(2)
— Originally publshed in The MacGuffin, Spring 2004
Continued from page (1)
He walked to Ocean Avenue and turned downhill into the ocean breeze
and the horizontal rays of the sun. At the beach turnaround, he sat on a
square stone among the twisted cypresses and took off his shoes and socks.
He moved across the white expanse before the horizon. The sand, fine as a
woman’s face powder, dusted his toes. Ahead of him, a low silhouette. An
adult and child huddled before the lapping surf beneath the fading blaze of
red and orange. Jamey changed course, passed twenty feet to their left, and
reached the sand darkened by the receding tide. He let the incoming suds
wash his toes, as he and Sissy had, and started back. The afterglow showed
him the faces of the pair on the beach, now getting to their feet. The
smaller, a boy wrapped in a beach towel, was crowned by red hair flopping
in the breeze. Freckles. A pointed nose.
“Hi,” said the larger one. The woman he’d seen on the bluff. “Are you
following me, sir?” She laughed and brushed the boy’s bottom. “I’m Roxie
Gambit. My son, Archie.” She put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. He gave
Jamey a shy grin.
Jamey tried to smile. “Jamey McIntyre.”
“Doctor McIntyre,” she said to the child, “told me about the place to go
swimming.”
Archie dutifully repeated his grin.
“Getting chilly,” she said. “Time for us to head to the hotel.” She took
Archie’s hand and scanned the darkening beach. “May we walk back with
you?”
They turned from the surf and plodded across the sand.
“Your wife’s not with you?” she asked.
“I’m a widower.”
“Vacationing?”
“Sentimental journey,” he said.
“You honeymooned here.”
He nodded.
Dusk gathered beneath the cypresses as they reached the foot of
Ocean Avenue. Jamey slipped into his shoes. Roxie put shower clogs on
Archie and buckled her sandals.
“My car’s in a lot up on Dolores,” Jamey said. “It’s a two-seater. You
could hold Archie in your lap—”
“Thanks, but we’re at the Pine Inn.”
TOM'S TALES