The Old Man and the Beach–Part 2

CHAPTER 5

We expected Leia sometime in the afternoon, but she must have been anxious because she pulled up to the gate just as I was preparing lunch—hot dogs on the grill. “Hello! I don’t know what to do.”

“Hi, Leia. Smile…you’re on camera. Hold on and I’ll buzz you through.”

“Okay—uh…do I have to worry about Max?”

“No, he’ll remember you.” I pressed my remote and the gate swung open. I watched as Leia drove her VW Beetle through and down the driveway. I called Cindy and put a few more dogs and buns on the grill.

I wasn’t sure how to greet Leia, but she walked straight to me, giving me a hug, so I reciprocated. Cindy showed her around the house while I finished prepping the lunch. It did my heart good to see Leia wolf down my hot dogs. I’d bought a couple of ribeyes for dinner at the area’s only real butcher shop.

After lunch I drove Cindy and Leia down to North Myrtle Beach. “Leia, your mom and I talked about going out in the boat tomorrow. What kind of sneakers do you have?”

“Well….”

“Okay, you answered my question. You and Cindy both need life preservers and either sneakers or boat shoes.”

“You mean those ugly things guys wear?”

“No…they’ll have some that are just like sneakers, except that they’re waterproof and they have great traction even underwater. Some people think you can walk barefoot on a boat, but if we hit a wave or a wake you could break a toe banging it into a bulkhead.”

I parked in the West Marine lot and fifteen minutes later my two women were almost ready. We drove to a tackle shop just up the road where we bought two South Carolina saltwater fishing licenses. “Do we really need these, John?”

“We do and we’ll need some for North Carolina, too. We can fish in the inlet between Sunset Beach and Ocean Isle or in the waterway. That’s all North Carolina, but if we want to try the Little River Inlet, that’s South Carolina. Believe me, the cost of the licenses is nothing compared to the fine for fishing without one.”

We spent the rest of the day either on the deck or out at the end of the dock with the three of us on the swing. I spent part of the time checking the boat and test running the engine. I had plenty of gas so we’d be good to go in the morning. We enjoyed our dinner with Leia even though we both had to be dressed until we closed our door for the night.

Cindy and I did make love as we had done virtually every night since we had met, but it was somewhat more subdued than when we were alone. We kissed and held each other before falling asleep, just like every other night. I was up early, dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt when I put Max out and started the coffee. I had just put the bacon on the griddle and was mixing up some eggs to scramble when Leia made an appearance. “Damn, John—you get up early. Where’s Mom?”

“In the shower; do me a favor and let Max in, will you? I’ll have the food on the table in about ten minutes.” We enjoyed breakfast and Cindy cleaned up while I showered and shaved. She and Leia made sandwiches for lunch while I put everything into the cooler then I carried it along with two gallon jugs of water out to the boat. I put the cooler in place in front of the center console and the water into one of the insulated fish boxes under the front seats. This was for Max. We were ready to go by 9:00. I explained that we’d fish for what was known as flounder here in the south, but was called fluke up north. “These fish will only bite a few hours before and after high tide which should be around noon today. After fishing we can go to Bird Island to swim. Sound okay?” They agreed and we were into the waterway heading north for some bait.

I had rigged the rods yesterday so they were ready when we reached the ocean. “We’ll start here and drift in,” I explained as I baited each of their hooks with a mud minnow, probably the best bait for flounder. Leia was seated up front on the cooler while Cindy was on one of the captain’s chairs at the helm. I leaned on the gunwale at the stern as I explained how to tell if we were getting a bite. “You won’t feel a bite, but you will feel additional weight on the end of the line.” I showed them how to lift the rod to bounce the sinker along the bottom.

We didn’t get a bite—not even the tiniest nibble–on the first drift, but I felt weight just as we began the second. I knew there was almost always a small sand bar at the end of an inlet. Running the bait over the rise of the bar was a good way to get a fish. Flounder are ambush feeders. They lie in the sand hidden by their natural camouflage and wait for a small fish to swim by. Then they jump out and grab it. I had gone slightly farther into the ocean this time, checking the water depth on my fish finder. My sinker had just hit bottom when I felt the extra weight. “I might have something.” Cindy and Leia looked to me expectantly as I lifted my rod two more times, setting the hook on the last one. Max ran back from his place on the bow, barking as he came.

I reeled the fish in, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a keeper. Looking down into the clear water my face suddenly had a look of disgust. “Damn! It’s a skate.” Skates have to be just about the ugliest fish in the ocean. They’re useless to eat and they have all kinds of barbs on their backs. I pulled it out of the water, grabbed the hook with my pliers and twisted until the fish fell back into the water. “Go back up front, Max,” I told him as I reached into the live well for another minnow. Leia did catch a short—one below the legal size limit–toward the end of the drift. I knew from experience that the fishing would pick up as we approached high tide.

All told we fished for almost four hours and we did catch some fish. I caught two sand sharks in addition to the skate, Leia caught two flounder, and Cindy caught one. We could have kept the two, but they were pretty small so we threw them back for another day. I motored over to Bird Island around 2:00. Max jumped off the boat as soon as it touched bottom then I held it in place for Leia and Cindy. The towels, an umbrella, and the cooler followed. I carried one of the water bottles and one of Max’s bowls once I had anchored the boat in the shallows.

Max attracted several children and I allowed him to play with them once I assured their parents that Max was safe. Leia stayed with them ostensibly as “supervisor,” but in actuality as a participant. Max loved to chase a ball or a Frisbee and he could always use the exercise. I called an end to it after an hour, pouring a bowl full of water for him and making room for him under the umbrella.

We swam together and relaxed and had a great time. It reminded me how much I missed my wife. We left the beach around 7:30 and I drove the boat onto the lift about twenty minutes later. Leia and Cindy carried the cooler and towels back into the house while Max “helped” me. I hosed everything down—boat, live well, and rods then I filled a bucket with boat wash and scrubbed everything clean, using a sponge and a long-handled brush. I washed Max once I was done. Salt water was a catastrophe for his fur and skin. Cindy brought several towels to me and together we dried Max before I carried the rods up to the house. I could leave them outside, if necessary, but not on the dock where I was sure they would walk away before morning.

We enjoyed having Leia with us, but Cindy still had work to do—work related to her divorce. We drove to Charlotte Tuesday afternoon, taking Leia and Max with us. “I only want my clothes, my jewelry, and the things I inherited from my great-grandmother—a chest of drawers and a hope chest, both filled with handmade linens. Brian can have everything else.”

“I want to pick up the rest of my clothes, too,” Leia added.

“I’ve made arrangements for a sheriff’s deputy to meet you at the house at ten Wednesday morning. Be sure that everything is in the condition you left it before you sign the receipt,” Linda Moran had told her. We were up early and I rented a small trailer I could tow behind the Highlander before following Cindy’s directions to their house. The deputy was there waiting; fortunately, Brian was not. Cindy checked out the two heirlooms and their contents, pleased that they had not been sabotaged by her husband. I used a hand truck to get them into the trailer where I wrapped them in moving blankets and tied them into place. I wedged several boxes in place and covered them with boxes or suitcases of Cindy’s and Leia’s clothes. I drove then to Linda Moran’s office. She had scheduled an initial meeting with Brian’s employer and their attorneys for two that afternoon.

In her initial demands Cindy had demanded a five million dollar settlement. “I think you’ll get them fired as part of a settlement, Cindy,” Linda told us, “but be prepared to be flexible on the money. They want to keep all of this out of the newspapers—it’s very bad for business—but I doubt they’ll go all the way. I’d guess maybe five hundred. We’ll see.” We spoke for a while before breaking for lunch.

As anticipated their attorneys tried to play hardball. They were loud and insulting; I was pleased that we had told Leia and Max to stay outside. Linda allowed them to rant for almost a half hour before pressing a remote control. Immediately, a video and audio recording of the two having sex in Brian’s office. It had obviously been recorded from outside the window. The time stamp showed that the sex had occurred during the work day. Of course, they argued that it would never be admissible in court.

“Court…shmort,” was Linda’s reply. I’ll bet the Observer would find it interesting. How would it be if your firm’s dirty laundry was spread all over page three?”

“What’s your bottom line?”

“Fire both of them. We don’t care what kind of references you give. We’ll settle for half.”

“Five hundred.”

“Seven fifty is the absolute minimum.”

“Deal, but we get a strict non-disclosure agreement.” Just like that Cindy was a winner. We left it to Linda to work out the details while we drove home. I thought that Cindy would have been ecstatic, but she sat quiet and pensive the entire drive. We stopped for dinner en route and arrived around eight. I put Max out while Leia prepared his dinner. I found Cindy sitting quietly on my bed.

“What’s the matter, Cindy? You really look down.”

“Oh, John—I’ve just realized that I moved myself and my daughter into your home and I never even asked you. We have no place here inconveniencing you like this. I should be ashamed of my actions.”

“Cindy…we need to talk. C’mon out to the living room. I want Leia to hear this, too.” I extended my hand and led her out. “Leia, please come in and listen to what I have to say. Your mom is worried that your presence is a problem for me so I need to explain something…no, not something—everything to you.

“I was born the eighth, and last, child of James and Bertha Hayden. They were as Irish as Paddy’s pig and as Catholic as the pope. Birth control was something never discussed in their household. I was the youngest—an unanticipated surprise when my mother was 49 and my father was 55. Megan was the next oldest and she was ten when I was born. My brother Patrick was thirty-two. It goes without saying that I never had a relationship with my siblings.

“When I was born my mother decided that I would go into the priesthood. Unfortunately, they never bothered to ask me and that argument eventually led them to throw me out of the house when I was eighteen during my senior year and I had absolutely refused. I left with nothing but the clothes on my back, but was taken in by my best friend Paul Feinberg and his family. They were Jewish. When I learned that my clothes were burned Mr. Feinberg who was a lawyer sued my parents on my behalf, eventually winning a judgment of $1500. I lived with the Feinberg’s all of my senior year and Mr. Feinberg was instrumental in my attending Penn where he was an influential alumnus.

“The Feinberg’s bought bunk beds so I’d have a place to sleep and they fed and cared for me, even providing me with health insurance and taking care of my dental care. I tried to pay them back by doing as many chores as possible and working my butt off in school.

“Megan was the only member of my family who approached me after I was thrown out, but even she sided with my parents and chided me for hurting them. I remember even now what I said to her, “I can barely stand going to church now—all I do is daydream– so why would I want to be a priest? Why didn’t you become a nun? Because you exercised your free will, that’s why.” I never saw her again. I was never told when my parents passed, finding out only when a friend told me several weeks after they were gone and buried.

“I had a scholarship to attend Penn, but I worked every day, too. I never had time to date until my junior year and then the girl was most unexpected—Rosalind Feinberg, Paul’s younger sister. Rosalind was tall and skinny. She had tiny breasts and almost no hips, but I had always thought she was cute. What I didn’t realize, especially while I was living there, was that she had the biggest crush on me. Over time, that crush grew into unbridled love. By the end of my senior year at Penn I realized that I loved her, too.

“I knew from living with her family that many Jewish parents wanted their children to marry other Jews so I knew that I needed to speak with Mr. Feinberg before I even thought about asking Rosalind to marry me and that’s exactly what I did. Amazingly, he wasn’t at all surprised. He told me that he and Mrs. Feinberg had discussed our potential marriage. ‘I would prefer that she marry a Jew, John, but that is really her choice. Personally, I doubt we could ever hope for a better son-in-law than you.’ That’s exactly what he told me. I bought a small ring and asked her the following week. Any hope I might have had of a reunion with my family died when she agreed. My siblings never said a word, but friend of mine told me they considered me dead. We both wanted a family, but there was something wrong with her uterus so that was out. Then she became ill and died. I’ve been alone ever since.

“The reason for telling you this is that I always wanted a family, but I never had one, not even when I was a child. Now I have you and Leia and I’m thrilled to have you. Obviously, I can’t stop you from leaving, but I’ll never ask you to go. I’ve fallen in love with you, Cindy. The past weeks have been the best of my life. I only pray you feel the same.”

Cindy had tears in her eyes. “I do, John. You’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. But, what about all the expense–we’re costing you a fortune.”

“I worked as a bond trader for almost ten years before moving into management. In a typical year I’d make about $300,000. Then I began my climb up the corporate ladder. I was an executive vice president for ten years and never earned less than three million a year. I was a senior vice president for the last ten years of my career and I earned more than ten million every single year. How much does a person need to live? Not that much, that’s for sure. We lived well, but saved and invested. I now have more than eighty million dollars and nobody to spend it on. I have a North Carolina tax-free mutual bond fund that I use for my expenses. That gives me almost $400,000 tax free to live on every year. The rest is all very carefully invested so I think I can manage to support you. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if I want you out, but I doubt that will ever happen.” Cindy hugged me and suggested that we go to bed. Leia laughed, but did volunteer to close up the house.

We made love that night, but it was unlike any of our previous mating. All I could think of was taking the very best care of this woman who, for reasons I was unlikely to ever understand, had told me that she was in love with me.