Spreading my towel, I lay down with my feet toward the ocean. It was early enough in the morning that the sun hadn’t yet heated the sand. The breakwater interrupted the surf so that all I could hear was the lapping of tiny waves against the old stone wall. The curve of the rock formation insulated me from the sound of the breakers, and in my cozy nook I began to doze off, dreaming about being grown, getting my driver’s license, bulking up. And becoming irresistible to girls.
I was facing north so I wouldn’t have to look in the direction of my mom and dad, but my left cheek started to get chilled from the damp sand. So I turned my head to the other side, toward where they were sitting a hundred yards down the beach. And got the shock of my life!
There was a girl sitting on a blanket not ten yards away, between me and my parents. I was paralyzed with surprise. I hadn’t counted on anything like this. Where had she come from? I hadn’t heard her approaching or getting settled. Here I was, all alone, with no idea of the proper protocol in a situation like this, and no one to clue me in.
Of course, I made believe I didn’t see her at first. That way I couldn’t be blamed for making a wrong move. I closed my eyes tightly so she might think I was just asleep. But then I began tiny experiments: how much could I see through the smallest possible opening of my eyelids? Maybe just one eye would be safer. The problem was that this made her appear to be at right angles to me, so I couldn’t get a clear picture of what she looked like.
I did my best with what little I could see. She appeared to be a couple of years older than me. She had long dark hair, smooth and shiny, that hung down to the middle of her back. She was wearing a modest one-piece bathing suit, not a bikini like lots of the girls had started to wear. It was dark blue with various different colors running through it. The contrast made her skin look very white, even though she appeared to have a light suntan. She wasn’t wearing sunglasses so I could see her profile quite clearly at that distance, and it was obvious that she was very pretty. In fact, beautiful.
She sat facing out to sea without moving, not acknowledging my presence. I was in a huge turmoil about how to deal with this state of things. She had certainly seen me when she decided to put her beach towel down in this spot. She was close enough to have established a connection with me, but far enough away so that she wasn’t in my space. Did that invite an opening on my part, or signal that she wanted to be left alone? I couldn’t decide.
I noticed that she didn’t have any of the equipment that girls usually find necessary at the beach – radio, suntan lotion, purse, book, etc. Her large beach towel, which was decorated with different colored stripes that coordinated with her bathing suit, was empty. Except for her.
She leaned back with her arms behind her, her legs flat on the blanket, her toes tilted slightly forward. I could see she had a perfect figure, slim but not skinny. The way she was sitting, I could see the outline of her breasts perfectly. I was grateful for the distance between us, because I was sure she couldn’t see me staring greedily at her. She was so beautiful. And I was going nuts trying to decide what to do.
I closed my eyes again because I was already burning up with fantasies about her. I peeked at her every once in a while to refresh my memory of the details that I liked the best, and then went back to my imaginary interactions with her. But the third or fourth time I cracked my eyelids to take another squint, she was gone!
I sat up with a jolt. I hadn’t heard her leave just as I hadn’t heard her arrive. What was going on here? Where could she disappear to so quickly? There didn’t seem to be a natural exit over the rocks, and I would certainly be able to see her if she walked away in the direction from which I had come. She had been there only about fifteen minutes. Why such a short time?
That night in our room, I mentioned to the guys that I had seen a pretty girl on the beach that morning, that she had come down to sit close to me. But saying anything to them was a bad mistake. They laughed at the idea, asked if I had made a move on her, then told me they were going to come tomorrow and take turns ravishing her there in front of my eyes. It was obvious afterward that I could never mention her again.
I could hardly sleep that night for thinking about her. When I did sleep, dreams about her would wake me in a sweat. I practiced a dozen opening lines on her, but couldn’t decide which one to use. Some advice from my brothers would have been helpful, but I didn’t dare ask. So I was exhausted the next morning when I hurried back to my spot, hoping to see her again. This time I lay on my back to get a better view, but I was so tired I fell asleep.
I woke, having dreamt of her again, turned my head, and there she was. Same place, same towel, same absence of clutter around her. Same position, leaning back, looking out to sea. Same bathing suit, too. The only difference was her hair. Today it was pulled together in a long ponytail which hung slightly away from her body, just touching the towel.
I looked at her a little more openly this time hoping that, if she glanced my way, I might find the courage to say something. But she just stared into the distance as she had the previous day. That gave me the boldness to check her out a little more carefully. I guessed she might be seventeen or eighteen. She had a pretty profile, a pert, attractive little nose and a cute chin. I wondered what it would be like to trace that profile with my fingertip.
This time I was determined to stay awake so I could see where she disappeared to. But as I stared at her, trying to fill my brain with every detail, my vision seemed to freeze-frame, so that what I was seeing was not the present moment but the image already in my mind. As a result, when my senses finally cleared, she was gone again. That was twice I had lost her. I couldn’t seem to force myself to stay awake.
I was afraid to mention her to anyone after the bad experience I had had with my brothers. But I did hazard a comment to my mother. “Did you see anyone else down in that cove where I was lying this morning?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “No, I really wasn’t paying attention.” I knew that wasn’t true since she had been keeping a rather keen eye on me. But apparently she hadn’t noticed my girl.
My life was consumed with wondering about her. I looked for her everywhere we went – bicycling on the boardwalk, at the zoo, Cold Spring Village or the lighthouse. I wondered what her name might be, where she lived, what grade she was in, why she only seemed to come to that one spot. My parents sensed my distraction, but wrote it off to my not wanting to be there. How wrong they were!
On the third morning, I went down to my spot by the breakwater again, determined this time to make some kind of bold move, even if it killed me. But I had begun to have funny thoughts about the whole business. I knew it wasn’t a dream, but it was almost as though my fantasies had brought her to life, like she was some projection of my frustration with myself. It seemed that on that piece of beach, when I closed my eyes for a moment, I went into an altered state which made it possible for her to appear to me. So I decided I would give that theory a test.
I lay down on my stomach, turned to face her spot, closed my eyes and tried to meditate for a couple of minutes. I visualized her, saw every detail of her and her towel and bathing suit, even tried to see the wind blowing her hair. I got so caught up in the mental image that I suddenly realized I hadn’t actually looked for her. So I opened my eyes. And there she was.
Now I was really confused. Was I dreaming this? Was she just a figment of my imagination? Was I somehow generating her out of thin air? Was I losing my mind? The perplexing thing about it was that she always looked the same – seemingly unaware of my presence, leaning back on her hands, looking toward the ocean, her legs flat on the blanket, never moving, identical to the day before. Except that her hair was different again. This time it was in one long braid which hung down behind her, its wispy tip just touching the towel. That difference gave me hope that I wasn’t inventing this whole thing. I hadn’t imagined her with different hairstyles every day.
Was this the time to make my move? I started to sit up a
dozen times, but my muscles wouldn’t work. So I tried to recall my clever pickup lines, but none of them would come to me. Then I got to thinking – after three days, it’s a little late to start now. She’ll wonder why I didn’t say something the first day. She’ll think I’m some klutzy loser who doesn’t know how to act around girls. Why do I want to talk to her anyway? Am I going to ask her for a date? I almost laughed out loud when I thought about that. All I’m doing is asking for more rejection and humiliation. So I just went on lying there. Looking at her. And then...
She turned and looked at me.
Panic! My throat closed up and I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to suffocate. I watched her gather herself, rise, pick up her towel and give it a little shake, then turn in my direction. From my angle on the ground, I could see her bare feet moving toward me, and for the first time I noticed her red toenail polish. When she stopped ten feet away, I finally found the strength to push myself up and look at her.
She was so much prettier, standing there facing me. I wanted to get up, because I felt like a fool lying there in a kind of collapsed push-up position. But I didn’t have the strength. She looked down at me without any expression and, in a soft voice, said, “I was waiting for you to say hello.” She held my eyes with hers for a brief moment longer, then turned and walked away. Although I wanted to watch her go, I couldn’t bear to do it.
I was staggered, frozen in place, completely unable to think or move, my senses totally maxed out. I knew I had looked and acted like a damned fool, that I had just blown the best opportunity of my whole life. I collapsed on the towel, more upset with myself than I had ever been. I walked slowly back to the cottage, kicking myself every step of the way. I would never see her again, this beautiful creature who had been waiting all week for me to talk to her.
I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t appear the next morning. She had given me a chance and I had blown it big time. I didn’t go back the remaining mornings because it was just too painful to think about. And then the week ended.
Back home, I started a private journal specifically about Her. I had decided that any name I might give her would not do justice to the vision I had seen, so I decided to just call her “Her.” I wrote down a comprehensive description of her, with the most minute details I could come up with, as well as others I could only imagine in my teenage fantasies. I started to invent a history for her, complete with family relationships, hobbies, favorite things and school activities. Then abruptly I tore those pages out, realizing that my imagination could only diminish her, since nothing I might think of could possibly equal the truth.
Over the following year, I wrote her many letters, trying to offset the stupid behavior I had exhibited when she spoke to me. I also wrote a kind of wordplay, complete with dialog from imagined conversations with her, practicing for the next time I saw her. If I ever did. And when I dated Jenny, I tried to imagine that Her was at my side in the movies. It was an illusion which I could maintain only if I never looked at Jenny, which didn’t do much for the quality of our date. But that fantasy never worked anyway, because Her was shapely and tall while Jenny was short and sort of chubby.
When our sophomore year English teacher assigned us to write a character description of a person living, dead or imaginary, I went at it with such a passion that I got an A+. But I had screwed myself, because the teacher thought it was so good that she demanded that I read it to the class. It was humiliating in the extreme, an invasion of my privacy. The boys made endless fun of me, assuming that she was someone I had done “it” with last summer, and turning my story into something nasty. The girls, on the other hand, came up to me babbling about how they wished someone would write things like that about them. But that’s as far as it went. I felt like Cyrano, writing things that turned women on to other men.
The year dragged because, for once, I wanted to go back to Cape May. When the time approached, my mother, true to her promise, asked if I wanted to be excused. I tried to restrain myself so she wouldn’t catch on to my ulterior motive. She actually tried to talk me out of going, and I had a sudden panic attack that I would be left behind.
But we ended up there again on a Saturday afternoon in August, just the three of us, since the boys both had jobs which required them. Mother urged me to stay near the cottage, but I managed to get away and hurried to visit the cove. I looked for footprints, impressions of a towel in the sand, even sniffed the air trying to catch the scent of her. But there was nothing.
The next morning, my parents went to visit an old friend in Wildwood, just up the coast from Cape May. They demanded that I go along, of course, and we had a huge fight about it. But they absolutely forbade me from staying there alone, saying that Mrs. Whatserface would be hurt if I didn’t come. I had no choice. The morning was torture and we didn’t get back til 3:00. By then, everything was wrong and I knew she wouldn’t appear. I waited by our spot til supper with growing despondency.
Monday morning, I carried my camera down to the cove determined to capture my prey one way or another. I lay down on the sand, meditated – prayed, really – and waited to see whether it would happen again, whether perhaps I could make her appear by the sheer force of my desperation to see her. When I figured I was in the proper state of being, I peeked off to the side.
She was there!
I sat up instantly and faced her. She was sitting on the same towel, wearing the same bathing suit, holding the same pose. But her hair was loose again, hanging down her back, lovely, long, shiny and dark. She hadn’t changed a bit and, if I blinked, I could swear it was still last year. But I didn’t dare blink because I was sure I would jinx the moment and she would vanish before my eyes.
I called, “Hi,” which was the best I could do for an opening gambit.
She turned and looked at me, but said nothing. In another moment, she was back looking out to sea. I got up and walked over to her. “I was hoping to see you again this year,” I said tentatively. “I didn’t know if you’d be here again or not.”
“I’m always here.” She glanced up at me with no particular expression.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
She slowly turned her gaze back to the horizon. “Here,” was all she said.
I started several sentences, but got tongue-tied and stopped. Being this close to her was far too stimulating. I was desperate to look at her close up, and she didn’t appear to mind since she never took her eyes off the water. She was very pretty, with dark brown eyes, fine eyebrows, a delicate, very feminine nose, and exquisite skin. I felt like a troll standing in the presence of a princess. Since I knew there was no real future for me here, I decided I had better get what I had come for and get out.
“Can I take your picture?” I asked, with an awkward hint of pleading in my voice.
She didn’t say no. What she did say was, “You won’t capture the real me.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I didn’t care. I took one picture of her looking east, and then asked her to look at me. She slowly turned her face toward me. “Smile!” I said. But she didn’t. I waited, then figured I had better shoot her before she turned away again.
“Are you going to be here tomorrow?” I asked.
“I’ll be here.” She said it very softly.
I was a nervous wreck and was running out of things to say, but the awkwardness of the situation didn’t seem to touch her at all. “Can I ask your name?” I said.
She didn’t answer for a moment, then looked up at me again. “Merlen.”
“Like the wizard,” said I, brilliant conversationalist that I was.
“No,” she said after a bit. “M-e-r-l-E-n.”
“Oh,” I said, as another wave of stupid washed over me. “Well, goodbye. Thanks for the photo.” She didn’t respond. I went back to my place in the sand, but by then the gongs and fireworks were going off so loudly in my head that I couldn’t see or hear a thing.
I thought a dip might clear my mind, and might
also impress her with my macho-ness. So I ran into the water and dove into the first wave I could find, head first. God! It was like ice. I thought I was going to die! But I had to tough it out for the benefit of my audience. Trying not to let her see the agony on my face, I kept my back to her while I rubbed my arms to keep them from falling off. Assuming a pained smile, I turned in her direction. But, of course, she had disappeared.
On Monday afternoon, I took my pictures in to a FastFilm store to be developed. But when I went to get them the next morning, I was terribly disappointed. Though the other photos had come out clearly, the two pictures of her were foggy, as though my passion had steamed up the camera lens. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings found me flat on the sand again, meditating my brains out, but no Merlen. I prowled the boardwalk for miles, but never did see her. Then, on Thursday, I was walking by the community affairs office on the boardwalk, and stopped to glance at the things on the bulletin board out front. What I saw made my heart stop.
Pinned among the notices advertising all the current 1967 community events was a piece of red poster board on which someone had hand lettered the warning: Don’t Let This Happen To YOU! Alongside the warning was a newspaper clipping with a headline that read, Local Teen Caught in Riptide, Drowns. And below the headline was her photo over the caption, Merlen Robertson. The shockwave that blasted through me left me so weak that I had to sit down. I made it back to the cottage, but by the time I got there I couldn’t keep from crying. I explained the whole thing to my mother, who was properly sympathetic, and spent the rest of the day in bed.
On Friday morning, I went back to our spot, looking desperately for any sign of her final visit. But there was nothing. I sat there for a long time trying to decide how to say goodbye to her. Then it occurred to me – I would get a copy of the newspaper article. That would give me some information about her life and background, and also get me a photo of her since my own hadn’t come out.
Life Surprises Page 8