Page 56 of Stony Point Summer
Once that hurricane returns with a vengeance, there’ll be no way out. He’ll be trapped here, and the walls are already closing in.
Which gets him to quickly open the slider and enter the dim kitchen. Empty beer cans are stacked in the sink. And on the table, a few burning candles throw wavering shadows. One of the women is there, too. She stands in front of the open fridge and reaches for a piece of fruit. Wearing a loosely tied robe, she turns and nods to him as he walks by. In the living room, more candles still burn on tables; on the hearth; on a cabinet at the bottom of the stairs. So he can see. Someone’s sleeping on the living room couch. A knitted throw is over his legs; his arm, tossed over his eyes.
Using any stealth he can muster, he walks past the sleeper. The last thing he wants to do now is talk.
To anyone.
Shit, voices come from upstairs. A couple. Are they arguing? There’s no time to find out as he takes those shadowy steps two at a time, hurries down the hall and sneaks into his room. After shutting the door behind him, he leans against it. A candle burns on his dresser. The flame flickers, throwing wavering light so he can see his things. His overnight bag on the bed. A sweatshirt hanging from a nail on the closet door. A comb and deodorant on his dresser, near that candle. And that white envelope neatly propped against the dresser mirror.
Well, now. One thing’s for certain. And it gets his heart beating faster. He didn’t leave that envelope standing straight like that. So he cautiously walks over to it. She had said earlier that she read his letter. But she also said she got spooked and rushed out of his room. If that were the case, she would have quickly stuffed the contents back into the envelope and maybe tossed the envelope aside. Or dropped it in a dresser drawer. She never would’ve nicely refolded the contents to perfectly fit back inside the envelope. Wouldn’t have so precisely stood it against the mirror.
Not this plain envelope with its sparse return address, and its stamped notice to return to the local board if not delivered in five days, and his address carefully and simply typed across the front.
As if anything about the envelope’s contents would be simple.
So someone else has been in his room. He picks up the envelope, taps it on his hand, sets it down.
“You’ve got some explaining to do,” a voice says then in the darkness behind him.
OPTION 1
He spins around and squints into the shadows.
(or)
OPTION 2
“I should’ve known.” He looks over his shoulder, heads to the door and opens it. “You need to leave.”
(or)
OPTION 3
He drops the envelope, shakes his head and takes a long breath.
(Person in darkness stands? Sits in chair? Waits for answer? Confrontation? Denial? Argument?)
* * *
Sitting in her writing shack, Maris isn’t surewhichoption to choose. So she pauses, sits back and rereads her words. She sips her coffee, too, while sorting out what she wants to happen in this DRIFTLINE passage.
“Neil, Neil…Where would you go with this scene?” she whispers. “What happens next?”
She walks to a shelf lined with Neil’s things: coffee cups, a duck decoy, dusty conch shells. She nudges them. Straightens them. Tries to physically connect with Neil this way—to tap into his thoughts.
Standing there, Maris runs her hand along the shelf, then moves to another. This one holds many of Neil’s journals. They’re the journals and scrapbooks found right in this very shack, abandoned on that wild stretch of sand around the bend from Little Beach. Old half-burned candles are arranged around the journals, candles whose flames must’ve illuminated the pages as he wrote.
“What should I do?” she asks herself. Or Neil. Or whatever salt-air muse hovers in this musty shack of his. “Does this main character reveal all? Can he be trusted? Does the characterlieto the person sitting in shadow?” As she asks the questions, she pulls out a journal. Maybe somethingNeilpenned will work its way into the story. When she opens the journal, she drags a finger across his words inked there. As she whispers a sentence, some sort of bookmark slips out and falls to the floor. Maris picks it up and surprisingly recognizes the creased paper—instantly.
“No.” She looks closely at it. Turns it over. Turns it back and readsKyle’shandwriting on the paper.
Reads two words penned across it:Shane Bradford
Holy shit. So Neil didn’t do it.
Maris never knew. He never let on.
Fifteen years ago, after Kyle and Shane had their falling-out, Kyle convinced all of them at the bonfire. Convinced them his brother was heartless. That Shane crossed an unconscionable line and was dead to him. When Kyle handed them each a slip of paper with Shane’s name written on it, he requested that they toss the paper—and his brother, per se—into the fire. Out of their lives.
