A Stranger in This World by Kevin Canty

Author:Kevin Canty [Canty, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307826169
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-09-18T14:00:00+00:00

MOONBEAMS AND ASPIRIN

ON THE VERGE OF DIVORCE, THEY HEADED FOR FLORIDA: AN ISLAND in the Gulf, a place they remembered as a refuge, dolphins, pelicans, vodka–and–Cheez Whiz picnics. They’d never been there in high season before, though. The roads were overrun with ice-cream-colored Cadillacs and Lincolns, Hoosiers in golf clothes, Buckeyes and Badgers and Show-Me’s.

The last room on the island was next to the dock at the marina. The returning fishermen would park themselves outside the window every noon and boom at each other, driving Lockhart and Margaret from their beds, groping for aspirin and sunglasses. They began to feel hunted. Driving from restaurant to restaurant, searching for a late breakfast, they were crowded out by throngs of grinning well-off people who had been up since seven, who hadn’t known a hangover since college. Not that drinking was solving anything, exactly.

And something was killing the fish: the dredge, was Lockhart’s theory, anchored a hundred yards offshore and pumping streams of sand to replace the beach, which a winter storm had washed away. Every wave of the low Gulf tide brought ashore more dead fish, which had begun to smell. Half the island was uninhabitable.

Irritated and confused, they drove around in a rented pink Jeep. The only thing Lockhart was learning was how much he would miss her. They had nothing but each other’s company; it was almost enough. The third day they found a little empty notch of beach, protected by a line of island pines, where the water was clear and the black-backed dolphins swam close to shore, breaking the water with their fins. Margaret read Jackie Collins, reading the worst sentences aloud. Lockhart went snorkeling and saw a beach under the water that looked exactly like the beach above the water. They swam, they drank sweet white wine, they didn’t talk. A perfect afternoon. Lockhart was sorry to see it end. Waist-deep in the tepid water of the Gulf, alone, they watched the sun set through clouds: castles of fire, golden hillsides.

“What if we stayed together?” he asked her.

“Don’t confuse me,” she said. “I just want to be here, in this moment, right now, OK?”

Lockhart had nothing to say; technically, this was all his fault.

They stayed in the water until the moon came up, water and air the same temperature, pelicans flying through the evening, dark shapes against the dark sky. Lockhart tried to kiss her; she splashed ashore, pulled a dress on over her wet suit. The moon lit the path back through the woods. The Jeep sat at the edge of the road, the first step on a trip he didn’t want to take, back to their lives, back into history. Lockhart wanted to stand naked, just the two of them, without words if they could manage it. Instead they drove, a car among other cars, searching for a late dinner among the cheerful throngs.

Traffic thinned as they drove the narrow thread of the road, past the bright resorts and busy restaurants, toward the vast blankness of the Gulf.

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