Spring Tide Read Free

about her boyfriend or ex, some guy named Joel. Her cat, Bongos, jumped down from the open bag of cat food (that I’d anonymously left at her door the week before) and up to her, purring.
    As I left, I pretended I couldn’t see her living room: the mishmash of dishes, clothes, papers, bottles, and a whole lot of cat hair. Everyone has problems, but hers seemed so punishing. I wished I knew what to do for her.
    In our unit, I went straight to the balcony and hung my towel on the railing. Goose bumps crawled across my back and I did an about-face to stare at an orange buoy a quarter of a mile offshore. Luminous, black mist hovered over a section of water behind the marker. In a sea of light its glitter was deviant, moving opposite the waves and changing shape. What is that? I blinked and it was gone, no planes or dark clouds in the sky to account for the shadow. For three minutes I looked over the area, but there was nothing. First Aaron, now mystery vapor. Heat stroke, sun stroke—take your pick.
    _______
    Derek and I worked evenings at Crazy Jim’s House of Crabs. The interior was treasure chests, fishing nets, and a giant papier-mâché crab plastered to the ceiling. My job was a step or three down from my previous kitchen experience and wage, but it kept me busy, my knife skills sharp, and my efficiency jacked when the dining room got slammed. I made salads, did prep and just about everything else, routinely offering suggestions for the specials to my boss, Freddy.
    I watched Derek refresh salt shakers through the opening from the kitchen to the wait area. He’d looked good last tennis season, real good. The way he’d whipped off his shirt while prancing around the court, yelling woo-hoo with every victory, was a bit much, but showcased a slender body with contours in all the right places. And at five foot ten, he was an ideal height for me. He wasn’t every girl’s cup of tea, but in my eyes he was noble. And the little mole above the corner of his lip was kinda sexy. He caught me surveying him and smiled. I winked at him and broke off another crab claw.
    Little things like that smile and that wink were the reasons rumors had flourished about our relationship for years in high school. When we were sophomores, Derek said I was sorta cute, not pretty or beautiful, but sorta cute, which meant we’d been secretly getting it on since we were fourteen. And that I never dated anyone and always hung out with him compounded it. But there were a few times in the last year when I’d passed him in the hallways and he’d stopped his conversation. His head had angled back and his lips had parted as he looked me over, his gaze so suggestive. I wanted him to look at me that way all the time.
    At a little after nine, Derek and I were seated in a booth in the back corner at Bruno’s Pizzeria, eating and making small talk about the people we worked with.
    He handed me the crushed red pepper. “So the dishwasher guy quit?”
    “Ben, yeah. He was convinced that there’re snakes under the kitchen’s floor, that they’re gonna go dark side, rise up and take over.” I held in a laugh. “I think that’s something we all worry about now and again.”
    “It could happen. So what’s goin’ on with you? You’ve got this look on your face.”
    “And you’ve been freakin’ weird all day.”
    “Nu uh.”
    “Yeah huh. When you suck at Frisbee the way you sucked today, somethin’s up.”
    He crossed his arms. “I didn’t suck.”
    “And speakin’ of weird. I saw this … localized patch of fog over the water today. There was something about it that—”
    “Ah God, is this gonna turn into one of your science experiments? Should I be looking forward to collecting data and whatnot?”
    “No, it’s just bugging me that I don’t know what it was, how it moved like it did.”
    “You’ll get past it.” He tapped his straw against his glass twice. “What’s bugging me is that Pam called—”
    “Your ex? That Pam?”
    He