Sand dollar is a funny name, if you’re a Corpus Christi kid who’s never seen dollars be anything but green-printed paper. When you dig them out of the shallows you’re careful not to scratch yourself on the spiny bristles that will retract once you dry them in the sun. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
The sun bleaches them too, just as it whitens your hair, and the heat makes both more brittle. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
You can sell them to the tourists, it’s a currency exchange. Two sand dollars nets one vanilla swirl cone from the stand next to the beach. Grape snow cones are one-to-one. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
Growing up in Corpus means learning to board up your windows when a hurricane’s coming, and double-checking your jump rope to make sure it’s not a coiled copperhead waiting to strike, and selling your hometown in bits and scraps to the people who vacation here. Barefoot, sunbrowned, you could bait a hook and swim two strokes before you could read.
Your parents run a restaurant with a “seasonal” menu. The food is the same, but in-season guests pay double for gulf shrimp and a bucket of Lone Stars. Your mom plays up her accent for them. Sometimes — in the heat of summer, or during spring break — they hire a band instead of just the jukebox. It’s like using the good plates and vacuuming when company comes.
On your nightstand, in a jar: the chipped and broken half- and quarter-dollars unsuitable for resale. You used to leave them at the beach but the frustrating re-discovery of repeat scraps made you decide to bring them home. Your favorite is nearly intact, but veined with fracture lines, so visibly fragile that it would surely splinter in the tourist’s luggage. Jen
You have decided not to overthink the metaphor of your damage collection.
Don’t we all have a jar of jagged fragments we hold on to, you will say wryly to the first person who stays in your bed long enough to comment on the sand dollars. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
You will have practiced this line, anticipating her or someone like her.
She will be tough, partial to bikini tops and cutoffs, indifferent to the boys who whistle and offer to slather her back with sun lotion. In all these ways she is like you, but in one important way she’s not. She’s one of them, the people who buy the overpriced beach toys and show up for dinner at your family’s restaurant with sunburnt necks and knees. Her mouth will taste like grapefruit, like sunshine. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
You will meet on the jetty at South Padre, during Semana Santa. A naturalist in a golf shirt will have roped off part of the beach, will give a short talk about the sea turtles being released. Together you’ll watch the young hatchlings scrabbling across the sand. She’ll say something about their armored shells, about wanting one for herself. This will feel like foreshadowing: she’s someone who’s going to comment on your sand dollar scraps. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
Impossible to say whether this adds to the inevitability of things. Jenn Stroud
It’s just who she is, Laura. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
The thing is—she is stretching across your sheets as she says this—she’s only here for the weekend, and tomorrow they’ll be doing a boat thing on Laguna Madre. You swallow the urge to tell her to float in the salty water, to underline your role as host, as townie tour guide. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
Would it make it better or worse if she and her family appeared at the entrance of the restaurant after their day on the lagoon? You will wonder about this all day. Imagine choosing songs on the jukebox that will encode messages to Laura. Anticipate cringing when your mothers exclaim how sweet it is that you’ve made friends. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
Mothers ruin everything. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
The baby turtles mostly don’t make it, armor or not. With broad flippers they scurry down the beach, trying to outrun crabs and swooping gulls. The first wave rolls them hard, and everyone watching holds their breath until the water recedes. They might become fish food at once, or live long enough to choke on a tar ball. But one in a thousand will ride the Gulf stream to the Sargasso and its all-you-can-eat buffet.
The restaurant door swings open, and you too hold your breath, bracing to get rolled in the churn. Jenn Stroud Rossmann
