Page 20 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

She pouts up at me from beneath long lashes, clearly losing a mind-numbing battle with her laptop. “You know I can’t. Have double the fun for me, okay?”

I nod and go to grab my suit. It’s a pale pink one-piece that’s covered in strawberries, and I think it might be the most delightful piece of clothing I own.

Sliding my feet into an old pair of Birkenstocks (I shop for comfort, not style), I head out the front door. “See you later!” I shout to Laurel, who responds with a loud groan.

The beach isn’t very crowded, probably thanks in large part to it being a weekday. Still, it’s July, which is high season for Ogunquit. I’m sure if I tried to find a hotel room for tonight, pickings would be slim. Anything that did exist would probably cost triple what I’d be able to afford.

Thank God for Simon Foster, I think to myself, kicking off my sandals and jogging toward the waves. I pick a spot near a few kids playing on boogie boards, their parents watching with amusement from 15 feet away. If I start to drown, someone will probably notice.

That’s one of the first things my grandmother ever taught me. “Never swim alone,” she liked to say. She was right, of course. But she repeated herself every summer, and I did grow a little weary of the advice. Eleanor wasn’t a proficient swimmer, and I think that gave her an unnatural fear of the water. Even still, I knew she was right, at least to an extent. So I’ve always tried to be as careful as possible.

The water feels frigid today, but I wait a minute and let my feet go numb. It doesn’t take long after that before the waves start to feel refreshing. That’s a trick I picked up from my dad. He was one of the only ones who braved the water for more than 15-minute intervals, always heading out to chest depth to jump the waves.

In Ogunquit, that meant wading out a good 50 yards from shore at low tide, since the beach was so large, and the slope where the waves broke so gradual.

Out there, bobbing up and down in the sea, was one of the only places I ever saw his inner child on full, vibrant display. My mom and I loved to watch him.

“He’s crazy,” she’d say from the comfort of our beach blanket, words dripping with affection.

“I know. It’s so cold!” I’d glance up at him, then go back to my book.

It’s weird, the things you remember. The things you take for granted. If you’d told me, the last time my grandmother warned me not to swim alone, that I’d never hear her say it again, I don’t think I would’ve believed you. And if someone said my mother would stop appreciating my dad’s joy, I probably would have laughed in their face.

But here I am, Eleanor gone, my parents separated and unlikely to ever be on a beach together again. Swimming all by myself.

Life can be surprising like that.

After ten minutes or so of letting waves slosh up against my hips, I head back to my towel to warm up. Wrapping it around my waist, I dig my toes into the sand and crack open Ghost Writing again. It’s a love story, set at about the same time my grandparents would have met. I’m loving the book, but it’s getting a little heavy for me, given all the fraught emotions hanging in the air here, in my real life.

I check my phone—it’s only 3:45. I wish I’d let my grandmother teach me to embroider so I’d have a second activity to do on the beach. She was always asking Laurel and me if we wanted to try, but we were typically too busy trying to rescue our sand castle from impending destruction to be bothered with what we secretly called “old person hobbies.”

There are a lot of things I wish I’d done when my grandmother was still alive. Listen more attentively to her stories, for one. It’s still bothering me that Laurel remembers how my grandparents met in such great detail and, before she recounted the tale the other day, it had completely slipped my mind. Reading Eleanor’s diary has opened up a gaping hole in my heart, leaving me wanting more—more stories, more wisdom imparted. Mostly just more days with her.

It also hit me, reading about her youthful escapades, that Eleanor was a complete person before she became a mother. Long before she became a grandmother. A person with hopes and dreams and love and lust and longing. I know how absurd that sounds, because of course everyone is a complete person, regardless of their age. But I think we all tend to view our grandparents, and our parents, to some extent, as stodgy caricatures, rather than real, full people who’ve already lived the youth we’re now enjoying.

I suppose I saw some snatches of that humanity in Eleanor when she and my grandfather would get together with their friends, here at the beach. There were a few couples in town they’d invite for picnics, and my grandmother always had a huge grin on her face when they were sipping wine and swapping stories. Even though she was about as introverted as they come, Eleanor was a commanding storyteller, and she definitely seemed to come alive when she was sharing some misadventure or other with their friends.

My grandparents were always particularly close with Simon Foster, who seemed like a constant fixture at our beach rental every summer. He would come over for dinner or to play cards nearly every night, always bringing a bouquet of fresh flowers for the table and a kind smile for me.

When my parents went out for the evening with Laurel’s mom and dad, Eleanor and Charlie would watch Laurel and me. Simon often came over for dinner on those nights, then retreated to the porch with my grandfather to sip scotch while my grandmother put us to bed. Occasionally, Eleanor would join them after she’d read Laurel and me a bedtime story. Other nights, she fell asleep in the chair beside us, a book open in her lap.

It was comforting to hear the gentle mumbling of Charlie and Simon, talking and laughing outside long into the night. It kept me awake at times, trying to eavesdrop and figure out what they were saying, but it was rare that I could.

On the nights Eleanor joined them on the porch, all I remember is hearing her genuine laughter pealing high above their baritones. When I was younger, I felt surprised by her mirth, because she was a grandmother—what could she possibly be laughing about? Bundt pans or vile-sounding aspics?

But I understand now that they were probably reminiscing about esoteric jokes or mocking ridiculous swimsuits they’d seen on the beach. Doing the things that everyone does.

How incredibly daft I used to be.

And now I know also that Eleanor had been in love, not only with Charlie, but at least once before that, with some mystery man. I just wish she were still here, so I could ask her, among countless other things, how it felt to fall in love to the rhythm of the Atlantic.

At exactly 7:45, I dial Shoreline Books from my vantage on a porch chair. I hadn’t really been serious when I told Rachel and her friends I would make sure Oliver was ready for their beach stroll, but I’m still exceptionally bored.

I’d borrowed Laurel’s laptop when she took a shower earlier and applied to several librarian jobs, then aggressively cleaned the entire living room at Beach Haven. I’m fresh out of ideas for entertainment, and Laurel’s closed the door to her room so she can focus on her work.

The phone rings twice before Oliver picks up. “Shoreline Books.” He sounds about as enthused as a teenager at Sunday dinner with their grandparents.

“You really should try to seem more excited. It would be good for business,” I respond snarkily.