Come to the Edge_ A Memoir - Christina Haag [67]
“Hold on!” Andy shouted as he gunned the engine.
“Faster!” John rallied him. With one hand braced against the dashboard, he stood up and let out a war cry. He almost fell but, laughing, steadied himself. Andy floored it, and we zigzagged in and out of the waves. John turned back to me, alive from the speed. He put out his hand.
“You try!” The sound of his voice was lost to the wind and the roar of the engine. I shook my head vehemently—I didn’t need to do this, the things he did—and I gripped the back of the seat. But he wouldn’t give up.
“Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you!” he yelled to me. I began to stand up, shaky at first, without commitment, one hand still glued to the seat, the other clutching his wrist on my waist. I believed in his hands. He stayed on me until I yelled back, until he saw on my face the same exhilaration he felt and knew that my fear was gone. I’ve got you!
Andy dropped us at the beach near Stafford and took off. We would walk back. By then, the sun was blinding. I tossed my hat on the sand. John doffed his clothes, leaped into the flat water, and swam out as far as he could. I tied the long skirt of my dress on one hip and waded in, thigh-high, to wash off the dust of the day. The water was clear and there was no wind. I turned back to the land. There was no one there, and I could almost see the whole island, end to end—from Christmas Creek in the north to the jetties near the Pelican Banks in the south. Behind me, I could hear his strong, even strokes cutting the water, a sound of safety, of constancy. “This is the widest beach I’ve ever seen,” I said aloud. It was low tide, and the sand was bare, dressed only by coquinas, slipper shells, and bits of jellyfish—a string of tiny cabochon moonstones laid out like a necklace on the broad lip of the shore.
John came back and dressed, drying himself with his T-shirt.
“Brown as a berry.” He kissed my shoulders. “Let’s make it back for cocktails.”
I laughed. “More like a salmon.” I knew I was getting burned.
“Look.” He pointed up as we walked. From the west, a bank of black clouds raced toward us. Then—a deafening rumble.
“What do we do?”
“What do you mean what do we do? We keep walking.”
The rain started, lightly at first, in patches, as we moved south to the break in the dunes at Greyfield. But then the sky darkened, the rain kicked in, and, as hot as it had been minutes ago, I was suddenly shivering, my hat bedraggled and my flowered dress soaked through.
Out of nowhere, a red truck appeared. It was Pat. He reached over and rolled down the passenger’s side window. “You folks want a ride?”
His devil grin was a welcome sight. Relieved, I moved toward the truck.
“Thanks, I’m gonna walk,” I heard John say behind me.
“Why?”
“It’s just rain.”
I was stumped. Why would anyone choose a downpour over a dry truck? When my efforts at persuasion fell flat and it was clear this was a nonnegotiable, I knew I had to choose—John or the truck. I didn’t want to get any wetter than I already was and I hated the rain, but the truth was, at that moment, twenty minutes away from him seemed unbearable to me.
I hemmed and hawed. Pat revved the engine.
“For Christ’s sake, make up your mind!” John barked. “It’s only rain.”
The pickup won, and I jumped in. I was not, to my dismay, the girl who walked in the rain. I was the girl who chose the truck. I smiled at Pat, a little embarrassed that he knew this. As he smiled back, my hat slid to the truck floor, and I saw that my dress was stuck to my thighs. I began to shake it. “Don’t worry, you’ll be warm soon,” Pat said, turning on the heater. Just then, the sky lit up. The storm hit full-tilt, and the rain came down in a crackling roar. Instinctively, I ducked.
When I lifted my head. I could barely see out the window. “They don’t call it a barrier beach for nothing,” I said.
“What?”
“I said, they don’t call it a barrier beach for nothing!”
Whether he heard me or not,