“No,” I said aloud, muttering, “just go take down the number.”
So I walked back and stood on the edge of the lawn and began writing. Suddenly the front door opened and a friendly woman with reddish brown hair beckoned me over.
“Are you interested in the house?” she said as I approached. She smiled and shook my hand.
“I might be. But it depends on when it’s available and if I can afford it.”
“Well, come in and let me show you the place,” she said, moving aside into the living room. As I crossed the threshold onto the flat blue carpet, it was like traveling back through time. The place was simple and spotless, a ranch-style cottage like so many I’d seen before. There were two cozy armchairs in front of a television and a couch draped in a light floral quilt off to the side.
“I don’t know how many people you might have here, but that opens to a bed,” she said, gesturing toward the couch.
“It may just be me, but that’s good to know.”
We walked to the eat-in kitchen, where she showed me the collection of pots, pans, dishes, and appliances, and then through the living room to the bathroom and two bedrooms, which were stocked with all the linens, towels, and basic toiletries I’d need.
“Oh, and here,” she said, pulling open the shiny brown wood slider on one of the bedroom closets, “there’s a big pot in case you want to cook lobster.”
“Wow, this is great. I’d barely need to bring anything.”
“Thanks. It’s been in my husband’s family for years,” she said as we headed back to the kitchen, which opened onto the backyard. “We’ve been having the same people every summer—some of them for twenty years,” she added. “But this time a few have dropped out.”
“Do you live out here?”
“No, we’re further in on the island. Let me show you the back.”
“So, do you surf?” I asked as we headed out and stood by a wood picnic table and benches.
“We don’t, but my daughter does. Do you?”
“No—not yet,” I said, laughing. “But I was watching them over at the beach and I’m thinking I might want to come back and learn.”
“Well, the house would be great for that.”
She quoted me a price for the week that was just within my reach. I kept looking around, trying to spot the drawback that was making this little paradise attainable, like cannibals lurking out in the shed or the gates of hell hidden behind the fence. Instead I saw an open yard rimmed with spiky grasses where I could imagine whiling away the evenings, happily exhausted from the beach, with something sizzling on the grill perched on a metal stake in the ground.
“I have two weeks open,” she said as she pulled out a small notebook and flipped to a list written in pencil. One of them was the week before Labor Day, which I’d already scheduled to take off. Kismet indeed.
“It’s a lot of money, but I think I can swing it,” I said, as if willing it to be true simply by speaking the words. “Can I think about it and let you know sometime next week?”
“That’s fine.”
I knew I could scrape together the cash, but I wasn’t sure I could really afford it. I’d only recently gotten myself out of the financial hole I tumbled into after the divorce by failing to recalibrate my spending to one income rather than two, and I wasn’t at all sure I should be indulging in a summer getaway. But it felt like too good an opportunity to pass up—and like the universe was trying to tell me something, even if I had no real idea of what I was getting into.
I was certainly used to the beach—as a kid I’d spent my days on the bay side of Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, endlessly playing and splashing in the water, sifting sand for tiny shells, leaping from rock to rock on the jetty, my tangle of dark frizz streaked reddish blond from the sun and my tanned skin going so dark it made my brown eyes seem lighter. I was by nature curious, though cautious and shy, and often took so long to get into the water—edging near the shore, dipping first a toe and then maybe a foot before retreating from the tide, only to start up again—that my mother would leave me alone to perform my ritual until I finally made it in. Then she would suddenly appear by my side, or dispatch my sister—seven years older and courageous, a natural athlete and champion swimmer—to watch over me as I ran and jumped and patted water on the top of my head.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked me one day.
“It’s a trick,” came my four-year-old response.
I started learning to swim that summer when my mother taught me how to float. I could still see her standing in the water in a black one-piece and tortoiseshell Wayfarers with forest-green lenses, cradling me faceup in her arms. “Arch your back, and keep your arms out,” she said as I looked up at her face, a canvas of patience and delight framed by curly light brown hair against a gauze of cloud wisps and a baby-blue sky. The water gently prodded my rib cage and head as she relaxed her arms, allowing me to sink a little before lifting me up, again and again, until I finally stayed up on my own. “See!” she said, her laughter like the tinkle of capiz shells. “You’re floating!” It was the most miraculous thing in the world.
I loved being in the water, and as I got older I continued to swim at that beach—and do handstands and flips and all sorts of maneuvers I was afraid to try on land—even after my parents bought a modest ranch in a development near a pond in Mashpee, about twelve miles away. But waves and what you could do in them never piqued my interest. I didn’t like the forceful waters of the ocean side at Kalmus. I wanted to swim, and those waves just got in the way and stirred up seaweed that spooked me when it brushed against my calf or thigh, conjuring visions of spiny sea creatures or tentacled jellyfish prepared to strike. And the guys I saw struggling to set up and launch their windsurfers made all that rigging seem cumbersome and tedious, a hindrance to the carefree good time I was after. Those other people could keep their waves. I had no use for them.
But in Montauk I’d seen something I hadn’t much contemplated: a water sport that let you be in the ocean rather than on it, with nothing more than the board to mediate. That’s what I loved when Eric introduced me to kayaking, that sense of being part of the inlets and streams and mangroves as I paddled through them. And surfing? Well, that looked like it could be even more fun.
As I got into my car and began driving back home, I felt like I was leaving a great first date. I kept replaying the images of the surfers in my head—their swivels, their glides, their turns—and imagining what it would be like to be them.
But while I whizzed along the parkway, past the densely planted trees and stone overpasses, I started getting discouraged about the whole enterprise, worried that it was more than I should take on. Even if it was possible to rent equipment and take lessons, I thought, I was unsure about the expense and how to find a good instructor.
Then I remembered: Jim surfs! Maybe he’ll know where to go.
This is exactly the sort of thing you should be doing, I thought as I got to Brooklyn, passing the automotive repair shops, contracting suppliers, storefront churches, and cocktail lounges that cropped up along Atlantic Avenue. In the years since the marriage had fallen apart, I’d struggled to figure out how to vacation on my own. Most of my friends were married with children and went on family getaways, and though I wasn’t entirely without a sense of adventure, the idea of negotiating long trips by myself did not turn me on. Two years earlier I had gotten a much-needed escape from the scene of my domestic disaster in the form of a yearlong journalism fellowship at Stanford in California. Before I left, I treated myself to a group class in digital photography in a small town on Lake Como in Italy, where I kept fantasizing that I’d somehow meet George Clooney, who has a house there, and begin a romance that would solve all my problems. He was, from my perspective at least, age-appropriate, and he admired journalism, so I figured we’d have some actual basis for connection. Of course I never even caught a glimpse of Clooney during the week I was there, but I did find the shared photography enterprise helpful for breaking through my natural reticence among people I don’t know well and for creating a structure through which to explore a new place. If I took the Montauk rental it could be similar, I reasoned, as I’d have the surfing project to help me organize my time and maybe even meet people.