Page 7 of Love Bound

"You worked here, then?" I ask.

"No. No, no, no, I never…I never worked here," she says leaning back, but there’s something about the way she says "worked" that trips my ear.

A warning bell.

She turns around and stares out the tiny window panes again, wiping off a new one to see through. "I love this Eastern light. Especially in the fall. You're in for a treat in a month. The sun doesn't come up quite as early. Look at the water," she says.

I glance out the window, but something of interest does snag my attention. "What's the name of that island over there? It's not on any map. I mean it's on the map, but there's no name."

She sighs and talks around a big bite of muffin. "Rock Island. At least that's what we locals call it. The causeway connects it to the road right here, and there's a regular bridge at the other end. But when the tide's out you can walk to it in your boots or barefoot. At least if the tide comes back in you have a way to get home."

"I thought the causeway was a trail."

She laughs, all the tension now gone from her body and I feel like I've won something.

"Yeah," she says, still laughing. "I guess I wouldn't exactly call it a causeway. It's more like a wide footpath. You can get a car on it though," she adds, nodding. "I mean it is a road. It's a dirt road. Yeah, it's a dirt road."

"It's a dirt road with a little footpath along the edge," I correct her.

"And guardrails," she adds enthusiastically.

"What's left in the lagoon when the tide goes out?" I’d noticed when I looked at the place that when the tide was out, the little inlet was still filled with water.

"Well, a lot of kids. They love wading around out there in the summertime. They look for sea cucumbers, starfish. Once an octopus."

I must register something on my face because she clarifies with, "It was a baby. A baby octopus. Have another muffin. I made them for you. Are you like gluten-free or something?"

She hands me another one and says, "There used to be lobsters in the deepest part, but the water has gotten too warm for them and they’ve moved far offshore. When it gets above fifty degrees, they go deeper to find colder water." She swallows the last of her coffee. "What do you know about the ocean? You got a boat?"

"No, and not much," I say. "I don't really do much with water."

She smiles. "You're going to have to learn. The whole town—the entire coast—is driven by the tide schedule."

"These are delicious," I observe, pointing to the muffin.

"The tides are a part of life here. You'll need a chart, like now. You need to know where you can walk places and when. You're dead without a tide chart."

I set my muffin down and look out the windows. The warped glass buckles the view of the water, the sand, and sky. I stuff my hands in my back pockets.

"What? You don’t believe me?” she says. “We have twelve-foot tides here. You can get caught in the caves."

Caves?

"They're north, about half a mile,” she says. “There are two openings, but really just one cave. When I was a kid we had signs posted on how to get there, but so many people come in the summer now who don’t know anything about the tides—"

"Because they're idiots?"

"Well, yeah, that too." She sighs. "We had to take the signs down."

"That's too bad."

"If you don't pay attention to the time and the tides and get stuck, you can drown."

I flinch. Her back is to me and she doesn’t see it, but I feel it.

"Like Anemone cave in Acadia. Except, Echo cave doesn’t really fill up. It's not super deep, because it's not a true cave and you can only get there when the tide’s out. When the tide comes back in, you're sunk. Unless you can get to the top. I mean, nobody's ever really drowned. Because there's always room at the top." She glances at me. "Supposedly."

"You tested it out?"