Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [37]
The woman in the fog seems to be searching for something in the sand. She moves in and out of visibility, and occasionally Vivian catches a glimpse of color, the faded loden of a cloth coat, a flash of blue in a head scarf. But then a mist surrounds the woman, and the colors subside, and it is as if the woman has never been there at all.
The light reminds Vivian of mornings in Venice: the sun overhead doing its best to burn off the fog and produce a luminescence. Funny how this same view with Dickie in tow would bore her, would make her feel compelled to complain about the fog. About how they couldn’t go boating, couldn’t play golf. But without Dickie with her on the porch, whining about the fog seems absurd. The light is marvelous, really.
The fog drifts a bit, revealing the woman in the cloth coat again. She still appears to be searching for something in the sand. Vivian stands up from the black wicker rocker and walks out onto the beach with Sandy following. “Hello there,” she calls. “Have you lost something?”
The woman looks up and blinks, clearly startled by the apparition in front of her. “No,” the woman says. “I haven’t. I was just . . . I was just looking for sea glass.”
Vivian is struck by the woman’s thick dark eyelashes and her squarish chin. Though her coat is plain and dowdy, Vivian can see a beautifully knit pink lambswool sweater under it. She takes a step closer. The woman pulls her kerchief off, revealing lovely dark hair that immediately begins to unfurl in the humidity. The woman’s skin is pale. She seems embarrassed, which produces a bit of pink in her cheeks.
“Sea glass?” Vivian asks.
“It’s just something that washes up on the beach,” the woman says. “I collect it. I’m not sure what for. It’s pretty useless. I just like the shapes and the way it looks,” she adds. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a piece of glass. “Here,” she says, handing it to Vivian. “This is a piece I found earlier.”
Vivian looks at the object in her open palm. It is apple green, so thin it feels like mica. Its light seems to come from within, like the fog. When she was a child, she used to collect shells and sand dollars, but it never occurred to her to collect glass. In recent years, the staff of the Highland Hotel has taken to raking the beach out front so that there’s no debris there at all. “It’s very pretty,” she says, returning the shard to the woman.
“It’s trash, actually,” the woman says, pocketing the piece of sea glass. “People throw things overboard or their trash gets dumped at sea. The glass breaks and then takes a beating from the ocean and the sand. This is what washes up.”
“My name is Vivian Burton. I live just here.” Vivian turns and points up to Dickie’s cottage, invisible now in the fog. She laughs. “It was there,” she says.
The woman smiles. “I’m Honora Beecher,” she says. “My husband and I live at the end of the beach.”
“Oh, really? Which house?” Vivian asks.
“It’s white with black shutters. Three stories tall? They say it used to be a convent.”
“Oh, yes,” Vivian says. She has an impression of an absolutely derelict house.
“Do you live here year round?” the woman asks. “Cute dog.”
Vivian wraps her cardigan across her chest. “No,” she says. “We’ll leave just before Thanksgiving.”
“Oh,” the woman says. “We’re here for good now. We just bought the house.”
“Congratulations,” Vivian says.
“Thank you, but I’m a little nervous about winter storms. I’ve never lived on the coast before. They say the storms out of the northeast can be fierce. What’s his name?”
“Sandy. Is your husband a fisherman?” Vivian asks.
The woman tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She’s hardly more than twenty, Vivian guesses. “He’s a typewriter