Sharon closed the door softly, wondering if maybe she should just go back and brave the start of the school year alone. Back home, Sharon had never been particularly outgoing. Saying hi to an absolute stranger when the stranger had greeted her first had probably been the most outgoing social greeting she'd managed in all her life. In Gloucester, she had known everyone by face. Known them just well enough to know that she didn't want to talk to any of them, but knew them all the same.
No one grew up in Gloucester and left for medical school. In Gloucester, you fished. You lived, you died, and in between, you fished. If you were a girl, you went to high school, fell in love with some dashing young fisher-boy, and went off and had some babies. Later on, you got tired of waiting for him to come home and divorced him. Then you were just another debt on his long list of many, and some other woman took your place. It was only after you saw him from the outside that you knew the secret: the boats and the sea had taken your man long before the other women had. It was the sea, the ultimate woman, the one every man in Gloucester wants but can never get. She couldn't be wooed by cold rounds of beer, or sloppy nights in rented rooms. They spent their lives courting her and her mysteries.
Always watching from the outside, Sharon knew what made fishermen tick. She had known what was wrong when Pops had come home drunk off his ass from a sojourn at The Crow's Nest or the Mariner. The problem was, he was still alive. Like a Tijuana hooker, they weren't paying for just the sex. They were paying for the forbidden thrill, the brush with death, and when they came home alive and safe, they hadn't been thrilled enough. Because they always went out again, with lust in their eyes.
In the mornings, back at Gloucester, Sharon would run along the beach. It was hard to explain why, really...more of an abstract yearning than any concrete desire, but running made her feel free. Or not so much free--Sharon didn't have a particularly rebellious nature. She had always felt that her life was set to emulate a perfect pattern, but when she ran in the morning, she felt as if she were deeper in communion with that pattern. As if she were one with the sand and the sky and the sea, and as if, for once, everything was going right on track.
Pop, depending on the severity of his stupor, would leave for the dock when it was still dark outside, so Sharon left about an hour before him. This meant going to sleep early in the evening, which necessitated avoiding her step-father almost to the point of hermitage--and she could happily live with that. To avoid the merry townsfolk, she had taken to walking to the beach the long way around Gloucester, running north just in case any boats were headed out, because they usually went south. Gloucester men followed the swordfish, and the swordfish liked the warm weather. So they headed for the sunshine, for the drowsy warmth and light that increased as they approached the Caribbean.
When she ran, the plopping of her feet upon the cakey wet sand was the only sound in the world. Sharon knew she was fast. She had gotten hold of a stopwatch once and timed herself, and had done it three more times in disbelief. But she never had liked the idea of being on a team enough to do anything about it--no one cared about running in Gloucester High, anyway. They all dropped out or got knocked up. Real smart cookies, they were here.
It was one morning when she was running, as light was beginning to finger the edges of the sky, that she saw him. She would have no idea, until later, how important he would be in her life. She had been dressed in cutoff jeans and a sweatshirt, her unwashed hair in a messy ponytail. Her face was hot and she was panting with exertion--she had just sprinted a quarter-mile. She was standing on the soft part of the sand, with her hands on her knees, trying to get a deep breath. When she first saw the guy, she thought it might be a slight hallucination brought on by the benefit of not enough oxygen. Then he came down from the bluff and went to stand in front of her.
Sharon stood up, quick. Rape in Gloucester wasn't unheard of, though it normally took place in drunken orgies upstairs from one of the local bars. But Mom was dead, and Pop couldn't care less. She had to look out for herself. She picked up a handy piece of driftwood on the sand.
"Put that shit down." The voice said, coming towards her. A lit cigarette landed on the ground at her feet. "I'm not gonna hurt you, for godsakes."
"Oh yeah? Then what the hell are you doing here? Like watching young girls in the morning, asshole?"
The man chuckled. "You'd think so highly of yourself. You're just like him, all spit and fire."
Make one move in my direction and I'll show you what fire can do, Sharon thought.
The man hiked an eyebrow at her and looked at Sharon's stick cynically. If she hadn't known better, Sharon would have thought he had heard her.
"Yeah, right." He said. "Well. So you're Sharon."
"How do you know my name? Who are you?" She asked, backing up a step. Not smart, kid, she scolded herself. Keep doing that and he'll have you in the ocean. Where'll you be then?
The man didn't answer. "You look a lot like your mom."
"She was prettier than me." Sharon said. It was true, too. Her mom had had long curly red hair, and soft brown eyes. Sharon had reddish-brown hair that was wavy and feathery, which was why she kept it pulled back all the time. It wouldn't go straight or curly, just some bizarre hybrid of the two. Her eyes were a dark brown that almost looked black--they didn't go with her hair at all, and her skin was too pale. She was also too skinny, all angles and bones jutting out. She was sixteen, and where other girls were putting on curves, she was losing them. The man shrugged, as if he couldn't be bothered to pass judgement. Then something in the sentence caught his attention.
"Was?" He asked. "She's..."
"Yeah." Sharon said. "A couple of years ago."
"Oh. Shit." He said. He ran a hand through his hair, and his eyes seemed to take on some great weight. He pulled out another cigarette, put it in his mouth, lit it, cupping his hands to shield the young ember from the wind. "That's a damn shame. She was a nice lady, your mom."
"Yeah. She was. Mind if I ask how you knew her?"
The man shook his head. "We were...friends growing up, I guess you'd say."
"Are you...my father?" Sharon asked. He didn't look like her, at all. His face was a different shape, with a prouder nose. His hair was a dark blonde and his eyes were blue.
He chuckled. "Nah." Then his face sobered. "Actually, kid, I'm sorry...but your father's dead."
"Oh." Sharon said. Well, she had never known him anyway. No loss. "Okay."
"Listen." He said, and looked her intently in the eye. "Your mom's dead. Your dad is, too. You've got nothing holding you here. What if I said I could...get you away from this place?"
Now, Sharon raised an eyebrow. "Sorry. I don't leave town with strange men for fun. You're looking for some of the ladies in the bar down thataway."
"For God's sake. I'm trying to help you."
"Great." Sharon said. "What if I don't want help? What if I said I'd find my own way out?"
"Then I might believe you." The man said. "If I didn't know for a fact that the asshole you're living with is beating the crap out of you morning, noon and night. That every Friday you hole up with a beer and get absolutely plastered. That you're gonna graduate high school, with good grades, and wind up dead on the road somewhere cause you're got nowhere else to go." His face softened. "You can't always find your own way out. Sometimes you've got to grab a hand...even if you bite it afterward."
Sharon turned to face the ocean. "I don't want to talk to you anymore."
Even though she couldn't see him, she knew the man shrugged. "Whatever." He said. The sand crunched softly as he turned to walk away. Sharon listened to it for about five seconds before she turned around. The spark of hope was too precious to just squish out.
"Hey, wait!" She called. "What if I change my mind? What would happen?"
The man was almost to the bluff again, and he didn't take a step closer. He shouted, or so she thought. It might have been a whisper, but she could hear it clear as day. "I might come back. After you've had some time to think."
"What's your name?" The man sounded as if he was hesitating...she suddenly couldn't make out his form all that well, anymore.
"Pete Hooker." He yelled, and then the wind rose.
Sharon nodded, and then the wind got fiercer. When she looked up again, the man was gone.
