Cassie glanced at the clock sitting atop the display case of sponges. Almost noon. Her tutor, Miss Gracie, had been drilling her on vocabulary words. She enjoyed learning new words, but the sun was out, and Cassie was antsy to hit the beach. She looked forward to a long swim in the refreshing Gulf water.

"Come on, I know you remember this word," Miss Gracie said snapping Cassie from her thoughts of swimming. The word was ennui, and Miss Gracie expected her to use it in a sentence.

Cassie sighed. "I'm suffering from ennui and would really rather be on the beach."

Miss Gracie giggled, leaned closer, and spoke softly in a conspiratorial tone so Aunt Marnie wouldn't hear. "So would I."

"In that case, why don't we have our lessons on the sand from now on?"

"Nice try. It's difficult enough keeping your attention. Sitting among the myriad tourists would make teaching you impossible."

Myriad  had been yesterday's vocabulary word. Cassie liked Miss Gracie. She was young, in her twenties and had recently received her State of Florida teaching certificate. Due to the glut of teachers—glut  had also been one of her words—she had been unable to find a job. Uncle Milos knew her family and offered her the position of full-time tutor.

Miss Gracie glanced at the clock. "Close enough. Let's quit for today."

Cassie threw her arms in the air. "Yay!" She dashed to her room to change into her bathing suit.

Today would be special because Miss Gracie was staying to watch Cassie while she swam. Her aunt had some other business to tend to and would be gone for a while.

It didn't stop her aunt from preaching her daily lecture. "No more than an hour. You need to come in at one for lunch. No swimming out of sight of Miss Gracie and listen to whatever she tells you."

Cassie could recite the sermon by heart and hated that her aunt repeated it to her every day as if she was a little kid. She knew the rules, even though she didn't like them.

She and Miss Gracie rode the elevator to the lobby and walked out the back door onto the beach. The sun warmed her skin, but the steady breeze had her feeling comfortable. The beach was mobbed with tourists. A group of men standing at the back door eyed Miss Gracie, but she didn't seem to notice. Cassie figured she was used to it because she was pretty. She wondered if boys would ever look at her the way those men looked at Miss Gracie.

They had trouble finding a bare spot to set down their blanket and beach umbrella and took over a spot from a family who was leaving.

Miss Gracie sat on the blanket and pulled a bottle of sunscreen from her beach bag. She rubbed it on her exposed skin. "Do you want me to put some on you?"

"No, thanks, I don't burn easily."

Miss Gracie raised an eyebrow at her. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Don't stay in the sun too long. Let's not take chances."

"Can I get in the water now?"

"Yes, but stay close."

Cassie ran into the surf and dove into an oncoming wave. She held her breath and swam directly away from shore into deep water. Being underwater always made her feel calm and safe. It's where she felt happiest. When her lungs started to burn, she surfaced.

Miss Gracie was watching from her blanket under the big beach umbrella. She waved. Cassie waved back and plunged back into the deep. She swam down until touching the sandy bottom. Here she stopped and went still.

She listened.

Her momma spoke of the Earth's heartbeat. Cassie took time every day to go still and hope it would be the day the sea would talk to her, tell her its secrets, reveal what she longed to know about herself.

Just like every other day, today she heard nothing.

Cassie surfaced and refreshed her lungs with several gulps of air. She and Miss Gracie waved again, but this time her tutor seemed more interested in a magazine she was paging through.

She wanted to swim out farther. Cassie stayed on the surface and pulled herself through the water. She flopped onto her back a few times to float and rest and then kept going. Soon she was way out, farther than any of the other swimmers.

She giggled. Aunt Marnie would never allow her to go this far from shore and would have a fit if she knew. Miss Gracie was just a speck on the sand. She could barely make her out among the crowd. Not wanting to worry her, she started swimming back.

Almost to shore, she experienced a strange sensation. It reminded her of leaving home and forgetting whether she turned off the TV. The weird feeling made her stop in the water and glance around.

To her right and behind her she spotted a round plastic ring with a seahorse head, the kind little kids wore around themselves when they floated in the water.

This ring had nobody in it.

A tiny hand reached above the water and made a splash.

"Oh, no." Cassie swam to the ring and dove under. She grabbed an arm and pulled a small body above the waves. It was a wide-eyed, terrified little boy. He coughed and wheezed.

"It's okay. I got you."

She managed to slip him into his seahorse ring. After the boy was able to catch his breath, he started wailing. Cassie pulled him and the ring toward the beach.

A woman who had her back turned talking to someone suddenly wheeled around and glared at Cassie.

"Momma, momma," the little boy screeched.

The woman jumped up and came running. When the boy was able to touch ground, he ran to his mother sobbing and jumped into her arms.

The woman's death stare at Cassie looked like it could burn a hole through her. "What did you do to my Joey? Did you dunk him?"

She kept talking and wouldn't let Cassie explain. "I ought to take you out there, shove you under, and make you eat sand." She picked up her boy and stomped off.

"You're welcome," Cassie shouted at the woman's back. Everyone nearby looked at her like she did something wrong.

What parent would let their little kid swim in the ocean and not pay attention? Boys weren't the only ones who could be dicks. That woman was definitely a dick.

Miss Gracie sat a hundred feet away. With the noises made from all the people and the surf crashing into shore, she hadn't noticed the commotion. Cassie marched her way and sat with a huff on the blanket.

"Did you enjoy your swim?"

"Yeah."

"Your face is flushed. You didn't overdo it, did you?"

Cassie laid back on the blanket. "I'm fine." She decided to not tell Miss Gracie what happened. She might get into trouble. Besides, what would be the point? It was over now.

When the hour was up, she helped Miss Gracie shake out the blanket and fold the beach umbrella. They picked up their things and trekked to the condo building.

"I'm really thirsty," Miss Gracie said. "If you invite me to the beach again, next time I'll bring a bottle of water."

"You don't need an invitation. You can join me and Aunt Marnie every day after our tutoring session."

When they arrived back at the condo, Miss Gracie went to the sink and filled a glass with water. While Cassie was on the way to the bathroom to change out of her bathing suit and take a shower, she heard Miss Gracie say, "You have no ice cube trays in your freezer."

Cassie turned around and met up with her tutor in the kitchen. "We don't need ice cube trays, because there's an ice machine in the lobby vending area that everyone who lives in this building can use. Do you want me to go fetch a bucket of ice? I do it all the time for Aunt Marnie."

Miss Gracie thought about it a moment. "That would be nice of you. While you do that, I'll change clothes and start lunch."

Cassie grabbed the door key on the way out and headed for the elevator. She stepped off the elevator in the lobby and made her way to the vending area. She rounded the corner and found a man shaking the candy machine and cursing.

She giggled. "Don't feel bad. That machine eats everyone's money."

The man spun around and faced her. Cassie recognized him as one of the men who had eyed Miss Gracie when they had walked out the back door onto the sand.

At first, the man smiled at her. Then his eyes went wide, just like the wide eyes of the little boy she had rescued from the sea.

He looked at her as if she were a ghost.

Uh oh!!!

Top Photo Credit: Scott Smith (SRisonS) http://www.flickr.com/photos/11654579@N07/4375048054 via Photopin.com Creativecommons.org license