“Well,” Jill said, reaching into one of our shopping bags. “I think you should jazz up your outfit with this hat.” She popped the outback hat on my head. “What do you think?”
“Hey be nice. I like this hat!”
“I do, too. It looks great on you. I think Skyler may have to come here herself and pick out her own hat.”
Reaching into one of my shopping bags, I pulled out several of the stuffed kangaroos. “We could skin these little critters and quickly make evening gowns for ourselves out of their fur. We certainly have enough pelts to make two floor-length gowns.”
Jill laughed.
At that moment I noticed a tattered white feather that had floated from one of the many birds dipping in and out of the café area. They were hopping around looking for a leftover crust or a bit of forgotten French fry. The feather landed on our table. I snatched it up and slipped it into the inside pocket of my purse.
“Grabbing a feather for the final touch on our evening wear?” Jill asked.
“I’m starting a collection,” I said, reminding Jill about the two feathers that were in my hair the day we met at the Chocolate Fish. I didn’t tell her that my plan was to create a greeting card with the feathers.
We clinked the rims of our iced tea glasses as the waitress stepped up to take the rest of our order. We talked her into snapping our picture, and I knew this would be the picture I would frame. I would long remember the sensations of this place and the lightness of this day.
“I heard you talking about the dress code for the opera,” the waitress said when she delivered our Thai salads. “Some people dress up, but there’s no dress code, so you’ll be fine in what you’re wearing.”
“Too bad,” Jill said, surprising the waitress and me. “I was hoping for an excuse to shop for something really extravagant.”
“We can still do that, if we eat quickly.”
“Who can eat quickly in a setting like this? I’m going to savor each bite.”
I felt the same way. We watched sailboats in the harbor, took small bites of our delicious salads, and savored each moment of the balmy Sydney evening.
Since we were so close to the Opera House, we took our time strolling over there. As we walked up the steep stairs, we saw people dressed in formal attire as well as others who were in shorts and T-shirts. This definitely was a gathering place for everyone.
Our seats were terrific. The entire theater filled with eagerly chatting guests. All around us in our section were school children that Jill and I guessed to be about eighth- or ninth-graders. All of them wore school uniforms. The boys were from one school, and the girls were from another. Both of us loved listening to the conversations and innocent flirting that was going on between the two groups. Jill and I kept exchanging grins and eyebrow-raised expressions.
The musicians took their places. The lights dimmed. The students’ politeness was impressive as the room quieted, and the curtain went up.
The program called this performance “Opera Favorites,” and the first song was “Nessun Dorma” from an opera called Turandot. A stout man delivered the song, and I knew I’d heard it before. I didn’t know where, but part of the melody was familiar. On the forceful notes, the singer’s voice reverberated in the rounded auditorium. When his tones grew softer, the room seemed to shrink with his voice.
I was amazed that one man’s voice could fill the space so powerfully. I was also astounded that such a large group of students would be held in respectful silence as he sang. I knew very little about opera, so I’m sure I didn’t appreciate the performance as much as I might have. But I doubted that a roomful of California students the same age would have given the performance the same kind of attention and appreciation.
The applause rose heartily from the crowd, as the performer took his bow. Next came an aria from Madame Butterfly, and again, when the woman sang, I knew I’d heard the song before. Maybe I knew a little more about opera than I’d realized.
Intermission came sooner than I expected. Most of the audience cleared out of the auditorium. Jill and I followed and found ourselves on the open deck of the lower level of the Opera House facing the harbor. When we had entered the Opera House, the evening sky was dressed in twilight. We had missed the sunset, but now, in front of this magical opening to another world, we looked out on Sydney Harbor with all the twinkle lights winking back at us.
“Everyone is so chatty!” Jill looked around.
Some of the audience were waiting in line to buy beverages. Others were leaning against the railing, pointing up at the stars that were doing their twinkling best to match the lights reflected in the harbor waters.
A lit-up ship puttered past us, with music loud enough for us to hear. We could see couples dancing on the top level. It was a splendidly romantic sight, one that would have made a fabulous subject for a beautiful photograph or, better yet, an oil painting.
Jill’s profile dipped slightly. Her shoulders dropped. I saw a tear dance alone down her cheek.
“Are you okay?”
“I miss Ray,” she whispered.
The only thing I knew to do was to stand with her. So I did. Shoulder to shoulder, leaning with our arms on the railing, watching the romantic scene float past us.
The second half of the “Opera Favorites” performance put both Jill and me in a weepy mood, and we used up all the tissues that we had between us. I didn’t sense any self-pity from Jill. This was a peaceful sadness.
With few words, we took a cab back to our hotel. If there is such thing as a beautiful sorrow, that was the sensation Jill and I shared under the stars that night.
We carried our shopping bags to the elevator and arrived back at our hotel room a full fifteen hours after we had left. Unlocking the door, we both sniffed when we entered. Not from tears but because the room still smelled like a big fruit ambrosia.
The message light was blinking on our phone. Jill listened and said, “One message. From my brother-in-law. He invited us to his house for lunch tomorrow. What do you think?”
“It’s up to you.”
“Let’s decide in the morning,” Jill suggested. “It’s too late to call him now anyway.”
Jill decided the next morning not to see her brother-in-law. I would have been fine either way, but she told him we were going to visit a nearby church and then do some more sightseeing.
The closest church was a small community church where we were welcomed as special visitors from America and invited to stand and say a few words. Jill said a few, and I said even fewer. It turned out that even the pastor that day was visiting. His message was from a familiar passage in the Gospel of John.
After attending the same church for so many years, I enjoyed the freshness of being with this group of eighty or so faithful believers. It was a personal time of worship with nothing about the service that resembled a corporate production. This church in Sydney was similar in many ways to Jill’s church in Wellington that Tony and I had visited the week before.
As Jill and I boarded the bus that stopped a few blocks from the church, I mentioned how much I enjoyed being at a small church.
“It’s interesting that you would say that because I was just thinking how much I miss the megachurch we used to belong to in California. Grass is always greener on the other side of the world, isn’t it?”
We headed for the harbor without a set plan of what we were going to do with the rest of the gloriously sunny day that stretched out before us. I looked through a couple of pamphlets on Sydney that I’d picked up in a rack at the hotel.
“What about going to the beach?” I asked. “We can take a ferry to a couple of different beaches, or we can take a bus to Bondi Beach.”
“Sure.” Jill looked over my shoulder at the map. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?”
“Do you remember that clerk in the first shop we went to yesterday and how he was trying to convince us that the hat he was showing us was a Manly Beach hat?”
“Yes.”
“Well, look on the map. Manly Beach.” Jill chuckled. “He wasn’t teasing us or making it up. There really is a Manly Beach, and that was a Manly Beach hat!”
“Then that’s the beach we’re going to.”
We got off the bus at the Quay and found the right dock for the ferry to Manly Beach. I stopped in front of the sign that read, “Manly Ferries,” and wondered if anyone else thought that sounded funny.
“Come on.” Jill ignored the sign. “This is the one we want. They’re boarding now.”
We packed into what felt like a floating, wide-bodied bus with more than a hundred other eager weekend beachgoers. The seats outside on the deck in the delicious fresh air were all taken, so Jill and I went inside and sat at the end of a long row. It felt like sitting in a movie theater except the show was all around us outside the windows.
With smooth maneuvering, the ferry pulled out of the busy dock and headed for the open bay. On both sides we could see dozens of sailboats of all sizes with passengers seizing the gorgeous day. The tall buildings that lined the harbor area began to diminish as we motored past some of the many bays and inlets of the wide, deep blue harbor.
Flipping through the tour pamphlet, I found a map and saw that we would soon be on a beach that faced east, and the water would be the Pacific Ocean. The South Pacific, to be exact. I was amazed that, after so many years of facing west to put my feet into the Pacific Ocean, I was now on the other side of that vast expanse of water. It was one of those moments in which my mind tapped into the amazement of where I was.
When we docked in Manly Cove, all the other travelers seemed to know where to go to cross the peninsula to Manly Beach. A loud, chirping sound accompanied the green crosswalk sign. We moved like an army of ants through a long outdoor mall of shops and came out at a wide, sandy beach teeming with Sunday swimmers of all ages.
Jill tapped my arm and pointed to a young man who stood a few feet away with his arms crossed and his back to us, gazing out at the water. He had on a broad-rimmed khaki beach hat like we had seen in the store yesterday. He wore red swim trunks and a tank top. On the back of the tank top, in bold letters, were the words, “Manly Lifeguard.”
Jill whispered, “I wonder if that helps bolster his self-image.”
Now she was ready to start with the Manly jokes. “Do you think it’s a joke T-shirt, or is it real?”
“Oh, it’s real,” Jill said. “There’s another one.” She pointed to another “Manly Lifeguard” positioned in a lookout stance in the sand.
“It’s good to be under the watchful eye of so many Manly Lifeguards,” I said.
“I know. Especially with their Manly shoulders bulging out of their Manly tank tops.”
We shared a giggle and found an open space where we could sit in the sand. Both of us had worn summer skirts and cotton blouses to church that morning. Since we didn’t know we were coming to the beach on this trip, we hadn’t packed our swimsuits. Not that I would have gone swimming, if I had my suit. But I could have waded in up to my knees, just for the experience of being in the Pacific on this side of the globe.
Jill sat demurely in the sand while I ventured out to the water. I thought of the Victorian woman in the painting who strolled along the beach in a cotton gown that fell to her ankles. I imagined I was she and stooped to pick up a broken shell.
The warm salt water rushed over my bare feet, as a wave tumbled to shore. I waded out a little deeper and wedged my feet into the sand. Hundreds of swimmers and splashers, along with a few body surfers, frolicked in the sparkling surf, their voices mixing with the crashing sounds of the waves. At the spot where the long sidewalk edged the sandy beach, dozens of tall star pine trees anchored themselves into the sand the way I planned to anchor myself into the sand.
This might be “Manly” beach, but I’m having a very “womanly” moment right now. I smiled at the beauty all around me and twisted my feet deeper into the soft sand.
Just then a loud siren sounded from the shore. Everyone looked around to see what was going on. A voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “Everyone out of the water. We’ve had a shark sighting. This is not a drill!”
I never knew I could run so fast in sand.
I wasn’t the only one who kicked into high gear. The water emptied in seconds. Everyone stood and stared out to sea. Three of the Manly lifeguards jumped in a motorized raft and entered the water. As the crowd of stunned beachgoers watched, the raft headed out to where several surfers had been paddling on their boards, waiting for the waves to pick up.
“I saw it,” a woman next to us said. “Did you see? The fin was sticking out of the water.”
We all squinted and tried to make out what was going on as the lifeguards motored in a wide circle. One of them motioned to shore, and another raft was launched with three more lifeguards.
“Something is definitely out there,” a guy said, moving closer to the shore.
“It’s no small wonder, really,” said a short woman who stepped up next to us. She was smoking a cigarette with quick, short puffs and wore a bikini even though she had to be at least sixty. “You know they keep sharks in the Oceanworld aquarium just the other side of the wharf in Manly Cove.”
“Really?” Jill said, as if trying to make polite conversation yet keeping her eyes glued on the water.
“That’s right. You can get in the tank and swim with the sharks, if you like. But swimming out here, in the ocean, you don’t know what you might meet up with.”
As one great audience we all were standing, inching closer to the water to see what was going on. Everyone spouted opinions and impressions of what was seen out there.
With both rafts motoring in a circle, we watched while one of the lifeguards threw a rope into the water the way a cowboy would toss a lasso.
“They’re not going to catch it like that!” someone exclaimed. “That shark will eat them alive.”
“It’s not a shark,” another viewer said. “It’s a person.”
Everyone in earshot of that observation gasped and strained even harder to see what the lifeguards were now pulling to shore.
“They wouldn’t haul a body in like that,” someone said. “It has to be a fish. Dolphin, maybe. It’s big, whatever it is. Look, isn’t that a fin sticking up? Could be a shark, after all. Wouldn’t be the first time here. Ah, wait. No worries. It’s a log!”
A collective sigh rippled along the shoreline as everyone saw that the Manly lifeguards had bravely lassoed a log with a finlike branch sticking out the topside. Some people laughed; some just looked relieved. A few joked loudly enough so the rest of us could hear.
“They better throw it back in where they got it!” the woman next to us said, rubbing her cigarette stub into the sand. “Otherwise the Greenies will be all over them for disrupting the natural habitat of floating logs.”
I was amazed how everyone entered into the conversation and joked around, as if we had all come to the beach that day as one big group. No one seemed to be taking himself or the situation too seriously. I felt like we were at a grand neighborhood picnic.
When people returned to the water, Jill joined them. I watched her step right in, kicking playfully at the waves. I pulled out my camera and took a couple of pictures of her.
Beyond Jill rolled blue, blue ocean for thousands of miles. I thought of my home at the other end of that blue. I missed Skyler; she would love this beach. She would love the “everybody’s on vacation” feel of this town and these people. Tony would love it here, too. I wondered if the three of us would ever visit a place like this together, or were our family travel days over?
Using my sweater as a pillow, I lay back and felt the powerful sun on my face. This was a good day. This was a good place to be. I thought of the hundreds of trips to the beach I’d taken at home in California. Those treks always meant packing an ice chest, towels, blankets, and umbrellas. Today we had taken a bus and a ferry to the beach, and here I was in my “Sunday clothes” enjoying
the beach with nothing more than a sweater for a pillow. My life definitely had become simplified since we moved here.
A contented smile traipsed across my lips. I wondered if moving into the minimalist apartment had been the first step in learning how to live comfortably with less.
“You look relaxed.” Jill stood next to me and playfully sprinkled the last of the salt water that clung to her fingers.
“I am. Hey, is it raining?”
“Just sprinkling.”
“How was the water?”
“Shark free and log free. Very nice. Wish we had brought our togs.”
“Our what?”
“That’s what they call swimsuits here. Our bathing togs.”
“I’m sure you could go buy a new one in any of those surf shops we walked past.”
“Yeah, I saw a lime green bikini in the window of one shop that I thought might work for me.”
I sat up. “Let’s do it, Jill. Let’s buy a couple of bikinis. Lime green ones. Who cares? Nobody knows us here. When are we ever going to be on this beach again?”
Jill laughed. “My bikini days ended after my third child.”
“Who cares? You saw that woman who was standing with us during the shark roundup. And look at that lady over there.” I nodded toward a woman who was larger than either Jill or I was. She had on a bikini top and a pair of shorts that covered most of her large rear but didn’t stop her belly from hanging over.
“Oh, the peer pressure of it all!” Jill pretended to bite her thumbnail.
“We’ll buy cover-ups and stay covered up except when we’re in the water. What do you think?”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes, of course I’m serious. Come on, we’ll never be eighteen again, but we can pretend we are for one afternoon while we swim at Manly Beach. What do you say? We might even get a second look from one of those Manly lifeguards.”
“Oh, we’ll get a second look, all right,” Jill said under her breath. “I can almost guarantee you that.”
Breezing through several surf shops near the shore, we quickly found that the sizes they carried in swimwear catered to a crowd that was at least thirty years our junior. The first store we went into looked promising because they had such a wide selection on a rack in the back. A sale clerk asked if she could help, and we guessed at the sizes we each needed. She pulled a pink bikini off the rack and handed it to Jill. It was at least two sizes smaller than what Jill needed and three sizes smaller than what I estimated I needed.