The Last Book Party(6)

At the top of the bluff, Franny stopped in front of the hostel, an imposing white building that was once a Coast Guard station. He told me about his dream to paint a mural on the entire ocean-facing side of the building. “I see it as larger-than-life fishermen, maybe whalers, in bold strokes and dark, stormy colors.” The way he spoke, his idea didn’t sound like a vague artistic fantasy, but a pronouncement that the old building would be his canvas, that if he wanted to make it happen, it would.

Franny was completely comfortable with his identity as an artist in a way that astounded me. I thought of all the stories I had started and thrown away, rarely thinking one was good enough. When I did finish, I kept the stories to myself, shying from criticism and the risk of exposing a side of myself—angry, biting, needy—that I had learned to keep hidden.

“How can this place not inspire you?” Franny said. “You could write a thousand stories of things that might happen here.”

As we descended toward the parking lot, I told him about a story I’d written in middle school about a girl walking along the towering sand dunes at Longnook Beach who falls into a secret dwelling created inside the dune by a mysterious boy.

“She marvels at his hideaway, which has a table and a chair, if you can believe it, and he tells her how he created it, somehow defying physics and propping up the mountain of sand with planks of wood. They talk for a long time, until they hear a rumbling that gets louder and louder.”

“What was it?” he asked.

“It was … the Wave.”

Franny raised his eyebrows, waiting for more.

“That’s it. That was the last line of the story. They were washed away. Awful, I know,” I said. “The story won a prize, and I had to read it to the entire seventh grade. Kids made fun of me for weeks, coming up to me in the cafeteria and whispering, ‘It was … the Wave.’” Daunted by the attention and the ridicule, I didn’t write another story for several years.

Franny laughed. “It sounds like a great story.”

The parking lot was empty. The air was misty, and the ocean’s steady roar got louder as we walked up the path between the low dunes, reminding me how unpredictable and inconsistent the Cape weather was, that it could be clear at the bay and blustery here. We had the beach to ourselves. The wind was stiff, and the surf was still churned up from a recent storm. Waves crashed in every direction, ruffling the shore. We left our shoes by the entrance path and walked to the water. A buoy from a lobster pot was bobbing in the foam. It was unusual to see one so close to shore; it must have been pulled in by the storm. Franny looked at the buoy, then at me, and, with a whoop, ran into the water. I stood on the wet sand and watched as he jumped around like a little kid. Every time he got close to the buoy, the ocean sucked it under, and he would spin around, bewildered.

“There!” I yelled, as it popped up again. “There!”

He leapt at it again and again, waving for me to join him. “Come on!” he called.

I’d been warned more times than I could remember about the dangers of a riptide, even in shallow water. But Franny was having so much fun. Before I could change my mind, I ran and leapt into the foamy water and waded through the surf until I was beside him as he continued trying to grab the buoy. Chasing it, we bumped into each other and fell into the surf. Franny grinned and slapped his hand down on the water, sending a big splash up onto my face and shoulders. I shrieked and scooped water toward him, throwing it at his already-drenched T-shirt. He seemed not at all surprised that I was there, as if this were the kind of impulsive thing I did all the time.

Finally, the buoy surfaced in front of Franny.

“Grab it!” I yelled.

He lunged, fell onto his knees in the surf, and then came up, holding the rope. I jumped through the waves and grabbed the rope, which was slick with seaweed. We held on, bracing our legs in the sand and trying not to fall forward as the waves receded. The pull of the water was strong and the lobster trap was heavy. But when the water rushed in, we were able to run toward the beach and drag the trap behind us. We were pulled in, and pushed back, and in again, and out again until finally an enormous wave rolled in, and we managed to run and pull in enough rope to drag the lobster pot into shallow water and then carry it onto dry sand.

We threw ourselves down beside the wooden trap and looked at each other, soaked and triumphant, catching our breath. I turned around to see an old couple up on top of the dune waving at us. They were yelling something, their words lost in the wind and the crashing of the surf.

Franny threw his head back and hollered, “That was incredible!”

He was panting and smiling like a child. I was brimming with energy and excitement, feeling as unlatched as I had dancing in the dining room the night before. “Incredible!” I agreed. I whipped my head back and forth like a dog to get the water out of my hair. Franny laughed. And then we turned our attention to the lobster trap. Inside were two dark brownish lobsters.

Franny unhooked the pot and grabbed the lobsters by the tails and tossed them onto the sand. I glanced back toward the couple, worried they would warn us against taking the lobsters, but their hands were raised over their heads. They were applauding.

“Are you sure we should?” I asked.

“It’s fine,” Franny said, looking at the lobsters with pride. “It’s not like we swam out and pulled the pot from the ocean. It practically washed up at our feet.”