Sand Castle Sandy

He chuckled and looked around as if he didn't want to be overheard, "Substructure. I bought a welder and took a class on how to use it over the winter."

"Is that even legal?"

He gave me a beaming, heart melting smile, "Now why would I give two shits over that?"

*

The siege was underway and the castle's defenses were holding. The queen within would go unharmed as the battle raged. The attacking army had brought out all their mobile weaponry, but their trebuchets were burning. Thanks to the squadron of small-ish dragons that were dedicated to defending the queen, they were situated around the abutments of the castle walls, looking out for any more attacks.

I was using the Queen of Diamonds to carve the fine details in the flames, trying to produce an illusion of motion, something I had never carved before and wasn't sure would work out, but I kind of liked the way it did. Something about San Diego, my castles came to me a little easier and I always felt a little better than usual when I was here. Probably because it was geographically as far away from Santa Cruz that I would get all summer.

I took a little break, trying to shake and rub the kink out of my leg from kneeling for so long when I looked over at Rick's progress. He was seriously in the zone, but I marveled at how far he had come so soon. He had moved an enormous amount of sand, and he was working all by himself. He had all these funky tools that looked homemade, but whatever he was using, it really worked.

I found myself frequently looking over at his progress throughout the day. He never caught me looking, but I wasn't exactly trying to hide my interest either. He did come over and check on my castle at one point and gave me a compliment and further encouragement.

While I had his attention, I asked, "Can we talk later? I really need to talk to you."

He looked immediately uncomfortable. "Uh, sure." He took a few steps towards his station and made a swift U-turn back. "What about now? I was going to get a hot dog at the end of the pier, have you eaten?"

Now it was my turn to be uncomfortable, I wasn't sure I was ready yet, but might as well get it over with.

As we walked to the end of the pier together, he further took me off kilter by starting right off with an abrupt and hurried, "I don't drink anymore."

"Oh?" I glanced at him, "So that's a good thing then?"

He sighed, "I was never a big drinker anyway. I liked to have a few beers now and again, but never the hard stuff. When I woke up in a strange RV last year and my head felt like it had been run over by a truck, that was a major eye opener. The booze wasn't really working anyway. Vickie, my wife, was still not with me whenever I sobered up."

I just nodded in understanding. I gathered some courage, "Look. Rick. What I wanted to say is that..."

He cut me off, "I'm not going to let you pay me back, so you can stop right there."

Unsure how he knew what I had been about to say, I sputtered, "I have to. If I had known you were going to drop a grand for sleeping in my musty convertible bed, then I would have walked you to the Hilton and gotten you a suite for half that."

I glanced at him, taking care not to stumble on the pier while we walked. He said, "Not going to happen."

"Rick, I mean it. You have to let me pay you back."

He stopped walking and then stopped me with a hand to my shoulder, turning me to face him. "This is what you're going to do. A little at a time, in affordable chunks, you are going to pay it forward." I tried to protest but he tutted me quiet. "Your act of kindness was just what I needed last year, and I had a hole in my pocket anyway. I've been lucky, I've had some very good people in my life who themselves paid it forward, to my benefit, and now I'd like you to do the same."

I looked hard at him. He wore the powerful face of a man that was used to getting what he wanted. I shuddered at it knowing any further protest would be in vain, I just knew it.

His face softened and he smiled when he saw the fight in me evaporate. He gave me that kind look he sometimes has, "Maggie said you told her it was a financial struggle for you to spend your summers the way you do, but it was important to your health. She didn't say why. Paying me back would have put a serious dent into your plans, so hopefully this gives you a little more breathing room." He was right, of course.

We resumed walking in silence and we got our hot dog. It was obscenely good, and one was enough given that it was huge. I was going to remember that this place was here for next year. I was enjoying it too much because I let my guard down.

In between bites, he asked me, "What or who are you running away from, Sandy?"

I didn't bother hiding my crazy this time and responded honestly, "Me."

*

That first day I got a lot done, laid down a lot of sand, only this castle was ambitious. I had a lot of work still ahead of me for the next day, the final carving day before the weekend. I looked over at Rick's, and he had the body fleshed out, ew, bad pun, but had the face completely detailed and it was a marvel to look at. It was also very tall. So much so that even with Rick's over-6' frame, he needed a stool to reach the top of the sculpture's head.

I followed my routine after my body told me to stop for the day. Dropped my tools off, lost my cutoffs, and showered. Only this evening, some pervert was hanging around the showers and I had to do a lot of moving around to keep him from scoring a full-blown peep show. After a sandwich, a stroll down the beach, and some wave therapy, I found myself on the pier after dark. Once again, Rick's wife, who I now know as Vickie, compelled me to find Rick, and I found him seated in front of her.

Only this time he was stone cold sober. If he had been having conversations with her, I didn't hear anything, but after what he said next, I couldn't be sure of anything. He motioned me to sit next to him and said, "I think Vickie is glad you are here."

I sat down on the sandy pier boards, only not too close to him, and looked up at her. Damn, he is good at this. At least by sitting on my butt, she was looking over my head, so tonight her eyes wouldn't convince me to do anything stupid.

In a voice that was calm, but also cautious, he asked, "Sandy, we're friends, right?"

In surprise, I responded stupidly, "Um, yeah." I mean, not really, but what was I supposed to say?

"Then would you tell me your story? Why are you running away from you?"

I didn't respond, just sat there and waged a mental tangle in my mind to make sense of it. The good Sir Rick of the Order of the Sand had just addressed the commoner and she wisely looked away. She was not worthy of being even in his proximity. She should leave.

I got up to go and he asked me not to.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I'm sorry if you think that. Only we're friends now, and I'm a good listener. It might help to talk to me."

"Why do you think I need help?" I asked under my breath.

"Everybody needs help now and again."

"You think we're friends, but we shouldn't be. If you knew me. The real me. You wouldn't like me. Shouldn't like me. I'm kind of a nutjob."

"You think you're a nutjob?! I build sand sculptures of my late wife so I have someone to talk to. I think I take the crazy cake."

That actually made me smile. I sat back down.

I thought about it, and then I did. I told him everything, from my childhood, my dad dying, meeting my husband and how I couldn't satisfy him and ruined the marriage which further made my mother more disappointed in me, to my sister saving my life. I didn't even leave out the sex and unfaithfulness. There was just so much to run away from.

He had turned to me by the time I finished. His knees were pulled up as he sat on the pier, his elbows on his knees with hand palms up, absentmindedly passing little piles of sand from palm to palm.

I couldn't look at him now. With tears in my eyes, I just said, "See. I told you."

"Oh, Sandy," he said to me in a kind voice. "I'm so sorry you had to go through all that."

He paused and then went on, "I heard everything you said, only I don't think it happened the way you said it."

Then he did what my sister always does. He misunderstood everything, twisting my words around to an obscene version, making me a little sick. "You had a good childhood, and great memories of your father. When he passed away you were crushed. Anybody would be. Then you met your future husband and he was a real charmer, only he was just getting started with the power of using it. After you were married, he abused you."

"No," I protested, "he never hit me."

Rick corrected himself, "I understand, but he clearly mentally abused you. Any self-esteem you had, he sucked it dry like the maggot he is. To the point that he blatantly cheated on you, even telling you about the women he was sleeping with and blaming you for it. Which you accepted to be true, believing that because of your shortcomings, which was all pure bullshit anyway, he made you believe you drove him to that behavior."

"No. You didn't hear anything I said." I whimpered, unable to look at him.

"It's OK, calm down," he tried to sooth me. "Only there is no way in hell that you are anything like who you described. You are too good of a person to have deserved the poison he was feeding you with just pure meanness."

I put everything he said out of my mind. My brain was too occupied with that final night, one I didn't tell Rick about. I had been watching something stupid on TV when my husband came home, late as usual. Only this time was different. Sure, he stank of whiskey and cigarettes like he usually did, but a woman was with him. He brought her into our house?! He guided her to our bedroom, giving me a smirk as he did so. There had been countless trysts that he boasted to me about after dragging his ass home the morning after, this time he took her to our very bed, with me on the other side of the door. I couldn't find enough courage to bang on the door and scream at him, but I had just enough to call my sister.

We were both broken out of our introspection when a woman's voice called out for Rick from the beach. With a curious expression, Rick went to the pier railing and looked over, with me following but out of view.

"Oh! Hello Hannah, Brett," he shouted down. "What are you two doing here?"

"We were hoping we'd find you here. We've looked everywhere else," the woman shouted back. "I can see my sand sister from here, but security won't let me get a closer look, they won't let me on the pier."

Rick seemed lost at responding in any way. He looked like a little boy that faced his teacher and had forgotten to do his homework.

"Can you come down?" She asked. "Let's go get a drink."

"OK, I'll be right there."

He looked at me and put his hands on my shoulders, gently moving me backwards, further out of view from the beach. His face was desperate.

"That's Vickie's sister," he was pleading, "I hate to ask you this, but please." He was almost gasping. "Will you come with me?! Will you not leave me alone with her?!"

Something compelled me to look at his sculpture and her eyes did it to me again.

*

Across from the beach there's this cantina that I had never been to but I always thought it looked cute from the outside. The four of us sat at a pub table on their patio bar, Hannah and I each peering over our enormous margaritas that were probably just slightly smaller than the sand buckets I use in the competition. There was no use trying to pick the glass up to bring to my lips without losing it all into my lap, so I just craned my neck and sucked through the straw. Brett, who I learned was Hannah's husband, had a beer after poking a lime slice into it, while Rick had a scotch and soda, which I learned later was really just ginger ale over ice.

Hannah and I awkwardly gazed at one another. I was getting to grips with how much she looked like her sister while she studied me, probably wondering who the fuck I was and why I was here with Rick. I kind of just shuddered and went back to paying attention to my drink.

"Damn, Rick. I can't believe how good you are at that," said Brett, referring to Rick's sculpture. Earlier, after introductions, Rick and I had lent our credentials to the couple at the pier so they could get a preview before we made our way to the cantina.

Hannah agreed, "It's haunting, actually."

I looked over at Rick who was also studying his drink with great interest. Then I understood his anxiety from earlier, he had trouble looking at his sister-in-law. I recognized what Brett did then, trying to lighten the mood that looked like it was going off the rails. He brought up all kinds of funny stories about their past hijinks until I put two and two together, Brett and Rick had been close friends and had met Hannah and Vickie through one or another and all four had been super close.

Hannah decided she just had enough and put an end to her husband's antics, turning the table into a confrontational pity party that I had a front row seat for. "Rick. It's been over a year now. We miss you. I miss her too, you know. Vick left such a hole in my heart that I feel it every single day and it will never be completely healed, but the way you cut us out of your life after that... that hurts too. I promised Vick we'd check in on you but you went off the grid, just like she thought you would. Where are you even living now?"

Rick didn't answer, just kind of shrugging his shoulders. Hannah sighed and spoke barely over the volume of the music in the cantina, "Look at me." Rick hesitated, Hannah lashed out, "Dammit. LOOK AT ME!"

He sucked it up and looked at Hannah finally. She took a calming breath before, "She loved you. More than anything in the world and I know how much you loved her too. I couldn't manage my grief if I didn't have Brett, but you're trying to do it alone and it doesn't have to be this way. And I know my sister would be fucking pissed at you for it. And you know it too."

Rick pursed his lips so tightly they turned white and he started to visibly shake. His fists were balled up so tightly the veins in his forearms bulged. He was trying so hard not to cry that I thought he might explode. Brett put his hand out on Rick's shoulder in an act of reassurance.

My heart broke in a million pieces.

Only, shit, I got it. Hannah was right in that grieving together would add another pillar for them all to lean onto, but I could see the other side too. Brett and Hannah were still a couple, Rick was not, and it would be a constant reminder.

I remembered Rick begging me to not be left alone with Hannah, and I now fully understood. Even though we were all sitting together and he was not alone with her, I had failed Rick and knew I had to do something.

I cut through the tension and got everyone's attention. "Tell me about her," I asked. I got a glare from just about everyone that read, "who the fuck are you," but I knew it was what they needed. "I didn't know Vickie. You all did. From the sounds of it, she was an extraordinary person. I'd like to know what she was like. Tell me about her."

And they did. And it was cathartic. For all of them. Almost instantly. Some of the stories brought memories up that came with some laughs but it was mostly just an outpouring of pure love. There were also some tears, some even my own.

After that, things kind of got fuzzy.

*

The situation was dire. My knight, Sir Rick of the Order of the Sand was wounded. Leaning against the parapet, sliding down the stone until his legs were before him on the ground. He was wounded at my expense, he valiantly fought and slew the evil king to protect me, but with the king's very last dying breath, struck my knight with his sword. Sir Rick, who only moments before had landed the fatal blow to the king, standing strong and courageous while doing so, now looked frail and vulnerable. Covered in both of our blood. I cried out to him in a scream.

I shook violently as I was awakened. "Hey! Hey! it's OK." It was Rick, and his face was close to mine, awash with concern. I was on my bed in the RV, fully clothed.

I spotted one of my sand buckets next to the bed and then had a fuzzy vague memory of Rick asking me if I was going to puke, and him leaving the bucket near the bed in case I had to. It was also at that moment that my head throbbed and hurt like hell. I groaned.

"Whew," Rick smiled, looking relieved. "You're OK. Gave me quite a scare when you shrieked." He got up and poured me a coffee from my machine.

I rubbed my temples, wondering what had happened. He said, "That was really weird, I was just about to wake you before that little shock to the system you gave me." I sat up in bed and after handing me a bottle of water that he directed me to drink all of, he brought me the coffee and then sat down in front of his own cup at the dinette.

"What time is it?" I asked him.

"Ten," he replied. "That's why I was going to wake you."

"Oh, no," I groaned.

He knew why, too. "Don't worry about it. I wanted you to sleep off last night as much as possible, you needed it. I know you don't have your assistant today, so I will help you finish your sand castle. We'll get it done. Do you have any aspirin in this RV?"

I nodded, "What happened?" I asked, only I didn't really need to. I got shitfaced on tequila and knew it.

"You don't normally drink much, do you?" He asked.

"Almost never."

"Well, you did last night," he confirmed. "I'm sorry about it too, I should have seen the signs, but like a light switch was thrown, you went from perfectly normal to bombed."

"How badly did I embarrass myself?" I asked.

"You didn't. You are actually a cute drunk. And Hannah overdid it too, you both went over your limits at the exact same minute. And before you go there, I did spend the night. Again. In the same spot as last year, only I cleaned up after myself this time and put the table back up."

He took the last couple of sips of his coffee in silence and then he got up. With a smile, he said, "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to bring our tools to the pier and get us set up for a long day of detail work. You get up, brush your teeth and hair, and get yourself together and meet me there. I'll have another coffee and a croissant waiting for you."

After he left, I had a lot to think about while I got my shit together, but they came in a series of flashes. Almost like I was watching the events transpire outside of my body.

In one of those flashes, Rick had gotten up from the table in the cantina and apologized to his friends for his standoffish behavior and they embraced in a tight and lingering group hug. I remember feeling touched by it. In another flash, Rick was guiding me back to the RV while I ran off my stupid mouth, telling him how handsome he is. In another flash, I told him something like that I wished I had had what Vickie had had and not what I got. Oh, god.

*

The dragons remained vigilant, watching for any more attacks while the queen took stock of the damage from the first wave of the assault. Wait. No. The siege was underway and the dragons... they... they... fuck. No. The queen. She was... was... no, it was the knight. The knight gathered his forces and... fuck!

"Sandy." It was Rick. He stood over me, taking the cap off a bottle of orange juice covered in condensation, and held it out to me. He softly asked that I drink from it and take a break.

"Thanks," I told him. I really felt like shit.

"I know you feel like shit," he stated knowingly. "I'm a little worried. You are shaking and sweating buckets. Which is good for shaping sand, but not for carving details. Why don't you move over to finalize shaping the main castle towers until you feel a little better."