seeing him at school regularly made me nervous. The way he’d stared at me was disconcerting; just thinking about it made me uncomfortable. Every time I brushed by the rosemary hedge out front I could see his face.
Late at night, I would lie in bed and listen to the surf thundering on the beach. With my eyes closed I imagined that I could feel the tug of the water rocking me to sleep, for the power of the tides seemed to shake the very ground beneath my bed. One foggy Aptos morning after another I’d start awake from vivid dreams about swimming, the taste of salt air on the tip of my tongue.
I found that I enjoyed living so close to the ocean and relished my solo walks to the foggy beach. I went as early as possible, when there were few if any other people around, drawn out of my warm bed and down to the sand by the sound of the crashing waves. I reveled in the solitude, and would sit and gaze out at the horizon, imagining that the water went on forever. Sometimes the sky and water seemed to blend together, making me feel like I was floating, disembodied, sitting inside of a dream.
One morning I decided to go find Stella and deliver the bags of cat food that I’d started dropping off for her regularly. She invariably greeted me as though I were an old friend, even if she didn’t always remember my name. Stella was such a sweet confused soul that I suspected she was feeding the wild cats instead of herself; I wanted to lift some of the burden from her frail shoulders.
Flipping through my rack of clothes, I picked out a pretty silk blouse to wear with my favorite jeans. I looked out the window at the chilly gray morning and slipped on a leather jacket with a soft shearling lining. Rummaging through a suitcase I found a pair of high powered binoculars to drop into my tote bag, along with my sketch pad and some colored pencils. If I managed to spot the strange girl diver again I was determined to get a good look at her.
It was still fairly early, and I walked briskly down the stairs, delighted to find the beach nearly deserted. I wandered around a little bit, but didn’t spot Stella at any of her favorite benches. Disappointed, I decided to leave the food in a niche under the stairs where I knew she’d find it. I looked, but I never saw the timid little cats unless I was with her, for Stella alone had earned all of the trust they’d managed to summon for humankind. Still, I poured a little bit of food out onto a grassy spot, and found that it invariably vanished by the time I took the stairs back home.
I kicked off my shoes and strolled down towards the water, sinking into the dry sand with every step. When I reached the waterline I ambled along, charmed by groups of shore birds racing back and forth just ahead of the surf. White foam stretched up to claim the beach, only to be reeled back into the mass of water behind it, followed by the busy little birds. Their tiny legs churned beneath them in a blur, giving them the appearance of rolling along on wheels. I sat down on the dry sand to draw them, giggling at how comical they looked.
Finished with my first sketch, I rose to do a little beachcombing, rolling up my pant legs and getting close enough to let the ice cold water wash across my feet. I reached down and plucked a perfect unbroken sand dollar from the foamy rush. I took it as an omen that this would be a lucky day.
On this fog veiled morning the pier was empty of fishermen, and I looked up at the lonely expanse of gray weathered wood disappearing into the murky swirling mist. I picked my way across the beach to the stairs and wandered down the planks to the bench at the end of the ship.
Peering through the fence, I gazed out onto the dark choppy waters lapping at the broken concrete.
The sea lions were gone, but there was a row of black cormorants perched on the rusty rails of the ship’s broken prow. Getting out my sketch pad I sat down to begin another drawing. After I finished the birds, I looked around for a fresh subject. I