  For all he is, this is who she is. She’ll never stop searching for the first star. He can tell when she spots it, a light glimmer against the darkening horizon. She simply closes her eyes for a moment, then looks out at Long Island Sound beyond the lagoon.

  And he knows exactly what he has to do. An idea takes hold, but will take a few weeks to sort out. He can do no less for her.

  The hours pass in the cottage with Rachel curled up with a book on the porch, but not turning the pages all that often. Her thoughts are so far away and he’s worried he hurt her somehow. Or lost her. So late that evening, just past eleven-thirty, he checks the daily tide chart clipped to the refrigerator then hands Rachel her sweatshirt.

  “I want to show you something,” he says.

  “Really, Michael. It’s late. I’d rather stay in.”

  He holds the front porch door opened for a long moment, then walks out alone. The beach road is dark now, the cottages quiet and the night air damp from the sea. It’s amazing how quickly the damp rises with the setting sun.

  The beach is deserted, with two lights on either end of the boardwalk casting a misty glow. Small waves lap lazy at the shore. There is no other sound at this late hour as he takes a seat facing the sea, the boat basin behind him.

  The tide is out and just beginning to turn. It’s a moment about the earth, the sea and the moon. The surface water in the boat basin stills while the currents below gently curve onto themselves, reversing. It makes barely enough of an invisible pull to shift the docked boats in their slips. And at the turning of the tide, in the dark, he waits to hear the boat talk, without the distracting n
oises of day, and people, and wind.

  You can’t help but be deeply aware of the sea, and the stars, as you only listen at midnight. You’re somehow more alive with that awareness of something ancient below the water, that ceaseless rhythm. He turns to hear more closely the boats creaking against the pilings and posts to which they are secured.

  A school of minnows ruffles the dark water. They splash up through the surface, no doubt with a large bluefish coming up behind them, on the hunt.

  Chapter Thirty

  Saturday morning arrives. The lingering tension makes it feel like they are awaiting test results. The two days need to be processed.

  Michael leans down into her opened car window. “I still don’t know how you can trust an electric hybrid. With all that new technology.”

  “Michael.”

  “Okay, sorry. Drive safely, then,” he says. “And I’m saying that because I love you.”

  Her hand reaches up and touches his still-unshaven face. “Me too.”

  He takes her hand and kisses it, feeling as though she’s just saying that to get out quickly. “I’m sorry if I hurt you somehow. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know.” She pulls her hand back. “Have a good week with your daughter.”

  “Call me when you get home.” He backs away from the car. “See you next Monday?”

  “No, that won’t work for me. I’ve got teacher’s orientation that Thursday, so I’m not sure yet when I’ll be back.”

  He steps further away as she backs out of the driveway, then motions for her to stop.

  “Wait, I forgot something.” He reaches into his cargo pocket and pulls out a small wrapped box.

  “What’s this?” she asks.

  “Just a little something. A nice-day present. From me, to you. Wait till you get home to open it.”

  Rachel rides the ferry home feeling a sea breeze skim off Long Island Sound. Michael had just tried giving her forty-eight hours of her heaven. No one had ever done anything as thoughtful, and somehow her questions soured it all. She opens his present while looking out at the water, touched more than she’d have thought possible by the diamond studded journey necklace. She lifts the gold chain from the velvet box and clasps it on her neck. He wants her along on his journey. She calls and leaves him a quick voicemail. “Hey Skipper,” she says softly. “I’m starting to feel more like Ginger Grant, now. Thanks.”