Found

Charlotte and a fellow beachcomber nearly collided as they strolled in opposite directions with their heads down, eyes scouring the sand.  “What treasures have you found,” asked the woman. She wore her grey hair in two long pigtails and had the deeply baked-in tan of a year-round beach dweller.

            Charlotte opened her hand and the woman pointed to the whimsical shell in the center of her palm, “Ah! A limpet!”

            “Is that what it’s called? I had never seen one before,” said Charlotte. “It looks like a fairy’s cap.”

            “I have often thought so myself,” the woman grinned. “They are rare on this beach. They bring good luck and when you find one, you will always find three.”

            “Really?” Charlotte’s voice communicated a mix of fascination and incredulity.

            “You’ll see,” said the woman with a wink and a broad smile. 

            While looking for more limpets Charlotte found four scallops, her favorite shells. Each time she discovered one, she experienced an instant of breathless awe that it had survived the tumult of the sea and washed ashore whole and perfect. She also wondered what caused the variations in their colors. Why were some solid orange or black while others were purple or burgundy with intricate patterns? Others had random freckling or vertical stripes and others appeared to wear a faint blush. 

Charlotte admired the symmetry of the scallops, and she also collected the most irregular shells – the cute, but crudely shaped lions’ paws and ducks’ feet – sea hags’ toenails that looked like they had been poured from some molten batter that turned into glass – slipper shells which she called dollops on account of the their peaked tops.

            When she found her second limpet it presented itself to her conspicuously, as if served on a silver platter or a cushion of velvet though it sat amidst a rubble of broken shells. Her first impulse was to share the news with the woman and she looked for her, but to no avail. 

            When she found the third limpet, it too launched itself into view, even though it was no larger in circumference than her pinkie finger and lay upside down in a crowded field of debris. She raised her arms in a “v” for victory. “Unbelievable!” she thought and again she wanted to find the woman and tell her. 

            Walking back to the spot where she and her boyfriend had stationed their blanket and beach chairs, she stopped to talk to a fisherman. The sun had bleached his hair into straw-like tufts that stuck out from his head in all directions, but he had dark sideburns and a deep five o’clock shadow. Charlotte found the contrast appealing and felt a momentary twinge of guilt. She swatted it away by reminding herself that her boyfriend noticed attractive women all the time. “There’s no harm in looking,” he had often said. 

            “Caught anything?” She asked.

            “Not until this very moment!” he answered. He jumped up from his beach chair and grabbed his rod from its stand in the sand. Charlotte watched as he reeled in his catch.

 “Aha! Look at that! I believe you have brought me luck,” he said smiling warmly.

            “Quite possibly,” Charlotte laughed, and she told him about the woman she had met who predicted she would find three limpets. She pulled them from her pocket and showed them to him.

            “Then you are my lucky charm,” he said. “Why don’t you stick around?”

            “I have to get back,” said Charlotte.

            “How about dinner, then, fresh catch of the day,” he said. “I’m a fair cook and I promise I am not an axe murderer.”

            “Sorry, no can do” answered Charlotte and she started on her way.

            “Can I have your phone number?” he asked.

            Charlotte turned to look at him and smiled, but she shook her head.

            “What’s your name, at least?” he extended his hand. “I’m Steve.”

            “Charlotte,” she answered, shaking his hand which gripped hers firmly.

            Charlotte found her boyfriend, Ricky, just as she had left him an hour before, sitting very erect in his beach chair. For the hundredth time at least, Charlotte wondered why he always sat with his legs spread wide apart. She thought it made him look immature and unintelligent, and it detracted from his “G.Q.” handsomeness. 

Ricky didn’t notice her approach. She reckoned he had his eyes closed, though she couldn’t see them behind his dark aviator glasses. He was listening to music through earphones and had not heard her coming either. 

            “Hello,” she said twice before he removed the earphones. “Let me show you what I found.”

            “Gee, let me guess. More shells,” he said. 

She told him about meeting the beachcomber. 

“And you believed the old crone?” he asked.

“Ricky!” she protested. “Why on earth would you call her an old crone?”

“Because of her old crone’s tale. It’s kind of like ‘bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,’” he said. “Lighten up. It was just a joke.”

“Well, I’ll have you know she was lovely. I hope I look that good at her age.” Charlotte said. “Besides. She was right. Look here.”

            “Coincidence,” he said. He unfolded his chair and stretched out on it face down. “Could you put some lotion on my back?”

            She made quick work of applying the tanning lotion, leaving large swaths to soak in on their own.  

            Charlotte plopped down on the blanket and spread her shells out in front of her to take stock of her good fortune. “Coincidence, yes, of course,” she thought, “but a marvelous one, worthy of awe, not scorn.”

            Try as she might to distract herself by looking at the shells, the conversation played over and over in her head like a looping tape recording. Finally, she got up and announced she was going to get in the water. Ricky, still listening to his music, did not appear to have heard her.

             She waded into the ocean until the surf reached her waist, then she dove through an oncoming wave and swam out to where she could bob in the gentle swells.

            “I could drown out here and he wouldn’t know it,” she thought. She saw the fisherman waving to her with a slow exaggerated sweep of his arm. Distant as he was, she could make out the white expanse of his smile. She waved back. 

            Normally, the ocean had a calming effect on her, but she couldn’t shake her agitation. She returned to the shore.

            She began to gather her things. She placed the shells in her pocket and packed her towel and blanket. 

            “I’m leaving,” she announced, but of course, he didn’t hear. She tugged on the cord of his earphones to get his attention. 

            “What the hell?” he asked, startled.

            “I’m leaving,” she repeated.

            He rolled over and looked at her. “What? Are you sick? I’ll take you home.”

            “No, I am not sick. I’m leaving you,” she said. 

            “What are you talking about? What’s going on?” he asked.

            “I’ll Uber. I’ll have my stuff out of your apartment before you get home,” she said, feeling grateful they did not live together.  She would have only to collect her toothbrush, toiletries, PJ’s and a few other odds and ends. “I’ll leave the key under the mat.”

            “Why are you doing this?” Ricky asked.

            She wanted to tell him that it was because he didn’t believe in the limpets, but she knew he wouldn’t understand.