2

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height


"When it comes, the landscape listens

Shadows hold their breath;

When it goes, 't is like the distance

On the look of death."

~ Emily Dickinson


It happened at just past five on a heat-soaked afternoon in mid-May.

I was across town, my t-shirt damp, my hair sticking to my skin. It was a Thursday, and even though the weather had already turned warm and we'd had a few tourists start coming up for weekends, we were still weeks away from summer. Downtown Seaside was almost open. Shop-owners had de-boarded their windows and doors, swept away the dust and restocked for the summer, but they remained closed during the week. They knew they wouldn't have any customers (at least, not ones that could pay good money).

The only places open right now were the ones that survived the winter, the ones us locals couldn't live without: Anderson's Market and the Sheriff's Station. Luke's Place was open year round too, but it was in a different part of town.

I rode my bike down the middle of the empty boardwalk and relished the mild respite the ocean breeze offered from the heat. I was caught in the same moment that plagued me every year, a mixed feeling of dread and anticipation. It wasn't a particularly good feeling. It was like butterflies in my stomach and stress weighing on my shoulders at the same time. I was waiting for the change, but I didn't know if I wanted it to come faster or slower so I was just tensed and waiting.

It didn't matter what I wanted though, even if I had been able to make up my mind.

Seaside was waking up, and we were so close to when it would come alive that I could practically see the people swarming the beach with their umbrellas and coolers and sandbox toys. The air was slightly energized with shop owners ready to banish the quiet sleepiness of winter, inhale the sweet tang o saltwater taffy and the richness of baking fudge, and watch the crowds play volleyball as if their lives were dependent on winning. That meant spending twelve hours a day melting in a candy shop without air conditioning and feeling claustrophobic from the sea of bodies that would swallow up any free area o sand.

Within a few weeks of the summer season, every local I knew would be complaining that they were ready for everyone to go home. I was no exception.

Here it was either summer or winter, full of life or quiet as the grave. There was no in between, no moment for those of us who lived here to catch our breath, and I found myself hating and loving both seasons.

When I reached my destination, I skidded to a stop, leaned the bike against the building and went inside.

Bells jingled as the door sung shut behind me. They were sleigh bells, the kind people usually put on their doors during the Christmas season. Since we didn't really have any kind of fanfare during that time of year, Beth thought it would be funny to hang them year round. She also liked to have them up so that she could sit in Sheriff Platt's office and watch his television when he was out. The bells were supposed to let her know when someone came in.

The police station looked empty, not an uncommon sight for this time of year. The three deputy desks were neatly organized but covered with a layer of dust, and Beth's secretary desk was hidden under a pile of magazines clippings and summer opening invitations. I slipped my backpack off and dropped it on top of the mess and headed around it and down the hall to the Sheriff's office.

Beth shrieked and jumped to her feet when I opened the door. Then she promptly dissolved into giggles, falling back into the Sheriff's slouchy tan couch. Her black hair was piled into some kind of messy knot on the top of her head, a style she made look easy and sexy, and one that I hadn't figured out how to imitate.

I leaned into the room. She'd set up rotating fans, one in each corner of the room, and focused them on the couch. I wanted to catch some kind of breeze, but as the air hit me in the face, I realized they were just blowing warm air around.

"Emma," she said, a hand over her heart as she calmed down. "I didn't hear you come in. You scared me half to the grave."

"The bells don't work if you have the TV up too loud to hear them," I said. "Post office still open?"

"For you, doll? Of course." In addition to being the Sheriff's secretary, Beth was also our official postal worker. Neither job required much during the off-season. Mail came in and she filed it in everyone's box, and she fielded calls about a drunk local every now and then. The summer was different, and the staff more than tripled.

Beth left the TV and fans on and swung a sweat sticky arm around my shoulder as she pulled me out of the office. She was twenty-three and easily my best friend in town. There weren't many people running around in our age group, at least not many who didn't spend most of the winter sleeping their hangovers away.

"Let me guess, saltwater taffy?" she asked.

"No, not for another week, thank God," I said. Just before Memorial Day Anderson's Saltwater Taffy would open, not just to people who were here but for internet orders as well. We always had a mad rush of orders in the beginning and in the end of the summer season. I'd have to put them all in boxes, affix the shipping labels and then get one of the guys to help me carry them over here. It was one of my many least favorite things about the season. It was almost as bad as the newsletters I used to have to send out. I'd carrying them around at school and lug them to the post office for Beth and I to fold and stamp and send out. We mailed them to every single person who had left their address in the guest book for the last thirty-nine years (whether they wanted one or not). Thankfully now we just sent emails. So much easier.

"Just a letter."

Beth's lips curved into a sly smile. "To whom?"

"Trust me, it's nothing gossip worthy, I promise." I took the manila envelope out of my backpack and handed it to her. She probably knew I was lying. Anything I sent that wasn't for work was probably gossip worthy. I didn't exactly have a pen pal, but she also wasn't going to push me if I didn't want to talk about it.

Beth was the only person local to Seaside who wasn't born here. She showed up in April five years ago looking for an apartment and a job. There were plenty of seasonal ones to go around, but she wanted something longstanding. People didn't hesitate to tell her what they thought of her making this town her permanent residence. No one in this town was a big fan of having some stranger (especially one they didn't know everything about) hanging around in the winter. She ignored them, kept her past to herself, and responded that she wanted a beach town life. After she'd made it through her second summer, people accepted that she was here to stay. It helps that her smile is easy and infectious and she's beautiful—her father was Pilipino and her mother was from a small island in the Caribbean, and together she got their best and most striking features.

I saw her read the name as she weighed the envelope. Then she looked at me. "DNA test? Why—"

"You know why." The words had barely finished leaving my mouth, and Beth stopped talking. She turned away, calculated the postage and asked me for a dollar and fifteen cents.

Her silence was out of kindness, but it still made my face heat up and my mouth feel sticky. I wanted to explain how I felt, but it wasn't that Beth didn't understand.

I'm having my DNA tested, not because I'm a hypochondriac or because I'm worried about what genes I might carry. I'm hoping that it can tell me something about my ancestry, specifically on my father's side.

It's a conversation Beth and I have had before.

I already knew what she thought, what most people thought, that I should talk to Ellen, or Elle as she liked to be called. Most people made a good point. She was my mother. If anyone knew who my father was it was bound to be her, but the problem wasn't my logic. It was Ellen (I didn't call her "Mom" because it made her feel old, but I could not make myself call her "Elle" either, it just seemed to young). The identity of my father was a closed subject. The only things I knew about him, where things I had deduced.

I was born April 18th, which meant I was conceived some time in mid-July, and since she'd never been anywhere other than Seaside, he had must have been here for that summer. Maybe they had a fling all summer long or maybe he'd just been here for a weekend. I wasn't sure. I just knew he couldn't be local. Secrets don't keep too well in a town of about four hundred people.

"Are you going for a run today?" Beth said, changing the subject. Her face was still flushed. She had that kind of fair skin that tanned easily and didn't turn pink with embarrassment, but I could still tell.

I nodded. "Gotta get them in now."

"I'm going to Luke's tonight if you want to come," she said. "It's Dan's birthday and we're going to get him wasted."

Dan Fischer turned nineteen today. "If I have time I'll stop by," I said even though we both knew I wouldn't. Luke's Place was the locals only dive bar, the one that was off the beaten path and had absolutely no signs out front to let anyone know it was a business. I didn't go there often, though it wasn't for the obvious reason. That I was underage didn't really matter at Luke's. I was local, and that was all that did. No, I kept my distance mostly because Ellen didn't. Neither did the only Seaside boy I'd ever loved. Hanging out with my mother in a bar or watching that guy who had been so perfect drink himself into a stupor wasn't how I wanted to spend an evening. It made everything inside me hurt too much. My math homework sounded more pleasant.

I said goodbye to Beth and headed back into the heat. I dropped my backpack next to the bike and rummaged around for my iPod before I peeled off my t-shirt and changed my shorts. The boardwalk and beach were still empty, but even if someone had been around, it was likely they would have already seen me in a bathing suit. A sports bra and my underwear would be nothing to stare at.

I headed down to the beach. The moisture in the air hung thick around me. My feet sunk into the sand, and I felt the heat through my shoes. If this weather kept up, I was going to lose a few pounds just from sweating this summer. I walked towards the water, where the sand was packed and cool, and started to jog.

I took long strides and forced myself to let go of everything else. I cleared my head of all the anxiety that came with the approaching summer season, of school and homework and the post-graduation plans I didn't have yet, of the parent I knew and the one I didn't, and of the boy who broke my heart a year ago.

This moment was just me, the salt in the air, the waves rushing up the beach, and my feet rhythmically pounding against the sand.

Until I saw him.


*********


Thank you for reading. :) Now you've met Emma. Let me know what you think of her!

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net