The Topsail Accord Read Free Page A

we’ve never met? Who we want to meet?
    What will I say? I have committed to meet her, to say hello. But what will I say? I am ready with the weather. I am always ready with the weather. But something about her tells me that she isn’t interested in the weather. That something so trivial yet so pervasive will be uninteresting to her. Maybe the turtle nest? For example, “did you see the turtle nest?” This can only lead to a yes/no answer. Not a real conversation starter. What will I say? I need a good first line, something that will yield more than a yes/no answer, but not something so obscure or obtuse that it yields no answer at all. What will I say? Something about the dolphins? Or the fog? The fog. The fog has possibilities. It is all around me, maybe all around us, and is the obvious topic.
    “ Us?” Did I just have a thought that included the word “us?” That can’t be. I have no such thoughts. There is me, and there is everyone else. Once upon a time, way back when, there was “us”, Colleen and I were “us”, but those days are gone. Because, like I said, love is a fragile thing, and our greatest talent is destroying it.

Shannon
     
    These tiny rippling waves in this fog. I am at peace. Even with half of my third mug of coffee coursing through my veins and the random thoughts about that Jogger. In the fog, near the waves, I am completely at peace. The dry white sand from closer to the dunes dusts the top of my tanned feet even while the cool wet sand from closer to the tide line infiltrates between my toes. I am at peace.

Joe
     
    Before I can think, she is there, and I am here, and we are together. I almost run her over. She is shorter this close, and even more beautiful, with a fleck of grey in her long black hair. She has spilled her coffee onto the wet, brown, sand. We both look at it, and then she starts to laugh. I join in. Her laugh is infectious.
    “ Sorry,” I say.
    “ It’s okay. You probably saved me from being jittery all day. I really didn’t need that third mug.”
    “ Third?”
    “ Third.”
    I reach out, take her mug, and pour the remaining coffee onto the beach where one wave that has pushed up farther than the others quickly sips it away.
    “ There. Now you are completely safe.”
    The look on her face is one of absolute incredulity. Like no-one had ever entered her space before. Like she is used to people keeping their distance. Like she is used to being in control, or separate.
    “ I can’t believe you did that!”
    I wait. I realize it was a very brazen act. But I am still flustered from actually meeting her.
    “ I’m sorry. I can get you another mug if you would like. Come to my coffee shop in forty five minutes and I’ll make you a great cup of coffee. Decaf if you’d like.”
    “ Your coffee shop?”
    “ Yep. It’s just over the bridge, beside the day spa. Where it appears you got your toes done by my sister yesterday.”
    She looks down at one of my sister’s trademark flaming red toe jobs.
    “ You are a very cheeky man,” she says.
    She said ‘cheeky’. Not ‘impertinent’ or ‘rude’, but ‘cheeky’. And she said it in a very playful way that made her face light up, even here in the fog. Tiny lines near her eyes make the smile change her whole face, making it even more beautiful than can be imagined. I am at great risk here. The shrimp boats just offshore or even the freighters out in the shipping lanes might be lead onto the shoals by that smile, it is luminous.
    “ Ask for Joe. I’m Joe,” I say.
    I extend my hand to shake. She puts the coffee mug in my hand.
    “ I’m Shannon. I’ll be there at exactly nine for what better be the best cup of coffee ever. Half regular, half decaf, no cream, a quarter teaspoon of sugar. So I’ll ask for Joe, at ‘Cuppa Joe’s’?”
    She makes a face at the bad pun that I had chosen for the name of my store. Not everyone likes puns. She turns back up the beach, towards where I know the largest house on the