Page 1 of The Beachgoers
one
— Now —
TURNS OUT THE STRANGER IS no stranger after all.
With that thought, Jason Barlow paces the cottage deck beneath the warm midday sun. He walks around whiskey-barrel planters spilling with red geraniums. He gives a slap at the blue-and-white cushions covering teak chairs beneath a navy patio umbrella.
But that’s not all he does.
He also tugs off his already loosened tie, then tosses it on one of those teak chairs. He stretches his neck from side to side. Mostly, he throws glances toward the photograph on the deck table before stopping at the far railing—as though it’s a safe spot. As though he needs some distance between himself and that mysterious snapshot, particularly the person in it.
Or distance from the truth he just realized.
Because after studying that fading photograph for several minutes, after enlarging a copy on his cell phone to better see the small details, Jason got his answer—loud and clear.
He now knows who that stranger is.
“Stranger, like shit,” he says to himself.
Leaning his arms on the deck railing, Jason drops his head and takes a long breath of the pungent salt air here at Sea Spray Beach. Even with his eyes closed, he can visualize the photo. There’s no escaping it now. The close-up is of someone standing at a coin-operated viewfinder. Someone bending forward, face pressed against the eyepiece. Both hands grip knobs on the sides of the viewer’s silver top. The person is intent on panning the horizon off some unfamiliar coastline.
Jason opens his eyes. Since he found the photo in one of his brother’s old scrapbooks weeks ago, he’d been asking himself over and again,Who is that?Something about the stance of this stranger nagged at him. Some nuance Jason recognized but couldn’t place.
Moments ago, one telling detail gave it away.
After flicking the photograph larger on his phone, he couldn’t miss that detail. Funny how it had been hidden there in plain sight. The man standing at the beach binoculars wears a sweatshirt over jeans. As he grips the viewer’s silver handles, his sweatshirt sleeves are shoved up; his arms, raised. And didn’t Jason finally see it—the tattoo on the stranger’s left forearm.
Suddenly, the brief notation inked there wasallhe saw:6h 12m.
* * *
Six hours, twelve minutes.
Anyone growing up by the sea knows the significance of those numbers.
The tide changes every six hours, twelve minutes. Over and over again. Every six hours, twelve minutes. You can count on it. You can put money on it. You can set your watch by it.
But Shane Bradford rarely wore a watch.
Not since he got his first tattoo when he was seventeen years old—fresh out of juvie and into lobstering.
Not since he showed off that tattoo in Foley’s one hot summer night, when the jukebox was cranking and the beer flowing in the smoky back room.
When Jason asked him why he got a tat right where his watch would be, Shane explained he didn’t really do watches. That he told time by the tides—which change round the clock, every day. Every six hours, twelve minutes.6h 12m.
Numbers freshly inked on his skin.
Of course, in typical Shane fashion he then challenged the gang to get themselves inked, too. That his buddy on the lobster boat had a tattoo kit he pulled out to kill time when they were below deck. One phone call could get the guy to Foley’s and make the night interesting—if they were game.
No one took him up on the challenge. Not Shane’s brother, Kyle; not Shane’s girlfriend, Maris; heck, not even a pal like Vinny or Matt. Neil said he’d think about it. And when Shane pressed Jason to get a tattoo? Jason told him no thanks, he’d stick with his watch.
Hard to believe that was twenty years ago.
Shaking his head, Jason walks back to the deck table. It’s the same table he’d been working at a week ago when Shane Bradford showed uphere, at Ted Sullivan’s place, unannounced. Showed up to tell Jason off with a few choice words.
Jason gives a short laugh now as he sits at that table again and picks up the last of his lunch—a take-out roast beef grinder. Slowly, he drags it through the olive-oil drippings on his plate before stuffing the food in his mouth. Finishes his soda then, too. He does it all while eyeing that one photograph and letting the man’s identity sink in, but good.
Finally, Jason wipes his fingers on a napkin and lifts his cell phone. Yes, the image on the screen shows—of all people—Shane Bradford. He’s casually bent and peering through those silver beach binoculars. Shane’s telltale tat—6h 12m—is barely discernible in the enlarged, grainy picture. But it’s there.
