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was certain; I couldn’t have
wandered very far from the condo.
    I straightened up and took a sip of coffee,
congratulating myself on brilliant scouting. Zack used to say I
could get lost in the driveway. Of course, he used to make a lot of
other stupid, cruel remarks. Well, Zack was wrong and Zack was
gone. Good riddance. I smoothed the robe over my rear end and
resumed my trek—upright, confident, dignified. Two seconds later I
tripped and went sprawling. The coffee mug flew from my hand; my
bed clothes went up around my shoulders.
    “Damn.” I levered up to my knees and brushed
myself off. I was covered in sand. The moist grit clung to my skin
like breading on a chicken. I had it on my thighs, my boobs, and
everywhere in between. I spit. The stuff was even in my teeth. I
brushed myself quickly and pulled down my gown.
    Thank God for the fog. Now, if I could just
find the mug. It was a wonder I hadn’t spilled the coffee all over
myself. That was my usual MO. It seemed I spent most of my life
cleaning spots off my clothes, which gave me a lot of sympathy for
little kids.
    I saw it in my neighborhood all the time.
Little kids covered in dirt, their mommies looming over them
menacingly. “How did you get dirty?” Mommy always asked sternly. “I
don’t know,” the kid whined. I understood.
    I really didn’t know half the time, spots
appeared from nowhere. Ruthie said it was because I was always
thinking—lost in thought and not paying attention. Penny Sue
attributed the whole thing to hormones. “Memory loss,
foggy-brained: first sign of an estrogen deficiency.”
    “Darn, where is that cup?” I pushed myself
up into a squat. Sand grated in the folds of my crotch, and I was
starting to itch all over. “One pass, that’s it,” I told myself,
running my hands across the sand. “That cheap mug isn’t worth
it.”
    I rotated on the balls of my feet, patting
the ground. Ninety degrees, one-eighty; I found nothing. I
stretched my arms as far as I could manage and still keep my
balance. Then, my fingertip touched something cold and hard. I
leaned forward and grabbed ... a cold, stiff foot!
    It was like a bad dream—the one where
someone is chasing you, and you try to scream but can’t. You open
your mouth, straining, yet no sound comes out. You try and try,
your heart thumping furiously until you finally wake yourself up.
Only I didn’t wake up. I was frozen in place, my mouth open, breath
coming in staccato bursts.
    I have no idea how long I stayed in that
state. Seconds, a minute, an hour—it seemed like an eternity.
Finally, a single note escaped from my throat. A woosey peep that
even I could barely hear—a sound, nonetheless. And, if one could
get out, why not two? That thought broke the stupor. My throat
unclenched, and a cacophonous torrent emerged.
    My screams woke up the whole neighborhood.
Spotlights flashed on, and I could hear voices. I half crawled,
half ran across the dunes toward the lights. Hell with my pantiless
butt, let the whole world see it! I was getting out of there. Sand
burrs embedded in my feet and legs, but I didn’t care. “Call an
ambulance. Call the police,” I shrieked at the top of my lungs.
    An EVAC ambulance arrived first, followed by
a fire truck and police car. By then the fog had cleared, and the
neighbors poured out of their condos and onto the beach. Penny Sue,
Ruthie, and I watched from the deck. I was shaking so hard, my
teeth literally chattered. Even two of Penny Sue’s tranquilizers
did not calm my racing heart. I sat on the lawn chair watching the
commotion as Ruthie picked burrs from my feet with tweezers. Penny
Sue sat next to me rubbing my back, then hugged me to her side as
the EVAC crew carried a stretcher with a yellow body bag across the
deck and through the condo to the ambulance.
    “A helluva way to start the day,” Penny Sue
drawled.
    By ten o’clock it was over. The police had
carted off the body, taken my statement, and photographed the