“There was this letter maybe two years back in Hagatha’s column from a person called Stranded in Paducah,” Beale began.
“Oh?” I’d answered over two thousand letters over the years. I didn’t remember most of them.
“I remember it so well because my mom had died almost exactly a year before.”
My head swiveled toward him instinctively.
“Cancer,” he added shortly. “And I was feeling low and kinda looking for a sign from the Universe that things would be okay.”
Ah, damn. I was nobody’s sign from the mother-freakin’ Universe.
Beale cleared his throat and rubbed at his wrist again, which I was starting to think was a nervous tic of his.
“Anyway, Stranded said he wasn’t smart enough for college and not capable of learning the stuff he needed to know to get a job he wanted…”
A thrill ran up my spine. I did remember this. Shit.
“I remember thinking I’d’ve told Stranded to go into business with his family, since that’s what I’d done in his shoes, and I was happy enough, more or less.” Beale bent his knees up and wrapped his forearms loosely around them, totally folded in on himself and perfectly comfortable that way. “But Hagatha’s answer was way better.” His eyes were a steady blue, as infinite as the ocean. “She talked about learning difficulties and work-arounds, and how tons of successful people had the same issues, like Richard Branson and Tommy…” He wiggled his fingers. “Whatever his name is. Some clothing guy.”
“Hilfiger,” I supplied, though it came out all raspy. “I changed my mind. Can I have my water bottle, please?”
“Yeah.” Beale stared at me hard for half a minute before he twisted, dug my bottle out of the cooler behind him, and tossed it over the boat to me.
It missed my outstretched hand by inches, and I squeaked just a little—in a very buff and outdoorsy sort of way, obviously—but Beale didn’t seem to care.
“Hagatha said not to let your difficulties define you,” Beale continued softly. “She said, ‘It won’t be easy, Stranded, but the only wrong choice would be thinking you don’t deserve better.’”
“Ah. Well that’s… I mean… it’s not bad advice, is it?” I uncapped the water bottle and sipped gratefully. “As advice goes?”
“I cried.” Beale’s lips pulled up in a ghost of a smile. “First time I’d cried since my mom died. Don’t think I’ve cried since, really?” He paused with his head cocked to one side like he was pondering it, but he gave up with a shrug. “The answer was just so no-bullshit, you know? Not fake sympathy, just real, genuine empathy, and I felt that connection to the soles of my boots. I knew that was why the Universe had sent me there that day. That was the connection I’d been meant to establish. And it’s okay if you don’t believe in any of the energy stuff, but I did—do—and that helped me. A lot.” He shrugged. “Just throwing that out, in case you needed to hear it.”
I gaped at him.
He stood and dusted his ass off, took his binoculars out of his Mary Poppins bag, then somehow managed to leap the boat in a single bound like a cat… or a superhero.
“Wanna go look for the plovers while this patch sets up?” he asked, like he hadn’t just turned me upside down and shaken me hard. He held out a hand to pull me to my feet and then led the way down the dock while I trailed after him.
“So… so then what?” I asked. “After you read that column?”
“Hmm? Oh. Then I started thinking about what I liked to do.” Beale paused as he stepped onto the rocky shore. “And there wasn’t any one thing I was passionate about, but I like rescuing animals, and I like crystals and holistic medicine, and I like nutrition. So I started listening to audiobooks a good bit, while I was running or working out, or even sometimes out on the water. Did you know they even have poetry collections on audio?”
I shook my head.
“Wild, right? And after I learned a bit and got a little confidence, I started volunteering with the Nature Center, and I got to have this whole other thing in my life that I loved. And it’s all thanks to Hagatha.” He winked. “Whoever she might be.”
“Oh.”
Look, it’s not like I’d never considered that I helped people. I was sure I helped the actual people who wrote in—at least helped them to feel heard and seen, even if they never took my advice. But the idea that people who read this weren’t just entertained by it but touched by it?
No, I could honestly say I’d never considered that.
Beale cleared his throat. “So, okay. Our goal here is to count plovers.”
“Which are birds.”
“Still birds, Toby, yes.” He rolled his eyes, as I’d expected, and the mood lightened. “We can’t really walk the whole perimeter of the island because the mangroves grow so thick on the far side, so we’re just going to walk the beach. We’ll start in this direction.” He nodded right.
“And then back the other way.” I nodded confidently, as though plover-spotting was a thing I did regularly.
“See? And you made it sound like this was your first rodeo.”
I snorted.
“We’ll try to get a count of birds and eggs, and I’ll upload the information to the website when we get home. Okay?”
Home was a very weird concept as pertained to the little guesthouse, but I nodded. “It occurs to me that it would be helpful if you were to give me a brief primer on what, precisely, a plover looks like.”
Beale’s mouth twitched. “I was wondering if you were going to ask.” He pulled up a picture on his phone and handed it to me.
“It’s not bad-looking, as sky vermin go,” I approved, looking at the short, pudgy, brown-and-white creature.
“The black stripe on their foreheads indicates that they’re ready for mating.”
“Handy. Probably saves them a lot of time hanging out at bird bars, chatting up other birds who just want to be friends. Enables them to find their feathered soul mates that much faster.”
Beale’s lips quirked and he shook his head.
We set off, and for a few seconds, the only sounds were the squeaking of fine sand under our feet, the crash of waves, and the cawing of birds overhead.
“You know, I almost sent a letter to Aunt Hagatha once.”
I nearly tripped over my sandals. “You?”
He shot me a glance. “Surprised?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “You seem to have things so very under control.”
“Me? After everything I’ve told you?” Beale adjusted the bandanna on his unfairly un-sweaty face and gave me his “you’re insane, but I enjoy it” look. “No.”
“Let’s recap, shall we? Last night, you kept Marjorie from attacking me, this morning you saved me from a vigilante microwave—” I counted off on my fingers.
He laughed.
“And you saved me from drowning when our boat sank.” I threw an arm out in the direction of the water.
“It didn’t come close to sinking. Those rafts are nearly unsinkable. And do not say that’s what they said about the Titanic,” he added.