On the Tide

I was a costumer and aspiring screenwriter, lying on some beach in the Caribbean, tired, broken, desolate. My director boyfriend had let me come as a kind of breaking up present; his uncle owned the island, but hardly had time to go. I was all alone. I felt so ugly, wandering the shining house, against the white sand and the clear blue water. I was sick, and I could feel it. I had known depression, but this bordered on…something deeper. And I didn’t try to stop it.

My hair was full of wet sand. My legs were twisted under me, but I didn’t want to get up. The tide was coming in. It came as a shock, when it reached me, ankles, knees, then waist, ice cold on my sunburn. I had been there for hours, trying to remember...

How had I come to this place? There were a million bitter reasons I wouldn’t listen to. It wasn’t fair. I remembered, once, that I was pure, innocent and ambitious, with none of the angry, craving spirit I had now. I…

There it came, his face again, David’s face. I was too tired to shove it back a tenth time. It felt as though he talked to me, as though we were still seventeen. He laughed at me. He sat beside me on the beach, and leaned in close to me. “You are so much more than anyone else I know,” he said. And I had just touched his face and walked away.

He was pulling at my hand, pulling me to my feet. I ignored him, and he disappeared again. I hadn’t known. I had jumped into the Hollywood fight determined to get my punches in. I had fought hard, with everything I had, fair or dirty. And now, ten years later, I was nothing but a broken spirit, with another failed relationship, another round of bills that I could barely pay. Was this life in its full glory? I knew that I was at a crossroads at this moment, and that, whichever way I went, one of the women I had been must disappear. I was about to tell fate that I wouldn’t choose, that she could just—

Something hit my knee, and drifted into the crook of my arm. I moved my hand enough to lift it, look at it. It was an old glass bottle.

An hour later, when it grew almost too dark to see, I took it with me to the house. I dragged myself into the bathroom and screamed quietly as I spread aloe over my blistered skin. A white cotton nightgown was all I could manage to put on. I had eaten nothing, all day, so for the sake of survival, I downed a cup of water and an old, bland banana. Stretched out awkwardly over the couch, I turned the television on. I lay there, unmoving, until the early morning hours. It was oddly comforting to listen to the heated Spanish voices whenever I awoke. At least, that night, I was not alone.

---

I wanted to cry. My skin would fall off any minute; it was covered, nearly every inch, with tiny blisters. I burnt, and I shivered. There were no thermometers in the house, but there was no denying I was highly feverish. The room was drifting, out of focus. I’ve done it now, I thought. I’m going to die. And what would Andrew the director think, to find me dead here? I didn’t care. My skin! The bottle lay on the table in front of me, looking cool and sturdy. I did cry, a little, when I had reached for it, and I laid it on my shoulder. My tears slid down the glass, and they were cooling, too.

That was when David came again, still young and immortal. “I’m going to die,” I told him. He just took my hand and pulled me up, into the kitchen. We stood before the sink. I dipped my head beneath the faucet, and turned it on. It fell so cold I nearly passed out, slapping at the lever. My empty stomach heaved.

“I’m an idiot, David.” I collapsed on the floor, scraping my arm on the cabinet handle and crying out loud. I loved Andrew, but I had wasted it…there was no hope now. Also, I had just nearly killed myself, however inadvertently, and I was bordering on delirium.

“Why can’t I do anything right?” I sobbed, said the words over and over. David sat down and held his arms around me. They felt almost sweet and cold. It surprised me that there was water left in me at all. When it finally ran out, I realized he was gone.

No!

“David!? David, David…” I hobbled through the house, confused, until I went around in circles.

He was gone. No, he had never been there. The sigh that came out surprised me with its deep regret. It was too much for me to let in, too many years of stupid things. And my mind wasn’t working properly, I could tell. With a heavy, burning heart I curled up on the couch again and drifted out of the waking world.

That afternoon saw me and the bottle having a serious heart to heart. It calmly asked me questions about my past, as any other trained professional, and I managed to answer in a similar tone. I found myself wishing…many things.

A large, white pad of paper balanced on my knees, and I scrawled on it with lazy speed.

Andrew, I’m sorry.

It was all that I could think to say. I suppose that’s really all there was. I stuffed the large sheet haphazardly into a root beer bottle. I had one more, and the first. I wrote again:

Love you, Mom. Wish you were here. I hope that you—that you don’t hate me. I didn’t mean what I said.

The third one took a long time.

David,
I wish that—

The pen flushed warmly in my fingers.

—that you were here. I think there’s something in you of me, as I used to be, and I can’t find it. I really did love you. I’m sorry that I ran away…

The lines came awkwardly. Finally, it was done. I rolled it carefully, tied with a ribbon, and slid it into the clear glass bottle.

What would anyone have thought, if they had seen me, cracked, dry, and fiery red all over, stumble down the stairs in a cotton gown, like a ghost of the island, down to the shore? The sky was filled with hazy clouds and fine sea spray, which hit me on a brisk wind. It tried to push me back. But I hurled the bottle out against it as I fell, afraid that it would shatter; I heard it hit the water, but I couldn’t see. When I pulled my dress out from under my knees and stood up, it was already far away. I rested for a long while, watching it, relishing the rain. And then I climbed an hour back to my hollow citadel, the passions of my Spanish friends, and a long, gray day.

---

I suppose this must be how that guy with the volleyball felt. Though, there was not so much as a ping pong ball to be found, and I had thrown away my guidance counselor. Everyone always asked me why I hated that movie. Now that I stopped to think on it, I was realizing that I had never given up my desire for perfectly happy endings.

Another week, I had to go, until someone would come for me. I might leave the place, if I truly wished, but I could never care enough to make the call. It had been three days, and my sunburn was peeling, leaving my skin pink and white and raw. I was eating now, even if it was hard, and I tried to stalk about the island, slinking through the shade. Mostly I slept, deep, full of dreams cobbled together from pieces of reality, as if I was going through the trunk of my life in my own inner attic.

I slept that night beside the pool, my fingers trailing in it, kind of laughingly calm and drowsy in my pain and frailty. My dinner plate floated just before my face. The water seemed to almost whisper to me as it lapped against the tile. I could swear I heard true words, soft and loving, flowing with it, washing over me. And then I heard them from inside.

“Lissalee?” I jerked up. I could see someone wandering through the house, flipping lights on and back off again. Only one person had ever called me that, and only one time.

“Lissalee?” He stopped by the sliding doors, a little older, somewhat balding, very bewildered, carrying a clear glass bottle and a sheet of yellow paper. He looked out at me, and he smiled, wide, as I pictured myself in full effect. My hair fell tangled on my pink skin. Today’s nightgown was pink as well, and very long. I looked like a squid. The door slid open.

“Alice,” he laughed, “It’s been a long time.” I was getting dizzy from standing up. I wanted to hide. Most of all, I wanted not to have to. He was only two feet away, looking a little hesitant, when I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, hard.

“Sorry, no,” he said, backing away with an awkward chuckle.

“I’m sorry. I…”

He hugged me again. “It’s good to see you. I heard you’re in the big time, now.” As he gazed around, I could see in his face the whole story of Andrew, in fact, of all that I had been and done. It was relieving not to have to tell it.

“No.” I turned my face down. “But how have you been doing?

“I’m living,” he said. “Back in town. I’m married, now.”

My smile was wide and sincere.

“I met her in Michigan, at college. We’ve got two kids. I don’t make much money, but yeah, I’m living.” He seemed still amazed at his survival, let alone his good fortune. I laughed.

“Lissalee…” he hesitated, as he held the paper up. “What’s happened?”

I erupted unexpectedly. The tears poured out, and I fell onto the concrete, scraping my legs. With my worry went my will. I couldn’t hold on any more.

He reached for my hand.

“You’d better come inside.” And he held me up by the elbows as I walked in.

---

When you give your heart to someone, friend or lover, it is a copy of all that is you, a thing that they have to keep forever. To see another for what they are, to feel that true and innocent love, that lasts beyond lifetimes. And sometimes, years later, you can hear old friends speaking to you even when they’re far away.

Three days after he came, David left at dawn, in a red and white boat he sailed with childish joy and old skill. We had talked about…everything, hours on end, just as we used to. Just as close and truly distant. I could live now, I thought. I had made up for something. I knew what I must do.

Slowly both of the women I had been disappeared. I found a strange new direction for myself, but felt like an unnoticed part of me. I made it home a few months later, when my mother had a heart attack. It was the last thing that I had to heal. Someone tapped me on the shoulder in the frozen foods isle. Yes, it was David. His eyes were permanently wrinkled where he smiled, and he was somewhat balding. What was I to say? Especially when I realized there was nothing in his face of that week on the island.

I hugged him, hesitantly.

“Alice,” he laughed, “It’s been a long time.”