The dunes were to her right, and beyond them, the ocean churned and crashed, barely distinguishable from the black sky. She always loved the beach at night. When it was empty and ungoverned and wild.
He told her that he’d meet her at the Perkins Break near the lifeguard chair. He had some beer. They could drink it. The older kids in town always drank on the beach, sitting in quiet circles and passing joints, Budweiser cans between their crossed legs. The first time Mary joined them, the police came with spotlights that sent the group scattering, tripping and stumbling with pounding hearts as adrenaline surged into their fingers and toes. Only Mary stayed still. She simply leaned back with her hands planted into the sand and stared into the bright light. After that, Mary’s presence, which seemed to inspire fear or deference or both, was never questioned.
She had met the boy that day. He had come to the Water’s Edge to use the pay phone. Mary had been sitting at the front desk reading Carrie. She didn’t look up as the bell on the door chimed.
He waited for a moment, with a dollar bill in his hand, to get her attention. Then he playfully cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said. “Can you change this?”
Mary took a slow breath, then looked up, revealing nothing of what she felt the moment she saw his face. Like a chemical reaction, her attraction was instant and unadulterated. He had a regal look to him despite his wild sun-bleached hair. And in his eyes there was a pulsing life that Mary had come to identify with intelligence. Whether it was a girl’s fancy or some deeper intimation of things to come, she saw lives unfold before her. And so it was that her young, ferocious, and flawed heart began to splay itself open.
She dog-eared her book, set it on the desk, then licked the tip of her finger and took the bill from him. “What do you need?” she asked.
“Dimes,” he answered, the single word already sounding flirtatious. “For the phone.”
Mary turned the key that sat sunk into the wooden desk drawer where they kept the on-hand cash at the Water’s Edge and pulled it open. She counted out ten dimes, then dropped them smoothly into Stefan’s hand.
Stefan paused, looking for a reason to linger in front of the beautiful girl at the front desk. “Hey, how much are rooms here?”
Mary cocked her head. “Well, they’re actually extraordinarily expensive. This is one of Sandy Bank’s finest motels.”
Stefan dropped his chin and laughed, then extended his palm full of dimes, his expression roguish and playful. “Will this do it?”
Mary smiled, unleashing her full capacity for charm. “That’s plenty,” she said.
Stefan never did make his phone call. He and Mary talked, his elbows resting on the ledge in front of the desk, she leaning back in her chair. She soon learned that he was sailing alone down the coast to the Caribbean and back, that he was taking the fall semester off from college to do it. He would be working on a racing boat this summer.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Nineteen,” he answered. In his eyes was a playful challenge. “How old are you?”
She hesitated for only a moment. “Seventeen,” she replied.
Stefan smiled. “When do you get off of work?”
A single shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I can leave right now,” she said.
With her dog-eared copy of Carrie in her purse, Mary locked the door to the Water’s Edge front office and followed Stefan to his boat. It was May, the true start of the tourist season still a few weeks away, and so the marina was comfortably quiet, the weathered gray boards of the dock groaning beneath their feet.
“Here she is,” said Stefan, as they approached a trim, elegant boat, its white mast extending into the bright blue sky. On the transom, in stately gold letters, was written L?UFER, NORTHTON, RHODE ISLAND.
Mary stopped. “What’s L?ufer?” she asked.
Stefan stopped and brought his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing the salt-soaked tanned skin. “My mom’s German,” he said. “L?ufer means runner. But she always liked that it sounds like loafer in English.” He smiled, grabbed the boat’s silver railing, and ably pulled himself aboard, then reached back for Mary. “She says that describes me perfectly.” Mary took his hand and he pulled her up, resting his hand on her hip as she stepped down. “American and German. A loafer and a runner.”
They stayed on the boat all afternoon, lying on the bow under the late-spring sun. Mary pulled up her T-shirt so that the rays could warm her belly, and she noticed the way Stefan’s eyes found it, that soft expanse of skin. Mary was used to men wanting her. But the boys she had let touch her had spasmed with pleasure, wasting themselves and collapsing on top of her with damp breath and quivering bodies before much of anything happened. They’d cup their now-limp penises and whimper their apologies until she pushed them off of her, feeling as though whatever it was that she possessed had the power to decimate, to deny her pleasure and give others more than they could endure.
So when Stefan’s hand slid over to her stomach, when his fingers slipped just under the waistband of her jean shorts as he told her about his route down the coast, when he didn’t convulse and then spend himself from simply touching her skin, Mary wanted him all the more wholly.
“When did you start sailing?” Mary asked, letting her head roll toward his as they lay side by side.
His position mimicked hers. “I was a kid,” he said. “I used to go out with my dad. Then I started to take his boat out without his permission.” He smiled. “Used to piss him off.”
And as they spoke, Mary noticed that his mother’s classifying him as a loafer seemed flawed, as Stefan had very little about him that seemed complacent. “I want to sail around the world someday,” he said. “Follow the trade winds. Go across the Atlantic.” His finger traced through the air, as if he were following a map. “Then through the Mediterranean and down the Red Sea. Then across the Indian . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked at Mary, lifting his head to rest his free hand under it, and he gave the waist of Mary’s shorts a light tug. “You can harness the currents. Go fast.” He squinted at her. “You never really have to stop moving when you’re in the ocean.”
And never before had anyone spoken such perfect words to Mary Chase.
For the rest of the afternoon, Mary and Stefan batted about their desire, finding ways to touch each other under the scrutiny of daylight. Mary would press the side of her hip against his as she spoke; Stefan’s fingertips would brush over her breast as he pointed toward this or that, their youth allowing them the honesty of their desire.
Finally, as the sun began to sink, Stefan rolled back onto his side, and with a depth to his voice that masked nothing of his intention, he asked, “Can I see you later?”
Mary nodded.
When Mary returned to the Water’s Edge, Diane was in the office. “Where the hell have you been?” she asked, slamming down the brown phone receiver as Mary pushed open the door. “You were supposed to be at the front desk!”