I remember the first time he brought it up. It was that magical night in Newport when we kissed for the first time. “Interesting piece of jewelry,” he had said. Over the course of our relationship, he would play with it absentmindedly during our conversations in bed, his fingers gently flicking the elastic against my skin.
Now, the touch of his finger against my wrist brought the warm memories back in a flood, sending an unexpected thrill through my body. He looked as though he wanted to kiss me, and I was readying myself. But then he looked away, and the spell was broken. We sat in quiet contemplation for a time, listening to the ocean crashing in the distance. When he turned to face me again, his eyes were unbearably sad. “I used to think people were like lighthouses. That they were there to protect you. But they’re not. People are like whirlpools. They pull you in; they drag you under. You have to work so hard just to keep your head above water.”
During the weeks that I spent at Bell Rock, I got to know Maud pretty well. Back in the ’50s, her late husband ran a small theater that screened art house films. When he passed away, Maud sold it (just wasn’t the same without him, she explained) and bought Bell Rock, fulfilling her lifelong dream of living by the sea.
Most of her clientele were vacationers, but she also had a few permanent residents. One was an elderly man who kept mostly to himself. We saw him some mornings, sitting outside his trailer on a foldout chair, reading the paper. “Hey, pretty girl,” he’d call out to me whenever I walked by. There was also a young hippie couple with a baby boy and a mysterious woman who always wore dark sunglasses and never smiled. Aside from renting out trailers, Maud also told fortunes for the locals. When she was young, she traveled around the United States with a small circus troupe. She told wonderful stories of her adventures, including the time she did a tarot reading for a famous movie star during the year she spent at Coney Island. I saw her life captured in pictures pressed into old leather-bound albums, their plastic sleeves sticky and yellow with age. It was hard to believe the young spirited gypsy girl draped in velvet and lace was Maud. “Wasn’t I gorgeous?” she’d say. It was a rhetorical question.
One night, Rad and I were walking barefoot along the beach when the subject of Maud came up in the conversation.
“She wants to read my fortune, but I don’t know if that’s such a good idea—knowing what’s ahead.”
“Well, you should take everything she says with a grain of salt. I know what she’s like when she’s had a few too many.”
“Has she ever read yours?”
“Yeah, she says one day I’ll have people lining up for my autograph.”
“Well, I’d better get mine now.”
“Sure, do you have a pen on you?”
I laughed. It was the first time since I came here that Rad seemed almost like his old self again. We walked in silence a little longer.
“Tell me about your book. The one you wrote when I was away.”
“It was called Honeybee. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“I wish I could have read it.”
“Do you know the Chinese have a tradition of burning fake money because they believe it goes to their dead relatives in the spirit world?”
“It’s a nice idea.”
“Well, that was going through my mind when the manuscript was burning. Maybe in some other alternate universe, there are people reading my book. Who knows?”
“Maybe.”
“I think writing is over for me,” said Rad. “I’ve sat for ages with a pen in my hand, and nothing comes out. So I end up doing Sudoku puzzles.”
“It’s probably just writer’s block.”
“Or some karmic force that is punishing me for destroying my own book.”
I reached out and put my hand on his arm. “I don’t think it works like that.”
He stopped and turned to face me. “It’s weird, isn’t it? The coincidences, I mean. It’s almost like everything is decided for you, like it’s already been written.”
“Yeah, you know me. I have an existential crisis every five minutes.”
He smiled at me. “I love that I can talk to you about all this stuff. Most people wouldn’t get it.”
“You can talk to me about anything.”
“I know.”
I followed his gaze upward, and we thought our individual thoughts, sending them out into the universe like parallel lines. At that moment, I felt a sense of something that was bigger than us, an inexplicable force that willfully drew Rad and me to this convergence, to this particular alignment with the stars. We were always meant for each other. This was something I knew right down to the depths of my soul. “You know,” said Rad, his face turning toward me, “Maud was right about something.”
“What was that?”
“She said you would find me again.”
The next day, I was awakened by a sharp knock on my door. I got up and pulled on my robe. “Who is it?” I called.
“It’s me!” announced Lucy.
“Lucy!” I opened the door and grinned widely at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Surprise!” she said, throwing her arms around me as I squeezed her tightly.
“Why didn’t you call to let me know you were coming?” I was suddenly aware of how messy my room was, and I began picking up bits and pieces from the floor.
“Relax, Audrey.” She came inside and shut the door behind her. “I used to live with you, remember?”
“I know,” I said, tossing a pile of clothes into the bathroom. “How did you get here?”
“Borrowed Mum’s car,” she said, walking over to the window. “Wow, you’ve got a great view.”
“It’s really pretty here.”
She turned to face me. “You look great. How’s everything? Is Rad doing okay?”
“He’s doing a lot better. He’s even writing again.”
“Oh, if I’d known, I would have brought up his laptop.”
“Never mind. He tends to stick to pen and paper, so we get by sharing mine for now.”
She sighed. “I’m glad he’s getting back on his feet again.”
“Do you want a coffee?” The motel room had a small Nespresso machine, and I popped in a capsule.
“Sure.” Lucy sat down on my bed. I made us both a coffee and sat down next to her. “Do you think you’ll get back together with him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s up to him.”
“So you don’t think you’re going back to Delta?”
I shook my head. “Rosie said Gabe has left, so there’s no real point in going back. It wouldn’t be the same without him.”
“Are you guys still in touch?”
“No. He said he didn’t want to do the friend thing.”
There was a short pause.
“He was pretty special to you, wasn’t he?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“More than he’ll ever know.”
Lucy and I had lunch together later that day. There was a little fish and chips place by the local wharf, and we sat at one of the tables watching ships sway in the docks and throwing bits of our chips at the seagulls. “Look how crazy they are,” said Lucy, as the squawking birds clawed and pecked each other for the scraps of food.