From Aransas Evening
Allie’s feet barely touched the floor as she moved around the Dream Bean cleaning tables, taking orders, pouring refills, talking to customers. The sparkle in her eyes added to the morning sunshine coming through the windows from off the Gulf. Shelly watched the dance with a mixture of pleasure and envy. It wasn’t so long ago that she had performed that same dance, but now the music had become faint and she longed to hear it again. She looked back into the kitchen and saw Dave, his back turned, scooping a mound of scrambled eggs from the griddle onto a plate.
Shelly turned and jumped when she found Allie standing right behind her, watching her looking at Dave.
Allie leaned forward and whispered. “You know, one of you is going to have to make a move.”
“I know.” Shelly whispered back. “He’s in a funk, and it’s not just about us. He’s knotted up with some kind of male ego thing, and I don’t think I can help him with that.” Shelly raised her voice to a more normal volume. “So, you’ve been here for an hour and you’ve not told me anything about last night. But judging from the way you’ve been dancing around this place, I’m guessing you had a nice time.”
Allie smiled. “Yes, we had a very nice time.”
“Care to share?”
“We had a nice drive, a great dinner, and good conversation.”
“And?”
“What? You expect me to kiss and tell? I’m not that kind of girl.” Allie pretended annoyance, and Shelly thought she was serious.
“Sorry to pry.” Shelly started to walk away but Allie reached out, grabbed her hand, and pulled her back.
“Hey . . . I was just kidding. It was nice. We had a great time. I fell asleep on the way home, we kissed goodnight at the door, and that was it.”
Shelly sighed again and squeezed Allie’s hand. “Good for you. I’m glad he didn’t rush you.” She looked back toward Dave. “Gentlemen are in short supply.”
“And so you shouldn’t let go of that,” Allie said. “Like I said, somebody’s got to do something, and maybe he’s too much of a gentleman to argue with you. You’re in a tough spot but playing at friends won’t fix it.”
Shelly sighed again. “You’re right.” She looked back at Dave and then at Allie. “You mind sticking around after lunch and closing the shop?”
“Sure.”
After the lunchtime crowd had thinned out and Dave had cleaned up in the kitchen, he came out into the dining room and Shelly took him by the hand.
“Come with me.”
“Huh?”
Shelly turned Dave around, untied his apron, pulled it over his head, and tossed it onto the counter. “As your employer, I’m informing you that you will spend the rest of the day on a mandatory field trip.”
Shelly took Dave by the hand again and led him toward the door. Dave looked over his shoulder at Allie and shrugged a question toward her. Allie waved at him and mouthed, “Just go.”
Out on the porch, Dave balked, pulling away from Shelly’s grip until their hands released.
“What?” Shelly asked.
“I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m not sure I’m up to it.”
Shelly grabbed his hand again and this time it wasn’t a playful grasp. It was a firm, tight hold. Without saying a word, she pulled him around the side of the building and to the back. She opened the passenger door of her Beetle, pushed him in, and slammed the door shut. She walked around, got in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and stepped on the gas, causing the engine to race for a moment before lurching forward.
“Now,” she said, “this is what’s going to happen this afternoon. We’re going to get away from the Dream Bean and the town and people, and we’re going to figure out what to do about you and me.”
Dave said nothing as Shelly maneuvered the few blocks to the ferry landing and then rolled aboard for the brief float back to the mainland. He rolled down his window to let in the sounds of the ferry horns and the sloshing of the water and the shrieks of the gulls that accompanied every crossing. He wanted to get out and stand for a moment, but by the time he had thought about it they were almost across. In a few more minutes they rolled off and headed north.
“Do you have a destination in mind for this torture session,” Dave asked, halfway serious.
“Yes. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.”
“Why there?”
“Because it provides plenty of options.”
“Options?”
“If this doesn’t go well, I have the option of leaving you there to find your way home, or of pushing you into the marsh and waiting for a gator to drag you away.”
Dave thought about that in silence as they crossed the causeway into Rockport.
“You ever think of moving over here?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not? You could probably make a killing.”
“It’s not real,” she said.
“It looks pretty real to me,” he said as they passed the entrance to Key Allegro.
“Rockport is on the bay. Port Aransas is on the Gulf. It doesn’t get more real than being on the Gulf.”
Dave looked out past the houses and boats, across the wide expanse of water, and there, shimmering on the horizon in the heat waves, was a greenish-brown line marking the land on the other side of the bay. The water between them and the other side was placid, save for the ripples pulled up by the southeasterly wind.
A while later Shelly pulled off the highway and into the wildlife refuge. Driving past the visitor center without slowing down, she cruised down the blacktop road, passing several turnoffs until they came to a circle and the entrance to a raised boardwalk that disappeared into the marsh.
“You obviously know your way around here. Is this where you dump all your boyfriends?”
“I’ve only been out here with one other man.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was my father.”
Shelly turned off the motor, got out of the car, and started walking toward the boardwalk. Dave followed her. There was nobody else around. They walked a thousand feet or so to the end of the walk and onto a flat observation platform that looked out over the bay and up the marshy shoreline. Shelly sat down on the warm wood planks and stretched her legs out in front of herself, leaning back on her hands. Dave sat down beside her, and he couldn’t help but appreciate the quiet.
Shelly enjoyed it too, but then that was not why they were there, so she broke the silence.
“So, Dave, what are we going to do about you and me?”
Dave was jarred by the bluntness of the question, and his answer was not prepared.
“Is there still a you and me?”
“Of course there is, but the question is, what are we? Are we friends, are we coworkers, or are we something more, something that will last?”
Dave was silent for a long moment. He watched as a lone crane took big steps in the tall grass on the edge of the water, bending its long neck down and dipping its black beak into the dark water, bringing it up, and plunging it down again. Dave admired the bird’s persistence as it fished for something it couldn’t see.
Dave pulled his own legs up and crossed them in front of himself. He sighed, and Shelly spoke again.
“Listen, if you need to go work somewhere else to feel whole and complete, I’m okay with that. I can find another cook.”
Dave looked up at her and smiled. “I appreciate that, but it’s not that simple. I’m having trouble resetting myself. When I first started off on my own out of school, a big part of that was starting my career. That anchored me; it steadied me. Now, here I am starting off on my own again, but I don’t have a big job to focus me.”
“Well you had more than just a job back then. You had Debby, right?”
“Yes.”
“And she was an anchor, too, right?”
Dave nodded.
“So you had two anchors then. And now you have just one?”
Dave nodded again.
“Well, I’m thinking the relationship anchor was stronger than the job anchor. After all, you said you followed her to Dallas.”
“Uh huh.”
“So, isn’t it the same now?”
He looked at her.
“Dave, I want to be that anchor, but I’m not going to force myself on you.”
Dave leaned forward and kissed her. When he leaned back, Shelly saw tears in his eyes.
“Now what?” she asked.
“You are a treasure, you know it?”
“No, I’m just a girl who loves a guy and doesn’t want to lose him because he has some stupid idea of what he’s worth. And if I have to tie a chain around you, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Dave laughed. “Oh, I see, you’re that kind of anchor.”
“No, you can go work wherever you want to work. But at the end of the day, I want you at home with me.”
Dave took her hands. “I’m warning you, it may get a little stormy.”
Shelly smiled. “Remember what I said when we were driving through Rockport—about how I prefer living on the Gulf and not on the bay? It can be stormier on the Gulf, but that’s why I like it. It’s more exciting. It’s more alive.”