After a filling dinner of clam fritters and fish and chips, Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp headed to a local watering hole by the beach. Johnny and I walked them down the hill from our motel to the Old Orchard Beach Pier and promised not to stay out too late. The beach-side carnival glimmered in the night, an oasis of electric fun along the miles and miles of beach. I could hear the waves lapping in a rhythmic pulse and figured the tide was coming in.
The beach at night smells much different than it does during the day. Sun block and surf are replaced, at Old Orchard anyway, by fried dough and pheromones. Laughter and pitched conversations surrounded us as we crossed by the circular water fountain and headed first for the arcade. Several people sat around the fountain’s base eating pizza and cotton candy and drinking who knows what out of paper cups.
I wasted $10 each on Beachhead and Star Wars while Johnny got laughed at by a group of pre-adolescents for his foibles at QuickShot, the basketball simulation with an obscenely narrow rim.
Johnny had just dipped his face into frozen lemonade when I saw her. My left hand shot out and found my friend’s ribs. He spluttered, coughed and wiped his nose as the icy treat entered his nostrils and splashed his forehead, then spilled on his shoes.
“There she is,” I said without taking my eyes from her.
“Who, goddammit?”
“Who do you think?” He shrugged, not taking the time even to look up from the slippery mess that had been so promising a purchase. “Orange bikini at eleven o’clock.”
I broke off the conversation, leaving Johnny staring at the ground, and started a brisk power-walk toward the girl. Despite the reference point I’d used, she was no longer clad in her swimwear. Her look was now more appropriate for a night of merriment, teenage style. I focused, per my preferences, on her white spaghetti-strap tank top. It hugged her as nicely as her bikini top had, though it was made up of much more material. The tank top was complimented by Daisy Duke-style cutoff jean shorts and purple flip-flops. Her hair was down, something my Avery rarely did, and perhaps an inch past her shoulders.
My Avery, as if the one I was now stalking was someone else’s Avery.
She hadn’t seen me and likely wouldn’t. I’d caught her in profile and she had now turned away from me, flanked by two other girls. They were proceeding, three across, out the far end of the arcade and toward the kiddie rides area.
I stopped short, maybe fifteen feet behind her, as the three were accosted by two haughty older boys. The girls (I’d guess they were all closer to sixteen) scoffed at the crooked hats and tattooed arms and made a quick right turn.
“Slow down, you psycho.” Johnny was back at my shoulder, offering his typical encouragements.
“I need a better look at her face. Don’t ask me why.”
“You need your fucking head examined.” He was still licking the frozen lemonade off his fingers. I could smell the citrus aroma and probably would until he scrubbed it off with turpentine.
I wasn’t close enough to make out conversation between the three girls, but for some reason, I was OK with that. I didn’t need to hear her. I needed to look into her eyes. They laughed enthusiastically, as teenage girls do, and the sound chilled me. It was as if I was following my girlfriend’s ghost. I could watch her, but a dark veil prevented interaction of any kind.
She circled the kiddie rides, finishing by the orcas that dipped and rose in a sickening circle. Small children laughed and waved to parents, their heads thrown back each time the whale hit the track’s trough and turned up again. I maintained my distance and other-Avery, as I thought of her, retraced the original path in the reverse direction, then forked right toward the grand carousel and the beach entrance by the pier. Johnny padded along next to me in silence, struck that way by the sketchiness of our pursuit.
To our left now was a series of kiosks hocking Old Orchard Beach sweatshirts, tank tops, hats, then pizza, fried dough and soft drinks, then all types of tiny ceramic trinkets and costume jewelry. One of the girls with other-Avery stopped and pointed at the fourth kiosk – a fortune teller. The signage over the single door read, MS. TWILIGHT, with menu items below in smaller font – palms, tarot, fortunes told.
Holy shit, I thought. Someone either has a sense of humor and a couple of bucks burning her pockets or someone is a complete quack. Hey, other-Avery, I’m an Aries. Will my girlfriend survive the week without me? I felt another chill. I had no particular feeling either way on the rhetorical question, but still didn’t want to know the answer.
“What are you doing, now?” Johnny reached out for my arm and I felt his fingers brush my elbow as I altered course to match the girls’ maneuver. Ms. Twilight was ‘in session’, as told to us by a small off-white card hanging on her windowed door. The writing was stilted calligraphy and difficult to decipher.
Other-Avery and her cohorts queued up to the door’s left, as suggested by a small painted path on the cement. Without really knowing what I’d do next or why, I darted left and was fourth in line, just behind the object of my day’s obsession.
--
In turn, each of the two unnamed accessories entered, was behind the closed door for five or so minutes and emerged with a skeptical look. As the second went in, the first told other-Avery she needed to powder her nose and would meet the other two by Dunkin Donuts, up Old Orchard Beach Road just beyond the train tracks.
That meant I had five minutes to strike up my courage and engage her in conversation, if only to see her eyes. There was a determination I could make by looking into her eyes, I was sure, even if I had no idea why or what it would tell me.
Before I was ready, Johnny decided it was time to act. Actually, his sinuses did. He let out a vicious sneeze, perhaps to clear out the remainder of the sugary meltings that had been his lemonade. He jarred my left arm and knocked me off balance. Horrified, I took an unsteady step forward and knocked other-Avery’s purse off her shoulder. The purse was huge and pink and bordered on being a backpack. How much can a girl possibly need at a moment’s notice to burden themselves with such a weight at all times?
The back-purse dropped to hang on her wrist and if her hand hadn’t been in her pocket it may have hit the cement. Perhaps, it would have spilled its embarrassing (boys have to assume its innards are of an embarrassing nature, if only to explain the secrecy involved) contents in a small circle. I would’ve had no choice but to help her retrieve her belongings – her intimate belongings.
Uh, sorry miss. Please excuse my clumsiness. Here’s your wallet, if you carry such a thing, and here’s your…um - what the hell is this circle of tiny colored pills for? And why are they four different colors arranged by days of the week?
The purse held fast to her wrist. “I’m very sorry,” I said to her, shooting poor Johnny my best death look.
She leaned around me and to Johnny said, “God Bless you.” Only then did she look up to me. My face flushed, heat prickled at my ears and I averted my gaze. I knew this feeling. When presented with a pretty girl, tradition told me to either run or play stupid. Well, my Avery calls it stupid; I prefer to think of it as cute and innocent.
“I’m Carter.” It was the only thing in my head at the time – my name. Like the world’s biggest tool, I thrust out my right hand, offering her a shake. Idiot. She looked down at my hand, then back at my face. She didn’t take my hand and I never really expected she would.
“Bianca,” she said. Then she did the amazing. She leaned around me again to address my friend. “Your friend’s cute.”
Jesus, this was worse than having knocked a case of condoms out of her purse. My cheeks, ears and neck were on fire. A nervous smile played at the corners of my mouth and I felt an urgent need to say, Aw, shucks.
“Thanks,” I said instead, one sneaker kicking the other. I had nothing more profound. My head was down, my gaze focused on my shoes, but I could discern her looking finally at my face, instead of communicating through witticisms to Beauchamp.
I looked up and met her eyes. Our eyes couldn’t have been two feet away from each other. Bianca had Asian facial and eye features – high cheekbones, the epicanthic fold of the upper eyelid. It made her no less beautiful, but for whatever reason a great weight was lifted from my figurative shoulders. I felt as though I should immediately get on the horn to actual-Avery and organize a celebration. She’d be alright, simply because Bianca was not her ghost, but another human being altogether. Ridiculous? Absolutely; every single word and thought process – but that is how I felt at that moment.
“Kat ran off to the can,” Bianca said to her friend, as the second girl emerged from the kiosk. “I’ll meet you guys.” She gestured with her head in the general direction of the facilities.
Bianca didn’t afford me a second glance. My nose caught a wave of her flowery perfume as her head swung away from me. The girl who was not Avery ducked inside the fortune teller’s kiosk to have her eyes opened, to have her future laid out before her, to have some middle-aged hag recite vagaries in a mystic and mysterious manner.
--
“Goddamn you, Johnny Beauchamp!”
My best friend in the world distracted me for ten seconds to offer me a smothered sausage sandwich (I smelled his approach before I saw him) and I missed Bianca come out of Ms. Twilight’s and disappear.
I was missing something important. There was a reason, as yet unclear to me, that I saw her bikini earlier that day.
I sighed, filed the thoughts away and accepted the greasy sausage covered in sautéed onions and red peppers. The roll was a little hard and the sausage had probably sat out for twelve hours, but I crammed three gargantuan bites in my mouth. I chewed as quickly as I could, scraps falling from my lips, and handed the remaining half sandwich back to Johnny. Tendrils of grease – or was it Avery’s blood – leaked from the day-old bread between my fingers.My visit to Ms. Twilight, however, would reintroduce panic to my system - the way a steak knife never had. I smiled, patted Johnny’s shoulder and crossed destiny’s threshold.
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