“Beats me,” Alicia said.
“Plus, they’re cute.” She gave Alicia’s hand another squeeze, glad she hadn’t made any move to let go.
“They are.” Alicia reached up with her free hand to tuck a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear. They’d passed a few people as they began their walk, but they’d reached a more remote stretch of beach now, bordered by marshland instead of houses. This was the area they would have visited on the Turtle Walk. It felt like they were the only two people in the world, just Clare and Alicia and the vast ocean beyond.
The moon hung just above the sand dune to their left, casting everything around them in its silvery glow. Combined with their red-filtered cell phone lights, it gave the beach an almost otherworldly feel.
Alicia stopped without warning, yanking Clare’s hand. “Look!”
“What?” But even as she said it, Clare saw the disturbance in the sand before them. In the muted glow of their cell phones, it really did look like the tread of a bulldozer. “Oh my God.”
“I think…oh, there she is!” Alicia whisper-squealed.
Sure enough, at the edge of the dune, there was a dark shape that looked an awful lot like a turtle. Clare’s stomach pitched like the surf, a wave of emotion that brought tears to her eyes and a smile to her lips. “Oh,” she breathed.
“How close can we get?” Alicia asked.
“On the website, it says they go into a trancelike state while they’re laying their eggs, so we won’t disturb them, but I don’t know…I’d hate to upset her. Let’s at least get close enough to be sure that’s a turtle and not a rock or something.”
“After all this anticipation, I definitely want to see her,” Alicia agreed. They were both whispering now out of respect for the turtle.
Alicia’s fingers slipped free from Clare’s as she crept forward, holding her cell phone up to illuminate the dark shape in the sand. As they got closer, that shape took the form of a turtle, about three feet long. In this light, she looked black, the segmentation on her carapace barely visible. Her eyes were closed, and she was perfectly still.
“Okay, this is amazing,” Alicia whispered.
“Let’s take a closer peek at her, and then we’ll back off and let her nest in peace.”
“Deal,” Alicia agreed.
They edged closer, until they were only a few feet away from the turtle. She didn’t open her eyes or in any way acknowledge that she was aware of their presence, so they just stood there watching, awestruck. Alicia shined her flashlight behind the turtle just in time to see a pearly white egg drop into the nest.
“Wow,” Clare whispered. “I don’t have a better word than wow.”
They backed up a few feet and spread their towel on the sand, then sat. Every now and then, the turtle would swish one of her flippers through the sand, but other than that, all was quiet. Peaceful.
“I think this is better than the tour,” Alicia whispered.
“Maybe.” Clare would have enjoyed learning from a scientist and watching as they documented the turtle and her nest, but this was a more intimate experience.
The waves to their right provided the soundtrack for the event, a steady, rhythmic roar accentuated by the occasional whisper of the breeze through the reeds to their left. The turtle never made a sound. If they hadn’t been looking for her, they never would have known this was happening, and that was probably the point. Her eggs had the best chance of survival if no one knew she was here.
Something bumped Clare’s hand, and she jumped, fearing a crab had crawled onto their towel, but just as quickly she felt Alicia’s fingers gripping hers. Clare turned her head, meeting Alicia’s eyes in the near darkness. Alicia’s lips curved into a smile, and Clare grinned right back.
Alicia had never looked more beautiful than she did right now, her face cast in shades of pink from the glow of her phone. Her hair was wild and windswept, gleaming almost white in the unnatural lighting. The expression on her face could only be described as serene. “I’m glad I stayed,” she whispered.
“So am I,” Clare said.
“This is the least angry I’ve felt in days.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Clare asked softly.
Alicia sighed, her shoulders slumping. “A client complained about me to my boss, said I was difficult to work with. And apparently that wasn’t the first time, so he fired me.”
“I’m sorry.” Clare tightened her grip on Alicia’s hand. “I know you can be…blunt at times, but I also imagine you’re a hard worker.”
Alicia looked down at her knees. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but I know I am. I’m not good with people.”
“Maybe you need a job where you don’t interact with clients?”
