Hello, Old Friend

The summer-green blades of grass covered the lawn like the friendly fur of a puppy. As the mid-day sun hit the tips of each blade, the scene captured that nostalgic cliché image of summers past. She stepped across the lawn from the main house, in its pale-blue glory, to the small house next to it; as if this were a sibling or a child tucked under the arm of its elder.

“The bunk house” was more of a shack than a house. You could see every board that kept the place standing; all dotted with spots where the paint had chipped away from the salty sea air and the long, wet winters. Catie imagined the messes of lures and hammers and nails and screws that had filled the cupboards that she would stand on the balls of her feet to reach into as a child; the fishing rods that were always covered in dead cob webs after a each year of cold solitude and made her tingle in paranoia that a spider might wander onto her hands.

It wasn’t the safest place for her and her brother to play. Nails would jut out of the walls and floor. The sand-filled bunk beds would wobble if just one adult sat on them.

She stepped onto the miniature porch. The light bounced off of the new frame of the sliding glass door, its black richness stinging her eyes. Inside she could see fresh, white walls and clean-cut windows.

She had forgotten. The final summer her family spent there, her father slaved over reinventing this old shack. He had to replace the old boards, the foundation, everything. She had never seen the end product until now.

Her friend had become a new person. This bittersweet reunion was the realization that she was no longer welcome to revel in its childhood charm. The furniture sat back, looking at her in that same awkward, observing manner- neither of them sure what to say, neither one willing to say much. It’s sense of character had been replaced with the cardboard cutout of a summer vacation home, a sign reading “the beach life” hung in a cute, quaint tackiness. She could her the voices of renters taking a tour of the house. They probably would have said something about how this room would just be perfect for their children and grandchildren to use, with just the right amount of privacy but accessibility at the same time. Who would want to stay in a hotel anyway? The whole family could be right here on the beach. And what a wonderful view! Oh would you look at that! Can you just imagine waking up to a sunrise over the bay?

No. You actually couldn’t. Because the bay faces north and your sunrise would be behind you, hidden behind that big pine tree.

The furniture mocked her. It was all out of place. The lobster trap table did not belong in here and neither did the futon or the quilt on top of it. That quilt had kept her warm on chilly June nights, when her tanned little legs would shiver in the unfamiliarly cold rain and purple buds would bloom in a delayed spring. The new pieces of furniture “just tied it all together,” she could hear the realtor say in excitement.

“Let’s go,” Catie said, “I’m done looking.”

“Okay,” Nicole said.

The faces of the owners- no, renters- sat on the couch where they could overlook Cotuit Bay, a jubilant blue with scattered sailboat polka-dots as was typical of late July. The two girls came up the main porch and into the living room to exchange thank yous and goodbyes.

Unfortunately they were very nice people: difficult to dislike, and even harder to hate. They were an old couple perhaps in their sixties and did not seem greedy or mean-hearted. They were probably fantastic grandparents- maybe the type that would take their grandkids to the zoo just for fun, or make sandcastles with them, or have stay at their house for the week just to simply be with them. As the girls had left they stayed on that couch. Content. Vacationing. Passing time exactly as they wanted to.

The dock managed to remain unchanged. Catie always resented people who would wander from the town dock onto her beach. The sea breeze was as fulfilling as she’d left it. It filled the lungs and surrounded you without making you freeze. Fluffy air, the kind you crave on a hot, still summer day. The bay shone before her like an image through a camera lens. Now she was putting it all together. She knew it wasn’t hers anymore but she had to know, actually know and feel that it wasn’t hers. It was her past and that’s all she could ever see it as now. She could never truly live within this backdrop of her childhood summers. Her brother and father would not pull into the dock with the fish they’d caught that day and her mother would not be at home reading.

Nicole observed in silence. She was not going to say anything, mainly because there was nothing to say. This was nature’s course taking control. All she could do was patiently take it in with her friend.

They walked through the parking lot and climbed into the car. Catie drove. She had learned the roads of cape cod this past week that she stayed with her friend. She had driven from Sandwich to Provincetown with three teenage girls in the car and gone through “suicide alley” on highways infested with senility. Her brother was in Alaska, her mother in Colombia, her father in Florida. It was only her. And, as if she had known all along, she had known that this was the truth of the matter, of her reality.