Almost Thirty

The sun crept quietly over the horizon. A single sea gull swooped lower, laughing happily, then flew again to the lake. It was still. Very still. As if the breeze was holding its breath and waiting. And Maria waited.

She had been back home for a week now and just as lonely as when she came. She had awakened at dawn this morning and left her room for the water's edge; eager, restless, searching. In other years when she had come here, she had not felt the same true sadness, the deep loneliness. She had been content to remain safely within her shell, to let her life drift leisurely by, hoping that some miracle would change the pattern, bring romance as her right, her destiny. But this summer was her last before she was thirty, an age that had lain in her mind, always it seemed, as too old to be single. She could not beat the thought of someone saying, "Maria is an old maid," or let herself think it.

She lay limp, with her back against the night-cooled sand, feeling the new day's warmth beginning. Would there be a beginning for her also? Yes, yes, she thought, yes. This day will be different from all the others on the chain stretched twenty-nine lengths or years; back to the beginning of life, her life as her parents' only child.

The sun climbed higher, the sky grew bluer and was free of any clouds. Maria reached for her beach bag and put on her sunglasses. She must guard against the lines around her eyes brought on by squinting. Soon she was rubbing lotion into the skin covering slender legs. Her legs were a plus, one of her few good points and she was proud of them. She didn't consider herself beautiful, nor pretty. She had long since settled for nice hair and an honest smile backed by good teeth. When Maria smiled she knew she was as close to being pretty as she ever would be; short of plastic surgery, which was not for her even if she could stand the cost.

Her smile was like a savings account or an ace in the hole. Whenever she had been overlooked at gatherings or office parties because of all the beautiful girls present and heard from, she would give her smile out and watch the second look come forth in male eyes, the almost envy in the female. It and her hair would see her through but this average face had no chance because of her shyness.

The sea gull came back from the lake and it circled above Maria, alive with its sound. Or was it the same one as the sun first appeared? She wondered and decided that she would never know for sure, another mystery winged in freedom.

She took out more lotion, then turned over onto her stomach and put cheek against her folded arms. The sun's warmth relaxed and soothed her mind as well as her body. She could feel her body flatten against the towel beneath her. It felt great to imagine the sun sapping her strength and mind away. She thought: the only time I am lazy in my life is here on this beach where time just seems to want to stand still. Then the thought: but I am inching older, not standing still. The earth is spinning and revolving and I am doing nothing. I have six weeks and then I will be thirty, a woman without love. I must fight. I must find. She freed her right hand and wrote a sentence in the sand above her head: Let it be today.

After an hour had gone by, Maria got up and went to her hotel room. She went under the shower and stood there watching the way the sand left her arms, her legs, her body, forming then about her tanned feet. She watched the grains of sand then go down the drain. A very long and very real sigh escaped her full lips.

It seemed like the whole world was everywhere when maria came to the broad beach again, after eating an apple. Most of the noise came from the teenage groups. They talked and they laughed too loud, as if they were so full of feeling they must let go of it, let the wind toss it about and be more than it was before. The girls, for the most part, wore their hair straight, lone and loose and it blew and hid the young beauty of their faces. In a strange way, Maria ached.

She put down her towel and sat upon it before she took off her large-brimmed hat and shook her shoulder-length hair free. She took a hairbrush from inside the bag; she began to stroke effortlessly from long practice down and through her hair which was ash blonde and as she worked, the gold was no longer hidden there. The sun knew it well.

"I love your hair. Can I say that?" The voice was masculine, deep but clear. Then, "Can I sit next to you?"

Before she let herself look up at him, she prayed: Let it be today. But when his face was in focus, he was only ordinary looking, as she was, and her heart did not leap and bound and her breathing remained normal. She said, "Sure, no problem," as she kept on brushing her hair.

He sat on the sand, an arm's length away, his eyes now following the teenage action out in the water. "Ah," he said, "kids these days, eh? Have all that energy. No cares. Still," his eyes found her face, "would I want to go back? Really?"

She could only say, "Wouldn't you?" It sounded more like a statement than a question to her tuned-up ears.

"Probably not. I'll take all my years instead." He smiled.

But I am different, Maria thought. I am too anxious.

He looked at her and asked abruptly, "How old are you?"

Taken by surprise by the bluntness, color flooded her face but she had to be honest, "I will be thirty in October."

"Well, it can be a long, long way until October," he said and then added, "I am thirty-seven."

Maria's heart dropped down into the pit of her stomach. She put her hat on her head and stared at him from under the drooping brim. "What's your name?"

"Tim."

"Maria"

"It's a great name." He started to sing, "I just met a girl named Maria."

"Thanks," she interrupted. She offered her smile instinctively.

"I'm visiting some friends. I grew up here long ago. You staying at the hotel?"

"Yeah. I come here every summer, in August. My parents brought me here when I was really young. Now, I come here alone to recharge for another year."

"You starting to get afraid?" Tim asked.

"It's my upbringing. Wedding gowns and rings and houses with shutters and all sort of daylight dreams." And as she told him this, she was hurting; hating herself for being prudish. She must look to him a prim old maid who was spending her summers in the wrong place. The sea gull came close and laughed at her with her beach bag full of cosmetics, bad books, and her heart full of hangups. Swiftly she stood up.

Looking into his ordinary face she gave him her lovely smile and waited eagerly for the effects of brief beauty in their soft brown depths. Lights flickered there into a flame that reminded Maria of a fireplace using feelings for fuel. Then they were Tim's eyes; asking eyes. Had she an answer? Was she a woman steeped in fantasy or was she a woman with a chance to have wonderful memories, if not a man for always?

"Do that again, will you?" Tim's expression was serious, tender.

"What?" she answered.

"Smile."

"I cannot, no."

"Are you so unsure of yourself?"

"I cannot smile all the time. The rest of the time I am plain old me."

"I understand."

"And I guess I understand October birthdays and loneliness better than I do summer and teenagers swimming."

That night Maria dressed for Tim, in a white blouse and scarlet shorts. It would have been foolish to wear frills when needed simplicity so as not to play up plainness. Plain is plain and pain is pain and loneliness is loneliness and love. . . . Well, love is just word until one knows it's for real. Then she thought of October.

After dinner at Red's Cafe, the two of them went down the beach to the pavilion and stood watching the moving figures as they danced to hard rock music. Hair was everywhere in harmony and youth was spending all the time in the world, it seemed to Maria. Had she ever been this young? No, never.

They went back to the hotel and then down to the beach and found a place to sit in the moonlight and looked up at the stars. It was so silent that the distance rock music was some other world. This was a summer world with sand running through the hourglass of a human heart. It would take quite a woman to make memories for October.

"Come, Maria, take off your shoes. Let's dance."

She had all the time in the world to think later. She got up and kicked off her sneakers.

they found they were in step; the sand didn't make them stumble. He was sure and she was sure. There were in a place in time that was bordered by what seemed to be an endless water and endless sky and sand that spoke of love. When she went with him to her room, it wasn't the memories of her the summer she wanted. . .

The sun crept over the east horizon without a sound. A lone sea gull swooped and circled but did not laugh. It went out to the familiar lake. It was their last day. To lie side by side, to feel, touch, to know.

"Beginnings are so special," Maria whispered and when Tim turned to gaze at her his face was not ordinary but handsome in the a woman sees clearly, completely.

"Never be afraid, Maria. You never know when you are making a memory."

"Because of you, Tim."

"Find him in the winter, Maria. He will be looking for the woman who believes in more than memories. Smile at him until he sees you as you really are." He had written in the sand as he talked to her and when she rose up she read: Beginnings are special.

Driving back to the real world that she had left gladly for another vacation, Maria had no sorrow, no tinge of bitterness. The sand had washed from her and gone down the drain and she wasn't the same person who had spent too many summers on the beach of Soap Lake. She was past running away from life and hiding inside herself. Tim had to come along. If he hadn't she would have gone down the drain into spinsterly darkness.

A lone sea gull dipped down before her eyes as she looked ahead through the windshield, as if to wish her to remember it. She would remember it and many things. Maria smiled and felt a freedom like the disappearing bird's. Thirty wasn't anything more than a new year, a different year that she was eager to enter. She knew, too, that the winter would not be cold for the warmth within her was reality.