Chapter 7 #2
He led her to the group, introducing her to names she knew she wouldn't remember. Jess, who worked at the surf shop. Miguel, who was a lifeguard on the north beach. A girl named Dana who apparently bartended at a place on Landis and had been doing this bonfire thing since high school.
"First summer down?" Dana asked.
"First summer working," Brittany said. "I've been coming to Sea Isle my whole life."
"Different when you're behind the desk," Dana said.
"Very different."
They made room for her on a blanket near the fire. Someone passed her a beer, and she took it. The waves rolled in steady and regular, catching the last light before darkness settled completely.
"So." Dana stretched out on the sand, propping herself on her elbows. "Beach club. That's rough."
"It's not that bad."
"You're a better liar than I was my first year."
Brittany laughed. "Okay. It's pretty bad."
"The members are the worst. Some of them, anyway. They forget that we're people."
"There was a woman today—" She trailed off. But they were all looking at her, and the fire and the beer and how quickly everyone had welcomed her in, and she started talking. The cabana came out. The demand. Pam's quiet talk in the office.
"Campbell?" Miguel said. "I worked the club last summer. She's legendary. Got a bartender fired for putting one too many ice cubes in her gin and tonic."
"One ice cube?"
"She has a system."
"That's insane," Brittany said.
"That's the club." Dana picked at the label on her bottle. "You learn who to avoid. You learn who tips well and who complains no matter what. It's a game. Play it right and you make decent money. Play it wrong and you're doing double shifts until Labor Day."
The conversation shifted. Other stories, other members, a mythology of the beach club that Brittany was only beginning to understand. She listened more than she talked, nursing her beer, letting the fire heat her face while her back stayed cool.
At some point, the group broke apart. People wandered to other blankets, other conversations. The music changed to something with a little more bass. Another log landed on the fire.
Ryan dropped onto the blanket next to her.
"Thanks," she said. "For inviting me."
"Sure." He stretched out, propping himself on one elbow. "Having fun?"
"More than I expected." She watched the sparks drift upward. "Today was rough."
"The Campbell thing?"
She nodded.
"You fit fine here." He bumped his shoulder against hers. "Better than fine."
She didn't pull away.
The fire had burned lower. People were still talking in clusters, but the energy had shifted, quieter now, more intimate. The waves were louder than the music, and the stars had come out thick and bright in a way they never did back home.
"Can I ask you something?" Brittany said.
"Go for it."
"You mentioned environmental engineering earlier. Is that really what you want?"
Ryan stretched out on the blanket, hands behind his head. "Most people think I'm kidding when I say stuff like that. Like I'm just some guy who works at a beach club."
"I didn't think you were kidding."
He turned his head to look at her. In the firelight, he was all angles and shadows.
"My grandfather used to take me crabbing out on the bay when I was a kid," he said.
"Same spots his dad took him. Except half of them don't work anymore.
The water's different. The grass beds are disappearing.
Last summer we couldn't find blue crabs where they'd always been.
" He paused. "That's not supposed to happen in one generation. "
"That's sad."
"It's motivating." He sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees. "I want to understand what's causing it and figure out how to fix it. Water quality, runoff, all the stuff that's changing the ecosystem. That's what environmental engineers do."
She studied his face. Not the side of him she'd assumed, the ease, the confidence. This was different.
"That's not what I expected you to say."
"What did you expect?"
"Something lighter, maybe. Party stories. Beach stuff."
"I like beach stuff." He grinned. "I just like knowing it'll still be here in fifty years."
The fire popped. A scatter of sparks rose into the air and vanished.
"What about you?" Ryan asked. "What do you want?"
"I'm not sure yet." She picked at the edge of the blanket. "I'm supposed to be figuring out my major, my career, my life. Everyone acts like I should have a plan by now."
"I probably made it sound like I have mine together." He looked out at the water. "I don't. I just found one thing I care about. Everything else is still a question mark."
"That's more than I have."
"It's one thing, Brittany. One." He turned back to her. "I don't know where I'll get in, or if I can afford it, or if I'll be any good at it. I just know I want to try."
She didn't say anything for a moment. The honesty surprised her.
"That helps, actually," she said. "Everyone else makes it sound like they've got the whole map."
"Nobody has the map. Some people are just better at pretending."
"That sounds like something from a self-help book."
"My mom reads a lot of self-help books. Apparently some of it stuck."
She laughed. The tension she'd been carrying all day, the cabana, the talking-to, felt further away now.
Someone called Ryan's name from the other side of the fire. He ignored it.
"We should probably rejoin the group," Brittany said.
"Probably."
They stayed where they were.
The fire crackled. The waves kept rolling in. Somewhere down the beach, someone laughed loud enough to carry over the water.
"Tonight was better with you here," Ryan said, his voice lower now.
"Yeah." She smiled. "It was."
A pause.
Then Dana's voice cut through—"Ryan, get over here, we need you for this debate"—and the moment slipped past.
He got to his feet, brushing sand from his shorts. Offered her a hand up. She took it, and for a second their fingers stayed laced together.
"Coming?"
"Yeah.”
They walked back toward the group, and the conversation folded around them. Laughter and stories and the easy banter of people who'd known each other for years.
By the time the fire started dying down and people began drifting away, she'd lost track of time. One by one, the blankets emptied. The cooler got packed up. Someone doused what was left of the flames with seawater.
"I'll walk you back," Ryan said.
They left the beach together, their footprints disappearing into the dark sand behind them. The jetty was a shadow at their backs now, and the town glowed ahead, distant and familiar.
They stopped where the beach met the street. The house was visible from here, lights on in the windows, the porch light left on for her.
"Thanks for walking me back," she said.
"Anytime." He paused. "You working the morning shift?"
"Unfortunately."
"I'll bring you a coffee. Black, right?"
She grinned. "You noticed."
"I notice things."
He took a step back. It looked like he might say something, or step closer, but he just smiled, lifted a hand, and turned back toward wherever he was going.
Brittany watched him until he disappeared into the dark, then walked home with sand in her shoes and woodsmoke in her hair.
The reading series at The Salty Grape wasn't the reason Lori had driven half an hour inland that evening.
It was a reason. The history of barrier islands, the event John at Tidewater Books had mentioned when she'd browsed a few days ago, those were reasons too.
But John himself, his voice when he'd said, “I hope you'll stop by.” That was the reason she hadn't admitted to herself yet.
The Salty Grape looked nothing like the shore.
A crushed-shell drive gave way to a converted stone barn with wide wooden doors propped open, string lights glowing against the fading sky.
Beyond the main building, grapevines climbed neat trellises in rows that caught the last of the golden hour light.
Someone had set up folding chairs on the flagstone patio out back, and maybe thirty people had already gathered, wine glasses in hand, the murmur of conversation mixing with the buzz of cicadas.
Lori got a glass of white at the bar and found a seat toward the middle. Not too close to the front, not hiding in the back. Casual.
John was near a small podium that had been set up by the stone wall, speaking with a man who must have been the evening's speaker.
Sixties, white-bearded, wearing a faded polo shirt and khakis worn soft from fieldwork.
John gestured toward the vineyard rows, said something that made the man laugh, then glanced out at the gathering crowd.
He caught her eye, or she thought he did. Lori raised her hand in an awkward half-wave before realizing he was looking past her. A woman brushed by from behind, making for the podium, and John greeted her with a hug.
Lori took a long sip of wine and studied the program.
The chairs filled in slowly. A couple sat down next to her, already mid-conversation about someone's daughter's wedding. An older woman claimed the seat on her other side and immediately began fanning herself with the program.
A gray hound mix with a grizzled muzzle wandered between the rows, accepting pats from anyone who offered. It paused at Lori's chair, sniffed her ankle thoroughly, then sat down directly on her feet.
"Oh," Lori said. "Hello."
It looked up at her as if it had chosen her specifically and would not be moved.
She tried to shift her feet. The dog leaned harder against her shins.
The woman beside her glanced over. "Looks like you made a friend."
"Lucky me," Lori said, though the dog's weight was oddly comforting. Like a heavy, slightly smelly weighted blanket.
At seven on the dot, John stepped to the podium.