Write On Maui

fiction
by
Lois Nakamura

The Sea Urchin Shell

 

She awoke with a start. A grizzled chin reeking of beer and tobacco was nuzzling the nape of her neck. Roberta stiffened and squeezed her puffy eyes tight. Her husband’s voice was at her ear then, low and slippery, “You okay, baby?...You still mad at me?...We’ll talk…about it…in the morning…okay?”

She tried to move away, groaning. But he was already fast asleep. Roberta stared fiercely into the thick darkness, her lips pressed tightly together and her body taut. She couldn’t cry anymore. The flood of tears earlier had lasted for hours leaving her dry and exhausted.

They’d had another one of their arguments. This time she had ended up crying in the locked bathroom. Al pounded on the door yelling, “Open up, dammit, open up!”

“No!” she shouted at the door. “I swear, I can’t give you any more money. I used it up on groceries.”

“Yeah, all dat cake and ice cream. But you couldn’t get beer or cigarettes for me!”

It’s my paycheck, she screamed silently. You can buy your own….

“Come on, dammit! Open up! Get your fat bod outta there….!”

When she wouldn’t answer any more, he screamed louder, cussing and pounding, until she thought the door would cave in, pulling the walls down with it. He finally stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door so hard it sounded like a shotgun through her heart.

 

Now, she just lay there, irritated, despondent, weary. A gecko chirped out of the darkness, breaking through her thoughts. An insistent ticking at the side of their bed grated on her ears, and she squinted at the phosphorescent circle of dots. Three o’clock. She sighed and turned to look at her husband. Al’s snoring had settled down to a low rumble. Impulsively, she reached over and squeezed his nose with her thumb and index finger, halting his breath in the middle of a rumbling snort. She stifled a giggle and rolled out of bed.

In the living room she settled down on the sofa with a book and a package of cookies. A good novel, with a few snacks beside her, could always take her away into other worlds. Living other peoples’ lives and experiences was more exciting and fulfilling than her own. She could fight a forest fire or scuba dive for sunken treasure. She could visit Mars. She could be a beautiful debutante in nineteenth century Parisian society who didn’t have to wash laundry. She could be a voluptuous actress or pencil-thin super model. She could be anything.

But it didn’t work this time. She was still restless, irritated.

The snoring had followed her, but she could hear something else, too. A faint murmuring, steady and soothing—it was the ocean. She went to the window to hear it better. She knew it was there across the street on the other side of the condominiums. Roberta wished she could see it now. She could imagine feeling the ocean breeze on her face and through her hair.

Roberta liked living near the ocean. It always made her feel better when she sat at a beach and lost herself in the sights and sounds of the Pacific Ocean. Al often told her that she would look better with a tan, but she was too embarrassed about her figure. She could never bring herself to venture out into such a public place as a sunny beach in anything more revealing than shorts and a sleeveless blouse. Even that took a lot of courage. She rarely tried on her bathing suit. It was just too embarrassing, even in the privacy of their bathroom.

It was difficult enough just to look at herself in the mirror. She wondered sometimes whether her eyes would seem larger if only her face wasn’t so full. The flesh seemed to crowd at her eyes and push upwards closer and closer to the height of her nose. Al did tell her one night after dinner, while they were watching TV, he smoking a cigarette and she eating her fourth slice of macadamia nut cream pie, that she would become so fat, her eyes would close up and disappear.

That had started another all-night argument.

Roberta brooded, frowning. We don’t have fun together anymore. Al picked up those odd jobs on the weekends, and I work on weekdays. At nights, he either watches TV or drinks beer with his friends at the park. I don’t enjoy going anywhere alone.

Except grocery shopping, she amended. For this, she even preferred shopping alone. Meandering through the aisles, feasting her eyes on all the delicious merchandise, had become a favorite pastime.

Roberta sighed. She hadn’t always been this overweight. She’d been sort of pleasantly plump, according to Al. It didn’t bother him then. He even called her pretty, his pretty little doll. That was three years ago. Something had gone wrong. All she ever thought about now was eating, and all he ever seemed to think about was drinking and making fun of her. And smoking. One afternoon she watched him smoke half a pack, lighting one cigarette with another, using a match only for the first one.

She wondered now, as she often did, what her parents had looked like. They died when she was an infant. All she knew was that her mother was Japanese and didn’t look like Aunt Sharon, and her father was Caucasian. Aunt Sharon never said much of anything, not even when Roberta told her she was getting married and was moving to Maui .

She paced the floor restlessly. The books seemed to have lost their magic, she wasn’t sleepy, and she didn’t feel like lying down next to the snoring. She went to the window again letting the ocean sounds soothe her. It was still dark out. There was no traffic, no one in sight. Too early for anybody, she decided. She dressed in the bathroom with her back to the mirror, pulling on an old pair of jeans and a baggy T-shirt.

She hesitated at the door, her hand on the knob. She couldn’t name her fear. This is a safe neighborhood, she told herself silently as though speaking to someone else. Still, she went back to the bathroom and fussed with her hair, finally pulling her thick brown hair into two pigtails and draped them forward over her shoulders.

 

When Roberta finally left the apartment, a pale translucent hue was just beginning to separate the black hills in the east from the night sky. The dim street lights barely illuminated the four flights of cold, gray stairs to the empty street. The cool darkness was strangely soothing.

Roberta tossed her head back, smiling. Her eyes were wide, and a subdued excitement was building up inside of her. She felt like dancing on her toes.

But when she reached the right-of-way to the beach, she stopped, looking down the dark narrow path to the beach. Her heart skipped a beat. Leaves rustled in the breeze…or was it a breeze?

She could hear the ocean clearly now, so close. She started carefully down the long path making sure her rubber slippers didn’t slap. Her heart sounded louder and louder as the light from the street faded. She cast furtive glances sideways, trying to see through the tall hedges.

At last she was on the beach. It was lighter now, and she could see no one. Roberta let out a huge sigh and smiled with relief.

Docile waves lapped at the sandy shore while larger ones farther out smashed into foam on the reef. A concrete breakwater loomed out of the shadows on the right, so Roberta walked the other way towards the sandy curve which disappeared around the condominiums and palm trees. She shook back her head, taking deep breaths. A soft wind from over the open channel was cool and fresh on her cheeks.

Approaching a wide break in the line of condominiums, she scrambled up the sandy slope, immediately captivated by the panorama of colors unfolding around her. The azure opalescence above the West Maui Mountains spread upwards, deepening to a blue-black speckled with stars. She turned around. The sky was a vast mural of vibrant rainbow colors above the island of Molokai and the reflective ocean.

Suddenly Roberta felt wonderful. Somehow, she seemed to be part of the beauty around her. Al, her obesity, her despondency, all were forgotten as silent laughter welled upward, forcing her lips apart. She closed her eyes and sank down onto the cool sand.

She opened them in time to see the sun, pulled along by bands of light strewn across the sky, make its triumphant appearance over the distant summits. She almost expected to see Apollo in his lavish golden chariot pulling the sun up.

As she leaned backwards on the sand to survey once again the scope of the sunrise, a movement caught her eye. A lone jogger was coming towards her, snaking through the maze of rocks on the beach. She watched him in dismay, Oh no! Don’t come this way! I want to be alone!

He was getting closer. She didn’t know what to do. Were her eyes still puffy? Would he laugh at her clothes? Should she look at her feet? At her hands digging into the sand? The ocean? The sky?

She looked at the jogger.

He wore sneakers and shorts with a terry band around his head. He nodded and smiled at her in passing.

A huge sigh escaped as her shoulders relaxed, and she grinned, feeling foolish. She got up and ran tentatively. She felt so clumsy and heavy. She wondered what she looked like now.

When she saw another jogger coming her way, she slowed to a walk, breathing hard. Again, she would have hidden if only that were possible. This time her own half smile and nod were ready. But he barely glanced at her, mumbling a “Mornin’” as he pounded by on muted feet.

She laughed to herself. If only it could always be this easy!

Roberta kicked off her slippers and rolled up the legs of her jeans, then stepped gaily into the waves. It was warmer than she expected. She stopped in surprise when a school of minuscule silvery shadows darted off right in front of her. She chased them, laughing, until they turned towards deeper waters. Her jeans were wet. Even her hair had not escaped the splashing. She brushed off sparkling drops from her pigtails.

Something tumbling in the waves caught her eye. A lavender object looked out of place against the sand. Holding her pigtails to her chest, she bent to pick it up.

Roberta gasped with delight. It was a sea urchin shell—round, symmetrical and flat at the bottom. Soft tones of dark and light lavender ran up and down in a striped pattern. Its texture of little white dots reminded her of a dotted swiss dress Aunt Sharon had sewn for her a long time ago.

She had seen shells like this in gift shops. Roberta knew just enough about them to know that, alive, some varieties had poisonous spines. After they die, the spines fall off. Most of the shells in gift shops were empty; some were filled with candle wax in various pastel shades. Some were part of large sand candles. One large deep red sand candle was lit. Lined with black sand and set on a piece of black driftwood, it made her think of the glowing red lava of Kilauea Volcano flowing over black lava rocks. She stood there marveling at the exquisite glow.

She was reaching for the wallet in her purse just as Al appeared at her side. Looking up, she cringed at the look of disgust on his face. “You not getting dat, eh? You always pick up useless stuff li’ dat. Let’s go!”

Roberta put it down reluctantly. But she remembered it three months later when the electricity went out during a storm, and they didn’t have any candles. She made the mistake of mentioning it to Al, who looked at her with a pained expression, saying, “We no need fancy candles. Plain ole white ones are fine. And how come you don’t have any of those around when we need ‘em?”

Ignoring his question, she protested, “But the little ones are not expensive, Al. And they’re so pretty. I could set it on that shelf next to the TV.” She hesitated. “We could…”

“Hey,” he interrupted, “you jus’ like waste money. Don’t you go and buy it!”

 

Roberta wondered what he would say about this shell when she showed it to him. At least it didn’t cost anything. Should she try to put candle wax in it or keep it as it was? Deep in thought, she didn’t notice someone approaching.

“Good morning.”

Roberta dropped the shell. Her brown eyes wide, she looked up into smiling gray ones. She bent quickly to retrieve the shell from the water, hiding the sudden color on her cheeks. She was painfully conscious of the handsome masculine face watching her. Straightening up, she pulled at her T-shirt in a vain attempt to cloak her bulk.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Oh. It—it’s OK.” She managed a smile. It was the first jogger, who had smiled at her earlier.

He seemed oblivious to her embarrassment. “I noticed the sea urchin shell you found. May I see it?”

She handed it to him silently.

“I have one like this at home,” he said inspecting it carefully. He reached down for some seaweed on a nearby rock and proceeded to clean out the remnants of clinging flesh inside the bowl of the shell.

“This could smell pretty awful if you don’t get it all out.” His eyes twinkled at her, and Roberta flushed again. “I have some that are candles, too. Have you seen those?”

She nodded, her eyes widening. “Oh yes, they’re beautiful!”

He bent down to rinse the shell in the clear water. When he straightened up, he said, “I’ve never found an unbroken sea urchin shell along this beach. You must be lucky.”

She giggled.

Then he asked if she were vacationing here, and she shook her head, stifling a laugh. The idea of anyone thinking she could possibly afford to stay in one of those condominiums tickled her.

She asked him the same question, and he pointed to a tall building far down the beach. “Yep. I’ve been here two weeks with my son. He usually comes with me in the mornings, but he stayed up late last night with his new friends. We’re leaving tonight—going back to Minnesota.”

Roberta’s heart felt heavy. She could hear Al’s voice saying, “Who wants kids! Noisy little brats runnin’ round all over da place, breakin’ everything.”

“I like children,” she said wistfully.

“We do a lot of things together. Since my wife died four years ago, it seems we depend on each other a lot.”

They started to walk on the hard sand, back towards the right-of-way. The morning sunshine had already chased the cool shadows from the beach. The sky was blue with patches of pastel clouds slowly giving way to billowing white cotton.

Her new friend, who introduced himself as Kevin, talked about how difficult it had been at first, mourning the loss of his wife. But taking care of Peter had taken up a lot of his time, energy, and love. They had managed.

She told him about her bookkeeping job in the back office of a hotel down the road, and of Al being out of work for two months now because of union strikes in the construction industry. She almost told him about their arguments. It was so easy to talk with Kevin. So comfortable. The way he smiled at her made her feel as if he really liked her and enjoyed her company as much as she was enjoying his. He even liked those sea urchin candles! She smiled happily.

“You have lovely eyes, Roberta. A pretty smile, too.”

She giggled, pleased and embarrassed.

“You really do! And beautiful hair.”

She stared at him now. It must be the way he says it, she thought, as if it was fact. A nervous pleasure made her feel heady. Then she thought of Al.

As she walked up the right-of-way with Kevin, her alarm earlier that morning seemed ridiculous. The path was innocent enough in the daylight. It was even more incredulous to Roberta that just a short while ago she had been in the depths of unhappiness and despair.

She looked sideways at Kevin. His balding blond hair and dark mustache were intriguing. They laughed when a sparrow swooped down to the pavement and cocked an eye at them. When they parted, it felt to Roberta like saying good-bye to a friend she had known for a long time.

Roberta felt so happy she wanted to run and jump, but she kept a slow pace. She needed time to think. The sunrise was still within her; she felt it with every deep breath.

The fragile dotted swiss pressed lightly on the skin of her fingers. The shell was attractive in its own way, she thought, but not outstanding. Until someone came along and saw in it a beautiful candle.

She thought of the desserts she had brought home the day before, and her eyes widened as she realized she could have bought a shell candle with that money. Al’s sarcastic laugh echoed in her head. Then she held her head high and jutted out her chin.

The sun was already high above the eastern hills as Roberta climbed the last set of steps to the fourth floor. She paused at the doorway of their apartment to catch her breath and scanned the sprawling green slopes stretching out towards the blue horizon.

She entered the apartment quietly. It was still dark in the bedroom, and Al was still snoring.

 

loisnakamura©2009