Cornfields and Plovers

“Bad times are a myth.” That’s what Maya always told him.

The two of them often spent summer evenings discussing deep subjects while sitting on his back porch steps, slurping root beer floats and staring out across the knee-high cornfields.

Maya, ever the dreamer, assured Evan that no matter what happened, nothing could ever be bad. It just might not be what you wanted. So long as you wanted everything in life, well, what could ever be bad?

Evan, a staunch pragmatist, insisted that everything in life sat on the Scales of Justice. One side held the good and the other side the bad. It was human nature to smile when the good rose high and frown when it plummeted. Therefore, one must see good as desirable and bad as undesirable.

“What about the ugly?” Maya plucked her straw out of her drink and stuck it in the corner of her mouth like a cigar. She chewed it aggressively and gave her best Clint Eastwood scowl.

Evan carefully lifted his spoon from his mug and sipped its frothy contents. “The very nature of good and bad is such that one cannot exist without the other, and as they are on opposite sides of every reason, you cannot view them as the same. If they were on the same side, you would have nothing, gain nothing, and want nothing because you can see no difference; there’s nothing to choose.”

“What about the middle ground?” Maya continued idly chewing on her straw.

“Ah yes. Your fascination for moral grayness. But what is life without convictions?” He set his mug aside and gestured at the cornfield. “Say you stand in the middle of those stalks. The strong wind cannot reach you to strengthen your core. The sun mercilessly beats on you. Your silks become pollinated from all those around you, diluting you to become a middling amalgamation of everything. The raccoons might not reach you, but your defenses are never tested and your life is defined by weakness and indecisiveness. Is that what you want?”

“Ugh, you spend too much time on this farm,” Maya stood and shook out her skirt. “Are you coming with my family to the beach? No hurricanes are expected.”

“I do not camp on the beach, as I have stated many times.” Evan grabbed both their mugs and headed for the kitchen door.

“I know, I know,” she said, holding the screen door open for him and watching as he rinsed out the mugs and placed them in the dishwasher. “You only stare moodily out at the water, contemplating their depths and calculating just how strong the winds would have to be to knock the foolish surfer into the water.”

“I would never spend time on such an endeavor,” he chided, meticulously wiping his hands on a towel.

“You know what your problem is? You like the land too much. The biggest fright you ever had was seeing an inch of snow before Christmas. Mark my words,” she closed the screen door before he could reach her, pressing her face against the pliant surface and widening her eyes dramatically, “I will get you to the beach. And it’ll be during a hurricane.”

~ ~ ~

Maya’s family camped on the beach every summer, in fair or foul weather. She always informed Evan of their planned menu: hot dogs, pasta salads, sandwiches, pancakes, mountain man breakfast (a hearty collection of morning staples), and enough finger food to make a gas station envious. Despite the careful planning, they always managed to forget some ingredient, or—and this infuriated Maya—marshmallows.

“I had to go to the camp store for marshmallows, and they cost, like, twice as much there,” she huffed at Evan over the phone, loudly crunching on a graham cracker. “It’s a disgrace. Ooh, you should’ve been there; Dad almost tore off the RV’s mirror crossing the bridge. Some bozo with this ginormous truck couldn’t take a hint and wait for us to cross first.”

The bridge leading to the island clearly wasn’t built with RVs or “ginormous trucks” in mind and one had to creep across to avoid grazing oncoming traffic. Evan liked the movable bridge and he arrived at it moments after a boat glided by, affording him the rare feeling of being a medieval knight returning to his kingdom as the drawbridge lowered and the stoplight turned green. He had no trouble zipping across the bridge, but he could see why Maya’s father might. The man had inadvertently knocked down two mailboxes one ill-fated morning.

The sky had clouded over and Evan cracked one of his windows to cautiously inhale the briny air. It was just like Maya described it: salty, muddy, slightly fishy, and with a touch of adventure and otherworldliness. He gripped his steering wheel as the smell filled his car, bringing with it the cries of seagulls.

The campground was easy to find. A large and weather-beaten sign marked its entrance, and he closed his windows as he cruised along the muggy and rutted road and passed the trash bins and RV dump station. As the camp host checked him in, he watched a line of cars, trailers, and RVs slowly file toward the exit.

“You picked an interesting time to camp,” the host said and handed him his mirror tag. “If you change your mind about your spot, there are plenty of inland sites available. Take that road,” she pointed.

And now here he was at his modest site, yards from the sand, a few worthless pines and tufts of grass the only protection between him and high tide, which would probably flood his site anyway. And there, right where he intended to place his tent, were the markings of a recent flood, but he purposely ignored them and went about setting up his tent. When he’d practiced in his backyard it hadn’t taken him long, but his backyard didn’t have gale force winds.

“You’re a braver man than me,” one passing camper noted as his dog nosed around Evan’s open trunk. “Need some help?”

“I’m fine,” he grunted, a tent pole finally slipping onto its stake. “Thanks.”

Evan watched the camper nod and mosey to his miniature house, complete with flags, a satellite dish, sturdy lawn chairs, and a golf cart. Evan wasn’t the only tent camper, but he definitely felt like a mouse among lumbering beasts.

He finished securing his tent and went to lock his car. He’d heard the absurd lengths the raccoons went through to get food and determined that no mammal would steal his Chex mix.

He walked barefoot out on the beach, the dry sand skimming across its surface stinging his legs.

Maya had assured him that despite the popularity of the campground, the beach remained fairly empty. As he made a beeline for the receding water, he searched left and right down the sand, spotting only a handful of couples and loners. Farther to his right he saw the section of toppled, sun-bleached trees marching toward the water, the result of vicious tides and grasping wind. Inland, beyond the trees and palms still standing, peeked the top of the black and white lighthouse.

Tomorrow he’d wait for the tide to almost touch those wrecked trees and then he’d weave his way through the desolate and beautiful spot, jumping on the trees and running inland to avoid the encroaching tide, which Maya informed him was the only proper way to reach the lighthouse.

But to his left stretched the end of the island, the place Maya always went at low tide. He quickened his pace, his feet thrashing through the wavelets, the water delightfully warm.

Piles of foam blew along the sand as the water gradually receded and little plovers scurried in the shallows to search for food, their bodies staying level even as their legs blurred in furious motion. He crouched to observe the birds and smiled slightly. They were incredible, and cute, as Maya always said.

As he rose, he couldn’t believe what lay before him: a live horseshoe crab sidling back toward the ocean. He carefully skirted it, remembering Maya’s horrified expression when she’d told him about the small Kraken underneath those innocuous shells.

He’d left the lingering beachcombers behind and now he paused, put in his earbuds, and hit play on Maya’s Beach Tunes. He’d asked her why she only listened to depressing music on her habitual low tide walks and she smiled and shrugged.

“It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being a tragic Victorian lady, longing for my love to return from his voyage,” she’d dramatically hugged herself and sighed.

Keane’s “The Way You Want It” started playing.

His throat closed. This was a mistake. He shouldn’t be here. Not without her. It was bad. Undeniably bad.

He faced the ocean, letting the wind whip his hair back. Breathing deep and slow, he faced the empty sand to his left and trudged on. He made a promise to retrace her steps and he’d not let himself be shaken from this task.

Melancholy piano, haunting ballads and the odd track from a computer game accompanied his walk, each beat and cello solo carrying him back to better times.

“We got the biggest haul of shrimp and crab this year,” Maya spat out a watermelon seed, surpassing his first attempt. “Did you know you can put a crab to sleep?”

A crab scuttled across the sand and down a small hole. Evan cut through shallow tide pools to make for the emerging land’s end.

“I’m going to be a painter when I’m old. Nothing says ‘stately’ like a palette of pastels and a canvas with nothing on it but whimsical promises.”

A fishing boat bobbed on the horizon, flocks of hungry birds circling it. He bent to pick up a perfect sand dollar.

“You should dye your hair blond and spend a summer surfing in California. Get a proper tan instead of your farm boy one,” she plucked at the t-shirt sleeve covering his startlingly pale shoulders.

His foot suddenly disappeared into the sand and he quickly pulled it out and backed away. He paused and narrowed his eyes. A second elapsed and he marched through the quicksand.

“I think fate is a terribly romantic idea, but also terribly terrifying. I don’t want to only ever have one path I could take. Wouldn’t it be exciting to see the places you could go?”

“You would trust yourself to pick the right one?” he murmured to the empty ocean.

“I would choose only the most tragic and achingly beautiful path, of course. I didn’t spend a month studying Wuthering Heights for nothing.” She stood beside him now, smiling brightly up at him, her favorite striped skirt billowing behind her.

“Because there are no bad times, are there?” he reached out a hand but stopped before he touched her.

“Nope. Even when all is tumbling around us, it will always be a wild adventure. Just not the one we wanted.” She ran out over the rolling ocean.

“And when you’re gone…what then?” his eyes blurred and he wiped them on his sleeve.

“Gone?” she laughed, her hair flying out in all directions. “Where would I go, Evan? You’re stuck with me. Best friends for life, remember?”

“I remember,” he whispered as her figure wavered and vanished. “I’ll always remember.”

He gazed at the sea and slowly fixated on the darkening sky. Staring back the way he’d come he saw only one set of footprints. No other walkers dared to travel this far from camp.

He adjusted an earbud and started back. The storm would be there soon.