Stephanie Evanovich - The Sweet Spot

“Sorry about that,” the woman said jovially as she joined Amanda.

“That’s okay,” Amanda said. “He just surprised me.”

“He’s harmless, but thinks he’s a cadaver hound,” the woman continued, and Bingo ran around her twice before bounding toward the water. “I know he should be on a leash, but by now it’s usually locals. Mind if I join you while he takes a swim? He can’t resist the sea foam that comes with the storms.”

“Not at all,” Amanda eagerly replied, thinking the timing couldn’t be better. Her own voice had begun to sound foreign.

“I’m Gertie,” the woman introduced herself as she gingerly sat down in the sand next to Amanda. “I think we’re neighbors. You’re in the Warren place, no?”

“Mandy,” Amanda said guardedly and with a stab of melancholy. There was only one person who ever called her Mandy, the final time he did was still fresh in her mind and saved on her phone. But she was supposed to be incognito. Small talk itself now presented a challenge. “I’m visiting.”

If Gertie sensed Amanda’s hesitancy, she didn’t let on. “You picked a good time if you’re looking for peace and quiet.”

“Hmmm,” Amanda agreed absently, trying to figure out if Gertie mentioned peace and quiet because she recognized her. She had been sitting in the same spot every day, even before the crowds thinned out. Having to second-guess every conversation for the rest of her life was going to be arduous.

They both continued to look out at the horizon, watching Bingo running along the shoreline, occasionally playing in the surf.

“This one’s coming in from the east,” Gertie said matter-of-factly.

“Should I be nervous?” Amanda asked.

“I don’t think so,” Gertie said reassuringly. “I haven’t floated away yet, and I’ve been here for fifteen years. They did have to drag me out during Hurricane Ophelia back in 2005 when I missed the evacuation warnings. I don’t watch much television.”

Amanda felt as if she’d been touched by an angel. Another random comment sent at a most opportune time. They wouldn’t be talking television. Her tension started to ease.

“That must have been harrowing,” Amanda said.

Gertie snorted with good humor. “Not really. I enjoy riding out a good hurricane. I think in my next life I’d like to be a storm chaser. I did feel bad about putting all those first responders at risk, though. Now they just call to make sure I’m okay and tell me if it looks like leaving is the smart choice. The locals are pretty tight-knit here.”

The sky got darker, and Bingo ran from the ocean and back to intermittently check on them. He was wet and full of sand and Gertie didn’t seem to care.

The more she talked and Amanda listened, it appeared there wasn’t a whole lot that Gertrude Millicent Bach got worked up about, ever. She had moved to the Outer Banks after retiring from her job as a labor room nurse and coming into a healthy inheritance from her mother.

“My mother was years ahead of her time,” Gertie said. “She up and left my father back when those things were seriously frowned upon. She was a real trailblazer. Moved me and my two brothers to a new town, started her own seamstress business, and taught us all to think for ourselves. It’s probably why I never married. I was having so much fun blazing my own trail, I didn’t want anyone getting in the way.”

“Any regrets?” a fascinated Amanda asked.

“Hell no, regrets are a waste of time.” Gertie laughed, then looked pensive. “But I will admit to this, watching a mother and father hold their newborn for the first time sometimes got to me. Not enough to make me go that route, mind you. I was a little too set in my ways to want to give up the freedom. Dogs seemed to feed my mothering urge well enough.”

As if on cue, Bingo ran back up to them. After giving Amanda another investigative sniff, he plopped down in the sand next to his owner.

“You all tuckered out, Bing?” Gertie said to the golden retriever, petting his wet head and asking, “How long you here for?”

It should’ve been a simple question, but nothing was simple anymore. Gertie certainly wasn’t prying. Amanda knew she couldn’t engage in a conversation and withhold information at the same time. She ached to take a step forward. If she really believed in divine intervention, then maybe this independent, spirited woman was sent to her in the effort to help Amanda reclaim her life. And while still hesitant, Amanda knew she had to start somewhere.

“I’m not really sure,” Amanda answered honestly, but before she could elaborate, the wind picked up and was accompanied by a clap of thunder.

“I’m thinking it’s time to get off this beach,” Gertie said while beginning to slowly rise. “Can I interest you in waiting out this storm over some coffee?”

Amanda jumped up and reached out to offer the older woman a hand.

“These old bones just aren’t what they used to be,” Gertie said into the now-howling wind and accepting the help. “Come on, I’m close by.”

Together Amanda, Gertie, and Bingo the dog walked the short distance to Gertie’s house, four houses away from where Amanda was staying. The rain began to fall but none of them rushed. Gertie even turned her face up to it, enjoying the feel of it. Amanda found herself doing the same, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt herself breaking away from the grip of self-loathing. She needed one more round of tears and the rain provided them.

Gertie’s house was cute and eclectically cheery, a small boxlike ranch. The closer they got, wind chimes hanging from the back porch clamored in the now-gusting wind and teeming rain. Gertie opened the unlocked door and invited Amanda in while she stayed behind to quickly towel off Bingo.

Once inside, Amanda was greeted by the scent of patchouli. The kitchen windowsill supported a planter of herbs—basil, dill, cilantro, and thyme. Seeing them reminded her of just how long it’d been since she thought about cooking. Plaques hung on the walls with sayings that read HAPPINESS IS AN INSIDE JOB and OF ALL THE THINGS I’VE LOST, I MISS MY MIND THE MOST.

The living room managed to look cozy despite the house’s open floor plan. There was an abundance of candles in all shapes and sizes in jars and holders. There were figurines of angels and Buddhas. Books were neatly stacked near a wing chair. Planters sat near or were hung from windows, beads dangling from them. Incense burners rested on the coffee table. Amanda smiled. She had been sent an intrinsic hippie.

And then Amanda began to frown. In the corner of the living room was a television. The all-too-familiar feeling of anxiety began to nudge her again. She wondered if there was any possible way to casually go and feel if it was still warm from recently being used.

Stop it, Amanda reprimanded herself, the woman has a television. Big deal, she says she doesn’t watch it.

“Coffee’s on,” Gertie said from behind her and Amanda jerked. She had removed her hat. Her face was weathered from years of sun and had lots of laugh lines. Her forehead furrowed when she exclaimed, “Where are my manners? You look soaked to the skin. Let me get you a towel.”

Amanda sat down at the kitchen table, comfortable with the distance between herself and the television. She took a deep breath, and whether it was because of the environment or sheer mental exhaustion, it worked. By the time Gertie returned and she dried off, Amanda felt a serenity that had been inaccessible since that fateful day when she picked up the phone and it had all come crashing down around her.

“You know,” Gertie said as she moved about the kitchen, “I’ve seen you for days sitting and staring off at the ocean. If you don’t mind my saying so, people who spend that much time alone on a beach usually have a lot on their mind. I just thought maybe you’d enjoy a little break in your routine.”

Amanda could almost feel another cosmic wheel turning. There wasn’t any point in lying, especially if this lady was the answer to the prayer.

“I just broke up with my boyfriend,” Amanda said, satisfied with the white lie.

“Sorry to hear that. Slacker?”

“No!” Amanda was quick to defend Chase, then caught herself. “It’s complicated.”

“Men usually are.” Gertie laughed. “How do you take your coffee?”

They sat at the kitchen table for most of the afternoon as the storm raged outside. Over coffee and then lunch, Amanda was introduced to exercises that involved tranquility and little else. Gertie pulled out two miniature Zen “gardens,” which essentially were small boxes of wood with a rim about an inch high. Inside the box was finely grained white sand, a few highly polished stones. Each garden also had a tiny rake made out of thin, tightly woven bamboo. They puttered around with the rakes in the sand intermittently while making chitchat about nothing in particular. It was pacifying to delicately drag the bamboo claws through the sand, make designs around the stones. The stones were polished so smooth that no grains would stick to them. She’d stop for a while but it was impossible to not take it up again. Amanda soon felt comfortable enough to talk about the restaurant, and it segued quickly to cooking. Gertie didn’t probe and focused instead on broader topics. She admitted to not owning a computer, but she did have an iPad she rarely used and an old-style flip cell phone.

“Gotta keep up with the times,” Gertie said.

She was laid-back and nonjudgmental on most subjects, something she credited to her tenure as a nurse and to seeing firsthand just what a miracle life was. As the afternoon wore on and they tended their little gardens, Amanda felt all her angst dissipating. Enough to consider opening up a bit more, maybe even confide in this total stranger with kind eyes and a peaceful soul.

“I miss the boyfriend a lot,” Amanda said sadly, testing the parameter of the subject, “It’s mostly my fault.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Gertie replied easily. “It usually takes two to tango. And if you miss him, why don’t you just call him, extend the olive branch?”

“It’s not that easy,” Amanda said. “There’s a story behind it.”

“We all have a story,” Gertie pointed out. “What we don’t have is limitless time. Seems a bit pointless to make a decision and then spend the rest of your life second-guessing it. It sounds like this relationship has really put a damper on your chi.”

Amanda knew what chi is. According to Taoism and the other Chinese thought, chi is the vital force is believed to be inherent in all things. It is the balance of positive and negative energies in the body. It was that knowledge that lent itself to Amanda’s conclusion that every time she tried to venture away from hers, catastrophes were likely to follow. To hear Gertie say it made perfect sense.

“I think mine could use a little feng shui,” Amanda admitted.

Gertie studied Amanda for a moment before announcing, “You know what you need?”

Amanda grimaced uncomfortably. That particular question was one Chase had asked her playfully a hundred times. The answer to it was exactly what had landed her where she currently found herself.

“What?”

Gertie was already reaching for the nearby phone, mounted old-school to the wall. “Drum circle.”

GERTIE TOOK AMANDA inland to the house of friends. There Amanda was introduced to three women and one man. Their ages varied, but Amanda guessed the youngest to be about fifty. Like Gertie, they were all mellow and easygoing, dressed casually and comfortably. The hostess led them to a windowed sunporch in the back of her house. Fold-out chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. Along the wall were a dozen drums of various shapes and sizes. There were big freestanding drums and smaller handheld bongos. Everyone picked out a drum and moved to a chair. Amanda chose a medium one.

“What do I do now?” she whispered to Gertie after taking the seat next to her.

“You play your drum.” Gertie smiled at her, saying nothing more.

Amanda hesitated, lightly running her fingers over the skin on the top of the bongo that was wedged between her legs. The other members of the circle began to play their drums while she watched for a minute. Some held their drums differently, like under their arm. One drum was big enough to sit on the floor independently. Some members closed their eyes while others seemed to enter into a trance, staring off into space. All were unconcerned about the others in the room. Amanda tentatively tapped her drum.