The View from the Top (16 page)

“Really?”

“Totally. It's like you get to a certain degree of sadness and you just want to wallow in it. I've been doing the same kind of thing this whole vacation.”
Wait a second,
Mary-Tyler thought, catching herself.
You can't tell her about the pool. She'd know where you live.

“That's really nice of you to say, but I doubt it.” Anabelle shook her head and her curls bounced vigorously. “For me it got so bad, I had to do something to myself physically to stop.” She pointed toward the beach with a lobster leg. “And that's how I wound up there. I needed to put myself in the ground to keep from literally beating myself up. You can't tell me that's not bizarre.”

Mary-Tyler brushed off some of the sand that was still stuck to her elbow. “Well, I got in, too, right?” she said, and left it at that.

Anabelle's face relaxed. “Yeah. I guess you did.” She glanced at Mary-Tyler's lobster body. “Hey,” she said, “you having trouble with that?”

“No,” Mary-Tyler said quickly. “I was just taking a break—listening to you.”

“Here, give it,” Anabelle said, taking Mary-Tyler's plate.

“I can do it fast. You're a tail-eater, it's okay.”

“Tail eater? That doesn't sound like a nice thing to be.”

“No, don't feel bad,” Anabelle said. “It's just the truth. The parts that're chopped off of these things? Those go to the tourists. Us locals eat what's left. I think I've had a tail maybe twice in my life.”

Mary-Tyler tried to imagine her parents picking apart a lobster like this. They always threw away the bodies when they ate whole lobsters. “Well, thanks for doing my dirty work for me,” she said.

“No problem. I actually enjoy it. It's kinda like digging for treasure. The stuff is lodged in the cartilage in little shapes.” Anabelle started piling bits of meat on the side of Mary-Tyler's plate. “Like your ash people.”

Mary-Tyler grabbed a piece of lobster and put it in her mouth, rolling it around her tongue. It was really sweet and tender. Almost like tail meat. She couldn't wait to freak out her parents by eating straight from the chest the next time they got lobsters.

She pictured them right now munching in silence at their long dining-room table and realized she didn't want the day to end when she and Anabelle were through with their lobster bodies. “Hey, you doing anything after this?” she asked.

“No,” Anabelle said. “I was just gonna go home. Maybe play piano for a few hours, keep my hands busy. Stop myself from turning into a psycho.”

Mary-Tyler laughed. “How about I stop you from turning into a psycho.”

“Okay,” Anabelle said, pulling another body out of the bag. “What'll we do?”

“I'm in the mood for something fun. Something I've never done before,” Mary-Tyler said. “Like, I've always wanted to go on that salt ‘n' pepper shaker thingy. You know, at Twirly World.”

“You mean
Whirrrly
World?”

“Whatever.”

“Yeah, I don't know. Those kind of rides make me nauseous.”

“Okay, let's stay away from there, then.”

A seagull separated from his flock and paced back and forth alongside their table, waiting for them to drop bits of their food. Anabelle swung her legs at him and he backed up, but kept staring with beady mustard-yellow eyes. “You know, there is someplace I've been thinking about going,” she said. “But it's sort of... I don't know, a naughty thing to do.”

“Ooh,” Mary-Tyler said. “What's the place?”

“Actually,” Anabelle said, “maybe we shouldn't go there. You're gonna think I'm crazy.”

“I'm gonna think you're crazier if you don't tell me already!”

“Okay.” Anabelle shoved Mary-Tyler's lobster-filled plate back at her. “It's the nude beach?” she said, almost like a question.

“There's a nude beach here?!” Mary-Tyler said. “How can we not go?”

“Well, it's kinda far. Over at the bluffs.”

“I don't mind.”

“It doesn't weird you out?”

“I'm around nude people all the time back home. Sculpture classes.”

“All right,” Anabelle said, bobbing her head nervously.

“That's what we'll do then. The nude beach.”

Mary-Tyler twisted a leg off of her lobster carcass. “I can't believe you've lived here all your life and you've never been to the nude beach!”

“My boyfriend used to go,” Anabelle said defensively.

“He never wanted me to go with him. I guess he didn't want me around when he was checking out girls.”

Mary-Tyler was sure now: this guy had not been Anabelle's soul mate. Maybe Anabelle hadn't figured that out for herself yet. But she seemed like a smart girl; it was just a matter of time.

The sun had dropped a bit since they'd left the beach, and its rays bathed the bluffs in a soft orange glow.

“Okay, ready?” Anabelle asked as they entered the small parking lot.

Mary-Tyler carefully rewrapped her towel around her waist, then gave an overly excited “Hell, yeah!” to not come off as prudish.

There were no nudists in the lot—only a few clothed people loading beach chairs and colorful bags into their trunks. Off to the side, at the edge of the bluffs, were two boys carrying binoculars, maybe twelve years old. Mary-Tyler wondered if the kids would be able to see them in their binoculars once they were down on the beach. But it didn't matter, right? It's not like she and Anabelle were gonna get naked or anything; they were just going to look.

They walked cautiously toward the stairs that led to the bottom of the bluffs. On the railing was a sign on a plank of wood:

“Darn, I thought I'd go down the steps naked,” Anabelle said.

“Yeah,” Mary-Tyler said. “Slide down the banister and get splinter ass!”

About every fifteen steps there was a landing and a ninety-degree turn. On their descent, they passed a young couple with a picnic basket and three balding guys with hairy backs. Mary-Tyler couldn't help but imagine all of them without their clothes on.

When they got to the bottom, they came across their first nudists. An elderly couple shaking sand out of their blanket. They wore only glasses, watches, and sandals. “Evening,” the man said as he leaned over to pick up his newspaper. Even with dusk approaching, there was enough light to see his body clearly: wrinkly rear, silvery public hair, penis limply poking through the hair.

“Uh, hi,” Anabelle said awkwardly.

“Okay,” Mary-Tyler whispered when they'd passed the couple. “This is a little weirder than nude people in sculpting class! Did you see that woman's boobs? They were sagging so far, she could, like, pick her belly button with her nipples!”

“Shhhh!” Anabelle whispered, giggling. “That guy was a Polar Bear! I
really
didn't need to see him without his trunks.”

“Polar bear?” Mary-Tyler said. “He looked human to me.”

“No, the Polar Bear Club,” Anabelle said. “It's a bunch of crazy old dudes who go swimming in the winter.” Her face reddened. “Plus me.”

“Wow, that's rad,” Mary-Tyler said. “I don't think I'd have the balls to do that.”

“Well, nobody knows I have the, uh, balls to do that,” Anabelle confided shyly. “You're the only one I've told. I mean, I've only gone once, so it's not a huge deal, but if my friends had known, they would've turned it into one.”

Wow, another secret. Mary-Tyler wanted desperately to return the show of confidence, to tell Anabelle that she wasn't as stable as she might seem. But how do you say to someone you just met,
I think about killing myself almost every second of the day
? It was way too heavy.

They continued down the ribbon of sand that wound around the bluffs, sticking close to the shore. The blankets were spread farther apart here than at the regular beach—but the nudies had all the same things as the clothed people: umbrellas, coolers, radios. And nobody was making any attempt to hide their bodies, no matter what shape they were in. A couple guys with beer guts lay around talking to women with belly-button piercings and tattoos as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Anabelle stood on her toes and held a hand up to Mary-Tyler's ear. “We should've brought sunglasses,” she said. “So we could look without looking like we're looking.”

“Some of these people I don't want to be looking at anyway.”

“Yeah, I know. I think I just passed my mailman.”

“Eew,” Mary-Tyler said. “See any hotties yet?”

“No,” Anabelle said. “Okay, maybe one. But I'm starting to think guys are hotter
without
all their junk hanging out.”

“Yeah, like that guy over there,” Mary-Tyler said, trying to inconspicuously point at the guy in the shades leaning against the rocks, chatting up the tall, thin woman wearing only a visor. The guy's chest was so smooth, it looked like it had been waxed. And his pubic hair had
definitely
been waxed. “Nasty!” Mary-Tyler whispered, hunching over to Anabelle's ear. “Why would you shave your pubes?”

“Oh jeez,” Anabelle said, tugging at Mary-Tyler's arm and picking up her pace. “That guy used to date my ex's mom! How come I know everyone here?”

Mary-Tyler snuck another look at the guy. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn't place what. And then, he caught her looking. He stopped talking to the visor woman and looked straight at Mary-Tyler. He lifted his sunglasses, and the way his eyes scanned her body, it was as if he could see right through her towel, her bathing suit. It was flattering and gross all at once.
Wait
a minute, she thought.
That's the pool guy!
Suddenly all of the flattery was gone and it was nothing but gross.

“Stop staring!” Anabelle whispered emphatically. “You have to be more subtle!”

“Sorry,” Mary-Tyler said. “I thought I knew that guy from somewhere.”
Remember
, she told herself,
don't let on that you have a pool
.

“Him?” Anabelle said. “I don't want to know how you know him.”

“Why not?”

“He's, like, the town sleazeball. He struts around the beach—the regular beach—in this little black Speedo. And he hits on pretty much everyone.”

“Oh,” Mary-Tyler said. “I guess that's why I recognized him. From the beach or something.”

She turned around to see if the guy was still giving her that creepy look. Thankfully, he was back to Visor Woman. But a bunch of other people were watching her. “Hey,” she said, tapping Anabelle's shoulder. “I'm getting this weird feeling. Like we don't belong here.”

“Sorry. Was this a bad idea?”

“No, I'm just feeling like we're calling attention to ourselves because we're the only ones with clothes on.”

“I know. I'm feeling the same thing,” Anabelle said.

“Like
we're
the ones revealing something about ourselves.” She stopped in her tracks and turned on her heels. “Maybe we should change that?”

“What, take off our clothes?
Really?”

“I don't know.” Anabelle shifted her feet in the wet sand. “I mean, we must look like a couple of wusses. And maybe that's what I am. But I'm sick of being a wuss! You know what I mean?”

“Okay,” Mary-Tyler said tentatively. Her skin tingled and tightened. “I'm in if you're in.”

“Okay.”

They stood there, staring at each other.

Then Anabelle turned her back to Mary-Tyler. She removed her shirt and shorts and, in a flash, her bra and underwear were off, too.

Mary-Tyler, realizing she was the only person left on the beach with clothes, turned her back to Anabelle and quickly threw her towel down and stripped off her bathing suit. She paused for a second, then turned back around and found that Anabelle was facing her already.

They both made awkward eye contact, clearly trying not to look below each other's chins.

“Okay, so, um, I guess we keep walking?” Mary-Tyler said, picking up her towel and suit. She kept telling herself to stop sneaking looks at Anabelle's body, which she now saw was much more elegant-looking, much more perfect and compact than it had appeared in her baggy clothes. Her back was pale and gleaming, with a couple wide strap marks framing her freckled shoulders where a tank top must've masked her skin from the sun.

Mary-Tyler bundled up her towel and suit in front of her chest. She felt as if her breasts were screaming out to the world,
Look at us! We're globes!
She had expected this to be easier; the models at the Sculpture Studio in New York sure made it look like it was nothing.