Popping SeaweedRegina couldn't have been more than five or six when she saw the lifeguards rushing out with their boat, dragging in a woman the way she'd seen men hauling in fish from the dock up at the Inlet. Once they got back to shore the lifeguards lay heron the sand and one man crawled on top of her. She was so young she thought they were kissing. There had been an unusual undertow that day, her mother later said. Most of the time, there was no danger. And besides, they'd never let her wade out that far.Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, her parents shoved her heavy limbs into skimpy bathing suits. She was forced to play in the hot sand, burning like one of those gritty steaks they'd go home and put on the barbecue. The salt water hurt her tiny eyes ('blue's the most sensitive color, but you'll be glad for those eyes later,' her mother used to say). Her memories of New Jersey's flat, surf less beach are so painful that it's taken her nearly forty years to visit the coast of Maine, even though she's lived in New Hampshire over half her life. Over half her life: alone. She moved up to Guilford with a man ten years her senior and began a relationship that didn't last ten months. Since then there have been friends, a lover or two, but she's a private person. Until now she hasn't traveled much (with her father owning a business, vacations or even weekend getaways had been out of the question, and as an adult she's continued that pattern without giving it much thought). Her mother died two months ago, less than a year after her father's death. Time to set off on her own. Maine's close and easy to get to. She can set off in the Taurus, impulsively turn right here, left there. With no one sitting beside her to suggest otherwise. The second night she happens onto Clark Point, just off Clark Island, and discovers a wonderful stone inn right at the tip. She's shown a small room with a single bed, not very appealing, but the inn's clean and secluded and it's still tempting." You don't have a room facing the water?" she asks. They show her a room with two beds and a great view. She decides to take this room if it isn't over ten dollars more. It's the same price: $35.00. She sets her bags down, picks up her camera, throws two pens, a steno pad, and the latest Tony Hillerman novel into a shopping bag, then goes out for a walk before it gets dark. She meets a man and woman talking about how good this inn is. "Glad to hear that," she says, astonished by this newfound ability to talk to strangers." I just got here." The woman's leaving, but the man hangs around. He tells her he and his wife have been coming to this place for five summers. He talks about walking along the rocks on the island. "We were out here at midnight last night. That was an experience, finding our way in the dark. It's just past high tide now. At low tide, around one a.m., all those rocks out there surrounded by water now will be on land. Those boats you see bobbing there? They'll be in the mud tomorrow morning." You can walk out two or three miles, he says, so long as you follow the rocks. "There's a no trespassing sign out on the path as you enter the island. Disregard it. Guests at the inn are allowed to walk there. Then about a mile along the road you'll see a second no trespassing sign. That one's real. The man who owns that section of the island doesn't want people bothering him." He's just going out to find his wife, sunbathing on god knows what rock. No, he doesn't mind if she tags along. Regina catches him glancing at her feet to check if her shoes are adequate for walking. Rocks, she recalls from growing up, can be slippery. You can fall and split your head open, her mother used to warn. She has Nikes on. The man tells her he lives in central Massachusetts. He and his wife are actually thinking about buying a bread and breakfast place along the Maine coast. "We'd be willing to go up as far as Belfast, no further." He makes his living as a technical writer, but could earn more if he was willing to work harder. He's on his third computer, a Macintosh, and really the only computer to have if you work with graphs. He has two children, a boy age 15 and a girl 8. His sister, who owns a small antique shop, is staying with the kids. They brought them one year (the kids, that is).They also once brought another couple who didn't especially like this place. "It's not for everyone." Regina never learns his name. They walk about halfway to the end of the rocks. He puts his hand over his eyes to shield the sun and tries to spot his wife in the distance. "She might be all the way out there," he says, which Regina understands as a polite way of telling her he prefers walking alone. She feigns tired legs, says she wants to read awhile, perches on a rock and watches him walk off in the distance, then shade his eyes to search for his wife. Atone point Regina looks up and thinks she sees two people. She moves a few rocks further toward the end of the island, takes some pictures, wishes she'd brought color film. Color film! Jesus, listen to her. If she wasn't such a quote "fucking purist" unquote, she might have made a go of it with Randy. But her refusal to wear synthetics, eat in any of the chains , or listen to Lite FM got in the way. There are five or six brown ducks in the distance, so quiet she mistakes them for rocks at first. It's starting to get cold. Approaching the inn, she sees the man and his wife sitting on the back porch, beers in hand, smoking. She waves. He lifts his hand in a gesture that might mean don't come any nearer, or might just be fanning smoke, and goes on talking. She wonders if they took the trail back to avoid her. * * * She should have said yes when the owner who checked her in asked if she wanted a reservation for dinner. Only dinner was baked ham and it seemed a crime to come all the way to the coast of Maine and not eat seafood. She refused to eat fish all during her childhood, and has craved it ever since she moved away from the coast. The inn's on a deserted road, twelve miles from the nearest restaurants. She hoped to get back before dark, but doesn't. She drives past the inn, has to turnaround on the narrow road to double back. Still keyed up from the drive, she walks into the main sitting room. It had been empty earlier. Now she finds groups clustered together, some playing chess, a few people off in corners reading. No one even looks up at her. If she'd eaten at the inn, maybe she would have met other people. And not spent a small fortune for four shrimp in this real dive. Too late now. She silently passes through the cliques, grabs a sweatshirt from her room, and leaves again. She perches on the rocks that form a bridge to the island. The man had been right about the tides; she can't see the sea but she hears it in the distance, certainly further off than it was a few hours ago. There are lights in houses along the mainland. A cat comes along the bridge and hops onto the rocks, scurrying around her, avoiding the rock she's sitting on. She decides to walk out to the island, but can't remember if you just climb onto the beach from wherever or if there's a path. She finds what looks like a path, only it's through weeds she doesn't remember from before. It's also slippery. One foot lands in a pool of water. She can't see and, of course, falls and scrapes her knee. Nothing feels broken. She wonders if someone at the inn would hear her if she cried for help. For the first time in a decade, she flashes on that lifeguard, body on top of his prey. Her car's in the parking lot; no one might even notice she's gone. When she finally makes it to the rocks, she's bothered by the lights of cars approaching the inn or the houses along the point. She climbs back to the beach through a rose or berry bush, thorns and all, and heads back to her room for a heavier jacket. On her way out again she passes the woman who checked her in, and asks how late the door will be open. "That back door's never locked; the front door's locked around eleven." This time Regina goes only as far as the rocks along the bridge. Actually, she thinks this is the same rock she'd been on earlier, she recalls its top slanting toward the water, the white shape visible even in the dark. But now she's bothered by happy voices coming from back at the inn. When she walks back this time there's a man standing near the path with his arm around a woman. For a moment, in the dark, he looks like the same man she'd talked to earlier. She tiptoes quickly past them. It's close to eleven and people are starting to bed down. She hears a man call goodnight and leave someone behind in the single room she was originally shown. An adolescent storms down the hall complaining loudly that there are three bathrooms and all three are occupied. Regina undresses and crawls into bed, but lies awake for quite awhile hearing the voices downstairs, doors opening and closing. She wonders if the man will go out at midnight again. * * * She wakes just after dawn, but still has to wait before she can get into the bathroom. One man, leaving, shuts the door and blocks her way as she tries to pass him. "My wife's still in there," he says finally. The teenager who was bitching about the bathroom last night is circling the dining room when she gets there. "The places are reserved. That says Simon," the kid calls as Regina sits down, as if questioning that she could be Simon. Regina's tempted to take a different seat, just to see if anyone really knows another person's name. She recalls friends talking about an inn they stayed at in the Adirondacks. At dinner and breakfast they were seated at a table for ten. The staff moved places around twice a week so everyone got a chance to talk with different people. They obviously don't do that here. The adolescent and another kid are seated with their parents at the table behind her. They get talking to two elderly women at the table next to them -- sisters, traveling the coast in search of their ancestry. It's easier to meet people if you're with people already, Regina realizes. The man yesterday mentioned meeting a man who was traveling alone, yet hers is the only single table setting. She eats quickly. The office doesn't open until nine, so she can't check out yet. She isn't planning on traveling far today anyway. Might as well hang out on the rocks awhile. She has to unlock the back door. She notices a path from the bridge to the rocks; she must have walked past it in the dark last night. Also there's a garden which looks slightly trampled. Those boats are in mud all right. She's amazed by the seaweed strewn all over the rocks, an incredible gold color. From the distance, in the bright light, you'd think you were looking at haystacks. Straight out of Van Gogh. She walks over to the island, along the coast a short way, then out on a rock ledge. Talk about seaweed, there are tons of it now, trapped under the rocks. She tries to pop it, but it's wetter than she expected. The Japanese and macrobiotic converts eat this stuff, she thinks. She takes two pictures, surprised there's no morning fog like she'd woken to yesterday in Cape Porpoise, the little fishing town further south. Other people are finishing breakfast and coming out on the rocks now. A man, his daughter, and a woman who must be his elderly wife (later she hears him call her mother) look for sand crabs close to the tide-line. They've brought a child's bucket and little tools to dig with. A Chrysler with two kids in back drives across the bridge, ignoring the 'unsafe for cars' sign. Regina stops to watch snails and oysters crawling between the rocks. She finds an interesting object, perhaps a small skeleton, caught in a crevice. She jiggles it gently, back and forth, back and forth, and finally manages to get it out in one piece. She turns it different ways to examine it. A fish skull? One section looks like a jaw. But it has some sort of horn on it. Probably just driftwood. The seaweed out here's a little drier. She sits down again and sifts through it. Now it seems too dry to pop. But if she presses firmly enough... the sections hardest to pop are the loudest. She's tempted to dig in with her teeth, for the first time in years regretting her bitten fingernails. The Japanese eat this stuff. Sometimes a liquid oozes out from the pieces that don't pop at all. Too thick for water. The man from yesterday walks out, alone, carrying a rolled up newspaper. He waves to the group digging near the tide, but doesn't seem to see her. The liquid from the seaweed feels sticky on her hands. My god, she thinks, I'm killing live things. But she goes right on popping. |