September 2006, Maine

By Hinsley Ford

“Like this old piece of crud is going to work,” Miguel grumbles, strapping the metal detector onto his back for the third time today.

The sea air is cool, so much cooler than we had anticipated. The temperature change from sunny Phoenix to gray-cast Maine was too much for us. That much was obvious when we arrived at the Portland airport yesterday. We immediately bought sweatshirts at the airport gift shop, and Miguel selected a postcard from the spinning rack with a picture of a large, black speckled pot, two blood-red lobsters and a plastic bib. I wondered whom it was meant for but said nothing.

“Just a few minutes, Miguel,” I call out to him as he waddles down the sand, swaying a bit under the clumsy weight of the device. He throws me some sort of hand signal, which is completely unintelligible without my glasses. I pause for a moment, think about running after him, but instead sit back in my chair and close my eyes.

I remember what the guidebook says about Maine beaches – that the sand is so clean, it whistles. I listen. Instead, I hear the seagulls scream overhead. The whole picture is so perfect, it should be on Miguel’s postcard instead of the barbaric cooking scene that called to him from the airport rack.

I smile to myself, enjoying the slow warmth of the sun, the smell of salt air and the sight of the seagulls, wings extended, soaring and gliding through the cool breeze. Just lovely. All is well, I think to myself. Life is pretty good. I look up to see Miguel, resplendent in tomato-red Ralph Lauren swim trunks, his skin already brown, throwing fistfuls of sand skyward, yelling in a hybrid of Spanish and English at the seabirds.

“Will you please shut the hell up?” he screams, squinting at the sky. He darts from side to side in some unusual dance of frustration, aiming the sand from one bird to the next. Comical is the word that comes to mind. I smile to myself, noting that he at least asked the birds nicely, tossing a “please” into the sky like a Frisbee. If nothing else, Miguel is usually polite.

My bathing suit was chosen especially for the cruise we were meant to take one year ago but canceled at the last minute, after weeks of small bickering had escalated into something substantial. I remember the suit costing somewhere around $600; it was a Dior, gilded gold, Summer Collection 2002.

Not surprising that I remember the details. I tell time and pinpoint the past through clothing. Whereas some people smell the rain on a certain day and remember some particular scene from their past, all I have to do is open my closet.

Flannel shirt, L.L.Bean, bought as a Mount Holyoke student in 1990. Wore with jeans, untucked, thinking it struck the perfect balance of New England preppy, timeless classic, and comfortable. I still have the shirt. When I wear it, I find myself daydreaming of days spent in the warm library, days when afternoon turned silently into night. Stepping from the dusty stacks into the silent night air felt like deliverance.

Eighth grade, 1983, worked at Krispy Kreme. Summer of the Loch Ness Monster Speedo. Dated a dishwasher from Oyster Pete’s. Bad summer, bad suit.

I picked this beach as the scene for our interview. The interview is a marital exercise I had read in Vogue the week we married. We had tried it a few times since, but each attempt imploded into a fight. I decided to wait for our vacation, thinking Miguel would be under less stress and more inclined to answer without his guard up.

I stand next to my chair and yell to Miguel in his position near the water. He looks like a boy, all dark curls, red trunks and beach shoes. He wears an uncharacteristic expression of concentration as he navigates the detector like a vacuum cleaner. He scans the sand once, twice … and stops at five. Each sweep is elegant, almost touching the water. In a moment, he heads toward me, scowling, kicking rocks and sand. I start the tape recorder, as the article suggests, and remind myself to remain objective.

Me: Mr. Acosta, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Let’s begin. Do you and your wife have good sex?

Miguel: I wouldn’t know.

Me: Why not?

Miguel: My wife, she doesn’t have … sex. It always has to be … larger.

Me: What does your wife look like?

Miguel: Muy lindo. Pretty. Hair is dark and slips through my fingers. Eyes round and gold, like an owl’s. Like my mother’s.

When Miguel and I married, Miguel’s mother wouldn’t come to the wedding. She wanted him to marry a Mexican girl. We got married in a small chapel on Santos Street in San Jose. I remember crosses being everywhere, crosses made from wood – raw, splintered-looking. We dined on nothing but rice and tortillas for days, making love at each position of the sun. The phone rang and rang for days, unanswered. Broke, we moved to the States a week later so I could return to my job.

Me: Do you still love your wife, Mr. Acosta?

Miguel: Yes. Though what she has done is not … the best for her. But love, yes. I do.

Me: Explain.

Miguel: Falling in love with a … alien is not smart. Marrying a … alien is … really not smart.

Me: I assume your English is much improved, Mr. Acosta, since living in the States. Why do you speak Spanish still?

Miguel: Because my wife does not always understand me.

The ocean is coming in, turning its tide, and Miguel shifts his position on the sand. He wipes the sand from his legs with a look of disgust.

Me: Who is Celina, Mr. Acosta?

Miguel: She is a girl. A young girl. Miriam, why do you ask such questions?

Me: Are you in love with this young girl?

Miguel: No … yes, I feel sorrow for her … yes. She, too, is away from Mexico, and she is so … alone. But I love my wife also.

Me: So you want everything, Mr. Acosta?

Miguel: I want … time. I don’t want change now. Soy casado. I’m married.

There is not much I can think to say. I can barely breathe. The fact that my husband is foreign makes this more difficult, and I almost laugh when I think about writing to the editor of Vogue. I imagine writing, “Dear Sirs: Can I apply this American solution to a Mexican-American problem? Our conversations are difficult, often without a meaning that makes sense to either of us.”

Instead, I stammer, “Why are you doing this to me, Miguel? What are you doing to us?”

He smiles, and his eyes glimmer. “I’m doing nothing to you, Madam Reporter. I’m doing something to my wife, who is not you.”

I stop the tape and hear it click to a close. No matter how many articles you read, you’re never quite ready. Never ready to admit that you’ve been denied exclusive membership to your spouse’s body. Miguel looks toward the water, and I nod to the detector. I wonder how it works, exactly – how it finds treasure underground. How far down can what is precious be buried before it is unable to be found?

Miguel kisses me and again begins to struggle with the straps as he stands up. He walks away, looking eager, pleased. I spot an oyster shell on the sand, just to my left. It is weathered, open. Once, I think, the oyster took in the imperfect and made a pearl of it. She birthed day after day, relentless. The Oyster Queen, with her seaweed hair and a crown carved from a shell, strung a kingdom together with strands of floating pearls.

I suddenly hear a beeping noise, along the rocks, near the water. I think of the gulls and the sand, and then I look at Miguel. I watch him pumping a fist into the air, his bronzed back beautiful. He gets down on his knees, digging wildly in the sand, laughing. The sky and water rolls and glistens, celebrating with him.

I think about what needs to be done. From the sea, strings of laughter echo across the surface, sinking clumsily like anchors, floating gracefully like pearls.

Hinsley Ford, a 36-year-old living in Maine, loves to write but rarely does – and the reason for this tugs at her daily. She thinks it’s fear and self-doubt but hopes to rise above it all. She spent most of her childhood living in an oxygen tent and is currently attempting to write a very funny, and perhaps inspirational, story. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, May 25th, 2007 | Email This Post

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