Page 42 of Stony Point Summer
Shane crosses his arms over his chest while still leaning on the doorjamb. “Problem is,” he says, then pauses—which gets Celia to look at him. A wisp of auburn hair sticks to her face. “Problem is, I’m not really ready for this night to end, Celia.”
She looks away, then right back at him. And turns up her hands. “Okay. What do you have in mind?” she asks.
Shane still stands in the doorway. A bead of perspiration runs down his temple. He can feel his sleeveless tee really sticking to his back. “We’ll go out for a drink?”
She nods. “I’d like that.”
“Just give me ten minutes to grab a quick shower first.” He swipes his forehead with his hand. “After the long drive from Maine, and unpacking, well—”
“Of course! Go ahead.” Still she stands near the sofa, where she sets her satchel down again.
“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable on the porch? It’s cooler outside near the water. Maybe you’ll catch a sea breeze,” Shane says, motioning to the back door in the kitchen. “Hot as hell in here.”
* * *
Celia stops once she’s on the back porch. She stands there, leans herself against the screen door, tips up her head and closes her eyes—all while not feeling even a slight breeze lift off the distant water. On the porch, beach grasses cut from alongside the cottage spill from a rusty milk can. Tarnished lanterns sit atop vintage crates. The dusty olive floorboards creak when she finally walks across them.
What she loves most about this porch is that the windows have no screens and glass. Instead, wide open-air views fill the window space. Even now, at nightfall, she can’t help but sense Long Island Sound spread out before her. The seawater’s hulking movement, its waves and tides, are almost palpable. When she sits herself on the porch’s half-wall and leans against a post behind her, she takes a long breath of the damp salt air.
And turns her head toward the screen door, and the dimly illuminated kitchen on the other side of it.
Looking away then, back out toward boat lights twinkling on the dark water, she shifts her position on that half-wall. Maybe it’s a way to distract herself from what she’s about to do.
From turning her headagainto see inside the cottage. To see through the back kitchen windows and that screen door. The light inside is golden; the rooms, musty.
Celia hops off the wall onto the porch floor. But she doesn’t take a step. Instead, she presses a wrinkle out of her frayed denim shorts. Adjusts the chain of her silver choker. And finally moves toward the seven painted stairs that would lead her off the porch and head her home. Walking inthatdirection does nothing to stop her, though, from looking again inside the beach bungalow. There’s the aqua-painted cupboard filled with chipped dishes and bowls. There’s the old kitchen table. She veers left and steps closer to the screen door. There. There’s Shane’s cell phone charging on the counter. Further in, she can see the gray rattan sofa in the living room. The painted trunk. Every shabby room filled, she knows, with that pungent damp-cottage scent.
Celia stops looking inside, exhales a quick breath and instead looks out behind her again, to the sea. Oh, that sea. Its waves lapping on the little beach below seem to be whispering to her, the way they hiss across the sand.Decide, decide. They rhythmically count off the very few seconds she has to make her decision.
So she spins around and walks back to the porch’s half-wall and simply listens.
Funny, but—waves be damned—all she hearsnowis her own heartbeat. It surely can’t be missed, the way it’s pounding within her.
Pounding with what she’s about to do.
With how she’s been pushing herself lately.
With the way she turnsagain, and this time? This time she walks directlytothat screen door—which squeaks when she pulls it open. After stepping inside and taking a second to hook the latch, and to summon more nerve, she does it. She walks straight through the kitchen, down the narrow hallway to the bathroom door. Stopping outside the closed door, she can hear the shower running on the other side.
Lord, is she perspiring now. Her face is flushed; Celia can just tell.
But shehasan out; the hallwayisdark, so she can turn and leave. Right now. Unnoticed. Rush back out to the porch and wait there for Shane.
Or—she can walk into the bathroom.
“Breathe,” she reminds herself. Her fingers run along the lacy edge of her tank top and touch her damp neck. But only for a second. Only until she lowers her hand and knocks on the door at the same time her other hand turns the doorknob and opens it.
“Shane?” she asks.
Across the room, beads of water slide down a glass shower enclosure. Closing the bathroom door behind her, Celia sees. She sees through the glass to the shower water streaming down Shane’s back, along his tattooed arms. His legs.
She sees Shane turn toward her from where he stands naked beneath the chrome showerhead.
* * *
“Celia.” Shane shakes back his sopping hair and turns toward her standing at the door. “What is it?” he calls out from the glass enclosure.
A few seconds, four or five maybe, pass silently as he watches her through the glass. There’s only the spraying sound of the shower water before Celia responds. After stepping out of her sandals and putting her wristwatch on the sink top, her hands drop to her denim shorts—and pause. Just for a moment, though, before she unzips those shorts and slowly lifts out one leg, then another. As she bends to get the shorts off then, her loose braid swings forward.
