Brenda's Dreams
Chapter Five

The next morning, Larry was searching along the waters edge for food when
Brenda appeared. He watched her with his unblinking bird stare, but didn’t flap
away like he had the night before. Brenda returned to the house and came back
with some bread crumbs and dried meat. Larry ate the dried meat first and was
just starting on the bread crumbs when a flock of gulls flew down and snatched
the morsels and flew off, before Brenda could stop them.

“Those are some friends you got there, Larry.”

Larry examined the sand for any stray crumbs, but didn’t find any so he began to
preen his feathers. Watching the bird, Brenda realized how beautifully marked
he was. He had silver-gray white-tipped wings, the black-and-white barred tail,
white breast and head, bright yellow eyes, beak, legs and webbed feet.

A herring gull, “Mr. what I want I get” had called him. Larus argentatus. Argent
meant silver didn’t it? “I know!” Brenda snapped her fingers. “I’ll call you Larry
Silver. There, now you have your full name.”

The gull tilted his head sideways and stared at her for a moment before turning to
look down the beach. Brenda followed the gull’s gaze.

A man jogged towards her, his blonde hair glowing in the sunlight. Larry
squawked and flapped his wings, the broken wing dragged along the ground, in
welcome.

“You may be greeting him with happiness, but I don’t intend to,” Brenda muttered
to the bird. To retreat into the house would give him the impression that she was
scared of him. Since she had been planning on jogging herself for twenty
minutes, she decided to go ahead and start, but in the opposite direction.

Brenda ran toward him, determined that no matter what excuse he might try to
use to get her to stop and talk, she would just wave and jog on. Brenda's pulse
began to race the closer she got to him. What was the matter with her?

The man appeared to be in his late 20’s. He was the kind of man that women
would look at twice. Brenda had no doubts about that. Blue/green eyes that
mirrored the ocean. The cleft in his chin and of course the blonde hair. He was
wearing the same sweatshirt she had seen him in yesterday and he was wearing
jogging shorts. Jogging shorts!

Brenda felt chilly even in her jeans, sweatshirt and jacket. Maybe she had lived
in sunny California for too long. He obviously wasn't affected by the cold wind.
His bare legs pumped up and down, no sign of goosebumps in the blonde hair
giving her a perfect view of his muscular thighs.

Stop staring at him, you dummy! She told herself. You don’t need to get involved
with another man. Wasn't Sonny enough?

They were just about to pass each other. Brenda prepared herself for his
opening line. Even if he said something about Larry she wouldn't break her stride
to talk to him.

His arm went up in greeting, then he was by her, continuing at the same pace.
Brenda waved back and lost her footing for a second before righting herself as
disappointment washed over her. She had been ready not to talk to him and he
had hardly even looked at her!

Not that she was looking her best anyway. She had dressed in the oldest pair of
jeans she had. They were full of holes and had paint splattered all over them.
Her T-shirt was stained with chocolate and the jacket was old and fading. She
didn’t care what he thought about how she looked anyway.

Brenda jogged for about ten minutes before turning to begin the run back to the
house. As she pasted the beach houses, she looked for one that was not shut up
for winter. Seven places west of her, she saw smoke rising from the chimney of
a green and white summer cottage. She also noticed a car pulled up behind the
cottage.

That must be where He's staying. Cape Cod boasted so much beach front that
she wouldn't have seen him a couple of times in the last two days if he had been
further away. Dang it, he was too close to her. Brenda sighed and continued on
her way back to her grandmother's house.

By noon the skies had become cloudy and the wind off the sound had brought in
a light drizzle to the cape. Brenda reminded herself that the gulls were used to
the wet and cold so Larry Silver should be okay. A strange rattling noise came
from the attic. Brenda went to investigate and found a loose shutter banging
against the window. She found some loose wire and secured it until it could be
fixed at a later time.

The attic was dim and dusty. It smelled of old wood with a faint scent of moth
balls. The attic held some of her childhood memories of happy times that she had
shared with Julia and Ben as they had played here on rainy days. The three of
them had been warm and cozy while the drops pattered on the roof. How Ben
had hated playing the baby when they played house.

Sometimes Ben and Brenda switched roles and he played the father while she
played the baby. Julia would not play unless she got to be the mother.

Now Julia was going to be a mother and wasn't sure if that's what she wanted.
Brenda sighed, she was going to have to call Julia and get this thing straightened
out with Sonny. She wasn't quite ready to make that call yet though plus not
enough time had passed for Julia to calm down.

As she started to head downstairs, she stopped as she noticed a large plastic
covered item sitting on an old card table. Curious, Brenda approached the table
and removed the plastic, underneath was a mass of bolts, bits of colored glass,
dried seed pods and feathers attached to a chunk of weathered planking. Could
this be? Yes, it was her sculpture!

Grandma Quartermaine’s must have stored it up here all those years ago. Brenda
had been thirteen when she had made what she thought was a masterpiece.
Today they called them found-object sculptures, but all she realized at the time
was that she had put the bits of glass and other pieces together as if they were
meant to fit together.

“Yes,” Grandma had said, “I can see how your trying to express how you feel
about summers in the Cape. Your off to a good start, my child.”

Brenda's wondered if those words had meant that her grandmother had like her
sculpture. Julia had been more direct.

“What in the world is that?” she had asked later, pointing at the sculpture and
laughing.

“Well, sort of the seashore and the ocean and...and, I guess, like when the
summer's ending.” Brenda had found it difficult to put into words what the
sculpture meant to her: the house, Cape Cod, the sadness of vacation being over
and having to leave to go back to Port Charles.

“That thing is nothing but junk.” Julia had said as she continued to laugh.

Julia's laughter had changed the sculpture in Brenda's eyes. It became ugly and
ridiculous. An inept attempt next to Julia's watercolors.

Now Brenda held her creation in her hands and thought for the first time that her
grandmother had liked it. Why else would she have stored it away so carefully?

Brenda headed downstairs and sat her sculpture down on the coffee table and
then stood back to examine it. The base was a chunk of gray planking she had
found watched up on the beach. From this rose a large iron bolt. Feathers and
red, green, blue and white sand-scoured bits of glass were woven into the dried
grass wound around the bolt. Along the plank, two rusted bolts held wild rose
hips, with see pods from Queen Ann's lace, mixed with pieces of shells, scattered
around and between. Though glue and wire held every thing in place, she had
worked hard to make sure the wire was concealed from view, and now was
surprised to see she had succeeded well.

Maybe the sculpture was inept, but she found she rather enjoyed looking at her
creation and decided not to return it to the attic just yet. She found some
yellowed paperback mysteries in the bookcase. So old she couldn't remember if
she had read them or not. One way to find out. Brenda settled herself down on
the couch and decided to spend the afternoon reading. A book with a whodunit
set in Los Angeles looked like the best choice. She opened the book and read
the first sentence.

“Ned Kelly ran a worried hand through his untidy blonde hair as he watched the
long-legged red head seated next to him in a client's chair.”

What's his names hair was blonde also. Why did she have to think about him
now? What would it be like to run her hands through his blonde hair? She
wondered if she had made a mistake in judging him to be like Sonny. He had
after all called the vet to see if anything could be done for Larry's wing. Sonny
would never even notice the bird much less called a vet to see how to fix a
broken wing. The next time she saw him she would try to be a little more
friendlier.

Brenda's eyes turned towards the window. It was still raining. She was getting
tired of being couped up. Maybe she should drive into town and have dinner.
Brenda quickly changed her clothes, then she grabbed her car keys, locked the
house, and headed for her car.

Brenda drove into town searching for somewhere to eat. She finally found a small
restaurant called the Sea-Breeze. She parked the car, got out and went inside.
The place looked informal enough for her so she hung up her jacket and headed
towards the dinning room.

Brenda entered the dinning room and stopped short. Sitting at one of the tables
was the man from the beach, who was looking back at her and from the looks of
it wasn't very enthused about it.

Well, she wasn't very happy about it either, but she wasn't going to run away.
She would mutter a quick greeting of hello and then seat herself as far away from
him as she could.

“Hello there,” Brenda said as she neared his table. She hadn't meant to look at
him directly, but was powerless to stop herself. Their eyes met and held.