Allie and Bea : A Novel Read online

  Bea turned her head to address Allie in the backseat. “The cat will be fine. It’s been a long, difficult day. Let’s get back to our host’s house and have a shower and get some sleep.”

  They stepped into his living room together. Casper flipped on the light.

  The first thing Bea saw were the animals, which were of the nonliving variety. A full-size adult bear, a victim of both a hunter and a taxidermist. Then she saw the head of some kind of horned elk mounted on the wall. Beside it, two long guns and a huge swordfish sat mounted on a wooden plaque over the fireplace.

  Oh dear, Bea thought. This will upset the child no end.

  She looked over at Allie, but the girl did not return her gaze. Bea waited for a rude comment, but none was made.

  Casper noticed, though.

  “Not everybody’s cup of tea,” he said. “But just so you know, I always get a clean shot. I shoot well to avoid their suffering. It’s a point of pride with me.”

  “That’s good to know,” Bea said.

  Still, it seemed a shame to kill a fish and not even eat it. It seemed a waste. Maybe he had eaten the rest of the elk, at least.

  “Well, dibs on the first shower,” Allie said. “Then I’m going straight to bed.”

  Bea thought she must be terribly upset about the dead animals. But a moment later Allie caught Bea’s eye and gave her a sly wink.

  Then the girl slipped into the guest room, leaving Bea alone with an actual man. As though there were nothing the slightest bit terrifying about that.

  Bea sat out on the balcony of Casper’s home, looking over the ocean and up at the stars, intermittently. Wishing Allie had stayed.

  “A glass of wine?” Casper called in from the kitchen.

  That would be a lot of alcohol in just a couple of days, Bea thought. And a bit unlike me.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

  A moment later he appeared at her left shoulder, holding out a glass of something red, which she accepted.

  “It’ll help me sleep,” she said.

  Casper settled in the chair next to hers, and sipped from his own glass.

  “Do you get up early in the morning?” he asked her.

  “Depends. Why?”

  “Something I want to show you and your granddaughter. Someplace, actually. I want to go down there around sunrise, because too much later and it’s absolutely overrun by tourists. To see it at its best you have to get up pretty early in the morning. That way you can have the place all to yourself. Or in this case we could have it all to ourselves.”

  “I think that sounds worth getting up for. Allie is trying to teach me to be more adventurous.”

  “She’s a delightful girl.”

  “She is,” Bea said. In that moment she didn’t even mind admitting it.

  A long silence fell. As it progressed, it began to feel heavy. Awkward.

  “You must think I’m a pathetic old man,” Casper said after a painful length of time.

  “No, why would I think that?”

  “It must be so obvious that I’m lonely since my wife died.”

  “That’s not pathetic, though. That’s just human.”

  “Have you been lonely since your husband died?”

  Bea pulled a deep breath, then let out a long sigh. She sipped her wine before answering. It made everything a little smoother. A little easier.

  “Not so much as you would think. At first I was devastated by the loss, but I didn’t turn out to be one of those people who jumps right back into being a couple again with somebody new. I keep my own company too well, I suppose.”

  “So you don’t even think about that now? You wouldn’t even consider it? Oh, I’m sorry, Bea. Don’t even answer that. Don’t say anything. That came out completely wrong. We don’t even know each other. We’re one day away from being perfect strangers. Not even a whole day. And I was not—repeat, was not—putting the moves on a lady I only met this morning. I can’t stress that too strongly. I guess I just thought it was nice getting to know you, and I suppose part of me wondered if you might be inclined to stay in these parts a little bit longer. You know. Just to see what’s what with that.”

  Bea knew the answer was no. But she needed to say more, to explain why, so he wouldn’t take it wrong and be hurt. So she sipped her wine and mulled her thoughts for a moment before responding.

  She thought about the rifles and the dead animals in the living room, and the vote of no confidence in cats. They reminded her what it meant to allow someone into your life. You see something you like in a man, so you ask him in, but what comes in is all of him. Not only the parts you took a liking to, but the many parts that don’t fit with you at all. That’s always the way it worked.

  But she knew she wouldn’t tell him any of that.

  “Oh, Casper,” she said, uncomfortable and slightly giddy at the same time. “I’m so flattered I can hardly tell you. But I could stay here for years and not be ready for a thing like that. It’s not you. You seem like a nice man. But relationships are so . . . I don’t know. It’s me, I guess. I’m just not easy with other people. Never really have been. Romances feel like so much trouble. So much constant compromising. I know for a lot of people it’s worth it. But I don’t think it is for me. When Herbert died, I was so lost. And then, after I realized I could get by on my own, life began to feel simple. It sounds terrible to say, but in some particular sense it was almost a relief.”

  She fell silent again, and stared up at the stars, pulling longer gulps from her glass. She did not look over at his face, because if he was hurt she didn’t want to see.

  “Well, you can’t blame an old fool for trying.”

  “You’re not a fool.”

  “Absolutely I am. I pride myself on it.”

  They sat without speaking for a few minutes, looking up at the stars. Bea was relieved they could be silent. She felt exhausted by communication. In time she heard the water shut off and heard Allie open the noisy shower stall door.

  “That would be my cue,” Bea said. “It’s been a long day.” She rose, but hovered a moment, knowing more was needed. “Thank you for everything,” she said, and placed a hand lightly on his shoulder.

  He turned his head to look at the hand. He smiled at it, but the smile was a tired, sad-looking little thing. It seemed to use up the last bit of energy Casper owned.

  “I can’t believe I got to take a real bath in a real tub,” Bea said to the girl, who was already in bed. Bea stood in her pajamas, toweling her hair, wondering why she didn’t feel sleepy.

  “That’s how it is at my house, too,” Allie said. “Big bathtub on one side of the bathroom, shower stall on the other. Was this the kind of deep tub you said you wanted?”

  “Yes and no. Smaller than the one in my dreams. Bigger than the one in my trailer.”

  She threw the towel over the back of a chair and climbed into bed with the girl. The sheets felt like flannel, which was so luxurious Bea found it almost hard to process. On top of them lay a heavy duvet that pressed down on Bea and made her feel secure and warm. It was a sensation almost unbearably like childhood.

  “Were you terribly upset about the animals?” Bea whispered.

  “You mean the dead bear and his friends? Not so much as you probably think.”

  “But you’re so against killing animals.”

  “I wouldn’t do it. And I wouldn’t want to see it. But animals kill animals. You know. To eat. And I don’t think that’s so terrible. It’s just the way nature planned it. So that elk, he lived free in the wild until the exact moment Casper shot him. Not so different from being brought down by a lion. What I can’t stand is the way we raise animals for meat. The factory farms. We keep them in the most horrible conditions, and mistreat them so badly, and then, after all that, slaughter them in front of each other. That’s the system I can’t be any part of. A hunter . . . I don’t know. I guess it’s not the best sign in the world about the guy. But I’d be more upset about the fact that he doesn’t
like cats.”

  “Interesting,” Bea said. She almost added, “You’ve thought this through more logically than I realized,” but she withheld the words, realizing they hinted at an insult. “Still . . .” Then Bea performed an imitation of the stuffed bear. She raised her hands into claws and bared her teeth in a threatening grimace.

  They both fell into fits of laughter.

  “Nice to hear you so happy in there,” Casper’s voice said, floating into the room. “Goodnight. See you bright and early for our special trip.”

  “Goodnight, Casper,” they both said, more or less in unison.

  “Where are we going in the morning?” Allie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bea said. “It’s a surprise.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Beaches Made of Glass, and Other Fragile Things

  They walked together, the three of them, across a bluff, heading for the ocean. Bea found herself wishing there were no walking involved, but she didn’t care to admit it out loud. To confide in the girl was one thing, but not to an actual man.

  “I hope I haven’t oversold this,” Casper said.

  “You haven’t told us anything about it at all,” Bea replied, already slightly out of breath.

  “But getting us up so early and taking you down here so you can see this thing I want you to see. Some people think it’s just wonderful. They can’t get enough of it. Others, I guess they miss what’s so special.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Allie said, sounding irritatingly fresh. “We like to see new things and find out for ourselves what we think.”

  “That’s the right way to look at it,” Casper said.

  A moment later they ran out of bluff. They stood at the edge of the world, looking down at a cove. Bea had hoped for something she could view with enthusiasm, but it looked no different from any other beach. The sun was just ready to break in the east, and that was lovely, but nothing else struck her as extraordinary.

  “I doubt I can get down there,” Bea said, eyeing the steep dirt paths that twisted their way down the edge of the bluff.

  “Oh, sure you can,” Casper said. “I’ll help you.”

  “No, I really don’t think so, Casper. It looks dangerous to try. Whatever it is, I’ll have to see it from here.”

  Meanwhile the girl had begun to scramble downhill.

  “But you can’t. You won’t see it from up here. It’s something that has to be viewed close up, or you’ll never see it at all.”

  I suppose I won’t see it then, Bea thought.

  Bea heard a shriek that startled her, though it was clearly a cry of delight. Allie was down on the beach now, holding a double handful of what Bea assumed to be sand, peering at it closely.

  “You have to come down here!” Allie called. “You have to see this!”

  “I can’t get down this steep bluff,” Bea called back. “Tell me what’s so wonderful about it.”

  “No. I won’t. You have to see it with your own eyes.”

  Bea sighed.

  “I think I’m about to break my neck,” she said to Casper.

  “I won’t let you. Come on.”

  He took her arm. Over the next minute or two—though it felt like an hour—he helped her navigate the least steep of the steep paths. He did not let her fall.

  Allie whooped joyfully as Bea’s feet touched horizontal beach. She ran to Bea and poured a double handful of beach sand into her outstretched hands.

  “Now what’s so special about this sand?” Bea asked, thinking she should have brought her reading glasses. But when it touched her palms it didn’t feel like sand. It felt like small stones.

  “It’s not sand. There’s no sand down here that I can see. It’s all beach glass.”

  “How can it all be beach glass?”

  “Look.”

  Bea stared closely at her hands. She was holding a pile of beach glass. Nothing but. It was worn smooth from the waves, every pebble. Some pebbles were clear, some brown, some green. There was even one bright spot of cobalt blue.

  “How is that possible?” she asked no one. Bea lowered herself carefully to her knees in the sea of smooth glass pebbles. She put her palms down and looked at the beach surface from only inches away. It was all beach glass. Every pebble of it. “Herbert and I used to hunt for beach glass on our trips to the coast. If we found even two pieces, that was a banner day.”

  She looked up to see if anybody was listening, and saw both Casper and the girl standing close.

  “Glad you’re one of the ones who know enough to think it’s wonderful,” Casper said.

  She sat on a driftwood log with Casper, watching the light of the beach change with the rising sun, watching the girl lie on her belly in the glass, sorting through its wonders. Even the sound was different, Bea noted. As each wave washed up onto the shore, the glass made a noise that sand cannot make, a light tinkling that had begun to sound like music to Bea.

  “So, there has to be a story about how this is possible,” Bea said.

  “There is. You might like it or you might not. Years ago this used to be an official dump site. Locals brought their garbage here and dumped it into the ocean. Lots of glass bottles and jars and pottery in there. Some of the bulkier trash was burned off first. The more unsightly stuff was cleaned up later. But the glass stayed. The waves did their thing, and . . . here you have it. Most people hate that story because it’s nasty to think of throwing trash into the ocean. I like it because I like the idea that something as terrible as that led to something as wonderful as this.”

  Bea breathed in an extra-deep pull of cool morning air. “I’ll go your way with it.”

  “Bea, I don’t want you driving all the way to Eureka and back again today. It’s too long a drive. About six hours round-trip, and then you have to turn around and go right back up there anyway, because that’s the way you’re headed. And think how much of the money you’ll put right back into gas.”

  “But then how do we pay you?”

  “I’ll just take that nice little notebook computer the girl offered me.”

  “Is it worth enough?”

  “It is to me. You’ll be trading it for more than a pawnshop would have given her for it. But I’ll be getting it for less than it would have cost to buy a new one. And it’s as good as new to me. So I say it’s fine. I’ll take you two back to my house, and you can just rest and relax while we mount the new tires and install the starter. We already did the belts and hoses and the alignment. Then you can move on.” A weighted pause. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about moving on.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

  But just in that moment Bea was struck with an idea. It made her stomach jump, and come to attention. It made her feel alive suddenly. Unusually alive. And it wasn’t intended just for him, either. It wasn’t a consolation prize. It was Bea’s very own adventurous plan.

  She looked to see if the girl was watching, but she had disappeared around the rocks to another cove entirely.

  “I was just thinking, though,” Bea said. “Maybe in the spirit of adventure . . .” Then she stalled and didn’t say more for a few beats. She thought about bat rays, and how they had taught her not to leave spaces for doubt to settle. “Maybe just one . . . little . . . tiny . . . very tiny . . . kiss?”

  Still she did not look at his face. She would not have dared.

  “That would be an adventure,” he said, his voice hushed.

  She turned to face him and quickly closed her eyes. She felt his face move closer, and felt her own heart pounding. His lips touched hers for just the count of two. Maybe one and a half. She barely had the chance to register the feel of them, dry and warm. Then they were gone.

  “Well,” she said. “Maybe a little less tiny than that. But not . . . not like those disgusting things you see in the movies on TV with their mouths open, and all that slimy tongue stuff.”

  “No,” he said, barely over a whisper. “Of course not.”

  Then it was
happening again, soft and yielding, but tender. Not disgusting at all. It lasted for a few seconds, and grew a bit more intense, while remaining civil and not terribly frightening as kisses go. Still, Bea’s heart pounded. And still she could hear the musical sound of the waves tinkling a million bits of glass.

  She drew her head back and so did he.

  “Well,” she said. “That was a proper adventure.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “And it’s probably the last adventure I’ll ever have. Because I’m going to break my neck going back up that bluff.”

  He laughed, which felt good to Bea. It was a lifting of tension that she’d been needing. More than she had even known.

  The young man from Casper’s shop came by the house at ten thirty a.m. to get them. He was driving Bea’s van.

  “Well, look at that,” she said, stepping out into Casper’s front yard to greet it. As though the van were a long-lost relative who had changed for the better over the years. “Those tires are so new! They still have those little rubber hairlike things on them from their manufacturing. What do you call those?”

  “Hairs,” the young man said. He seemed uninterested in the humor of the moment, or in bantering. He handed Bea the keys. “Johnny over there followed me from the shop.” He pointing to a compact car idling at the curb. “He’ll give me a lift back. So you folks can just take off from here.”

  “Oh, but I have to at least go by the shop and say goodbye to Casper.”

  “He’s not there. He took the day off.”

  “Really? Why would he do that? He’s not sick, is he?”

  “Nah, he’s fine. Sometimes when he has a lot on his mind he takes a day off and goes crabbing. Oh. I almost forgot. He told me to give you this.” He pulled a small, slightly rumpled envelope from his back pocket and handed it to Bea. “And I’m supposed to pick up a computer?”

  “Right. Right. I’ll just get that.”

  Bea stuck her head back into this near-stranger’s house. This near-stranger whom she had recently kissed. It made her head spin to think about it, literally. It made her a little dizzy. So unlike her. And yet in another way, maybe . . . not. Maybe not anymore.