Returning to Shore (14 page)

The restaurant they went to for lunch overlooked the harbor, but even the view of the glimmering water and the boats bobbing pleasantly didn't get the image out of Clare's head of those two men and Mark's mocking them.

“If you keep your menu open like that,” said Jaylin, “the waiter won't know we're ready to order.”

Clare had been holding her menu without really looking at it. She glanced at it quickly. The sandwiches all had names, and the cheapest one was ten dollars. She didn't feel like eating anything, but Jaylin was looking at her impatiently, so she ordered the Shank
Painter Pita. When the waiter had turned his back on them, Mark waggled his fingers in the air and he and Kip collapsed against each other, laughing. Clare watched the waiter as he headed off towards the back of the restaurant and pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen. He was a thin young man, but there wasn't anything particular about him that made him identifiable as gay. What was it that made Mark think he was? Would he think that Richard was gay just by looking at him? Clare looked down at the pine table. It was varnished so thickly she could dig her fingernail into the shine and leave a nick. When she looked up again Mark was staring at her.

“Hey, what's up with you?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Clare.

“You look kind of out of it,” said Mark.

“I guess that's just the way I look,” said Clare. She wanted to tell him what she thought of the way they were acting. But what was the point of it? She wasn't going to be able to change them. Yet that wasn't the real reason she didn't speak up; the real reason was that, somehow, she couldn't. She just wanted to hide under the table.

“You don't look as if you're having a very good time,” said Jaylin. “You're in P-town. You're supposed to be having a good time.”

The door to the kitchen swung open again and Clare saw the waiter coming out with a tray with drinks on it. She was afraid it was for them. She got up quickly from the table and told Jaylin she was going to the ladies' room. She didn't want to be at the table when the waiter came over to them. She didn't want to be around in case Mark and Kip did anything. She didn't want to be around them at all.

The bathroom had pink ceramic tile and a pink ruffled curtain at the window, but there was no glass in the window, just an air conditioner, so Clare couldn't look outside. On the wall there were two rusty metal dispensers, one for pads and tampons and the other for perfume. There were five choices of perfumes with names like Secrecy and Midnight in Paris. Clare didn't have a quarter, but she pushed each of the plungers. Nothing came out. There were two toilet stalls and when women came in to use the bathroom Clare pretended she was combing her hair.

Eventually Jaylin came to see if she was all right.
“We're practically finished eating,” she said. “What's the matter with you?”

“I just don't feel great,” said Clare. “I think I got too much sun and I got a little seasick coming over.”

“That's too bad,” said Jaylin. “We're going to have to leave pretty soon because the tide is starting to go out.”

Clare caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror, right over the sign that said
Employees Must Wash their Hands
. She did look sunburned.

“Actually,” she said, “I won't be going back with you.” She hadn't planned on saying this, but it popped right out.

“What do you mean?” asked Jaylin.

“I'm really sorry,” said Clare, “but I just don't feel like being on a boat.”

“So how are you going to get back, then?” asked Jaylin.

“I'm going to get my dad to come pick me up,” said Clare. She was amazed at her own audacity. Seeing Jaylin's surprised face she added, “You're welcome to drive back with me.”

“Why would I want to do that?” asked Jaylin.

Clare shrugged.

Jaylin waved once at Clare and called out, “See you!” as she, Mark, and Kip headed off back down Commercial Street to the town landing. But Clare doubted they would be seeing each other again. She hadn't brought her cell phone with her, since they were traveling in an open boat, but she'd seen public telephones near the wharf. As she walked there, she felt less brave, less certain, and by the time she reached the phones, she was beginning to feel terrified. What if she couldn't get in touch with Richard? Or what if he wasn't able to come?

Richard didn't answer the phone. His answering machine picked up after the sixth ring and informed
her of the number of the terrapin hotline to report sightings, then clicked right off. She called back again to try to leave a message, but the answering machine cut off immediately after the recording, and she was speaking to a dial tone. It had been reassuring, for a moment, to hear his voice.

Every ten minutes she tried calling him again, hanging up just before the answering machine picked up since she didn't have much change left. Richard wasn't expecting her home till late in the afternoon, so there was no reason he should be around the house. He could be on the beach or out in his kayak or even on the other side of the Blackfish Island Bridge. She tried picturing him in different places, as if that was a way to make him real, summon him home. But the scene that she kept returning to in her mind was when Richard had demonstrated how to get back into a kayak after it capsized and he'd been trying to hoist himself up; his hair and beard were soaking wet and his legs were thrashing in the water.

In between calls, Clare took short walks onto the wharf. The ferry from Boston had recently arrived, and an onslaught of people—pulling suitcases and
carrying satchels—approached Clare. There were gay couples and straight couples and people on their own who might have been gay or straight. Here, it didn't seem to matter. Some of the people looked dazed, as if they had been deposited in a foreign country, but some of them had been met by friends or family and Clare looked with envy at these small scenes of happy reconnection. Soon they were all gone, absorbed into the life of Provincetown. The whale-watch boats were all out for the day, and for a time, the wharf was quiet.

Clare tried to think about what else she could do. There was no public transportation to Blackfish Island. There might be taxis somewhere, but she hadn't seen any. She didn't know anyone in Provincetown, though; she didn't know anyone on the Cape. There was that woman, Steffi, but she didn't even know her last name. She could call Aunt Eva, but she'd only get her worried. It wasn't as if Eva could just drive down from Maine and pick her up. There really wasn't anyone else to call except Richard. Eventually he'd have to come home.

At last Richard answered the phone. He sounded breathless at first, as if he had run to catch the call. “I'll be there as soon as I can,” he said. He didn't sound
either angry or surprised. He didn't ask her any questions, either.

Half an hour later, when Clare saw his old station wagon inching its way through traffic towards the wharf, she ran towards it. It was the same car that she had felt so uncomfortable riding in when she had first been picked up by Richard at the Cape Cod Canal, and now it was the most welcome sight in the world.

Richard spotted her and stopped so she could jump into the car. “Are you all right?” he asked once she was settled in her seat.

“I'm fine,” said Clare. “I just didn't want to have to go back with them on the boat.”

“Where are they?” asked Richard, looking out the window.

“They left a while ago.”

Richard stepped on the brake and turned to look at Clare.

“That man should be shot,” said Richard.

“Who?”

“Your friend's father—leaving you alone before I arrived to pick you up.”

Then Clare had to explain how it had turned out
that Jaylin's father didn't go with them at all; it was just Jaylin and her brother and his friend. And the reason they had to leave was because of the tide. She sounded as if she were defending them, and she wasn't sure why.

Richard didn't say anything.

It was a relief to get out through the crowded streets of Provincetown and out into the open highway. Clare rolled her window all the way down and let the warm highway wind blow against her face.

She looked over at Richard. “How come you're not asking me why I didn't go back with them?” she asked.

“I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me,” said Richard.

“I wouldn't have gone with them in the first place if I'd known Jaylin's father wasn't coming, but I was already on the boat and they'd started it up.”

“It's all right, Clare. I understand.”

“How come you're being so nice?” asked Clare.

“Why shouldn't I be?”

“I made you come all the way to Provincetown to get me.”

“That's nothing,” said Richard.

The car wheels thumped a welcoming drumbeat
on the planks of the Blackfish Island Bridge. Clare took in a deep breath of the reassuring smell of the marsh. She felt as if she was coming home. Everything was distorted in Provincetown. Now, on Blackfish Island, everything was restored. Richard, here, was just a man who studied terrapins.

“The reason I didn't want to go back with them is that I got a little scared on the boat,” said Clare. “Jaylin's brother likes going through the waves.” Clare paused for a moment, then added, “And he and his friend were kind of obnoxious.”

“And your friend Jaylin?”

Clare didn't say anything.

“Not such a good friend?”

“Not really,” said Clare, softly.

“I'm sorry I was out walking on the beach. You were trying to get me on the phone for a long time, weren't you?” asked Richard.

“Yes.”

“And she left before she knew you had been able to get a ride?”

Clare nodded. She hadn't thought she was going to cry, but she was crying now, silly, burbling kind of
crying, like a little kid. She'd told Richard only part of the reason, but somehow she thought that maybe he guessed. He seemed always to figure things out.

“Oh, Sweetie,” said Richard. He took the steering wheel in his left hand and with his right hand he reached out towards Clare and stroked her hair back over her head. His hand rested there behind her head and she leaned back into it, and let the weight of her head, the weight of everything, rest in his palm.

They went out together early in the morning to check for terrapin tracks. It was almost the end of the nesting season, and Richard said no new nests had been found for the past two days.

“We get a break until the end of August,” said Richard. “Then we have to check all the marked sites every day to see if any hatchlings have emerged.”

“I wish I could be here to help,” said Clare.

“Maybe you could come back then,” said Richard. “If Vera will let you.”

“She'll have to let me,” said Clare.

It was a foggy morning. Richard was wearing his usual clothes—tan shorts and blue work shirt—but
Clare was glad she had grabbed her sweatshirt when they left the house. The sky and the water were the same almost colorless grey-blue, and there was no horizon. Even the big houses on the top of the dunes were softened, some of their extremities lost in the mist. Some black-backed gulls strutted along the flats. One found a spider crab worth eating and took it off to devour on an upturned dingy, but a more aggressive gull snatched it away. The loser's complaint was the only sound on the entire beach.

They walked almost halfway around the island, and didn't spot any terrapin tracks.

“This could be it,” said Richard, “but I'll keep looking. There are sometimes a few late nesters.”

“What are you going to do with your mornings if you're not out checking for terrapin tracks?” asked Clare.

“Oh, I'm sure I'll find something,” said Richard. “There's always mountains of data to study.”

Slowly clouds in the sky began to take on definition and now and then the sun managed to push its way through and brighten patches of the beach. Clare took off her sweatshirt and tied it around her waist.

“Why do you care about them so much?” asked Clare.

“Do you think I care about them too much?”

“I'm not saying it's too much,” said Clare. “It's just that I wondered why them? And why you?”

“Want to sit down for a minute? Take a break?” asked Richard.

“Sure,” said Clare.

They walked up towards the dunes, where the sand was drier, and sat down next to each other. Vera would never sit on bare sand, only on a beach chair or a blanket. Clare was thinking about how she had changed since she first came to the island, when she, like Vera, would have always had something between herself and the beach.

“When Charlie died,” began Richard, “I felt I had no one; I had nothing. I couldn't think of what to do with myself. I'd made enough money so I didn't have to work anymore, and there wasn't anything keeping me in California. So I came back here.”

Richard picked up a handful of sand and then opened his fingers just enough so it flowed out, like a sand timer, depositing a small, even mound of sand.

“I'd never been particularly interested in nature before I met Charlie,” he continued, “but he was a science teacher and loved all those creepy, crawly things, and eventually he won me over.” Richard paused and looked directly at Clare. “I couldn't save Charlie,” he said. “The terrapins were here. I thought I stood a fighting chance of saving some of them.”

“What do you mean you couldn't save Charlie?” asked Clare.

“I was right there when he was hit,” said Richard. “I was coiling up the hose by the garage door. Charlie had just come home and was picking up the mail from the box at the end of the driveway. I looked up when I heard him push the metal mailbox closed. He was straddling his bike, flipping through the mail. I saw the car coming fast around the curve in the road. I couldn't get to him in time.”