Miracle Beach (16 page)

In any case, the extravaganza—as only Macy and Sophie called it—apparently didn’t really have a whole lot to do with celebrating salmon. There were fishing derbies, but that was about the only direct tie. The festival also featured a parade, a logger sports competition, and a driftwood carving competition called Transformations on the Shore, in which carvers scraped away at discarded logs with chain saws, mauls, knives, and chisels until gnomes, seagulls, Puss in Boots, Hamlet and various other creations emerged from the wood.

But the real highlight of the festival, according to pretty much anyone you might talk to, was the same raucous party that took place in most small towns throughout the world throughout the year. Here, the Old Island Highway that ran through downtown closed, the beer vendors (who, Jack had heard, outnumbered the food vendors by roughly four to one) set up shop on the street, and local live bands took turns trying to entertain the crowd on a makeshift stage erected behind Discovery Pier. Macy said there was always at least one good brawl, and for weeks afterward, the events of the extravaganza fueled a tornado of gossip that left few unscathed. It was debauchery, plain and simple. And neither Macy nor Sophie would ever think of missing it. From Macy’s determined stare, it didn’t seem as though Jack had the option either.

“What time is the train leaving?” Jack asked.

“I just have to dump the horses their grain and shower. Which, with this thing, is going to take me a while.” She raised her sling like a chicken wing. “So I’d say five or so? Mama Sophie’s coming around half past four.”

“I’ll be ready,” Jack assured her.

“Great. I got you a shirt. It’s hanging on the towel rack in the bathroom.”

Somewhere along the line—perhaps back when the Christmas in July celebration and the extravaganza had shared the same weekend—someone had made it tradition to attend the event in borderline-gaudy holidayish wear. Macy and Sophie had continued that tradition. It was closer to quarter of six by the time Sophie actually made it to Macy’s, wearing a risqué, low-cut silver sequined tank top.
God bless the extravaganza
, Jack thought.

Perhaps Sophie had caught Jack gawking, because she said, “Since when has the extravaganza involved any semblance of tact or propriety?”

“Uh, never?” Macy said. She had chosen a red satin top with a sash that draped loosely over each breast and tied halter-style behind her neck. Most of her back was bare, the material swagging only across the lower part of it. To counter the amount of skin revealed on top, Macy had donned a long, flowing black skirt that just grazed her ankles.

“You like?” asked Macy.

“I don’t know,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “You have anything else you could wear?”

Macy’s face fell. “Why? Too much?”

“Hell, no. I was just thinking that if you were at all serious about saying you never wanted to date again, then it’s really not fair to the eligible bachelors of Campbell River, you going out in that getup. You’ll make them all ache for something they don’t have a prayer of getting.” Sophie laughed mischievously. “Ah, what the hell. Those boys deserve a little taste of their own, don’t they?”

“They sure do,” said Macy in mock seriousness. “Especially Jake Zigman.”

Sophie and Jack both looked at her, heads cocked.

“He broke up with me for Laura Camber in third grade because I didn’t give him candy with my Valentine and she did.”

“Ohhh,” Sophie said.

“
Especially
him,” Jack chimed in.

“Whatever happened to ol’ Jake?” asked Sophie.

“He married Laura Camber a few years back.” Macy sighed.

“Hmmm,” Sophie said. “Another one bites the dust.”

“I’m meeting up with them all tonight. Going to bury that hatchet from third grade once and for all,” Macy said. She laughed, but Jack had been around her enough lately to see through it, to see it was an act. He wondered, if he and Sophie hadn’t been here, whether Macy would have even gone at all.

Macy rummaged through a drawer full of batteries, rubber bands, superglue, pens that didn’t work—Jack knew because he had rummaged through the very same drawer the previous day looking for a functioning pen—and pulled out her truck keys, holding them up in a sign of victory.

“You do have some double-sided tape under there, though, don’t you?” Sophie whispered, pointing at Macy’s chest.

Macy shook her head in mock exasperation and threw Sophie her keys. “Let’s go.”

 

Jack wasn’t sure how he had ended up down on the beach with Sophie. She had asked him to dance, certainly; and she had been overserved—a rarity for her, from what he could tell, in spite of her proclivity for straight bourbon. But it amazed him how situations like this happened—how someone, a married man like himself, ended up on a beach with a woman like Sophie McLean.

It wasn’t like jumping from a bridge or being hit by a car, where one nanosecond changes things suddenly and completely. This was a quieter sort of progression. More like trying to figure out, on a clock with no second hand, where each minute begins and ends. Sure, there were big moments—the five- or ten-minute marks, like when Jack asked her to dance, and she absently tousled his hair while they swayed. But what had happened in between to bring them here, to this moment?

Jack offered her his canteen. It was small and silver with the letters “JDA” on it. A Charlie Daniels cover band, on the stage behind and to the left of them, was belting out “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Jack hummed along. He’d always loved this song, the build of it, and its intensity.

Sophie accepted the canteen and took a long swig. He saw her mouth pucker.

“Sorry. We were fresh out of bourbon,” he said. “Had to resort to whiskey.”

“What’s the ‘D’ for?” she asked, waving the canteen toward Jack so he could see the monogram.

“Donahue.”

“Ah. Like that good-looking American talk show host you all used to have on,” said Sophie, nodding her head for no apparent reason. “I lived in Seattle for a brief stint and watched him every day. Called him the Silver Fox.”

“Like the old family name,” Jack said.

Sophie shrugged and kicked off her sandals, burying her silver-painted toenails in the sand. “Old family names are nice.”

“If you’re into that sort of thing,” Jack bantered.

“What sort of thing are you into?” Sophie blurted.

Jack looked over at her. “Ah . . . ah—” he stammered.

“I mean, what’s your story?” Sophie said.

“My story?”

“Well, I know why you’re here, and I know a bit about you from Macy, but what are you still doing here? It’s going on a month now and it doesn’t seem like you’ve given much thought to going back.”

“I’m going back,” Jack said. “Believe me, not a conversation goes by when Magda doesn’t try to pin me down on a date. But I’m not quite ready. Not yet.”

Actually, the thought of going back home right now made him shudder. And he couldn’t be certain whether leaving this wild, crazy-beautiful place—the place where his son last lived—without getting some feeling of closure, or the thought of going back to his wife, were the only culprits.

“If you want my professional opinion, I don’t think you really want to go back.”

“And who asked for your professional opinion?”

“No one. But that’s never stopped me before, Jackie-boy.”

Jack could hear her words starting to slur, just a touch.

“If you wanted to be back home, you would’ve gone already,” Sophie said. “You have a successful business that you enjoy running, and a wife, and friends, I assume. You’re a likable enough guy.” Sophie tried to chuck him on the shoulder, but whiffed, her fist making contact with air. “Whoops!” she said, dissolving into a brief fit of laughter before continuing on. “Anyway, instead of being home where you belong, you’re sitting on this little island with two women you barely know, and you’re all content. Now, what does that say to you?”

“Not sure. You seem to be the expert. What do you think it says?” Jack sat with elbows on knees, dangling the canteen between his legs with both hands. Somehow, somewhere, Macy had found a Hawaiian-style shirt for him that had flowers sporadically highlighted with sequins. Its tails had come untucked from his shorts. He thought about tucking them back in, then decided that this was a perfectly appropriate look for this time of night. Plus, it wasn’t like a tucked-in sequined Hawaiian shirt was so much less conspicuous than an untucked one.

“That you’re full of shit,” said Sophie.

“Hmmm. Maybe you’re right.”

“See. Just listen to the expert.” She took another swig. “You unhappy with your wife?”

Jack wasn’t sure whether this was supposed to be a statement or a question.

“My wife is a good woman.”

Sophie pointed a finger in the air, pondering. “So why are you sitting on some beach in another country celebrating a big fish with a strange woman?”

Jack snorted. “It’s not that simple.” And as an afterthought he added, “And you’re not
that
strange.”

She ignored his dig. “It
is
,” Sophie said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“What happened to us, what we’ve been through—it changes things.”

Sophie had reclined back onto her elbows. Her knees were bent, her left ankle slung over her right knee. Her left foot was keeping a beat to a song Jack didn’t recognize. It sounded James Taylor–ish—folksy and subdued.

After a long while, Sophie spoke again. Her voice sounded quieter and more distant than it had only a minute before. “Everyone’s is so different.”

She let her head fall onto Jack’s shoulder.

“What’s that, Ms. McLean?”

Sophie didn’t say anything. She simply breathed. Two deep breaths, the last punctuated by a long, forceful exhale. Finally, she whispered, “Our lives.”

“Mars,” Jack said.

“No.
Lives
, I said.”

Jack nudged Sophie so she opened her eyes, and pointed at the night sky. “I heard you. But that’s Mars there I’m trying to point out. Just a bit over from the moon—right there. It looks like a star, really bright. A little pinkish. You see?”

She followed his finger and found Mars with her eyes. “Hmmm,” she said. “Yeah. Saw that about a week ago. Wondered what it was.”

Jack raised his eyes to the little red blur in reverence, straining to see it better. “You know this is as close as it’s ever been to Earth? We won’t see it again for almost three hundred years.
Three hundred years
. Last time it was this close was something like sixty thousand years ago. Neanderthals were hunting mammoths back then—that’s how long ago that was.”

“We won’t see it ever again,” said Sophie.

“No,” Jack said, “I suppose we won’t.”

She nodded. “Wow.”

“The next time that planet shows up there, in this same sky, we’ll have been gone almost three lifetimes over.” Three lifetimes. And where would he be then? Part of that cosmos? Part of the earth’s crust? With his son at long last? “It’s hard to get your head around.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Sophie. “It’s easy enough to understand. But it sure makes you feel small.”

“Lives like paper,” he said.

“‘Lives like paper’?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Jackie, you’re either a closet poet or hitting the canteen a little harder than I thought.” Sophie stopped to think a moment, then added, “Like the sands of an hourglass,” in a deep mock announcer’s voice.

Jack just looked at her. How was it that he could never follow a blasted conversation with this woman? She was all over the map, and the whiskey surely didn’t help.

“Another one of your American shows I used to watch,” Sophie said. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “How ’bout we just give it up?” She gave him what he thought might have been a seductive smile.

Jack looked at her, again confused.

“The art of Mars,” Sophie said.

Jack cocked his head to one side.

“You know, Mars—the god of war?” Sophie asked.

“Oh,” Jack said, “right—got it.”

“Never mind. Bad pun—like ‘give up the fight,’ you know—give in.” She brushed her feet against his, probably deciding he was not, in fact, a closet poet. Just half in the bag. “Was thinking maybe you could start by going home with me.”

Jack sent a crooked smile her way. “I’m flattered by the offer, Ms. McLean,” he said, taking her hand.

“But no?” asked Sophie.

“But no,” repeated Jack.

Silence hung in the air between them.

“A girl’s gotta ask,” she finally said.

Jack pushed himself to his feet. “She absolutely does.” He stuffed the canteen in the pocket of his shorts, and offered both hands to her. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get us home.”

“You have to steer, though,” Sophie said, looping her arm through his.

“I’ll steer.” He picked up Sophie’s sandals for her. “If you’ll let me, I’ll steer.”

 

The girl was maybe seven, eight at the most, Jack guessed, and curled like a puppy on Macy’s porch, on the mat in front of the door. He hadn’t seen her at first, not until he started climbing the few short steps, and she hadn’t moved until he and Sophie were standing over her, debating whether they should wake her.

The girl had dirty blond hair—not dirty blond as a color, but blond streaked with grime. She had on a white T-shirt with a large pink flower on the front and jeans with little pink flowers that circled the bottom of each leg. The jeans were worn at the knees, and filthy, as if she had been kneeling in mud. Under her head she had wadded a spring satin jacket for a pillow. It looked light gray now, but Jack could tell that it had been pink—with white piping—at one time. Under the jacket lay a flat plastic box.

She didn’t sit up when she woke, just opened her eyes, blinked a couple times, and waved up at Jack and Sophie—a baby wave, where she opened and closed her fingers, as if feebly grasping at something.