and faced her way. Her hand went into her pocket, felt the ring there. She’d hand it to him and walk away. He looked straight at her and a broad smile came across his face. Did he somehow know what she carried? Had he somehow seen her after he threw away the ring?
Then his eyes lifted a little higher, above her head, just as a rude woman nudged her aside as she walked toward the bar. The woman was taller and thin, with long black hair and a slinky low-cut dress. The man’s entire countenance, his whole body, seemed to inflate as the woman walked up to him and sat down on the open stool next to him. Then Leah noticed the half-full wine glass that had been sitting there on the bar all along. The woman took a sip of wine. The man leaned over and kissed her cheek, whispered something in her ear, caressed her hair with that hand sporting the ring finger with the band of pale skin.
Momma grabbed Leah’s shoulder a little roughly and nodded toward the restaurant entrance. Father had already paid the bill and was outside waiting with Brooke. What was Leah doing, lingering by the bar? Leah couldn’t explain so she just shrugged. Momma tilted her head in puzzlement but decided not to pursue the matter. First Brooke, now you, her eyes seemed to say as she sighed in all-suffering resignation. But then her hand assumed a gentler demeanor, curled around her neck and across her far shoulder as she nudged her toward the door and the other half of their family, both supporting and cajoling her with that singular touch.
When she told Brooke about the bar patron, she said, “Probably was Sean, forgetting Jackie with the company of Miss Sexpot.”
Leah shook her head adamantly.
“Leah, it happens,” Brooke said. “Life goes on.”
Leah shook her head again—not Sean’s life, not this soon.
Brooke shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you might as well give up looking. That guy has moved on—either with another woman or back to the mainland. You’re not going to find him. And even if you did, he doesn’t want that ring. He threw it away.”
Leah wasn’t listening. She could easily ignore Brooke’s words (or anyone’s, for that matter) by simply looking away. She stared at the ceiling of their bedroom. Then she had an idea. She grabbed Brooke’s arm and dragged her toward the door and down the stairs. There was still a half hour of sunlight left (the sky had cleared after the storm). Brooke told Momma they were going for a walk to watch the sunset on their last night here.
But once outside the cottage, Leah turned north, toward the town center, rather than south toward the beach. She dragged her sister along.
“Leah, where are you going?”
Leah just kept walking.
Two blocks north and one block west, she turned into the parking lot of the one motel on Bogue Beach. She led Brooke into the small lobby with its registration desk. A white-haired gentleman behind the desk looked up from his small T.V. and said something. Leah looked at Brooke and nodded.
Brooke shook her head. “No!”
Leah nodded. Yes.
Brooke again shook her head. “No!”
Leah went and sat in one of the lobby’s two chairs and crossed her arms. She wasn’t moving until Brooke completed their mission.
Brooke rolled her eyes in exasperation and stamped her foot like she did when she was mad (sometimes Leah could feel that stomp in the shaking floor back home, but not with the motel’s concrete floor beneath the cheap carpet). Then she turned and went up to the desk clerk.
The two talked for several minutes. Leah entertained herself by watching from behind her sister use her nascent (or maybe not so nascent to the world—only to Leah’s awareness) feminine charms—the coy tilt of her head (was she batting her eyes?), the light toss of her hair, the clasping together of her hands (no doubt accompanied by a gentle pout). The man surely should’ve been well past vulnerability to such nonsense, but darned if he didn’t eventually accede and pull out his registration book and scan the names before finally shaking his head. He even turned the book around for Brooke to see. Brooke thanked him profusely, nodding her head many times. The gentleman smiled helplessly, utterly beguiled by this sixteen-year-old siren.
Then Brooke turned, nodded angrily at Leah (Are you happy now?), and stormed out of the lobby.
Leah stood, caught the bewildered man’s eye, shrugged her shoulders and tried to smile coyly (though with none of the effect of Brooke’s version), and ran out after her sister.
“Leah!” Brooke shouted from where she was standing under the unloading portico.
Leah held her hands up, trying to calm her sister. I know. I should have asked first. I’m sorry. Thank you for trying.
Brooke stamped her foot again.
Leah thought—If I don’t find Sean soon, Brooke’s foot will be getting sore!
Brooke saw the look and started laughing. “Let me see that ring,” she said.
Leah started to pull it out of her pocket then guessed at Brooke’s intent and shook her head.
“Oh!” Brooke said, stamping her foot again. “Sisters!” She turned and stormed off across the parking lot.
Leah followed, fingering the ring safely stowed in her pocket, warming to her touch.
On their way back to the cottage they took a detour to make a slow circuit of the pier, all the way out to the end and back again, Brooke trolling for cute guys, Leah searching for Sean. Neither quest was successful, but the beautiful sunset was reward enough for their effort. And the two sisters etched a striking pair in the golden sun—near equal in height, both richly tanned, the brunette emitting an insouciant sexuality, the blonde a precocious grace—to the fishermen watching out of the corners of their eyes.
The next morning was taken up with packing and cleaning. The girls’ assignment was to strip the bunk beds—stuffing the dirty sheets into one of the pillowcases to be taken home and fold the blankets and leave them and the pillows neatly stacked on the end of the beds—pack their clothes in the two duffel bags, assemble their books and magazines and other personal items in the cardboard box they’d arrived in, and sweep out the room and the hall and the stairs. They’d finished these tasks and were lingering in the family room when the cardboard box of leftover canned goods Father was carrying (“We leave with more than we come with,” he complained to Momma) tore open and the cans crashed to the floor, some on his bare feet. Leah felt the rumble and Brooke heard the cussing. Momma caught their eyes and gestured toward the beach and made the sign of a half-hour (a circle with a vertical slash) before racing to help Father still cursing loudly in the hallway to the back door. The girls didn’t have to be told twice as they bolted for the door and the freedom from chores, not to mention their father’s shortened temper, that exit promised.
On the beach it was a beautiful morning—clear and dry and not yet too hot. It was very crowded in front of the public access and on over toward the pier, with lots of young children playing, blankets spread out and umbrellas set up, fathers and children splashing in the water while mothers watched from the shade of those umbrellas. Brooke turned toward the pier. The market had a lime-green T-shirt with the phrase Oh yeah? blazoned across the front in dark purple. She’d decided to buy it with her allowance as a memento from this strange vacation. But as she headed that way, weaving between the close-packed blankets, Leah caught up with her and stepped in front.
“I’m going to the pier,” Brooke said.
Leah gestured I know, then indicated I’m going to walk the other way. She pointed west, toward where the crowd thinned and the cottages stopped. That deserted end of the beach was a good place for shelling but not much else.
Brooke said, “Why?”
Leah shrugged. Just want to be alone for a few minutes.
Brooke looked at her watch. “Twenty-five minutes. Right here.” She pointed to a nearby multi-colored umbrella as a signpost.
Leah nodded. I promise she signed by making a cross over her heart. She turned and headed west.
Brooke caught up. “Don’t get your clothes wet,” she warned. Leah had on clean shorts and a fresh T-shirt for the drive
home. “Or Momma will kill me.”
Leah smiled. Mainland Brooke, with all her rules and responsibilities, was getting a jump on her duties. She saluted—order received and recorded. Then turned and continued to the west.
Within a few minutes Leah was past the crowds and into an area of beach with only occasional blankets occupied by couples lying close together on their stomachs or sometimes a solitary person stretched out on a towel. Here the beach gradually took on the feel of the beach of her imagination—the windswept loneliness where the endless sea encountered the shore, no people or animals anywhere, just water and sand, far as the eye could see or the mind perceive. She always liked this end of the island but had never been here alone. An exhilarating freedom accompanied this realization. The world in its soundlessness would open to welcome her. She need not be afraid.
At first she wasn’t sure why she’d turned this way, hadn’t followed Brooke for yet one more trip, a final one, to the pier. She’d felt an unconscious need to get away from the crowds and had acted on it. And somehow she knew Brooke would let her go on alone, and she was glad for that.
But now here, she knew why she’d come. She felt the ring in her pocket. Its sharp edge cut for her a sense of loss, not only for the man who had thrown it and the life it represented away but also for her, for her futile attempts to return it to its rightful owner, somehow