A Sea Change (8 page)

Now he was beginning to understand there hadn’t. Janet had never loved
him.
What Janet adored was being the wife of a major league ballplayer. She enjoyed thinking of herself as “somebody important.” Her words.

Nick, on the other hand, simply worked hard and loved what he did. He didn’t care about being a star. He just went out there every day and did his job. And he’d done it damned well. He’d spent his entire career as a catcher, and had been lucky enough not to have the knees to show for it. He’d been 35 years old when he’d been forced to quit. Sure, his career was starting to wane, but he’d still had a couple of good years left. And Janet understood enough about baseball to feel the impending loss of status. By that time she’d already begun belittling him. The accident took care of the rest of his ego. Not that he ever believed what happened was really an accident.

Nick hardly ever felt even a twinge of pain anymore, but now his hand unconsciously went to his right shoulder and he began to absent-mindedly rub it. He stared out at the Narrows with unseeing eyes and forced the past to move on.

He focused on Becky’s dinner conversation and tried to remember what she’d talked about. Mary, of course. The color of her Little League uniform – blue and white. Last week’s episode of
The Simpsons
. Her visit to the mermaid.

“I was sitting on the mermaid’s tail and this lady took my picture, Daddy.”

He’d stopped eating, concerned.

“What lady?”

“I dunno. But she was nice. She asked me first.”

Becky wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, and she’d quickly gone on to something else in hopes of distracting him. It didn’t, but he let it go. This was Salmon Beach, not Seattle.

Nick yawned, then shivered. Twilight settled over the beach. The tide was coming in and he heard, more than saw, a salmon jump. A bank of fish-scale clouds had moved in from the south. They meant change. It would probably be raining by morning. He stood and stretched, unprepared for the feeling of restlessness that had suddenly come over him. He looked over at Jaed’s house.

The light was on in the dining area, but there was no sign of Maddy. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Nick saw her standing on the deck. She faced away from him, so still he almost thought he’d imagined her. He knew that he had only to speak in a normal tone of voice and the sound would carry across. He was about to say her name when her phone rang. She turned her head, startled, then ran inside.

He didn’t move. Just kept watching. He didn’t want to relinquish this proof of another living being just yet. It would be lonely enough later.

The caller was making her angry. She paced in front of the French doors, receiver tight against her head, telephone clutched in her other hand. Then she came to a sudden stop, and Nick heard Maddy’s raised voice, but not her words. Ex-husband? Ex-lover? He didn’t know for sure. What he did know was he’d been there and done that.

Placing the phone on the table, Maddy slammed the receiver down and the drama was over. No – there was one final act. He watched as she put her hands to her face and cried. She stood like that for several minutes, body shaking, and then her head came up as she pushed her fingers through her hair.

“Life sucks, Maddy,” he whispered. “I know.”

 His own phone rang a few minutes later.

“Nick, I have a report for you.”

“If it’s about the woman in Number Seventy-Six, George, I’ve got it under control.” He checked, but Maddy had disappeared again. “Train your telescope on someone else. Y’know, one of these days you’re gonna spy on the wrong person, George.”

“I don’t spy,” Gustafson said indignantly. “Someone has to keep track of the comings and goings on this beach. Someone qualified.”

Before George Gustafson could launch into the long-winded saga of his World War Two exploits, Nick said, “Let’s hear the report, Sarge.”

“I believe someone has set up housekeeping in Number Sixteen.”

“Technically, there is no Number Sixteen, George.” The two-story house had burned long before Nick had arrived on the beach. The only house to be built on the cliff side, it sat hidden among the firs and madronas. Now it was merely a shell on stilts. The walls and most of the roof were still intact – portions of the exterior shingles were blackened – but there were no windows left. The absentee owner, apparently not willing to restore the place, had covered the gaping holes with heavy plastic and left it at that.

“Nevertheless, Nick, I’ve seen signs of life.”

“Do you have surveillance cameras set up?” Nick said. “How could you possibly see that far, George?”

“I was on my Saturday patrol and you know that pile of old shingles that sits at the foot of the stairs that go up to the house? Well, there are a lot less of them.”

“Maybe someone on the beach is using them to do some patching.”

“I asked.”

“Everyone?” Nick couldn’t hide the disbelief in his voice. “Come on, George.”

“Yes, sir, I did. Tomorrow I’m going to do a site check.”

Nick shut his eyes in frustration. He could picture seventy-year-old George Gustafson’s foot going through one of those neglected, rotting steps, with only his cane for support. George was pretty spry, but a fall like that would cripple him. Or kill him.

“Don’t even think about it, George. I’ll check it out in the morning.”

Nick hung up and added Number Sixteen to his list of chores.

The dreams were worse this time. Like short clips from a film, the vignettes grabbed his attention, sucked him in, and then left him wanting more. They were bizarre little flashes interspersed with such realism they infused his sleep with insecurity.

He stretches upward to catch a pop-fly, but the ball vanishes. An enormous fish wriggles at the end of his line, pulling him toward the water, and then is gone. A dark-haired woman wearing a red hat, and nothing else, holds her hand out to him. He desperately wants to touch her, but as he moves forward a chasm opens between them, leaving him stranded. He watches two tears roll down her cheeks. Becky, as a toddler, hurtles toward the edge of the deck. His fingers just graze the pink jacket she wears as he tries to grab her.

The last one woke him with heart-stopping fear, and Nick sat up. Sweat on his chest momentarily chilled him. He wiped it off with the edge of the sheet and tried to catch his breath. With one final deep gulp of air he felt his pulse slow.

“Jesus!” He snapped on the bedside lamp. “Why is this happening to me?”

Nick looked at the clock. He’d been asleep for less than an hour. The rest of the night suddenly seemed like the rest of his life.

Cha
pter Eight

Maddy had been sitting in the hushed darkness of the deck for what seemed like hours. The blanket she’d cocooned herself in should have kept her warm, but there was a chill in her bones mere thermal heat couldn’t dispel. The tears had stopped a while back, replaced by a dull, nameless pain. The weekend, which had gone so well, was nothing but a vague memory now. Ted’s phone call had seen to that.

Saturday’s lunch with Karen had been good for her. Their friendship had begun the moment Maddy had stepped into the offices of Cheney Stadium. Karen Dysart was the Sales and Marketing assistant, but first and foremost, she was a fan. Her life revolved around the ups and downs of the Tacoma Barons, the triple A team for the Seattle Mariners. Karen took every loss personally, and every win ecstatically. Married to the ticket manager, they had a teenaged son who spent his summers working in concessions. If it didn’t happen at Cheney Stadium, Karen didn’t want to know about it.

The fact that Karen’s boss had been Ted Perry had nothing to do with the immediate liking she’d taken to Maddy. Their love of baseball made them kindred spirits. And as Maddy got to know Karen better, she came to appreciate the calm, gentle, and fair approach Karen took with her through life. Maddy’s job, as one of the accounts reps, kept the two women close. Ted’s disgraceful actions landed Karen a promotion, and she was now Director of Sales and Marketing. Not only did she deserve it; she shined.

They’d lunched on the waterfront. Karen tiptoed around the subject of the stadium until Maddy told her it didn’t matter. She missed most of the people there and wanted to know how their lives were going. And as they worked their way through their entrees, Maddy finally asked, “What are they saying about me?”

Karen had put her fork down to emphasize what she was about to say. “No one believes you were in any way involved in Ted’s scam.”

“No one?” Maddy had asked, knowing that wasn’t true.

“Okay, Ron isn’t going to forget that his wife ran off with Ted.”

“Exactly.”

“But, Maddy…even
he
knows you’re innocent. You
can
come back, you know.”

“No. I can’t. Because every time he sees me he’ll remember what Ted did to him.” Her voice had grown thick. “I can’t even go to a game, Karen.”

“They’re looking for a replacement for the mascot. I think that furry baseball bat costume would fit you.” She’d grinned.

Maddy had smiled, too.

“I’ve been trying to pinpoint the time Ted and I started to fall apart. To see if I can figure out why I didn’t see this coming.”

“I’ve only known you for a couple of years, Maddy. Can I be really honest here?”

Maddy had nodded.

“You never seemed like a couple to me. It was like you were two acquaintances who happened to work at the same place. It was hard to believe you went home together, let alone slept together.”

Maddy had snorted, saying, “We didn’t do much of that in the past year.” What she’d kept to herself was that they hadn’t done much of that, period.

“Well, I just get the feeling that you two grew apart a really long time ago.”

Karen’s insight had stuck with Maddy. It had provided her with a small amount of relief – even enlightenment – and she’d come back to Salmon Beach that afternoon determined to do something good for herself.  And so she finished unpacking.

As Maddy had sorted through the layers in the final box, she began to understand she’d brought the wrong one from the storage unit. At the top were old letters and college papers. The next tier held a small rug she’d begun hooking in high school. Under that were the twenty or so remaining packets of pre-cut wool. She’d never finished it.

Chloe batted one packet around the room, thrilled to be included in the business at hand. As Maddy tossed the rest into a paper bag, she was surprised to see what they’d been covering.

Sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, she’d lovingly examined each piece of camera equipment. Her old Minolta SLR which had her initials scratched on the bottom. A Yashika twin-lens reflex – a dinosaur – that had snapped a First-Prize photo in a statewide contest. All her lenses – macro, telephoto, zoom, wide-angle – were taken out of their cases and studied. Things she’d known nearly all her life, but hadn’t seen in quite some time. It had felt like a family reunion – unfamiliar, yet somehow right. There were filters and anti-static brushes. Developing tanks, a thermometer, and a timer. Her negative file was the last thing she pulled out of the box.

Maddy sat surrounded by all her old friends. The warmth of nostalgia was followed by a rush of excitement, and she’d quickly repacked the items she didn’t need. With the most energy she’d had in months, Maddy finished putting away her possessions, and then went back up the two-hundred steps and drove to three drugstores before she found one that carried black-and-white film.

She’d spent Sunday morning catching up on the work she was being paid to do. The reward for her labor would follow.

Maddy didn’t bother with lunch. With the Minolta hung around her neck and an unused flight bag holding her equipment, she set off down the path. In half an hour she went through roughly thirty exposures. Everything she saw cried out to be recorded on film. Anything past Emily DeMille’s house was uncharted territory for her. Maddy took it all in. Her eyes, even after so many years, easily adjusted to the photographer’s way of seeing.

Maddy had just snapped a closeup of house Number 29’s rusted door hinge. As she knelt to put in a fresh roll of film, Maddy heard a child’s voice. She moved quietly. The small beach between the houses was deserted, but on a large boulder there perched a mermaid. Maddy stopped in wonder.

The life-sized bronze sculpture faced out toward the Narrows. Her hands in her hair, the mermaid seemed to be preening. And singing.

Maddy took a few more cautious steps and mouthed a silent “oh!” before bringing the camera up to her eyes.

A little girl sat cradled in the mermaid’s tail, her long, blonde hair draped like shiny fabric across the siren’s hips. She, too, looked out at the water. And she sang a slightly off-key version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

Maddy clicked off several shots, and then backed up the way she’d come. She made her second foray down the path as noisy as possible. The singing stopped and the girl turned to look. Maddy paused and waved. She waved back.

“That’s one of my favorite songs,” Maddy had said. The little girl smiled shyly. “You look very pretty sitting there. Would you mind if I take your picture?”

She’d taken a few close-ups with the telephoto lens and then left, not wanting to intrude any longer.

The phone book yielded a photo store in South Tacoma open on Sundays, and Maddy returned to the beach loaded down with chemicals and a small packet of photographic paper. Her new Visa card – the only one she had in her name – had officially lost its cherry.

She’d spent the rest of the afternoon relearning the mechanics of developing film. The windowless laundry room served as a makeshift darkroom. Maddy had forgotten how frustrating the loading process could be, and had broken into a sweat after her third attempt. But the film and spool finally cooperated, and she was free to mix chemicals and begin the creation of a new body of work.

The negatives hung from the towel rack in the bathroom, and they looked good. She’d eaten her dinner – a tuna sandwich – while they’d dried. It was nearly dark when she’d finished cutting them. Maddy slid the negatives into their glassine holders, and with a deep sense of satisfaction, went out onto the deck.

Exhilaration had coursed through her body. She could feel every atom reacting, telling her she was alive. Why in God’s name had she ever stopped doing this thing she loved? And then the telephone rang, and the answer became clear.

When she heard Ted’s voice, for one short second she’d hoped he’d called to apologize. But his pettiness brought Maddy back to earth so quickly a pain shot through her skull.

“Your share of the phone bill is fifty-three dollars,” he’d stated without preamble. “Send it to the p.o. box.”

In retaliation, she’d shouted, “Get your rich old lady to pay for it,” and saw Ted’s face as she smashed down the receiver.