dealing with. I pull ahead, and then he’s beside me and we’re pushing as hard as we can. I win by a hair, and we collapse onto the beach.
My body sinks into the sand. Warmth all around me, reaching into my flesh and bone. It’s the first time I’ve felt warm all the way through since May 29. I am tucked away behind my eyelids, as if my head is a room and they are the doors that close me in. The sun is so bright that it’s impossible to shut it all out. One day, someone will walk down this beach and they’ll see an imprint of my body, like a chalk outline, buried deep beneath the sand.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I open my eyes and he is standing over me.
“Listen, Calamity Jane, is that it for today or should I stick around? You know what, I’ll help you out. The marsh is that way.” He points in the direction of the trees. “Through there and across Main Road and keep going west till you run out of land. You can’t miss it. Take a swim while you’re there. You’ll love it. There are alligators and poisonous snakes just waiting for you.” He leans over, grabs the shirt lying on the sand, and starts to go. No mention of our interaction at the bar or the fact that I left him my number.
“Claude,” I say. “My name’s Claude.”
He turns, walking backward away from me. He holds out his arms. “I don’t fucking care.” And disappears through the dunes.
* * *
—
I go back through the dunes, back through the live oaks, back onto the dirt road. I look for the boy, but I don’t see anyone.
I pull off my cap, shake out what’s left of my hair. If I could collect all my hair and stick it back onto my head, I would. As I was chopping it off, it never occurred to me to remember that this island is only temporary and I am only temporary and I will need hair when I go to college in the fall. Now I will start freshman year being mistaken for a boy. I dig for my lipstick buried deep in the pocket of my pants. Rub it over my lips. Just in case I see him again. Then I hear a rustling in the brush and I start to run.
DAY 2
(PART THREE)
My heart is still pounding by the time I get to Addy’s. The screen door slams behind me and I call out for my mom. No answer. I call out for Dandelion. No answer. For one terrible second, I wonder if they’ve left me too. I make a beeline for my mom’s room, and there are her things, spread across the dresser and the chair and the bed. There are her clothes in the closet. I breathe. Dandelion appears from nowhere, stretching, yawning. I pick him up and kiss him all over his face.
In the bathroom, I shed my wet pants and shirt and hat and stand there in my bikini, legs and arms eaten up with bug bites. I scratch at them until they turn into welts, and then I peel off my suit and take the world’s longest shower.
* * *
—
An hour later, I am parked in the window seat, fisherman’s cap hiding what’s left of my butchered hair. My notebooks—the ones holding my bad, overly long novel—lie beside me. I have too much to say and nothing to say and I’m staring at this towering pile that is my book as if it’s a long-forgotten loved one hooked to a ventilator. I think, It’s time to pull the plug on you.
Someone or something bangs the front door, and I nearly jump out of my skin. There’s no one here I want to talk to, so I ignore it. They bang again, and I keep right on reading. But then there’s a rap on the window and the someone is standing there. The boy from the beach.
I stare at him, unblinking, and wonder if somehow I can make myself invisible. Through the glass he says, “I see you.”
I set the notebook down, get up, open the door.
“What do you want?”
“You’re alive.”
“I am.”
“I figured odds were pretty good you were lying somewhere out in the marsh half eaten by a gator, so I thought I’d better check. Just because this place looks like a version of paradise doesn’t mean it can’t also be deadly.” He