Charley trudged up the beach, angling away from the surf, the sand turning lighter until it merged with the shallow, stagnant pools left over from high tide. Patches of saw grass waved at him from the low dunes, and the rising sun warmed his face even as it assaulted his vision. His footsteps found the small path winding up through the low brush, and he climbed up onto the deck of the beach house.
His mind was still occupied as his body went through the motions of opening the door, stepping into the front room, and swinging the door shut behind him as he peeled off his jacket and threw it toward the couch. It was somewhat startling, therefore, when he realized, midthrow, that someone sat on his couch.
“Hey!” Roxy squealed, putting her hands out in front of her to ward off the flying clothing.
“Roxy!” Charley exclaimed, vainly trying to snatch back the jacket that had already left his hands.
Roxy deftly caught it and placed it to one side, laughing as she did so.
“What are you doing here?”
Roxy wrinkled her nose, shrugged, and grinned at him. “Waiting for you. What does it look like?”
Charley frowned, quickly looking to either side as though other surprises might be lurking nearby; then his gaze settled back on her. “Why?”
Her eyes widened and mouth puckered as though seriously contemplating the question. “Why not? The door was unlocked.”
He shook his head. “Why are you here?”
Roxy cocked her head, the smile still glittering in her eyes. She stood, dramatically using her thumb and one finger to drop his jacket on the couch. “Well, it’s certainly not to do your laundry.” She started to brush the wrinkles out of her Capris. “I didn’t have anything to do today and thought I’d come and see if you wanted to go do something.”
Charley had planned on riding down the coast to Winchester Bay to see if the museum there had any information on the wreck of the Nettie Sundberg or Robert Haversham, but now it seemed like maybe that could wait until another day. He shrugged, “Uh, sure. Like what?” He was a little uneasy. He couldn’t help but compare this small, pert, bubbly blonde with Mac, who was taller, had a darker complexion, yet was more reserved. He was never sure if Mac liked him or merely tolerated him. Roxy was so easy to be around and seemed so appealing, yet there was a depth to Mac that seemed to draw him to her. What if Mac walked in right now? How would he react? Imagining such a meeting momentarily occupied the morbid part of Charley’s mind. It was something he would enjoy witnessing but only from a safe distance.
Roxy shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the one who’s supposed to know this area. I was thinking maybe we could go down to that life-saving museum that Adamson fellow was talking about. Or whatever—it’s your call. Show me stuff.” She paused as if for dramatic effect. “I’m all yours.”
“Umm. Okay.” Charley was frantically trying to think on the fly. He also had to go to the bathroom pretty bad from his morning walk on the beach, and that didn’t help him focus either. “It might be a little chilly on the back of my bike.”
“We can take my car,” Roxy countered quickly enough that it was obvious she had already thought through her proposal.
“Oh, uh . . .” He had to think about that for a minute but decided there was no reason they couldn’t. He shrugged. “Sure, that’ll work.” He started moving toward the stairs. “Give me a minute to clean up, and we’ll get out of here.”
Halfway up the stairs, he called back down, “Have you had any breakfast yet?”
“No,” she replied.
He continued climbing. “We’ll have some cereal or something before we head out, then. See what you can find in the kitchen.”
When he came back down ten minutes later, Roxy had poached eggs and toast waiting on the small kitchen table.
“Mmm. Smells good.”
“Thanks.” She sat at the table, looking pleased with herself. “What do you want to drink? You have your choice of milk, juice, or water. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find any coffee or even a coffee maker.”
“Juice will be fine.” Charley pulled out a chair and sat down, realizing for the first time that, yes, those were two things that were missing from the house. “You didn’t find any coffee because I don’t drink coffee.”
“You don’t?” She sounded surprised. “Ever?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
She scrunched up her face as if she was having difficulty coming to grips with such a concept.
“Alcohol either,” he commented as he shoveled breakfast into his mouth.
“Not even beer?”
“Not even at a baseball game.”
She seemed to contemplate that for a moment then rolled her eyes in an exaggerated show of self-deprecation. “Of course. I’d forgotten. It’s the Mormon thing, isn’t it?”
Charley shrugged in acknowledgment and continued to shovel poached egg and toast into his mouth.
“You guys don’t drink some types of soda pop either.” It was a statement rather than a question, an attempt to show she actually knew something about his beliefs.
Charley waved his fork as though it were some form of windshield wiper as he swallowed. “Old wives’ tale. Never trust old wives!” Then, before she could respond, he continued, “There’s no doctrine against soda pop. Whether it’s good for you or not is a personal health issue not a point of doctrine. Just tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee.”
Roxy lowered her chin and stared across the table at him. If she had been wearing glasses, she would have been staring over the top of them. “So do you think I’m sinning when I have a cup of coffee?”
The question didn’t take him by surprise because he had been asked that many times before. “No. At least not in the same sense as if it was me that had a cup of coffee.”
This brought the expected frown of lack of understanding. “What do you mean?”
“It’s the covenant.” He shrugged.
“The covenant?”
“I’ve made a covenant with God not to drink that stuff, so if I do, I would be breaking a covenant with God. So for me, it’s no longer a food issue. It’s a matter of personal integrity. You haven’t made that covenant, so it wouldn’t be the same for you.”
“Then why make the covenant in the first place?”
He took a drink of juice. “Purpose.” He shoveled more toast and egg into his mouth as though that single word explained it all.
“What do you mean, purpose?”
He swallowed, considering his answer. “We—you and I and everybody else—have a purpose in life, a reason for being here.”
“Oregon?”
He grinned, knowing she was purposefully misunderstanding. “Mortality. We can’t fulfill that purpose without making covenants.” He took a final bite of toast and washed it down with the last of his juice.
She held her fork in the air as though to make a point. “So it’s not really about the coffee.”
He gathered her plate and his own as he stood and started toward the sink. “No,” he replied. “It’s about much more than that.”
***
Jack stopped at a Flying J truck stop in Nephi at about eight thirty for a “fluid exchange.” While everyone else entered the store, Mac slipped around the corner near the adjacent Denny’s Restaurant entrance and quickly brought up Charley’s cell phone information in her contacts list. She had to smile as she remembered how Charley had loaded the information without her knowledge as he waited for her to rappel down into the Zion Narrows in an attempt to find and save Peter and her grandfather. She hadn’t even realized it was there until after Charley had returned to Oregon.
She tapped on the number then listened for the expected ringing. The rush of traffic on the nearby freeway made it difficult to hear, so she stood with one hand holding her phone, the other hand plugging her opposite ear. She wondered what Charley would think when he received a call from her. Although the call was making her extremely uncomfortable, her suddenly showing up unexpectedly with all the old people in tow made her even more uncomfortable. She felt the best thing for both of them was to at least warn Charley that they were coming. She was startled when, after only one ring she heard Charley’s voice.
“Hello, this is Charley Sawyer.”
“Uh, Charley, this is Mac,” she stuttered.
But Charley’s voice forged ahead, overriding her stumbling attempt. “Unless you want money; then it’s somebody else.”
Mac realized the phone call had gone directly to voice mail. She waited impatiently while Charley’s recorded greeting finished.
“You’re welcome to leave a message and take the chance that either I, or somebody who doesn’t admit to being Charley, might get back to you. Have a nice day!”
Initially, she was a bit offended by this cavalier greeting but reluctantly admitted to herself that she shouldn’t take it personally and that her grandfather would probably think it was funny. Finally, after just a moment’s hesitation, she decided to leave a message—and more reluctantly decided it needed to be the important information rather than the sassy retort in response to the recorded greeting. Nevertheless, she could not quite resist. “This might be Mac, unless you need money, and then it’s somebody else. And just in case you were hoping it might be somebody else, then this is a warning. Mac was assigned to do a quick research project in Coos Bay. The fearsome foursome decided to come along. This may be a chocolate situation.”
She hung up, pleased with her “coded” message. She knew Charley would understand who she meant by the “fearsome foursome.” And chocolate was a private code word for an emergency.
When she climbed back into the motor home, the conversation seemed to center around what snacks had been purchased and where their route might take them next. No one seemed to have noticed her slipping outside to make a phone call. Bill took over the driving duties for the next two hours, passing through Salt Lake City then west on I-80 until they stopped at a rest area in the Bonneville Salt Flats. Mac got to try driving the fancy rig from there until they stopped once again in Elko, Nevada. She enjoyed the change and simply listening to the buzz of conversation in the seats behind her.