a little night music

“Check out this sunset.” Bobby stopped outside his door and gestured toward the west.

    “You could almost believe there was a goddess.”

    “Let’s drive over to the West Side and look.”

    A handful of boats were anchored out in New Harbor, with a few clustered around the docks. “I guess Block Island Boat Basin is open,” said Kate. Bobby slowed as they passed Payne’s Dock. A cigarette boat zipped across the water. The van bumped over Dory’s Cove Road when the sun was setting. There was still enough light to make it down the path to the beach. It was a rocky beach, and the triangular point of an offshore boulder pierced the colors that dyed the water.  Bobby had been painting tiny, exquisite watercolors of that rock for decades now. They watched in silence as the sunset bled out.

     “I have to work tonight. Probably won’t be much action, but after blowing off the afternoon, I better try to pick up some fares at the bars. Will you be okay?”

    “It’s been a long day, a long few days. I just want to be alone and sleep. Sleep forever. Because when I wake up I have to remember all over again.”

     He got out of the van at the shack to open the door for her. “You know where everything is,” he said. And he put his arms around her as he had been wanting to since he saw her get off the boat with her brother.

     She put down her backpack next to the ladder to the loft, climbed up, took off her jeans and dropped into Bobby’s bed. The wind had died down at dusk, and it was very quiet. She slept.

 She struggled out of a dream and lay still. What had awakened her? Was Bobby back? She checked her phone: 11:25. The bars didn’t close until 1:00. And Daddy was dead. And whoever had killed him was on the island. And was trying to pin the blame on Bobby. And she was all alone in the dark. In Bobby’s bed.

    She was too terrified to peek over the edge of the loft, let alone climb down the ladder to lock the door. Her heart was hammering so loudly she was afraid it would be heard. She tried not to breathe and looked up at the skylight and listened. For a long time. Nothing. Maybe the sound she had heard—hadn’t heard?—was from outside. Her heart calmed down, but she was afraid to go back to sleep. By 1:15 she was able to hear Bobby come in the door without freaking out. It helped that the old van had a distinctive engine sound.

    He turned on a low lamp. She looked over the edge and saw him unloading cash from his pockets, putting it in a beautiful seaglass-covered bowl.

    “Money?”

    “It was okay. Drunks either forget to tip or overtip because they have lost the ability to calculate.”

     “I’m sorry I lost your afternoon.”

    “No worries. It’s the bare beginning of season.” He walked outside to pee. The Art Shack had no septic system. The Incinolet electric toilet was functional, but it cost in electricity. Basically, it burned the shit up. Literally.  There was a kitchen sink—a buried hose brought water from the main house, and he brushed his teeth there. He took off everything but his underwear, folded his clothes and stowed them neatly. The shack was like a puzzle, and everything had its place.

    “Do you want to come down to brush your teeth? Or shall I turn off the light?”

      “I’ll come down.” She climbed down, and he went up. There was barely room for two people downstairs. At the bottom of the ladder, she looked for her backpack to get her toothbrush. It wasn’t there. “Bobby, did you see my backpack? I left it down here.”

     “No. Did you leave it in the back of the van?”

     “I brought it in. And I thought I heard something before. It woke me up.”

    Bobby climbed back down the ladder and put on his pants. No man wanted to face danger in boxer shorts. He took a flashlight off the shelf next to the door and went outside.

    It was not in the van. It took a while to find her clothing, most of it New York black. New Yorkers always had funeral clothes at the ready.

     “Your stuff is scattered in the bushes. Come outside and look.”

     Her things looked like they had been tossed by a high wind, or in a fit of rage. They untangled what they could from the brambles and brush and decided to look for the rest in the daylight.

     “I would like to find my toiletry bag, though. It has my toothbrush in it. And some emergency Xanex, which I could use right now.”

     “You can use my toothbrush,” said Bobby.

     They lay in his loft bed looking at the stars, listening to the distant shush of the waves. She turned away from him and curled up in a fetal position. After a while he turned on his side, too and wrapped an arm around her. He felt her skin grow hot and thought about the folkloric desire for sex after a brush with death. He didn’t feel it himself. He kept very still and slowed his breathing. Finally she slept, and so did he.