by Samira Shakib-Bregeth
After she got over her second marriage, Nooshin left Georgia and drove through the Emerald Coast, where her two friends, Brit and Shahin, rent out their vacation homes all year—except for the low season in September when the hurricane season peaks—to Apalachicola, Florida. Nooshin wanted fresh oysters from Oyshack. Chris, who she met in college, wrote about the place east of Highway 30A a month before he went to Rome to find himself.
Twenty years ago, instead of marrying Chris out of college, she married his best friend, Jake, now her first ex-husband. Even worse, she didn’t marry Chris when she could have, theoretically anyway. There was that gap between her first and second husband; that could have been a fun time. Chris was always roaming around from place to place, sending her postcards with witty, sometimes suggestive, messages on the back. He was in love with the idea of falling in love, so it never made her feel special enough to have his attention, even though he was great about showering her with it. The night before he was supposed to drive up from Florida to see her, he had told her about this magical oyster place. But a storm became a hurricane, so he postponed the drive to next month. Wait for me, he said.
Around that time, Milad began working at her office after the company bought his startup. He wore crisp slacks and cologne from a green bottle with a stallion on it. His scent encouraged her to be done with American men and their classic 1985 names. She wanted to try an Iranian guy this time to see if she’d been missing something. Nooshin hadn’t seen her father since she was three, so she had only an idea of what Milad might be like. The machismo, the hair, and the grand gestures. After two years of marriage, though, she concluded that all men are the same. They all end up wanting the same things; they just smell different.
She divorced Milad and moved back to Georgia, where Brit and Shahin have a hobby farmhouse on five acres of land in Milton. They convinced her to get one, too. With the divorce money, she bought a white board and a batten house along Birmingham Highway. She had a screened-in porch installed, got a new reading chair, and started working out again. In the end, she had tried marriage, and she was ready to be alone.
Last night, when Brit and Shahin came over for poker and prosecco, they mentioned that Chris was back in town, this time from Nigeria. They looked at Nooshin, and she knew they wanted to see her reaction. Externally, she made a face as she drank until the bubbles burned a little going down. Internally, she got angry. Every time her life was on still water, one of these men would show up.
When her friends left, she took a 2-hour nap on the sofa and dreamt of Chris and the oyster shack. In her dream, they talked for hours and went back to his hotel room. When she woke up, she remembered what Chris had written on the postcard from Apalachicola: “Noosh, there’s something about this place. Makes me feel like a teenager again.” Now he was nearby, but she didn’t want to face Chris or even the shadow of him back in town.
The next morning, Nooshin rented a car and drove through the deserted city and historic homes in Eufaula, Alabama, through winding back roads and over several bridges, until she arrived in marshy Florida. She rented a room in Coombs House Inn. It wasn’t fancy, but she liked the yellow exterior. Just a basic place that felt safe near salty air where maybe she could feel like a teenager, too. No outlet malls or condos around, no dollar stores with giant bins of foam pool noodles.
The drive was a couple of hours too long, and her thoughts started to wander. She thought that by reviewing everything that aggravated her about her marriages, she could empower herself to expect differences in her future relationships. Luckily, the Forgotten coast stretched only about five miles, enough time for her to put old reflections to rest. “And now, I can stop thinking and just feel whatever I want—as far away from Chris as possible.”
She wanted to eat oysters to remember the flicker she felt when Chris had said he was going to Rome. Chris going to Rome was her not going to Rome. At the time, she felt jealous and wistful, but she acted like his personal renaissance had nothing to do with her and was irritated by his declaration. But tonight, she invited the old feelings to rush over her; they excited her in this safe space. She had enough distance now to remember them as though they belonged to someone else; she thought she would only borrow them for the night to entertain herself. She wanted to unearth all those bottled-up emotions—or let go, or forget, whatever, she didn’t care— so she could taste them, raw and cool.
Oyshack’s parking lot was half empty. The only entrance was from the pier to the porch, where the door had a staircase sign on it. She went up the small archway that coiled around three times. At the top, she stepped directly into the quiet bustle of people enjoying a cozy, hidden rooftop view of the Gulf of Mexico. The host walked her past the booths. A young couple, a group of friends, and two active-looking adults all enjoyed each other in an enclave of greenery. Little crystals from New Mexico floated on the fish line above her. They caught the light like the ocean waves in front of her, creating dazzling orbs above her table and colorful patterns on the wall. Small wind chimes echoed among the coastal breeze.
After Nooshin ordered a half dozen large Gulf oysters and another half dozen the waiter recommended, she licked the edge of her drink, the rim generously coated with lime and tajin. The oysters came plated on a mound of crushed ice spread on a large turquoise platter. She squeezed lemon and dabbed a pearl of Tabasco on one, brought it to her lips, and tipped her head back. The edge of the shell was cold from the ice; she held onto it for a little longer in her palm. She patted it dry, brought the shell below the table top, and slid it between her upper thighs, which were now sticking together from humidity. After repeating this a few times, she added two more chilled shells between her legs. They cooled her as she sat thinking about the Rome she hadn’t seen.
She had made the right decision to come here. It was indeed mesmerizing. It was now dusk, and she thought about leaving. She removed the shells, now the same temperature as her body, from between her thighs and placed them gently on the table. She looked lazily at the beach, shaded, more acutely stunning now that the sun had descended.
Nooshin didn’t hear him at first. She hadn’t noticed when the waiter talked to the man and pointed in her direction. How could Nooshin have imagined that he was talking about her when the waiter asked, “You mean that pretty woman over there?” She sipped water and pulled her hair away from her shoulders, inviting the breeze to cool her shoulder.
“You finally came.” Chris put his arm around her chair. “It’s you.”
“What are you—”
“Brit texted last night after she left your house.”
Nooshin nodded. She would have said many things, but none were as on the surface as her sight of him was. She put her hand on his smooth arm and pulled him to the seat next to her; for a moment, she nuzzled her cheek against his cotton shirt and lifted her palm to his face and hair.
“You’re a hard one to catch,” he said, dipping his chin close to hers.
“Shhh. Look out there with me.” She continued to look at the ocean stretching before them.
Chris gently brought her face to his and said, “No, Noosh.” He shook his head slightly. “Not until you take what we see together seriously.”
Nooshin never took to orders kindly, and he knew that. All the letters they exchanged for years, all the personality they developed alongside each other though miles apart—he knew better than to tell her no. She looked up at him and laughed. He joined her, softly at first, until Nooshin rested her hand on his and placed them across her chest. Their laughter against the crystals, chimes, and ocean waves must have sounded to the passerby like the merriment of teenagers.
Samira Shakib-Bregeth is an Iranian-American writer whose fiction examines the underbelly of marriage, intimacy, and womanhood. Some of her work can be found at the following places: Wild Roof Journal, Heartwood, Parhelion, Hungry Chimera, and Fig & Quince. She is a teacher who is inspired often and has a soft heart for creatives and dreamers.
Hawaii Pacific Review 