Strangers on the Beach

"I've been thinking about having an affair," Cindy said, glancing quickly at Mark for his reaction. "Would you be interested?"

         They were standing alone at the shoreline, looking out at the lake. Blazing stars and a luminous full moon cast a silver glow over the water.

         Behind them laughter and Hawaiian music drifted from the brightly lighted Starlight Ballroom, where bank employees were enjoying their annual luau.

         He smiled. "An affair?" he said. "What would your husband say?"

         She turned away from him and began ambling along the beach, her pink blouse pale in the moonlight, her grass skirt rustling. Mark fell in step with her.

         She'd started the game of "Strangers" they used to play when they were first married and romance was a major part of their life. Mark's remembering the game pleased her.

         "I'm looking for someone who isn't thinking business every minute. Someone who doesn't answer his cell phone every half hour."

         Mark turned and pointed. "Back there is where all the romance is. Music. Dancing."

         "Too many people back there," Cindy said. "I've decided I want to be alone with you."

         Abruptly, she reached for him and kissed him on the lips. Before he could respond, she backed out of the embrace. "Are you married?" she asked, a gentle breeze tossing her dark hair.

         He smiled. "I'm happily married. Got a dynamite wife."

         "Is she pretty?"

         "Outstanding. And very smart."

         She clamped her hands on her waist. "If you're married and your wife is so beautiful and brainy, why did you let me kiss you like that?"

         He stared at her. "Look, Cindy, let's not play this game."

         "Leilani... Call me Leilani. " She took a step closer.  "Do you like the orchid in my hair?"

         "Very beautiful." He grinned. "Especially in the moonlight. All that black hair, very exotic."

         "Does your wife know you're happily married?"

         He cocked his head. "What kind of question is that?"

         "To be happily married both people have to be happy," she said. "Is she happy? Have you had time lately to think about that?"

         "I think she's happy," he said. "She's busy. She has a job she loves. A nice house. Car."

         "A job, a house, a car—you think that's happiness?" Cindy turned away from him, arms folded. "When we were first married, I thought my husband and I had invented love.  Nearly every night—"

         "Look, Cindy..."

         "Leilani..."

         Falling into an awkward silence, they began strolling again along the moonlit beach, her grass skirt swishing across her bare legs.

         "My husband and I have a nice house, too," she said. "Three bedrooms. No children. He doesn't have time. I'll be a librarian all my life. Never a stay-at-home mom." She sighed deeply.

         "Maybe your husband wants everything in place before starting a family. "

         "Maybe he's lost sight of what's important," Cindy said. "Before we left tonight, he'd said he had to be home by eleven. He had a few papers to take care of before going to bed. Can you believe that?"

         She stopped walking. "Let's leave our sandals here and walk in the water," she said.

         He glanced back at the ballroom. "We're missing the party."

         "Off with your sandals," she insisted.

         "All right." They kicked off their sandals, leaving them in the sand. As they splashed along the beach, the sand squished between her toes, and the cool water swirled around her ankles. His hand touched hers briefly, and her heart skipped.

         "Want to race?" she asked, and looked at him mischievously.

         "Don't be silly!"

         Taking off, she sprinted fifty yards down the beach, grass skirt flying.

         He pounded along behind her on the wet sand, breathless in twenty steps.

         Suddenly after a fifty yards, she was running out of sandy beach. Tall brush loomed ahead, then pine trees. No path in sight. She stopped and turned to wait for him.

         Laughing and breathing hard, he thundered up to her, ready to collapse, dropping his hands on her shoulders for support, gasping for air. His weight forced her to her knees in the sand, and he knelt in front of her, trying to catch his breath. "What are we? A couple of kids?" He laughed. "Are we crazy?"

         "Maybe not." She kissed him again.

         "Careful," he said. "We're close to the water. That grass skirt will get wet and sandy. You'll ruin it." He staggered to his feet, trying to help her up. He stumbled. She shoved him, sending him sprawling backward into knee-deep water with a splash. "Hey!" he cried.

         She pounced on him with a laugh and wrestled him into deeper water. When they surfaced, they were laughing in water up to their waist, arms around one another. He gulped and wiped the water from his face. "What are you trying to do"—he was still laughing—"drown me? Look at us! Drenched!"

         "My husband and I swam naked in the moonlight nearly every night of our honeymoon," she said softly, her heart thumping.

         "Is that a fact?" His arms slipped around her, his lips moved closer to hers. Her blood danced—and then the cell phone attached to his waist sounded off.

She jumped back, startled. "Not that thing again—it's waterproof? Who's working tonight at the bank? Isn't everyone here?"

         "A few programmers are installing new software. They're probably in a jam and need help."

         Quick as a cat, she flicked her hand out and snatched the phone. "My husband has one of these..."

         "Cindy—"

         "Leilani...!" She whirled. "I should've done this long ago." She flung the wretched cell phone far into the lake, a mighty heave—she'd been softball player in high school. She couldn't see the phone flying through the darkness, but she heard it splash into the water like a stone.

         He stared at her. "Do you know what you've just done? What you've just cost me?"

         "Yes. Of course. And I'm glad."

As she trudged across the sand on her way back to the ballroom, Mark followed silently behind her, picking up their sandals on the way. She heard his dogged, scuffing step. Regret twisted in her heart. She'd ruined their evening. Big time. They couldn't even go back to dance: she'd drenched them. They'd be home before 11:00. He'd shower and retreat to his study to finish his paperwork. First thing tomorrow morning, he'd be out looking for a new phone.

         "Will you get my purse?" she asked quietly, brushing sand from her legs when they reached the ballroom.

         "Certainly."

         She stood outside alone, shivering in the marquee lights. Inside, the place rocked with music and laughter. She hoped her purse was still at the table where they'd eaten with friends.

         A couple came strolling out holding hands, music spilling into the night when they opened the door. The woman looked at Cindy, then the man looked. "Are you all right?" he asked.

         "Yes..." Cindy tried to smile, thankful she didn't know them. "It's a long story." She tucked her wet hair behind her ears. "I...I fell in the lake."     

         "Oh, my," the woman said.

         "Hope you were having fun," the man said. They smiled, then strolled off into the moonlight.

         Cindy bit her bottom lip.  Her orchid was missing. The water and sand had demolished her lei. Sand clogged her grass skirt. She must look like a shipwrecked sailor, recently washed ashore.

         What was taking Mark so long?

         Maybe he couldn't find her purse.

         Maybe he was making a telephone call to the office, finding out why he'd been called.

         When he marched out of the ballroom, her small white purse in hand, his face was expressionless. Wordlessly, he handed it to her. Inside the car, as he stuck the key into the ignition, she said, "Did you call the office?"

         "I asked someone else to do it," he said. "Trying to explain to everyone why I look like a shipwrecked sailor is what took so long."

         She stifled a smile. "What did you tell them?"

         "A beautiful dark-haired Hawaiian princess threw me overboard." The parking lot lights bathed his features in a soft, silvery glow, and she felt his eyes travel her face like tender fingers. Was he amused? It seemed so.

         Cindy said, "I just explained to a couple that I'd fallen in the lake."

         "What a pair we are," he said, smiling. "We better go home."

         "Paperwork?"

         He turned to look at her. "That's not exactly what I had in mind, Leilani."

         She blinked. Drew a breath. Faced him.

         "We need to be alone," he said. "At home."

         He moved closer to her, close enough to kiss her forehead. His hand stroked her cheek, and her heart melted. "You remind me a lot of my wife. Stubborn. Impetuous."

         "I thought you'd forgotten her," Cindy whispered.

         "I nearly did, Leilani."

         "Cindy..." she breathed as his lips touched hers. "Call me Cindy."

The End

Suite Number Nine

 She turned the shower on full last, hoping the hot water would relieve the dull ache between her shoulder blades and the tightness in her neck. Jerry. She wondered what Jerry would think of her now, shacked up with another woman's husband, a man taking her for all the could get and she giving him all he wanted, never saying no.

Amber lay on her stomach, face buried in the pillow, arms and legs spread-eagled, but with the sting of his swat on her bare butt beneath the sheet, she jerked and rolled over.

He wore swimming trunks, a well-built man of forty, hairy chested. He smiled his brown-eyed smile, but she closed her eyes, stretched her legs straight, clenched her fists, and reached for the ceiling. Cocking her head, she grimaced and tried to snap the kink out of her neck.

"Getting late this morning," he said. "Let's take a dip in the pool before it gets crowded."

Her eyes opened. She rubbed the sleep out of them with her fists. "We have something to talk about," she said, yawning vastly. "I've been lying here thinking."

"Sunshine, blue skies—looks like a great morning for a dip."

"You promised last night—first thing this morning—before anything else—we'd talk again."

"How about breakfast? Canadian bacon, two eggs over easy, toast, juice, coffee. What do you think, hon? We'll get dressed."

Sitting up straight in bed, she tossed the sheet aside. "Carl, we have to talk. Once and for all."

"Not here. Not now."

"Why not here? We do everything else here, suite number nine, Voyager Motel, a hundred miles from home. Ten of the past twenty-four weekends."

"Hon—"

"And why not now? Can you think of a better time?"

She bounced out of bed and strode toward the closet, conscious of his admiring stare. She might be twenty-eight, the mother of two kids, but the figure was still there—firm breasts and belly, gently rounded hips, slender thighs and flawless legs.

Plucking her red robe from the closet, she slipped into it and belted it. She flipped her tousled auburn hair behind her back. She adjusted the slats on the blinds so that the early Saturday morning sunshine streamed into the room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she faced him and shoved whips of hair out of her blue eyes. "Look, Carl," she said gravely, "I know in the beginning we had no agreements, no commitments—just two people, the neighborhood widow with two kids, sick of loneliness and vulnerable. Lord, very, very vulnerable. I admit it—a pushover."

"Amber, sweetheart, not so early in the morning."

"A dip in the pool, a few drinks on the sun deck, a few more in the cocktail lounge, an afternoon tussle in bed—and I'll lose sight again of what I have to say."

"Hon, listen to me—"

"I said it before Carl. I'm going to say it only one more time."

"Aren't you hungry?"

She took a deep breath. "Let me see. The widow is a pushover—yes! We both know that. Did I get to the part about the neighbor man? The tall, muscular, tanned neighbor man from down the street? I didn't, did I? A bit older than the widow. No—on second thought—quite a bit older. Distinguished-looking, though, and quite handsome. Lord, yes. Handsome. With gobs of money, the president of a tile manufacturing firm. A man with expense accounts, he travels a lot, sometimes gone for weeks at a time, no children, his marriage to a woman a bit older than he running cold for the past ten years—if you listen to him."

Sinking down next to her on the bed, Carl licked his lips and said, "I know exactly what you need." He gathered her into his arms, the left circling her waist, the right her shoulders. He leaned in, pressing her to him, and forced her back onto the bed. She stretched her neck and rolled her head, straining to avoid his lips, but he kissed her on the throat. A shiver rippled through her. "Carl—please! Don't..."

He grabbed for the belt the held her robe closed. "Yes, indeed—I know exactly what you need, sweetheart," he said, his voice raspy.

"Carl, Carl, Carl..." she whispered.

In the beginning she had never meant it to be like this. In the beginning it had been only a neighborhood block party. Tons of spare ribs, lots of laughs, plenty of games, and countless bottles of booze and beer. Just before dawn, after everyone else had either passed out or gone home, the widow and the neighbor man found each other in the widow's bedroom, no less—the kids were spending the weekend with their grandparents. She had no illusions about what she was doing that first time: grabbing all she could in one night of fun. Who could blame her? But somehow her one-night stand mushroomed into weekend romps soaked with sun, gin, and sex. Sending the kids off to see their paternal grandparents whenever necessary was a cinch. The kids and grandparents adored each other.

Then one morning when Amber was home from her job as the head librarian at the public library—Martin Luther King Day—Gloria Henderson, the neighbor man's wife, invited her over for ten-o'clock coffee, saying that she and Amber should be more than casual friends, suggesting that she, too, was lonely—practically a widow herself—what with her husband gone much of the time, then not much company when he was home, especially lately.

Amber listened nervously as Gloria tried to rationalize and accept her husband's indifference. Amber offered comfort, saying all women go through the same thing; it's just a different kind of same thing. And it was then Amber realized she had become something worse than the neighborhood pushover. She'd become the neighborhood whore. Maybe worse—the neighborhood hypocrite, a person who was doing her neighbor's husband every chance she got while now trying to console his wife. Shortly after that, feeling she could no longer live with herself with things the way they were, she told Carl he had to make a choice.

"There's only one choice, sweetheart," he said quickly. "It's you and me."

"Then tell her, Carl. Tell Gloria."

"I will. I promise."

But he never had.

In the bathroom, Amber decided to shower before slipping into her bikini and taking a dip with Carl in the pool. She dropped her robe to the floor, then inspected her face in the mirror, probing gently under her eyes and the corners of her mouth with a fingertip, touching the little blemish on her chin. The looks were still there, too, along with the body: The blue eyes, the delicately hollowed cheeks with the high cheekbones; the fair, finely-textured skin; the wide mouth; the long, light hair the color of ocean sand, Jerry used to say.

She turned the shower on full last, hoping the hot water would relieve the dull ache between her shoulder blades and the tightness in her neck. Jerry. She wondered what Jerry would think of her now, shacked up with another woman's husband, a man taking her for all the could get and she giving him all he wanted, never saying no.

Big, lovable, blonde Jerry—husband and father of her two daughters, Kim and Lisa, ages five and three. How difficult it had been to explain to the kids that daddy was a civilian ordinance specialist with the U.S. Army. That's why he was gone months at a time across the ocean to a faraway place, but they were so lucky that Grandma and Grandpa lived close by. How difficult it had been to tell them that Daddy was gone because he was making lots and lots of money for them, and he thought that was important, but he'd be home for good soon because after having been gone so long and missing them so badly, Daddy now realized they were more important than money. But of all the stupid, goddamned, senseless, illogical, unreasonable ironies of life—he was killed over there in Afghanistan. He died face down in the burning sand, a victim of a sniper's bullet.

To be sure, all that had been difficult to explain to the children, but there were some things she could never explain: The void that Jerry's death left in her life. Her never-ending struggle to move on with her life, while at the same time her heart rotted in her chest and her body ached at times from disuse. And what about her sobbing and crying and hiccupping at night out of loneliness, curled in a fetal position, Jerry's pillow clutched in her arms, squeezed strategically between her legs?

She had rinsed the soap away and stood braced now against a stinging spray of cold water, hoping it would do more to rejuvenate her than the hot water had, when she heard Carl's frantic tapping on the sliding shower door. "Amber! Amber!"

She twisted the shower off, slid back the glass door, then peeked out. "What's wrong?"

His eyes bulged. His mouth trembled. Under his tan he looked balanced. "Jesus!" he said. "Jesus Christ!"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Gloria—Gloria is sitting in her car right outside this room—parked right next to your car!"

"That's crazy! How could that be?"

"Christ, I don't know! But she is—sitting right there! I just happened to look out the front window, and there she is—twenty feet away. But I don't think she saw me. I pulled the blinds."

"Oh my God!"

Dripping wet, Amber jumped into her robe and hurried to the front window. She parted the Venetian blind slats a bit and peered out.

"For Chrissake!" he said. "Be careful! She knows it's your car—that stupid LOVE YOUR LIBRARIAN bumper sticker.

Gloria Henderson sat in her flashy yellow Volkswagen, a tight, pinched expression on her face, staring ahead, not so much at the front windows of the suite but perhaps a bit to the left, at the door, probably at the number on the door, number nine. Her hands worked nervously on the steering wheel.

Amber turned from the window to face Carl. "What'll we do now?" she whispered.

"First—get dressed!" He stalked into the bedroom and slammed the door.

In the bathroom, Amber quickly dried herself off and slipped into the clothes she'd left hanging on the back of the door—bra, panties, a sleeveless red blouse, a crisp white skirt, and sandals. She pulled her hair back and bowed a red ribbon around it at the base of her neck, ponytail fashion. She felt strangely cool and calm. Gloria's presence could be the solution Amber was looking for.

Carl burst out of the bedroom dressed in blue slacks and a white polo shirt, his eyebrows bunched together, his lips a thin line. A suitcase dangled from his right hand.

"What are we going to do?" Amber said.

"Pack your things," he said, and dropped his suitcase on the floor.

She'd brought only a few items: bikini, slacks, shorts, two t-shirts and the blouse and skirt she wore now, plus toilet articles. She packed quickly. From the bathroom, she gathered his razor, their toothbrushes, soap dish, his after-shave, and her lotions.

Jamming his articles into his suitcase, he said, "I've been watching her.  She realizes she's got us trapped. But she's petrified. She's turned our world upside down, and now she's afraid to do something about it. Maybe she'll sit there forever—frozen to the steering wheel."

"What are we going to do?" Amber asked again, and sat on the edge of a lounge chair.

Carl ran his hands through his hair. "Somehow she found out—a slip somewhere. Maybe she suspected all along." His eyes land on Amber, and she felt them penetrate her. "You look like nothing's happened," he said. "So cool. You didn't tell her for Chrissake, did you?"

"I never thought about telling her, Carl. You said you were going to do it."

"We've got to do something," he said, slumping down across from her in a chair. "And quick."

"There is an obvious choice."

"The only choice," he said, leaning forward, planting his elbows on his knees, "is that you go out there brazen as hell, see, then look surprised when you see her. Sort of laugh, maybe. Freely admit you've been here with someone—doesn't matter who—the mailman, for Chrissake." Carl jumped up and paced the room quickly, speaking rapidly. "But you tell her the guy left, like, and hour ago. You were just going to turn in the key card to the office. If you're quick, candid, and catch her off balance with a sudden admission, she'll believe it's someone else—because if it were really me, you'd be scared to death. And I'll be damned—you don't look scared to death at all."

"We have another choice."

"It won't take much. I know Gloria—I should. She probably doesn't want to find out the truth anymore than we want her to know it. Tell her once you get home you'll give her all the juicy details." He stopped pacing; he peeked between the Venetian blind slats again. "Still there. Hasn't moved."

"We could invite her in," Amber said. "Tell her the truth."

Carl swung away from the blinds. His mouth dropped open, speechless.

"The fact that she's out there," Amber said, "means she knows or at least suspects something. Maybe she's found it strange that my weekend jaunts to the kids' grandparents' house often conveniently coincide with your business trips."

Swallowing, Carl finally found his voice. "Are you crazy?"

"Crazy? Crazy to think you'd ever tell her."

"Look, that's not my car out there. It's yours. Mine's at the garage down the road, getting an oil change, remember? The only thing she knows for certain is that you're here. She can only guess about me, right? You want her to find out like this—trapping both of us, busting in on the privacy of our suite, eyeing our bed, our dirty sheets, out wet towels? Humiliating us?"

Amber stood up. "No more lies, Carl. I like Gloria, and I hate the way we're treating her."

"Look, sweetheart, you've got to do this one thing for me. If not for me, then for us."

"And then you'll do just one thing for us? You'll tell Gloria?"

"You have my solemn promise—I'll tell her. And it'll be in a kinder, gentler way than this. Kinder and gentler for all of us. You understand what I want you to do?"

"I understand."

"You can handle this, hon," he said softly. "You're stronger than she is. Smarter."

Gathering her strength, Amber picked up her suitcase and her purse. She looked around suite number nine for the last time, glad she'd never be here again. "I guess I've got everything," she said.

When she reached the door, he said, "Just one thing." He reached into his pocket and handed her the key card. Then, "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Holding her briefly, he kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be watching. Good luck. Make me proud. I'll wait here until both of you are gone. No back door to this place. Nor a window that opens wide enough to climb out of."

"Maybe all of this has been a bad choice," she said, and stepped outside into the warm sunshine. The door closed behind her, the lock clicking. He suitcase hung from her right hand, and in her left she clutched the plastic key card. Feeling Carl's eyes hitting her between the shoulder blades, she didn't look at Gloria's car but marched straight for her own, a red Camry. Then, as if she'd just caught a sudden glimpse of Gloria out of the corner of her eye, she did a double take, stopped stone-still, mouth agape, trying to simulate surprise. Dropping her suitcase on the concrete walkway, she rushed to the driver's side of Gloria's car, bent low, and peered in the open window—mouth still wide with surprise. "Wow!" she cried. "What's going on, Gloria? What are you doing here? What in the world—?"

"The question is what are you doing?"

Amber smiled sheepishly. "You've caught me red-handed in a very compromising situation, neighbor."

Amber's eyes dropped. She couldn't handle Gloria Henderson's dark-eyed stare, her oval face with round cheeks pale. With her graying hair braded and coiled into a bun at the nape of her neck, she looked fragile. "You, Amber...you?"

Amber nodded contritely.  "I'm just leaving. Turning in my key card. Thought I'd dump my suitcase in the car first."

"You were with—?"

 "I wore the poor man out," Amber said, with a rueful smile. "He stumbled away no more an hour ago."

"Who? Tell me who."

"How long have you been sitting here? You must've seen him. Big, tall guy. Bronzed face. Cowboy hat, jeans, western boots. Not my type, really."

Gloria looked at her, bewildered. "I steamed open Carl's credit card bill. Found charges to a Voyager Motel. Googled the name and found that there are three Voyager Motels within a five hundred miles radius of where we live. This is the first one I stopped at. I never thought I'd find you shacked up with...with a stranger."

"Unbelievable, isn't it? I don't know what's wrong with me."

At that instant Amber shot a glance at the Venetian-blind-covered windows of suite number nine. She pictured Carl watching them, hunched over, the slats of the blinds held ever so slightly apart with thumb and forefinger, eyes squinting. He would surely be proud of her.

But a great sadness overwhelmed Amber. Turning back to Gloria, she felt a sudden rush of pity for all vulnerable creatures—herself included. And especially for Gloria. Amber sighed deeply. She walked around the front of Gloria's car. She picked up her suitcase, unlocked her car door, tossed the suitcase into the backseat, and slammed the door shut. She opened the passenger's side door on Gloria's car and slid in, the door clicking shut.

Gloria looked at her. "For a time," Gloria said, biting back tears, "I thought you were shacking up with my husband. I couldn't believe it. My friend. I didn't want to believe it."

"Give me your hand," Amber said, and pressed the key card to suite number nine into her neighbor's sweaty palm. "Go inside. When you come out, I'll still be here, waiting here for you. Go..."

 The End