“They were drying off,” Avery explains as she opens her sand chair beside his.
“For twelve hours?”
Then, nothing.
Nothing but settling in.
Nothing but both of them sitting side by side until Mack walks the beach a little and picks up a few seashells. He gives them to her when he sits beneath their umbrella again.
Avery drops them in her tote, grabs her cell phone and takes a scenic shot or two: one, a seagull swooping low over the water; the other, a wide vista of blue sky and sea.
“How about one of us?” Mack asks.
“Okay,” she says.
Mack takes the phone, holds it arm’s length, and snaps the picture while kissing her cheek at the water’s edge.
When Avery sits again, Mack reclines his chair and puts his baseball cap over his face. So Avery pulls her book from her tote and opens the story to where she left off.
There’s only the rhythmic splash of lapping waves then. And the muffled voices of a couple walking past and talking softly. The sun beats down from high in the afternoon sky. The salt air itself feels drowsy.
“A wave breaks, hissing up onto the sand at the same time he finally, finally hears his brother’s long-awaited voice.” As she whispers the line, Avery drags her bookmark beneath the words.
Something else happens, too. Mack sits up and waggles a finger at her. When he stands, he quickly bends and scoops her up—right off her sand chair. The motion is so abrupt, Avery’s straw sunhat flips off her head.
“No!” she calls while dropping her book and kicking her legs. “Come on, it just slipped! I won’t read out loud again.”
“We had a deal, Avery.” Mack hoists her up higher in his arms and walks straight into Long Island Sound. He splashes through the cold water and heads out deep.
“You put me down, Mack!” Laughing and kicking, Avery tries to twist out of his hold. “The water’s too cold,” she pleads. “Don’t do it!”
“Deal’s a deal.” After walking deep enough for the water to reach waist-high, he promptly—and gently—drops Avery into the water, shakes his head and returns to his sand chair beneath the umbrella. Once there, he reclines again and tugs his cap low on his face.
It doesn’t take long—a minute, maybe—until Avery makes it out of the water. She’s dripping wet, top to bottom. Standing in front of Mack, she spritzes any water from her fingertips right onto his tanned belly. To sweeten her revenge, she bends and squeezes any drops she can from her sodden, soaked hair, too, right onto his chest.
four
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COTTAGE IS white. The walls, painted. The sofa, upholstered. End tables are painted white, as are dressers. Built-in cupboards? White, too. The cottage interior is all light, and airiness. Then there are the splashes of blue. A blue knitted throw draped over the sofa. A blue lamp. Blue seascapes on the wall. Blue stoneware on the kitchen shelves. And of course, blue skies filling every wide, open window.
So Avery nearly blends in with her lightness. With her sandy hair. With her white tee, knotted over cropped white jeans. The tie-dyed jeans, like the cottage, have vague splashes of pale blue.
Avery’s walking through the cottage Wednesday afternoon. Moving from one room to another. One bedroom to another. Again, and again. Living room, to dining room. Down the hall to the spare sewing room. There, fabric samples fill wall shelves. And a sewing machine is set up on a long table. All part of Martinelli Upholstering, no doubt.
You’d think Avery is taking in all the details, and atmosphere, of this old sprawling beach cottage. But you’d be wrong. All you’d have to do is watch how she picks up things and sets them right down. A vase from the distressed-white sideboard. A framed family photograph from a bookshelf. A piece of gold-threaded blue upholstery fabric from a white basket. An unlit lantern from a dresser top. A glass fishing float from a white bowl.
Up and down. Up, and down again without a second look. From one room, to the next. There’s a near-manic pitch to her pacing. When she’s out of sight, her voice floats through the rooms as she talks into her cell phone now.
“How’s Dad doing?” she asks, then pauses. “Do you need anything? Anything I can bring for you when we leave Saturday?” More quiet. “Please be very careful.” Another pause, then, “We’re okay, Mom. Pretty much holed up here at the cottage, the beach.” One more pause. “Sure, I’ll tell him you both say hello.” A beat of silence. “Love you. See you soon.”
Then? Nothing but her footsteps again until Mack calls out, “Was that your parents?”
“Yes,” Avery calls back. “They’re okay, laying low at home.” She walks toward the kitchen. “What do you want to do this afternoon?” she asks. “I don’t want to go back on the beach and float in our tubes again.”
Mack looks over his shoulder from where he’s standing at the open refrigerator. “I’m good hanging out here at the cottage. We can keep it easy, maybe bat around a tennis ball later?”
“I’m not really into tennis.” Avery pulls out a chair at the kitchen table. Her hands twist a thread on the blue placemat. “Wish there was somewhere we could go. Get a change of scenery at least.”
After grabbing a bottled water, Mack sits at the table, too. “Have anywhere in mind?”
She shakes her head. “Everything is just … here. The beach. The dirt road. The peninsula. The ponds. And we’ve done it all.”
“We can take a ride. We rented that Mustang to do some cruising. You game?”
“Places are all closed, though. Mini golf, the Florence Griswold Museum, Niantic Cinema. Where would we even go?”
“Nowhere. Just drive. We’ll cruise the beach roads, put the windows down. Listen to some rock and roll.” He sips his water, then straightens the loose black tee over his cuffed denim shorts. “Drive.”
* * *
Their Mustang hums along those winding beach roads. The radio’s tuned to an oldies station. The car windows are down, and Avery’s hair blows in the wind. She sits back and briefly closes her eyes with a deep breath.
“This is nice,” she says, looking over at Mack driving.
“Anything to get away from the news on that TV,” he tells her. When he reaches over to clasp Avery’s hand, she toys with his braided leather bracelet. “We watched so much of it last night.”
“Oh, Mack. My mom said the hospital’s setting up a virus tent outside now, for the overflow patients.”
“It’s not good, what’s happening out there,” he says, nodding to the street ahead.
“I saw today that the curve on the graph isn’t even a curve. It’s a line, straight up. And all I’m hearing about is hand-washing, and social distancing, and that we should be wearing masks, Mack.” They pass a small shopping center. The doors are closed, the windows dark. “But nothing’s open,” Avery says.
Mack nods. “I’ll check the shed at the cottage. My dad might have masks in there. He sometimes wears them while mowing the lawn, to keep his allergies in check.”
Avery says nothing more. Neither does Mack. Driving through Old Lyme, they take a turnoff and pass boutiques, and an old-fashioned ice-cream shoppe. Yellow flowers spill from a rusted milk can on its front sidewalk. The milk can is beside an A-frame sidewalk sign. Chalked across that blackboard is one word: Closed.