Maggie said, looking sideways at her grandmother, who was staring fixedly toward the black void of the horizon.
“Oh, that old story,” her grandmother said.
“I love that story,” said Teresa.
“Well, as you all know I’m not much of a swimmer,” said Mary Frances, whose grandchildren had never seen her do anything in a bathing suit except sit on the beach. “I was with my friend Ruthie Corrigan and we were at the Alden, a guest house down the street here, I think it’s called the Grande now. We had a room on the top floor with those dormer windows and just barely room enough for two. Seven dollars a week it was, which may seem cheap to you, but was dear then, I can tell you, especially for me. Not that we were poor. But there wasn’t money to burn.”
“And you went swimming,” said Maggie.
“And we went swimming,” Mary Frances continued. “There was a dreadful undertow, one of those where you can just barely stand up. It was dragging us around, but Ruthie was a bigger girl than me, a very big girl, with great big bones and feet, I think they were tens, if you can imagine, and she was staying put and I was all over the place out there. And I was trying to be calm, but finally I said ‘Ruthie, I’m drowning, say your prayers and I’ll say mine.’ And she hollered, oh, did she holler. And before I knew what had happened there was this young man pulling me out by the hair.”
Mary Frances stopped to catch her breath, her face as pink as the embroidery on her pocket handkerchief.
“He was as handsome as Francis X. Bushman—”
“Who’s Francis X. Bushmer?” said Teresa, who had a mind, John Scanlan always said, “like a sieve.”
“Shut up,” said Maggie. “An actor. Pay attention.”
“He was as handsome as Francis X. Bushman,” Mary Frances said, “with beautiful wavy hair and the prettiest teeth. I was all right when he got me up on the beach, only out of breath and a little scared, but Ruthie was screaming like a banshee and finally I had to tell her to be quiet so he could tell me his name. Roderick. Can you beat that? Roderick. Like a duke, I said to Ruthie. And right there on the beach he said, ‘May I take you to dinner tonight?’ And me still trying to catch my breath, so I just nodded. ‘May I take you?’ Like a duke, I said to Ruthie.”
“But you didn’t go,” said Maggie.
“I didn’t go, no,” said Mary Frances with a slight clicking noise, her mouth dry from the whiskey sours. “That afternoon I met your grandfather. And that was that.”
Maggie waited.
“He swept me off my feet,” Mary Frances said with a sigh.
It suddenly seemed very quiet and the noise of the ocean seemed loud. “I have to go to the bathroom,” said one of the twins softly, as though she was a toddler who needed to be taken and helped. “Well, go then, dear, don’t discuss it,” Mary Frances said impatiently.
“Grandmom, can I go for a walk on the beach?” Maggie asked, as her cousin slipped away.
“In your stockings?”
“I didn’t wear them tonight.”
“I wish I’d known that. I would have sent you back upstairs. Well, go ahead then.”
Maggie handed Teresa her white patent pumps and ran down the stairs. The road that separated the guesthouse from the beach was empty and the sand felt surprisingly cold. The night was so black that Maggie knew she had reached the water’s edge only when she felt the sea run over her feet. When she looked for the moon she realized that it must be hidden behind the clouds, and she wondered if it would rain, and what they would all do if it did, stuck together at the beach on a rainy day. To one side she could hear an odd whirring sound, and dimly in the dark she made out the silhouette of someone surf-casting. She began to walk in the opposite direction.
She felt at home walking on the beach. The lonely, empty feeling in her stomach, which seemed out of place in everyday life—at the pool, playing softball, at school, with her brothers—felt suitable at the beach. She walked for what seemed like a long time, and then turned at one of the stone jetties and walked back again, looking for the lights of the guesthouse beyond the dunes. She saw them from some distance away and began to climb