Birdwatching

It started innocently. I’ll admit that the advertisement included a beautiful blond in camouflage, with the catch phrase “What are you looking at?” Saving tips from my job at the campus coffee shop, I ordered the binoculars at the end of March.

My dad said “Binoculars? What do you need these for?” I said they were for birdwatching. “Darius Beach is one of the few breeding areas for the snowy plover, a solitary beach bird that is quite endangered.” Dad replied “Yeah, that’s what we used to call it, too – “birdwatching.””

I parked in the lot at Darius Beach, actually a peninsula, with the Atlantic and dunes on the east, and a shallow bay on the west, separating it from the sleepy clapboard houses of town. I knew of a pristine sandy beach, protected from onshore winds. I had been there two years ago when my girlfriend, Eileen, had decided to go to college out West. That was a long time ago.

And then I saw a woman, down on the beach to my left, walking along the waterline barefoot, with an avocado-colored sweater half-buttoned around her shoulders. Hair blowing in the wind, captivating.

Plovers gone from my mind, I watched her disappear behind the dunes in front of me. Was I seeing things? Was there another car in the lot? Determined, I found a vantage point, lay down in the sand, binoculars to my eyes, scanning the beach for this vision, this lovely creature.

After ten minutes, my resolve only increased. Scanning, scanning, did I see footprints in the sand? Then, someone kicked my leg, shaking me from my obsessive trance. I rolled over to see who it was. Eileen looked down at me, pulling her off-green sweater at her waist, and said “What are you looking at?”