“I’m so glad we’re becoming friends!” Audrey chirps suddenly, yanking Claire out of her own head. “You’re so much more interesting than anyone else here in town.”
“What? Oh, yeah, I’m glad too.” Claire shifts around uncomfortably. Her bare legs stick to the car seats. “I was afraid I’d be stuck at Grammy’s house all summer, bored.”
The light changes. Audrey shoots out into the intersection, humming along to the Mariah Carey song playing on the radio. Claire watches the exterminator’s building go by. She wants to ask about the monsters, but Audrey’s so sickeningly normal, it seems wrong somehow to do so.
“Oh, no, I’m definitely not going to let you be bored this summer.” Audrey shakes her head, her hair swishing around her shoulders. “Not one bit.”
“That’s good to hear. Although since we’re friends, I hope you won’t mind me asking—” Claire fumbles around for the words. “You know about the monsters, right?”
Silence. The song ends and the radio goes over to the frantic prattle of the DJ. Claire is clammy all over, certain she should never have asked.
“Of course I do,” Audrey finally says. “Everyone does.”
“No one told me.” Claire stares out the window. Businesses zip by. “There was one in my backyard. I thought I was hallucinating.”
“Oh, you poor thing! Mrs. Sudek didn’t warn you?”
“Grammy doesn’t tell me anything.” Claire scowls. “It’s like she just expected me to know.”
“We’re all so used to them,” Audrey says. “We forget not everybody has them around. Plus”—she lowers her voice—“I think a lot of the older folks are ashamed, you know? Everyone thinks the monsters are the reason we don’t have any tourists.” She shrugs. “But wait’ll you see the beach. It’s not exactly a tropical paradise.”
She turns down a side street, and the Gulf flashes between the gaps of buildings.
“Besides, people forget about the monsters when they cross the city limits. It’s their way of hiding themselves, I guess. But when you leave town, you forget the monsters even exist.”
Claire gets a clammy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Julie told her that too, but it still frightens her. She wonders, with a jolt, if she ever saw the monsters on her previous trips into Indianola, if those memories were washed away as her family barreled their way back to Houston.
“You don’t need to worry. The monsters don’t usually come into town.”
“People keep saying that,” Claire says, forcing away the strange reverse de´ja` vu of not remembering them. “But Grammy’s house is in town.”
“I’m sure it was just a fluke.” Audrey glances over at her and smiles. “If you don’t agitate them, they won’t hurt you.”
Claire shivers.
Audrey drives past a Welcome to Indianola Beach! sign. The beach isn’t as crowded as Claire expects. A few families dot the sand, their brightly colored lawn chairs and towels spread out in front of the dunes. Audrey parks and they both climb out of the car. The wind blowing off the water is hot and damp.
“I don’t think this is too bad,” Claire says. “At least it’s not too crowded.”
“Yeah, that’s one benefit of not having any tourists.”
Claire slathers on her sunscreen while Audrey peels off her tank dress, revealing a neon-green bikini underneath. She stands with her hands on her hips, facing the water, not speaking. Her face is glazed over. She seems lost in thought.
The wind sweeps down the beach, blowing Claire’s hair around so that it sticks to her sunscreen. Indianola Beach is like every beach Claire has been on, but it’s also like none of them, although Claire can’t exactly say why.
“Done,” Claire says, because she isn’t sure that Audrey will notice.
Audrey blinks. Her features come back to life. “Great! Do you want to wait before we get in the water? So the sunscreen soaks in?”
She sounds like a mom. Claire shakes her head. “Really, it’s not a big deal.”
Audrey shrugs and together they walk down to the shoreline. It’s blocked by piles of prickly brown seaweed, and they pick their way through it, standing on tiptoes and giggling at the sliminess.
“I hate seaweed,” Claire says. “It looks like something from another planet.”
The first shock of cold water makes them shriek. The Gulf churns around them, the water frothy and greenish brown. They wade out until they’re about waist-deep and the tiny waves buoy them up. Pieces of seaweed brush past Claire’s legs, making her jump. She thinks of jellyfish.
“So this is Indianola Beach,” Audrey says.
“Is there usually this much seaweed?”
“Sometimes. Better seaweed than jellyfish.”
There it is again, that feeling that Audrey’s dipped inside her head.
They swim for a while. Audrey mostly floats on her back, but Claire splashes around in the water and rides the waves toward the shore. The sun washes out the rest of the sky and tosses sparkles down onto the Gulf. It’s fun, but Audrey’s company is dull enough that Claire wishes she were here with someone else—with Josh, specifically, even though she can’t imagine him on a beach. The bright sun doesn’t suit him. But as she drifts up and down with the water she daydreams about an afternoon on the beach with Josh anyway, her bare skin brushing against his under the water, the two of them sharing a blanket as the sun sets into the dunes.
Eventually, Claire’s skin starts to feel hot and sore.
“You’re burning,” Audrey says. She’s still floating on her back, moving to the rhythm of the waves. Her eyes are closed, and Claire wonders how she could possibly know; she’d actually started to think that Audrey was asleep. “You should have put the sunscreen on at my house. If you go in the water right away, it washes off.”
“I just burn easily,” Claire snaps back, annoyed at being lectured to like a little kid. “Although I should probably sit in the shade for a while.”
Abruptly, Audrey rights herself, dropping her legs into the water. Her own skin is as evenly tanned as it was before, without a single hint of a burn. She wades over to Claire’s side. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice swelling with sincerity. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.” Claire is suddenly aware of the enormity of the ocean. Although she can see the beach, the dunes, Audrey’s car, a family a few yards away, she feels as if she’s trapped on the open sea, surrounded by nothing but water and sky and emptiness. “I feel like going in anyway. My arms are tired. And the seaweed’s everywhere.”
Audrey nods. “We can walk along Seaside Drive. And get something to eat, if you’d like.”
“Fine.” It’s not really Audrey that’s bothering her, Claire decides, it’s the water itself. She can’t shake that feeling of being mired in infinity.
A wave swells up behind her and Claire catches it and rides it halfway to shore. She wades the rest of the way in, picking through the seaweed and the sand back to the car. The sun is so bright that when Claire looks over at Audrey all she sees are rays of light.