Portion of the Sea (3 page)

“Oh.”

“I blame it all on my great, great grandmother. I got my nose from her.”

I smiled, wondering whom I got my nose from and also what a nose job was. I hadn’t ever heard of that kind of a job before and assumed it meant she got paid to smell stuff like food or cologne. Or maybe a nose job meant she worked as a nose model. Hers was perfect enough. And maybe it’s why she wrapped that scarf and gauze around it, to protect it from the sun and air and from catching a cold and becoming red and runny, I thought as I dug in the sand until my stomach growled, reminding me it was almost dinner time and my father would be upset if I wasn’t there.

“Why don’t you start making the middle ball now?” she said standing up, leaving me to dig alone.

I scooped two handfuls of sand and smacked them atop the first ball, but it all crumbled down the side. I hoped the erosion might remind her we’re on a beach with sand, not snow.

“Oh, come on! You can do it,” she said.

I raised my eyebrows at her. “I don’t think so.”

“You still don’t get it. You still don’t believe that anything is possible, do you?”

“Realistic things are possible,” I said. “But one can’t build a snowman in the sand.”

“You can do it,” she reassured, then stooped over and helped me pack sand atop the first ball. Once more, it all slipped down. “This is why we must be flexible,” she said, scratching her long dark hair with her sandy hands. “You’ve got to change your mindset. Make him lying down. Who says snowmen have to stand up? Keep going,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of the world teaching a girl she ‘can’t’ do this, she ‘must’ do that. She should do this and she shouldn’t do that. Can’t, must, should, shouldn’t! What is it that you want in life, Lydia?”

I couldn’t think of anything. My father got me everything I ever wanted, which is like eating before getting hungry and never knowing what a hunger pain feels like. We owned three sixteen-inch black-and-white televisions. I had been the first of all my friends to get a Hula Hoop and Silly Putty. When the bridal dolly had come out, my father went to every store in Chicago until he found one for me.

My father, Lloyd Isleworth, was gone most of the time, but I was never alone. He employed an entire staff of females to handle our housework, shop, prepare our meals, tutor me in reading, writing and arithmetic, teach me piano, and so on. And when they all went home to their own families, the television went on, and it kept me good company.

Lloyd had told me this would be our first no-work-allowed vacation, but then he bumped into that man. The man was a developer and had all kinds of things he wanted to develop, and my father, a banker, had all kinds of money he wanted to lend. He gave me a new dress, and I felt better.

“A new pink dress—that’s what I want,” I finally said. “This one was new, but look at it now.”

“Dig, dig deeper!” she chanted. “Think hard about all that you want from your life. You’ve got to dig to find the real answers, to discover what
you want. It’s easy to live on the surface, so dig! Dig harder! What else might you want?”

Curves. I wanted curves, but they were something my father couldn’t buy me. As I felt the sand working its way deep into my girdle, itching me horribly, I knew how ridiculous it was to wear a hot, uncomfortable item in Florida. Still, a girl never knows when she might bump into the man of her dreams, and curves are essential to getting the all-important husband and insuring one’s economic future. Money, thanks to Daddy, I would never lack, but alluring curves, I had no idea why they weren’t yet showing up on me. I wanted them badly. I wanted to look as curvaceous as Marlena. Her hips were wide and the same size as her bust, and her waist was tiny like the necks of the birds trekking along the shore.

“Why are you grinning?” she asked.

“I think trying to build a snowman in the sand is funny,” I said, using my arm to rub sand out of my eyes.

“My dear. Then stop thinking and keep moving. There are times when thinking hinders us from achieving the impossible,” she said as she stood with her arms stretched overhead. She began swaying as we do in art class when our teacher tells us to act like trees, feel like trees, then paint those trees. “You are in the spring of your life, child, when possibilities are blooming as profusely as Florida’s wildflowers.” She leaned to the left, then to the right again. “It’s looking so much like a snowman,” I heard her say. “You’re about there. Now let me rephrase my question to you. What is it that you dream of for your life, Lydia?”

Her words suddenly reached me as if she were a fairy godmother and was tapping me on the shoulder with her magic wand and the world was growing pinker by the moment, probably from the setting sun. And then I spotted a group of motionless bright pink birds, more beautiful than any bird I could ever imagine. I knew of flamingoes, but these weren’t flamingoes! It was sometime after I saw these birds that the white silken sand of Sanibel transformed itself into glistening snow within my own hands and I knew then that anything was indeed possible. I knew then that I would one day become a wife, a mother, and, if I wanted, a journalist!

“I’ve done it,” I announced, jumping up from the sand with my arms in
the air. “I’ve built a snowman …”

“Snowwoman!” she corrected. “Let’s call it a snowwoman. Who says snowmen must be men?”

I laughed. “Then I’ve built a snowwoman on Sanibel.”

“You have, Lydia. Do you believe now that you can do anything?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “I do.” I gazed over to see if those pink birds were still around, and just as I spotted them, one of them raised and lowered its beak, and the flock took off. The pink was gone.

“Your snowwoman needs facial features. Go and gather up seashells,” Marlena said.

I rushed to the water and stooped over in search of eyes, a nose, and a mouth in the clear water below.

“Be kind,” Marlena called out to me as she tied her chiffon scarf around the snowwoman’s neck. “Be especially kind in choosing a nose.”

I returned moments later with my hands filled with shells.

“That broken whelk will be the nose,” she said, taking from my hands a shell bearing zigzag-like streaks. “And how about those two sharks for eyes?”

We pushed them into our snowwoman and stepped back a foot. “Looks great, but I better get going before my father hires a search team,” I said, noticing the sky getting darker. I walked over and picked up my straw bag.

“It wasn’t my intention to get you in trouble,” she said. “I do apologize.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You, too. How long are you here for?”

“Six more days but I don’t ever want to leave.”

“Enjoy.”

“I will.”

“Goodbye, dear.”

I waved and started meandering down the beach. A few seconds later, I heard her calling out to me.

“Oh, Lydia! Lydia! Wait, please!”

“Yes?” I stopped and turned.

“I do think we met for a reason,” she said, hurrying up to me. “I don’t believe it was a coincidence. I hope I’m not wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

She took a deep breath. “Today was the first time in a long time that I poured myself a cup of coffee and went out to my lanai to sit and read. And then, I spotted you on the beach. At first I thought you were just reading, but then I noticed you writing in what looked like a journal.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a very old-looking book. “Here,” she said, handing me the book, but still clutching it herself. “This is what I went out to my porch to read today, but I’ve already read it so many times. It’s a journal, and it’s very old.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“Heavens, no!” she said, nearly pulling it back. “I’m only lending it to you. The girl who wrote in it died long ago, but you reading it would be like giving flight to her words. I do believe you and she have some things in common. She loved Sanibel and, like you, didn’t want to leave.”

“Thank you,” I said, the two of us still jointly holding onto it.

“There’s one thing I ask of you,” she continued.

“Sure, what?”

“That you not tell a soul about this. I don’t think this girl wanted anyone and everyone rummaging through her priceless treasures, especially any man; so, please don’t tell your father. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your father reading your journal now, would you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then, you understand. I think it’s important that only the right kind of person read this. It’s the kind of book that should be read by invite only. You’re the first person I’ve chosen to share it with. Who knows? Maybe when you’re done, we might pass it on to another. But in the meantime, can you promise to keep it a secret?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good. And remember, I do want it back. What you walk away with after reading it is yours forever, but the book itself belongs to me.”

“Of course,” I said.

She looked nervous. “Are you good at returning things? Give me an example of something you’ve borrowed, then returned properly.”

“Library books,” I declared. “Only one late fee in all my life, and I
check out about fifty books a year.”

“I thought you looked like an earthbound individual. Still, I need you to swear on your mama’s grave you won’t tell a soul and that you will return it to me before leaving the island.”

“I swear.”

“On what?”

“On my mother’s grave.”

“Thank you,” she said. “When one returns a library book late, there is a fine to pay. Do you know what will happen if you don’t keep our promise?”

“What?”

She thought a moment. “You will be cursed. Your ability and desire to write will erode and you will find yourself stranded forever in a place where ideas and creativity lie stagnant. Some people refer to that place as ‘writer’s block.’ If you tell, you will wreck your destiny as a journalist. And I know you want to become someone important, famous maybe. What girl doesn’t want the entire world listening to all the important things she has to say?”

“What if my father asks me what I’m reading? What should I say?”

“You’re sharp.” She reached into her bucket and pulled out another book.

“Here, take this. Its dimensions are a bit larger, so you can hide the journal inside it.”

“Catcher in the Rye
?” I asked, taking the book.

“Yes, and author J.D. Salinger autographed it for me personally. It’s about a boy and nothing I’m too interested in reading. Are you familiar with it?”

“No.”

“Figures,” she said. “If anyone asks what it’s about, tell them a generation of adolescents, overwhelmed with anxiety and frustration.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will.”

She sighed. “I think that’s it. Oh,” she covered her mouth with her hand. “I almost forgot the most important thing. I live straight through that thin line of Australian pines.” She turned and pointed. “See that yellow
place with the green-shingle roof and shutters? The one on stilts?”

I nodded.

“There’s a sign out front that reads, ‘Bougainvillea.’ If you don’t see me on the beach, then please drop it by my mailbox before you leave the island. Now you better get back. It’s getting dark. And keep that journal a secret!”

“I will, I will!” I said as I started walking briskly down the beach and a second later I thought I heard her say, “Go, you little feathery gold plume! Protect your destiny and don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

II

I HAD NEVER LOOKED
into anyone else’s journal before, and I could hardly wait to, hopefully discover it full of secret treasures. But dusk was quickly turning to dark, so I continued briskly down the shell-strewn beach. I didn’t feel like facing Lloyd’s wrath for getting back late.

As I rounded the large screened porch on the side of the cottage we had rented for the week, I spotted my father standing in the driveway. His right arm was bent stiffly near his face, and he was watching the hands on his wristwatch make their rounds. I stopped to decipher whether he looked worried or mad.

“Damn. Where is she? I don’t have time for this,” he muttered to his watch.

“Sorry, sir,” I said, walking over and putting my arm on his and lowering it gently from his face.

“Where have you been, young lady?”

“I can explain,” I said. “I met a very nice woman on the beach, and we were chatting. She said she got a nose job, and I felt too stupid asking her what that was. Do you know? What kind of work does she do? Smell things?”

“You’re kidding, I hope.”

I wasn’t, but when he didn’t look amused, I told him what he wanted to hear. “Of course. But I can still explain why I’m late.”

“Never mind. I don’t have time for any more stories. Save them for
your journals,” he scolded. “We’re leaving the island.”

“What? We can’t possibly be leaving. We still have several more days left.”

“Plans change. We’re leaving. Haven’t you noticed all our suitcases piled around me? I had to pack all of your stuff. Yours and mine.”

I hadn’t noticed them, but now I did, and mine were busting at the zipper lines. “Why?” I asked.

Lloyd took in a deep breath, and by the way he let it all out I knew something bad had happened. “It’s my partner, Mr. Ashton. He’s suffered a stroke and we’ve got to get back to Chicago immediately. I’ve arranged for a car to take us to the marina so we can catch a private charter out tonight. We’ll be staying in Fort Myers, then flying out first thing in the morning.”