Free Sunburn by John Lescroart Page A

Else why had Berta so affected me this morning? Why had Mike’s song?
    Where the hell was Lea, anyway?
    Where had I heard that phrase which now seemed so apt—burned out under the magnifying glass of introspection? Ha!
    On the beach, a girl was being thrown into the water, and her cries carried back to me like a memory. My thoughts turned back to my earlier marriage, and to my child, Becky. I’d met, wooed, and won Nancy in a whirlwind six weeks. After the wedding, we settled into a quiet neighborhood on Long Island. I’d been making a good living doing small articles that I then thought important. She’d become pregnant immediately, and we lived happily, domestically.
    I remember especially the summers, when we’d drive out to fish in the Sound, or go up to Connecticut. But there’d been only two of those summers. Becky had gotten polio in one of God’s little jokes and had died a few months before the vaccine had been discovered. After that, Nancy, too, had begun to fail—stopped eating, laughing, caring, and, finally, living.
    I finished the beer and got up. They were loading the one boat for Lloret de Mar, and I decided to take it. These thoughts were doing me no good.
    There was a wooden walkway to within about fifty yards of the boat and, after that, one had to trudge through the gravelly sand. The small blue and white boat played tourist Spanish music—I will never forget “Y Viva L’España”—through a loudspeaker in front. In season, a small fleet of three or four of these craft traveled every hour or so to Lloret and back, but now there was only one. It pulled up right onto the beach and lowered a gangplank. It was a steep and slippery climb, and nearly every loading saw a sprained ankle or skinned knee, from which the crew members appeared to take great joy.
    I managed the boarding, though, walked to an empty spot on the bench that lined the sides, and took off my shoes to pour out the sand that had filled them. There was an air of slapstick about the whole boat trip to Lloret, and I enjoyed it. My spirits lifted and, as we began the ride, I sat hypnotized as I always was by the unfathomable blue of the sky and water. Looking back to the land and its bleached white buildings was nearly blinding. Then there was that pleasurable but incongruous feeling of relief that I always got when pulling away from anything.
    The boat wasn’t crowded, and we’d barely cleared the small bay before I spotted Marianne on the bow. She sat cross-legged in shorts and a halter top, tan and alluring. Ah, the irony, I thought, smiling. Knowing I’d begin to brood again if I stared at her, I got up.
    “Marianne.”
    She asked me to sit with her, and I did. “I wanted to tell you that I had a wonderful time last night, politics or no.”
    “So did I,” I said, “but we’re only guests of Sean’s ourselves.”
    “I know. But I wanted to tell you.” She smiled. “What are you reading?”
    “Just a mystery.”
    “You like them?”
    I shrugged. “Some.”
    “Passes the time?”
    “Why do you say that?” I snapped at her, surprised at myself.
    She didn’t seem taken aback. “I don’t know. There is that feel about you.” The sea was dead calm. Some bathers waved to us from the rocks. She waved back, laughing. “It’s beautiful today, n’est-ce pas? I thought the summer was over.”
    “It is nice out here.”
    We lapsed into silence for a moment.
    “I wanted to tell you,” she began, “that I’m not so bloodthirsty as I sounded last night. It’s just that I like to argue and playact a bit. Tony is nice, but I’d scare him if I didn’t act just a little dumb sometimes. You see, my English isn’t really so bad either. But these Spanish boys . . . well, he is attractive, and not nearly so bad as most of them. You see? Yes, you do.”
    She laughed infectiously.
    “I see.” I laughed, too. “What did you mean, just now, about me passing time, that I had that feel about me?”
    “Oh, it’s nothing