Page 18 of Light in the Dark
There's a long pause. She sniffles and then pours vodka into the Ensure, spilling it all over her fingers.
"I had to rebuild who I was." She tilts her head, thinking. “No, actually, I had to build myself from scratch. I was a mother and a wife and a schoolteacher…but then Thomas died and I discovered that without him, I didn't know who I was. It was terrifying."
She opens my Ensure bottle and puts it to my lips. "Drink, missy."
So, I drink it down a few inches and hand her the bottle. She tips a long pour into the bottle, caps them both, and then shakes them vigorously.
She hands me one and opens the other. "Better cold, but I wasn't about to haul ice way the hell down here."
I take a sip, coughing at how strong it is. "Jesus, Faye."
"Whooo-wee!" she crows. “That'll scorch the hair right off your cooter."
“Ohmygod, Faye. You're a lunatic. What is with you and the word 'cooter'?"
She shrugs, cackling. "I dunno. It's funny to me. I like it. Vagina is too technical, pussy is…icky, and even now I can't bring myself to say theotherC-word. So, cooter it is."
"I guess that's reason enough," I say.
"Sure is," she agrees, taking another sip. "So, my point in that whole story is this: you gotta just say ‘fuck it’ sometimes. I had to learn who I am now that I have no one to please but me. And that person, apparently, likes crazy hair colors, piercings, tattoos, marijuana, alcohol, cursing, and just generally being a loud, obnoxious pain in the ass."
"So you're saying I should just say ‘fuck it’ and get wasted on the beach with you?"
"Yup!"
"Fine. But if anything happens, I'm blaming you."
She laughs. "Fine by me." She gestured at my drink with hers. "Now drink up. Oh my, what was that phrase my grandson used the other day? Oh! I remember. We have to get litty."
I cackle, and the cackle turns into laughter so hard I snort. "Litty?"
"Ben is a hoot. We were FaceTiming the other day and he was telling me about a party he went to and how all his friends care about is getting litty. I had no clue what that meant. Of course, he had to explain what lit meant first." She taps my bottle with hers. "Here's to saying fuck it and getting litty on the beach with new friends."
"I'll drink to that!" I said, and chugged a bit too much.
Jesus, this shit is strong. I am going to besofucked up.
Faye regales me with stories of the weird, gross, inappropriate, and hysterical things she encountered in her decades of teaching. She's a world-class storyteller with killer comedic timing and delivery, and after a while my sides literally hurt from laughing so much.
Abruptly, Faye slaps her thighs. "Welp. About time to make a fire. C'mon, missy. I'll show you a thing or two."
I follow her down the beach to the stand of trees—a cluster of pines and birches angling over the sand as if reaching for the horizon. We gather sticks and branches by the armful and carry them back to our spot, and then go back for more. Faye has me dig a wide but shallow depression in the sand, and then she carefully constructs a teepee of the smallest twigs. Next, she rummages in her giant bag and produces a small plastic pouch of Kleenex. She twists a few tissues into wads and stuffs them under the teepee and then rummages in her bag again, this time producing a torch lighter.
"What the hell else do you have in that bag, Faye?" I ask.
She gets the fire flickering before answering. "Anything and everything." She digs in and comes up with a package of Chips Ahoy, puts it back, comes up again with a six-pack of yellow Gatorade, puts that back, and comes up with a gallon Ziploc bag full of cannabis flower.
I splutter a laugh. "Jesus, Faye. Why do you have that much with you?"
She shrugs. “Tossed it in, just in case. Let's see, what else…? Oh! I have my knitting." She shows me a ball of baby blue yarn and a knitting needle. "I also have these." She shows me a pair of red-and-black checkered cinch bags. "They're blankets that scrunch up into these nifty little baggies."
"That thing must weigh a ton," I say.
She pats her shoulder. "Been carrying heavy purses my whole life. I could carry you, probably, if you could fit into a purse."
I laugh. "I could probably fit into that bag." I'm starting to feel the cannabis—light-headed, floaty, breezy. "Ohhh, here we go."
Faye cackles. "That's the good shit kickin' in, huh?"
