A Beach Afternoon
It was one of those September days, the last that were still beach days, where the water was still warm enough for swimming. Or finally did warm up enough, depending upon how you looked at it. She decides to spend a few hours at a small beach near her hotel called Half Moon Beach. It was quiet, not a lot of people there. Up over a grassy hill stone steps from the beach, there is a beach pavilion with fieldstone columns and green-painted shingles that had a concession stand, where you can get snacks and things like hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, lobster rolls, and ice cream. There was a rest area with bathrooms and showers. It would be closing soon as the season neared its end. She might pick up a little something for lunch or to take back to the hotel, maybe a grilled lobster roll and fries. She was on vacation.
She sets down her towel and beach bag, wondering if she should check her phone messages. She realized that still had to call Joff.
Slipping off her shorts and t-shirt to her swimsuit, and wearing a canvas bucket sunhat and sunglasses, she walked down to the water's edge. The sleek head of a gray seal pops up to the surface, swimming farther out in the water, and then another as she watched through binoculars, before they dive back down again and disappear. It was a barrier beach that fronted a salt marsh. A few piping plovers and sanderlings darted to and fro at the edge of the surf, and there were a few young plovers, all fluffy feathers and tiny stilted legs, their tiny little footprints left in the wet sand behind them.
This year's one little brood; a little older now, and all endangered and precious. Although if a nest should become destroyed, the birds might lay another small clutch of four eggs; Mother Nature's insurance. They had likely nested on the backshore among the smaller speckled rocks and pebbles and vegetation, along with the colony-nesting terns, which these birds' camouflaged speckled eggs resemble. Several species of terns nested in this area, the Common, Least and Roseate, with their sharply elbowed wings and black caps; it was even the southernmost part of the breeding range of the Arctic Tern.
But they were still all very endangered, and only nested along a seacoast, their only habitat, crowded with human activity and development. The cordoning was still up at the nesting area, albeit a little worse for wear by summer's end. She hoped they'd had a successful nesting season. The sanderlings had begun to arrive from the High Arctic tundra on their migration south to as far as South America, but many would remain on the beaches in flocks here in New England throughout the winter.
Arya was always the more adventurous one; learning to swim first and diving right in. Sansa was always the more cautious, always listening to her mother's warnings, apparently the only one in the family who did, it seemed. Be careful of the rocks, don't swim out too far, don't run out onto thin ice. But Sansa had learned quickly to love it.
She walked out into the water, raised her arms above her head and dove, swimming back and forth in long, overhand strokes along the crescent-shaped little cove for a while, switched to floating on her back, then leaned her arms and spine back into an underwater backflip, which she always loved to do, her eyes open to the hazy underwater view and muted, bubbling sounds. She'd been on the swim team in high school and in college. She wore a black swimsuit that was more like a sleeveless wet suit, made for someone enthusiastic about swimming, with high cut legs, a zip-front placket and a firm hold on her chest. She'd learned her lesson once.
She'd gone for a swim that day on one of the many summer days at the beach with Joff. The sun would streak their hair and kiss their skin. He slowly made his way out into the cold North Atlantic while she dove right in. She had found that there was no delaying the inevitable. But when she had come back up to the surface, found her footing and stood up to walk back in, pushing her wet hair back from her face, she'd looked down and found that the weight of the water had pulled down the top of her swimsuit and it was somewhere down around her rib cage! It was a one-piece maillot, black, and she thought she'd be safe, although the thin spaghetti straps were rather tenuous. Oh My God, she thought. When she looked around, Joff was walking out to meet her and was grinning from ear to ear, and the only other people around, thankfully, were an older couple wading at the shore who must have discreetly pretended not to notice, or maybe who hopefully hadn't noticed at all. Mortified, she ducked back under the water and rearranged it.
Joffrey! she'd cried, splashing him with a tsunami of cold seawater, and giving him a playful whack, as they both laughed and he held up his arms in mock self-defense.
"You're beautiful!" he said, taking her in his arms in the water and kissing her on her cheek, "and brilliant." Kissing her again and again, and they didn't stay at the beach much longer that afternoon, went back to his place and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed. She smiled at the memory.
She floated in the water, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness. She could tread water for hours, she thought, shutting her eyes and allowing her mind to clear. She stayed there like that, relaxed and peaceful.
She called Joff, but the call went to voice mail.
"Hi, it's me, just wanted to let you know that I arrived. Call when you have a chance. Love you."
She put the phone back into her beach bag and took out the novel to read. They hadn't seemed to be able to connect. She'd try calling him again later.