hadn’t been disinfected in years. The second phone smelled
no better, but at least it kept my quarters.
My coins conjured a glorious tone and I
punched Jenny’s number. Some older guy answered—Jenny’s dad, I
presumed.
“ Hi, is uh … Jenny home?”
“ Who is this?” He broke into an ugly
fit of coughing, full of phlegm. He had to be a smoker, and maybe a
drinker.
“ Um. I’m James. A
friend.”
“ A friend, huh? Well, Jenny ain’t
here.” He slurred his words. Definitely, a drinker.
“ Do you know when she might be
back?”
“ Not a clue.”
“ Okay. I guess uh … can you tell her
I called?”
“ What was your name again?
Jimmy?”
“ James.”
And that was that. He hung up.
I stood there a minute, watching some people
line up to board a bus bound for Jacksonville. I felt punctured;
the invisible force that had buoyed and propelled me on my walk
over had frittered away. I considered hanging around another hour
and calling back, but had lost the will.
Maybe if I went home, her dad would pass the
message and she would call me. Cousins or not, I was beyond any
potential embarrassment, I just wanted to hear her voice. I
realized I hadn’t given her dad my home number, but she knew my
name. It had been on placards at the church, and on the copies of
my dad’s obituary that had been left on every pew.
I started walking home, every step landing
like my soles were made of lead. If nothing else, I still had the
weekend to look forward to. That would be enough to keep the roots
at bay.
Chapter 4:
Beaches
By the end of the week, mom had recovered some
of her equilibrium, to Uncle Ed’s great relief. At least she had
stopped locking herself in the bathroom, and when the neighbors
came by with a casserole, she actually went to the door and chatted
with them.
She resumed her chores, picking up the living
areas, scrubbing the bathrooms, though they really didn’t need much
attention. Aunt Helen had been a dervish about keeping our place
tidy.
Based on the CVS pharmacy bags that had shown
up in the kitchen trash, I had a feeling that some of her rally
might have been chemically induced. Not that I objected. Sometimes
that’s what it took to keep on keeping on.
On Friday morning, I went into the garage to
round up some beach things. Its windows caught the full brunt of
the morning sun so it was like an oven in there.
Seeing dad’s pickup jarred me. I realized I
wouldn’t be around to wash it tomorrow.
It had been years since we had gone to the
shore as a family. When I was little, we used to go every weekend.
Some of the best beaches in the county were only twenty minutes
away from our house.
There was a stack of plastic Tupperware bins
beside the work bench, one of which contained about every toy I had
ever brought to a beach. I can’t believe mom hung onto all my
kiddie stuff. But it was all there, along with some ancient picnic
gear.
I pulled out an old Frisbee in its original
packaging that I had gotten as a birthday gift a few years back. It
had never been thrown because I never had anyone to throw it
to.
Going to the beach had sure been a lot simpler
in those bucket and shovel days. No tricky social dynamics to worry
about, just me and my parents and a sandbox that went on forever;
the ocean my mischievous playmate, always sneaking up and knocking
down my castles.
I unearthed another bin stuffed with neatly
folded towels, but had trouble finding one that wouldn’t embarrass
me. Most had these flowery prints or cutesy cartoon characters. I
finally dug one out from the bottom with an ugly geometric pattern
that was the least likely to draw ridicule.
Mom came out to see what I was up to. She hung
back and watched me while I refolded all the towels I had crammed
back into the bin. She snatched up a tube of sun block and handed
it to me.
“ Oh, and you should bring that
little cooler. There’s some Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew in the
pantry. Get it chilled down in the fridge and