Bones

Page 394

392 He passed people on towels and blankets who stared at him through their dark glasses. Down by an outcropping of rocks where the sand flattened out some small children were chasing seagulls into the surf and running back as the line of foam snaked up the shining sand behind them. He had to watch his feet because they followed the tilt of the ground, which changed every few steps, and if he didn't keep control they were going to carry him across somebody's blanket, but the sand kept swallowing them and he couldn't always see where they were. He passed a girl in a lavender bikini spreading zinc oxide on her mouth and squinting into a compact. She didn't look up, and he felt himself getting smaller in her mirror as he left her behind. His face felt hot, and he guessed he must look distracted. He tried to look as though he had an urgent appointment and wasn't sure he could make it, and even glanced once at his watch before he remembered he wasn't wearing it. His fatigue shirt had turned dark where it clung to his chest and ribs, and he felt sweat running down the inside of his arms. He knew that as soon as he got to the pier he was going to turn around and stumble back the way he had come, and the same people were going to stare at him again and wonder what was wrong with him. He was keeping pace, at least, with whatever was careening around his head-phantoms, rogue platelets-and as long as he did that it would not break through and dump him in a heap over the shaft of somebody's beach umbrella while he floated off to one side to watch the crowd gather. His legs were quivering by the time he reached the stairs that scaled the bluff to the pier, and sand had climbed under his levis and itched the backs of his knees. On an impulse he climbed the stairs instead of turning around and going back. He would not be a spectacle if he could help it. He could hear the mechanical band in the carousel playing "Eleanor Rigby"