by T. I. Lowe
“I’ve done all I can do . . . I guess it still wasn’t enough.” He released a humorless laugh. “Mercy, Jo! I’ve always prided myself on being a patient man. You’ve shown me just how wrong I am. Not sure if your intentions were to make a game out of breaking August, but you’ve finally won.” Shoulders slouched, he turned around and exited the diner as quietly as he’d entered, but the message he was conveying was rather loud.
Later that night her phone lit up with an incoming message from August. It contained two images. The first picture was of a sketch he’d drawn of her leaning against the counter at the diner. She looked longingly out the window. The second picture was a sketch of her looking up at the building with the fairies flying overhead. He was absolutely right. Josie shone when her hand held a paintbrush but was nothing more than shadows when she held an order pad.
Placing the phone on the nightstand without replying because there was no need to, Josie burrowed under her quilt and allowed the frustration to wash over her. She quietly begged the ocean melody to tug her under, but sleep wouldn’t show up. As she lay there tossing and turning, something else showed up instead. Or she should say someone. Her eyes were focused on the ribbons of moonlight that were filtering through the open window when a leg popped through. She jumped up and was ready to whack whoever it was with the ever-ready baseball bat, but she left it by the nightstand when several coils of red sprang into view.
“Opal Gilbert Cole, what are you doing?” she whisper-yelled and tossed a pillow, nailing her friend upside the head.
“The moon is alive tonight. We need to have a chat with it.” Opal grunted, trying to leverage her other leg through the window.
“I’m half-tempted to push you back out and then call your husband to come get hold of you.” Josie grabbed her arm and pulled her inside instead. “Does Linc even know you’re here?”
“Of course he knows I’m here. He’s the one who drove me over on the golf cart, silly.”
“Me, silly? You’re the one sneaking in my window and yammering on about the moon being alive.” Josie placed her hands on her hips while Opal beamed at her.
“But it is alive.” Opal pointed outside. “See!”
Josie leaned around her friend and regarded the giant glowing ball in the sky. It did seem like it was dancing with all of the stars gathered around it. “You’re such a hippie.”
“And that’s perfectly all right. Come on!” Opal beckoned Josie to follow her to the window.
“This is my place, silly. We’re allowed to use the door.” Josie pulled on a pair of yoga pants but decided not to change out of her long nightshirt. Surely at that late hour they wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into anyone. Well, besides the giant on a golf cart somewhere . . .
“Nah. It’s more adventurous this way.” Giddiness wove through the quirky woman’s voice as she scooted over the window ledge and hopped down to the sand below but miscalculated her landing and tumbled sideways.
“Girl, you’re going to end up breaking your collarbone again.” Josie recalled an incident in grade school where Opal’s flip-flop got tangled up in the monkey bars as she tried hanging upside down. After a few wiggles this way and that, the sandal released before she was ready, sending the girl crashing to the ground and earning a broken collarbone. Unfazed by the injury, she kept the pain to herself until arriving home later that afternoon.
“I think perhaps I’ve broken something,” she had admitted to her mom over a bowl of ice cream. Sure enough, a trip to the emergency room proved her correct.
Josie watched now as Opal picked her petite self up, brushed off the sand from her backside, and rotated both shoulders. “All’s good. Come on!”
With Josie’s height advantage all she had to do was step over the window ledge and her foot met the sand. They didn’t slow until they were at the end of the pier. Opal was uncharacteristically quiet on the walk over, not making a peep. That unnerved Josie a bit, making her wonder what this Sand Queens meeting was really about.
Once they were settled on a bench, Josie commented, “I miss Sophia the most on nights like this.” She peered up at the moon taking a prominent spot in the dark sky. “It’s not quite right without her here.”
Opal sighed. “I know, but if my heart is nudging me right, I think she’ll be back soon.”
“She’s scheduled to be here for Memorial Day weekend,” Josie reminded.
“No, not like that . . . I have a feeling she’ll be moving home again.”
Josie let the psychic jab die on her tongue before delivering it. They’d already had several concerned conversations about Sophia recently, worrying about what she wasn’t telling them. “I just hope she and Collin are okay.” She inhaled a lungful of briny air and searched for the Big Dipper.
“Lincoln and I have added several prayers to our treasure chest for them. I guess that’s all we can do for the time being.”
“I suppose you’re right.” They lapsed into a silence for a while, but Josie had a feeling the meeting was only beginning when she noticed Opal was fidgeting.
“Your daddy came in this afternoon to pick up that table I restored for him,” Opal mentioned nonchalantly, making Josie cringe. “Says he’s working on firing you.”
And there it is . . .
“Please don’t.” Josie groaned, scrubbing her hands down her face.
“I think it’s time you let him fire you.”
Josie dropped her hands and gave Opal a sidelong glance. “Are you even listening to yourself right now?”
Opal nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“You know my life is in those four walls. It’s my duty.”
“No, it’s been your trap. Your dad finally understands he needs to set you free. Let him.”
Josie stewed on that until she finally admitted, “I’m scared.”
Opal wrapped her small arm around Josie. “Scared can be fun and exciting if you allow it to be.”
Josie snorted. “Says the girl who falls into open windows in the middle of the night because she thinks the moon is coming to life.”
“Nah. I’m just the girl who falls into open windows in the middle of the night because my dear friend is on the verge of coming to life. I want to be here to see her through it.”
Josie’s smile wobbled as a sting hit her eyes and nose. “I really am scared, though.”
“I know.” Opal patted her arm and gave Josie just enough strength to fall for a spell.
24
A live band was set up on a nearby deck and was holding a breezy rhythm with the ocean waves as bikes whirled by on the congested beach. Laughter and conversation filled the air, along with footballs and Frisbees. With the menagerie of events, the jovial sounds of celebration, and the savory scents of nearby grills cooking in abundance, Sunset Cove was beginning to wear its summer wardrobe rather well.
“The Sand Queens always win. Ain’t any use in trying,” Tucker grumbled while lugging the supplies needed to the beach for the Memorial Day Festival.
“You have me as a partner this year. Have a little faith, punk.” August popped him playfully on the backside with the long-handled sand shovel. He emitted a playfulness he wasn’t feeling but had no intentions of ruining his brothers’ fun with a sour mood.
“But they always have the best sand castles,” Zachary said as he waded through the sand.
August dropped the shovel and container filled with other tools in the designated area for the sand castle contest, mindful of not getting anywhere near Josie, and started unloading stuff. “Yeah, but I’ve created us a pretty cool design. Be positive.” He had to stifle the eye roll at his own words. Seemed he’d been giving that pep talk to almost everyone lately, but he was beginning to feel like he was in need of one.
“So start lugging buckets of water up here?” Tucker asked, grabbing the largest pail.
“Yeah, man. And I’ll start packing the sand.” August yanked his T-shirt over his head, applied a good coating of sunblock to himself and his litt
le brother, and then knelt in the sand. “All right, little dude, let’s get to working on making this pile of sand into a masterpiece.”
“I ain’t little,” Zachary lisped out, having even more of a hard time sounding out words with the other front tooth gone as of yesterday. He’d called August up after school and asked his big brother to bring his fishing line, saying he was gonna take it like a man this time and promised to keep his hands to himself. He held true to both declarations and walked away with one less tooth.
“Okay, big guy, get to work.” August smirked at him before setting in to the side of the sand mountain.
It didn’t take long for a tall blonde in a bright-teal bikini to draw August’s attention from the moat he was digging. He watched Josie scrape away slices of wet sand from her castle. She wore a frayed pair of jean shorts with an array of tools sticking out of the pockets. His sunglasses had him at an advantage with being able to freely watch with Josie unaware of it. Or so that’s what he thought until she began glancing over at him, maybe sensing his eyes on her.
“Dude, you gonna ogle Josie the entire time or are you gonna actually help out?” Tucker tossed a shovelful of sand against August’s arm.
August flicked the sand off, sending it back in Tucker’s direction, but decided not to lob any comment. He picked up his trowel and went to work until the wet sand was transformed into a detailed castle surrounded by a moat with a gnarly crocodile lurching around it with his teeth bared in warning.
“Not bad, but I don’t think we’ve outdone the Sand Queens.” Tucker pointed over to the women’s creation. Their castle sparkled in the sun from sea glass and shells adorning the walls in a mosaic design, helping it stand out in the sea of beige creations.
“Ah, man. Theirs is more pretty.” Zachary scrunched his little nose and pouted his lips.
“No worries. We’re about to brighten this baby up.” August knelt by his giant duffel bag and pulled out a plastic canister with a spray nozzle attached to it by a thin hose. “We got this.” With a wide grin, he pumped the device on top of the canister a few times before bathing the crocodile in neon green. Several onlookers gasped.
Before he made it to the long tail that wrapped around the side of the castle, they had a good-size audience.
“Th-that’s against th-the rules.” The stuttering mess came from behind him.
“Hello, Jo,” he greeted without turning around to face her. “I read over those rules and this falls within the guidelines.”
“How so?” Sophia asked as she and Opal joined the group gathering around.
“This is simply nontoxic food coloring mixed with cornstarch. The rules state that nontoxic materials can be used.” August hitched a thumb in the direction of the Sand Queens’ castle. “You used nontoxic materials, too.”
“Real bricks are nontoxic, but you don’t see us building with them. Sea glass and shells are found on the beach,” Sophia, always the hard sell of the group, pointed out.
August dropped the nozzle and hitched his hands onto his hips. “You didn’t find that sea glass and those pristine shells on this Carolina coast, and we both know it.”
“I-I found some of them,” Josie stuttered out.
August briefly cut his eyes at her, wondering why the stuttering was suddenly prominent again. It didn’t take long before the realization hit him that she was no longer comfortable around him. That rubbed him the wrong way more so than the sand trapped in his swim trunks.
“You queens are just jealous you didn’t think of it first,” he fired in Sophia’s direction, sounding as childish as he felt, but continued on by moving his attention to Josie. “Go on back over there to your monotone world, Jo, and leave me be to paint mine up with life.”
Her face grew a bright shade of pink as she sucked in a shocked breath, letting him know his condescending attitude and sharp words had effectively done their damage.
Too bad it only served to make him feel worse.
August turned his back to her, picked up the container of neon blue, and began painting the moat.
Josie stood there for a while, seemingly chewing on something she wanted to say. In the end, she stayed true to character and chickened out.
Once she returned to her sand castle, Tucker reached over and punched August in the upper arm, sending a line of blue to streak across Zachary’s back. The little guy squealed and the oldest guy growled.
“What was that for?” August glared at Tucker.
“Dude, could you have been any harsher?”
“She asked for it.” August brushed by his brother, bodychecking him in the passing, and continued to color their creation. “Zachary, sorry about that. Grab up the coral-colored bottle and I’ll let you paint the castle walls.”
Zachary rummaged around the duffel bag. “What’s cowal?”
“Pink.”
It took a good part of the sunny morning to finish up their creation, but once done, the boys stood back and admired it.
“We’ve got this in the bag,” August said with confidence.
“That cornstarch paint is pretty cool, man.” Tucker offered his fist and August bumped it.
The guys set up foldout chairs and settled in to wait for their turn with the judges. As the day wore on, the sun heated the beach up. August couldn’t keep from watching Josie, and he noticed the sun was reddening the tops of her shoulders.
He dug around in a drawstring bag until finding the sunblock. “Tucker, take this tube of sunblock over there to Josie. Her shoulders are starting to burn.”
“Take it over there yourself,” Tucker mumbled in a drowsy tone.
“I asked you to.”
“No, you didn’t. You ordered me to. You’re the one concerned over her skin, so you handle it.”
Before the two older brothers could continue bickering, little Zachary plucked the tube from August’s hand. “I like Miss Josie. Her says you shouldn’t talk ugly to people like you were doing to her. And her says you should always help a friend when they need you.” Done with his reprimand, Zachary walked over to the Sand Queens as they were putting the final touches on their creation.
“We just got told by a kindergartner.” Tucker snorted. The women were out of earshot, but Josie’s giggle somehow skipped over on one of the breezes as Zachary said something to her. “And now look. He’s going to school us on how to court a girl.” Both brothers sat up in their chairs, a bit miffed, as their baby brother began helping rub sunblock on the blonde beauty’s shoulders. He even stayed a while and chatted up the three women before making his way back over to his brothers.
“What all were y’all talking about over there?” August questioned before Zachary even took his seat.
“Nothing much.” The little boy shrugged with a grin planted on his face.
“Fibber.” August reached out and poked him playfully in the side.
They sat a little longer as the panel of judges wove closer and Zachary grew antsy. He stopped squirming in his chair suddenly. “August, I hear the ice cream cart.”
August inclined his head and listened for a few beats. Sure enough, the tinkling of the bell on the cart reached them. He fished out some money and handed it to Tucker. “Y’all grab us an ice cream and also get some for the Sand Queens.”
Tucker looked over to the women and then to August with a dubious look on his face. “Why?”
“Because it’s hot out and they look like they could use a treat,” August answered while digging his toes deeper into the sand.
Tucker chuckled and shook his head. “Dude, you’re the kindest jerk I’ve ever met.”
“Whatever. Go on before the line gets too long.”
His brothers walked over to the cart and then took the treats to the Sand Queens. Instead of just dropping the ice creams off, they sat down and enjoyed their treats with the women.
“I guess that’s what I deserve,” August muttered to himself, knowing he wouldn’t be getting an ice cream himself.
“If it isn’t t
he famous August Bradford,” a high-pitched voice called out from behind him.
Cringing, he sank down in his chair, but it was too late. All at once, he was surrounded by an entirely different group of women than the Sand Queens. More like Drama Queens! “Nothing famous here,” he mumbled, putting as much detachment into the three words as possible.
One of the women he remembered as the head cheerleader from high school swatted him on his shoulder. “You’re just being too modest.”
“My work may have made a name out there, but I’m not famous. Sorry, sweetheart.” August meant the endearment as a jab, but when she batted her fake eyelashes at him, he knew he failed.
Another former classmate boldly ran her fingers through his hair. “You look so different without the piercings and blue hair. Seriously, August, you’ve matured into one good-looking man.”
Who do these brazen chicks think they are? He really didn’t want an answer to the question. Just wanted them to go away. “I’m the same guy I was with the piercings and colored hair. You know, the one everyone called the freak.” He leaned away until her hand dropped from his hair. He stretched out his arms to give them a good view of the well-placed tattoos. Three in all, the paintbrush, a reference to his favorite Bible verse, Psalm 20:4, and the French word for family, famille. Each was a symbol of what mattered most to him. “And I still have my tattoos. Really not different at all.”
The cheerleader popped him again, and it was all he could do to keep his anger in check while trying to brush her advances and his agitation off, but it was like trying to get rid of a nagging sand gnat, near about impossible.
“Do you plan on traveling anytime soon? I would just love to travel some.” She looked at him with an expression filled with hope, and it was all he could do not to snort in disdain.
“Nah. I’m done with that part of my life. It’s time to settle down,” August answered with a measure of aloofness.
The aggravating group of women giggled like he said something cute. He didn’t, and he was close to abandoning the sand castle to make a run for it.