The Edge of Summer by Viola Shipman

Author:Viola Shipman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2022-05-18T18:31:00+00:00

8

RAW EDGE

The raw, raveling and unfinished cut edge of the fabric.

Oval Beach is packed to the gills.

I walk down the warped boardwalk, folding chair strapped to my back, beach bag slung over one shoulder, cooler in one hand, umbrella in the other.

Tug told me how beautiful Oval Beach was and of its many accolades—named one of the top beaches in the world by Conde Nast, National Geographic and MTV—but I didn’t believe him until now.

I admire the expanse. The beach is golden and wide. Acres of unspoiled dunes, towering toward the sky, watch over the blue, blue water. Dune grass waves in the lake breeze. Brightly striped umbrellas dot the beach. Music and conversations drift along the shore. I hear a word, or a lyric, and then it is carried away by the breeze, gulped up by the waves.

I need this summer day.

I need it to relax, I need it to mull over Bonnie’s offer, I need it to consider my career path, and I need it to organize all the questions crowding my head as well as to ask myself if what I saw and felt at Bonnie’s cottage—the painting, her smile, Lauralei’s look—was real or imagined.

Did she really say Ted? Or was I creating things in my own exhausted mind?

I shake my head to clear it and look out at the lake.

But mostly I need this day to contemplate how much my life—and the world—has changed and also to realize how little it has, too.

A simple day at the beach connects us all. A simple day at the beach reminds us that though the world is always changing, this simple pleasure never does. I feel the same as I did as a kid.

I walk to the end of the boardwalk. A white seagull hops spastically toward an open bag of potato chips. It looks around and then plucks a chip from the bag. And then another. A little girl turns and sees her snack being stolen and screams. The seagull flaps its wings and squawks. A father races toward the bag of chips. The seagull stares at the man and, just before the father reaches it, the bird grabs the bag in its beak and flies off.

Aviary Instacart, I think, recalling the last two years at home.

The sun warms my body, and I can’t help but smile.

There’s just something about a day on the beach that’s more than relaxing. It’s restorative. It’s necessary. It calms your soul.

A Frisbee whizzes over my head, and a teenaged boy runs by, kicking sand.

“Sorry!” he calls. “My friend can’t throw.”

“I’m good,” I say.

I kick off my flip-flops and step in the sand.

“Ow!” I yelp.

The sand isn’t just hot, it’s unexpectedly, blisteringly hot. I hop this way and that, yelping, “Hot! Oooh! Hot! Hot! Hot!”

I race to the shore like a piping plover and walk into Lake Michigan.

“Cold!” I yell. “Oooh! Cold! Cold! Cold!”

An older woman walking the shore laughs.

“First time at the Oval?” she asks. I nod. “Sand’s always hotter than you think, and water’s always colder.

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