Beachmakers

“Take me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. You know that.”

“Have you ever been to the beach?”

“Yes.” Catherine lied effortlessly.

Delanie giggled. “Liar.” she accused in a whisper out the side of her mouth.

“No! On the plane.” Catherine insisted heatedly.

“Seeing the ocean isn’t the same as standing there.”

“Tell me why. Take me to the beach.” Catherine’s voice settled back to its customary melody.

Delanie turned round and lay down on her twin bed, head at the foot. Catherine followed suit on her own bed. Situated thusly, their heads were only a yard apart. It was a scene they’d perfected in the 10 years they’d shared the room.

“Close your eyes.” Delanie instructed. Catherine did so, banishing the tedium of their ceiling from her worldview.

“So, you’re standing there. And it feels like the whole world is in front of you, and you’re in it. You breathing in the salty air and letting it back out makes you part of it all. And there are two expanses of blue, the one on your level and the one above. And they each have some bits of white, the abstract puffs of clouds in the sky and the angular ridges where the waves crest.” Delanie was snapped from her reverie by the resounding knock at the door. “And then the storm comes.”

Delanie’s addendum sat there, impressively intuitive. As always, it seemed as though the door swung open before the last rat-a-tat-tat had reached their eardrums. “3 PM bed check.” Miss Arnold’s voice was a grating intrusion. Their cringes were kept respectfully internal. “Eyes open, ladies.”

Each woman opened her eyes. Miss Arnold’s face hovered above them, somehow also an intrusion, a garish invasion on the ceiling both were inexpressibly tired of.

The first of every month they did a deep clean of their shared dorm room. Therefore, the last of the month, they’d lay for hours and count the specks of dust and dirt up there. They had an agreement not to count them prior thereto. But Delanie always cheated.

Miss Arnold blinked at Delanie’s dark eyes a couple times in that way she had of turning sticky despair bland. Miss Arnold quickly shifted her gaze to Catherine, whose gray eyes were shiny, reflective of their imaginary beach. “Have you done your chores today?”

“Of course.” Delanie assured with practiced confidence.

“That’s funny.” Miss Arnold observed without an ounce of levity. “I was in my office all morning, and I didn’t see either of you enter the antechamber, which you were assigned to dust.”

“Right.” inserted Catherine. “We did the drawing room floor this morning. We were just about to get to the dusting.”

“Of course.” Miss Arnold allowed, her smile giving the lower half of her face a sheen of cordiality. “Dinner’s at 7.” she reminded as she breezed out.

Delanie flopped her pillow over her face but didn’t bother to scream into it. “Come on.” Catherine encouraged lightly as she rolled into a standing position. “She starts her rounds with us. If we get lucky, we’ll be done cleaning by the time she shows back up at her office.” Delanie groaned, the sound muffled by the pillow.

The room leading to Miss Arnold’s office was too large for its purpose. Delanie had many a time harrumphed and bemoaned that neither it nor the office served a purpose whatever, let alone now. The inhabitants of the 'school' avoided it not only due to its proximity to Miss Arnold. It also had an eerie chill. The girls who were still school-aged had taken to telling ghost stories about it. Most of the older ones preferred to wistfully remember their own impressions of the out-of-doors, except Delanie and Catherine.

This was why the chores list was consistently rearranged to send the pair to the less used outskirt rooms, those closest to the perimeter, especially the dreaded antechamber. Catherine genuinely enjoyed the domed skylight. She’d stand there with her feather duster or mop and bask in the natural light. She imagined it sanitizing the past. If there was going to be a start, hers would be clean.

Delanie characteristically took a more morbid approach. The high window was the only one not boarded up. She wanted to be there when it cracked.

Task-oriented and incapable of slowing down, Delanie got to work on the slightly dusty fixtures. When done, Delanie tried to skid to a stop to be side-by-side with Catherine. Instead, she bowled into her and knocked her over like a pin. Their surprised laughter split the foggy silence like the sweep of a lighthouse’s beacon.

“Is that an ocean blue?” Catherine asked, still out of breath from the giggling.

“No. I haven’t seen the sky go good blue since before the freeze over.” Delanie responded with a cursory glance upwards.

Miss Arnold cut in, as was her habit, perhaps particular talent. “Nice work, Delanie.” she said, knowingly begrudging that Delanie, the moodier of the pair, was the hardest worker. Miss Arnold didn’t look up, even though Catherine’s neck was still craned.

***

Dinner was bone broth and dry toast, again. The bread was a sourdough whose starter infamously contained Rosemary’s blood, sweat, and tears. Rosemary was quiet and dedicated. Miss Arnold’s favorite, she had a single room next door to her year-mates, Catherine and Delanie. Throughout their six shared school years, each side had contributed to a studious rivalry. In the subsequent years, it had simmered down to a stale hatred.

Delanie’s face was stuck in a painful wince listening to the younger group prattle on. She hated that they were still engaging in classes. Except for social studies, at least Miss Arnold had the common sense to see that was moot.

“Did you hear the big news?” Sondra asked furtively, her eyes half sliding to Miss Arnold, who was distracted by some commentary from Rosemary. Sondra had ‘graduated’ the year previous. Delanie, however, had long concluded that, in their stasis, adulthood was far from an achievement. “Jenny heard from family.” Sondra added, voice soapy, vicariously fulfilled.

Delanie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion and interest. Sondra nudged Jenny, who blushed. “They tried to video call while I was in class, my parents. The connection was bad, but I saw them. Well, pixelated.”

“That’s nice for you.” Catherine acknowledged politely.

“Yeah. At least you know you’re not a freeze over orphan.” Even though Delanie said it lightheartedly, it thudded like a gauntlet. Never one to give up, she had to make it worse. “Yet.”

***

They went to bed early. This was Catherine’s preference, though it had not always been. Delanie had stopped measuring her depression by her willingness to sleep. Catherine had long-term tolerated Delanie’s snoring but now found it lucky. She waited until the snores were in full swing to tiptoe out to the hallway.

She made her way, in darkness, to her makeshift studio in the attic. From their sporadic chores, she had surveyed the tarp-covered furniture looking for excess. For some reason she could only guess at, many pieces were covered with a thick, stiff, beige fabric. Each of which were cut and hemmed in very large, identical swaths. So large, most had to be folded over, even when used to protect the velvet couches in the formal drawing room. Thus, every time she needed a new blank slate, she’d sneak to a predetermined item and cut off whichever square or rectangle whose absence would be least noticeable due to the double layering.

Next, she’d stretch and staple it over a board. They had quite the variety of boards in a pile behind the kitchen, in case those over the windows and doors needed replacing. She’d arranged her studio in a back corner, her work scattered in piles atop crates of storage and leaned against walls.

So far, they were experimental gradients, except for her first attempt. That was the only one she’d hung, despite it being so obviously inept. She’d tried to recreate the pear tree in the backyard of her childhood home, from before being sent to the school, from before the freeze over. The pears were too big compared to the branches and leaves. Even so, it was the only rendition of home she had left. She felt strange thinking such a thing. At this point, the school had to be home. No. Delanie was.

She sat on her pillaged ottoman and delved into her medium box. Pens, markers, watercolors, very few acrylics, nail polish, food coloring, the makeup set her mother’d sent back when Christmas presents and mailing packages were real. The majority of the actual paints were nearly empty and all were grossly smudgy, from the grubby hands of the younger ones and their school projects.

She’d pluck a medium from the box and, with a squint, would place it in one of three piles. She ended up with a tiny mound of blues, an even smaller array of yellows to brown, and the rest created a lopsided mess of multi-colored confusion.

She set her biggest prepared canvas against the blank wall. She stared at it, her lips set in a thin, grim line. She closed her eyes. It took a while for the taut lines around her mouth to flatten away. She sighed and popped her eyes back open. The tension had subsided. Her gray eyes now held the glint of resolve. Catherine grabbed a pencil and painstakingly drew a horizontal line through the midpoint of her canvas.

***

As the month waned, the world catapulted into summer. Not that one could tell, even by looking through the skylight. But it meant another halfhearted graduation. Just two this year, Jenny and Andrea. A bitter reminder for Delanie and Catherine, they’d been a similar pair. Though, back then, there’d been something to look forward to. Back then, they’d thought the freeze wouldn’t, couldn’t, last.

The grad party featured a comparative feast of pickle sandwiches and graham crackers with honey and peanut butter. Delanie finished her portion noticeably quick and slipped out. After a reasonable interlude, Catherine followed. Meanwhile, Delanie had trespassed into Miss Arnold’s wine stash in the basement. So Catherine beat her to their room.

Delanie entered with the open bottle and two rainbow plastic kiddy cups. She kicked the door closed behind her. She sloshed the deep crimson into the cups haphazardly. She raised hers. Catherine echoed the movement. “To Miss Arnold’s School for Girls, or should I say, Refuge for Women?”

“I thought you didn’t want to celebrate the graduation anniversary anymore.” noted Catherine.

Delanie downed her wine and refilled. Catherine set hers on a bedside table.

“I’m not celebrating. I’m observing. Fireworks versus a moment of silence.” Delanie said, slyly cavalier.

“Well then. I have… a memorial gift.”

Delanie chuckled sardonically. Its length gave it an edge of delirium. “You make a ‘lil run out to the mall? Or, no, you said memorial. Would that be a jaunt to a funeral parlor? Man, if there was still money to burn, funeral homes would be making a killing.” She started to smirk in fake embarrassment. “Poor choice of words.”

Catherine locked eyes with her until the smirk dissipated. “Close your eyes.” she instructed. Delanie obliged.

Catherine dropped to her knees and drug the art piece from under her bed. She stood, holding it in front of her midsection. She put it back down heavily, leaning it against her legs. She tilted the closest lamp for a better angle. Catherine heaved the panel upwards again, finally finding a comfortable grip to keep it aloft and still for longer than a second. “Okay. Open.”

Delanie’s lashes fluttered in a dramatic acceptance of Catherine’s staged reveal. The look of shock on her face, however, was not contrived. Delanie swallowed in a futile attempt to call back the tears.

It was a beach.