A Day at the Beach
Lorraine Comanor
Word Count 931
We were starting the moat on our sand castle when Laurence announced she was hot and was going for a swim.
"Mom said we couldn't," I reminded her.
Wanting to run errands between our practice sessions at the rink, Mother had dropped us three skaters at Nahant Beach an hour earlier with one admonition: under no circumstances were we to go in the water. Hurricane Diane had roared through New England two days earlier, and rip current warnings were posted.
Ignoring our warning, budding poet Laurence, noting the waves beckoned "like a siren," slipped off her shoes and ran into the ocean. Lynn and I continued digging our trench, keeping an eye on her bobbing head until we realized we were tracking the wrong one. Laurence was nowhere in sight.
We walked the mile-long beach, scanning the surf, eventually coming back to our castle, convinced she'd show up eventually. But she did not. "Where's Laurence?" Mother demanded when she returned. "Didn't I say no swimming?"
She circled our castle counterclockwise, trying to rewind time. Our stomachs somersaulted as we imagined the current sweeping Laurence out to sea.
Finally, Mother stopped circling and speed-walked toward the Coast Guard tower — Lynn and I struggling to keep up — pausing only to describe an eleven-year-old with French braids to any passersby. At the station, she filled out a missing persons report, mumbling about kids who disobey. We combed the beach again. The August sun created tiny mirrors on the waves, hot flashes of light that burned our eyes, forcing us to squint at the chopper hovering above the surf and the amphibious duck dragging the ocean floor. Hours passed. The blazing sun melted into the sea, and the chopper and duck went home, leaving us with our ragged thoughts, interrupted only by the sirens of the arriving police.
"You argued with her, didn't you?" The six-foot cop with pocked cheeks leaned so close that I stumbled backward over the sand castle and Laurence's shoes, damp now from the incoming tide. "That's why she went into the water, wasn't it?"
Mother stood between us, shaking her fist. "You leave those girls alone. Laurence was their friend."
Laurence never saw us frantically canvassing the beach, or the chopper flying low over the waves, the amphibious duck scraping the ocean floor, or Mother catatonic in the parking lot. She didn't hear the police accusing us of fighting with her, sending her into the waves. She didn't remember the rip current warning,
Mother's admonition to stay out of the ocean, as she tried to reach the ribbon of flat, foamy water between the high-breaking waves, unaware that this is the gasp, the rip tide that will pull her out to sea, woosh her past a fusion of waves and sand at eight feet per second, a scarier ride than Disney ever imagined,
until she reached its head, where the water opened like a fan, gradually losing its velocity, until it spits her out within reach of a deserted shore and a long walk back to where Mother left us off.
In the meantime, Mother is rooted to the parking lot pavement, which has buckled in the August heat. She lifts the car door handle, then releases it, perhaps thinking if we remain, Laurence will reappear — unlikely, as Laurence has been gone over five hours. If she opens it, she'll have to get in the car, drive back to the rink, and face Big Maribel, Laurence's scary mother, who'll be angry that Laurence has missed practice. Probably she knows if she'd stayed with us instead of running errands, Laurence wouldn't have rushed into the waves, and we wouldn't be in this pickle now.
"I can't tell Big Maribel I've lost Laurence," she says to the air, sweat dripping off her forehead. "I just can't." We should get her some water, but we don't want to think about water. It's kind of repulsive. So, we just stand there, not asking when she's taking us back to the rink — practice is already over — until a puddle appears far up the road — maybe a mirage from the setting sun hitting the pavement — and we start running because we have no idea how to deal with Mother or with what's happened. Before long, the puddle dries up, and a limping figure comes into view. Can't be Laurence, because Laurence wouldn't walk over the hot gravel strip in bare feet. But the person looks like a girl, and Laurence left her shoes on the beach.
"Where have you been?" we shout. "We've been looking for you for hours." We hug her and, fighting back tears, she leans on us to hobble back to the car, where Mother pummels her within an inch of her life before the two break down sobbing.
At practice the next day, Lynn and I watch as Laurence, comb in hand, climbs to the top of the bleachers where Mother is perched. "I apologize for disobeying; I was hot, but could you possibly redo my French braids? They're a wee bit waterlogged," she asks. Last week, Mother teased out mini ones after Big Maribel took a bowl to Laurence's head.
Mother nods. "Yesterday was the worst day of my life, but I'm sorry I got so angry."
"That was nothing compared to the wrath of my mother," the skating-poet replies, as Mother untangles a section of her matted hair.
Postscript: Five years later, we lost Laurence for good when Sabena Flight 548 crashed into a Belgian chicory field, killing all 72 people on board, including the entire U.S. skating team.
Lorraine is a former U.S. figure skating champion, U.S. team member, and board-certified anesthesiologist. A graduate of Harvard University, Stanford Medical School, and Bennington Writing Seminars, she is a co-holder of a U.S. medical patent and author/ co-author of 35 medical publications. With notables in 2020 and 2023 Best American Essays, she has three nominations for the Pushcart Prize, one for Bet of the Net, and her personal essays have appeared in the New England Review, Boulevard, New Letters, Joyland, The Rumpus, and Newsweek, among 23 others. Her memoir is forthcoming in 2027 with Legacy Books